Mexico first-hand

This last spring break, I went to Mexico with my church, which was 22 other people, in hopes of going on a life changing experience. I have been inspired in more than one way. I have really become fond of mission trips and am considering making a career out of it. I have always wanted to help others, but was never really sure how to get involved. Let me give you an overview of the whole trip.

First of all, we left New Covenant Bible church at around 8:00 pm on March 20. I was so very excited. There was only one other time that I had been out of the country before this and that was to Canada. Most mission groups cancelled their trip to Mexico this year due to all of the violence. The drive took around 24 hours to get to Albuquerque, New Mexico. I can not even begin to explain the amount of sleeping positions I tried. I also became very fond of coloring books and making bracelets. That was basically my life for most of those hours. When in doubt, whip out the crayons and coloring books! I also played some puzzles and games with the people on the bus. I developed a mad skill for the game “catch phrase.” Ever played it? It’s really fun and time consuming.

When we got to the church (Sandia Presbyterian Church) we were staying at in Albuquerque we went to church service. We all took showers in the University of New Mexico; I thought to myself that this wouldn’t be such a bad place to go to college. It felt nice to step in a nice warm shower after being on the road for so long. We arrived back at the church and eventually fell asleep after a couple hours of just chatting outside in the beautiful weather. The background filled with mountains made me stare in awe, for I don’t usually get to see such stunning sites as that. I had never been to New Mexico, or even anywhere in the South West for that matter. We went out to eat at The Frontier, probably the best authentic Mexican food I have ever tasted. You wouldn’t think that the best Mexican food would be anywhere other than Mexico, right? No, that’s wrong and I found the right place.

The next morning we packed our bags and were off to the city of El Paso in Texas, a very populated Mexican town. The temperature was absolutely amazing. There were so many things to look at, I was in awe. The drive to El Paso wasn’t that bad. El Paso was a city right on the border so the view into Mexico was so amazing. Its incredible how close to things can be to each other, yet the amount of difference is still massive. It made me want to cry at the look of the little run-down houses and I wasn’t even in the worst part. We went to a mall called the Kennedy mall. I swear it has to be the biggest mall i have ever been to. My story continues in a new post.

Treachery to the Max

While I was reading through some of the most recent news stories and I came across one about Iowa farmers neglecting their cattle and animals. I couldn't bear to read about this story because my love for animals is so great and I can't understand how or why someone could do that to their own animals. The Plymouth County sheriff's office cased two charges of failing to dispose of a dead and rotting animal, plus four charges of failing to vaccinate the terriers and coonhounds that they owned. By this, I think that other farmers should pay attention to this incident and learn from it because animals shouldn’t be treated in such a way.

I always watch the show ‘Animal Cops’ and learn that the main reason that animals are severly abused is due to lost income or unemployment of the owners. They don't care enough to treat them the way they should be treated, but in the long run cattle may as well be the best thing for them. Cattle provide food for the family and could even rake in some cash if they were to sell them. When animal owners abuse and mistreat their animals or pets, it makes me feel worse and worse about america and how selffish we are. There are people all over the world that would love to take care of them and have them for a food supply, but that just ruins things for anyone who could've had them.

Blogging 101

In order to blog, you probably should have a creative mind. You have to have the ability to entertain an audience and keep them wanting more. I am not quite sure how I am at that because I don’t really talk to others or my peers about my personal blog. I was told to pick a few topics that really grab my attention and that I am really interested in. They have to be topics that you are fairly familiar with because you are going to be telling others about that topic and you want them to be well informed and make them think you know more than them. For me, blogging is something I try to do whenever I can, but most of the time I am just so busy and never have time. I think of blogging as some time to kind of bond with yourself and use you’re noggin a bit more than usual. Blogging is very relaxing and can actually be fun if you make it out to be.

When I first started blogging, I was very full of new and cool ideas to talk about on my blog, but now I have kind of run out and don’t really have a theme. Sometimes when I am out of ideas I search on Google for current events that I could talk about and put my say into it. A lot of blogs that I have glanced at have some sort of theme or main idea to them, but mine doesn’t. I feel that my blog doesn’t really have a purpose so I never really know what to talk about while blogging. When something randomly clicks into my head when I am not blogging, I just write it somewhere so I don’t forget what I wanted to write about.

I think that typing on the computer is way much faster than writing it out in a notebook. That’s one of the reasons why I prefer my blog over my writing notebook. I find myself finding more things to write about when I am on the computer because I always have the choice to use my search engine or not, but when I am writing in my notebook I have to come up with a lot of the ideas by myself. If I am really desperate for a topic I use my surroundings to help me come up with something to talk about.

I am not very coordinated with computers, so when I try to get new gadgets on my blog and other cool applications, it’s rather hard for me to go through with it because I am not sure how to do it. When I look at other blogs it always makes me feel like I should improve my own blog because I am comparing it to theirs’ and I want my blog to look advanced, too.

When I start a new topic for a fresh blog, I always feel like I need a visual, like a picture or something of that nature. I never want to leave my audience hanging so they are not sure what I am talking about. I always try to include at least one picture for readers. I always wonder what people think about my blog when they see it. Do they think it’s cool? Bad? Random? And if you think it’s random, its okay, because it kind of is.

Blogging 101

RIP Tyler

For many years now, coping with death has been something I have gotten used to. Just Tuesday morning, I lost a friend by the name of Tyler Toll. I have known him for about 7 years now with a couple of no contact years in between. Coping with his death has been a struggle for many, including myself. When I heard the news (about 30 minutes after it happened), I started to shed a couple tears. I couldn’t help myself. Many of my Cedar Valley friends texted me and informed me another time about the incident. He died just about 3 months before graduation.

It’s hard to think about that fact you’ll never know when the person sitting right next to you will be gone, just like that. There is a song by The Fray called “You found me” that I blogged about earlier. That song reminds me so much of this incident. It’s so ironic that the lead singer is talking about how he lost someone on the spot with no warnings, and what happened? Tyler is dead. I have had Tyler in my prayers every night since then.

Michael Phelps... smokes marijuana?

Just recently Michael Phelps was caught red handed in some pictures smoking marijuana. The pot-smoking incident, exposed by the ever-so-famous News of the World through a photo taken at a house party in South Carolina last November, isn't the first time Phelps has fallen off his sports hero pedestal. When he was nineteen he was pulled over by the police after strolling through a stop sign and charged with driving while intoxicated (DUI). After everything was let out and he acknowledged the pictures, he posted this on his facebook site: "I'm 23 years old, and despite the successes I have had in the pool, I acted in a youthful and inappropriate way, not in a manner that people have come to expect from me. For this, I am sorry. I promise my fans and the public -- it will not happen again." The interesting thing is that he has never failed a drug test during his whole career and even volunteered to be further tested to determine whether he is taking performance-enhancing drugs.
I feel rather bad for helping publicize his negativity, but I think stories like this need to be recognized. Celebrities sure are great, but definitely not flawless. They probably make more mistakes than the average person. Some may think that posting this is wrong, but I feel that it is necessary for the public to know about his "wrong doing" and hopefully Phelps regrets his experience and learns from his mistakes.

NEW oldest woman!

Did you hear? Uzbekistan has found the new OLDEST WOMAN. According to BBC, Tuti Yusupova was born in 1800, which would make her 128; the oldest woman to ever walk the face of the earth. She is six years older than the previous record holder; Frenchwoman Jeanne Calment, who died on Aug. 4, 1997 at age 122. She says that the only health problem she's came across over the years is that her hearing isn't as good as it used to be, which is very normal for older people. That's crazy. I can't even imagine living to be that old. If I ever get that old, please just stop the life support coming. People that live to be that old must have been very healthy people. Most of the oldest people claim that they never smoked or drank throughout their entire life. Its really hard to find someone now-a-days that can admit to that.

You found me- The Fray

"You found me" by The Fray


I found God on the corner of 1st and Amistad
Where the West was all but won
All alone, smoking his last cigarette
I said, "Where have you been?" He said, "Ask anything."

Where were you, when everything was falling apart.
All my days were spent by the telephone that never rang
And all I needed was a call that never came
To the corner of 1st and Amistad

Lost and insecure, you found me, you found me
Lying on the floor, surrounded, surrounded
Why'd you have to wait? Where were you? Where were you?
Just a little late, you found me, you found me.

But in the end everyone ends up alone
Losing her, the only one who's ever known
Who I am, who I'm not and who I wanna to be
No way to know how long she will be next to me

Chorus

The early morning, the city breaks
And I've been calling for years and years and years
And you never left me no messages
You never sent me no letters
You got some kind of nerve taking all I want

Lost and insecure, you found me, you found me
Lying on the floor, Where were you? Where were you?

Chorus

Why'd you have to wait, to find me, to find me?



"You found me" by The Fray is one of those songs to listen to on a really bad day. It surely wont bring your spirits up, but it helps cope with whatever problems you may be having. The main idea of this song is about the girlfriend of this guy and she has been hurt. The guy finally finds God... after the fact that she killed herself. The lead singer says these lyrics are exactly what he would say to God if he met him face to face. The lyrics really touch the heart and makes me wonder who I will lose next in life. Finding God is something that anyone can do, anytime. You don't have to wait for him to come around to find you. You have to go to him if you really need help and he will work in your favor.
I think this song is explaining how he didn't go to God quick enough and before he knew it, his girlfriend committed suicide.
If you search around on m.t.v.'s website they discuss why they wrote the song. One of their points was that the lead singer lost his mom to cancer and even though he prayed everyday for a year and she still died. The reason he sings this song with those lyrics is because he had problems after that and he feels that when he found god that it was too late for any recovery, whatsoever. At the end, he realizes that he has been watched over the whole time and that even though he thought God wasn't there for him, he really was. I think a lot of people misinterpret this song to be way more confusing than it really is because it has a lot of meaning to it. A lot of people could really learn from the meaning of this song.
I was listening to the members of The Fray talk about and explain this song on Youtube. They said that they didn't really know what or where the street Amistad was before someone suggested they used it. They believe that it's a dirt road in the country. This song is, by far, one of their best songs yet.

Here's the video if you care to watch it.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=obhdTlImFBo

Austrailian wildfire

On February 8, a wildfire broke out in Australia raising the the death toll from the deadliest wildfires ever to strike Australia to 128 people. More deaths are expected to be accounted for as they move to land that hasn't been searched yet. It was the largest and deadliest fire to ever occur in Australia. All of the deaths happened in Victoria state. There were 750 home counted that were destroyed from the wildfires. AOL News says that only five houses were left from one neighborhood of about forty. That ratio is incredible. Just think about it. How fortunate would you feel if your house was standing out of eight other family's' houses. I would feel very guilty and ask myself why my house was standing rather than any others. When I hear about disastrous news from other countries or continents, it doesn't physically effect me. I know for a fact that some Americans will read the title and if it doesn't effect them they will discontinue reading it. From what I've heard from foreign exchange students and other media, Americans are perceived as being very selfish and greedy. Don't get me wrong, but some people are like that and you can find people like that in every country. I actually care and feel sympathy for countries that go through hard times, so I figured I would slip a blog in on here about them and recognize that they do need help. I want countries to think globally and put their care and thoughts more into other countries. Sometimes I wonder how many people from other countries actually paid attention to the Cedar Rapids flood of 2008. I know that the day of the flood, it was top story in Spain for the whole day. With as much snow as we got this year, people are claiming that we are going to get hit with another flood. Just hearing that makes me want to start packing my belongings right this very second. Natural disasters are things that people need to take more seriously. Anything could happen to Earth to cause human life to be gone forever.