Awkward Blog Is Awkward

Since we started class out on Tuesday with an awkward freewrite, I decided I would torture you guys even more with an awkward blog.

Sex.

Nobody wants to talk about it, and that's understandable. It should be awkward. It's something that should remain hidden from everybody but your "romantic partner." However, should the awkwardness of talking about sex keep parents from telling their children what it is?

When I was a kid, my elementary school had a video they would show on puberty in third grade. My dad thought that they would cover the topic of sex, but they never did. It was more on the changes you go through. I never told him that we weren't told about sex, so I ended up learning from the worst possible source: the middle school "upperclassmen" that I was friends with at the time. Everybody knows how juvenile middle school boys are, and because of that I was told everything wrong, and nothing made sense to me. I remembered being a very confused third grader; at least until I told my dad that I was confused the next year. Everything was straightened up after that, but that's not really the point.

My point of this blog is pretty simple actually. Do you think that some topics should just be ignored because they are awkward? Sometimes, as in my case, they could be important. If my dad had just told me about sex straight away instead of depending on my school to do it, it would have saved a lot of embarrassment and confusion in my third grade life. I think this sort of thinking could apply to anything, whether it be friendships or literature. I believe that being open about topics that would often be avoided often brings people closer together. What do you guys think?

The Destination

I read a piece yesterday. Which really means a lot to me. I wrote it in search of trying to find the true meaning of life. That may sound cliche but life should not be taken for granted. The writing is called The Destination. It reads

"Deep inside ourselves, lie our thoughts, hopes and dreams. We see ourselves on a long trip across country, with several pit stops along the way. We're traveling by car. Taking the backroads across America. We travel through scenic highways, traveling along from coast to coast. Along the way, glancing at cattle grazing in distant pastures, taking in the smoke spilling from power plants, getting a taste of the rows of cotton and corn and wheat, exploring through flatlands and hidden valleys, being mesmerized by city skylines and discovering the beauty of the small towns.

But uppermost our main focus is our final destination. Soon our car will pull in to wherever we are headed. And once that day comes, so many wonderful dreams of ours will come true. So restlessly, we speed through the journey. Looking at the GPS, counting the miles and trying to get there as fast as we can.

Thinking "Yes, when we reach the destination, that will be it!" we promise ourselves. "When I’m eighteen I’ll go to college. . . I’m going to win that promotion. . . I’m going to start a family . . . I’m going to buy my dream car. . . . I’m going to retire in the Caribbean"

From that day on we will all live happily ever after.

Sooner or later, however, we must realize there is no destination in this life, no one
place to arrive at once and for all. The journey is the joy. The final destination is an illusion.
"Relish the moment." Instead of counting the miles and rushing through the journey. Take a step back. Be yourself, spend time with the people you love, make new friends. Do crazy things. You only live once, so live everyday like it’s your last. Life should be taken one day at a time. The destination will come soon enough."

What do you guys think? How do you feel like should be viewed? Do you feel like your living up to your potential and living everyday as if it's your last? If not talk about what you can do to improve your life overall.

Holiday Traditions

After writing my final draft for our third paper my brain was a little fried. I couldn’t think about anything extremely exciting or deep to write about for this blog. But one thing has been on my mind all month, Thanksgiving.

Most, if not all families, have traditions that they practice every holiday season. I know a few friends that go out of the state, sometimes out of the country during Thanksgiving. And of course who could forget about that famous time of the year, Black Friday. My family’s traditions have changed over the years. We have moved quite a lot and we are the only part of our entire family that doesn’t live in Ohio so it gets kind of lonely. The only thing that has stuck with our tradition is spending time together. No matter where we are or what we are going through we are always together for Thanksgiving.

Over the past five or six years my dad has taken control of our activities during Thanksgiving. Before we used to just watch the parade in the morning and cook all day long. Now we watch the parade and do work afterwards to get ready for Christmas. The first thing we do is set up our outside Christmas tree. The tree outside isn’t a real tree, it is made out of 13 strings of green lights that travel from my driveway up to the top of my flag pole with a huge star on top. It sounds like an easy task, but believe me, it takes ALL DAY.

Our next tradition is to get our actual Christmas tree. We used to go out on my mom’s birthday (December 20th) and pick out a tree, but of course that has changed. Now we have to order our tree and get it the day after Thanksgiving just to make sure we have the right size. My house has 30 ft ceilings so a little 6ft tree looks a little weird. That is why we order a 14-16ft tree every year now.

And Black Friday? I have never ever gone to a mall or store on black Friday. I don’t like dealing with that many crazy people. Haha.

Everyone has their own holiday traditions. Some seem normal and some seem ridiculous. What are some of your favorite traditions during the holiday season?

Decking the halls too early?

Since we haven't had class for a week and thanksgiving is right around the corner, I figured I would write about something a little more festive.

So we all notice that when the holiday season comes around, stores seem to get a little into it...and by a little I mean A LOT. I was in CVS the other day and I couldn't help but notice that they already had blow up christmas decorations for your yard out and christmas lights along the shelves. I thought to myself, "Christmas decorations...already??" Then, a few days later I walk into the mall and see "Santa" already taking pictures with little kids with Christmas music in the background. I don't know about you but I get super annoyed when it comes to stores preparing for a holiday months in advance! It's not even thanksgiving yet and stores are already decking the halls.

The picture to the right was taken by one of my good friends back home. I have to give Nordstrom credit because they are the only store so far that takes into consideration that decorating early for the holidays is a bit under rated.

Hopefully stores can stop this awful trend in the future and stick to one holiday at a time because it really gets on my nerves.

Next holiday to watch out for: Valentines day in January.

Disappointment

It’s the night before your big paper is due. You’ve been working on the paper all week. Now you are finally putting the final touches on your masterpiece. Paper is perfect. Miss Ahmed is going to love this paper. She has to give it an A. The next day in class you turn in your paper. As you place your paper in the stack of papers satisfaction fills your body. You smile as you leave class because of the amount of hard work you put into this paper. This is a good start to college. I’m definitely getting into whatever great law school my parents talked about. Now they’ll shut up about me being a lazy good for nothing.

Fast forward to a week and a half later when Miss Ahmed hands out the graded papers. Right before she hands out the papers Miss Ahmed mentions how she went easy on the class. Whatever I don’t need her to go easy for me to get an A. You receive your paper. It’s a D minus. You’re in complete shock. You feel like Mike Tyson just punched you in the stomach. Everything you thought was great was mediocre or horrible. Forget law school. Can you even stay in college? You forgot everything she told you not to do. You screwed up the oxford comma, quoting, and how to use I feel. You walk back to your dorm in utter disappoint.

Everybody has felt disappointment in school. Although this story exaggerates our feelings I know everyone can relate to this story. I know I have been disappointed with the grade I have received after putting hard work into it. Which is why I always get nervous before conferences. I think I do a great job but then Miss Ahmed finds so many mistakes in it. Then I return to my dorm thinking of ways to reach her expectations. When was the last time you were really disappointed with a grade on an assignment? Describe the experience and how you respond to it. Or do you get nervous before a conference or maybe frustrated afterwords? Let everyone know! Share your experiences below.

"What you see is what you get."

"What you see is what you get."

Many of you have heard that quote a numerous times. But I want to go into more depth in what I think the means to me. The first sense that helps my memory is not smell but sight. I remember little tiny details of irrelevant events, which sometimes frustrates my parents when I am off task. For example, I can remember exactly what happened on the first night I went to Downtown Disney. I can remember all the different sights. But the smells however, I can't imagine at all unless reproduced.

Sight also plays a big role when we judge people. We judge people on clothes, style, hair, accessories, etc. Some people may say that we shouldn't judge people by there looks because it is unethical. I say that it's human nature to judge people by how we see them. I do feel it's unethical as well. But in fact, it's our DNA to judge people by looks. I am not encouraging that you should judge someone like that. But I just want you guys to not feel so bad if you do. What are your thoughts?

The Power of Anger

I am responding to this quote:

"Anger is an acid that can do more harm to the vessel in which it is stored
than to anything on which it is poured."

-Mark Twain

To me this quote means that someone being angry is more harmful than acid being poures onto something. It reminded me of our discussion in class on Tuesday about the short essay "Tourist, Stay Home." The author was so angry about tourists coming to her homeland. It made me angry when at the end of the essay she told us to stay home if we care at all about preserving the culture. I was offended by this because I went to Maui two years ago and was in awe of how beautiful it was. I didn't cause any harm to the culture like she thinks every American does. In fact I probably benefited the Hawaiian people by spending money while on vacation there.

I even noticed in class some of us were not too happy with what she had to say. She doesn't have the right to say who can and can't visit Hawaii. She is taking out the anger she has about the destruction of her culture on us. The state of Hawaii probably could not survive on it's own if it wasn't apart of the United States. I don't think it's very fair for her to blame Americans on the mainland when we're only trying to help Hawaii's economy. How does everyone feel about this? Does she have the right to place the blame on us?

A Day Made of Glass

I couldn't get the video to show up on the blog, so here's the link:
http://youtu.be/6Cf7IL_eZ38

So, my grandmother is one of those who sends me so many e-mails to the point where I almost want change my e-mail address. But today, when I logged on, I saw only one. The subject line read "The Future in Glass." Of course, I just checked the box next to it and scrolled my mouse up to the delete button, but someting stopped me before I had the chance to click. I was curious. There are so many people who come up with concepts of what the future may be like. Hell, every time there's a new technologial advancement, it's seems like people jump on it and assume that it will be necessary for living in the future. So of course when I started watching this video, I was skeptical.

The video suggests that upcoming generations will be taking advantage of the integration of technology into our everyday lives. Virtually every surface has the potential to become a touchscreen, with the ability to push and retrieve vital data in order to assist us with tedious tasks. This has the potetnial to make all of our iPads, tablets, desktops, and laptops obsolete. Quite frankly I think it's fascinating to see what we may be able to do very soon. Mind you, this is purely conceptual as it stands right now. However more recent breakthroughs suggest that this portrayal is not pure fantasy, it's possibility.

All of this leaves me wondering though: Are we too concerned with the future that we neglect the present? Do we dwindle on what the next big thing is so much that we soon forget the last? It just worries me to see that all of our "specialists" are too busy speculating on how the world will be rather than how it is. How do you all feel about this?

Cheese

So in the last class, for the attendance question, we went around and stated our favorite and least favorite words. I did not have a favorite word at the moment but my least favorite is c***. I hate that word because for one, I'm a girl (in case you didn't notice) and second, I HATE what it stands for.

Some of you like me, did not like a word because of its meaning. While others hated a word because it is annoying. Some of you said that a certain word was your favorite simply because it sounded cool. That kind of got me thinking. Maybe half the reason that we despise a word is simply because of the way it sounds. Kind of like taste buds. We all have different taste buds, I hate cheese. Yes, I know you probably think I'm crazy. But I kind of think the way a word sounds either repels or intrigues us.

Like our varying tastebuds our brains vary and therefore love or hate certain things. This following example may sound crazy but it is the honest truth. ......

I speak spanish. For those of you who don't know you can pretty much add the ending "-ita" or "-ito" to any word. Adding either ending to a word (-ita if its a feminine word and -ito if its masculine) indicates affection to the word and can make it less harsh. Dog is "perro" but you can say "perrito" to add more affection. My point to this spanish lesson is that I ABSOLUTELY HATE/LOATHE/DESPISE when a spanish speaker adds these endings. It makes me want to puke and makes me want to punch something. I can't stand the way it sounds, i literally cringe whenever I hear my mother use them. It used to make me cry when I was little! I know this example is kinda psychotic but do any of you have words that you literally cannot stand because the sound of it gets under your skin?!

Tourist, Stay Home.

The reading for this week by HAUNANI-KAY TRASK was very interesting. Reading this article made me realize how great amounts of tourism can affect native people in a negative way.

In the beginning, the author talks about how a wave of tourism has dishonored the Hawaiian culture over the years. Ancient culture of Hawaiian people has been used to attract tourists and advertise their land around the world. Basically, she says that tourism has brought up serious problems such as population densities, crime rate etc. Tourism is not the only complain the author gives, she also talks about the loss of precious land to american military bases.

 Personally, i believe tourism can be both beneficial and detrimental. Tourism helps the economy and creates millions of jobs for the natives of these key destinations. It can also have negative effects because when a place becomes extremely popular, millions of people will want to go, eventually abusing it. Tourism should definitively be controlled and tourists should be educated about the responsibilities of preserving the beautiful places they travel. Locals play a big role is this too, they shouldn't discourage tourism because after all it helps economically and it allows the rest of the world to enjoy the place where they live.

what do you think about this situation? Do you agree with the frustration of the native Hawaiians? How do you feel about tourism?

Lunatics/Lunartics

After Reading Lunatics/Lunartics I thought that woman could be anyone. I'm not saying that we are all crazy and bipolar but we all have our moments. I think that she made herself sound crazier then she was by calling herself "me" and "psycho". I know when I was writing my first draft of this last paper I felt like a crazy person. I was rambling on about nothing because I thought that this topic was so hard. I wanted to rip my hair out. I want to apologize ahead of time to my workshop group who is grading my paper.
I think that at any time we can all have high or low moments that make us come off as crazy. We are not bipolar but we can relate to the situation. Some things just push you over the edge and it makes people react. Your family and friends are always there to love you, but is there a breaking point where you can push them away for good? I think that anyone who has been in a relationship before can relate to this situation. You burst out into loud fights where completely irrational thing are said. Eventually you forgive each other but sometimes too much is said. There may be no turning back. I liked how the author ended her paper this way. She made herself relatable, whether you are a crazy person or not.