Journal Entry 12/18/08

If I could have any superhero power it would be the power of flight. Flying would be so butt kicking awesome. I wouldn't ever feel short again because I could just fly higher than anyone taller than me. Flying would be simply amaz-z-zing. I could also reach for things in high places waaayyyy more easily. I would be fantasticmastic!

Journal Entry 12/12/08

A Poem by Sami:

They whispered for things that would make them all the world could see
They whispered for things that would make most men cringe
They whispered: these men are not the flowers that we be
They whispered of the weeds who would be extinguished by them
Extinguished by the will of the flowers
Because these weeds were not
Roses
Tulips
Lilacs
Or Daisies
These weeds were something awful, something that might choke the life from the garden and strangle the roots of the grass
Or at least that is what the beautiful flowers believed
So they tried to smite the weeds
They tried to kill them with pesticides
They tried to drive them from the garden
They tried to ignore their existence
They tried to deny all life
By the end of all days many of the weeds had vanished
But one little voice spoke out in a tone like velvet
"Are we not all plants who grow from the same earth? Do we not share the same soil? Why must we be divided and classified as weeds because our petals do not bloom the same as yours? Let us share the garden and let us cherish the land we love together!"
The garden was quiet
The little weed was looked upon with criticizing eyes
Amongst the sunrises and moonrises that followed
The flowers shrieked in protest and demanded that the little weed's acumen be silenced
But the little weed just smiled
For he knew the best minds had been turned and that the best of the flowers would know
And thus
Somehow the weed, lived happily amongst all the flowers

Journal Entry 12/10/08

It is important to set goals for yourself because then you being to work towards something that will better yourself. When you have goals you know what you want and you can make a plan of getting there. Hopefully, through setting up goals for yourself you can achieve your goals and make your dreams come true.

Journal Entry 12/8/08

In my life I am powerless over the way people choose to treat me based off of what they think hey know about me. To be honest, I am not really that powerless in my life. I can change almost anything I want with a little effort and desire. Life isn't what it used to be, we have many more options than about 50 years ago.

Journal Entry 12/4/08

I honestly don't want to play a role in the past. I want to be a part of the future. It is great to want to go back and be someone from he Revoloutionary War or to help defeat Napolean at Waterloo. However, if any people or things were changed to someone or something new, then the world would not be as it is now and it would not have the chance to make a new history. I want to be known for something yes, but I want to be known for something that I can do in today's world. I want to change the world and I'm not just preaching Obama here. I want to work towards peace for all on our earth without stripping humanity of it's individuality. I want life and love to be two things that people treasure with the utmost care and put first and foremost. I want to make history, I don't want to be apart of what's already happened.

Journal Entry 12/2/08

"Be the change you wish to see in the world."

I believe this quote means, if you want to see the world become something better or become a way you wish it to be, then be that means for it to change that way. If you don't act on your desires then you will never see them fulfilled. This quote tells us that in clear words. Also, you don't have to wait for someone else to start working towards change, you can being yourself. If the world needs peace or reform, then allow yourself to be the means for that.

Journal Entry 11/21/08

I am tired. I am bored.
I want to go home but I have to deal with two more periods of blahhh. I even have algebra today, it should be a crime to have most of your "no fun" classes on the day before break. I didn't even get to put my makeup skills to use this morning because the lady who's makeup I was going to do (I was making her into Elphaba the Witch) decided not to be a bad witch because her friend didn' get the good witch costume. Then, I went home after Bye Bye Birdie last night and I didn't get hardly any of my homework done. This all isn't really that bad but I feel like complaining so deal.

However, you know who is awesome? Forgive Durden. Listened to them earlier. Did some major cheering up. I feel wayyy better but I thought I might put my complaints up anyways. Razia's Shadow is pimptastic.

Journal 11/19/08

Honestly, honesty does not always work. Sometimes you have to play a little bit around the rules and not tell everything in order to do the right thing. I'm not saying you shouldn't tell the truth, but sometimes being honest isn't the best option. Like if someone is on their deathbed and want you to tell their only son that they love them, then should you still tell that son? Obviously you would, but what if their son died earlier? What do you tell the person? "No, your kid died." I don't think that is the best thing to say...

Journal Entry 11/17/08

I wish I'd never experienced last thurday. I think I failed my biology test. I never fail anything. It kinda sucks to think that I may have royally screwed up so badly. Hopefully the rest of my grades in biology will save my grade from plummeting too far. I would hate to go from an A to a C letter grade. I would be kinda devastated, I haven't had a C since one REALLY bad nine weeks in fifth grade.

Journal Entry 11/13/08

To deal with stress I go home and listen to music. Just listening to music calms me and down and relaxes me. The song that has his specific effect is Hanging By A Moment which is a song by a wonderful band called Lifehouse. It is so tranquil and beautiful. Sometimes to help get rid of stress, I'll read. When you read, your entire focus goes else where and you stop worrying so much. Reading is addictive because of it's calming qualities.

Journal Entry 11/11/08

The weather doesn't really affect my feelings that much but it can make me tired. When it's rainy outside I typically want to take a nap or just lounge around. It's also alot more fun to spend the day watching movies whenever it's raining outside. If it's sunny I typically don't feel like watching a bunch of movies or feel like just relaxing.

Journal Entry 11/7/08

I am unique because I have interests that transcend your average person. I have a wide variety dreams and goals, the only sad part is they veer in opposite directions. I would love to be a makeup artist but I would also love to be a psychiatric nurse. I also have a thing for writing stories and poems. My mind is a strange and questioning place. I always want to know more and to do more than just grow up and have your regular 9 to 5 job. If I could, I would do a million things but life is short and I've only got one, so I must pick and choose. I can't be and complete all of my interests but I can certainly try to do as much as possible. I'll just have to squeeze alot into my life.

Journal Entry 11/5/08

One thing I don't like about November is the cold weather. It's going to be freezing soon and it won't even be christmas yet. So that means I'll sit at my bus stop waiting for my bus driver who always "just happens" to come late on the days that it's cold, and be stuck freezing my butt off. November weather is just awful. If it can't be christmas already, could it at least be warmer? November weather just plain bites.

Journal Entry 11/3/08

If I found a million dollars I would have to turn it in. A sum of money that large is probably being looked for and if I failed to turn it in I would undoubtedly be arrested. However, if I won a million dollars that cash would be minnnneeeeee!! I would put a large some of that to college, another part of it would go into my future 401K, and then the final part would go to covering taxes and bills that my parents need to pay. We could also buy our house.

Journal 10/28/08

If I were stranded on an island I would want the guy from Man vs Wild to be with me. It may or may not be staged but he's got to know SOMETHING about survival from his escapades. In any case, if he doesn't know anything then I suppose cannibalism wouldn't be so bad. Almost any meat roasted on a fire can taste good. I'd get over the emotional scarring and move on as soon as I was full. I mean hey, I'm the kid, I should get to live. He's the grown up dude, he could even be mature about the situation and help me find something to use for seasoning. (Just kidding)

Journal Entry 10/16/08

My perfect day is any day I don't have to go to school and I just to chill with my friends. As long as I can hang out with my friends with out the stress of later events or world issues weighing on me, it's a perfect day. Listing off a bunch of things that would have to occur in order for the day to be perfect would be silly, nothing is ever perfect so I should just be happy with what I've got and not be selfish. If I did otherwise I'd be acting foolish and completely unrealistic, which goes against my personal style of thinking when it comes to the world and it's ways.

Journal Entry 10/9/2008

Given the chance, if I could have dinner with any one person in the world, it would be George Ryan Ross. He is the lyricist/guitarist for Panic At The Disco. I would not like to eat with him simply because he's a celebrity but he has an extremely artistic mind so conversation with him would be extremely interesting and he would probably blow my mind. Because Ryan Ross is a lyricist, he probably thinks in the form of complicated metaphors and imagery. Not unlike a writer, which means, not unlike me. In short, no matter what we'd talk about, it would be very thoughtful and never boring. It also helps that he is the hottest thing in existence. Ever.

Journal Entry 9/29/08

The best thing about fall is nothing. Fall sucks. I hate fall, it's too cold to swim but not cold enough to have the jolly wintery feeling. If I had to choose one thing I guess I could go with Halloween. I love Halloween because it is the only night where you can dress up as funky as you like and no one will comment. It's fantastic, but is still hate fall.

Journal Entry 9/25/08

My favorite childhood memory is of Christmas Eve with my relatives. On Christmas Eve every year, we all get together and do the whole bonding thing. It's fantabulous because people start off being warm and we all have light conversation but by the end of the night children are running and sceaming, someone has gotten hurt, the parents are being as loud as us kids over a card game, and the presents that we have to wait to open call to every minor in the house. I can still recall, my counsin Conor and I, organizing all the slightly younger kids into groups for the wars we'd have against each other. Then, before you knew it, laughter would ensue as you'd fight with your lousy toy sword and defend with a random toybox top.

Good times. :]

Journal Entry 9/19/08

If I could be a cartoon character I'd be Rocko from Rocko's Modern Life. He's super cool in his weird shirt. I also really want to work at Kind of a Lot O' Comics like Rocko does. That place is beast. Also, Heffer is the cooliest best friend that you could ever have. He's like a yellow cow thing that was raised by wolves. How cool can you be?! Oh and Ed Bighead would be such an awesome naighbor to have, he's always ticked off and it rocks. Rocko's life is so messed up but you have to love it, it is one of the most fanfreakintastic shows available for a kid in the 90's. Who wouldn't want to be Rocko, his show was amazing. So was Pinky and The Brain....

What Do Editing Skills Have To Do With Broadcas Journalism?

To properly do broadcasting you have to have many abilities. Some of them require you to be capable on the scene of your story. Some of them are for catching that big moment for your work but some are very important out of the field. Good editing skills are a must for broadcast, you don't want to put on raw footage, it won't look good. If you have good editing skills then your footage will look clean and clear. Bad editing skills however, will make your footage look jumbled, unclear, and hard to understand. Without good editing then our stories would not be appealing to view and probably not ever be paid any attention to. Editing skills are VERY important.

Ike's Here To Wrangle The Lonestar State

Hurricane Ike, said to possibly become a Category 4 hurricane by this Saturday when it strikes Texas, is hitting hard. Many evacuations have already taken place for the safety of Texas citizens. The Mayor of Galveston Island, a popular beach area for vacationing, issued a mandator evacuation for some of the residents on Galveston Island. Some people though, intend to tough Ike out. In Brazoria some residents may try to wether the storm, but the Sheriff of Brazoria, Charles Wagner, says that all residents choosing to stay will be completely on their own. There will be no local facilities or services for them until it is safe for return.
This story is an interesting one and of great importance, these areas may become disaster areas soon after the storm is over. It is frightening to think of trying to outlast a category 4 hurricane. I know I wouldn't be up for it, that's how you become a statistic. Coverage of this storm has been fantastic on pretty much all planes of media, not just CNN. Ike is a national issue at the moment and will likely be talked about for weeks after, if it causes severe damage. Presentation of this story was good and quite lengthy. I suppose the events will be covered as they unfold.

Here is a link: http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/weather/09/10/hurricane.ike/index.html

FBI And CIA In the Facebook Craze

The FBI and the CIA have been working on developing a website used for spies to share opinions and views much like Facebook and Myspace users do. The website, called A-Space, has been in testing for months and is highly anticipated by spies for the US. The website will be accessible to only intelligence personnel, so that spies may share important information on for example, a new video released by Bin Laden. By using this site it is hoped that communication between spies will become easier, and knowledge and ideas will be better known.
I think this is quite an interesting article really because I never really thought about how difficult it might be for the members CIA or the FBI to communicate analyzations on possible threats or issues for the country. This article was highly informational and made me think about how much of a benefit this will be to our agents in the future when it comes to having more ideas and thoughts expressed about situations. I think it's great that they are learning from social networking sites and are taking advantage of today's technology. Ironically enough, this article was on the internet as well.
The media's presentation was good, perhaps they took the idea a little less seriously because of it's similarities to myspace and facebook but they still got the story out and enough information about it for one to understand how this could benefit national intelligence agents.

Here's a link: http://www.cnn.com/2008/TECH/ptech/09/05/facebook.spies/index.html

Doomsday This Wednesday?

This very wednesday, September 10th, Scientists in Switzerland will turn on the Large Hadron Collider. This machine is the biggest most expensive experiment in history. It is not large, but ungodly massive, it stretches 27km under the land between France and Switzerland. But, as I'm sure you are wondering, what on earth is this Large Hadron Collider even going to do? Well, in short it's going to recreate the Big Bang. By having Hadrons, a particle that makes up atoms, collide at almost light speed they hope to find the Theory of Everything. There are problems with this experiment though, other scientists argued to the European Court for Human Rights that by activating this device a black hole may be created and well I think you get it. However, Sir Chris Llewellyn Smith of Cern argues that the chances of producing something like a black hole are minuscule, and that even if one were produced, it wouldn't be large enough to swallow the earth and disappear quickly. Also, all the actual collisions won't take place until October.
I think the media did an excellent job of not only terrifying the snot out of me but getting both sides of the story out. It was presented over the internet which is always interesting because there are so many free flowing opinions over the internet. This entire idea could be a rather large and terrfyingly risky one so the entire thing is newsworthy and qutie frankly I don't understand why it isn't being broadcasted on NBC or something by now.

Here is a link to the article:http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/the-large-hadron-collider-end-of-the-world-or-gods-own-particle-921540.html

Double The Fun?

E! News did a report on bassist Pete Wentz of 'Fall Out Boy' and his wife since may, Ashlee Simpson. They wanted to find out if the couple were perhaps having more than one bundle of joy. Wentz's friend Tyga appeared to have spilled the beans on possible twins but Wentz denies such a thing from being true. He insists that there is only one baby coming instead of the curious two.
E! did an alright job on presenting this article to the public, as to some (FOB fans or celeb gossipers) it is indeed newsworthy and important. However, E! was a little less than professional with the article stating, "Eleven days later the young rockers announced that Ashlee was preggers." As lovely a word 'preggers' is, I don't think it was necessary to use and quite crude wordchoice. As this goes, it's very likely that the idea of two new baby rockers is still but a rumour and only one child is coming to Pete and Ashlee.

Here is a link to the article for your viewing enjoyment: http://www.eonline.com/uberblog/marc_malkin/b27691_pal_ashlee_pete_expecting_twins.html

McCaine and Obama's "Change"

On cnn.com, I read an article about how both of our candidates were claiming to be agents of change. Each wants america to believe that by choosing them, then all the "change" we want will ensue. Upon reading the article (link at the bottom) I was a little taken back. I mean I knew both McCaine and Obama wanted us to vote for them but I never realized how desperate they both really were for us to jump on the Change Train. Originally, Obama was the man of change and it's been his campaign's theme from the beginning but lately McCaine has been claiming to be an agent of change as well. The desire for "change" and it's effect on the public is causing both candidates to bicker.
The article itself seemed unbiased and both sides appeared to be covered equally with the exception of there being no quotes from Biden on the issue of change. The article was presented fairly well because of there being less biase than I usuallly find within the media and it was quite newsworthy. Lately that has been what the race has been all about, change this, and change that. The country does need quite a bit of change, and the candidates both seem to think that they are it. The question is, is how much change exactly and who is really right for it.

Here's a link the to the article: http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/09/07/campaign.wrap/index.html