If I was an EVIL PERSON!!!

     If I was a villain in every day life, I wonder how that would go over. I would probably make the worst villain in the whole world! I would try to do something bad and then fail because my conscience would eat away at my soul or I would feel too horribly guilty just thinking about it, that I would be unable to go through with the plan. Unless sarcasm is counted as meanness  which would then count towards being a villain. Sarcasm though, has become a really popular thing these days, so it's probably not looked down upon or really counted as being mean. Beyond that though I would have a hard time being truly mean. Although, have you realized that in most movies, when a person dies the audience has no real reaction, but when a animal dies, everybody is  feeling more sentimental and sad about it. Society is just desensitized to the deaths of it's own species because it's considered to be normal.

      However, because talking about me being evil is really hard because it would be virtually impossible for me to even try to, Tori sent me this interesting article that proves the falseness of FOX news. Mr. Wilcox, you mentioned this in class, so I thought that it was pretty interesting. Basically, it discusses how the University of Maryland did a study of how those who watched the news were better informed but those who watched too much were negatively affected by it. Plus they discovered that FOX viewers were more likely to believe the false information. Here's the website if interested in checking it out (I would! It was pretty entertaining!):

http://politicalwire.com/archives/2010/12/17/fox_news_viewers_often_misinformed.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+PoliticalWire+%28Political+Wire%29

Testing...1,2,3!

     I feel like I am like most kids  in the world. I dislike testing. I dislike it usually with a passion, because I get really nervous beforehand and stress out majorly and then I still end up doing poorly on the test. Although this year I have a new policy. I am trying not to stress to much about each individual test, because about every day we have at least one test. However, I do study but with things like the SATs (which I just took for the first time the previous weekend), and I didn't really feel too worried about the test. I don't know if I did well or not yet, but I hoping that I did well. Testing is such a big deal to everyone these days and in the long run it helps to decide our future. I don't like that. We are not based off of our qualities but off of our test scores. Nobody bothers to see who that person is beneath the test scores, it is just based off of pure intelligence and memory. I wish that people spent more time getting to know other people, before making decisions that will affect the future of others. Plus I wish that not everything was based off of testing, because even if websites might claim that "You are not your test score", we all know that in the long run, it all comes down to the test scores and they are a major factor into the decision.

The Specialness that is the People in IB

     Well everyone seems to be doing blogs about each other, and I kind of wanted to do one too. We all have such interesting opinions and things to say about one another, so I wanted to add my own two sense in! So as long as you, the reader, don't mind:

1. Noah- Okay so for me, I guess it makes sense to start off with Noah, just because I have literally EVERY CLASS WITH HIM!! But I love the kid to death. Noah, we have been friends since freshman year and I definitely believe that our friendship has grown and that we have become closer since then! We have also had our ups and downs with plenty of good memories. Plus, you give me loads of homework help when I need it and I don't know how well I could do everything without your sarcastic and negative attitude! =D But, I don't need to tell you how much I appreciate you and our friendship because you already know,...plus it would inflate your ego too much! ^.^

2. Katie- Katie, you and I have always been like friends but the closeness between us has seemed to change depending on the year and what classes we had together. But this year, we have been stronger then ever! I am proud to call you my friend!! You always have something interesting to say due to the random  and obscure facts that you can recall. Plus we have the bond of SIBLINGS! Yay us! But I feel like we have definitely grown closer together as friends as we understand more and more about each other. Also, we both have similar woes when it comes to school and I am so happy that we are doing this program together because "misery loves company". Also, you broaden my musical and movie  horizons which can always use the help, and for that alone I give you my sincerest thanks!!

3. Tori-No offense meant all towards you Tori, but since I never really knew you I did slightly judge you. I never realized how much you tried at things. I just kind of assumed that you were slightly snooty. But now that I know you, I realize that I was wrong. In fact I think I really started to see who you were when I went to your sixteenth birthday party as Lexi's date. It was the first time that I had really talked with you and I felt bad for you because you had seemed so stressed. But Tori, without you in IB I would probably be procrastinating more so, or worrying about everything much more. I feel that you seem to stress out enough for the both of us,  so it kind of calms me down knowing that somebody else is just as busy. But thanks so much, for being so over analytical and organized!!

4. Ashleigh- Honestly Ashleigh, I remember you from freshman year's gym class and then health and APUSH sophomore year. I REALLY admired you. I loved the way that you dressed (and still do!). Plus I really admired how you were so different from everyone else, yet you always seemed so popular to me. You were cool in my eyes. Plus you are so smart! You always seemed to recall the most random facts off of the top of you head. I remember during health, how Mr. Ricketts always thought that we were cheating off of each other, because we got the same test scores but missed different questions. I just loved being friends with you then and now and thanks for being you!! =D

5. Leah- Leah, I remember always seeing you around the theater and talking to you on occasion, but I never really started to get to know you till this year. Your dedication to theater, costuming, highlights, and school is just astounding to me!! You try so hard in all of it, and you do well too, without being spread thin!! I have no idea how on earth you find the time to fit it all in and still have time to yourself and to hang out with friends! I wish that I had your multi-tasking ability! Plus you are always so happy, perky, and awake! You think positively about everything and you never seemed worried about much unless it is Hell Week!! Also I feel like I see more and more of whom you are as time goes by...starting with today for example, and how you ran downstairs wearing a gorilla costume! Your daring blew my mind! Thanks for doing so! Everyone was wondering what was going on!! ^.^

6. Sam-Sam, I never really knew you at all. I mean, we had classes together but we had never really talked before IB. However you turned out to be so different then I had originally thought that you would be. I thought that it would be awkward, but when you started talking about Harry Potter and cats, I immediately liked you!! I had no idea that you were such a nerd!! It made me happy (not to be rude at all!)!! But you are always so excited to learn new stuff in class, and you have a really good attitude towards things. You seem to just take things as they come and have fun with it, which I really admire! Plus between you, Sarah, Ben, Kevin, and Blake, history class is that much more fun! Oh yeah, your dedication towards Duke is amazing! You love that school so much, and you are not even in it yet! And if you don't get in, then the school is crazy for not taking you in as a student!!

7. Sarah- Sarah, you have no idea how much I admire you and your sarcastic attitude! As weird as that may sound, I really like how you always have a witty comment to come back with! You always seem to make me laugh, and it immediately brightens my day! Plus, you and Sam have such a great friendship and I really admire that between the two of you. Your closeness as friends is something that I would hope to have someday with someone...besides Noah (Love you Noah! ;) ) Plus you didn't seem to mind talking to me, when you barely at first knew me, which was very adventurous of you. You, Sam, and Ben though, are like the comic relief of IB!

8. Ben- Ben, we rode the same bus together. For a couple of years. And we never talked. I am sorely disappointed. I don't know why we didn't...okay that's a lie, I do know why I at least didn't talk with you. I used to get really shy when it came to meeting new people, plus you seemed like if I were to talk to you, you would just stare at me like I was stupid and then turn away (not to be judgmental, I was just really shy and nervous back then). And I did not want to embarrass myself back then. But now, even though we have only talked a couple of times, just from spending most classes with you, I realize how funny and how much of a good sport you are. You are really interesting and random, which is not a bad thing. Plus I am jealous of your memory!! You and Katie both never take notes and yet you can remember EVERYTHING!! But you seem  like a really cool person, and I am happy that I can claim to hopefully be your friend (If you would allow me to do so), or to at least be acquaintances.

Fight Club #6

"What do you wish before you die? You have to know the answer to this question. If you died right now, how would you feel about your life?"

     Well if I died right now, how would I feel about my life? I would feel like I died too young. Like I didn't accomplish everything that I wanted to do in my life. I mean, I have done some great stuff and I feel like I have accomplished something, but I also feel that I myself have not reached my full potential in life yet. I can do more. So if I were to die I would feel pretty unaccomplished as of right now. I would want to graduate high school and go into a university and then become a doctor. Plus meet many more new people and get to know them better! Maybe my reason for living is not as concise as others, butt I know that I want to make a difference in the world (as cliche as that may sound!), and that I will try my hardest to do so!!

      I'm not really quite sure, how else to add to my response just because it's slightly repetitive and I don't want to go into too much detail about my future, because my future changes constantly so why would I want to set myself up for disappointment? 

Fight Club #5

"Forget what you know"

     I know for me personally there has been those moments in life where I have wondered if it would be just easier to not know the knowledge that I know. As tricky as that may sound, it's true. If we never knew anything from the beginning then how would we feel stupid or if we were missing out on something. We would never know that what we would be doing is wrong. Or that we shouldn't do it based off of morals. The world would be a pretty destructive place, because how could someone stop someone from doing something stupid because their would be no reasoning to get them  to stop. 

     But then again, how would we know how to do stuff. How would we know how to properly do daily things in life. If we don't know how to do stuff, how would...Noah for example, know that soup should be warmed up and not eaten cold because it's gross. He will eat anything, yet the knowledge that he has tells him that he can't eat the soup cold because it will get him sick. (He was next to me while  I was writing this, so he asked me to thread him in). We would probably end up reverting back to our instincts. Then what would make us better then animals? We would be beasts. Not different from the rest of the species except for the slim possibility that we might be able to talk. So forgetting what we know in the long run, would hurt us all. Maybe if we could forget little things that hurt us and prevent us from growing as a person then it might be best, but beyond that, remember and knowing how to do things is how us, as humans, evolve as a species. 

How to Help a Friend

     If a friend was in trouble, most people would do anything possible to help that friend. I know that for me, I would help my friend as much as I possibly could. I would do anything within my abilities. However, what happens if the friend changes? How do you know if it's positive? One of my friends is going through a really hard time right now. This person has just gotten out of a relationship and due to that, has been triggered into a depression. I see so much of my little sister in my friend as of right now. It is scary. To have this person that I love like family to suffer through similar things that my sister herself suffered through, and to feel powerless is something new. With my sister, I was able to help by helping to deal with situations and by being strong to help my family. However I don't want to intrude into the personal life of my friend.
     My other friends feel that confrontation previously, was the best way to go about this situation. After taking classes on illnesses and how to deal with the people who undergo them, I strongly objected. I tried to explain that the person was like a whole new different person, and I don't think that they completely understood. It is a hard concept to understand. In our heads , we still want that person who is suffering to take the punishment for the actions of hurting the people that they did, however the people who did the hurting do not really realize what they are doing beforehand. They change and for some it becomes harder to remember that period of time. The best way to show our support is to just remain friends with the person until they get better and to display our support for them. That's what they truly need.
    I am going to see if over spring break, I can go and visit this person. Maybe try to help out more at various hospitals that deal with people whom have similar types of problems. I just hope that my friend gets better and gets the help that this person needs.
    And hey, if this person that I am talking about is reading this, then please feel better and realize that we all miss you so much!!!

Fight Club #3

Holding a gun up to someone and threaten to change their lives, is it worth it? To scare them into chasing their dreams?

Although this is not a direct quote, this concept was portrayed in a major part of the movie. The main character holds a gun up to the head of a convenience store owner and threatens his life unless the owner follows his dreams of becoming a veterinarian. I think that the concept behind the idea is a little bit harsh, however the actual products of his actions are astounding. Dreams come true due to the threat of death. It's giving him a that little bit of a push towards fulfilling things that he might have been to scared to have previously done. It's a reason to do what you desire to do without having to blame oneself for the rising consequences of actions. Despite that you would be scarring that person for life, it is worth it in the long run due to the outcomes that would arise from the situation and it's actions. 

Fight Club #2

"Our generation is one without a Great War or a Great Depression. But our Great War is a spiritual war and our Great Depression is our lives"

     In a couple of ways, I agree with this quote from Fight Club. I mean, yes, there is the war in Iraq and the recession, but I feel that as a society we are battling more so with ourselves then with other people. More and more people are being diagnosed with mental illnesses, and it is not quite uncommon to know friends or family who may suffer from illnesses like depression. All of theses things are causing us to look more so into our lives today and realize who we are. I also feel that as a society, we are starting to open up so much more. For example, younger and younger generations do not consider it strange at all if you have ADD or other similar illnesses. They just accept it as a part of you, and that it is irrelevant in the long run. That is proof alone that the world is changing, and changing for the better as we are able to better identify ourselves and who we are. Many people are slowly being diagnosed with depression, as well as many more people then previously are becoming more so upset when it comes to their jobs, as it seems that they can never be happy with their lives. This leads to the Great Depression being compared to our lives and the spiritual war is due to figuring  out who we are as we struggle in society. 

Fight Club #4

 "Your not your job, you are not how much money you have in the bank, you are not the car you drive, you are not the contents of your wallet, you are not your khakis."

     You are you. Moral of the story. Don't try to be stereotyped by what others may physically see, but rather by what's on the inside. How you live and what you have should not be how you are looked as. A garbage man should not be looked down upon because he's a garbage man, but rather he should be seen as himself. A rich person should not be stereotyped into one category because he is rich, because he might be completely different then that. The material goods that you own or have should not matter. It should be how you act in your everyday life and the morals that you live by. How you portray yourself. It's all up to the person who is being judged, not the people who judge you to make the decision about who you are. However people in society don't do this. Society becomes biased off of the material goods and appearance of others. For example: if someone dressed poorly with died hair and facial piercings and was applying for the same job as someone who dressed like the perfect image of society's perfection, people would trust the perfect person more so then the one with the piercings when in reality the person with the piercings might be more intelligent or better suited for the job. Some companies would probably be biased against the person with piercings right from the beginning. All in all, just be yourself and don't judge others by their appearance.  

Fight Club #1

"It's only when you have lost everything, can you do anything"

     So while watching Fight Club with Noah, there were so many good TOK quotes that I started forcing Noah to stop the movie and repeat the quote at me so that I could write it down and do a blog about it. So this is the first quote of a mini-series of quotes from Fight Club, that  I kind of wanted to write about. The narrator stated that once you have lost everything, everything in the world that means something to you and everything in the world that binds you and limits you, only then is it possible to do anything. To fully do anything, without feeling limited or scared by what you are doing because of a set boundary of emotions or morals, you need to have let them go. I agree with this. I think that despite that we feel already that we are invincible, as human beings, feeling that we are able to do anything, we fully do not grasp those occurrences by the reins and do so. We usually feel that something is stopping us from reaching our full potential, and it's usually more of an internal conflict then an external or physical conflict. However by losing everything that means something to you, then how do you technically have something that you still aspire to do. It's kind of a paradox in a way. I figure, as long as you live life the way you want too, then you shouldn't regret anything that would cause you to need to lose everything in order to do the anything.  

How Awesome Zach Is...

     So my friend Zach Wells and I were talking, and I mentioned that for our TOK class we have to write blogs. And honestly, I had no idea what I wanted to talk about, so Zach was like "Talk about how awesome I am!". I thought that it would be fun, so about Zach Wells. Well to start off with the basics he is a senior and is dating Stephanie. They are really adorable together, and are always there for one another. Oh yeah, and he is really conservative (politics is always a discussion that occurs upstairs in the tech booth). To me though, Zach is like an older brother. We spend a lot of time together due to stage crew, and I enjoy being around him and the atmosphere and other people who participate and help out with backstage stuff. But Zach does so much for the theater department. He basically lives at the school, and we always joke around with him about it.
     When he graduates this year, what will happen to the department is a question with the answer still unknown. Zach, despite being there for the theater department and running it, is also there for the people who volunteer their own time. I know that for me, he is always willing to listen to me rant about one thing or another that is occurring in my life, which I hate doing because I feel like I am complaining to others, but he always is there to help. And he does this for everyone else too. Plus, the atmosphere in the tech booth is fun while still being productive. Everyone is friends, and we all help out with everyone.
     Zach is always willing to help out with anything situation that each of us might be in. I know that for me, several times he has given me great advice, tried to help me out of awkward situations, and has just been a great friend and older brother to me. When I think that he will be going off to college soon, I wonder how much my life will change with his disappearance. I feel like a lot of things will change, so lately I have been focusing more so on the present, and just having a great time so that later on the memories of all of the time together will just bring so much joy and happiness.

     And hey Zach, if you are reading this, I am sorry that this kind of veered off of the original topic. I apologize, but you must understand how hard it is to condense all of your greatness into words...people actually have to know you to fully understand you and your dedication to everything! ^.^ So I am sorry that I didn't do you justice through my writing!!

The Wonderful Surprise of a Snow Day!

     I am always so delayed when it comes to blogging. I have a habit of coming on here and posting a new idea for a blog in my new posts tab and then not coming back in and writing the actual blogs till a couple days later. So the snow day that happened yesterday (and by yesterday, I mean a while ago!) was great!!! I was sleeping, and then unfortunately my alarm clock went off at 5am, because I was going to work on some stuff before school, however me being me I didn't actually get up because I felt so exhausted. So I went back to sleep, my clock on my phone went off at 5:45am to get up. All that my mind was thinking was "BLARGH!, I NEED MORE SLEEP!". So I had ignored it and went back to a dazed sleep. The next time that I looked at my clock it was 6am, and I finally realized that I had to get up in fear of running late, when..........................................................THE PHONE RANG!!! My sweet savior!!! I picked it up hoping that it was a call about a snow day and not some medical emergency for my sister, and it was like a sweet miracle!! As soon as it was over, I went back to sleep, to wake up at noon, and do really nothing that whole day. It was one of the best days that I have spent in a long time. Although unfortunately, the message learned from this little incident, would be that more sleep is needed. However it's so difficult to get more sleep because there is just so much to do...unless I was able to stop time! Like in Harry Potter, Hermione has a time turner that gives her the ability to be in two places at once. Then I would be able to sleep! I wish that there were more hours in the day or that we don't have to sleep as much or that we could be fully functional on less hours of sleep.  At least that is my dream...maybe if I become some sort of scientist I can create one! =D