What We're Missing #quotes

Audrey Hepburn. Yeah, you know her. Shes this girl. That poster that you just got linked to is hanging in my room. I got it a few years ago for some shallow reason like, "hey! shes that one pretty girl from that old movie thats pretty good." But hey, I was just finishing middle school, cut me some slack here. During an interweb surf sesh tonight I found some of her quotes; quotes that make me proud to have her on my wall.
This one in particular.
Thats the kind of attitude society is missing today. A public attitude that boosts girls up, not cuts them down.

One, Big Happy Blog Post #graded #rhetoricalmodes

Ok, I know I'm posting this on Thanksgiving, but before you go calling me pathetic you should know that I had no internet access until now. This was all pre-typed so I'm simply copy pasting from Word, which only takes like 2 minutes. Happy reading (ha, ha).

Happiness

1.  Happiness can either be joy or contentment, usually a specific feeling or experience can be both, but not at the same time. Joy is a surge of physical energy, which I can only describe as being from bubbles of emotion that lie right under your skin, buzzing with happiness that creates a tingle in your fingers and toes. Contentment, on the other hand, is an overall feeling of satisfaction that lasts longer with minimal physical effects (except for maybe a smile). For example, after winning first place you would feel joy, and after the celebration dinner and a good night’s sleep you would find that this joy was replaced by a content feeling of pride and accomplishment.

2. Recall, for a moment, that first day Hagrid brought Harry Potter to Diagon Alley. That was one of Harry’s first days of happiness. Before entering the wizarding world Harry had lived in a world that was less than suitable, living in a cabinet under the stairs amongst his “family” that showed little love, he was lacking happiness. This all changed once he felt the love and acceptance of his fellow wizards, found a connection to his real parents, and acquired wealth to buy items that brought a smile to his face like chocolate frogs and top notch broomsticks. Despite all that had happened before that day he had a change of perspective; he was happy.

3.  Happiness is what you make it. It can be the scent of ooey-gooey that curls through your house, making a difficult study session just a little bit better. It can be silent laughter in the response to the innocent baby giggles coming from the pew in front of you at church. It can be the feeling that surges through your veins when you figure out that you have just aced an ap comp test (not like I’ve ever experienced that..), making you want to do cartwheels down the hallway until you hit the wall.

4. After a week of exhausting, brain-draining final exams I returned home and proceeded to crash into my bed. The next day, I decided, was to be my personal vacation day. I awoke nose-to-nose with the snout of my dog and the pitter-patter of rain on the roof above me. Scene: me curled up in the overstuffed chair by the fireplace. A good book hanging from my fingertips. An oversized mug of coffee sitting within reach. A warm fluff of fur that I call my dog snuggled in on my lap. The only worry on my mind was what to eat for lunch. I was peaceful, rested and content. This, I realized, was happiness in its purest form.

5. It is not uncommon to hear the phrase “I’m so happy I could die” in our society, it’s even the title of one of Lady Gaga’s songs. In an ideal world where everyone and everything was happy this phrase would not exist, but in a world where sadness lurks about in the shadows this quote holds true. Just check a thesaurus. Happiness relates to light, peace, contentment, joy, and positivity whereas sadness is dark, despair, grief, and a removal of love. For some, sadness is so unbearable that they would rather accept death at a point of high happiness then face a fall to sadness.

6. When you are happy you see the world in a positive light. Now, the positivity varies, you could be positive enough to notice that your glass is half full or you could be so incredibly positive that you feel the need to wear one of those “Life is Good” shirts. Big-picture wise, the amount doesn’t matter because you are still happy. However, the world is constantly throwing negativity your way. When something (or things) brings your perspective from positive to negative (whether it be a traffic jam or a death) you lose that happiness. But, before you get all negative, remember that there is hope. The relationship works both ways. Positive experiences, such as feeling accomplished or seeing a smiling baby, build your perspective back up and make you happy once again.

  

Short Weeks #love #hate

8 hour, day-long band clinic. 8 hour day of school. 3 quizzes. 2 tests. 1 essay. 1 project. 

finally it is 11:26 pm on Tuesday night and I have nothing to worry about.

How Wonderful.

I am Thankful. 

Very.

Much.

So.

Just a little respect here #graded

Alright. Its letter jacket season again and this means that I get to face the snide remarks about how easy it is to letter in the non-sport of synchro. Again. As we speak (well, I guess I'm just typing this at you) I am cold and wet and reek of chlorine, all thanks to synchro practice. I practice 5 days a week for 2-3 hours a day during the fall and winter seasons, and in spring I have both high school and club practice daily, which is about 24 hours a week. That much work does not make a sport "easy." And if you're still convinced that all we do is float about in shape-shifting patterns while wearing flowery hats, let me prove you wrong.


Ok, first go update yourself on modern day synchro. Here are some of my favorite teams.

• USA Technical Team (2007) cool suits much? This routine took gold in 2007 at the Fina championships, beating the superpower of Russia. #USAUSA
• But Russia (2006) is amazing. Just look at how close they swim, how sharp they are and how high out of the water they are. 
• This Greece Team (2007) is one of my all time favorites. They are graceful at some parts ( 0:52 is my favorite graceful part) but fast and sharp at others. At 1:47 there is a cut of of the music where they make their own beat on the water, and they all manage to stay synchronized. There's also a part later on where duet partners artfully spit water, its hilarious. 
• If you only watch one of these watch Canada's Cowboys V. Indians routine. Its fun, interesting, and also the shortest one. Check out the half-and-half make-up jobs and the half-and-half suits. At 2:04 they all pop up wearing bandannas. Crazy, right?

Common misconceptions about synchro:
1. We do not touch the bottom. Ever. Otherwise the routine score gets a major penalty, which can take a first place swim to last place. Instead we tread water (AKA eggbeater) really hard. Here's an example of how a team works together to throw a girl into the air.

2. In performance we don't get to wear caps or goggles and have to wear a ton of makeup. However, to have a good swim you can't have hair in your eyes and you have to be able to see your teammates and stay in formation. Problem? No. We wear our hair in ballet buns and glaze it with Knox gelatin (yeah, the stuff you cook with. Its nasty and gross and smells disgusting) and we just have to suck it up and open our eyes underwater.

3. Are you aware that every time you see legs in a routine the swimmers are holding their breath? In synchro, air is a precious commodity, and getting a good gulp of it between hybrids (the underwater stuff) is essential. Otherwise you'll start to see black spots, and trust me, that's not good.

Have you had enough ranting yet? I sure have. I haven't even scratched the surface of this complicated sport, but hopefully you respect it a little bit more.

Everything's a problem but these are my arguments #graded

Alright well I was planning on blogging on a prompt about problems with spelling and spell check but that wasn't assigned. darn. Maybe I'll just randomly blog that post sometime else (maybe meaning one day when I have time. Having time meaning never).
SO. Computers. Are they good or bad? The Sugarplum Fairy or Cruella de Vil? Skywalker or Vader? Ok, I actually don't know if that last comparison was correct since I've never seen a Star Wars movie, but I normally just pretend to be a sci-fi junkie. The fact of the matter is that computers are excellent and amazing and revolutionizing and all but they bring about some major issues to debate. Thanks to Chapter 4 of some amazing textbook I have some listed below with my opinions tacked on.

• Loss of Privacy- Yes yes yes. Major problem (I'm just going to address social networking) I know Facebook is supposed to be "more secure" than its competitor, MySpace, and it does but the privacy settings keep changing, allowing for more creeping on strangers (by accident in most cases). The biggest issue is that the masses don't maintain privacy settings. WAY too many people know WAY too much about eachother. I thought my privacy was high until I added pictures the other day and friends of my mutual friend through another friend (did that even make sense?) liked some pictures. Can you say creepy? I know I can. Especially because I really don't know these people at all, they could be class-A murderers for all I know (or don't know from their profiles). Don't even get me started on Twitter. It really is quite unsettling to think that anyone can see that I'm eating a vegan dinner or freaking out about a test or going on a vacation. Overall, there needs to be more education about the sharing of personal information. 

• Creation of a two-classed society: those who can afford computers and those who cannot:  Not a problemo in developed countries for 3 reasons. First, computers (and smartphones for that matter) are becoming lower priced and more accessable to the public. Not everyone needs a fancy Macbook Pro that can do everything under the sun, they just need a functioning screen with a keyboard attatched. Two, if an occupation, like student or office-worker, needs a computer they will most likely be provided with one at their place of work. If not then, third, there are public computers located from the public library to a local coffee shop.
  On a worldwide scale, there may be a problem at hand seeing that many countries in Africa are still working at feeding the majority, let alone providing technology to all. This is an obvious setback to a continent that is already bearing the weight of so many setbacks. It is our job to help them out, to spend our money on developing education of third-world countries instead of on drugs, alcohol, and fancy cars. We need to follow in the footsteps of Oprah Winfrey.

• Pornography, slander, and villification on the Web: Not a problem. Please, its not as if the internet brought these things about. If people want to read/write/view something they will find a way to. End of story.

• The death of the daily newspaper as a form of print media: As an aspiring journalist here this one broke my heart a little bit as I read it and realized that it is so true. We can already see this happening in society, the Star Trib. is having problems and was (I'm not sure if it still is) threatening to go purely electronic. As much as I love the classy factor of having a printed newspaper, I know that the internet will take over the news industry, simply because it is cheaper and more accessible. The biggest problem will be getting readers of the daily to continue to visit the online site daily so that the paper can stay in business. I'm sure a majority of readers will already know how to do this or already do it (hence the collapse of printed paper), but that minority that doesn't have daily access to a computer, doesn't know how to work one, or is just plain lazy will be a loss of readers for the newspaper which will result in less revenue and that cues the economic down spiral of capitalism. yay.  

If you're still reading this I congratulate you. It takes some endurance to make it through my rambling of opinions (especially because I'm stuck in a bit of a parenthesis rut). 

The Life of a Teddy Bear #opentopic #graded

I have this teddy bear named Peanut Butter. She was born at a Build-a-Bear birthday party in grade school (probably around 3rd grade). She is currently sitting on the ledge right above my desk, but she hasn't always been there. Over the years her career as a bear has shifted, molding itself around the life I create for myself.

Peanut Butter (I'm just going to call her PB for short) began her life as my teddy bear with the role of a comfort giver. Perched on my bed, right next to my pillow, PB was my care taker, always protecting me from the things that go bump in the night. With cuddling as her only job she was really living the life. 

Next PB moved to the basement. This was last year- the year of Euro. This being my first AP class I had to find a way to efficiently study so I decided to teach my teddy bear ( literally using the "classic" example given by Prod). Hearing the story of Europe from the Renaissance to Napoleon to the Cold War, this was the start of PB's years of education, her life becoming a little more dense. 

Now moving on to tonight, another addition to PB's "job description." I, along with about 17 million (well actually 19, but it seems like so many more when there are only 3 spots to compete for) other people, am trying out for the position of Drum Major. So what have I been doing tonight? Not partying, not studying, not vegging out on the couch while watching countless hours of T.V. no. I have been conducting "The Incredibles" for PB. I imagine she is quite different than the audience I will (hopefully!) be conducting for on Monday, but practice is practice. And now PB has acquired musical skills. 

To be honest I have never thought this much about a stupid stuffed animal, but I thought it was interesting how much her role changed. I wonder what will come for PB once I go to college. Will she even be in existence when I have a family of my own? I have no idea, but for now she's stuck with trekking through high school right along with me, offering a cuddle or two along the way if necessary [emoticon resisted here].