[free] What I Realized and What needs to be Done

Lately I have realized that I have learned more from watching television then I have from school. For example i am currently taking a class called psychology, school has been in session for almost two months now and even though the class has gone through the releasement of one teaching and hiring another I can still say that in our time of studying I have learned a lot more about the human brain watching a simple marathon of the show Criminal Minds for a few hours then i have being in psychology for two months. Even though Criminal Minds does not cover the full aspect of psychology I have learned more about the way the human brain works, which is sad. Another issue that I am having with school is the fact that it does not seem as though school does not concentrate on what is truly important meaning schools usually do not focus on what a person is going to need to use in life outside of school for example a person will use basic algebra before they use calculus. In my opinion i think that the system should be set up to were each student will take english and math and all the types of classes such as geometry, chemistry etc. will be electives this way a student is taking classes and learning materials they will actually use and all the other things they learn will their choice.

[free] Stop making test so important

In school test count has a big part of a students grade and personally I find that unreasonable. I do not agree with test counting as such a big part mainly because there is not a true necessary reason why they should be. When a student is graded I think that they should be graded heavily on other things mainly because when it comes to test for the kids who are not great test takers the educational system us basically set up fail. For example when a child is a bad test taker, they come to school they work their butts off doing so many another things they can even gets straight A's on everything in it all in but once a test comes to hand and they fail it, they fail the class and it is basically  a slap in the face to them. Mainly because it is saying you can try as hard as you want on everything, but if cannot do this then all that hard work you did and all that effort you put into it was for nothing. Now there are many alternatives that I child can take when it comes to test, yes they can go to tutoring and yes they can study hard, there is a lot of yes's to a lot of solutions however from my personal experience if test are not for you they are just not for you and it is just that plan and simple. When I was a junior I struggled a lot in  alegrbra 2. With math the test count as 70% of a students grade and even though I always did my work, my homework, turned it all in and took note I ended up having to drop the  completely because no matter what I did I was failing the class because I could not do well on the test and considering that the test are waited so heavily it did not even matter what work I turned in all that matter was the test. Therefore whatever board is if control the the educational system should take that into consideration do to the fact that there are way more children with the same issue. I think that kids should be graded on how much they progressed over the years and they amount of effort they make rather than how well they can memorize information.

[FREE] What to do?

          Now that I am a senior and college is right around the corner I can not lie when I say that I am excited however at the same time scared. If you would have asked with ten years ago what I want to do with my life, what I wanted to be when I grow up I would have given you an answer that was very much specfic, but now that is almost that time you ask me that question and all I can say is "I have no clue." With the economy being as bad as it is it scares me. I do not know what I want to do or what I want to be all I know is I do not want to be broke. It seems as though it is that way for a lot of kids that way. As a kid you niave and truly believe you can be anything, but once you get older and get a taste of what it is really like out in the world, reality slaps you in the face and you can not help but take a step back. You tend to doubt yourself, you wanted to be a doctor but you realized that you just might not have the money to go to medicial school, and the economy being the way it is, no one's hiring anyway and the whole "American Dream" thing does not exsist it's just another thing the government says to comfort you as they take all your money. Therefore no I do not know what I am going to do exactly with my life when I get out of school but at the same I do know what I do not want to do and with that I am not worried.

The Interesting Weather

      What is up with this crazy weather one minute it is storming and the next will be hot. One funny thing is when it rains in the morning then hot and sunny around the afternoon. California is one state where someone can buy a bikini and a rain coat all in the same week. In a way the unconstistant weather is a little interesting. It is nice how in the winter not everyday is dark and gloomy day there are a couple of warm days thrown in there. However at the same time it is on of the most irritating things. Can't people get sick from such a weather change. The body does not have enough time to adjust to the climate difference so quickly. But I would not complain to much. It seems as though people are never happy with the weather. For example if it were to be hot everyday out of the year people would complain on how it is to hot and if it rained and was cold everyday people would complain about that aswell, as in this case people complain that the weather is not consistant.

On-Demand writing

    With the argument stating that it is important for stores to have a good "image" hiring good looking people will attract more costumers. I have to say that I disagree with this argument. In my opinion I do not think it matters to the costumer if the person helping them out is good looking or not. As long as there is great costumers services for all people of all kinds then who your cashier should not matter. I can understand where  stores are coming, hiring people who look as though they would belong in  magazine, does make a the store look more put together. However that is not what matters. For example, if a store has average looking employers with great costumer service and nice clothes at an  affordable price compared to a store selling similar clothing terrible costumer service and clothes that are to pricey, the store that is affordable with great customer service will end up getting work customers on the fact that they covered what is truly important when you walk into a store.
    Another problem is the fact that the store is actually hurting there changes of making any money. Once customers find out hte truth about the stores discrimination problem, the store will end up losing money due to the fact that no one will want to shop at a store that will only hire what they consider to be "beautiful" people. Besides who decides what a beautiful person is. If they decide to hire people who look as though they belong with the people in the magazine, is that beauty?  Each store represents a different look for example are you considered beautiful at Victoria Secret with curves or are you considered beautiful walking into Abercombie& Fitch as bone skinny? If so or if not with everything being such the opposite of one other does beauty even really exist? With this being said it is wrong for a store to discriminate on their customer or their employers.

[Free] Legalize marijuana

         First off I want to say that I think the reason why this is so hard to legalize is for the simple reason, the goverment cannot tax a drug dealer. Now what does it matter if truly any drug is legalized or not, for years people have proven that they are still going to take whatever they want whether it is legal or not. Although I do not agree with hard drugs such as cocine, meth, etc. weed is pretty harmless. I have not once heard of someone dying due to a marijuana overdose. A lot of people say that weed is nothing but a gate way drug and I have to disagree. Doing any drug is ones choice, just because someone decides to smoke weed does not mean that they are definately going to go off and do other drugs. A person has total control over their body and what goes into it, therefore if someone decides that they want to try a stronger drug that is because it is something they decided to do for whatever reason.
         How can someone say that marijuana is terrible when, is it not true that doctors prescribe it to their patients. Why would they give patients such a terrible drug, "for fun?" No it is because oddly enough it actually helps your health. Therefore it should just be legalize, cigarettes are way more deadlier and they are perfectly find to have, which is another argument as to way marijuana should be legalized, it is harmless, just legalize it.

[Free] Why be a Democrat or Republican

            What I do not understand is why being a Democrat or Republican, and supporting a Democrat or Republican is so important to people. In my opinion I think it is a waste of time. Personally I have decided that I am now neither one. Being old enough to now understand what is going on in the country I have realized that lately neither a Republican or Democrat has truly helped our country in anyway. When we started going into a recession, not one person from either party stepped to the plate and said anything until it was to late. Each and every person said everything was ok and that we were going to be just find. Now it is 2011 and our economy is so bad it is almost impossible to find a job. With the odds of actually finding a job it is scary to think that all these kids coming out of college, kids who spent all their time earning their BA, MA, and Doctrine Degrees, they graduate and it almost seems as though what they did was a waste of time because no one is hiring now anyway.
           It seems as though each time we pick a president we are not picking a president that is best for our country, its seems as though we are picking for which ever one told the better lie, I can not really think of something that a president has promised he would do to benefit the country and has actually done it. Which brings me back to asking, what is the real point of choicing either one of the parties when not much will come from it?

[BC] UC Berkeley's racist bake sale

            Earlier this week the students at UC Berkeley decided to have a racist bake sale where they sold cupcakes and determined the cost of the cupcakes on the customers race. If the customer was white he or she would have to pay $2.00, Asians paid $1.50, Latino's paid $1.00, African Americans paid $0.75, Native Americans paid $0.25 and if you were a women you were able to get $0.25 off. The bake sale was designed to protest against colleges making it easier for students of certain races get accepted into colleges. When I heard about this story on the news I was shocked and a little pissed but once I actually heard the reason behind  I started to agree with this protest mainly because it makes a lot of sense and brings up  a lot of great points. As an African American senior in high school college is just around the corner I have to say that if colleges are going partially going by a students race, that is unfair, unnecessary, but be honest I do have mixed feeling about it.
           On one side being an African American I think that this is stupid and offensive to people of the black race. Mainly because African Americans are constantly being looked down and with having such a negative light it is hard for us to break apart from all the stereo types and having people just respect us as a normal human being. With colleges accepting a black person just because they are black is giving African Americans a step back from respect but at the same time I feel that it in a way is sort of comforting. Depending on the way you look at it you can say that it is offensive and disrespectful, or you can turn the way and look at it and say that it is sort of helpful. One of the stereo types African Americans have are that they are associated with being "school drop outs" and giving black people a chance get an education from a high quality school is great but then there is the downfall with choosing them because they are black and not because they have the right grades.Personally I think that when people apply for colleges you should not even have to mark your race and that it should be solely based off of what truly matters and that is a students academic achievements, that way a college cannot be sued or looked down on for being discriminative. 

[Free] Things that I have noticed

             I have notice that the show 'Jersey Shore' people send a hour watching truly nothing. Everytime I watch that show I fee las though I am losing more and more brain cells by the minute. And to be honest I do not eve nknow why these people are as famous as they are. Each season the same exact thing happens, Ronny and Sammy fight, Deana acts as though she never stepped foot into a classroom, Mike or as we call him "The Situation" talks about himself, Vinny and Pauly yell all the time and Snooki, well that speaks for its self.
           Another thing that I realized is that America spends a lot of time focusing on celebrities. For example this passed month or so our country is pretty much going down the drain and yet everybody was focusing on the Kim Kardashian wedding, its was front page on almost every magazine and all over the news, now there is even a two part show coming on so people can watch the wedding. Quite frankly it is not even that important, its a little sad not just because that is the "top news" but also because you would  think that the way America took this wedding, they were this big time important people and yet the truth is no one knows quite why they are so famous, now I wonder then why is the wedding as important as people make it seem. However it was a beautiful wedding I just think that America needs to focus on and talk about more important things.

[RE] Even more ridiculous opinion

I do find this law to be a little ridiculous but a law is a law and you have to follow it even if it goes against your beliefs.

In response to Cameron P. I say that, it does not make any sense at all, what they are doing is not harmful. Now I can understand if there religion required them to kill someone or something that nature then yes the government should step in an ban that, but if all they do is just dress differently then the other people in the community then what is the real issue. And anyone who truly has a problem with having Muslims dress that way then they obviously have a problem. In Cameron's post he quotes "If your face is covered and you commit a crime no one would be able to identify you even when there are witnesses". Are you saying that whoever dresses this way is going to commit a crime. Yes I will admit people cover there faces and commit crimes but that does not mean that you should ban it if it is a religious, it is not like they are walking up and down the street wearing a ski mask. If this city has a hide crime rate of Muslims who wear veils going around killing and harming other people then maybe yes I would understand, but if not then this law this made completely of peoples ignorance.

[CE] French women fined for breaching veil ban

Al Jazeera's Emma Hayward, reporting from Paris, said the court's decision to fine these women "was no great surprise really because we knew this was always going to be a test case here in France".

    I choice this quote because it pretty much sums up the problem in France. I would like to know why people do not have the freedom of religion there. They are not bothering anyone all they are doing is just expressing what they believe in. As long as no one getting hurt and it is not causing any real problems in the streets, work and anywhere else that is public then it should not be against the law. Telling someone to hide who they are you are basically putting yourself on a higher pedestal and if you are going to do that then you need have a real good reason on what makes you better than the rest. You do hear to much about governments or people in a community cracking down on people who are Christian's or Catholic's its usually Muslims  cultural and I want to  know how come people have people problem excepting something different.
    I think that this law is a waste of the French government's time actually sit down and banned something as harmless has people cherishing their own religion, they should start focusing on real issues.

http://english.aljazeera.net/news/europe/2011/09/20119228042691399.html

[CE] New species of dolphin has been discovered

Researchers in Australia say they've made a remarkable discovery, identifying for one of the first times in over a hundred years a brand new species of dolphin.

For some strange reason I found this article funny. There is a lot to say or so there are a lot of questions I have to ask such as, "why did it take them over 100 years to discover a new species of dolphin, did this certain type of dolphin just swim under the radar, and if so how did you miss that for so many years?" But I guess that is just how reseachers work. This new is also pretty amazing to hear in a way. It reallly shows the readers about the life under water and how fasinating it is. To me I think that under water life is extremely interesting because no one at all about everything that goes on down there. There is so much that does on and only so much that the human eye can see. It really has you wonder about what else in going on down there and what else is there to discover. What I really want to know is how they discovered this new type of dolphin because to me it looks like every other dolphin swimming in the ocean, but then again maybe that is how it swam passed everyone and was unseen. I also wonder what makes this dolphin a different species since it does look identical to all the other dolphins what does this dolphin do that makes it special. I also wonder how long this new species has been living, "has it been here this whole time or is this something new and if so how did it come about." Either way this story is spun it seems pretty interesting and I wonder what other species they will find swimming around in the ocean, maybe they will find a different kind of shark or a weird looking fish who knows.

[CE] Trio of violent attacks strike Iraq

This is the kind of news that brings people to shame. These people did not deserve what happened to them, they were just sitting down eating breakfast. It is sad to think that people can not even go out to do something as simple and harmless as eat breakfast without worrying about the fact that they could die because someone strapped a bomb to their car. I know that it is not truly possible to have world peace and I am not asking for us to all come together, hold hands, and sing songs however there has to be someone out there who had morals and knows when to say enough is enough. The vilence that is going on today is just pure ridiculous and does not make sense anymore, not saying that it ever did. It just seems as though now its just happening to because. I would sit here and say way they strapped the bomb to the car but to be quite honest I do not even know why. I cannot even sit here and to you why this happen and what caused it. And that to is also the sad part, the fact that these innocent people are dying everyday and no one can really give a good reason as to why that even is, that is if they can even remember. Lucky these people did not die howver they were just injured. But hat still does not leave an excuse. I must say that with the U.S. being in three wars alone I think its going to be a while before people can look back a realize how senseless things are today. I honest believe rthat when our grandchildren and their grandchildren look back on whats happening right now their all one going to have the same thing on going to think how terrible things are. We can not start to better anything if all we do is just repeat history.

[BC] My dreams and aspirations

            Every since I was can remember I have been extremely fasninated in the the human behavior. I guess most of my fasnination comes from the fact that I was the first born out of all of my siblings, I was the first child, niece, and grandchild. Therefore a part of my life I was surrounded by older people and since I could not relate to them, subconscious I started to observe their behavior and actions. Over time I began looking into personality disorders for fun. Just to see what disorder was what, what causes certain disorders, and what disorders you develope as appose to which ones you are born with that are caused by your genetic background, and each time I became more and more fasinated with the mind behavior of human beings.
           It was not until recently I decided to go into the medical field and become a psychiatrist. The idea came the tragic lost of my grandmother. Being one of the people I was the closes to, when she passed I went through I had an extremely hard time figuring out a way to cope. Considering how I am a person that holds negative emotions in, expressing my true feelings was not something I was every planning on considering. Over time things got even worse and without going into much detail, I went into a real dark place. Years went by before I decided to tell anyone that there was even I a problem and the scary thing was I became so good at hiding it that I could not even tell how bad things really had gotten. Finally my parents decided to take me to go see a psychologist and it was then I had realized that, that career was something I wanted to be apart of, however psychology was not something that was working. Sitting down and talking to someone does not help everyone, most people know what causes them to be upset and happy so talking to someone about does not truly help, just makes things annoying. However most people do want to get to the bottom of the situation and see why they react the way they do and that is were a psychiatrist comes in.
          Being a psychiatrist you actually get to diagnose someone and prescribe them medication. Not only that but you can also talk to them aswell. The reason why I chose being a psychiatrist because I feel as though those are the people that can help the most helpful and be the most productive with their clients. Another reason would be the fact that it seems as though it is a fasinating job that not to many people get bored doing. It is a lot of work to try to become a psychiatrist and some of it seems a bit intimidating, you never know I am young and might change my mind down the road but as of right this moment this professtion that is interesting me.

The many conspiracy theories of 9/11

When it comes down to the conspiracy theories for 9/11 I do not feel as though there is a right and wrong theory. Many people believe either it was controlled in other words "planned" and others believe that we were blind sided, then there are the people who are neutral to the attack in other words saying "you do not truly know the truth." I think that each theory makes a lot of good points in their own ways. This past week I heard quite a few debates talking about how it was planned. In my opinion I think everyone is entitled to their own thoughts, but how can you really be sure what is the truth.  I can say there is something about this unforunate event that took place that just is not sitting quite right with me. I just have a feeling that there might be a little more to the story that is not being told, but at the same time I could be feeling this way mainly because it happened when I was so young that I could not put an emotional attachment to the subject because I could not quite grasp what was fully going on and now to this day since it did happen so long ago that I still can not form an emotional attachment. Therefore I can understand both parts on the agrument, "was the U.S. in on it or were they not". Whether they were or not a terrorist attack is a scary thing to think about and an even scarier thing to witness, so can you truly get mad at the goverment if they are not telling us the complete truth. Basically saying since everyone is taking this so intensly without knowing the true answers, how are we going to take it with honest answers, I guess it is just another case on "can you handle the truth".

US probes 'credible 9/11 terror threat'

"We take all threat reporting very seriously," he said. "We continue to ask the public to remain vigilant as we head into the weekend."

I chose this quote because obiviously 9/11 is a very serious issue, however in my case its hard to take it as seriously as I know I should, mainly because it happened when I was so young that I could not make an emotional attachment to it and now that I'm older its still hard. Although I can say that it is an overall sad and scary thing to think about and to be constantly reminded of. For me I hate this time of the year mainly due to the fact this event is on a majority of every channel on T.V. It just seems like for the people who have lost love ones due to 9/11, you do not want to be reminded of the terrible thing that happened and have to constantly relive that every once a year everytime you turn on your T.V. especially when you just want to move on and for other people they might feel a different way. Now even though this threat has not been confirmed its still scary to think that something like this can happen again and it's even sadder to think that after ten years things still have not gotten better and nothing has not truly been resolve and has you question will any of this really ever end.

http://english.aljazeera.net/news/americas/2011/09/20119912227469397.html

US soldier 'mistakenly' killed BBC reporter

"Ahmed Omed's death further highlights the great dangers facing journalists who put their lives on the line to provide vital news from around the world."

This quote struck me the most due to the fact that lately I have been hearing a lot of stories about journalist traveling to other countries it not working out to well for them. To me I do not understand why journalist keep entering war zones or any other bad areas for that matter, I understand that it is the job to get the best stories, however at some point you have to know when to draw the line and decide which is more important, a story or your life? You can not really put to much blame on the solider either, even though it does not seem like the right thing to do and he did not truly think things through at the same time he was only doing what he was trained to do and that was killing any and everything that seems as though it could be a harmful threat which is proven when they wrote,  "Mr Khpulwak was shot by an ISAF member who believed he was an insurgent that posed a threat and was about to detonate a suicide vest improvised explosive device." To me it seems that when a journalist is killed people become angry because they feel as though the death of a journalist was not taken to an extreme as it could have been and putting the blame on whoever murdered them to be the bad guy, but at the same time can you truly get mad at someone who was just doing their job and it unfortunately resulting in an unfortunate outcome.

US soldier 'mistakenly' killed BBC reporter