Christmas is here. :)

Christmas is a time of, well, chaos. During the holiday season everyone goes out to buy gifts for family, friends, and sometimes significant others. Some families feel the need to spend hundreds of dollars to get that special someone the perfect present. My family isn’t quite like that. Sure, we go out and spend money for each other, but not to the point where it’s going to clean out our bank accounts. Whenever someone buys me something that I know costs a lot, I feel really bad, almost like I don’t deserve it. My mom and I probably get in more fights during Christmas season, more than any other time of the year. For the most part, it’s a happy household to be at, but we definitely have our moments.
Getting prepared for Christmas is something my family loves to do. Putting up the Christmas tree is a great time to gather and share some quality time. We also love to put Christmas lights outside our house. People that don’t do any of these activities are, in a way, looked down upon. People think that others that don’t show their holiday spirit are scrooges and don’t care about Christmas, when in fact, they probably don’t have the money for lights and such decorations. Homeowners that put ten million lights around their house, have blow-up figures in their yard, and a moving sleigh with Santa, is a little “over-the-top”.
One night about 7 years ago right around Christmas time, my mom and I went for a drive to look at houses with Christmas lights. We stopped at this one house, paused, and took in the moment. As we were driving away, is saw a man dressed up like Santa sitting on a bench outside. I thought he was just a figure of my imagination. Being my age at the time, I still believed in Santa. In turns out that he was just the owner of the house who was handing out candy canes. The point of telling this story is to make you realize how the littlest things can affect kids. Spread the holiday spirit and do little favors for people, they really will appreciate it. : )

GRrRr! Snow Days!

Many schools have snow days because the roads are too bad and they fear accidents among the students. I do not feel that making them up is the answer to solving the problem. When we have a snow day, everything gets messed up with the end of the year because all of the dates are already set and ready for the year, with no room for any interruptions whatsoever. The thing is, dates for finals are not to be moved for any reason so when we have snow days, it leaves teachers cramming last minute information and knowledge that they are to know for the finals. Then when it comes time to make the days up, the students have nothing to study because the final test are already over and done. This results to the students being stuck doing nothing for the last part of the year instead of spending our time enjoying summer. A lot of times, the superintendent will schedule half days, for the whole days lost, so that it's easier on the students and the teachers. One way to fix this would be to convince the school board to move finals back if needed. This way everything will have time to fall in place so teachers won't be so crammed with their teaching schedules. Another thing would be to only make up snow days until a certain point. For example, we have five snow days over a two-week time period. The sixth snow days that we get, would be waived because there is no need to make it up.

Driving

Learning to drive takes an immense amount of concentration. On the interstate, and on other roads not only do you have to watch where you are going but you also have to pay attention to all the other drivers on the road too. Driving around large trucks and semi's particularly bothers me, it feels like I am crowded out of space. They roar up next to you while are driving or even better, two come up beside you and sandwich you in between them so you can't move either to the left or the right and you feel trapped. Today, a woman with a little red car was coming up the interstate behind me and my Mom as we were driving to my work. The lady in the red car was in a real hurry. She was moving fast and was zipping in and out of the lines of traffic. I had signaled to turn right to move over into the right hand lane and she was right behind us. She got so close I thought she was going to hit the back bumper of our car. There wasn't any place that we could go to get out and away from her. I signaled to turn left onto Collins road and she did too. She moved next to us in the right hand lane to also turn left. There is a spot coming from the interstate to the Collins road exit where the markings on the road can go into one lane to return back to the interstate or you can choose to go into the left hand lane on Collins road and keep going straight. I turned onto that lane and the lady with the red car was also turning onto that lane too. She laid on her horn and made some obscene gestures and drove around us in a real huff. I felt that I had just as much as a right as she had and that I didn't do anything wrong by turning into that lane; the lines are dotted at that spot, not solid. Sometime I don't understand why people are in such a rush to get places, if they start out a little earlier and find time to be considerate then things would go a little smoother on the roads. Road rage! People all over the road are displaying it all the time and it isn't very nice and it really makes your day start out wrong when it happens to you going to work first thing in the morning.

Music

Some of the best music can be found just by randomly browsing on You tube. Some of the music that I enjoy include: Jesse McCartney, Taylor Swift, Fallout Boy, Cute is What we Aim For, Backseat Goodbye, Number One Gun, Rihanna, Christian music, and so many more. I am not a really big fan of rap because listening to that can sometimes give me a headache. Rap music is also very repetitive in its lyrics and tends to repeat its chorus over and over again. A lot of the genres that are very popular today include: country, rap, rock, disco, soft rock, electronica, hip hop, blues, tribal, heavy metal, and many more. Music is almost like a drug for me. When I am down or having a bad day, I just listen to music and it seems to take a lot of my cares away. A lot of people don't know this about me, but I used to play the harp. Everyone thought it was really unique and it really set me apart from everyone else. The reason I quit playing was because I couldn't commit to the time commitment and I was already doing show choir and choir for music classes. I did enjoy it while I did play it, though. Before I played harp, however, I was required to take two years of piano, so I started playing harp at about 6th grade. My point by telling this was to try to tell you about how much time and effort it takes to be successful. You can’t just wake up one morning and decide that your going to play an instrument, you have to have knowledge about it and have practice. Another thing that kind of held me back from continuing harp lessons was the cost. It takes a lot of money to get involved with music whether its money to buy the instrument, lessons, or equipment for it. Although it costs a lot, being involved with the orchestra was very helpful when considering my social status and grades. It was an easy class, I’m not going to lie. I also made a lot of friends and got to know a lot of upperclassmen that I didn’t know before. In order to be successful at an instrument, you have to be able to perform as well as be good at it. If you don’t convince the audience, they won’t enjoy themselves.

Election 2008

I figured I would put at least one post on here about the election since that has been the top story news for the past few months. I wasn't really rooting for anyone in the sense that none of them really had a lot that I was looking for. or in other words, someone had this thing that was a plus and someone didn't have this thing, and so on. One of the main issues that was irritating for me was the issue of abortion. McCain said that he is anti-abortion and should only be legal when the pregnancy resulted from incest, rape, or when the life of the woman is in danger. Obama, on the other hand, strongly supports a woman's rights to have an abortion, and that decision should be totally decided by the woman. Obama also wants to lower taxes for companies that support keeping jobs in the United States, but then McCain wants to lower overall corporate taxes from 35% to 25%. Obama also supports the use of medical marijuana and doesn't see the reason that it shouldn't be legalized everywhere in the United States instead of just for medical use, but McCain is against it all together and doesn't think it should be used even for medical purposes. For me, I think that there should be a legal use of marijuana because people do it anyways, and hospitals could even use it for the patients that need it. When discussing the issue about gun control, I feel that people should have the right to bear arms in their household for security purposes only, therefore I am supporting Obama's side for that issue. McCain thinks that the only people who should have weapons in the United States is the military, the firearms manufacturers, and crime involved with firearms. I also feel as if people can use them for hunting because it is so common in the United States and would be very difficult to ban. Same sex issues is one topic that is somewhat the same between the two candidates. They both think that same sex marriage should be banned but there should be equal rights to a certain point. They also both support amnesty and permanent legalization for illegal aliens and temporary legalization for guest workers. I agree with both of those statements. The issues that I mentioned are a couple of the few issues that I actually understand. It was hard for me to believe that Obama got over twice the amount of electoral votes that McCain received.

My beliefs

I am a strong believer in God, but sometimes my mind loses track on who my savior is. The crowd that I hang out with is often one of the main factors that decides whether I act godly or sinful. People that are hypocritical about their faith are often people that are two faced, or in other words, two different people during church and during activities that don't involve church. This last weekend I went to a retreat in Wyoming and I really felt like I connected with God, unlike so many times before. Sometimes I doubt our savior and if he's really there, but when I go to church I realize that he is so real, and I wish people would see that. In relationships, I find it hard to meet a guy that is going to respect the way I feel about God, or feels the same way I do. I rarely attend church because I work on Sundays, but I really don't think I would go anyways, because I'm not the person that enjoys the lessons or preaching like they do on Sunday mornings. I guess that's just me. It really irritates me when people say that they are athiest or worship the devil because it's kind of an insult to me, seeing as I am a believer in God. During school I rarely ever talk about my faith because people who come across to strongly in their beliefs are rather considered 'freaks' or 'nerds', and I would prefer not to be called that. If I date or marry someone who is a strong believer in God, I think I would feel very uncomfortable because I feel that at any single moment I could screw up or step out of my boundaries and ruin it. I would feel very insecure as if they are always watching my every action, waiting for me to do something wrong.

My future in show choir

Is show choir worth my time and effort? For many cases, yes, but when you think long and hard about how it affects my life in the future, and it doesn't. I want to spend my time doing something that's going to benefit me and my career. Rather than spending two of my class periods taking a class that's all about singing and dancing, I could take a core class (educational) and get more prepared for college, and so on. Being in show choir helps me gain more social status, improves my singing and dancing skills, and helps me gain a better relationship with directors and peers. Show choir also betters my skills with being in front of an audience. Every competition, depending on where it is, has an audience of about 150-400. There are so many factors that are in play that depend on how good a show choir group is. There's the sharpness of their moves, their tone quality, the way they connect with the audience, intonation, facials, how advanced their choreography is, the over all picture, and many more things. I feel disadvantaged with show choir because at this school, I may not be the best singer or dancer. But at other schools, I could be pretty talented compared to the other kids of my class. I do not feel very confident about myself when peers younger than me are getting the varsity spots over me. This year, I did not make the varsity show choir, unlike almost all of my friends, so I made the prep show choir again. I felt very sad and isolated. Prep show choir isn't that bad, its just that I'd so much rather be in the varsity instead. The positive side to it is that I get to know a lot of the underclassmen, and meet new people. I think that show choir is really fun, but at times I regret getting involved in all of it because there's so much of a time commitment, and I don't want to get caught up in things that I'm not going to benefit from in the future. Honestly, I think I would rather take an academics class. :)

Jobs

Hey audience. :)

As many of you probably don’t know, I am currently an employee at Hyvee. I work about 4 times a week on average. I wouldn't exactly say that my current job is the 'dream' job that I have always wanted or anything like that, but right now, I don’t have any other way of income, so I take what I can get. Another factor that you have to think about when getting a typical job is what the job is inside AND out, which is one mistake I made. When you look at my job, a courtesy worker or bagger, you think all you would have to do is bag peoples' groceries and maybe get a few carts. That's not what its like at all. Some of the 'extra' things you have to do are: take out all of the trashes in the store and by the registers, clean the bathrooms (women’s', men’s', and the family room, no matter your gender), constantly go out and get carts, clean up spills made by shoppers or even employees, and other dirty, low jobs like that. On top of that the breaks are really short. Most of the time, my break is fifteen minutes. Another thing you have to watch out for when getting a job is the managers or bosses you will be having. You don't want a boss that's going to get on you for every little thing that you do wrong, or else you won't enjoy yourself at work. I like the bosses that are very easy going and don't expect you to do every little thing. I also enjoy jobs that don't require specific attire. I can deal with looking nice and professional, but not when you have to wear the same thing over and over again everyday you go to work like Hyvee requires. To work at Hyvee, you must come into work wearing a white button-up shirt with a collar, long black or brown pants, tie or broach, white or black shoes, and your name tag. That attire is way too much for me, and I dread wearing it. Is this normal for me to think that my job is a waste of my time? Does anyone else think that? What are the pros and cons of your job?