The Big Reveal

1. Narration
2. Comparison/Contrast
3. Description
4. Process Analysis
5. Example
6. Cause and Effect

Forgive and Forget

When I was a little kid, my sister and I fought about anything and everything. To be honest, we still fight. It's normal sibling rivalry. But when we were younger, everything she did annoyed the crap out of me. Once when I was six and she was four, she accidentally ripped off the head of my barbie princess. That could be one of the most traumatizing things that has ever happened to me (kidding, but it was horrifying at the time). I was fuming for the next two hours, which in little kid time is basically a freaking eternity. My mom talked to me about how it was an accident, that sisters should always love each other, and that I should learn to forgive Lucy. That is the first time that I can recall learning about forgiveness.

Forgiving and ignoring are two things that some people may get confused with each other. Maybe you have heard someone say something like "I'm over it okay? I've moved on, now stop talking about it!" and then they storm away in a hurry. Or maybe they just say something like "It's forgiven okay? I'm fine." Now these people haven't actually been able to forgive what happened. They are just trying to avoid the topic. They've pushed the memory deep into the very back of their brains and vowed never to think about it again. But they won't truly be able to move on until they learn to forgive. Learning to forgive, to let go of any resentment or anger, is one of the hardest things to do.

When anger is eating away at us, it's hard to find compassion to forgive someone. We've all experienced feelings of animosity and fury; these emotions take over until it's impossible to think clearly. In order to be able to focus on more important things, you will need to let go of the hostility that has taken over your life. Once you do forgive, you will be able to embrace feelings of calmness, peace, and joy.

It takes a while to learn how to forgive and forget. At first, you are angry. You hate the person, the situation, everything about what happened. You might even kill if it weren't illegal to. Okay, maybe that's an exaggeration but you get what I'm saying. Once the anger starts to fade away, you start to reflect. What really happened? What went wrong? Then you start to think. You will realize that it is not worth it to stay angry forever, and you decide to forgive.

Being able to forgive is a highly admired trait. In YES class, we were talking about a book, I cannot remember the name--this is bugging the crap out of me. Anyway, it is about an old man named Morrie (or Morry; im not sure how to spell it,) and Morrie is terminally ill. The person writing this book, looks up to Morrie as a mentor, a father figure, a role model, and he visits Morrie once a week. Morrie teaches him many life lessons, and the most important one to him is the one about forgiveness. He said that you need to let things go, because once you are lying on your death bed, these things that you are holding grudges about will not even matter. You need to forgive people and hold on to the relationships that you have formed throughout your life. They are more important than anything, and nothing should stand in the way.

Forgiveness does not come easy. When you are overcome with feelings of bitterness, vengeance, and thoughts of revenge, it's difficult to let go of those emotions and forget whatever has happened. It takes tremendous emotional strength to finally learn to forgive, but once you do, life will be much better. I realize that I sound like a fortune cookie right now. It's kind of embarrassing, but whatever.  It doesn't help anyone or anything by holding grudges. By learning to forgive, you will experience peace and be able to focus on other parts of your life more.

Surprise-- It's Mickey Mouse!

You might be wondering why I'm writing this blog post at 12:15 am. Or you probably didn't even notice. But either way, I'll explain. I just got home from my friend's house, took a shower, and now I don't feel like going to bed. You know the feeling that I'm talking about. It's one of those times where you're exhausted yet don't want to go to bed because you just don't feel like it. So I decided to blog. Because I enjoy blogging.

Disney World. A little kid would live there if you gave them the choice. Heck, I would live there if I could. But that's not my point. My point is that everyone loves it there; if you don't then there is something seriously wrong with you. Disney is a classic american icon.

And guess what? I get to go there over winter break!

I have already been able to experience the childhood wonder and joy of seeing Mickey walking around a whimsical amusement park. This time is my sister's turn to live this moment. My youngest sister, Aly, is five years old and is the cutest little girl you'll ever meet (at least I think so). She's been begging my mom for the last year to take her to Disney World. "Mommy! I want to go see Cinderella in her castle! Please!", "Mommy can we go see Ariel and her fishies?", "Mommy, Olivia just went to Disney World, let's go tomorrow!" Each time my mom would just pinky promise her that we will take her there sometime.

My mom bought tickets to Orlando two days ago. We decided that it's going to be a Christmas surprise for Aly. Since she's such a clueless little kid (and I say that with love) she probably won't notice anything even when we take her on a four hour airplane ride. Sure, she'll probably ask where we are going, but we've decided that we're going to just tell her that we are going to Florida; she doesn't know where Florida is yet. Remember, she's in Kindergarten. The reason we are keeping it a surprise is that we want to see her face light up when she walks through the gates that lead to Disney World. I can already see her jaw dropping and then her giggling with joy. It's going to be the most adorable thing ever.

This is more exciting than when I went to Disney World my first time. I can't wait!

Privacy Please?

x² pg 126

Internet. The World Wide Web. Is it really safe? 

Don't get me wrong, I use the internet almost daily. It's a very useful tool. I can't imagine life without it. But while there are many benefits to using computers, are the uses spiraling out of control? Where do we draw the line? 

The things they listed in this little box on the bottom left of page 126 are all worrisome. I feel like if someone really wanted to know stuff about me, they could find it on Facebook. Even though I have set my privacy settings to "Friends Only" it still may not be perfectly safe. I just saw a documentary about Facebook, and they were talking about how apparently Facebook can give out your information; you allow them to when you check the little accept terms box. To me, that's kind of scary. I feel like I should delete my Facebook now...I don't know if that's going to happen though. We'll see. 

Am I being paranoid? I don't think so. I feel like this whole technology controversy may be a legitimate concern. How do you know that your credit card information won't be stolen after you buy those cute shoes online? None of your information is truly safe. Somebody could hack into one of your accounts. 

Also some other things to address. Pornography. Slander. Vilification. What? I don't even know what to say. Just...Why? These are absolutely disgusting. Whoever bothers to use the internet for these reasons is a pig. I'm sorry, but that's the truth. Period. 

Besides some of these security concerns, there are some other issues to think about. Is the daily newspaper going to fade away and die? When it comes time for us to be parents, are our kids going to be saying things like "Ohmygosh, you guys actually wrote stuff down, and read things on paper? WEIRD!" Let's not let the world come to this. First off, everyone would have horrible vision from staring at the computer all day long. Secondly, the newspaper has been with us for hundreds and hundreds of years. Letting it vanish would be devastating to history. Even though we would be killing trees, I feel that it would still be a good idea to print newspapers daily. I would much rather read a newspaper than look at an article online. Reading too much online makes my eyeballs hurt. 

Furthermore, people would start to lose communication skills. We can already see that happening in society. More and more people are relying on texting, facebook, and email, instead of face to face confrontation. If people stay isolated at home, instead of going out to interract, then what is the world going to come to? A planet of introverts? (Logical fallacy. But still, you should see my point.)

Bottom line: Although the internet is a very useful tool, the disadvantages may outweigh the advantages. 

This has absolutely nothing to do with my post, but I love this song! I've been listening to it on repeat while writing this post. So just thought I'd share. Props to Shelby for sharing this song with me :)

Keep Your Head Up- Andy Grammer

Getting Artsy

I love art. I love to draw. I love to doodle. I love to paint.

But ironically, I don't think that I am that artistically gifted. And by that, I mean I am not super imaginative. Sure I can produce decent works of art, but not without someone to instruct me. Every Sunday I used to go to drawing class, but my teacher moved to Arizona--so that was the end of that. She helped me with so much, but it's hard to create amazing works of art without her around. She guided me through each piece, which now thinking about it, I guess was both good and bad. Good because the paintings I did with her were my best ones ever, but bad because I couldn't really expand my own creativity. I was too dependent on her, and now I regret it. But here are some of my favorite pieces that I have drawn or painted. These are my masterpieces.

This one is my favorite. 

This one seems kind of banal to me, but I think it's pretty good. I drew it way back in '06. ( Hey, I used a vocab word!) 

The majority of my drawings do not turn out this good; I don't have a lot of time to just sit down and paint for hours. Most of my drawing time is now doodling in class. That day I drew something that according to my friend, looked like the guy from LMFAO. Not what I was aiming for, but whatever works.

I don't think I draw to express myself, that's kind of deep, but because I just think it's fun. It's exhilarating to paint the first few strokes on a canvas, and when I am finally done, I can step bad and proudly examine my masterpiece. Or my disaster. It could be either. Usually for me, it's the second one. Unless I have someone to help me. But I still love it. Even if it ends up looking like someone puked on it-- I'll still love it. I made it, and either way I will be exuding with happiness.