Journal #41

A hero is someone that does things above the ordinary person, and does not expect a reward or praise for it. A hero is someone who thinks of someone else over themselves and does it strictly for another person and someone else. Heroes have changed a lot of the years. In the past, heroes were people such as, military leaders. Today I think that society has a distorted view of what a hero is. People see a hero as someone who is famous and is beautiful, but may or may not benefit society as someone else. In my opinion heroes are common people who are very selfless. An example would be in the recent news. Yesterday there were bombs set off at the finish line of the Boston Marathon. It was such a tragic event, and some of the runners finished their race, and kept running to the hospital to donate blood. In my opinion, these people are heroes. They did not think of themselves and trying to run to safety to save themselves. They said no, there are people hurting and seriously injured, and I am going to do anything I can to help. These people may have saved the life of a person injured in the accident because they were not thinking of themselves. I think these kinds of people are rare now a day. I also think that the true test of who is a hero is when it comes to things such as the Boston Marathon bombings, or instances such as these for true heroes to come out. The celebrities that people consider heroes did not do these things. Throwing up a tweet saying pray for Boston is nice and all, but that is not heroic. The heroes are people to talk the talk and walk the walk, if you will. I find people such as these, and not just in yesterdays incident, but anytime, not matter how big or small, the true heroes of our world.

Journal #40

Today I do not know what to write about. I am now sitting in my chair in Mr. Langley's room freezing my butt off and trying to defrost my fingers. Right now Emily is sitting next to me and Mr. Tadla just walked into the room. It is getting really loud now because I think Connor almost just fell off of his stool behind me. The sound of fingers hitting keys is in the background as Emily plugs in her computer because it once again went dead. I am taking a break and talking to Emily about our soccer game last night. Last night we played North Mac. They were not as good as us, but we just could not seem to score, so the game ended in a tie. It was very frustrating, but that seems to be the theme for this season. During the junior varsity game, I am not sure if I have ever been so sore in my life. I had literal throbbing in my fingers from the could, despite the fact that I had gloves on. I tried to run, and it hurt my frozen feet so bad I had to stop. I even had plenty of layers on, but nothing was stopping that cold air. Hopefully it will heat up in the next few days like it had been before yesterday. I am now starting to warm up from my previous class, and most of the other people in the class have settled in. Now the only sounds are the keys pressing down as we type, a chair slide across the floor, and the occasional whisper. This class should be interesting because we are doing ACT prep. I would really like to know what the letters in ACT mean. I have always kind of wondered that. I am typing this on written kitten, and a very cute picture of a cat hugging a stuffed monkey just popped up. Well, I guess this is the end of my wonderful journal today.

Journal #39

Over spring break I could not really do too much because I had soccer during the week. I had two soccer games and a few practices during the week. I really wish that I was able to go somewhere warm, because until the last couple of days, it was pretty cold. For Easter, I also stayed in town because my dad had surgery a few weeks ago, and did not want to sit in a car and drive to St. Louis to go see my grandma and family down there. So we stayed home and made blueberry pancakes and had a nice Easter to ourselves. Our soccer team on Thursday had an Easter egg hunt at Centennial Park. A few of the girls hid eggs and we all had a race to find them all. It was very fun. Other than that, I worked quite a bit on the weekends and spent some time in the boiling hot nursing home. The elderly people do not like to be cold, so despite the fact that it was seventy degrees outside, we could not open any of the windows. During our soccer games, we tied against the Riverton team, and lost to Williamsville. They were both tough games, but I think that we could have beat Riverton for sure, and possibly beat Williamsville if it had not have been so darn windy. That is the bad part about soccer. The wind can play a huge part of how the game turns out in the end. Overall, my spring break was pretty boring. I really wish I could have gone somewhere in Florida, or maybe to New Orleans to see my cousin. I only have one more year of soccer though, and then I can go to the beach all I want. I can then have total relaxation time to myself and enjoy a break from school. Until then however, I will just have to have boring sring breaks.

Journal #38

For job shadowing I went to Memorial Medical Center and followed a post surgical RN. Her name was Kristyn and she was going to classes to become a Nurse Practitioner, which is what I want to eventually become. During my morning there, I followed her around as she went to each of her five patients as she checked on the, to see if they needed anything, and give them their medicine. The patients had had procedures such as gallbladder removal and skin cancer surgery. It was interesting to me because everyday would be different and it is different than just sitting at a desk and doing the same thing over and over again. When a patient was going to be released, she had to fill out a lot of paperwork, which was what she said the worst part was. Throughout the day, she gave me many interesting points to think about with nursing, such as if you do not like a certain section that you are in, you can just switch. This also goes along with the main reason I like nursing. It can reach so many different areas, so there id bound to be something that you can find that you enjoy doing. I think that nursing would be a good career, but I would like to further my degree, and become a nurse practitioner, because they are more like a physician. It also made me realize that I definitely want to be in pediatrics, because the adults that were there had all sorts of weight problems and issues because of that. It frustrated me because they could have avoided all of those issues by being healthy, but they are not. With children, they have other problems, i know, and it could be very sad with children who have a hard life, but i think i would like it much better. If eventually i find out I do not like pediatrics, I can always switch, because that is the best thing about nursing.

Journal #37

When I listen to Blue Monk by Miles Davis and the Monk Quartet, I see many things. I someone playing a piano in a little jazz club. The club is dark and a little smokey, with people sitting at small tables lighted with candles, sitting on top of dark red table clothes. The audience taps along as the saxophone plays along with the piano, and the drummer begins in. I picture the saxophonist getting very into the song, playing from his heart, and his eyes closed so he can feel the music. Around the room, the people so the same as their heads bob, and their feet tap. As the piano fades out and just a faint drum sounds in the back, the saxophone takes its solo, and the people watch with awe. As the piano rejoins for its solo, I picture the some couples slowly getting up to dance. The men twirl the women around the dance floor, as they feel the beat through their bodies. They slow down as the bass solo begins, and watch the bassist with his glasses on strum as his body moves with the rhythm. He also bobs his head and his body, while the whole room watched him. Everyone soon rejoins as the audience claps for the solos and begin to dance again as the music picks up. Around the room, I picture people at a bar, smoking a cigarette and drinking as the music ends they all stand and clap for the musicians hard work and soulful music. As the musicians exit the stage the people slowly finish their conversations filled with awe and praise for the solos, and wish to come again next week. They put on their coats and gradually leave the smokey jazz club until it is only the bartender left cleaning, and the musicians thanking each other and packing up their instruments. They say their goodbyes and will be back next week to do it again.

Journal #36

It is important to be yourself because if you act like someone you are not, you lose yourself.Acting like yourself can be really hard, especially as a teenager. You fell constant pressure to be something you are not, and that can easily change who you are, how you act, and what you believe in. In being yourself, you must find people that will accept the fact that you are who you are and will like you regardless. You need to acct like yourself because it is being true to the individual inside you, and expressing yourself no matter what people say or think. I like to think that I am myself all of the time, but I know that I act different around different people. Which is okay, but it is how much different you act that really says whether or not you are being true to yourself. Being true to yourself can also help you guide yourself in the right direction. If you stick to what you believe in, and gradually as you get older grow and extend on those thoughts, morals, and beliefs, then you can make yourself into a strong person. Being true to yourself makes you strong, which leads to a life of happiness. I think that it is important that we stay true to ourselves in order to keep our heads above water, if you will. By this, I mean that if you lie to yourself and do the things that you inside know you do not believe in, then your just keep getting more and more overwhelmed in the lies you tell yourself, and eventually you are no longer yourself, but a person the people around you that influenced these decisions have made you into. I try to keep to my morals as best as I can, but it is very hard sometimes to do this. I think if you can make it our of high school proud of who you are, then that is yourself, and you should stick to it.

Journal #35

My writing in The Declaration of Independence Reflection blog was very choppy and did not flow very well.I had very short kind of insignificant paragraphs, and they did not really seem as though they made an essay. Although they did not flow, I used very good examples and support for my arguments. My thoughts were well organized and easy to follow. In my discussion post, I had many topics, whereas the reflection blog there was one focused topic to write about. In the discussion post, I had fewer support examples because I was covering more topics than before. In the discussion post, I had more direct quotations than in the discussion post, and in the reflection blog, I used broader examples and talked about them. I kind of talked about a specific section in the Declaration of Independence, and then made a broad overview of that section. In opposition, in the reflection blog I had a quotation from one of Whitman's poems, and then I went on break down the quote. I did a broad break down, and then related it back to the point I was trying to prove. I think my writing has improved a little bit, but these were hard essays to compare. The kinds of writing were very different because int he reflection blog, I was just telling how the Declaration of Independence had examples of the topic. In the discussion post,I was comparing and contrasting Walt Whitman's writing to the characteristics of Realism and Regionalism writing, talking about how Whitman revolutionized American literature, and how Whitman's poems were showing his search for Self that he believed in. Overall the writing is somewhat different, but also a little bit similar. They were kind of the same in my examples and the support to back them. I had a good post when I  wrote my reflection blog and I had very good support and examples. On my previous blogs compared to now I have improved a lot.