Super Stuff

Reflection

2009-05-27T05:45:00.000-07:00

When I first learned that we were going to be blogging I thought that it was going to be pretty tight but I was concerned with what I was going to write about, mostly because the parts of my life that I would want to talk about would be boring and the other parts too inappropriate to write about. It was initially a thing where I didn't really want to open up about some parts of my life and then eventually my posts just became pretty much random and were about whatever I wanted to talk about at that time. This sort of theme has been seen in almost of all journals I have kept in the past and also in the writing notebooks at the beginning of the year so I do not believe it is the blogging that has inspired this sort of random talking about my life.

I tried initially to stick to a marching band and Tae Kwon Do theme but those didn't fit very well with my blog, after marching band was over all I could do was reflect on it, and there wasn't enough stuff that was interesting with my Tae Kwon Do life at that point. I got bored of writing about those, so I changed my blog name and started writing about super heroes which in turn got really boring. Watching comic is a big hobby of mine but talking about them, it turns out, is not. So it very quickly evolved into a random events blog, though I did start talking about Tae Kwon Do a lot more.

I don't know that I'm really happy with any of my posts, but I am satisfied with most of them even though I think almost everything I wrote was not interesting at all and was probably read by very few people. I most content with the post that touched on my view point of gay marriage though.

I think one of the hardest things in keeping this blog running was probably remembering to do it and second to that was actually getting myself to do the posts after I remembered I needed to do them. For these two reasons I do not think that I will continue to post on my blog. Not because I'm lazy, just because I always seem to want to blog when I can't(a.k.a. I don't have a computer around) and when I can I don't want to blog. It seems like the sort of thing I would do if I didn't have a life or was extremely bored, kind of nerdy and reminds me of a creepy old guy sitting at his computer in his basement, or some whiny, anti-social teenager filled with angst who is not satisfied with just sharing his thoughts on facebook, twitter, or myspace. So basically I still think of blogging the same way, I just have had some experience of writing about stuff that no one cares about but I write about it anyways because my life is boring and blogging is now assigned for one of my classes.

=)

2009-05-20T17:20:00.000-07:00

Tae Kwon Do Summer Camp has officially been cancelled, oh well. I also recieved notice that if I test in September I will be able to test again in 2012 for my 4th Dan Black which is really good news for me. That means I don't have to wait an extra three years to test in 2015. This of coursed makes my friend Austin mad because he tested for his 3rd decided in September of last year and because of our little rivalry he wanted me to have to test in 2015 because he would be a 4th for three years before I would become 4th. Our little competition does get annoying at times, when I am looking for a little support during training for my testings he will always say stuff like you're gonna fail and other things, but it usually just fires me up rather than make me angry. He always tells me that I'd better do all my crap right when I go out to the floor at testing or he will have to beat my ass and then rub it in my face afterwards.

The fact that my testing has been postponed until September makes me extremely happy, because I wasn't sure if I could be ready by the end of June. I had an injury back in February and was ordered by my doctor to rest my leg for two months and then slowly work back into jumping. So I basically had two months taken out of the five months I had to get prepared for testing, then getting back into Tae Kwon Do was crazy hard because I got out of shape the two months that I couldn't work out. Just yesterday I was doing a couple of jumps and I've basically gotten the jump I do for my testing break back into shape, if not better than before, because I no longer have a dull pain that spears up my leg whenever I put pressure on it. I can probably jump about six inches higher than I used to be able to, this means I have a little more room between me and the people I'm jumping over so I know I can clear them with ease.

I also have more time to get my forms into shape for testing. Forms are a series techniques that are supposed to symbolize a battle or fight type scene. I learned my new form about a month ago and haven't gotten it to the point where I want it to be, so now I have four months to get that into shape and since Austin is back in Tae Kwon Do after having to sit out because of a broken ankle I'll have his criticism and motivation that I need to get not only this new form into shape but my old form back into shape too.

Random Nights At Taco Bell

2009-05-17T21:30:00.000-07:00

Okay last week I had one of the most random events ever happen to me. Matt and I were hanging out on Friday night like we do a lot of the time. I had promised my friend Chelsea that I would go visit her at her work, which is the taco bell over by the mall, not the one at the mall, but the one on the other side of Collins Road and First Ave. So we showed up there around 10ish, and decided to get some cheesy fiesta potatoes, which we got for free because when Chelsea was running my credit card through the thingy, my card totally cracked in half and wouldn't work anymore, it had been broken before but was still connect and was still functional. This event led to an entire week of me not being able to buy anything because I have this weird thing where I cannot carry cash for longer than I day or I have to put it in my bank account or use it, the latter of the two happens more often. Having cash during the day also makes me want to buy things from the vending machines at school a.k.a. water and pretzels, which further leads to the issue of my bathroom schedule being messed up by little things that I do during the day. So I went with out any money during the entire week which would have been an issue except had a Starbucks card with loads of $$$ on it and an Aeropostale gift card that I hadn't used yet, I know shock, but Kajsa and I got a ton of great deals the time we went last Saturday.

Okay back to my original story, Matt and I had just sat down to eat while Chelsea was "working" next to us, when one of Chelseas coworkers sat down next to us and Chelsea decided to introduce me as her brother. Chelsea's coworker, who was a very charismatic black woman, asked me if that was for real, and I proceeded to shake my hand from side to side in a sort of agreement. The black woman then asked me if I was gay and I told her that I was bisexual and then I asked her how she knew. She told me that when I shook my hand like that it meant gay. I had no clue that was what that meant, which is kind of weird. She then asked Matt if he were gay, obviously insinuating that we were a couple and he shook his head and said no. She then said these exact words, "Oh you like you some pussy then." I burst out laughing and she continued on to tell us that she was also bisexual in these words, "I like me some white woman, I've dated black girls before but only one. She wasa crazy bitch though, tried to jump on me out of a tree and cut me. But man I do like me some white woman."

After that peculiar introduction, we talked for another half hour. She told us about how she moved here from Chicago and was getting to know the city. She also asked me about how I came out and how people reacted to it, I told her that besides my parents everyone basically had already known even though I had never told anyone lol. She then told me that if anyone ever messed with me she had my back, and that if she needed to she would "cut them."

We left Taco Bell, I gave her a hug and Matt gave her an akward pound it type thingy, then we headed over the Burger King to see Kerina. Unfortunately Kerina was not there and I was forced to beat her senseless the next day, jkjk. And that ends my night of extreme randomness.

AP US Test Is Over

2009-05-08T15:03:00.000-07:00

Today I took a test I was truly dreading. The AP US History Exam!!! The test was actually not bad at all, though I thought it was going to be dreadful. I am pretty sure I new most of the answers to the multiple choice questions, except for the ones about the labor unions in the late 1800's, I didn't pay attention during those chapters at all though. The essays were freakishly easy, I swear to god I could've answered them with out having read a single chapter of the book or even having taken a US history class.

I am very content with this test and practically wrote a book in the essay sections. Essays are really easy for me anyways so I am like ninety percent sure I did exceptionally well on the test and I am definately expecting a four or a five, if not I am going to be really pissed and complain about how I'm going to take the test over, yet I would never do that because I'm kind of lazy and will most likely have forgotten by then.

One down two to go!!! Plans for this weekend include, freak out about AP Chem test, study in between band shit and other crap that I waste my life doing, possibly have a movie night even though I should probably not be having one because I need to study lots, skip going to that dreadful place called church though I will probably be dragged by my parents, eat pizza, tell my mother happy mother's day at some point even though I forget to get her anything, go to AP Chem study group in Snook's room, freak out some more about the AP Chem test, stay up until around midnight Sunday night playing video games and doing unproductive stuff, go to bed and wish to just skip next week.

Tae Kwon Do Woes

2009-05-06T18:59:00.000-07:00

Tonight I learned that I might not be able to test at the end of June for my third decided black belt rank. This is not because I am not ready or because I am underqualified because believe me I work my tail off once I step foot in my Dojang. Tae Kwon Do is one of the few things in my life that I do not half ass. The reason I might not be able to test is because we might not be having a testing in June this year, because of financial problems with the camp site where we usually have it at. We need a minimum of seventy-five people signed up for the week of Summer Camp at which we have a black belt only testing at the end of the week. Right now we only have fifty people signed up for the camp, of which I am not one. I cannot go to camp because I am taking Summer Government for three weeks, one week is the week of Summer Camp. It cost $350 to go to Summer Camp and I am not going to pay that to not go and then go for the Saturday and test. So I am only paying for the day that I can go so am only counting for a third of a person because he is making me pay more than just for one day. If we do not get more people to go then we will not have Summer Camp and more importantly, we will not have testing =(.

This brings me to another point, if I do not test in June this year I may not be eligible for testing in 2012 for my 4th Dan. Normally we are supposed to have three years inbetween the 3rd Dan testing and 4th Dan testing but in the past he has let about one-fifth of the people who applied to test early, go ahead and do so. So it looks like I may not be able to test in San Antonio in 2012, since the only other black belt testing this year is in Minneapolis in September. If I don't test in 2012 I will have to test in 2015 which adds three additional years onto my testing cycle, it will now take me six years in between my 3rd dan testing and my 4th dan testing whereas it normally should only take three to four depending upon the year that a person tests in.

So for now I'm just chilling, working out four nights a week and hoping for the best, and I guess some things in life all we can do is let fate take its course and decide what is best for us.

From Pool To Pond

2009-05-05T05:04:00.000-07:00

Many of my happiest childhood memories have been in my pool. For countless Summers I spent most of my day swimming and on a less bright note, cleaning it. For the past three years my brother and I have been responsible for cleaning it, which means vacuuming the bottom every other day, every week we would have to scrub the sides down and once or twice a day, dependant on whether we were having people over or not, skim the surface for bugs and leaves. We would also have to get it ready in the late Spring after it was warm enough. We would uncover it and then would have to wash it off, and hang it in between two trees to let it dry. Then we got to work on the pool which was disguisting. It would literally be black, so we basically dump a crap load of pool shock into the water then a couple of days later would start the vacuuming and scrubbing process which took a few days of our time.

This year when we opened up the pool we found that it had almost no water in it, which is a really bad thing. During the Winter, the pool liner had come completely off and thus we were met with and ultimatum. Do we spend a thousand bucks and have to do a lot of manual labor to basically make a new pool or do we just rip it out of the ground and go from there. We saddly decided that our pool was to be made into a pond, so now we have a four foot hole in the ground, not quite deep enough to bury someone in. Now over the weekend we are planning on leveling out the shallow end with sand and then are going to buy a pond liner to place in the hole. We are lowering our deck a couple of feet and building stairs from the upper deck to the lower one. Then we are lining the edge of the deck with limestone that we got for freakishly cheap from the quarry over by my house. We will then build ledges all around the hole for plants to sit on and then we will fill it with water and hope it works. Next step is to add the fishies and plants and Hurray!!! we have a pond.

I am not sure whether to be sad or relieved by the passing of my pool. I have had so many good memories in it though i almost drown in it twice. On a happier note, I won't have to do any pool cleaning anymore and my mom is also happy because she has always wanted a pond. She said that no matter what we said, the pool was going to be taken down after we move out anyways. So all in all I guess now I just have two Summers less to spend with my pool. =(

Do Work Son

2009-05-03T15:30:00.000-07:00

All of today I have been in a mood to clean. Some people would think that this is weird but not anyone who actually knows me. I'm actually kind of obsessed with having a clean house and I was rather embarrassed on Friday night when I had a friend over and my house was not spotless and to my point of contentment. I find that I fret to much over little things like a clean house when I should be doing other important things like homework and studying for AP tests.

I believe my little obsession with cleaning is genetic though it seems to have definitely skipped a generation. Both of my grandmothers are clean freaks. They are a lot worse about it than me though. When I was younger and went over to my grandmother's house I used to love to help her clean and she did appreciate the thought but not the actual work. I would wipe off a counter and less than ten seconds afterwards she would follow me with some disinfectant and a cloth and wipe the counter that I had just wiped. If I vacuumed for her, sure enough, about five minutes later she would re-vacuum the places I had already vacuumed.

With my family it's a little different but I am becoming almost as obsessive. The rest of my family hates to clean and I am the one they push all of their chores off on. I do a majority of the laundry, wash the cars, vacuum, dust, do the dishes, wash the floors, wash the bathrooms, wash the walls and then disinfect all of the house after I'm done. Today I have done almost all of the things on that list already. Needless to say I am becoming obsessed with cleaning and I am not quite sure if that is a good thing or not.

Whenever my family ends up cleaning something, I know what a shock, but they do actually clean sometimes, I am never content with what they have cleaned. Like my grandma, I always re-clean what they clean. For instance, my brother was forced to do the dishes the other night and I noticed that there was still quite a bit of food left on the dishes after he was done with them. I was of course appalled by this and disguisted by my brother's half hearted attempt to actually do something. I re-wash all of the dishes once again.

Now is love for cleaning a little freakish? Is it becoming an obsession? I'm actually not quite sure, but oh well at least my house is clean now.

AP TESTS!!!

2009-05-02T15:52:00.000-07:00

Okay I have come to a sudden realization that in two days AP test week will start and I am officially freaking. Why does this come as such a shock to me? Last year all of my AP teachers had had us reviewing for like three weeks by this point and this year I have seriously done very, very little reviewing. I actually haven't quite started studying for the tests yet and I think that is a reason to freak out. Okay so this list goes from most freaked out about to least freaked out about; Chemistry, US History, and last English Language and Composition.

Okay here's the reason I am so freaked out about the chemistry exam; last year only like 55% of people who took the chemistry exam passed with a three or higher. I am pretty sure that this is one of the most failed AP tests that you can take, Physics C might beat chem though. There is a reason why so many people fail the chem exam, it is really freaking hard. I'm pretty sure that everyone who took the practice exam this week feels like they don't know anything and that they are going to fail the test. Chemistry is a really broad science and everything you learn in the class has exceptions. I once heard some one say that the more you learn the more you find out that everything you previously learned was wrong, in reference to chemistry. I find this to be quite true because everything I learned last year was basically wrong and I found out I didn't really learn anything last year.

I'm a tad freaked out about the US test too, but only because it is such a broad subject and there are so many different ways you can take it. I feel like I haven't learned anything this year, I mean seriously I think I learned more about early America from my teacher Mr. Heim in 8th grade and that's saying a lot. My APUSH teacher thinks that she knows how to structure essays that are suitable for DBQ's and she is completely wrong in the way she does them. She says stuff like, "Oh this is how you write a more complex thesis and structure a more complex essay." When in all actuality I wrote the way she is trying to tell us to write in middle school. So I basically write my own way and then she gives me bad scores on practice essay and then I just suck it up because she doesn't know what the hell is up with these essays. So that's basically how I'm feeling about the APUSH exam right about now, basically have given up.

Okay now for AP Lang. I'm least of all worried about this exam because it's just a harder version of a normal L.A. class. It's mostly all stuff I have covered before in other classes with the exception of a couple new things and terms for stuff I have already done. I'll probably just look over my review book next weekend and hope not to forget everything by Tuesday or Wednesday or whenever the test is.

I Kissed A Boy

2009-04-30T05:53:00.000-07:00

Okay now why was I like seriously the last person on the Earth to listen to this song? I love Cobra Starship, I love Katy Perry, and I'm like half gay so why didn't I learn about this until like a week ago?

2009-04-30T05:33:00.001-07:00

Okay so I know that most of you aren't happy with me for this and won't agree with my opinions on tanning but I'm going to write about it anyways.

In my opinion tanning is not an entirely bad way to start doing a couple of times before Summer starts so you aren't completely starch white when you go to take your shirt off at the beach. I mean seriously people, I love you, but sometimes you are sort of blinding and after I look at you I have to close my eyes for a while. I mean when I sit in between two of my best friends I feel much like an Uh Oh Oreo, and it's kind of weird. So my main point in saying this is that I feel that I am completely justified in going tanning a couple of times before Summer starts so that I can get some color before and so that I don't blind people.

Yes, I do know that a long term effect of tanning is the possibility of getting skin cancer, but seriously what doesn't give you cancer, I mean it seems that one generation does something and then we find out it had horrible long term side effects in the generation after. I mean if you want to fix something that is really killing millions of people go fix the AIDS epidemic and leave me alone. Or in my opinion we could be trying to fix something that will eventually cause the human race to no longer exist and is leaving our planet devastated. Umm, lets see, what could this be??? Pollution of course. And btw the polluting that we are doing is depleting the ozone layer and thus causing millions of people to be overexposed to UV light and is causing the temperature of the Earth to increase. I'm pretty sure that it would be a lot worse if the majority of the world got skin cancer versus just me getting it. So before you worry about me, please worry about the millions of other people that will exposed to UV light that don't want to be.

There are much worse things that I could be doing or could do again. I brought up this point with my dad after he made a big deal about the tanning thing and it got him to shut up. Well, that and the fact that my mom used to tan all of the time and doesn't really care that I'm going even though she thinks it's a waste of money, which I have plenty of.

Beethoven For A Cat

2009-04-26T19:09:00.000-07:00

Okay this is by far the cutest thing I have ever seen my cat Hunter do.

I was walking downstairs when I heard a noise that sounded like a tiny piano. This kind of shocked me because I didn't think we had a piano. So I walk into the pool table room which was where the noise was coming from. I peer into the closet just in time to see my cat sitting in front of the baby piano that I had forgotten we had. He was batting the keys with his paws and making his own little song. I snuck upstairs to grab my mom and the camera, but we made way too much noise coming back down the stairs and unfortunately scared Hunter off. My mom says this was like the third time she's heard/seen him doing this. I am now determined to get a picture to put on facebook lol.

Old Friends

2009-04-23T05:34:00.000-07:00

Recently I've been hanging out with one of my old best friends, a kid I've hung out with for a majority of my life. He was probably my best friend for about ten years. We had our first beer together, which was Coor's Light (disgusting stuff). He was also the kid that got me kicked out of Walmart twice, once for playing shopping kart tag and another time for an incident which I will not mention, it just included partial nudity. Needless to say he's gotten me in so much trouble I don't even know how I survived without getting killed by my parents. Basically I'm gonna take you through the history of our friendship, leaving out parts that I would be way too embarrassed to mention, stuff that he and I have done that we don't talk about.

So I met him when I was about four, the Summer before Preschool, after I moved here from Missouri. He, his other friend, and I became instant best friends, also having to drag my brother along with us. We hung out every single day after preschool for like six hours a day and on the weekends you couldn't keep us apart. We would play soccer, kickball, or tag in his yard, and then we would ride bikes throughout the neighborhood, I live on a dead end road in Robins so our parents didn't have to watch us, especially since everyone on the street's parents were really good friends and we had eyes on us at all times. By the time we were about eight, we were even better friends and this is the point in my life where we started to suffer injuries playing together. We were walking his dog, which is a pretty good sized Husky. He handed me the leash for minute, at which point the dog decided to take off after a squirrel, dragging me through the gravel on our street and giving me a pretty big gravel burn on both arms, my chin, and almost breaking my wrist. Another time we were having a "battle" in my pool, he decided to kick me while I was by the edge of the pool. My head hit the deck and I got knocked out and started to sink to the bottom of the pool. He told me that he screamed for my parents and then my dad came racing and pulled me out of the pool and took me to the hospital. My friend was beside me the whole time I was there. I had to get stitches on the back of my head. The second time I got knocked out with him was when he, my friend Michael, and me were playing golf in my yard and he I started an epic battle with our golf clubs. He pushed me right into the swing of Michael, who accidently hit me right above my eye, knocking me out before I hit the ground. Suprisingly this time I didn't have to get stitches. I got him back plenty of times, though I ahve never knocked him out. My dad made both of us Nun Chucks, we were playing with them one day and I wasn't watching what I was doing, of course, I accidentally crack him really hard on the head and gave him a gigantic lump that stayed for like a week or two.

As we got older it just became him and me after our other friend moved away and now goes to Jeff., we only got closer. We started to talk about everything and I mean EVERYTHING. I mean puberty is a lot easier to go through if you have someone to talk to about it and that's exactly what we did. Also he was the one that helped me discover that I was bisexual and he supported me throughout the time it took for me to figure out who I really was. For my entire middle school life we were inseperable and hung out every night after school even if we were grounded, we would find a way to hang out. Many times we would sneak over to each others houses around 1 AM and we would play video games til we got caught or passed out on his couch.

Entering high school was an awkward test for our friendship. We started seeing each other a lot less, and the time we spent together just kept getting more and more awkward though we were still as close as two guys could be, believe me when I say this. I'm not gonna go into anymore detail than this but when he and I hung out we didn't just play video games or jump on my trampoline anymore, anyone who really wants to know can ask me in private.

So... eventually we just didn't see each other anymore, and when we did it was like once every four/five months. But now he and I have been hanging out lots and are a lot closer than we used to be, so that's what has basically sparked this post.

Which Is Smarter

2009-04-21T08:59:00.001-07:00

Watch these movies and then tell me which is smarter, Man or Beast?

Shuddering At The Thought Of Another Year Of Band

2009-04-18T18:57:00.000-07:00

I have been feeling so burnt out with band it's not even funny. It's not just regular band, it's Jazz band too. It's not that I hate band, it's just that I hate having like ten band related things that I am pressured/forced to go to every month. I absolutely hate our band director for wind symphony. He is the biggest piece of crap I have ever seen. He just plain sucks at directing, and he never gives us anything to be motivated about. The kennedy band program is going down the toilet and I really don't want to be associated with it anymore, the only thing keeping me hanging in there is that I really want to do marching band one last time. I swear to god marching band was the only thing keeping me from dropping out before midterm this Spring, and god I really wanted to drop both band and jazz band, which is a complete waste of time because we suck badly. I know I am going to quit after marching band season is over and I'm pretty sure my parents aren't going to be happy about that but screw them, my life I can drop band if I really want to. Everyone is saying that I'm going to be missing out on so many great opportunities if I drop band, but I really don't care. I don't want to be a music major and I will not budge on that no matter how hard anyone tries to push me *cough* private lesson teacher *cough*. If I really wanted to make shit money I would do something that's actually helpful aka become a trashman, that's way better for society than a crappy musician would be.

So I basically have my mind made up on this and I am NOT going to budge.

Songs For Moods

2009-04-14T05:21:00.000-07:00

Time to get Pumped/Party!!!
Let's Get It Started-Black Eyed Peas, Walk This Way-Run DMC, So What-P!nk, Just Got Paid-*NSYNC, Party Like A Rockstar(Remix)-Shop Boyz, Shake It-Metro Station, Pop-*NSYNC, SexyBack-Justin Timberlake, Guilty Pleasure-Cobra Starship, SodaPop-Britney Spears

Songs To Hate On!!!
How Do You Sleep-Jesse McCartney(well in general all of his songs), Love Bug-Jonas Brothers, America's Sweethearts-FallOutBoy, Crack A Bottle-Eminem, Since You Been Gone-Kelly Clarkson(way over played), Crush-David Archuleta, Circus-Britney Spears, 4 Minutes-Madonna, Umbrella-Rihanna, The Seven Things I Hate About You-Miley Cyrus

Get On The Dance Floor!!!
Cyclone-BabyBash(Freaking Amazing Song), Boom Boom Pow-Black Eyed Peas, Stronger-Kanye West, Blue-Eiffel 65, Right Round-Flo Rida(or as Matt says florida), Just Dance-Lady Gaga, Country Grammar-Nelly, Untouched-The Veronicas, Starstruckk-3OH3!, Prostitution Is The World's Oldest Proffession(And I Dear Madame Am A Proffesional)-Cobra Starship

Best Of The Boy Bands!!!
Bye Bye Bye-*NSYNC, Summertime-New Kids On the Block, Everbody-Backstreet Boys, Love Struck-V Factory, Check Yes Juliet-We The Kings, Skyway Avenue-We The Kings, Seventeen Forever-Metro Station, Burnin' Up-Jonas Brothers, Thanks For The Memories-FallOutBoy, Body Bag-Hit The Lights

Old People Music!!!
Limelight-Rush, Tom Sawyer-Rush, Have You Ever Seen The Rain-CCR, Sweet Dreams(are made of this)-Eurythmics, Feels Like The First Time-Foreigner, Under Pressure-Queen, It's My Life-Bon Jovi, Zombie-The Cranberries, Don't Stop Believing-Journey, Firefly- Damn Yankees

Hit Shuffle, First 20 Songs After I Hit Shuffle
Death Dance of Omipapas and Sons For You-Of Montreal, A Change Of Seasons-Dream Theater, Rhode Island Red-Baja Marimba Band, Mississippi Queen-Mountain, I Scare Myself-Dan Hicks & His Hot Licks, I Feel Free-Cream, I Don't Care-FallOutBoy, Spirit In The Sky-Norman Greenbaum, My Life Would Suck Without You-Kelly Clarkson, That's Not Me-Beach Boys, What Kind Of Man Would I Be?-Chicago(Great Song), Coffeeshop Soundtrack-AllTimeLow, The Ghost At Number One-Jellyfish, No Such Thing-John Mayer, Here Today-Beach Boys, Tears Of Rage-Band, Be Here In The Morning-Beach Boys, Only Wanna Be With You-Hootie & The Blowfish, Narcolepsy-Bend Folds and WASO, Rock Lobster-B52's(Another Great Song)

Random Playlist That I Had On My Ipod For The Ride To Coralridge Mall A Couple Of Weeks Ago
Untouched-Veronicas, Don't Trust Me-3OH!3, Starstruck-3OH!3, Speakers Blown-HitTheLights, 4ever-Veronicas, Bodybag-HitTheLights, Drop The Girl-HitTheLights, I Don't Wanna Be In Love-Good Charlotte, Lollipop-Framing Hanley, Right Round-Flo Rida, Thanks For The Memories-FallOutBoy, I Don't Care-FallOutBoy, Blue-Eiffel 65, Damn You Look Good And I'm Drunk-Cobra Starship, The City Is At War-Cobra Starship, Love Sex Magic-Ciara, Skyway Avenue-We The Kings, Check Yes Juliet-We The Kings, Shake It-Metro Station, Poker Face-Lady Gaga, My Life Would Suck Without You-Kelly Clarkson, Since You Been Gone-A Day To Remember, Circus-Britney Spears, If You Seek Amy-Britney Spears, Crack A Bottle-Eminem, Dr. Dre and Fifty Cent, California-Hawk Nelson, Burnin' Up-Jonas Brothers, SexyBack- Justin Timberlake, Hot N Cold-Katy Perry, If I Never See Your Face Again-Maroon 5, Point Of Extinction-Motion City Soundtrack, Pop-*NSYNC, Summertime-NKOB, Bye Bye-*NSYNC, Just Got Paid-*NSYNC, Everybody-Backstreet Boys, Nine In The Afternoon-Panic At The Disco, So What-P!nk, Misery Business-Paramore, Addicted-Saving Abel, Fall For You-Secondhand Serenade, Party Like A Rock Star(Remix)-Shop Boyz, Memory-Sugarcult, Stronger-Kanye West, Cyclone-Baby Bash, Hey Mama-Black Eyed Peas, 1985-Bowling For Soup

Quotable Quotes

2009-04-13T15:40:00.000-07:00

Okay here is a list of funny quotes I have found

Time is a great teacher, but unfortunately it kills all its pupils ... - Louis Hector Berlioz

Hilarious but unfortunately true, it seems as people gain enough wisdom not to be stupid anymore they die, but people mostly die from doing stupid things

Men are like parking spots, the good ones are taken and the free ones are handicapped.

I'm not exactly sure whether to be offended or impressed, but this does express most of my feelings towards other guys with one exception, not enough are gay or more specifically out.

I told my wife that a husband is like a fine wine; he gets better with age. The next day, she locked me in the cellar.

Proving women are truly evil lol, and this isn't funny I'm claustrophobic =)

Girls are like phones. We love to be held, talked too but if you press the wrong button you'll be disconnected!

So true, So true. I feel the same way even though I'm not a girl, but if you make the wrong move you lose it with me too.

When I die, I want to go peacefully like my Grandfather did, in his sleep -- not screaming, like the passengers in his car.

I'm not sure why I laughed my ass off when I read this, I'm not sure if I'm morbid or not, but I do laugh when people die in movies

Son, if you really want something in this life, you have to work for it. Now quiet! They're about to announce the lottery numbers. - Homer Simpson

HAHA IT FUNNY CUZ IT TALK BOUT LOTTERY LOL, i don't get it =( OH HE TALKING TO HIS SON ABOUT WORKING YET HE LAZY AND BUY LOTTERY TICKETS, I GET IT NOW =)

You laugh because I'm different...........I laugh cause I just farted!

AARON in german class, ughh I don't even wanna think about that nasty fart last week

What are the three words guaranteed to humiliate men everywhere?'Hold my purse.'

I'm not gonna say anything else beside these words- "My mom makes me hold her purse"

What you call dog with no legs?Don't matter what you call him, he ain't gonna come.

Kinda funny but mostly morbid =(

"Flying is learning how to throw yourself at the ground and miss." - Douglas Adams

OMG kind of the story of my life, except when I hit the ground I stay there, for a very long time

You tried your best and you failed miserably. The lesson is 'never try'. -Homer Simpson

This is now my new motto, I shall never try a single thing again and thus will never fail, shit just failed that german quiz what's new? Except that I have never failed one yet.

Everyone needs believe in something. I believe I'll have another beer.

And I believe I hate APUS

When I was kidnapped, my parents snapped into action. They rented out my room.

Sometimes how I feel, lol, jk

If your wife wants to learn to drive, don't stand in her way

I get it, because women are horrible drivers along with Asians and really old people, I don't really feel this way I'm just stereotyping

Men should be like Kleenex, soft, strong and disposable. - Mrs. White, (Clue 1985)

Tis true, yet a woman shalt stand by their man and be quiet, never seen outside the kitchen unless needed, and never to speak unless spoken too. Once again I don't really feel this way, I just felt like saying it.

A computer once beat me at chess, but it was no match for me at kick boxing.

MY Computer actually beat me at that too, I have scars to prove it.

Everyone is entitled to their own opinion. It's just that yours is stupid.

HAHA Free speech is a joke

"One of the great things about books is sometimes there are some fantastic pictures." -George W. Bush

OMG one of the smarter things Bush has said

For diplomacy to be effective, words must be credible - and no one can now doubt the word of America. -George W. Bush

OMG just think about how much shit America has done to the rest of the world and then you tell the rest of the world to trust us, what is wrong with that picture

There will be more quotes to come at a later date...

Freaking Crazy Lady

2009-04-12T12:27:00.000-07:00

Okay this teacher who will remain nameless gave us an insane asignment that I totally am loathin her for. We have to present a fifty-five minute review session for the class. Not just one review session two review sessions. I totally hate this teacher. She gives us bull crap assignments that don't teach us anything all the time. Like on friday she made us go to the IMC and research and write a two page paper in one period that wouldn't be accepted after the period was over. She is freaking crazy, how can she expect us to do stuff like this. She says, oh it's just getting you ready for college. Um.. seriously no it is not. When are we going to have to write a paper and do the research for it, which had to have a works cited sheet with four book sources in fiftyfive minutes. The actual work for her class isn't hard at all, though she thinks it is, but it just takes so freaking long to do, like the stupid syllabi she gives us to do that are so long it takes like three hours. Urgh I'm not sure if I will make it through this term. Where is my freetime going?

Kajsa

2009-04-12T12:24:00.001-07:00

Okay next subject, I'm pretty sure she's gonna get mad at me for this.
Kajsa- Storm, Rogue, Jean Gray(Pheonix) (sorry Kajsa, I know I told you I wouldn't put you as any girl superhero characters, but it just happened)
Why? First off I would like to say sorry again. First Reason, Storm has kind of a bad temper and when you piss her off whe will kick your ass/zap the shit out of you with a lightning bolt, literally. Kajsa is kind of the same way only a little more level headed, there have been countless times when her anger has been directed towards me and I had no freaking clue what I did wrong. Second reason, Rogue gives people this little look like wtf don't look at me I'm a freak and your staring at me I don't like you which makes you a freak because you are staring at me, which makes me look even more like a freak than before and I'm totally confusing myself so I'm just gonna take off my glove and touch you and steal your powers and shit. That basically describes Kajsa's relationship with me, besides the fact that it's more like what the hell Chris I can't believe you just did that/thought of that. I'm probably gonna get one of those looks once she reads this. Okay third and final reason, one that she will hit me for, is because shes a woman. I actually have a logical reason for stating that. Jean Gray when she is Pheonix, is freaking scary because you can never tell what reaction she will have to anything you say and this scares me a lot when I'm around Kajsa cuz she is sometimes the same way. Okay now some of the good things. Storm speaks her mind all the time and is very open, Kajsa is basically the same way. Okay now Jean Gray is like a freaking genious and also drop dead gorgeous, Kajsa is very smart too and helps me out when I'm being dumb, I'm not gonna comment on the gorgeous thing, but some people may think she is. Lastly Kajsa is not afraid to be unique and that's why she is like Rogue, and is definately why she is one of my best friends, and someone I trust with a lot of the crap that's on my mind.

Random Videos

2009-04-12T11:27:00.000-07:00

Okay, so watching youtube videos with my brother is about the only thing that he and I do together. As a couple of my friends now know, he kind of likes to creep around my friends when I bring them over and as Sam knows from a couple of weeks ago, my brother flirts with any chick that comes over to the house because he thinks he's a player. But last night it was really funny because he had been hanging out with one of the idiots I know from our school, he's a total pot head and thinks he hot shit. So when my brother came home he was looking rather interesting like he had been on something and sure enough he starts bragging about how he had been totally high for the last three nights in a row, right in front of my friends. Well I guess it wasn't him who was bragging it was me egging him on by asking how high he got and shit like that. It's totally cool with them though, they had to deal with me all of last year, it's not like I haven't done stupid shit in my life. I just kind of feel bad now cuz a lot of people are saying stuff like, wow, looks like he's following in your footsteps and I'm not entirely sure I want him to screw up his life and get thrown in ASAC, even though I was basically high for an entire year and never got caught. But he's not quite as smart as me and will probably end up getting caught and then my parents will basically put both of us on lock down. Him for getting high and me for not taking care of my little brother, who is bigger than me, when I should be looking out for him.

Okay, now back to the youtube videos, we found these totally cool series of videos that are basically songs that have had stuff done to their pitch that makes it sound like Alvin and the Chipmunks are singing them lol. Totally made me laugh, though they are kind of creepy in a way, all you have to do to watch one of them is go to Youtube, type in Chipmunks and then a song, they have quite a few songs so you can basically find any song you want. Best part is totally the high squeaky weird voice.

Oh and by the way, I must warn you that the chipmunks are outrageously cute, or am I just a little messed up in the head.

Random Quote

2009-04-10T07:23:00.000-07:00

This was a random quotation that I found to be hilarious.

My fellow Americans, I am pleased to tell you I just signed legislation which outlaws Russia forever. The bombing begins in five minutes.

Ronald Reagan, Said during a radio microphone test, 1984
40th president of US (1911 - 2004)

Chet Culver Opposed To Amendment of the Iowa Constitution

2009-04-09T05:23:00.000-07:00

Chet Culver released a statement yesterday, April 8, 2009, that he would be completely opposed to a change in the Iowa Constitution in order to ban gay marriage. He said that he will ultimately support the Supreme Courts unanimous decision to allow gay marriage.

"I think we have to be very respectful of the equal protection clause of the Iowa Constitution," said Culver. "This court, in a unanimous decision, has stated that it is discriminatory to deny people rights they are given under the constitution.

There has been a proposed ban on out of state people coming to Iowa in order to get a marriage. There is a fear associated with this that Iowa will have a increase in population, especially amongst gays and lesbians. I am actually kind of in favor over something like this because it will allow them to stay in other states and get active in their states. Activism is the one way that we are going to be able to make gay marriage legal in all of the US not just in the handleful of states that allow it now. If people become active then their government is forced to respond. This kind of reminds me of the sixties. The sixties was a decade of protest and calling for change throughout all of the United States. The initial gay rights movement was in fact started off in the sixties and it died down after things like the Equal Rights Act of 1965 happened which garuanteed gays the right against discrimination in the workplace because of sexuality. We need an active movement to make the world a liberal place like it was in the sixties. If we push the issue enough we will be allowed gay marriage in the United States by 2020. I feel that United States is on the verge of some major reform and protest movement because of all of the tension that is building now days. We are in the middle of a war that is almost as unpopular and useless as Vietnam was, we have the largest debt ever in US history and there is no end of it in site and we have this issue of gay marriage. It feels like the time period after the Great Depression of WWII again and that feeling caused the uproars of the babyboomers generation. Who knows what the children of the new millenium have in store for us, but it promises to be something great.

Me- Nightwing

2009-04-05T11:59:00.000-07:00

Okay starting out the lists of who I think would be which superheros/ sidekick/ or supervillian.

Me- Probably Dick Grayson's version of Robin/Nightwing

Why? Because Nightwing is ridiculously amazing, don't laugh. Robin becomes quite cool after leaving Batman. Why? because Batman is a meanie and Dick Grayson get tired of all of his shit. Okay, now time to get serious. I think I'm kinda like Dick Grayson because everyone thinks he was the gay Robin, but the gay Robin was actually like two after him. Grayson and Batman have this awkward kind of border line gay connection in the story anyways, like one of the comics shows Grayson waking up in Batmans bed and I'm just like WTF man. That awkward borderline gay relationship thingy basically is the driving force of my life lol. Okay another reason, Grayson was known as the most acrobatic of the Robins and I am quite acrobatic myself, I mean have you seen my Tae Kwon Do pictures, I am such a stud it's not even funny. Third reason, Grayson after he leaves his post as Robin, becomes Nightwing, and independant superhero. I'm basically the inverse of that, I used to be kind of a loner nerd, not even nerd, who no one liked, and I feel as I have gotten older I have become way more attached to my friends and trusting. Fourth reason, this isn't really a reason I just felt like putting it out there, Dick Grayson was Robin at one time and I currently live in Robins, IA, so ya...

Standardized Testing

2009-04-04T20:19:00.000-07:00

Today seemed like a way to busy and stressful day, leading to a horrible night, so far. The ACTS, they call for fear to emerge from anyone who is going to be taking them. Yay yet another standardized test that I am going to take that tells me how smart I am versus other students. So when I get my crappy results back from them test, I will dreading it, just like I dread any other standardized test called by it's acronym name; SAT'S, ITED, and ITBS.

Should the rest of our lives be measure according to one test? I think not, multiple factors affect a person's performance on tests like the ACT. Things like, nerves, sickness, and tiredness. Therefore, based on everyone's "best" effort on the tests and answers guessed correctly by very, very lucky people, these tests are not accurate at all. Though it does measure how much you know, it does not measure how lucky you are. There are infinite amounts of questions that could be asked on the ACT or some other test, that I would know, but it just so happens that they chose to put the one question I don't know the answer to on the test.

I had been quite successful in the practice tests, getting a 34 on both of the practice ones before I went to take the actual test. It just so happens that the day before the test, I get sick with this awful, cold, cough and flu bug that has been going around over the past few weeks. So, sitting in the ACT room, and having to get up every ten minutes or so to blow my nose and cough as muffled as I could make it, I began my test. Of course I was feeling like crap the entire way throughout the test so I couldn't focus throughout almost any of it, besides the math because it is the easiest for me. I actually ended up not having enough time to finish my the English portion of my test. I think it is absolutely ridiculous that they were making us answer 75 questions in 45 minutes. That is absolutely disgusting, we have to have time to read and think about the question you know. On this portion of the test we have 36 seconds to answer each question. Say that it takes 15 seconds to read the question, then you on have 21 seconds to think about the question. Along with that you have to read the article it is asking you about, say that takes 3 minutes to read, and you have to answer 15 questions about, that's 12 seconds per question, take that away from 21 seconds and you get 9 seconds to think about your answer. That is ridiculous and no one should have to answer a question in nine seconds. Oh and I haven't even taken out the time it takes to find the corresponding bubble and bubbling in, plus double checking. It is things like this that make me feel like the government has nothing better to do then bother us with tests like the ACT that just cause us pressure.

Needless to say I am taking the ACT over again, hopefully I will be healthy this time. I am still in pursuit of the perfect score, even though I have a new found hate for these tests.

Is Iowa Smarter Than California?

2009-04-03T20:53:00.000-07:00

By now we have all heard about the Iowa Supreme Court's unanimous ruling stating that barring same-sex couples from marriage is un-constitutional, but will we be able to keep it here?

That is the question that everyone is waiting to have answered. Already the same groups that organized Proposition 8 in California have started a similar movement in Iowa. Wow why can't they just let the gays have a few weeks of peace before all hell breaks loose and the major protests start. And another thing, why can't people just leave the issue of gay marriage alone. Even though you may personally feel it is wrong, it's not going to affect you in ANY way if two other people, who truly love each other, get married.

I hate it when people say marriage is between a man and a woman. This is not true at all, marriage is nothing but a commitment between two people who want to show their exclusive devotion for each by being in a committed relationship. There are plenty of men and women that get married without being in love, for example the pregnant eighteen year old getting married because of pressure from her parents even though she never loved the guy that got her pregnant in the first place and might have thought of her relationship with him as one of a casual nature. If two gay or lesbians love each other and have the same devotion for each other as a straight couple does, shouldn't they be allowed to be married if they choose to? Especially if they are going to give each other more devotion than a uncommitted couple that just got married out of wedlock.

I have a similar hate for Christians that say that gay-marriage or even homosexual relationships are against the Bible. People are so hypocritic, the Bible tells them to love everyone, yet they hate gays. I believe the only reason that the Bible considers homosexuality wrong is because of the age that the Old Testament happened in. In those days, people were concerned about making the population grow and as of today two guys or two girls cannot have a child. Therefore back in those days it was quite logical that homosexuality might be looked down on. But in a liberal society like today, where we have billions of people on the Earth, there is truly little wrong with that. We have also begun research swapping DNA from a sperm into an egg cell and then having a donor mother carry the baby. We have to be careful with this because males have both Y and X chromosomes and it isn't possible to live without an X chromosome. Each sex cell carries either an X or a Y chromosome, and if two YY chromosome come together then the fetus will die. Therefore the technical probability of two guys having a living child is 75%, a 66.6% chance of having a male and a 33.3% chance of having a female. Two females would have a 0% chance of having a male and a 100% chance of a female. Thus our gender scheme might become unbalanced.

Stem Cell Research

2009-03-21T14:34:00.000-07:00

Many times I have had fights on the morality of stem cell research and abortion with my mother, a very, overwhelmingly, Christian woman. I truly don't feel that anything is morally wrong with stem cell research and I feel that if someone wishes to donate their unused eggs to science, go right ahead. My mother feels otherwise and she usually tells me that the only reason I think that stem cell research is a good thing is because I try too hard to be against Christianity. While I may have had my fair share of troubles with that religion in particular, she is false in her accusation. Rather I think that the only reason she is going against stem cell research is because she is a Christian and has nothing better to do than complain about random crap that no one truly cares about. I feel that even if I was tied down to a religion I would have no problem with stem cell research anyways.
Okay the point I want to make is; people who say stem cell research is killing babies are idiots. The embryos that they use for research don't even count as fetuses or for that matter babies. It is simply a egg that has been fertilized many for a week and shows the presence of stem cells. The egg doesn't have thoughts yet and it couldn't even live with out being inside a mother, so using these embryos for research is not killing anything. The unused embryos for invetro fertilization are just going to be dumped anyways, so we might as well get some use out of them anyways. And for those people that say that life begins at the moment of conception; I would love to see them find a freaking heart beat or single brain wave with in this ball of cells, that doesn't look like anything yet.
To be continued...

Moe Takes The Test

2009-03-20T20:05:00.000-07:00

Simpsons Episode where Mr. Burns dies and then random people get lie detector/polygraph tests and I thought it was kind of humorous.

Telling Lies

2009-03-20T19:33:00.000-07:00

Okay so I walked into Barnes and Noble one afternoon in desperate search of a book that I could use for my book review. After having rejected all of the dozen or so books I was looking at, something caught my eye. There was a bright sticker on one of the books that said something like, "Research used in making of Lie To Me T.V. show." I was immediately attracted to this because anything that is related to television is interesting, right?
So I started reading the book and nothing about it is interesting, sure the beginning was alright only because it went into some of the famous lie that have happened over time. Yet the prospects the rest of the book would be just as good was small. It turns out that Paul Ekman, the writer of the book originally studied psychology and has research deception clues that increase the chances that people are lying. He tells us that there are a number of ways that these deception clues happen, such as facial expressions, body language, and involuntary things like heart beat and sweating.
He also starts to talk about how there are so many different human actions that happen because of many different situations, so no one can really tell if some one is lying or not. The presence of deception clues only increases the chance that people are lying. Yet some people who show no deception clues at all, also have a chance of lying, so Ekman says that a truly skilled lier will through in some slip ups to make it seem like they could be an innocent bystander.
He started to talk about the polygraph and how its accuracy and inaccuracies have changed the way the US thinks about interrogation and other stuff to deal with it. I'm actually planning on writing my paper focusing on the polygraph related aspect of that. I'm going to tie in some court case related research, where the judges deemed either the use of the polygraph as evidence as being constitutional or unconstitutional, or whether deemed appropriate as evidence because of the general inaccuracies of the polygraph. I've watched some tapes of interrogations using the polygraph and it's been useful in seeing the tactics that they use to get people to admit to crimes or to get them worked up enough that it almost looks like they've done the crime. I do believe from watching these videos that innocent people are very often deemed guilty because they show many factors that would make someone look guilty during an interrogation.
First off, many people have the view of the polygraph being like a godly devise that can always tell if you or lying, or it measures your brain waves in a certain section of your brain that is set of when you do lie. The real truth is, the polygraph only measures the frequency of stuff like heart beat, breath rate, also how much you perspire. If it truly measure whether you are lying or not we would have a lot more people in jail. When you enter the examination room they usually have you pick a card and then they tell you to answer whether what card it is as always no. They have it rigged so that when you say no to the card it actually is it makes a mark that you were lying. This ultimately destroys peoples confidence since they now think that it could tell that they were lying, since the people taking the test didn't know that the example was rigged. Another area where people get tripped up is that when you go into a high stress situation like this innocent people get really nervous because they've heard of people who were innocent getting tested as positive, therefore the takers of the test are quite stressed out. Often times there are important reasons for them not to fail the test and sometimes the consequences for failing the test are more than enough to make them have little slip ups. This is why I think it is quite unethical for polygraph tests to be held against people, especially if it's for a job like situation. I believe that it is entirely unethical for someone to be turned down for a job or to lose their job if they fail a polygraph test. There are a large percentage of truly honest people who fail the tests and it is entirely wrong for them to be held accountable for something they couldn't control in the first place. There have been enough studies to prove that more liers get away than actually innocent people. Natural liers are trained and ready for situations like this where intense pressure is put on them. If you can train yourself to focus and keep your heart beat and breath rate in great rhythm then you could ultimately fool the lie detector.
So... Ya not a book I would recommend but I'm kinda stuck with it now, but it does provide me with enough of a broad range of topics that I feel I will be able to tie in a bunch of outside information and possible have a great paper. The only problem will be how to get it started, and I think that I will be able to tie in the show enough that I won't have a real problem with it.

Lie To Me trailer

2009-03-13T18:59:00.000-07:00

My thoughts on Lie To Me

2009-03-13T18:09:00.000-07:00

Okay so I decided that since I was going to do my book review on the book, "Telling Lies," by Paul Ekman, I should probably watch one of the T.V. episodes that are based on research from the book.
The show turns out not to be so great, it was really boring and I felt that the plot was rather dry. The actors are actually quite bad and you would think that this guy would kind of be a bad ass, while he does do some cool shit, it's mainly like weird stuff that no one cares about.
The show barely uses any of the stuff from the book and all of it is just like examining facial gestures or slip ups of the tongue and the book goes way more in deepth about everything than that. I mean you could find little to no connection at all between the show and the book. I can see where some of the research might be incorporated, where the main character interrogates the people but I don't see how watching the show would make me want to read the book or where reading the book would make me want to watch the show. So know I have officially deemed the show full of crap and badly set up with little to no plot line and I will not being using it in my book review paper other than to make a reference to why I chose the book to do and how it may relate to today's life. In other words, what makes me care at all about reading the book.

Chosing A Book

2009-03-12T16:20:00.000-07:00

Okay so for class we all got this assignment to pick out a book and write a review about it. Now I am a very indecisive person and I have a horrible time trying to pick between anything. When faced with the issue of picking between more than two things I can usually narrow it down to being between two of the items but to narrow it down to just one, is a seemingly impossible task for me. I usually just end up resorting to chance to decide my future. I know this seems like a particularly crappy way to choose between things, but it works for me because I am quite a flexible person and can work my way with any decision I make, no matter how stupid.
Okay so in relation to my book thing, I had this same problem. Early on in dealing with this assignment I was trying to choose between three books that sounded great and that I most likely could go many different directions with.
Okay the first book I had in mind was the Quiet Room, an autobiograhy written by Lori Schiller with the help of Amanda Bennett. This book dives into the life of Lori Schiller, a women deeply tortured by a mental disorder known as schizophrenia. She tells how her life was filled with the horror of voices taunting her, multiple suicide attempts, and traveling from half-way house to half-way house. I felt that I could go many different directions with this book, I could talk about schizophrenia itself, or psychologists opinions on dealing with schizophrenia. I could also have talked about many different treatments and possible solutions to the mental illness. The only problem with using this book was that it is kind of an older book so I would have had to find a way to relate the book, which was written back in 1994. I could think of a possible excuse for writing a book review of the book now when it was written such a long time ago.
The second book that was in the running was, a book of my friends, Rumspringa. He was also trying to decide between two books, this one and another. I decided to take a look at one of his books yet he told me that if he decided to use it I couldn't. Okay so Rumspringa is a book about the time period where the Amish youth are allowed to run free and experience the world before deciding whether to stay with the church or leave it forever. Okay so the next day after reading like one chapter of the book my friend decided he was going to use this book. I told him that's fine and thus I was officially left with my last option. One that was not entirely interesting to me but it was all I had left.
So the book I chose, or rather a series of events chose for me was Telling Lies, by Paul Ekman. It's a book talking about the research the Ekman did, over lies and the detecting signs of lies. Ekman talks about people feelings associated with lies and how ultimately no one can tell with out a question whether someone was lying or not. So the book was kind of interesting to me and before I started reading it I knew that there would be a number of ways I could take this book and write a paper about it. I knew I could talk about stuff like interogation methods or possibly torture, I could also have gone in a direction of changes with in the jucidial system due to research associated with Ekman.

Inspired

2009-03-11T17:26:00.000-07:00

Okay so as part of a new thing I've decided to characterize my friends as different superheroes or villains that they would possibly be. I will be characterizing them by different events that I have seen them involved with and by different personality traits that they all have. I will try and remove any of my biases towards them about appearance or about gender, or sexuality, though I am bound to leak some of this information into my choosing.
I actually got the idea to do this from facebook and I already know that sounds sort of weird. If you have ever taken one of those quizzes where you answer a question and it has a bunch of dumb answers that don't even fit your personality so you just kind of pick one. Then after you are all done with it you have to send it to like ten or fifteen people. If you are like me you will send each one of these you do to the same group of people just to annoy them or avoid sending it to someone and making yourself look totally uncool for taking an Internet chain quiz and then actually sending it out to find your answer. Okay so needless to say these little quiz things are quite annoying and may actually hinder the development of my brain since I am drawn to facebook like a moth is to a candle, and these quizzes just keep me on there longer. So, after you have sent them out to so many people, a humiliating thing to do, you finally get your results. The results are sometimes hilarious and may actually make sense yet usually they are completely stupid. I sometimes get something saying like, "you are the color green, because you love the earth," or "you are like Shaggy because you are always trying to help people yet you do stupid things." Needless to say, quizzes are pointless.
Okay so bringing me back to my point, I have like a total obsession with superheroes and haven't seen a good superhero related thing on facebook, besides stupid little groups made because of all the excitement over Watchmen, so I decided to do something kind of fun and will now be profiling my friends, who shall all remain nameless, and yes I will profile myself. So over the next few weeks I plan to get like five or six of my friends profiled and I will hopefully have a ton of fun and will certainly enjoy seeing most of my friends expressions while they read their respective characters.

My Thoughts On Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Pancreatic Cancer

2009-02-15T13:27:00.000-08:00

Okay so it's a pretty important job being a supreme court justice. A lot of people truly look up to those people sitting up there on that bench. A few weeks ago, we, the American people, learned of one of our judges having pancreatic cancer. Pancreatic cancer is right now the number one deadliest form of cancer known. There is a five percent survival rate among people developing this form of cancer, heck there is even a higher survival rate of brain cancer, and everyone knows that you can definately not live with out your brain.

I am a definate liberal, and so is Ginsburg, the current break up of liberal to conservative is 5:4, with John Roberts, the Chief Justice, being conservative. Now if Ginsburg dies, the ratio will become primarily equal, though I would say it would start to lean towards the conservative side.

The good news is that if Obama has a chance to appoint a new Justice, then he wil probably choose another liberal, that would be a very good thing. Also in my opinion the Supreme Court needs some young blood to refresh it, if we could get a youngish liberal into a seat then it would be very good for some important issues that we will see hit the supreme court sometime in the next few years (i.e. Same-Sex Marriage, as to my knowledge four out of the five current liberals in the court are pro gay marriage, while only one conservative is).

The other issue that might come up is the fact that only one of the judges on the US Supreme Court are not Christian and that is Ginsburg, who is Jewish. The Supreme Court might start to show a lacking of diversity also because Ginsburg is the only woman currently on the supreme court, though Sandra Day O'Conner is still in a position to fill when needed.

So basically if Ginsburg retires or dies, the Supreme court could be a toss up between liberals and conservatives but I'm just hoping that my side will come out on top.

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/2009/02/13/2009-02-13_supreme_court_justice_ruth_bader_ginsbur.html

Why I Blog

2009-02-15T13:04:00.001-08:00

Before this year I never thought I would be one to blog, well let me rephrase that, I never thought I would be required by one of my teachers to blog. So far I have had both positive and negative experiences with blogging and it might be something I will continue later on in life even after I'm done with AP Lang.
Why I like blogging;
It lets me put my personality out there and kind of have a free flowing thing. I am an extremely random person and am capable of talking about a bunch of nonsense, my blog lets me express myself and yet allows me to stay a little personal.
I also like to complain a lot, and many of my past posts have been ones dealing with complaint. I have a lot to say about the world around me and many, many people to call stupid. I like blogging about my complaints because it lets me sort out my feelings about something and this way it makes me think a lot deeper about the actual issue. It helps me to blow steam, without actually blowing up at someone, like I tend to do even though I don't really mean it.
I like the freedom of choosing topics, in the being of choosing a topic I remember hating what I was writing about after only a few days of writing about it. Not hating the activity, just hating writing about the activity. So I was able to kind of change my topics at the turn of the trimester. Even though I have definately gotten away from my topic currently chosen, writing biographies of SuperHeroes, I do like having the ability of changing topics when I really want to.

My Negative Thoughts On Blogging
I don't like people really knowing what I'm thinking because I usually try to stay impersonal and out of the spotlight, that is why I have left my blog closed to everyone except for the people that I have chosen to read it. It makes me feel kind of self-concious in a way, and like I don't have backbone to just freely state a lot of my opinions.
Another reason why I don't like it, is not because I don't like it, but because I am really lazy for the most part and It is hard for me to post when I'm not motivated at all. I know what my parents would say to that though, "You should be motivated because it's your grade at stake," and yes I know grades should be somewhat of a motivation, but I don't really have to worry about them that much because I have such a high gpa, now that I would have to fail like all of my classes to get below a 3.0, and then I could always just try a little harder next term/year to make up for that. But since I don't really want to fail any classes because it would look really bad on my transcript, I'm kind of motivated by that.
The last reason why I don't like blogging is because I want more freedom when, where and how I right. I remember dreading when we picked our topics because I don't really know much about anything besides complaining, Tae Kwon Do and music, the latter two are kind of boring to talk about, but when I chose my other topic, Super Heroes, I got bored of that within two weeks, so I feel like I've been completely off topic most of the time and I don't like feeling off topic, though I know that being off topic can sometimes be a good thing.
Oh and before I forget, I also don't like having a word count because I makes me feel like I stretch out my little knowledge of some topic over about four hundred words, just so I can get something done. Then my post turns out to be really really crappy.

Social Darwinism

2009-02-14T18:22:00.000-08:00

It is quite a coincidence that this week, we in my AP US History class, talked about the concept of social Darwinism, and that Thursday was the bicentennial birthday of Charles Darwin.
Social Darwinism is a concept derived from natural selection and survival of the fittest. Both concepts say that only the strongest and most adapted species will have a great chance of surviving.
During the eighteen hundreds people began to apply these terms in relation to racism, specifically against African Americans. Social Darwinists believed that whites were altogether superior to blacks and thus acted on it that way. This created a drift that made many white come to believe that they were an altogether greater species than the African Americans and thus African Americans shouldn't be allowed to have the same rights as whites.
With various civil rights movements the Social Darwinists turned away from just believing that African Americans were below them. Many upper class white men thought that they were on the top of the food chain, that everyone below them was inferior to them in some way. They thought that they had greater genetics than the average person, so thus they were entitled to the finer things in life.
This was clearly a lacking of morality, since many Social Darwinists believed that things like welfare and other programs designed to help the poor and sick were only keeping the "inferior" species alive. They furthered this belief system to include the thought that, if things were not done to help cleanse the world of these inferior beings, that world and society would be flooded with the inferiors species.
The term Social Darwinism is also applied to the United States imperialistic thoughts throughout the late 19th and early 20th century. Some members of the US society thought that culture based from the European countries, especially England, was meant to be spread. People thought that by Americanizing other parts of the world, the world would be a better place and easier to survive in. This fueled the US's ever expanding imperialistic policies towards other nations, the US was now destined to spread white culture.
Social Darwinism was not a totally outrageously malicious thing. It did do much good towards America, some people such as Andrew Carnegie, took it upon themselves to better society. They believed that it was their job to help other people in society and not just look after there own interests. Many hospitals and research facilities were built during this time, in an effort to build up society rather than tear it down like other Social Darwinists believed should to be done.

Happy Birthday Charles Darwin

2009-02-12T07:46:00.000-08:00

Today, February 12th 2009 is the 200th birthday of Charles Darwin, our beloved forefather of the evolutionary theory. He laid down the foundation for much research after him and is seen as the key figure in the development of the evolutionary theory.

Charles Darwin was born in 1809 and died in 1882. He was an English naturalist who derived the idea of natural selection. Natural selection is the process by which organisms with favorable heritable traits reproduce in order to pass on the favorable trait. A favorable trait is any trait that will allow an organism to have much greater chances to survive. Some would say that those with favorable traits have the greatest advantages in the populations to survive, survive in a way that it is a competition to keep from dying and not being able to pass on your genetic material.

From the theory of Natural Selection we get another idea, that of the survival of the fittest. The strongest organism, or the one with the most desirable traits will be the one to survive rather than the one without. It can also be expressed as the organism who has the most over time adapted to it's environment. This doesn't necessarily mean that the organsim less adapted to it's environment will not be able to survive, for if you think about life in a broader spectrum, it is our goal as a member of our species to find a mate and care on the genetic code. The organisms while being able to carry on the genetic code must also be able to produce a large enough amount of offspring to keep the species continuing.

Another key thing to the theory of evolution is the adaptability of an organism to its environment. Everyone knows the story of Darwin's finches. While he was on his expedition he noticed that on every of the Galapagos Islands there was a species of Finch. While the finches appeared somewhat alike, he noticed that the beak shape varied greatly. Some had long skinny beaks, other had wide, and broad beaks. He assumed that the finches had at one point shared a common ancestor and then as the Galapagos islands broke apart, the environments changed and the finches were forced to adapted to survive. He assumed that the primary reasoning for the change in beak structure was linked to the availability of food on the islands. In the circumstance of the finch with the tough, broad and wide beak, and the fact that it ate mainly nuts, it was established that the finch most likely adapted so that it would have an easier time opening the nuts. While the finch with the narrow and long beak, ingested pollen.

We have these great ideals that have added to the debate on the way man began thanks to the forefather of evolution, Charles Darwin.

Fundamentalist Disrupts Darwin day

2009-02-12T05:08:00.000-08:00

This is part two of the three part youtube clip and is it gave me a lot more laughs than the part one. The Fundamentalist Christian Preacher who disrupted the Darwin Day celebration on the Florida State University campus, is now being followed around and read to from Darwin's book, "The Origin Of Species," while he tries to preach to the crowd.

Watchmen Trailer

2009-02-08T18:58:00.000-08:00

I still say it looks like it'll be good
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E4blSrZvPhU

Watchmen

2009-02-08T18:28:00.000-08:00

So there is a totally cool movie coming out, the watchmen, though I'm not quite sure what to expect since I've seen plenty of cool movie trailers that turn out to be really really crappy movies. For instance the league of extraordinary gentlemen had an amazing movie trailer, yet the movie itself was a horrible disaster.
Not only does it seem that good movie trailers can make horrible, horrible movies, but some amazing comic books can become horrible movies also. Taking for example the hulk, it's truly an amazing comic book, but the movie sucked. The plot line didn't mesh with any of the comic books at all. The actors were horrible in it and the scenes seemed choppy, plus half the time it had poor lighting so I couldn't see like anything on the screen.
There of course have been plenty of comics that make amazing movies. Spider man was an absolutely great and amazing movie, and it also kind of follows the plot line of the comic books. The X-Men another great movie, completely follows the plot line and also had amazing actors. Completely following the plot line doesn't automatically make a movie great, in the case of the Electra movie, follow the plot line all the way yet was not the greatest movie, in fact it was dead and dull and I would never watch it again. The fact that, that movie was weird because I was in love with the prequel, Dare Devil, though my love for Dare Devil probably set too high of expectations. That's another thing that bugs me, while one movie can be great the next one in the series can be horrible.
The lack of a plot can also be amazing like in the case of the new bat man movies, the bat man movies don't follow any of the comic scripts. The movies were absolutely stunning and all of the actors did amazing jobs.
I'm not qutie sure what to expect of the watchmen but it looks like it'll be good.

The Band Carnival

2009-02-06T15:06:00.000-08:00

The Band Carnival is always the stupidest thing in the world. It will be a complete waste of my time tomorrow. I have to spend close to six hours at Kennedy, on a saturday, preforming twice and working at a game station once. My parents are also making me help tear down, which means I have to wait until almost ten to go home. Then I have one of my parents stupid social parties with the church to go to, which means I won't get home until almost two in the mornings, looks like it's gonna be another weekend of little to no sleep.
We host the band carnival every year usually just to earn some money for the band, but from all the money the volunteers donate towards the band carnival, we would probably make more if we just had people donate money and never even had the carnival at all. On top of that it's really stressful and harsh on all of the kids that have to participate.
Fleer and Bird make us work our butts off, by going out and begging business for prizes for the drawings and I mean literally begging because most of them turn us down and we have to guilt them into giving us prizes. The reason we try so hard is because they require us to bring in some sort of a prize or else they will drop us a letter grade which totally not fair. I however do not care at all because I am taking band pass fail in order to boost my gpa because I'm taking mostly ap classes and band isn't ap at all so there's a big difference between 4 point and 5 point scales.
Then during the band concert we have to work stations and deal with kids who whine because they didn't get a prize, aww how sad, not!
We have to bring in a liter of pop too, something that I won't have to do either because I really don't care.
I also learned from the last two years to sign up really early for the jobs. This year I got a really easy one, Go Fish, the kids always win so you don't have to deal with them whining.
Even though I didn't really do anything tomorrow is still gonna suck, six hours is way to long to be at a concert.

Another Reason For Procrastination

2009-02-04T18:47:00.000-08:00

Every time I'm sick, I usually hold my breath, say this is gonna be a crappy day, then walk out the door and go to school anyways. It truly takes a lot for me to miss a day of school. It's not necessarily because I love school or anything like that, but it's because I really really do not like feeling behind. Rushed is a feeling I can deal with, yet I cannot stand being behind. The pressure just gets to me and I want to relax so bad yet I really really can't. It makes me sit down and take a minute and then that minute gets longer and longer and I eventually end up skipping the assignments from the days I missed, altogether.
I was quite sick on Monday and that is why I went home during second hour. My mother insisted on keeping me home all day on Tuesday, despite my persistent not want to stay home. It is probably a good thing that she did, because I now know that I have been sick the past six weeks with a sinus infection that spread to my lungs and was causing my bad cough and runny nose. I got humongous pills that are 800 mg of amoxicillian. Yay antibiotics. My doctor said that it was a good thing that I came in because if I didn't take the drugs I was going to feel like shit for the next month or so.
As soon as I got to school Wednesday I knew that I was going to have a hell of a time. I got double assignments in almost every class and now I have a test in math over a bunch of crap that we all just learned in this new unit that started on last Friday. To tell you the truth I really don't remeber anything about functions and I really don't want to.
I got home tonight after skipping both my 7th hour and Jazz band, oops, and I had a plan. I had structured my night out according to homework difficulty and started working. There's only one problem. I may have gone to school today, but I'm only on the recovery of my sickness. A.K.A. I'm still sick!
I started to work on my homework and halfway through finishing my AP US History study guide/ Syllabus, I fell asleep. I was up until one in the morning last night working on my US project and got a grand total of four hours of sleep. In conclusion I have like no homework done and I still feel like crap and am totally exhausted and sick. The rest of this week is gonna be FUN! In a totally sarcastic way.

Being home sick

2009-02-02T18:29:00.000-08:00

The worst feeling for me is boredom, when I get bored bad things tend to happen and I usually end up getting in more trouble than it's worth.
Today was the first day that I have ever left school early because I wasn't feeling good, not that I've never had a stomach ache before. This time my stomach ache was excruciating and I had to run to the bathroom and you can see where I'm going from here, not a very pretty image.
So my teacher sent me urgently to the nurse with a pass, she is a germaphobic so I saw her reach for the germ ex as I walked out of the room.
The nurse prompted me with the question, what's wrong. I told her what happened in the bathroom, excluding the disguisting and grimy details of what I had for breakfast in a puddle in the toilet bowl.
She then asked me if I wanted to lay down or call one of my parents and be excused for the rest of the day. I chose the latter of the two options. I went back to my teachers room, grabbed my stuff, told her I was leaving and then signed out at the main office.
My mom then decided she didn't want to pick me up, so I had to drive myself home in my tiny little car while I was crippled over by a malignant pain in my middle stomach region.
So I drove home and I had another incident much like the one in the bathroom only this time it was outside in the snow, and it wasn't nearly as gross but it still us putrid.
I was left at home curled up in my bed with a horrible pain for the rest of the day, on top of that my cough made it so that I couldn't get to sleep at home. About three I crawled out of bed to make myself toast and get a glass of orange juice, those were the only two things I could hold down. So that was basically my day. And now I am ending this day with this blog post and am going to bed for an indefinate amount of time, though I know I have a doctors appointment in the morning around ten.
I know I would much rather be at school that at home laying sick in my bed, rather than puking my guts out. Besides I happen to like school quite a bit.

My social life leading to involuntary procrastination

2009-02-01T23:08:00.000-08:00

So earlier tonight was the Superbowl, yay the steelers won, but who really cares not me. I'm just happy that my band director will be in an extremely good mood tomorrow and will possibly not make us rehearse even though it is only a week until our concert, which is going to be a disaster.
I knew I had some homework to do that would be due on Monday, yet I almost completely forgot about this stupid Superbowl party that I was being forced to go to. My church was hosting it, I happen to hate my church and feel quite repugnant towards a bunch of hypocritic people who really need to get their heads out of there asses and experience real life instead of a life built around worshiping some man that walked on the Earth around two thousand years ago and can't possibly be related to today's world at all.
I had been pleading with my parents all night to let me stay home. But they kept throwing the same bullshit at me, by saying that I had plenty of other opportunities to do it, with was completely false. Yesterday I was at a jazz concert for about twelve hours and was dog tired by the time I got home so I gave into my exhaustion and slept. And earlier today I was drug to church, =(, then I went to volunteer for National Honor Society at Mission of Hope. I almost had my parents cracked and was allowed to stay home, but my mom pulled out a tatic completely not fair, guilt. She reminded me that yesterday was her birthday and she wouldn't get to see me at all, so I gave in and went to the party.
So my whole point is that the reason I still haven't even started my poster project for ap us is because my parents make me do all of these things and then yell at me when I "Procrastinate."

For the love of Chicken Wings Part II

2009-02-01T13:45:00.001-08:00

So I've already established that the immigrants in Postville weren't doing any harm to America, but were they helping the economy. In deed they were.
Because the company was paying the numerous workers below minimum wage, at about five or six dollars and hour, they were able to sell their goods for a lot cheaper than they were selling them before. Since they were keeping the prices low, the company was selling a lot more and they were raking in more money. The consumer was also benefiting, they were able to buy the wings for a lot cheaper so they were saving money and able to have there money for other things, like house payments and stuff like that.
Another things is, how many people would actually want to work in a meat packing plant? Not me! I definitely would not want to work in a factory for the rest of my life or even part of my life, no matter how short. They are gruesome and I don't really like meat that much to begin with, I would probably quit after one day of working there and then become a vegetarian afterwards. I'm pretty sure quite a few people would agree with me on this, after do you really want to work for minimum wage or just a little above for the rest of your life, we as Americans have aspirations. I know I'm going to college and I know that a lot of my friends are, I just don't really see myself getting a degree in meat packing lol. And I know that I could never see myself, a white upper, middle class citizen working in a grimy factory.
So why don't we just let the immigrants do the work that we really don't want to do, for us. I know I would probably get yelled at by some anti-immigration people for saying that, but who cares. They complain about not having enough jobs for people, when the truth is, there are enough jobs out there but nobody wants to work in a meat packing plant, we all are just to lazy and grossed out to do actual work. Or as other people would put it, most Americans are above that and have to high of an education to be working in such a tedious low skilled job market.
So why don't we just let immigrants do our work for us?

For the past decade, the Superbowl has been the TOP sales day for chicken wings in the United States, nearly four percent of all chicken wings sold throughout the year are sold on Superbowl Sunday. Now that's a lot of wings. There's just one problem with this year, since the raid, the Postville plant hasn't been producing nearly as much as they had been, thus we are now declaring today to be a shortage of chicken wings. This means that the prices shot up over the past few weeks and it's really expensive to buy wings now, if you can even find them today. The humorous thing is that many of the people that will be complaining about the lack of chicken wings today are people who complained about illegal immigrants coming into the country and "stealing our jobs." Many of the people are responsible for the Postville raid, an therefore it is not anyones fault except for theres. They just had to go and screw up a system that was working perfectly fine, and now we are all gonna have to suffer with out our chicken wings, except for my family. I told my dad about my theory on the chicken wing shortage about two weeks ago and he went and bought some. As it plays out, they are actually five dollars more expensive today then when he bought them two weeks ago, so I told him he owes me five bucks. And now I am five bucks richer.

For the love of chicken wings

2009-01-31T13:18:00.000-08:00

If you know me you know I really really don't like chicken wings at all. They're nasty and hard to get the meat off of and they are usually covered in dark meat, which I cannot stand at all. I usually will bite into the bone, that's a really really gross feeling, or I will accidentally get a piece with a lot of gristle in it and won't be able to chew it at all because it's so disguisting.

There truly is a point for me bringing up the discussion on chicken wings. Last year when the Postville meat packing plant immigration raid happened, almost a third of their workers were busted for either not been a citizen, having a green card, visa, or working at the plant underage. People as young as 14 years old were working at the meat packing plant, while you can normally work at 14 years of age, the conditions at the factory were such that the age requirement of eighteen years old was required.

The factory at Postville was required to shut its doors for about too weeks time, when they pulled workers up form texas to help them get the company back under way. The poultry department was opened, though they have been moving with about half the force they had been before the raid, and for the time being the beef department/ area has been kept closed because of lack of workers.

I'm not here to debate the morality of the deportation of hundreds of these migrant workers, though they were doing jobs that no one else wanted, for lower wages. The got paid lower wages because the company didn't have to pay social security taxes on the wages of the workers. Many people will say that, that is a completely immoral thing to not pay taxes, but the workers who were there weren't actually eligible for social security or anything like that, so it wasn't really hurting anyone.

Different Types of Marching

2009-01-25T19:02:00.000-08:00

I have found that over my career as a march that I have not been introduced to many forms of classical marching, our last years show was Carmina Burana, though it was not a real march, it was written in a classical style and that is as close as I have gotten to marching a classical march, so far.

Until about the 1600's marches were notated to percussion styles only. They were used in the military to keep order and keep everyones feet moving at the same beat so that no one would run into anyone else and every soldier would be accounted for according to a position that he was given in the line. So originally they were written as solely percussion pieces. They then adapted a tuneful instrument to go along with the percussion to add some color and keep the soldiers spirits higher as they marched, they adopted the trumpet. Music was expanded to give trumpets a part that lead away from the percussion and rang out along the troops.

In the nineteenth century many marches were written still for the same purpose but in a different way, a more creative way. The instrumental section of the marchers grew into an actual marching band and many famous composers created marching pieces, like Sousa, the developer of the Sousaphone, or marching tuba.

While traditional marching pieces were written at slightly faster than walking tempo, around 100 beats per minute, French marches were written at a rapid pace. They were written at the pace of 120 to 140 beats per minute. This way because during the Napoleonic War, Napolean wanted the rapid transport of troops throughout the country side and this was a quick conveniant way to keep it happening, also the French adapted the faster tempo as part of there march style from Napolean on out.

Many American marches written during the time period of 1845-1860 adopted the French style of marching, while the British style had a great influence on American marches, the French had an even greater impact. For the same reasons Napolean had, the American wanted there soldiers to be able to cross the vast territories they had, and in a fast manor. Also America had a great bond with the French as, France was strong allies with them for a long period of time. Also the fast march tempo originated in America during their war for independance when the French had sent over military support and the commanding officiers of the French took there marches at the stereotypical speed of the French.

Shin Splints =(

2009-01-25T18:01:00.000-08:00

So the past three weeks I've started running every day. I started out with a simple two miles and have now made my way up to nearly five miles. But this increase in stress on my legs has started causing my legs severe pain. There of course are many explanations for this sudden pain, but the one most likely is that I have shin splints.
Shin Splints are stress related, and caused by the overuse, or excessive use of a muscle. It creates little tears between the bone and muscle and causes a lot of swelling in the area between, leading to pain. They can be caused by an increase in exercise or beginning to exercise that muscle. They are usually caused by running, jumping or other activities that involve the motion of pounding on the ground. The pounding on the ground motion leads to soreness and thus also leads to shin splints or can also lead to stress fracturing or ankle problems.
There is a harsher condition caused the same way as shin splints but happens because of an extend time period of doing the activities that cause shin splints, this condition is called chronic compartment syndrome, or CCS. This occurs when the indistensible anterior compartment of the leg becomes swollen with blood. The swelling is so great that it blocks the transport of blood to the areas around the muscle. This lack of blood then can lead to severe pain and other problems such as the necrosis or the muscles around the shin bones.
Some other causes of shin splints related to running is the fact that some runners over stride, or take to big of steps. This causes the runner to land very heavily on the heel every time there foot strikes the ground, thus this problem of shin splints is very very predominant in military boot camps where the stride is stretched an the march style causes a greater pressure on the heel of the marcher. The marcher first strikes the heel on the ground and pushes of with the ball of there other foot causing the weight to be mainly distributed onto the heel of the foot now landing on the ground. All of the force of the weight plus times the movement of the person and distribution of the weight is transfered through out the leg of the person doing the marching. During the marching time the foot rapidly hits the ground sometimes at the velocity of one hundred and sixty beats per minute, thus marching is an extreme cause of shin splints. Sometime people say that when you get shin splints they are caused by a weakness in the muscles of your legs that attach to the shin, in my case this is definately not the truth.
I am involved in various activities that involve a high risk factor for shin splints. First of all I am a marcher, I march all fall, and then have the problem of accidentally marching during school in the middle of the halls, just a little habit of all of the marchers at our school. Since I mentioned that marching is the number one cause of shin splints, this makes me a high risk factor for splints, but since I haven't had shin splints until this year that is probably not the cause of my shin splints. The second possible reason for my shin splints is the fact that I am in Tae Kwon Do, an activity that involves quite a bit of jumping and the popular cause of shin splints, landing too heavily on the heel of your foot. Since October I have been involved in a rigorous Tae Kwon Do program designed to get me ready for my testing in twenty-seven days. This program and workout schedule involves two hundred bunny hop jumps a day, where I touch my knees to my chest and then land on my feet again, this is a possible cause of my shin splints but all of the pain that I felt during the beginning of me starting out this workout is now gone. But it is still a killer workout for my abs and I have started to develop a six pack, my lifes dream, just kidding. So that probably isn't the problem that is causing my shin splints.
I am coming to believe that it is a combination of all three of these activities is causing enough stress on my legs to cause these shin splints.
There are a number of ways that you can help to relieve the pain of the shin splints but the only two ways to get rid of them are strengthening the muscles to be able to handle a high level of stress, or lots of ice and rest. But I have found temporary relief in double doses of asprin and a miracle massager called the stick, it's a long wooden stick that as a roll of bead attached to it. You roll it over your legs and it massages the muscles, it helps to relax my muscles after a long work out and make it so my legs don't feel like crap in the morning when I get up.
So I guess until my muscles get strong enough I am going to have to survive with relief of pain by asprin.

Going to the theaters to watch the previews!!!

2009-01-18T18:29:00.000-08:00

I'm one of those people who absolutely love movie trailers, doesn't matter what kind, but I love them soo much. There's just something so exciting about about them, it intrigues me and draws me to actually want to go to them. Well that is the magic of advertising.

They all draw me in and make me wonder what the movie would actually be about, and then I usually forget about it during the movie. There's something mysterious about watching them because it makes us always guess, oh what's this movie about? Do I really want to go see this? Is this movie gonna be good or just completely dumb? I always fall in love with the good movies like three seconds after I start watching the trailers and only the good ones are really vivid in my memory.

Watching the trailers is also quite humorous, we get to make fun of all the dumb movies and say stuff like, "Wow are they getting desperate, making a retarded movie like that." And if we end up going to one of the movies that was amazing in the previews and turns out to be really really crappy we will boo in the theater until kicked out or chastised by one of the workers. No matter how bad the movie I have never gotten up and left a movie. I always just sit there and suffer.

Oh and then if you're on a date with someone you really really don't like and your watching the previews for the movie that looks like it's gonna be a piece of shit, then the person you're with is like, wow that looks like an amazing movie we should go see it. Then you have to be like, oh ya sure, it's a date and your thinking oh crap don't try and plan it now. Then they end up asking you when you want to go and you my friend are officially stuck on another very very crappy date. Btw I'm speaking from personal experience.

It's always a bummer when you get to the theaters really late, they usually have like five minutes of time before the previews and that's okay to miss, but if I miss the previews I'm gonna be really quite distressed, because to tell you the truth that's my favorite part of the whole movie watching experience, I could care less about the actual movie.

Procrastination Due to Snow Days

2009-01-18T14:50:00.000-08:00

I've decided that the recent snow days have actually fueled my procrastination habits rather than given me extra time to do my homework/ projects. I think I have all of this time to do everything in, so I start to hold off on doing it and maybe stop working on everything after getting about five minutes into it. On tuesday night when it started snowing, I stopped doing my homework, a move that was quite risky since it wasn't finalized yet, and started playing video games.
Then when Wednesday rolled around I did nothing all day and waited til the night to start my homework, when I learned that school was called off, I stopped doing my homework and started playing video games again.
Thursday is the same story over again only worse because I slept in until like 11:30 that morning, and then Friday school was called off and I totally thought screw this I'm not doing and homework til the weekend. So then I went and made plans for Thursday night, all day Friday, and made it a point not to return home until very late Saturday morning.
Of course I have plans to go raise hell on Saturday with my friends, I betrayed Kennedy by going to a Wash swim meet and rooting for them because a really good friend I have goes there.
So for the last four day I did absolutely nothing productive and now I'm left with today to get all my homework done that was due wednesday and all of the longterm stuff that was due last week. And that includes my three blog posts, that I am working on today =).
So in that regard it really helps all of us procrastinate, but also what is the point of doing any work this week, because we all now we have to relax because we are going to be playing catch up next week.
Which then puts added stress on all of us because we now are quite rushed to do all the thing we missed the past week plus all of the new stuff we have to do, life doesn't freeze just because we have a snow day. And for those of us who had big projects that are due the following week, we are doubley screwed because if we needed help, oops it's too late now.

Hurray For Snow Days?!?

2009-01-18T14:34:00.000-08:00

First of all I would like to say that if I were a senior, I would have much different views on all of the snow days we have had recently.
You would think that every high school student would be happy about the lack of school due to winter related problems, I for one am not. We've missed five days of school so far, and we are going to make them up, that fact is quite sour for me. I am one of those people who absolutely hates winter and would much rather be inside a warm building learning rather than participating in the winter ritual of snow shoveling (or blowing if you are lucky enough to have a snow blower).
Therefore, I actually like going to school during the winter versus going to school in the summer. In the winter I have far less social activities I would like to attend than in the summer. For Example, a group of my friends went sledding this past week on one of the snow days. I happen to hate sledding, it is cold, wet, and just quite unpleasant when you have cold air blasted into your face as you travel down a hill. I obviously skipped out on that adventure, but if it were summertime and I had been asked to go jet skiing or bodysurfing, I would have been all in because it's warm, fun, and I have plenty of sun exposure to work on that amazing tan of mine that lasts for most of the winter if I get dark enough.
Summertime is also my vacationing time, I was planning to go to Europe right after school ended, but now that the new school makeup days have decided to cut into my vacation time, I have to either ditch school on those days and break my perfect attendance record/take my finals early, or push my vacation back to the next available time that works for me, in early August.
Oh and then there is the thing about the seniors, which is totally stupid, but I will totally dig next year. They don't have to make up all of the snow days, because the graduation date is already set for them, this really pisses us juniors off because this was a year with a lot snow days and we totally envy that. Next year we probably won't have any snow days and we will walk around sulking the entire time, because that's just the way it works, luck is not in the favor of my class.

Huh? What do you mean?

2009-01-11T14:37:00.000-08:00

I've come to believe that some people need extra special clarification on a lot of stuff. People only half listen sometimes and it really comes back to bite them on the ass when they do it. When ever I come into contact with this habit in many of my friends, I have come to believe that when people do this, they are not truly trying to be mean and misunderstanding of you, but they just have quite short attention spans that need refocusing. Or like cases it can be caused by pure rudeness, a fact that all of us have to face from time to time.
I recently was one of these rude not listening people, a friend was on the phone with me and was going on and on for about two hours over her problems with her boyfriend and other people not being fair to her. I had tried to give this conversation the slip multiple times by using my superior talent of making excuses, but with this girl it was no use, I just had to stay on the phone with her until she was done with me.
I'm generally not a multitasker, but when I'm half listening I can do like five things at once. Being on the phone with her for like an hour got me really really bored quite fast and sensing no end to the conversation I soon plugged in my ipod to my other ear and turned it down low enough that I could hear it but she couldn't. This soon evolved to the checking of my facebook while tuning in and out of the conversation and every once and a while mumbling something supportive.
By the time I was at the max of my multitasking, I was working on my paper for school, while watching TV, chatting on facebook, listening to my ipod, and ultimately talking on the phone. I was quite surprised that I could carry on like this because my genetically inferior male brain is not meant for stuff like this. But boy could this girl talk.
At some point during the conversation I was severely caught of guard when a question was brought to my attention, that didn't have a yes or no answer option.
I seriously thought I was gonna get caught before I pulled out the best trick thought up by guys around the world, I answered with the phrase, "I don't know, how do you feel about that?"
Then followed it up with a "Yeah I know what you mean."
It was truly the perfect deception, I gave her the impression that I was not only listening fully, but I was paying attention to her feelings. It's quite crazy that my trick actually worked but thank god it did or I would have probably gotten the cold shoulder for about a week.

Marching in Florida

2009-01-11T14:16:00.000-08:00

Florida is an amazing place in the winter compared to Iowa, 85 degrees on Monday and in the mid seventies for the next five days. Our hotel was amazing, five stars and we actually had three rooms in our hotel suite. Like always the beds are soft and the pillows fluffed. I realized about halfway through our trip that we were actually using air conditioning in our hotel room, for some reason these was amazing to me, especially since it was winter and in Iowa we had our heater cranked up.
The view from our hotel room was over an amazing couple acre golf course, the pool, hot tub, volleyball and tennis courts. It was quite beautiful and reminded me of a very picturesque painting. I was quite overwhelmed by the fact that I was staying in a beautiful five star hotel with about twenty good friends and a hundred others. On top of all that I had successfully made my first ever flight without my parents being there.
We all looked forward to the amazing week in paradise, though it would have been wonderful to have a few hours just to relax at the hotel. We got to go to the MGM studios, Planet Hollywood, Downtown Disney, EPCOT, Animal Kingdom, and the Magical Kingdom, all in a four day period. We went to Cocoa Beach on the very last day, though it was only 65 degrees and like a lot of other people I opted out of swimming because of the freezing temperature of the water.
The only downside many of us saw to the week, was the fact that we had to march in two different parades in the same day, totaling a distance of about six miles, in seventy-five degree weather. Our marching uniforms are made out of wool and they are quite thick. In fact they are designed to keep us as warm as possible, in Iowa, that isn't such a bad thing, but in Florida, oh god we were sweating before we even had our uniforms on.
The Citrus Bowl Parade we were in was a disaster, half the band was out of step and it was televised, we barely even knew our music, but somehow we got through it. The Magical Kingdom parade, was AMAZING, it was probably the most beautiful thing I've seen in a long time. We marched down the streets of Disney towards a fully lit Disney castle and I think we played perfectly every time. We were all astonished by the thousands of people inside Disney watching us and after the parade our band teacher who was on the verge of tears made a speech about how proud of all of us doing such a wonderful job that day. I swear if one more thing would have happened we all would have been in tears.

Being Sick

2009-01-11T13:43:00.000-08:00

The worst part about being sick is the fact that you can't work out worth shit.
I've had this horrible cough for the past week and a half and I went to the doctor and got my finger pricked, "ouch," and was test for both mono and walking pneumonia. Luckily they both came back negative, but that also means that since they don't know how to treat me I basically have to fight this sickness off by myself without the help of any antibiotics or anything.
With my testing for tae kwon do less than a month away I'm getting really nervous because me being sick means I can't get into the gym to workout as often. I tried going in to work out a couple of times this week by all of the trials have resulted in me feeling really weak like I'm going to conk out, after a minor workout of about thirty minutes. Thus basically I've had another two weeks taken off of my possible time to work out before I test. Last week when I went to Florida I hadn't had anytime to workout the five days before, during Christmas week, and then all the time I was in Florida I couldn't get a decent workout besides the five minutes of crunches plus the forty or so kicks I did at night. Because there was limited free time and we got back to our hotel room after midnight every night, me being able to work out was basically out of the question.
The plus side to me being sick, is that I actually have been getting homework done a bunch of time ahead of when it is due, so have more time apparently helps with my major procrastination of everything. I guess I'm just getting bored of having a lot of extra time and not doing anything at all.
The week after I'm healthy again is going to be a tough week, I'll most likely try and cram at least two hours of work out a day in, plus my two hundred sit ups and push ups a day. If I don't pass my testing in February I have to test in June, and then test again in November, and I'll miss the cut off date for the testing in June of 2012 by like four months, so it would be best if I pass next month and then test and pass in June, because I'll be going for Junior Master (fourth degree black) in June 2012 then.

Storm

2008-12-21T17:51:00.000-08:00

Ororo Munroe was born in New York City as a Kenyan Tribal Princess to her mother the queen and her father an African American photographer. While living along the Suez Canal in Egypt her home was crashed into by a stray plane and her mother and father were killed. She was left buried for days under the rubble of the house and there she developed very intense claustrophobia. It is so intense that if left in a small room she will cower into the fetal position and have a breakdown. She is rescued by the theif lord Achmed, she becomes a very accomplished thief before moving to the Serengeti.
She becomes a member of a tribe in the Serengeti where she develops her powers to control the weather. She deveops these powers to a great exent and becomes worshiped as a rain goddess by the tribe. Then she becomes a member of the Xmen team.
She has the power to control all forms of weather over quite a large area of land and is known to use her powers when she gets quite emotional. Her power extends to catastrophic proportions and she can sometimes control entire ecosystems on a cosmic level. See controls temperature, all forms of precipitation, humidity, generate lightning and other electromagnetic phenomena. She also has quite a grasp over various atmospheric pressures. She incites forms of meteorologic tempests, like hurricanes, and tornados and she can also disipate weather.

She has also demonstrated the control over natural occurences such as solar winds, cosmic storms, ocean currents, and electromagnetic fields.

Storm becomes the deputy leader of the Xmen and Xaviers right hand. She is for a time outranked by Cyclops and for a time it portrays storm as being in love with Xavier but later is downplayed as a father daughter type relationship. After Xaviers death in the Xmen three movie, Cyclops has gone away because he is depressed over Jeans death, she then becomes the new leader of the Xmen school.

Iceman

2008-12-21T16:27:00.000-08:00

The suave superhero we all ogle at in the xmen movies, iceman, is none other than Robert Drake. Also known as Bobby.
His mutant powers developed during his teenage years, he was on a date with his girlfriend when the school bully tries to ruin it by taking his girl. Bobby gets pushed in the chest so he pushes back and all of the sudden the other guy is frozen solid. After no way to explain how he did it, Bobby was taken down to the station where he was going to spend the night in a jail cell. He gets broken out by Scott and Professor X who then take him home. His parents decide that it would be best if he would go to the school for a while. That was the last time Bobby ever sees his parents.
Iceman has the power to dramatically lower the thermal energy of water vapor in his general area and thus it freezes into ice. He doesn't just create ice like people think and he can't conjure water he simple just lowers the energy of what is there. He can project an ice like armor around himself that he uses as defense against attacks.
During his time at the school Bobby falls for the mysterious and crazy Rogue. She can absorb someone else's power for a short amount of time, rendering them useless. There were many many problems during that relationship, arising from Bobby's fear to open up to anyone with Rogue's insecurities about touching people because it starts to take there ability to perform life functions.
Bobby during one of the rough patches in his relationship with Rogue, falls in love with Kitty and after seeing them ice skate together Rogue leaves the school and goes to get the mutant cure shot. Kitty and Bobby date for sometime before she finds out that he had started emailing Rogue again, then she dumps him. Rogue return to the school without her powers but with Gambits powers. They hook up now that they can further their relationship... they fall for each other again until Rogue's old powers return.
Iceman's biggest enemy is Pyro, a member of Magneto's team. Pyro has the power to control fire, though he can not conjure fire. They were previous best friends before they developed mutant powers and now they have conflicting interests. This a truly classical display of ice versus fire.

Nightcrawler

2008-12-19T08:23:00.000-08:00

This is one of the coolest mutants of the x-men, he's blue and he's crazy.
Nightcrawlers actual name is Kurt Wagner and of course he didn't have any of his powers at the time, but he still had his blue appearance. He was found half-dead on the side of a street by his foster mother Margali Szardos, who turned out to be a sorceress and gypsy queen. His alleged father, Eric Wagner and mother where found a short distance away from him dead.
Later on in his life it was proven that his mother was none other than Raven Darkholme, aka Mystique, and his father was the warlord Azael. Mystique through Kurt into a river because a crowd had found out about him. He was saved by his father and given to the Margali, a lover of his fathers. Wagner was raised at the circus where his foster mother worked and was treated like a normal individual there despite his appearance.
He had a large amount of natural talent for acrobatics, and since his body was shaped in a way that he would be perfect he became the shows star acrobat. The people of the crowds loved him and assumed he was just a normal human in an acrobatic costume.
The circus came under new owner ship and the new owner hated Kurt, so he made him part of the circus' freak show where he was drugged in order to prevent escape. He escaped by the help of another mutant and went looking for his foster-brother who had gone insane. Kurt accidentally killed his foster brother while trying to stop his insane rage and was chased by a mob that blamed him for the recent killings of many children and women. Charles Xavier, leader of the X-men saved Kurt's life and asked him to join the X-men.
Kurt discovered that he had the ability to teleport. He practiced with his ability, and figured out that the larger distance he teleported the more tired he became and that he had to have a clear view of the spot he wanted to teleport in mind or he might end up teleporting inside a solid object and injuring or killing himself. When he teleported it left a small bang of air rushing into the rip that he had just created. With more and more practice he found out out that the teleporting drained less and less out of him.
Nightcrawler is an extremely religious man and a devout Catholic. Since he has blue colored skin that makes it really hard to attend masses without freaking everyone out. The x-men designed a tool that created a hologram that made him look like an actual normal human and he wears it when he attends church services. He wanted to become a priest but was denied a number of times.
Nightcrawler had two best friends in the mutant world, Kitty Pride, whom he used to date and Peter, also known as Colossus. Peter came out to Kurt in one of the later episodes and Kurt being uncomfortable with him being gay left for a time, but then returned and accepted him.

Sparring

2008-12-14T18:00:00.000-08:00

For the first about nine months in your Tae Kwon Do life, your main goal is to learn the basics and be able to competently accomplish many of the various techniques the we use in Tae Kwon Do. You then set out on the journey of perfecting your technique. We are taught never to use our techniques on another person unless put in a life threatening situation or someone else is in need of our protection or help.

Sparring is one of my favorite Tae Kwon Do activities, there is nothing else like pushing yourself to the extremes. Finding out exactly how fast you are and how fast your opponent is. You learn to react off of your opponent so much quicker than you thought you could. Everything is a quick fluid moment. You must learn to relax in order to be the best that you can be.

You exchange kicks back and forth, like testing the waters. You need to learn about your opponents, find his flaws and see if he can find yours. You learn to counter off of him and you find out if he's as good as he says he is. When you finally sense a familiarity with his style, or he does with yours, that's when the battle finally begins.

You rush at him with all your might, hopeing to scare him with a show of your talent. If that doesn't work you try and try again, because if your opponent shows fear you've basically won the battle hands down. As you duck and dodge kicks, you might get kicked lightly but nothing to distract you from your goal. Bam, you get an opening in on him, you sense him losing track. You follow through with another kick and then another. He senses the battle is being leaned towards in your favorite, so he moves out of the way. Then it gets really dangerous because he starts to plot his revenge.

He at you know with not only technique and expertise, but with rage and other emotions. Hopefully he will over-do-it and let his emotions cloud his mind, but if not you had better get ready. You pinpoint the precise moment for you to make your move and as it comes, you lash out like a whip. Your feet tangle and it becomes a struggle for power and pride. The one that lasts the longest will win, and hopefully it will not be him. You see him tire a little and he sets his guard down a little. Suddenly he comes in with his last burst and then he's lost focus. You counter with some of your left over strength and then "Whack!" the match is won, you get your hand held high and you know that you still can play the game.

Everytime I spar, I learn more and more about myself and about how I can better myself. Not everytime is a winning time, and not everytime is a losing time. Sometimes the winner is actually the loser. When I lose I automatically motivate myself to try a lot harder the next time. I always take away something from my opponent and you will surely see me in class the next day trying to figure out what went wrong for me during that match, and I wil indefinately be improving on whatever I can, whenever I can.

Starfire

2008-12-10T05:39:00.000-08:00

Starfire's true name is Koriand'r, she is a Princess of Tamaran, and is in line to become Queen. Her name Starfire is a translation from her true name. Her older sister, as an infant, developed a disease that did not allow her to develop her ability to harness solar energy and thus she lost her right to the throne. This harnessed her resentment for her sister and a very fierce sibling rivalry between the two. The two were sent off to be trained as fighters and during a sparring exercise Blackfire attempted to murder her sister and thus Blackfire was expelled from the school they attended. Blackfire then swore vengeance on Starfire.

Blackfire betrayed the Tamaran planet by telling of her her planets defenses to the Citadel, the Tamarans enemies. The Citadel crushed their planet and Starfire became her sisters slave. She ended up killing one of her captors and was ordered to be captured and executed, but fortunately her sister and her were captured and brought to a Psion research ship, where they were tortured as the slien scientists preformed numerous expirements on them. Starfire was able to escape from the ship, but she went back to save her sister even though her sister was trying to murder her. Her sister wasn't grateful at all and she attacked Starfire as soon as she was released. Thats when Starfire met up with the other members of the new teen titans and they helped her to kill off the people that were chasing her and trying to capture her.
Starfire also has a younger brother named Wildfire. During one of the episodes he was sent to Earth to live with Starfire, but kidnapped by Blackfire, she sent a villian in disguise as him to kill Starfire. Her parents died as a result of thinking that now they have lost both of their daughters.

In tv series Starfire is seen to have a crush on Robin, and their relationship is hinted at, especially when they kissed during one of the episodes. In the comic book series Starfire had already been married twice when Dick Grayson asked her to marry him. She agreed and they were set to be wed, but Raven, who was evil at this point murdered the priest on their wedding day and planted seeds of good in Starfire. Starfire was so overwhelmed by all of the bad she left Earth and broke up with Dick Grayson.

Raven

2008-12-10T05:05:00.000-08:00

One of the most interesting characters of all of the Titans, she has to be my personal favorite Teen Titan. She was first introduced in the early 80's, she's an empath that can separate her soul self from herself and can control it with her emotions and mantra. Her life is broken into three different segments, her first life was spent on the temple Azarath, her second life she wore white robes and was known as white raven, her third life is her current life, where she has her young body back.

She is the half-breed demon daughter of a human mother, Arella, and the interdimensional demon Trigon, she grew up in an alternate dimension of Azarath. There she was taught to be a pacifist and to control her emotions, because if she showed any emotions her father would continue to gain influence over her. She formed a team called the new Titans, vowed to help her destroy her father before he could escape from his dimension to come over to hers. That was the whole point of the Titans, after a fall out with them her emotion ran ramped enough that her father was able to kidnap her and take her to his dimension. She was eventually rescued by the Titans and with the help of her mother was able to trap her father into an inter-dimensional prison where he has remained.

So she thought, Trigon was able to escape his prison and come to Earth where he then destroyed Azarath. Raven became posessed by Trigon, the Titans were then forced to kill her, but she was resurrected free of her fathers evil.

This became the era of White Raven, she was free of her fathers control and thus she began to use her emotions and she then learned that she had a certain amount of control over other peoples emotions, leading into a plot line of her seducing many of her lovers, including Dick Grayson and the evil Eric Forrester that was trying to use her soul self to regain his humanity. For a time she became posessed by her fathers old demon followers and she became evil, ruining the wedding of two of her friends, Starfire and her old lover Dick Grayson. She was then killed by the titans and her mother tried to create a new body for her.

In her current life, she was forced to leave the titans because of her messed up love for Beast Boy and she lied to the rest of the titans saying it was Beast Boy being not as good a leader as Nightwing.

Teen Titans

2008-12-07T18:20:00.000-08:00

If you've seen the tv show "Teen Titans," you will see that dc has clearly been able to produce some well quality cartoons.

The tv series, that was started in 2003, was a huge hit amoungst kids in the US, it was based off of a string of comics back in the 80's. The series ran for five years but was cancelled at the end of the fifth season. There are two comic book spin offs of the series.

The series is based on the lives of five main superheros, Robins (Dick Grayson), Cyborg, Starfire, Raven, and Beast boy, and their was Tera for a season. The series is bascically about how the superheros deal with growing up and facing teenage issues and try to discover more things about themselves.

The Titans make base in the Titan Tower that is located off shore of some island. There they each have their own room and training area, plus a communitive dining facility and hq type area.

Allusions are made to many of the Titans identities, Robin is Dick Grayson, Cyborg is Victor Stone, Raven is Rachel Roth, Beast Boy is Garfield, and Starfire is Koriand'r. The names, while being tried to keep secret were slipped in a few episodes. The protection of their identities goes as far as them being seen sleeping with their costumes on. But they made very obvious allusions to the identities of Robin and Raven, such as the Trapeze scene of his families death being played over in the dreams of Robins and the fact that their has only been one person identified as Raven thus far.

In some episodes of Batman, when asked where Robin, or Dick Grayson was, Batman has replied, "With the Titans for some time."

In one of my favorite episodes of Teen Titans, when Starfire goes missing in another dimension, we see Robin break down and eventually become NightWing for some time. He tries with all his might to get Starfire back, he obviously has feelings for her and this plays a part in later episodes where allusions to a relationship between the two are made. Robin is not the only Titan that seems to have hooked up, many episodes are based on the pain beast boy has, when his "friend" Terra betrays him and the Titans to their enemy, Slade.

Nightwing

2008-12-03T05:25:00.000-08:00

Robin and Nightwing, two of my favorite characters from all time. I've decided to do a sort of profile of both. The original Robin, Dick Grayson, was the sidekick of Batman for many years in the world of DC comics, before the character Robin was retired and later on Dick Grayson became Nightwing.

There have been multiple Robins over the course of the Batman series, my favorite being Dick Grayson, but the incarnations of this character afterwards were as follows, Jason Todd, who was murdered by the Joker, Tim Drake, retired, Stephanie Brown, the first female Robin, killed by the super villain, BlackMask, Tim Drake returns as Robin.

Dick Grayson and him family were originally acrobatic preformers that would travel city to city showing off their acrobatics talents. His talents were later used by him to assist the Batman as Robin. His family was brutally murdered but he was saved as a child by Batman and basically raised through all of his teen years by the Batman. His main goal was to avenge his family and help society better itself.

Nightwing branches off of the Dick Grayson line of Robin, after becoming more independent and rebellious towards Batman and not wanting to be a sidekick anymore, Dick Grayson exits the Bat Cave and becomes Nightwing, a very awesome looking character of the Batman family. He is probably my favorite of all of the superheros I've seen, though Green Lantern is up there.

Nightwing uses many different forms of marshal arts to fight bad guys, and many fighting techniques that he picked up from his mentor, Batman, he also uses long sticks which are called Kali sticks that have sheathes attached to the end of them. He is very sharp in the mind and is able to use his keen detective skills to get himself out of many traps.

Ya so basically i love cartoons too much to explain it, it might be actually abnormal. So I've decided to change the direction of my blog and make it so that I am focusing on one of the different sides of my life besides Tae Kwon Do and band, which get boring after a while. I'm going to post about my favorite cartoons/ superheros and do little many profiles of them.

Challenges

2008-11-09T13:56:00.000-08:00

Last Monday we received the audition results and I am extremely unhappy where I am, not only because I did a lot crappier than last year, but also because I feel that I didn't do my personal best during my audition. It is very true that I could have done, much, much better, but how much better? I don't really know. I ended up getting placed second to last in the top band, Wind Symphony. Last year I was fifth out of ten flutes and this year I'm eight out of nine. I am definitely displeased with my drop of three places, and I feel that if I would have done better I would be sitting either third or fourth chair.
I finally decided that I was going to challenge up to where I thought I should be, after my lesson teacher convinced me that I should challenge up. I had premonitions that I was going to be hurting the three people that are in front of me's feelings and I still feel a little bit guilty about challenging them, but my lesson teacher says that it would be a lot better for everyone if I sat higher up. So I guess I going to challenge.
My band teacher personally walked up to me and handed me a challenge form on Tuesday, saying, "I think you will be needing this." I just smiled and nodded, then I walked over to Kelsey, the girl sitting one chair in front of me, I told her it was nothing personal and she signed the challenge form and walked with me over to the Band director who signed it and went to get us some etudes to study.
The music is really really easy and I am going to definitely kill Kelsey on it, I still feel really bad, but I don't want a freshman in front of me and I want to reclaim my spot in the top five, so I'm not going to dwell on peoples feelings too much. Like my lesson teacher said, if I really feel like I should be sitting higher then I should go for it. Then she secretly told me that I was going to crush everyone sitting in front of me except for the third chair, Lindsay, she said I was just going to have to work a little harder to beat her. Her saying that enboldened me to go and kick some butt, and I will tomorrow when I cream Kelsey in our challenge.

Working My Butt Off

2008-11-09T13:41:00.000-08:00

My personal goal for this school year, pertaining to taekwondo, is to pass my testings in February and in June. My friend Austin having gone through this a year earlier has agreed to help me out on getting in shape. So for the last two weeks we have been getting together twice a week and working out like crazy.
We get really really sweaty and it's insane how tired we feel afterwards but it's definately worth it. We usually start out with a light warm up, stretching and doing some kicks, before we get into the serious stuff.
My form for this testing, is the second longest one our taekwondo club has, the only one that is longer is the 3rd decided form. Not only do I have to do the one form, I have to do a second form a long with the first one. These forms are not easy to accomplish either, as you go higher up in level the forms get increasingly difficult and this one definately is quite difficult. So for the second half hour we spend the whole time working our way through our forms two or three times each, commenting on how each other is doing a certain technique and questioning if we are doing something right or not.
Next it's time for the fun stuff, this is by far the hardest part, but it is definately fun. We get to jump over stuff until we are so tired we don't wanna pick up our feet. We start out with frog leaps up and down the forty foot room twice, then move on the bunny hops up and down the room.
Next we start jumping ove each other kinda like leap frog except we bunny hop over each other. We make our way down the room and then come back. Lastly we get out the pads that are about four feet high, and we jump over two of those spaced at about a six foot interval, we do this while kicking a pad that the other person holds.
The last thing we do before warm down, is the sparring. By this point we have to really push ourselves because we feel like we're gonna faint. We do five sparring matches each lasting about three minutes, then we start to warm down. I have definately gotten alot better at taekwondo since practicing this way for the past to weeks and I will hopefully be really ready for my testing in February.

November 1st Testing

2008-11-08T18:17:00.001-08:00

I am currently a second degree black belt in taekwondo and last year I got my instructors certificate and recently I have started teaching taekwondo for the Marion Ymca about once a week and I absolutely love it.
Last weekend we held our annual testing at the Marion Ymca in the gym, testings are usually lots of fun and this one was no acception. We got to the Ymca around one in the afternoon and my instructor, my friend austin and I started to set up. Austin, a third decided black belt at our club, mentioned to me that he was going to judge for the testing today. This was a very big deal, judging is one of the highest honors that you can get while you are in taekwondo, usually you have to be a junior master to judge, meaning you are 4th decided or above, but they were not going to have enough people to judge at the testing, so he was the lucky one who was going to judge.
I on the other hand had to direct, that means I would call out names, send people to there spots, call them to attention, bow them in and tell them when to start their forms, one-steps, sparring, self denfense, and board breaks. Basically it's a lot of responsibility for one person to do.
So we got everything set, Austin and I changed into our dobaks, mine is gold and his is white, because I got my instructors degree already and he hasn't, but he will in february where I get my third decided black belt. After we were in our dobaks, we lined everybody up for the pictures and all the gold dobaked people grabbed chairs to sit in front of everyone else.
Testing turned out all right, I didn't have to yell at anyone too much, but I was still disapointed that I hadn't gotten to judge. I mean, I've been in taekwondo a year longer than him and I'm an instructor and he isn't. Besides he's only thirteen and way to young to be doing much. Eh I guess I don't have too much to complain about, i'll be judging in May anyways.
This is a video made of our testing last saturday.

This is a video made of our testing last saturday.

My personal audition

2008-11-02T11:48:00.000-08:00

If I were to describe my audition this week it would be, "a complete disastor". I had been calling my lesson teacher for the last week and half leaving messages daily and I hadn't heard back from her at all yet. I was getting worried that I wouldn't get a lesson from her until midway through band on monday morning when she finally called me and told me that I could have a lesson that night at 4:30, this was much to my relief.
I had been extremely nervous about my audition because placings between the flutes are always tight. Last year I was placed fifth chair wind symphony, the top band at kennedy. That was a phenominal place for me to be, because I was one of two underclassmen in the wind symphony flute section which consisted of ten flutes. I was king of the section.
This year I feel it will be a different story though, I had hoped to get second chair this year, but I'm pretty sure that audition didn't go too well.
I am doing the most three octave scales of all the flutes, six in total, versus the average of 2 per person, Megan, our first chair from last year was only doing four three octaves and I was glad to be doing more than her. As it turns out in my audition I messed up on every single three octave scales of mine except for the hardest ones, D and E-flat, the one I was most worried about. I was nervous to begin with, because the flute three auditions previous to mine had screwed up the sign in sheet and we had to switch everyones names a place down one. Our band director was getting mad that no one had come in for a while, so she yelled at us and then I was basically pushed into the room before I was ready, that made me even more nervous, as did playing in front of the mean band director. So my scales pretty much sucked, but my etude was amazing, and I didn't mess up on my sightreading at all because it was in the key of B-flat major, the second favorite key of all flutes.
So I'm basically hoping I did okay and I get in the top five flutes again, but I'm no to sure I wil.

Audition Week

2008-11-02T11:31:00.000-08:00

Last week was audition week, which is a nightmare for everyone who has to audition and a nightmare for our band directors and drum majors. For the first two days we had five auditioning rooms, three with our three drum majors in them and two with our two band directors in them. The drum majors start a tape recorder in the room and then they leave the room. For either the tape recorder or a band director, you play up to twelve scales, an etude, and a sight reading piece that you have never seen before.
We had twenty-nine flutes, and twenty-six clarents that would audition in room one. We had three days to get all of us done and needless to say it did not happen. The first day we got eight flutes done, the second day, when I auditioned, we got another eight flutes done. On friday, the third day, we added to more auditioning rooms with two members of the band council running the tape recorders in those rooms. We finally finished the flutes and we got through three clarinets. We were originally suposed to have the band listings done by lunch on friday, but since we still have almost all the clarinets left and all eight tubas left to go, it didn't happen. I believe that the earliest we will see the listings will be morning afternoon, but it might be even tuesday before we get to see.
My friend Kim, a drum major in our band, has the same second hour class as me and for the last three school days she hasn't gotten to class until about halfway through, because they were holding people back to audition and the drum majors were still having to run the tapes. I think this is completely ridiculous, we should have started auditions on monday like most other years we have, and we should have started out with seven stations like we did last year and the years before. It would have run so much smoother and stretching it over five days would give us more time to relax and do a better job during the auditions.
Not only is having to audition stressful for the band directors, it's stressful for us and it needs to be way more structured, i'm sure we could think of a much better way to make the audition process run smoothly.

Post INMBC

2008-10-30T05:17:00.000-07:00

Like usual, our indoor marching band classic this year was a nightmare and I really didn't want to go because we basically play once, then sit around for five hours and watch the rest of the shows in the Cedar Rapids area. This year I didn't get hit by a flag, but we had to scrunch up enough that the whole right side of the field was basically of by a yard line.

Prior to us marching the show, our band director had warned our drummline not to cover up the band. But since they were drummline the indeed played as loud as they do outside, inside, while all the rest of us were playing softer.
We got the loudest applause of any band there, besides Iowa State, and I think our show went pretty well, though we sucked compared to how we normally do. The floor was slippery and basically no one was paying attention to the drill, because we were all trying avoid back marching into a solid concrete pillar. This is probably the worst location to have a marching band show and everyone hates it every year. It doesn't help that once you get near the end of the show, Iowa State comes on the floor and playing another freaking hour, then afterwards we all play a horrible rendition of "America the Beautiful" it sounds more like a mush of notes, because the cellular center is really boomy in the inside and echos. That brings me back to my last point of why it sucks, because the inside of the Cellular Center is really boomy, you can't listen to anyone, you have to watch the drum major, which is kind of hard to do since we are marching backwards for a while.
So basically the entire night sucked, it was hot and sweaty inside, we were all tired but we couldn't sleep, it was cold outside, and it took our buses another hour to get to the US Cellular Center after the show was over. So I got home at like 10:30, did my homework til 12:30 and had to wake up at six the next morning.

INMBC

2008-10-26T16:52:00.000-07:00

The indoor marching band classic, a dread to all the people in the Cedar Rapids area that must play in it. We have to shrink down the show from a beautiful football field sized picture to a small distorted, chaotic mess. When you shrink a show down really small, it gets messy and dangerous, this year will be no exception. We have to make sure we don't march straight into humongous pillars that would hurt a lot if you hit them. When i say hurt a lot I mean hurt a lot! I ended up hitting one freshman year and I thought I got a concussion.
We have color guard in our band and there was this part in last years show where we had to walk straight through a line of them doing their routine. I've always been afraid of getting hit by them since they swing about two inches away from me on all sides. When we shrunk the show down, we were forced to march through them still and every single time we practiced the show I got hit. Twice in the arm, once in the side of the head and once on my leg. I was totally freaked out when the time for the actual show came, not just the practice. I knew I was going to get hit, but I didn't know how hard or where, so i was determined to keep that flag away from my vital areas. My heart was pounding and I was flipping, little did I know that the changed the flag part in the show and when it got to the time for the chaotic pass, i flinched back fearing the flags and took tentative steps forward. A flag came near me, but never touched me, I was so confused that I missed my closing spot and was out of the line by about four feet, but no one said anything to me so it was fine.
This year, we have a very similar pass and I am hoping very much that we change it, because I have been hit already this season, both times in the head, and I really don't want to get hit again.

Past marching band shows

2008-10-26T16:36:00.000-07:00

I was on YouTube a few days ago and i was watching some of our old marching band show. I found some really old and also one from a few years ago. Chronometry was the name of the show. I watched it like four times and I realize how much better we have gotten since the past shows we have done.

Ya now that i'm thinking back to about the past shows that we've done I've decided tht we are so much better and more condifent. I knew this show a ton better than i knew my fresman year show, "Tempered Steel." I like my freshman year drill but not the music for tempered steel, it was kind of boring and left you say, "is this it?" Last years show was by far the best we have ever done. We did a Carimina Burana based show and it was amazing. It left me speechless when we watched it on the t.v. in our band room after the competitions. We had amazing tone and the style that we placed the music in made me have chills.
Saying that last years show was better than this years show is not at all because I think that this year's show was bad, because at ankeny we played like we had never played before. I'm just saying that this was a little slope down from last years show, but not at all as bad as tempered steel. Simply put, in my opinion Carimina Burana> Star Wars> Tempered Steel and that's how many of my friends feel as well.

Ankeny

2008-10-22T19:03:00.000-07:00

The past two weekends the John F. Kennedy High School Marching band has gone to Ankeny and Des Moines and our last stop is at the indoor marching classic at our home town of Cedar Rapids, Iowa. I have my complaints about the indoor marching band classic but those complaints will be saved until and undetermined date. Our show at West Des Moines Valley, as I addressed earlier was not the best show that we have had and I was definately not satisfied by the results of our competition there.
This past weekend we went to Ankeny and everyone took this show seriously and I didn't say a word until our band director spoke. We knew that we had done a great job and the feeling that we would score quite high was definately a mutual one amoungst me and my fellow marching band friends. The show from my perspective was flawless and it was definately the best time that we had ever done it, except for a few flags that had trouble with the wind but that is quite unavoidable since the wind was blowing quite strong. I was just absolutely speechless at the end of the show and I don't think I took another breath until my band director spoke. Of course she had only good things to say and I was very pleased.
When it came down to that last moment where we all were waiting for our placing I had a bad feeling, that feeling started to ease as more and more places were announced. Suddenly they anounced Cedar Rapids... my heart jumped and i'm thingking no we got fourth this year, crap no! no! no! ... John F. Kennedy High School and everyones heart sank. We worked so hard and got so little from it.
All our band director said was, "We worked so hard..." and the feeling was the same through out the entire group.

My Final Season (Maybe)

2008-10-16T05:16:00.000-07:00

Now that marching band is almost over it feels really weird. Since I'm considering this being my last year in band and thus might be my last year marching, I'm not sure whether to feel relieved or having feelings of regret for not giving my best efforts this year.

Last year after our big marching band competition at Valley, the feeling was extreme exuberance, everyone knew that we had done as well as we felt. It was almost like we were floating on clouds and we could never come back down. That feeling was the what I have decided to base all of my Valley experiences on. We ended up coming in 4th place, the highest we had ever gotten. I remember clearly many people crying and my best friend, who was a senior last year, was balling her eyes out also. But this year the story was quite different. As soon as we had gotten on the field and we started playing I felt like three different tempos going on. The rest of the show, besides the closer, was not that bad, but the opener was definitely horrible. We got off the field and our stupid drummline that we have this year wouldn't shut the hell up. They know that they are supposed to be absolutely quiet, or else our band director will beat the crap out of them. We all knew that we did horrible, well at least I did, until our band director came out and told us that we had all done a wonderful job this year and that we should expect a high score. Well obviously she was wrong, because we ended up scoring sixth place, yes it was out of fourteen bands, but I still knew that we were going to do horrible no matter what she said. I wasn't surprised at what we got as a score, but I was surprised at how badly we had done during our show, many people missed their spots and how so many people got out of step and totally lowered our marching score.
All I know is that this week we our going to have to work quite hard to get into the condition that we need to be in, or else I'm going to be very disappointed because I don't want my possible last marching show to be uterly crappy.