Irish Immigration: The Potato Famine

Irish Immigration: The Potato Famine
As the potato famine worsens across the ocean in Ireland, an influx of Irish immigrants are coming to America. In our own New York, the numbers of Irish immigrants is reaching upwards to fifty~thousand, absorbing any unskilled work available. It has become, almost, a rite of passage of a young man in Ireland, to leave his family and scope out a new place for them in prosperous America. It leaves Americans at quite the disadvantage, with this surge of people and a shortage of housing. Cheap housing has become unattainable, and the conditions are unbearable. The Irish lodgings are in disrepair and in firm need of a cleanly woman.
Heading to the filthiest districts of our cities, especially in New York, NY and Boston, MA, they are bringing the credibility of our nation down with their bawdy behavior and catholic practices. In fact, their Catholicism is a threat to our democracy. It has many a man concerned that their pope will soon have more control over American affairs then our own president Polk.
Not only are the good citizens of New York concerned for our democracy but the safety of our communities and families. The Irish bring along with them not only their songs and traditions, but their drunkenness and immorality. It is unsafe for our women and children to roam the streets with their dirty children and laundry littering the streets. They are bringing pests and unsavory values to pollute our communities.
The famine has caused much turmoil and distress among the law abiding citizens of our community. The Irish are plaguing them in their need for money, yet they are still out of luck. If they give a job to an Irishman, other than unskilled hard labor, the job is quite unlikely to be finished appropriately. The famine worsens, the influx of Immigrants increases, there-fore leaving Americans to cope with the consequences and a shortage of quality workers. As soon as this famine ends, the better for all, although it is a rather widespread concern that our country, once polluted, will be forever tainted.

Another something I've written, it's in first person, I added a bit more recently just to make it a little more up-to-date, This Kind of stuff is really interesting to me so I hope you enjoyed it!

PSYCH!

OK, how many people actually get to do crazy experiments on people, not very many but I did! It actually was a lot of fun and the results were really surprising, out of all the classes we tested, about 20 people out of a 25 person class wouldn't notice a brand new student when they'd been in that class all year! here's some info on what we found, just in case you're interested. We also put some work in here on other researchers information that we used, I'll put a summary up.

Topic Introduction
We are going to study the idea that student are unfocused or not paying close attention to their classroom environment. The idea is that when students are “distracted” by something they are unlikely to notice any other changes in the environment. We are interested in studying this because we think it is something that could possibly affect a student learning abilities and how they perform in the classroom.
The population will be students in a class of different sizes and grades. The sample will not be random; it will be taken from specific classrooms, ones that are the most available for the schedule. Our hypothesis is that when students are presented with a “distraction” such as a new student or observer they will not notice another new student un-introduced in their midst. The Independent Variable is the whether or not the students noticed the new student. This will be measured by an interview or a survey. The Dependent Variable will be the grade level, the subject and whether or not there will be a “distraction”. This will be measured against the control group which will be a mixed grade-level class without a distraction. The experimental groups will be the ones with a distraction; the control group is the one without. Some possible extraneous variables might be the class size and who the teacher is.

Hypothesis: If two researchers went into the classroom and one acted as an observer and was announced at the beginning of class while the other pretended to be a student and blended into the class as a student. We assumed that the students would notice the observer, but not pay as much attention to the “student”

Sample: 10th Grade Social Studies students

Variables:
Dependent- researchers who came into the room
Independent- whether the students noticed them or not
Procedure Steps
STEP Œ- “student” researcher goes into class and finds an empty seat just like any of the other students
STEP - “observer” researcher goes to the front of the class and announces that they will be observing class today
STEP Ž- sit through a normal class period, with the teacher teaching normally and following normal plans.
STEP - at the end of the observation period; pass out surveys with measured answers to the questions that ask whether the students noticed any changes in their classroom.
STEP - pick up surveys, and de-brief students.

Components of Attention
The article, Components of Attention by Michael I. Posner and Stephan J. Boies talks about the division of attention into three components: alertness, selectivity and processing capacity. It starts off by explaining different senses of attention. The first one is the notation of alertness. Being able to maintain attention, in the sense of alertness, was the first test they did. This involved a human’s ability to perform in a long, boring task. They found out that giving the participants a warning ahead of time of the boring task they were about to partake in, they were able to stay more alert than those who didn’t get a warning. The second test they did was to test the ability to select information from one source or of one kind rather than another. In other words, they were testing the people’s selective attention ability. The third sense of attentions relates to the idea of a limited central processing capacity. They explain how its known that people have difficulty handling two different tasks and the same time, even when they wish to do so. This can interfere with attention and awareness in even a common environment, such a school.
This article relates to our experiment because we are testing children’s awareness in the classroom. It gives us information on different components of attention and goes into depth about how certain things affect our awareness. It talks a lot about how awareness is a large subject and there are many different things that can interfere with it. It’s not just one simple thing that can be detected or followed but instead, it is a wide idea. It gives us the idea that we need to be looking at other things such as selective attention, distractions, and stress levels that may change a person’s attention. Stress is a big factor in attention and awareness. If someone is stressed, they are less likely to be aware in a change in their environment. We will have to take this into consideration when performing our experiment. One big thing we learned was that when a person was warned ahead of time about a boring task they were about to partake in or about a change in their environment, they were more likely to pay attention and stay more alert. We will have to fit this into our experiment by telling some kids about our plan and then also keep some of them in the dark. This will give us a lot of different results; also it can help us determine the different types of awareness.

The Adaptability Test: A Fifteen Minute Mental Alertness Test for Use in Personnel Allocation
In the article, The Adaptability Test: A Fifteen Minute Mental Alertness
Test for Use in Personnel Allocation by Joseph Tiffin and C.H. Lawshe. Jr.,
we learned about this adaptability test that measured one’s mental adaptability or mental alertness. The test had a fifteen time limit and was useful in helping to place people. The test was used to place people in jobs that require rapid learning and/or development of independent judgment. It also helped locate the people who do not readily adapt to new situations but who would be satisfactory employees on simple jobs. The test consisted of one hundred and twenty test items. These were prepared so as to sample those types of items which have been used in mental ability tests. The participants had to choose different objects and depending on what they chose, they were placed into certain groups. Based off the items each chose, it showed what kind of attention they had. They did this test on the Marines and many other groups showing surprising results. People were placed in jobs based on their test results and showed more positive attitudes because they were more comfortable doing their new job.
This article relates to our experiment because it helps us learn that we do better in different environments based on our awareness and attention span. The results from the article showed that people with a short attention span did better in jobs that were repetitious. It was easier for them to learn things if they were short and repeated constantly. People with a wide attention span were able to partake in jobs that were more complicated and required the employee to learn different tasks constantly. Once we read this article and found out the results, we realized everyone is different and we will have to take that into consideration when performing our experiment. This article sort of went off base with what were going for but we did manage to pull some important information that we will have to be thinking about during our testing. It showed us different variables and different ideas that we didn’t think about before.

Using Acupressure to Modify Alertness in the Classroom: A Single-Blinded, Randomized, Cross-Over Trial
The article Using Acupressure to Modify Alertness in the Classroom by Richard E. Harris, Joanne Jetter, Paul Chan, and Peter Higgins was about the sudy aimed to determine whether two different acupressure treatments have opposing effects on alertness in a classroom setting. The experimenters gave the experimental group, a classroom of children, two different types of acupressure treatments. They hypothesized that the acupressure will help the children toward their alertness in the classroom. As the weeks went by, it turned out that the children who did receive one type of acupressure treatment did do considerably better in the classroom than those who received a different type. Not only did the experimenters look into acupressure as a cause to poor awareness in the classroom. They also noted that fatigue and hunger were also major factors in why the kids were not attentive. They came to realize that if a child’s basic needs were not fulfilled prior to entering the classroom, they were less likely to pay attention because they were preoccupied with hunger or fatigue.
We can apply the findings in this article to our own experiment by seeing which of the kids have had a goodnight’s sleep and which have had a good breakfast. If some have not fulfilled their body’s basic needs then we can already predict they will not do well in our alert and awareness experiment. This article provided some good information and some more ideas for us to consider while we perform our test. We will have to take a lot of our findings into mind as we design and perform our own awareness tests in the classroom.

The Restless Mind
This article called The Restless Mind by Jonathan Smallwood is about mind wandering. His hypothesis is that mind wandering does not occur intentionally but it does require executive permission to occur. Secondly it can only occur when the task is simple and does not require too many resources from the brain because mind wandering also requires resources. He has another theory that mind-wandering occurs because we have a list of goals in our mind of things we need to accomplish. This can lead to mind wandering because a new goal becomes available distracting us from our present goal. The researchers used two methods to measure the participant’s awareness: self-caught and probe-caught. Self-caught is when the participants stop in the middle of their thought process and examine how much they notice about their environment and about their thoughts, then they compare them with what they are supposed to be thinking or doing to examine how far off their mind had wandered. Probe-caught is when the researcher tries to examine what the participant had been thinking or what they were processing at the moment. The study studies participants mind wandering during reading. They would have participants begin to read a boring text then have them use self-caught methods to measure their awareness of their reading assignment. They also used probe-caught methods because it would be greater to ensure that participants are not distracted from their natural attention by trying to self-asses their thoughts.
This will relate to our study because it teaches us a lot about how we can assess our participants’ attention span during the study and it has taught us how to assess the reasons for their mind wandering. This can help us to alter the variables in our study to assess if these reasons are actually true in our study. Because it talks so in-depth about extraneous variables they encountered in their study so that we will be better able to avoid them and to account for them in our research. The biggest thing though that this experiment has provided for us though is that we will be better able to understand the reason for the mind wandering and will be able to use the different methods of examining the thought process.

Working Memory and Flexibility in Awareness and Attention
This article studies students awareness of the environment surrounding things. The students were tested by giving each one a test that had them read words relating to three categories: animals, body parts, and tools. Each category had a related color. The participants were then prompted to remember the words with the prompt for that category like ANIMALS? BODY PARTS? Or TOOLS? Either in a neutral color not related to a category, like black, or in the color relating to that category, or with a mismatched color. The hypothesis was that if they were prompted with a color relating to that category they would be better able to name the words. They were hoping that the color gave it a semantic meaning while the words themselves gave a concrete meaning. This was to test the participants’ awareness of their surroundings and their unconscious awareness of cognitive cues. It was also trying to test whether the colors relating to or non-relating to distracted the participants. The results to their first trial supported that when the participant was distracted they scored worse on their test.
This article relates to our experiment because it assesses students awareness when they are distracted and the availability of their working memory while performing tasks. It helps our experiment because it gives us ideas to test and how think about their distraction. Its slightly different than what we are trying to test but it has a similar idea to test the distraction of their working memory. This study can also help us to determine how we might test their awareness with a test similar to theirs. It might hinder our experiment a little bit because if we focus too much on this one it could distract us from the original idea we wanted to test. Secondly, this study could potentially enable us to better understand how we could distract our participants and how we could test that distraction.
Population, Sample, Procedure
Our population will be various high school classrooms with mixed groups of males and females. For our experiment we would like to test the differences between various age groups so we would like to study classes that have single age groups, then at least one class of each grade. This will give us sample of about one-hundred with four classes—one of freshmen, one of sophomores, one of juniors, and one of seniors. We would like to study how the different ages may notice things around them, like if a freshman is more aware of his/her surroundings of if a senior is more aware, or if there is no difference at all. We are also interested in studying the differences between males and females, then crossing those with the grades to test things, like if a sophomore male is more aware than a female junior.
The sample will not be random because not all classrooms will be available for our use and we do not have every period available. We also will need to select the grade which limits how many choices we have for classes. Once we have a couple of classes that meet our requirements, we will randomly select one to test.
Our experiment will be to test how students notice differences in their environment. We will do this by going into a classroom that we are not normally in and pretend to be just sitting in that class. We would find a seat and try to blend in by not appearing too outstanding, but also not trying to hide. We would like to see if people notice us, and we would like to test how people react. Another part of our experiment would be to have two people go into the classroom and have one person introduced as an observer in the class then have the next person just come in separately and sit in the class like they have always been there. We would do this to test if the “observer” distracted the students from the other observer, to see if they paid less attention. After the whole thing we would like the teacher to give out a paper survey and ask the students what differences they noticed in the classroom. We will then collect the data and analyze the results. We are also interested in testing people through verbal interviews and asking what they noticed, and what they thought or assumed.
The overall idea is to see how people react to a change in their environment and how aware they are of their surroundings. The idea is that we would like to know if being more or less aware of their surroundings could possibly affect the students learning. To test this we would like to add in one question from something that the student should have learned from the day that we sat in on their class and see if it has any correlation between their amount of awareness and how well they can answer the question.

Results

YES noticed: 5 (4 males 1 female)

NO didn’t notice: 10 (7male 3 females)

YES noticed things other than me: 8 (4 males 4 females)
Total: 15 males 8 females (23 students)

Looking at the results of our experiment, we found out that 18 out of 23 students did not notice when a new person was among them in the classroom. Of those 18, 8 did notice something was different when asked (usually something on the wall had changed or behaviors were different) but all failed to notice the new person. We noticed that some things may have interfered with the results of our experiment such as the fact that there were more boys in the classroom than girls and possibly even the fact that we tested on a Monday so people’s mood might differ. As we review our results, we can come to the conclusion that high school students, when in the working environment of the classroom, are not very aware of their environment.

Foreign Policy

In one of my classes we've been working on what we think would be the ideal foreign policy, which got me thinking- what would mine be? so here's a list of some of my things, then a little overview of what I think we should do. I'm normaly not a huge fan of this kind of stuff, but this has actually been pretty interesting.

• Critical places
  North/South Korea
  MIDDLE EAST (Iraq &
  Afghanistan/Pakistan)
  China
  Haiti
  Mexico
  Europe
  
  
  Security
  - N Korea (S Korea)
  - Mexico
  - Terrorism
  o Iraq
  o Afghanistan
  
  Economics
  o China
  
  Aid
  - Africa
  - Middle East
  - Sudan
  
  Diplomacy/Allies
  - Europe
  o United Nations
  § Great Britain
  § France
  § Germany
  § China
  o EU
  o NATO
  
  Intelligence
  - NIA, CIA, FBI
  o China
  o Russia
  o North Korea
  
  Nuclear Proliferation
  - North Korea
  - Libya
  - Russia
  

A little overview of it all:

My Foreign policy would be to protect the U.S.’s interests and safety in other countries around the world as well as to support humanitarian efforts in many countries. A few critical areas that I think are the most important are China, North and South Korea, the Middle East, Mexico, Europe, and Africa. Not only do these regions represent important economical allies for the U.S. but their well-being and peace would greatly affect the U.S., and some even pose a direct threat to the U.S. Its goal would be to stabilize countries in these regions to increase the U.S.’s standing in these nations. It would try to avoid the mistakes of previous policies by being to involved and making enemies because the US is too involved, but it would also try to avoid the mistake of remaining isolated and let the rest of the world fight around us and making us vulnerable to attack.
As for humanitarian efforts, this Foreign Policy would focus on impoverished countries and civil rights injustices. Our job would be to keep the US involved in these countries to ensure the safety of their people. This not only benefits the people living in these countries, but also helps to keep the peace in those regions which prevents civil and regional disputes and keeps the US out of more in-depth involvement. It also helps to ensure that the US has more peace and makes the country safer. Secondly, this program would not only look to adjust our relations with far away countries but to better secure our borders and to make sure that all immigrants to the United States are legal. Thirdly, this foreign policy would focus on removing terrorism from the Middle East, as well as other critical areas.

click here for more information on the US's foreign policy programs.

Urban Dictionary

Have you ever really thought about Urban Dictionary? its like the mainstream place to put people down or take out your frustration in a situation. Its actually pretty funny. Try it, go to urbandictionary.com right now and look up something, a name, a place, or just browse through for something in the index. its hilarious. People are just trying to "say something" but really its just saying- "this person made me really mad, so im going to make a definition about them." Now back to the significance of this finding.
I was thinking about this little bit of insight I had, but I wasn't planning on blogging on it, I mean its not really that noteworthy, but the more I thought about it, the more I thought that it kind of represents something larger. Everyone always talks about how the internet gives people so many more opportunities to be someone else, you know be bolder online than offline. I mean, we've heard it all, cyber-bullying, online predators, spam mail, the internet has opened up a whole new world, not only for good, but for bad. Now, I'm not saying anything against UrbanDictionary, I love UrbanDictionary. Its hillarious. Its the perfect place for inside jokes and even to look up crazy slang terms you've never heard of that aren't in the real dictionary, or that they don't have the meaning you know the speaker was trying to convey. Basically, UrbanDictionary rocks. Buuuuttt..... I think its important to point out to people, that although UrbanDictionary can't let you directly hurt others, Its just another reminder of all that we are capable of, good or bad.

So, here's my plug-of-the day: don't let a silly, bitter situation make you do something you would regret online. When you really think about it, it doesnt matter where you do it, online or off, you could be hurting someone or just letting your frustration come out in other ways, in any case, try to keep it nice.

To This...

This is the final draft of that Essay I posted earlier and I would like to think that its pretty good if I do say so myself.

Stem cells are a key component in the medical world these days. Many researchers believe that stem cells will be the most important factor in curing diseases within the next few decades. There are many different types of stem cells. One of the most common that most people know of would be embryonic stem cells. These are cells taken from a human embryo, and have the potential to form any sort of cell, such as a blood cell, a skin cell, or even a liver cell. Another type of cell would be an adult stem cell. These are cells that already have a function, like a skin cell, and can become more of the same cell. The last kind of stem cell would be a semi-pluripotent stem cell. These are cells taken from any place, usually from bone marrow, and they can be reverted to their original stem cell state and can then become any sort of cell (Saturday Evening Post 2010). Most researchers agree that there is the most use for semi-pluripotent stem cells because they are the easiest and cheapest to harvest as well as the least controversial.

Although many researchers believe that embryonic stem cells might have the best chance of becoming cures because they are more elastic, meaning they can be adjusted and manipulated with a better chance of not breaking, they also agree they could cause the most potential damage in other ways. For example, many people believe that embryonic stem cells could cause an exploitation of women, especially women in third world countries. In order to use stem cells you need a “second party” stem cell. It has to come from another source without the “disease” you have. This could cause people to “order” stem cells from another person, and could potentially lead women to be exploited for their eggs. Other risks concerning embryonic stem cells is that in order to harvest cells from a donor, they must be given hormones that cause them to produce a larger amount of eggs, this can also cause potentially dangerous side effects, and on occasion, fatal ones. A United Kingdom newspaper called “The Observer” wrote an article called The Cruel Cost of the Human Egg Trade which investigated occasions where women from Great Britain and even the US would travel to clinics in Russia or Ukraine to get eggs. In this particular case the eggs are used for infertile women to get pregnant, but many sociologists are concerned embryonic stem cells will only fluctuate this growing “egg trade”. You see, in the UK there are rules and regulations for donating eggs, regulations concerning the amount of hormones given to any one woman, and there can’t be any sort of monetary compensation for the eggs either. This can make human eggs few and far between causing them to be expensive and the waiting list to be about two years long. Because of this, many women travel to other countries to have cheaper and much more abundant eggs implanted, so there are no importation infringements and everybody’s happy right? Well maybe not. The women in Ukraine and Russia have the unique opportunity to be egg donors for heartbreaking reasons: they are white and poor. Most people agree these are not the best reasons to base a trade on. Most of these women are living on less than $15 dollars a month and are in desperate need of money. The clinics however often exploit these circumstances paying them based on the health of their eggs and how many they can produce, if they turn out to be a good donor, they get a bonus. Among the many problems with these circumstances is that the women are given no psychological compensation. Many of these women suffer from great psychological distress, they feel that they have given part of themselves away and are never given any mental support because of it (The Observer 2006).

Other common discredits for embryonic stem cells is simply the human risk of having your ovaries stimulated so you produce extra eggs. If you are given too much follicle stimulating hormone, or FSH, it can cause ovarian hyper-stimulation syndrome (OHSS). This can lead to dangerous, even fatal side effects.

Besides obvious physical side effects another problem with embryonic stem cells is that they cause such a debate over the ethics of them that many people think it’s just not worth it. In 2001 president Bush limited funding on stem cell research saying “While we must devote enormous energy to conquering disease, it is equally important that we pay attention to the moral concerns raised by the new frontier of human embryo stem cell research. Even the most noble ends do not justify any means” (Bush 2001). Because of this, embryonic stem cell research has been slow over the last few years, causing an increase in research on semi-pluripotent stem cells. Because of this, many researchers are beginning to have new appreciation for the benefits of semi-pluripotent stem cells and are losing some of their interest in embryonic stem cells. Although President Obama has lifted those funding limits, semi-pluripotent stem cells have remained in the forefront of stem cell research and researchers have surprisingly found some advantages. Not only are ethical concerns raised concerning embryonic stem cells because it destroys the embryo, but because one of the most common places to get embryonic cells is from aborted fetus’. This causes many people to be concerned with embryonic stem cells because they believe it will lead to more abortions as people might like to make money off of their aborted fetus’ and perhaps more of a political and scientific push to make abortion legal so stem cell clinics can get the cells legally.

For one thing, semi-pluripotent stem cells are cheaper than embryonic ones, because it cuts out the hormone injection process, then the actual removal of the eggs from the woman’s oavaries, whereas with semi-pluripotent stem cells, although they still must harvest the cells it is cheaper and easier to simply remove them from bone marrow the same way donors donate bone marrow for leukemia patients.

Although people may say that embryonic stem cells have more potential or we have more success cases with embryonic stem cells, they need to remember that semi-pluripotent stem cells have not been researched as long as embryonic stem cells. Really they were not even considered for a while until funding on embryonic cells was cut. Semi-pluripotent stem cells have their fair share of success cases too. In one study done by Northwestern University, a 52 year old woman with rheumatoid arthritis, which is an autoimmune disease that attacks you joints and is considered incurable, was injected with semi-pluripotent stem cells from her sister’s bone marrow into her own bone marrow and within a year was cured of her rheumatoid arthritis and was off all medications. She went through all of this with only minor complications (Arthritis & Rheumatism 2004).

Many people agree that embryonic stem cells may have some of their own advantages, but come along with their fair share of disadvantages as well. They can cause controversy, disease and even death. They induce and exploit the human body and fuel fires of debate many would rather do without. Although every person is entitled to their own opinion, I hope that many would agree that embryonic stem cells have their purpose, but one of them may not be to cure diseases however great that sounds. There are better and safer alternatives, alternatives I hope we continue to look into further.

From This...

Here's an essay I started to work on. This is the first draft (and yes I know its absolutely terrible and not very persuasive at ALL).

Stem cells are a key component to what will be the future, our future, of medicine. Often times we overlook the options they offer us in terms of a cure, but more and more often people are finding that their doctors may suggest Stem Cells (if only for a clinical trial). Although stem cells show a lot of promise they also hold their fair share of controversy. One of the most common would be the fact that many people believe that embryonic stem cells (cells taken from human embryos) are unethical, even murder because they destroy the embryo. On the other hand many people do not believe that it's unethical because the embryo is simply a cell without a brain or even nerves. Stem cell research suggests that embryonic stem cells have the best potential to be a cure althouh semi-pluripotent adult stem cells are also proving to be usefull and might be just as useful as ebryonic cells and also much easier to harvest as well as having much less controversy.
There are a few things that cause people to think negatively towards stem cells. One of the largest being religion, many believe that it is murder. With all the differing opinions on this topic its hard to decide which is the correct one. Not only does the conflict cause so many uproars in the religious community but in the political as well. Stem cells offer such a large possibility for medical research that could help so many people and treat thousands of diseases that the government is obviously interested in providing financial support. However because of the many differing oppinions and possible religious controversy it is difficult for them to make a decission.

Before you can make a decision on whether or not embryonic stem cells are ethical or not its important to understand how stem cells work. Stem cells are cells that don't have a specific purpose yet. When an embryo is formed it is made up of cells that can continuously divide until they form specific cells like a liver cell, then some skin cells, etc until a whole person is formed. These are embryonic cells, they are harvested directly from the embryo, the ethical drawback of this is that it destroys the embryo, however they can become any sort of cell. Adult stem cells are stem cells that are taken from any cell, like a skin cell, meaning they are much easier to harvest and have no controversy. The drawback with these is that they can't become anything, they can only become new skin cells. This is where semi-pluripotent adult stem cells come in. They are cells taken from any sort of cell, like a skin cell, but they can be reversed to their stem cell state, allowing them to become any sort of cell and they also don't harm anything. There is little research on them and they still have a long ways to go before they are ready to be used in a medical setting. In clinical trails they have been shown to work quite effectively. In one case in a 52 year old woman in a Northwestern University study she was cured of her Rheumatoid Arthritis when donated stem cells from her sister were injected into her bone marrow. The stem cells soon replaced her old cells that were producing rheumatoid arthritis blood cells and began to create healthy ones. After a year and a half she was off all of her old medication and was living a perfectly healthy normal life.

Embryonic stem cells can also be used for various uses and show great promise because they are so young and elastic. Some researchers believe that embryonic stem cells are better than even semi-pluripotent cells because they are younger, often times because semi-pluripotent cells are older they can become brittle after being manipulated so much. They also have much more possibilities because they have had extended research time where as semi-pluripotent cells are much newer and have had less time to be researched. For a brief time during president Bush's term in office he placed a limit on embryonic stem cell research on only new stem cell lines but continued it for already existing lines because he believed embryonic stem cells were unethical. Recently though, president Obama has lifted those funding limits.

Another facet to the stem cell debate is expenses. Depending on the kind of stem cell they can cause different expenses. Although the actual research financing is similar it costs various amounts of money, for example an embryonic stem cell requires that you have to remove the embryo and then extract the cells while removing a skin cell for an adult cell is quite simple. Then to make a semi-pluripotent stem cell it can cost more to return the adult cell to its stem cell state. Embryonic stem cells though have by far the highest cost, not only monetary but in health risks as well. In order to treat a disease that requires an embryonic stem cell you need to harvest an egg from a woman. In order to glean enough eggs from a woman she would need to undergo superovulation treatments that not only cost a lot of many but also put the woman at risk. It would cost a lot of money for the eggs and could potentially lead to poorer women being taken advantage of to harvest their eggs. This is only some of the costs incurred with in vitro fertilization. The other method for getting stem cells is from aborted fetus' which just adds a whole other ethical dimension to the problem.

As far as funding the research on embryonic stem cells it is not the private industries it is actually the government who is the major provider for it. Private industries have been mostly supporting adult stem cell research because it is cheaper, and has fewer risks and involves less people who could be possible harmed. This means that taxpayers are left supporting the bill for federally funded embryonic stem cell research when it might not even be that great of a research option.

This leaves us with the three types of sources that could potentially be used to get stem cells: embryos, bone marrow cells, and umbilical cord cells. The bone marrow cells are where the adult stem cells are most commonly taken from, and the cord cells are some what of a cross between the two. The drawback of adult stem cells taken from bone marrow is that there is a slight risk to the donor during the bone marrow removal process and there is a chance of diseases being transfered from donor to recipient, as well as there is the possibility that they might not be able to become any sort of tissue. Cord cells have proved to be quite elastic and have proven to become many types of tissue and there is hope that they will be able to become any sort of cell. They are also simple to harvest and there is no danger to the donor and there have been few cases of diseases being transfered. Out of the clinical trials with cord blood, there is a seventy percent survival rate among adult patients. The results on children are even better, more than eighty percent of child patients have been successfully treated with cord cells.

Overall, the scientific and moral research all seem to point to the fact that, while the ethical dilemma presented by embryonic stem cells may be based purely on opinion, the scientific and cost efficiency of using other sources other than embryos seems to be the most practical step forward. Embryonic stem cells cause an uproar in the religious community among others as well simply because there is no way to be sure that it is ethical to harm an embryo. Cord blood has proven to be an effective and ethical, as well as financially feasible source for stem cells and should be encouraged to expand its research in the future.

Google VOICE ?

Google- the information highway- it has even become a verb: to search for something on the Google search engine (and yes that was from a dictionary). It is used for everything. I bet half of you don’t even know how much you use Google. You like YouTube? That’s owned by Google. Do you have e-mail? I bet it’s gmail (owned by Google). And think of all the nifty things Google has that you don’t use like notebook, or Google health- even this blog is owned by Google. So basically what I'm trying to say is that everything is owned by Google. However, it has all come into a new world with Google's next little invention- GOOGLE VOICE. Basically, Google voice is tight. It takes phones to a whole new level. It’s free, here’s what you do: you sign up; Google gives you a "Google number". This is a phone number you can use through Google. Then to that number you put all your phone numbers in that account. Then when contacts from certain groups call you have certain phones ring, or all your phones. So if your friend calls it just goes to your cell. If you mom calls it goes to your home, cell, and work phone. If you boss calls it just goes to your work phone, and if its that really annoying cousin it just goes straight to your voicemail- because oh yeah, you check that online now from all your phones instead of checking each one individually. You also have the option of having them all converted to text so you just read them, or have them sent to your email so you know you get them. I know this is all pretty cool, almost too much to take (or believe for that matter) so here's a link you can check out for yourself.

Just a little disclaimer- don't say I didn't warn in you in 2020 or whatever that Google is going to take over the world, they control everything, everything that we see and hear and now even our phones. But hey, sometimes you just have to take a risk :)

IPads, kindles, nooks and other confusing objects

The new phase of electronic book reading has really begun to hit the market. It seems like every couple months some company comes out with some sort of new electronic book reader. Let me see If I can list them off:

The Kindle

The nook

The iPad

The SONY eReader

Kindle

So kindles are like the original of eReaders, in fact they are really the most common one, if people say they have an eReader it is probably a Kindle. They are pretty cool. They have a simple user interface and can be used for long periods of time with a large clear screen display. They also have a really neat feature that most other eReaders don't have : their text to speech function which can turn some books into audio books.

nook

Nooks are cool. They have a touch screen :) no really the nooks are pretty neat because they have the scroll through function that allows you to literally flip through you library based on its cover. To many die hard eBook readers seems frivolous, but to us cool techy people who just want to play with a new gadget, its pretty dang cool. Future versions might also come with 3G coverage plans which could be an advantage, or not- but at least you can choose.

iPad

Now for the true techy geeky person these are cool. Like really cool. They are like giant iTouches but more. I know, hard to believe. It can really do anything. Its like a mini laptop but all touch screen, and more portable. Of course it doesn't have a CD ROM drive, but its not supposed to, its an eReader isn't it? it is but it isn't. It was advertised as apples version of eReader, but it also has the capability to do so much more. A few drawbacks could be that it doesnt have flash, but hey, its apple. Also, future versions will require a contract with AT&T for $15 bucks a month for 3G coverage, but for some that could be a plus, no more searching for wi-fi hotspots. (However it would be nice to have a choice, unfortunately Apples not strong in the freedom of choice department).

SONY eReader

The SONY eReader is nice for cheapies. not a bad choice, it can do a lot of things, kind of the generic of eReaders. Unfortunately its not very compatible with mainstream companies, but it is cheaper than most and it has some pretty nice features and a lot of different models which is nice- you can pick regular size, touch screen, or pocket size. You can also pick a color, like silver black or pink.

Summer Lovin'

• I love summer. Simple fact of life. Summer is the best part of the year. Here are some reasons I love summer:

1. Its warm/hot

2. Its sunny

3. There are a lot of thunderstorms

4. no school (I don't care if you're in college or not, people have more time in the summer in general)

5. people are happier in the summer

6. I can feel young and irresponsible (always a plus)

7. vacation

8. shorter nights

9. more things to do

10. always looking forward to the next snowfall in the holiday season

Now you'd think this would be enough to convince any person that summer is of course the best month but in case you're still in doubt let me help you settle that. There are some things you should know about summer. Either you love it or you hate it. I have never met anyone in the whole entire world who dislikes summer. Never. Not once, and probably not ever. Who could hate summer, I mean really. Think of all the fun things you can do in the summer, you can go on bike rides, and you can go to the swimming pool. You can have bon fires and you could even set up an outdoor movie theater. You can have picnics and build sand castles and no one can stop you from simply enjoying the outdoors.

Now I never really did think any one disliked summer, but I was thinking about all this earlier and I decided that it was so exciting that I just had to write about it. I'm so ready for summer, everyone just wants to have fun and summer is the best time of the year to do it!

summer lovin' had me a blast

summer lovin' happened so fast

I met a girl crazy for me

met a boy cute as can be

summer days driftin' away to - uh oh those summer nights

Kittens

This week my family found a baby kitten in our yard, who knows were it came from but it was there and so dutifully we took it in. Unfourtunately it didnt last the weekend but while we were taking care of it I wish I would have had more information on how to take care of an infant kitten. They are very difficult because they have little abillity to do anything for themselves. Perhaps the biggest mistake we made was that they can not digest cows milk. When we first got him that was all we had so we were kind of forced to feed it what we had. The last day we had it I learned of this and began to feed it kitten formula but I think it was too late.

Another helpful bit of information would be how to keep it warm. I understood that we needed to help keep it warm but I wasnt exactly sure that they didnt generate any of there own body heat. What I found worked really well was a heating pad you placed under neat the kittens "bed" or whatever you keep him in and he should stay pretty warm.

So basically, heres what you should know if you are trying to raise an orphan kitten:

KEEP IT WARM!!! use a heating pad or a hot water bottle or something constantly warm that the kitten can snuggle on/with.

DON'T FEED IT COW MILK!!! cats cannot digest the lactose in cow milk so it is absolutely neccessary to get formula, like at wal-mart, although I've heard goat milk works well too.

If its meow-ing that means it probably needs something. When the kitten is satisfied it stays quiet and sleeps, like any other infant the perfect routine allows it to simply eat and sleep.

The kitten needs help to eliminate waste. Gross I know, but I wish I would have known this or maybe he wouldn't have died.

France

• I'm thinking about starting a series on different places to travel, to go a long with my little spring break theme of how to travel well, so to take a break from thinking about my very strenuous job of filling out the rest of my list, I will babble a little bit about France. I chose France because I'm in french, and a lot of the people in my class are going on the class trip to France so, I will discuss this country for a while.
  
  

Ah Paris! the city of lights and love; what more could you ask for? A lot. You can't just go somewhere and expect the place, even a famous place like Paris, to entertain you. You must use the city, take everything it has to offer then ask for more. However cheesy and philosophical this may sound, its true.

I recently went on a trip to Paris (France in general) and had a blast! it was great, the food was fantastic, the people friendly, the walking- terrible, but worth it. I really enjoyed the whole atmosphere of France, it was very inviting, although sometimes very intimidating as well. One time, my friend and I were ordering our food in french and the waiter straight up told my friend, "speak in English, your French is terrible." We laughed so hard, although like I said, the people can be very intimidating although they are nice.

There are a few places that, if you go to France, you must go to. Thats just how it is, you need to see them, like think how dissapointing if you went toi france and came back and there were a few places that you hadn't been, like the Eiffel tower. So the list is..... :

The Eiffel Tower

L'Arc de Triumph

Notre Dame

Sacre Coeur

Le Louvre

Palais de Popes

Monaco (a principality outside of france)

So dont forget, if your making a trip to France anytime soon, please dont leave out any of these wonderfull monuments, not only because you have to keep up your reputation, you have to maintain some credibility and these are some of the most fabulous places you will ever go, They are perfectly fabulous and beautiful.

The Art of Travel

Traveling is one of, what I consider, the great American arts. Everyone goes somewhere- at least its a lot more common here than it is in many other nations. We see it every year, spring break comes around and everyone says "yeah I'm going to Florida" or Mexico or the Bahamas or somewhere. It seems that everyone wants to go somewhere and most people do- so as spring break is just around the corner, I'm going to talk about travel, not just where to go and what to do, but how to travel and travel well.

1. The first step in traveling is Packing. Wherever you go everyone needs to pack so that your prepared for every adventure, but you still need to be able to fit all that stuff in a suitcase and then fit that suitcase in a plane, train or automobile! Hence, packing would be the first step.

In order to pack efficiently you need lists. For me that starts with everything. I like to set up the lists in cattegories like "pre-trip" "essentials" "clothes" etc... and then within those categories you add all the things you will need. Now, lists are not required and for many people and for most of my own life I got by just fine with out a list, but let me tell you, the minute I switched over my life got that much easier. For some people checking up online is also helpful. There are many sites that will create a general packing list based on gender, how your getting there, and even the size of your suitcase. This is helpful to keep your packing to a minimum and to make sure you don't forget anything. Heres a great site I found.

2. Shoes: need I say more? shoes are an essential no matter what which is why put them in their own category, they have a sort of trancence, being that they are so key to wherever you go. No matter where you're going you will want a good pair of walking shoes. I don't care if your going to Vegas, you might be partying it up with stillettos at night, but hey, what about during the day? who knows if you'll want to go on a hike to see the Navada Desert. I have yet to be able to find a cheap, comfortable pair of walking shoes that don't look absolutely hideous. I mean, you see some of those shoes that people say are not really that bad, but I'll be the first to admit- I want my shoes to look good, I don't want just so so shoes I want HOT shoes that stand out and, sadly enough I have yet to find those dream shoes, so If you find any, PLEASE!! please!! let me know...

The rest of the list? well I'm still working on that, I know there will be a little more about how to pack and how to actually do the traveling part, you know when your actually on the plane...

Family

Quietly, slowly, it comes on sneakily in a way that we can't hardly even tell if its really happening. What am I talking about? Peace. Its something that we often take for granted because often it can be over in a blink of an eye. I think often when we think of peace we don't realize what it is. Peace can come in so many different packages. It can be a quiet evening at home, or just a few moments to yourself. Often times I don't think we notice it until its over. Thats basically what happened to me tonight. I often look forward to Sunday evenings because it is my evening of peace. Almost everyones gone so its usually an evening of quietness, not entirely to myself, but very close and I enjoy that- then the rest of the family comes home and, well I realize what I've lost.

This is family. A crazy mix of quiet an crazy never quite leaving you alone for more than a second. Mothers for example- they want to know everything. They question and sometimes nag and sometimes you just wish that they would leave you alone, but then again. what would the world do without mothers? Thats the key I think, it's tough to know when its ok and when its not. Often I feel like my family is bearing down on you- more than you want to deal with. Its so tough to describe or explain things to your inquisitive family when you can hardly explain things to yourself in your own mind. But then again, often times thats what it takes to straighten things out in your mind, someone who wont put up with a B.S. answer and really pushes you to discover the real thing.

So I guess that no matter what family is something we have for a reason. Without them we may feel temporary peace, but often we don't understand the real peace, because real peace is knowing that no matter how tough or crazy or unsure your life may be, you will always have someone to always keep you on the ground.

International Women's Day

March 8th marks the date of International Women's Day, which is celebrated around the world and in some countries is marked as a national holiday.

I think womens rights, especially throughout history is really interesting so, thats one reason I decided to blog about that today. It was first proposed by Clara Zetkin at the second International Conference of Working women in 1910. It started the next year. It was a huge success and as governements began to recognize the holiday, it has remained a large part of the world today.

Today, IWD is marked by speeches and meetings to celebrate the strides made by women all around the world. It is usually marked by a theme every year which can vary depending on the country or region. This year, the theme of the United Nations is Equal Rights, equal opportunities: Progress for All. The UN has also recently started their campaign UNiTE to end violence among women. The idea is that though women in most developing countries support and feed the family they have little politica and social representation and opportunities.

President and Mrs Obama addressed IWD to disscuss the progress of women all over the world throughout history. As the president spoke to encourage women around the world and commend the women who helped to make those great strides, he still recognized some of the gender inequality that still exists and pledged to help support the advancement of the equality of women.

Overall, I feel that the strides we have made as women are significant, and the strides we will make are also significant. We simply must remember no to feel superior, that we are a part of the future-- not the ruler. I think often as women we feel that we have been supressed so long that we now deserve to be superior, although when you think about it, the more powerful we get the more we become like men-- the ones we used to criticize.

BOReD WiTH NOTHiNG TO DO

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Do you ever get that?? you have no idea what to say so you just roll your fingers accross the keyboard? well, thats what that was.

This past week has been, well interesting. for the most part it was a fairly boring week. Studying for finals, taking the finals, then getting a three-day weekend, well that was pretty nice, but still boring. This seems to illustrate my point- life can be boring, at least right now it is mostly for three reasons: One, its march, kind of springy but still kind of cold and lifeless. Two, school. need I say more? Three, well, nothing new and exciting is happening. Life seems to take those turns, the ones where you sit quietly and wait for something new to come into your life. The title of this post is from one of my favorite books as a child. It was about two boys, who over summer vacation got bored, and their mother told them they should go outside and do something, something useful like she did when she was young. They decide that they want to fly an airplane, so they find a book and make an airplane out of odds and ends around the house. They take the wheels off the grill and the baby carriage, they use lawn chairs for seats and fence posts for wood and bed sheets to cover the whole thing. It makes me laugh to think about all those extremes but looking back now I think that even I could be persuaded to make an airplane.

I guess my point is that sometimes, life just seems to be on auto-pilot. You're simply biding your time until something important comes along. For me it seems that I must wait until, well a long time. Summer vacation is aways away, I still have quite a while before applying to colleges it seems, and the rest of my high school career has been carefully planned and supervised so I'm simply floating through life right now.

I feel that its important to tell you that its not like I feel that my life is useless, on the contrary I believe there is a special purpose on my life, on everyones life- it just seems that sometimes we can get carried away with feeling like theres too little to do, and right now I feel the same way. I feel that its just a quiet time in my life, which most people would be grateful for, but let me tell you, I'm ready for some excitement!

So let me encourage you, one and all, keep your chin up and keep pluggin' away! At the beginning of this blog even I felt like I was so bored I would fall asleep right then, but now? well now I feel like looking for some excitement! Who knows what I'll have to say next time?

So I guess I just have to say that this is quite an amazing song and I am beginning to really like it- because of this I have decided to put up a little post about it.

It doesn't really follow any of his other styles of songs, a little more modern, and less of his classical Frank Sinatra style.

Here are the lyrics-

I'm Not Surprised
Not Everything Lasts
Have Broken My Heart So Many Times,
I Stopped Keepin Track.
Talk Myself In
I Talk Myself Out
I Get All Worked Up
Then I Let Myself Down.

I Tried So Very Hard Not To Lose It
I Came Up With A Million Excuses
I Thought I Thought Of Every Possibility

And I Now Someday That It'll All Turn Out
You'll Make Me Work So We Can Work To Work It Out
And I Promise You Kid That I'll Give So Much More Than I Get
I Just Haven't Met You Yet

Mmmmm ....

I Might Have To Wait
I'll Never Give Up
I Guess It's Half Time
And The Other Half's Luck
Wherever You Are
Whenever It's Right
You Come Out Of Nowhere And Into My Life

And I Know That We Can Be So Amazing
And Baby Your Love Is Gonna Change Me
And Now I Can See Every Possibility

Hmmmmm ......

And Somehow I Know That Will All Turn Out
And You'll Make Me Work So We Can Work To Work It Out
And I Promise You Kid I'll Give So Much More Than I Get
I Just Haven't Met You Yet

They Say All's Fair
And In Love And War
But I Won't Need To Fight It
We'll Get It By It ??
To Be United

And I Know That We Can Be So Amazing
And Being In Your Life Is Gonna Change Me
And Now I Can See Every Single Possibility

Hmmm .....

And Someday I Know It'll All Turn Out
And I'll Work To Work It Out
Promise You Kid I'll Give More Than I Get
Than I Get Than I Get han I Get

Oh You Know It Will All Turn Out
And You'll Make Me Work So We Can Work To Work It Out
And I Promise You Kid To Give So Much More Than I Get
Yeah I Just Haven't Met You Yet

I Just Haven't Met You Yet
Oh Promise You Kid
To Give So Much More Than I Get

I Said Love Love Love Love Love Love Love .....
I Just Haven't Met You Yet
Love Love Love .....

I Just Haven't Met You Yet

Back2basics

People today have considerably limited their concerns down to a few basics. Not necessarily in politics, but just their general worries for their future. Here’s what I’d say they are: money, education, and healthcare. I have to say though the underlying theme is definitely money. Think about it, you need money for your education, you need money for healthcare. This may be no new revelation, actually it shouldn’t, but it seems to be becoming more evident in my life so it tends to be on mind. First off – MONEY.
Money is something everybody needs, especially people like me. Some people (like me) never have enough to go around. Now it may seem like I'm complaining, but please, young people never have enough, and more things just keep getting added to my schedule and my to-do list. Things like new music to learn, colleges to check out, money to make, keeping track of volunteer hours (where/ when), school activities, church activities, internships, homework, and chores. This doesn’t even include friends, school, parents, and sleep (which keeps getting pushed back, narrowed down, and skipped every now and then).

EDUCATION.
Education has always been a big deal, at least in the last few centuries J. For the most part I have to say that education is a big concern for me as well as most other people getting ready for college. I have to say though, as a nation, one that’s known for making education available to all, we haven’t really been doing so great on that lately. It seems like school has become something that is put on the back burner, that we have to cut the budget and pinch and scrape, when shouldn’t school be the last thing we want to cut?

HEALTHCARE.

Healthcare is another huge issue. Everyone is worried they won’t be taken care of when they need it. Its all understandable, but I'm happy that people are able to understand it’s all in steps and I really don’t think we are capable of supporting a national healthcare plan.

physically digital

MIT has started to design an interactive "wearable" computer called the "sixth sense". Basically they are saying that although humans have five senses to take in information but often use outside sources to interpret that information, like the internet. So, MIT has developed something that can connect the physical world with the digital world. Although watching the video and looking at the pictures may make you laugh at the antics required to use this computer, you must remember that any good piece of technology has to go through a lot of phases to really become the best it can be and for it to be feasable. I'm really excited about this personally, I think that it will be really interesting to see where this goes in the future and to see if it is really a sell-able device. I think anyone would want the capabilities it has, I know I would, the price isnt even bad as of now, only $350 worth of equpitment, but I think that no one wants to walk around with a webcam clipped to their visor, and a projector hanging around their neck, and colored caps on their finger tips, but all in good time. Eventually I think they are thinking about having it condensed into some sort of wrist device or a much smaller and much more discreet pendant or something- which if it ever gets this far, I'm sure I will become one of the household consumers who will want to know everything about everything at the touch of, well, anything.

A few drawbacks... ? well, after reading through a couple of comments and scrolling through many blogs, I've found that well, most people dont want other people knowing what they know about knowing things. As crazy as that sounds, I understand. For example (if you watch some of the vids) If i pick up a book and the rating is automatically projected on to the book, then flip some pages and get some info about the author and a summary, I dont want someone leaning over my should trying to listen in on my earbuds, or reading my summary, I'd like that to be nine and mine only, if they don't want to buy the device then dont. Another thing may be, that, at this point they are using an internet capable phone to get the info off the internet, and who knows how reliable that is. Also, soon the phone companies wiill be trying to get a little piece out of this, and what about people like me who are too cheap to get internet on their phone?

Overall though, I think that finished version of this device would be sick! it would be totally awsome (exucuse the cliche) but I would probably flip. If they can figure out some way of making it more private, I would be all over it.

The loss of the Massachusetts senate race has been quite a blow to the Democratic Party this week, specifically to the Health Care plan, which will most likely not be passed any time soon. So as time goes on we are noticing a huge sort of drop, at least that’s what it feels like to me. President Obama has a new advisor it seems, one who is thought to be the best political minds in the country as of now. President Obama has recently asked David Plouffe to come back and help re-strategize the Democratic Party. They are needing help to get Democrats voted into office. David Plouffe is all for pushing on with the democratic agenda, especially trying to get the health care plan passed. I watched a video on ABC about what they were calling the "Scott Brown" affect. People who have never run for political office before are seeing this as an opportunity to get their voice heard, especially republicans. People who might not have tried are going for it- they all want to get in. Personally, I think this is great. We are getting fresh faces, people we've never seen before, people with no family connections or party agendas, they just want to get what they think should be done, done.

Secondly, I think that it is interesting that Obama's administration needs help right now. I think that throughout his whole election and his term so far, he has help up an aura of confidence and assurance, but now? I think that he is realizing that something has to be done, that this country needs more than just a new health care plan, they need someone who will answer they're questions and not try to take over. So to end this little rant, I have to say that although things might be getting a little sticky, I think things have taken a turn for the better. People are starting to know more clearly what they want and they're less afraid out get it out there.

later...

later, always later. Everything we do, we always wait for later, at least for me that’s how it is. I can never seem to get things done on time, it’s always put off until the last minute, I'm always trying to figure out how to get more time to get things done because I am always waiting till the last minute. Now, most of us who procrastinate do not think about it that much, or if you’re like me you always say to yourself "Gosh, why do I always put things off?!" but still do nothing about it. Now, the more I'm thinking about it the more I am wondering why? why am I so inconsistent and always putting things off? Looking for an answer I simply typed in my Google search query: “procrastination”, scrolled through the answering results and voila! There’s my answer. I found an essay published in 1995 by John Perry. His essay addresses the essence of my own procrastination problem, and yes I consider it a problem. I procrastinate severely, much to my own detriment. For example, this past week I kept telling myself blog! blog! blog! and then I would say back to myself later! later! later! It seems that no matter what I can never get things done. I wish that through it all I was perfect. I really wish that I didn’t have to worry about messing up, but of course, don’t we all.

My favorite part of this essay??

“You have to get in the habit of forcing yourself to analyze, at the time you accept a task, to consider the costs and befits of doing a less than perfect job. You need to ask the questions: how useful would a perfect job be here? How much more useful than a merely adequate job? Or even a half-assed job? And you need to ask the questions: what is the probability that I will really do anything like a remotely perfect job on this? And you need to ask: what difference will it make to me, whether I do or not?”

This is exactly me- I don’t think I could sum it up better. When I get a task I ask myself these questions and plan accordingly… If I could give any advice to my fellow procrastinators it would be, never put something off until the last day, do it the second to last day. This has been my way of never fully procrastinating.

take 2!

I have a new edit on that essay I last posted- I'm working on making it more personal in a way, but having a time of it for now. I cant quite figure out how to make it flow quite right.

1 Dreams- big or small, old or new, fragile yet resilient; dreams are the thing shared by all of humanity. Everyone has dreams. It doesn’t matter your religion, your ethnicity or your culture. Dreams are something that can bring people together or tear them apart. They change and molt into different things as time goes on. You can create them, or they can be formed for you- created for you to fill out, or fill in the blanks. It is an ever-going balance between the ones you want and the ones you are ready to discard. It is a process requiring a practiced hand- knowing when to throw a dream out or tuck it away.
2 ‘Dream’ is a fairly broad term. We use it for anything that seems far off or distant and illusional, yet it connotates something totally different. It refers to a sweet, beautiful and desired thing but we apply it to practically anything. It can mean what we traditionally refer to as dreams- the stories played out in our heads as we sleep. Or it can mean the goals we have for our future, what we aim to accomplish in our lives. When I began to write this essay, I was not really sure what I was going to write about, I just felt the need to write about this- like it was something that means so much to people that I needed to write this. I was thinking about dreams and thought why do we have them? Why do we need to dream? I was thinking about this and I decided that, we dream because we can, because we exist. It is a part of being. What would it be like if we could not dream? What would we do if no one dreamed of becoming a star athlete, or a child never dreamed of becoming the president or a teacher? What would we do if we never had dreams of children and a family? Kids who would take after you and do something great in the world? I have no idea and I do not think I would even want to know. Without dreams we would not be. It has often been said that America was built on dreams. It is the land of dreams, built to live out The American Dream. As Americans we, of all people, should know about dreams.
3 The first thing I have noticed about dreams is that they often follow a pattern or a mold. For example we’ll take the classic Cinderella dream. Rags to riches. The despised outcast who for some reason catches the attention of a desirable “prince” (really anything) it is what all little girls dream of, and it follows everyone for their entire life. We all feel unfairly treated, that someday the worlds going to sit up and notice what they have been missing out on all this time.
4 Another classic is the American Dream. This is the dream practically every person in the world has. It is why people immigrate to America. They come to live in the land flowing with milk and honey. They want to be where they can raise a family and make a lot of money- enough to begin to help others. The modest dream where you can live in a nice house with two point five perfect children. Where you can play baseball in the back yard and take you daughter to ballet lessons. All of this, encompassed in a basic dream everyone wants to make a reality.
5 And that brings me to my next point… reality. We dream because we live in a realistic world. All our dreams are different than what we currently have. If we have a 32 inch TV, we dream of owning a 42 inch TV. Of course this is a pretty base example, but it gets the point across. We dream most often when we are unhappy. Think of the poor immigrant living in the slums of a third world country- they want to come to America to live out their American dream because they are unhappy with their circumstances, and who would not be? That is where there is a fine line. There is a huge difference between the TV and the slum. But what about all the in-betweens? I think that there are dreams because at some point we have to escape reality, but what about when we need to come back? That is where a lot of people are stuck, I believe. We don’t know how to live with what we have and what we are doing. If only, if only… Here is the line between dreaming and wishing- dreaming is when we dream of a better future, a better quality of life. It’s a healthy vision of your purpose. Wishing is when we can only think of what we want, what we have to have to make up happy, like the person wishing for a 42 inch TV.
6 As for my dreams? I’m not really sure. Dreams are distant, not always relevant or easy, they’re often something we can’t every put into words. I think that’s how mine are. I can’t just tell you, not because I don’t want to but because it’s not the same. Dreams are something you have to experience, you can’t just tell them. Mine are just little thoughts floating around in my head, nothing elaborate, but they’re not plain either, they have my markings all over them, yet they have a feel like something I can’t really explain, something that’s not really from me but part of me all the same.
7 The thing about dreams is that they are what we live on. They are more important than food or water or shelter- they serve a totally different purpose. They feed the soul. We need dreams as much as we need to breathe; it is part of being human. And so here is what I have to say: Dreamers keep dreaming, and wishers quit wishing- start living your life like it’s the end and all you can do is chase after what really matters.

The thing about dreams...

Dreams- big or small, old or new, fragile yet resilient; dreams are the thing shared by all of humanity. Everyone has dreams. It doesn’t matter your religion, your ethnicity or your culture. Dreams are something that can bring people together or tear them apart. They change and molt into different things as time goes on. You can create them, or they can be formed for you- created for you to fill out, or fill in the blanks. It is an ever-going balance between the ones you want and the ones you are ready to discard. It is a process requiring a practiced hand- knowing when to throw a dream out or tuck it away.

‘Dream’ is a fairly broad term. We use it for anything that seems far off or distant and illusional, yet it connotates something totally different. It refers to a sweet, beautiful and desired thing but we apply it to practically anything. It can mean what we traditionally refer to as dreams- the stories played out in our heads as we sleep. Or it can mean the goals we have for our future, what we aim to accomplish in our lives. When I began to write this essay, I was not really sure what I was going to write about, I just felt the need to write about this- like it was something that means so much to people that I needed to write this. And so I began. I think that through this I have begun to learn about dreams, what they really are, and why we have them. Why do we have them? Why do we need to dream? I was thinking about this and I decided that, we dream because we can, because we exist. It is a part of being. What would it be like if we could not dream? What would we do if no one dreamed of becoming a star athlete, or a child never dreamed of becoming the president or a teacher? What would we do if we never had dreams of children and a family? Kids who would take after you and do something great in the world? Really, I have no idea and I do not think I would even want to know. Without dreams we would not be. It has often been said that America was built on dreams. It is the land of dreams- built to live out The American Dream. As Americans we, of all people, should know about dreams.

The first thing I have noticed about dreams is that they often follow a pattern or a mold. For example we’ll take the classic Cinderella dream. Rags to riches. The despised outcast who for some reason catches the attention of a desirable “prince”- really anything, it is what all little girls dream of, and it follows everyone for their entire life. We all feel unfairly treated, that someday the worlds going to sit up and notice what they have been missing out on all this time. Another classic is the American Dream. This is the dream practically every person in the world has. It is why people immigrate to America. They come to live in the land flowing with milk and honey. They want to be where they can raise a family and make a lot of money- enough to begin to help others. The modest dream where you can live in a nice house with two perfect children. Where you can play baseball in the back yard and take you daughter to ballet lessons. All of this, encompassed in a basic dream everyone wants to make a reality.

And that brings me to my next point… reality. We dream because we live in a realistic world. All our dreams are different than what we currently have. If we have a 32 inch TV, we dream of owning a 42 inch TV. Of course this is a pretty base example, but it gets the point across- we dream most often when we are unhappy. Think of the poor immigrant living in the slums of a third world country- they want to come to America to live out their American dream because they are unhappy with their circumstances, and who would not be? That is where there is a fine line. There is a huge difference between the TV and the slum. But what about all the in-betweens? I think that there are dreams because at some point we have to escape reality, but what about when we need to come back? That is where a lot of people are stuck, I believe. We don’t know how to live with what we have and what we are doing. If only, if only… Here is the line between dreaming and wishing- dreaming is when we dream of a better future, a better quality of life. It’s a healthy vision of your purpose. Wishing is when we can only think of what we want, what we have to have to make up happy.

The thing about dreams is that they are what we live on. They are more important than food or water or shelter- they serve a totally different purpose. They feed the soul. We need dreams as much as we need to breathe; it is part of being human. And so here is what I have to say: Dreamers keep dreaming, and wishers quit wishing- start living your life like it’s the end and all you can do is chase after what really matters.