Describe the most beautiful thing you've ever seen

The most beautiful thing that I can remember seeing off of the top of my head right now would probably be when I was on a fishing trip in Canada. It was like 5:30 or 6 in the morning, and we were out on a little motorboat looking for walleye, which you can normally only catch in certain hours of the day, and we were hoping that we would get a few. The beautiful part of it was the sunrise. We were on these HUGE lakes that actually almost looked like seas when you were on the coast, and the orange-yellowish sun was just perking up over the trees on the opposite side of the lake. It was breathtaking.

Hurray!

Where do you want to be in five years? Ten years? Twenty years? How are you going to make it happen?

This is pretty late, but better late than never!

In 5 years, I want to be going to a good college and continuing my education. In ten years, I hope to be a college graduate and have a good job (possible work for my dad's business) and having a great time. (skiing, mostly) In twenty years, I hope to be financially set up at least decentlty to pursue my lifetime dream of being a ski bum. Hopefully by that time I have a great wife and possible family.

I think I'm going to get there by working hard throughout the rest of my school years and trying to get a well-paying job and possible get into owning my dad's business. (basically, hard work)

What do you think about George Bush?

I think that a new president should be put into office immidiately. I think this for a few reasons. Firstly, (in my opinion, at least) we need to get our troops out of Iraq as soon as possible. W've meddled with their business long enough and when we tried to tell Bush that we did he so nicely promised to veto that and spend more and more American money on Iraq when we could be worrying about things that the people of America think are more important.

Another thing that I think isn't acceptable about this country's president is his immigration policy. Didn't someone say something like everyone is created equal? Hmmm..... And yet we still are placing defensive boundries around our country to keep visitors out despite that.

These are only 2 reasons that I don't like George Bush, and though there are a few more I won't go into detail about them as I would probably bore anybody who read this to death.......

PS- on the Iraq war- didn't Bush say a quote like "This war started on my watch, but it will end on yours" ? Hmmm. sounds to me like someone made a mess and doesn't want to clean it up himself..........

How can you clear your mind of the bad mental environment?

I think that that bad mental environment that we talked about in class comes from more than just one source. I think a little comes from T.V., a little from music, a little from the movies we watch, and a little from even our friends and other sources. Like the cause, there are a lot of ways to get rid of this mental baggage as well. One way ot get rid of it would be to be aware of what you are watching on T.V. If you are watching educational shows that are supposed to be good, you are probably less likely to compile the bad mental environment. Also, be aware of what music you are listening to. "this is why im hot........." what's the point? Listen to stuff that actually matters to the human race. And finally, movies. Again, be aware of what you're watching and make sure that you don't let the people in the movies run how you live your life.

One of Anything I want!!

This Topic is a little bit off the mark, so I'll talk breifly about it and get to something more relevant.

Recently, I've noticed that almost everybody in our school (and outside of it too) refers to our planet as "the Earth". That's like saying "the person" instead of "Bob". Since when was our planet a common noun? You don't hear people saying "the Jupiter" or "the Venus". This is totally a personal thing and I can learn to deal with it but if you hear yourself saying "the Earth" instead of just "Earth" think about it too. (that goes to anybody reading this blog!! <(**<) (worst computerized Kirby EVER!!)


Here's another off-topic thing but oh well...

one of my older friends sent me this link to a video on youtube. It's very, very anti-iraq war, but it's very funny. Enjoy if you feel like it, but please don't come whining to me, this wasn't my work.
Here's the link: http://youtube.com/watch?v=o-KWYYIY4jQ


Anyway, this is my actual topic for this post.

WOLVES!!!!

As we are starting to talk about wolves in the classroom, I decided to write a post about the unit on wolves. Hooray.

I think that a lot of people fear the wolf for some unreasonable reasons. Firstly, people say that the wolf is a "natural competitor to humans for the top of the food chain". Let's get real here. That's just not true. Do Wolves have shotguns? Do wolves have airplanes that can be used to shoot down defensless humans? Last time I checked, they didn't. Sure, wolves have to eat to survive, but they really aren't going to completely extinguish the moose population overnight. Also, when you look at the numbers as far as attacking humans go (there were a lot of numbers that I found, but all of them revealed mainly the same thing), dogs are more dangerous that wolves are by huge amounts, yet we domesticate dogs and hunt down wolves literally to the brink of extinction. I can understand where some of these people are coming from, but really, let's think about it. A loss of wolves would totally screw up any economic systems near them, plus it's morally wrong.

( a totally emotionless post) :-)

Frozen Dead Guy Days: The Truth behind the iced smelly guy

I'm going to start off this blog with a confession. Honestly, I've never actually been in the town of Nederland when Frozen Dead Guy Days are going on. Needless to say, my opinion in the matter actually matters very little. However, I would like to not fail this class so I'll try and write about it anyway.

From what I've heard, the Frozen Dead Guy Days party that goes on is pretty sweet. Lots of kids from the school go out and have fun, people race in coffins, "celebrities" come to town, and all that good stuff. I think that it's a good thing for the town to do. Otherwise, I think that the town could get into an "another day gone" cycle and not really care about stuff. But, with this party, tourists come up here and are eager to spend $$ on stuff. Also, I think that the money that it brings in is a good thing for the community. As we discussed in class, it seems like all the money that is made in Nederland is spent down in the flatlands or the equivalent, so lots of cash is being lost from the community in that reguard. Frozen Dead Guy Days are very helpful in my opinion bringing back some of that which was lost.

Iron Jawed Angels Discussion thoughts

Overall, honetly I didn't like the format of that particular discussion. I think that the circle idea for formatting questions and the fact that only the next person in the circle has a chance to respond to the question (yes, I know you could take notes, but I think that discussions are meant to be discussed, not written down) can get a little bit strange. Sometimes, there was a question asked that someone had a really good answer to but they didn't get a chance to share it because the person asking the question was at the opposite end of the room. Sometimes, I think it's best to format discussions like that, but for that particular one I believe that there was a lot that should have been said that wasn't.

As for the actual material that we went over in the talk, I think that we did barely touch the surface, but what we got to was good. The film was pretty intense and I think that it got to a lot of kids that hadn't given any thought at all about the topic and I was happy to see those kids' eyes "get opened".

1st Semester U.S. Society Review

What do you want to see more of in U.S. Society class this semester?

I think that I would like to see more projects that are really open-ended and "easy" to do. I like that we are able to pick topics that we enjoy and that we aren't forced to do a project on something that we really aren't interested in. I also like that the class is laid-back, so everybody has fun while they are working on their education.

What do you want to see less of?

I am actually having a hard time thinking of something to say to answer this question, but if I had to say something it would be that I would like to see more individual projects. I know a lot of people like working in groups on things, and don't get me wrong I like working with people too, but sometimes if you are working with certain people you can be doing all of the work and their lack of work can cost you a really good grade that you earned on a project that you would have earned had you been working alone. Working in groups also can bring the hard worker's grades down and the sleep-in-class-while-everybody-else-is-working type's grades farther up then they should be. In that case, isn't it better to just get an individual grade?

How can we make this class better?

I think that to make this class better, there should be more individual work projects instead of as many group-type projects. Also, I think that the majority of our projects should give us at least a little bit of freedom as far as a topic for the actual project goes.

I had a lot of fun in this class the first semester and I hope that we can all have fun in the second as the school year comes to a close!!

Holiday LOVES and HATES

I LOVE:

1. When people are nice to each other and are in the "Holiday spirit" and all that.
2. Giving gifts and receiving them
3. Visiting relatives
4. GETTING A BREAK FROM SCHOOL!!!!!!!
5. Skiing
6. All of the sales at the malls and stores. (just get something for cheap for yourself and call it a gift to you from you!)
7. The Snow

I HATE:

1. How the holiday season has turned in to CHRISTMAS. Even our own school does it. If someone is not christian and they come to the school and hear "Christmas Break", or "Christmas Party" or stuff like that, they could get really offended.
2. Secret Santas. I like giving and receiving gifts, but I can't stand it when I don't know who it's from or who it's to.
3. I'm not really a hater, so I guess this list is pretty much over now. The end. Leave. Go Skiing. Have fun. Goodbye.

Global Warming talk W/ Parents

As I sat down to talk with my parents about global warming and what they thought about it I realized that they probably know more about it than I do. I soon found that I was pretty much correct.

I started to talk about it with them and found out very quickly that they both believe that it is an extremely dangerous problem and that we need to do something about it now. They took me to see An Inconvinient Truth a couple of months ago before we watched it in class, and I thought that it was very interesting and I wanted to know more about it. After we watched it for the first time, we persuaded our church to go 100% wind powered along with our house and Dad's business that he runs. We have a hybrid car and we try to drive it whenever we have a choice to do so. Also, we always look at ways to be more helpful to the environment and we try as much as we can to do our part to help out.

Then, I asked Dad what he knew about Solar energy. He didn't know much, so we talked for a while about it. Solar power is a little bit more expensive than other energy options, but after the initial purchase, almost 90% of it is deductible and comes back. Also, if you aren't using the solar power that you generate, you can basically sell it back to the energy company. Plus, with all the sun that we get here in the mountains, it would be a very good idea in my opinion. Dad thinks that everyone in Colorado should go for solar power and then we would be like a giant, self-sustaining power plant.

Sounds good, doesn't it???

Election Results

Last Tuesday wasn't the best Tuesday in the world for President Bush and most Republicans. The election results were incredible and no one thought that what happened could happen, but it did.

The democratic party dominated Tuesday against the republican party ultimately leading to the House and the Senate shifting way back towards democrats. With this new balance, Bush will have some more difficulties with doing exactly whatever he wants to do. In just Colorado alone, the Republicans were outvoted by the Democrats 1,507,655 to 1,138,002, leaving a difference of nearly 370 tousand votes. Needless to say it was pretty much Democrats all the way.

REP-1,138,002
DEM-1,507,655