Final Reflections

Goodbye's are not my strong point, I always feel a little sad saying them. Of course, I'm mostly talking about saying goodbye to people, not blogs. Honestly, I'm not a bit sad about saying farewell to my blogging experience. Don't get me wrong, I actually had a fair amount of fun writing these blogs. I love technology,I like writing and I love reading too and blogging puts all these great things together. I'm betting, the only reasons that I feel I have to complain is because I was pretty much forced to write things, not just doing them on my own, because the blogging experience was part of my writ 101 class.

I did think I got a lot out of the blogs. I got a chance to read a bunch of my classmates blogs as well. Some of the subjects we wrote on were pretty interesting, so I wanted to know what my their opinions or stories were about. I do however admit that sometimes the only reason I would click someone else's blog was to compare mine or get some ideas on how the flow of my own blog should go. I also learned a little bit about html as well. Although, I couldn't get this one thing figured about about how to attach pictures to my blogs without hosting them from another site, but that was just a minor annoyance.

I really don't think I will continue to post on this blog site. The idea does appeal to me but I can't imagine myself having enough spare time to to write down random thoughts.Plus, the idea of other random people reading my random posts creeps me out a little bit. I'm pretty sure none of my friends subscribe to blogger.com so the only people who would be reading it would be strangers or myself (Dear Diary...) Nope, I'll probably be on facebook instead...or floating the river.

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Spain

I was a junior in high school and close to turning 18. There was a program through school that I signed up for to go to Spain. I had taken a couple of years of Spanish, and I had even lived in Guatemala when I was 7, so I definitely had some Spanish speaking skills up my sleeve. The best part of this opportunity (at least in my eyes at the time) was that my best friend, Megan would be going with me. Plus, we would be rooming together at a host family's house. My Spanish teacher that came with us was very laid back and had no problem speaking up for me when I got too embarrassed to try and explain to our waiters that I did not eat meat (which is unheard of in Spain). Our trip had too many fun experiences to try to cram into 2 paragraphs, so I'll just share one.

We went to school for a month in Salamanca and one day, one the way home (which was about a 45 min walk , one way) my best friend and I had the idea to get tattoos. We weren't old enough in the U.S. to get them, but we were in Spain! We ended up in a dark tattoo parlor near the Salamanca square. I had a hard time finding a place they would agree to putting it since I was sunburned everywhere! I finally settled on getting a tiny lady bug tattooed on one side of my lower back. A little silly, I know. I was really scared though! Since then, I've actually gotten the tattoo enhanced. It started to look a little like a mole, so I had it turned into hello kitty wearing a lady bug costume. Yeah, I know, even sillier you might think. :) Now, I have some great memories and awesome stories behind that cute little lady bug tattoo.

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Grey's Anatomy

I work for a television company. Of course I'm obsessed with TV. It's part of my job to know what is new and hot. So, obviously I'm having a hard time picking just one TV show. I settled on Grey's Anatomy. This is my favorite show, ever! The first time I ever saw it, I was actually baited with the promise of a home cooked meal and was instead, forced to watch Grey's Anatomy.

My major is nursing, so the whole hospital setting drew me in at first. I know a bunch of medical terminology from my previous training. This show doesn't make many mistakes. It has all of the exciting, shocking, crazy plots of soap opera. However, it also has extensive medical scenes filled with drama and more crazy plots. These two components to this awesome show help to balance it out. I know a lot of guys that will admit to watching it religiously. There are a lot of things that happen it that show that make me wonder if its actually true. I resort to googling some weird crazy disease almost immediately after watching.

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Sin City

My 2010 Spring Break was amazing! It was definitely not a restful vacation. I went to Las Vegas with my two very best guy friends and we were armed for a good time. We spent the first day drinking fruity alcohol drinks, sight seeing,taking a zillion pictures and getting sunburned. The first few days we were there we were too excited and ended up going to sleep pretty early,considering we were in Vegas. We packed our days full of walking and seeing everything that we possibly could.

The rest of our trip was honestly, a little blurry. I really won't go into detail why, I'm sure you could imagine. We went to the wax museum,and we took another zillion pictures with fake celebrities. Our last night we packed full of adventures. We went and saw a Criss Angel show and got to sit in the fourth row. It was one of the best shows I have ever seen in my life. I loved it!! After Criss Angel, we decided to go to the Minus 5 bar. We had seen it in a show about the top 10 coolest bars in America( or something like that) on the travel channel. Before entering the bar you have to put on huge coats,gloves and furry boot. Everything was ice; the bar,chairs,statues,decorations, and even the glasses we were drinking from. I'm still not rested up from my trip and I can I definitely say that I have some "what happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas" stories!!

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My 3 Op-Eds

Virtual Water

This article starts by stating," The average American is responsible for the consumption of 656,000 gallons of water per year." This article is talking about virtual water though. Virtual water is something you can't really see. Not the water you shower in. It's talking about the water that was used to make your underwear. The article points out how we should be more aware about the water that was used to make things, the invisible water. We don't really think about how many resources we use if we don't see it in use.

Red-Headed Stepchild

This was probably the most interesting article that I read today. I think I found it so interesting because I have so much personal experience with the concert going atmosphere in Missoula. This article is pointing out what a horrible experience going to a concert in Missoula can be, because other people don't follow the correct etiquette. He also points out that a lot of people go to concert, just to be seen. I can't tell you how many people didn't even know who the main band even was, but were going just because their friends were going.



We Are All Fat and Have Cancer

This article was talking about how we can't always eat right, exercise, don't smoke and keep our lives in balance. No matter what there are things we can't avoid such as cancer and accidents. The article kept talking about "blaming the victim". The author was saying that yes, some people die from lung cancer because they did smoke. However, she was also sticking up for the people that get lung cancer and never smoked a day in their lives. It definitely puts a perspective on looking deeper into people's illnesses instead of pointing the finger right away.

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Sources

I have found tons of great sources for my search on volunteer work. Here is a list of just a few of them. I have a feeling I will have a huge list to be pulling from. I am so excited! There are tons of sites for volunteer work.

Time; 3/8/2010, Vol. 175 Issue 9, p36-39
http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=buh&AN=48374733&site=ehost-live

http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=aph&AN=47898760&site=ehost-live

http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=aph&AN=48138288&site=ehost-live

http://www.volunteerabroad.com/search.cfm

http://www.habitat.org

http://www.tonic.com/article/how-to-volunteer-in-haiti/

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Volunteer Work

I plan on writing my paper on volunteer work. My parents started me down the volunteer path when I was just a kid. We used to go to the humane society and do whatever we could to help out. Since then,I've tried to do as much volunteer work as I could fit into my schedule. This is something that I am obviously very passionate about.I would love to educate as many people as I could about the different opportunities for volunteer work out there, as well as the effect it has on the world.

There have been a bunch of natural disasters lately and speaking with my parents about these issues got me to thinking about what exactly is being done.People keep saying to me "Too bad you aren't a nurse yet, you could really be helping out in Haiti!" I don't think this statement is true. Isn't there a ton of things we could be doing to help besides sending money? Even if you don't have a degree? These questions are exactly what I want to explore in my paper.

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