What Makes a Person Beautiful?

In my opinion, a person's beauty should not be defined by the color or style of their hair, their size, or anything visual. I think a person's true beauty is found only on the inside. No one should judge people strictly by the way they look. It's what's on the inside that counts. I think the things that determine your true beauty are your personality traits, your beliefs, and what lies deep inside your soul. If peolpe would judge only by what's on the inside, physical traits would probably go unnoticed. Your body is just a tool that you use to complete life's tasks. It's what's in your mind, your heart, and your soul that make you who you are. Beauty is on the inside.

Responsibilities of a Student

As citizens in the classroom, we all have certain responsibilities that we should abide by on a daily basis. These responsibilities are important to maintaining a healthy and productive society. Some of these student responsibilities include doing everything in our power to keep the classroom a safe and calm environment, respecting others and their belongings, following class rules, respecting the classroom, doing your assignments on time and as you are supposed to, and arriving on time and in a structured manner every day. There are many things that we should do as citizens of a classroom to make our community a better place. We should always do our best and help others. With hard work and patience, our world can be ANYTHING we want it to be!

AIDS Awareness

HIV/AIDS is a VERY serious problem that there is NO CURE for and will kill you within a matter of time if it is not treated. HIV/AIDS is transmitted through vaginal, anal, and oral sex and through breast milk. ANY vaginal or penile fluids can carry AIDS. Millions of people are living with HIV/AIDS every day. It's NOT something to joke about and it's DEFINITELY NOT FUNNY. It's a VERY SERIOUS disease that needs way more attention than it gets. I think scientists should be working harder to find a cure for HIV/AIDS. Maybe if there was a cure, with time and patience, we could slowly but steadily put this killer into extinction. In my opinion, our civic responsibilities against HIV/AIDS include things like GETTING YOURSELF AND YOUR PARTNER TESTED before you EVER have sex, USING THE PROPER PRECAUTIONS if you DO have the disease, and MAKING SURE to BE RESPONSIBLE and TELL ANYONE you are about to have sexual contact with that YOU HAVE HIV/AIDS before you ever have sexual contact. BE HONEST, Think about the consequences if you don't, and DO WHAT'S RIGHT. HIV/AIDS is SERIOUS. Let's ALL do our part in helping slow the spread of HIV/AIDS. WORLD AIDS DAY DECEMBER 1, 2009.

What Can I Do For People On Thanksgiving?

Thanksgiving is a time for celebration and the gathering of families to enjoy a hearty meal and count their blessings. Some of the things I can do for people on Thanksgiving include some things that everyone should do every day. Things like helping people cope with their problems and just BEING THERE can make a huge difference in people's lives. A couple of other things I can do are help people cook the DELICIOUS food that we all are guilty of gaining an average of 20 pounds apiece on, (lol), and reminding all the people around me to count their blessings and be thankful for the good things in their life. I think sometimes everyone just needs to be reminded of all the positive things in their lives that outweigh the curses. Life can be rough as sandpaper sometimes, but there's ALWAYS something good hidden beneath the struggle. Have a happy Thanksgiving and remember; In ALL things in life there is something beautiful... HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!! ;-)

SUCCESS!!!

I PASSED MY GED!!! I can't believe I passed both tests the first time I took them. I struggled so much in high school and taking the GED test was so easy. I'm glad I have my GED because now I can try to start college classes online. I'm really proud of my accomplishments. I haven't yet decided on exactly what I want to do for a solid career, but at least I can start applying for different colleges. I'm hoping that WVU gives online classes. My brother went to that college to become a mechanical engineer and he loved it. Online college would be WAY different, but at least it would be WVU. I'M SO HAPPY!!!

Dreams

No one knows for sure why people have dreams. They can be scary, happy, funny, or even completely irrational. Some dreams make lots of sense, others make no sense at all. Some dreams come true in reality and it can be a little scary. We all have dreams. They are an unavoidable part of life. Some people think they don't dream, but EVERYONE dreams. Even when you think you didn't dream on a certain night, you did, but you just don't remember it. Dreams most often contain people, places, things, or situations that are around you in your life. There are occasions where you'll have dreams that are completely irrelevant to anything going on in your life. These dreams are usually a signal to something you are feeling subconsciously. No one can control what they dream about. Sometimes I wonder what I'm going to dream about before I go to sleep at night. You just never know...

I just successfully complete the civics game The Cost of Life and I must say that it took me awhile, but I got the entire family to survive. They were poor, hungry, and sick, but they were alive. The point of the game is to not only survive, but to be happy and healthy. It's extremely difficult just in the game to accomplish this. I can't even imagine how tough it would be in reality. The easy thing about experiencing it on the computer is that if I get frustrated with it, I can just exit out of it and go back to my normal life. In reality, people who live in these conditions CAN'T just "exit out" of their problems. Hunger, sickness, and unhappiness is their life and it 100.5% REAL for them. They don't have the money for a huge turkey and all the dressings and sides for thanksgiving. They don't even have a house to eat it in! We don't think much about it because we're warm and well fed and reasonably happy. This Thanksgiving, when you're sitting at the table with your family, warm and happy with a huge meal in front of you, stop and think about all of the people who will spend Thanksgiving out on the streets cold and hungry without their family and friends. COUNT YOUR BLESSINGS, PEOPLE. Like the song says, 'god forbid you ever had to walk a mile in his shoes, then you really might know what it's like.' (The song is called What It's Like by Everlast. Please look it up and listen to it. It makes a lot of sense.)

Swine Flu: A National Pandemic

Swine flu, also known as 2009 H1N1 influenza, is a human disease. People get the disease from other people, not from pigs. Symptoms of H1N1 swine flu are like regular flu symptoms and include fever, cough, sore throat, runny nose, body aches, headache, chills, and fatigue. Many people with swine flu have had diarrhea and vomiting. Nearly everyone with flu has at least two of these symptoms. Pregnant women are six times more likely to have severe flu disease than women who are not pregnant. Young children, especially those under 2 years of age are also more susceptible. Other people most at risk include people with asthma, COPD or other chronic lung conditions, cardiovascular conditions (except high blood pressure), liver problems, kidney problems, blood disorders including sickle cell disease, neurologic disorders, neuromuscular disorders, metabolic disorders including diabetes, immune suppression including HIV infection and medications that suppress the immune system, such as cancer chemotherapy or anti-rejection drugs for transplants, residents of a nursing home or other chronic-care facility, elderly people, and babies are at high risk of severe flu disease. Relatively few swine flu cases have been seen in people over age 65. People in these groups should seek medical care as soon as they get flu symptoms. As far as the shot, I'm allergic to it so I'm pretty much SCREWED, but I think it's a dangerous sort of a good idea. I'm kind of undecided about the whole "shot" theory. I think you can help prevent swine flu by NOT EATING OR DRINKING AFTER OTHER PEOPLE, WASHING YOUR HANDS REGULARLY, and AVOIDING BEING AROUND PEOPLE WHO HAVE IT. I feel about the same about the swine flu since I researched it. It still scares me because I don't want my premature daughter to catch it. I have to take all possible precautions to protect her. I think all of us have a civil responsibility to help prevent swine flu in our community. We should all practice good hygiene, cover our coughs and sneezes, and wear medical masks if we are infected to help prevent others from catching it. Everyone who is infected should get treatment IMMEDIATELY. We've GOT to STOP this thing!!

The Act of Kindness

Sometimes, (and we're ALL guilty of it), we say or do things to people without thinking that hurt their feelings or make a bad day even worse. In some cases, this can sometimes push people over the edge enough to take their own life. It happens every day, everywhere around the world and it's something that should be addressed more thoroughly. All we have to do to help prevent things like this from happening is BE KIND to people!! When someone does something that irritates you, (such as forgetting to use their turn signal) think about the possibility that the person may have had a death in the family or a divorce. Maybe they just had a really bad day. It doesn't matter which may be the case, we should all still be kind to one another. The world would be a much happier place if everyone could just refrain from being... "aggressive." ;-] If we could just be NICE to people, we could help each other out. Even in cases where you don't particularly like the individual, you should try your best to be kind to them. You never know... you could say or do something to set them off and they could go somewhere and end everything. You'd have to live the rest of your life knowing that if you would've just been nice to the person, they may not have decided to kill themselves. Besides, even if they DIDN'T take their life, you could make them unbearably miserable. That's no fun either. We all need to quit being so defensive and help each other. It makes for a happier world.

Adobe Flash Mini Game Experience

For the last few days, I've been observing a good friend of mine working on her mini game on the computer. I'm trying to learn as much as I can so I can start a mini game of my own. I've already got a few good ideas, I just have to put my ideas together and hopefully make some kind of impressive work of art. ;-) I know it won't be anywhere near professional, but I'll give it my best shot. I've already learned quite a few things about making a flash game. I've watched the tutorial and learned quite a bit from it. I hope to someday make a complete up-and-running game that I can publish and play on the internet. I also hope to publish it somewhere where EVERYBODY has a chance to play and give me feedback and opinions on the game. Wish me luck!!! ;-)

Domestic Violence and Abuse: Can We Prevent It?

One of the civic issues that needs to be adressed is domestic violence and abuse. So many people, especially children, areabused and neglected every day. As a former victim myself, I know the pain and stress that comes from the abuse that effects your daily life profoundly. I think the government needs to do more to keep the abusers away from the abused. I think the government needs to have special apartment or housing complexes for abusers. This way, when someone is found guilty of abuse of any kind, the government will place them in a special house or apartment to live and the victim will be offered a restraining order. (If it were completely up to me, I'd dig a giant hole a mile deep and throw them all in it, but I have to be fair about this. ;-] ) They could still have all their rights EXCEPT the right to own a weapon, but they would have to stay completely away from the victim at all times. I think that would be a good solution. There needs to be more investigation into domestic violence. It IS a major problem that CAN be prevented!

Our Visit With David

Our GED class recently had a visit with David Lowenstein and he spoke with us about our blog entries and our games we are currently creating. He told us what the whole project is about and answered any questions we had. I enjoyed the visit and learned a lot about the Globaloria program. I asked him if the games we create get put on web-sites or if they're just on our Globaloria pages. He explained to me that they'll be on our Globaloria pages, but if a software company finds a game and decides they want to sell it, you can make a lot of money. Unfortunately, this is EXTREMELY rare, and probably isn't going to happen to anyone here. I don't think our computers have the software to make a game complex enough to be sold. I've been wrong before, though. Maybe somebody will make a game good enough to be sold on a software C.D. Who knows, maybe my poverty game will make it to XBox!! HIGHLY unlikely, but possible! ;-)

World Issues

I've just done some research on our civic responsibility in this country. I've researched poverty, homeless people, and world starvation and found the following web-sites that have statistics polls, donation opportunities, and facts about world issues such as these:

http://www.heritage.org/research/welfare/bg1713.cfm

http://www.globalissues.org/article/4/poverty-around-the-world

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/01/world/asia/01iht-medical.1.16607251.html

http://www.alphaproject.org/

http://www.nationalhomeless.org/factsheets/

http://old.economichumanrights.org/index.shtml

http://www.feedthechildren.org/site/PageServer?pagename=org_intl_programs&s_src=google_adwords&s_subsrc=gaw_AFCA--intprog3131735682--starving%20children%20around%20the%20world

http://www.endhomelessness.org/

http://www.policyalmanac.org/social_welfare/homeless.shtml

http://www.globalissues.org/article/26/poverty-facts-and-stats

Civic Games

I'm not a huge fan of internet games, but I recently played a game called The Cost of Life and it's a little more like reality than I would've thought. It's about a family that you have to keep alive by managing their health, money, education, and happiness. Their health is the most important. If the whole family dies, GAME OVER. The game is educational, but kind of fun. it's not drop dead exciting, but the whole game kind of gives you a slight idea of what it would be like to live in those conditions. A SLIGHT idea, of course. No one but the actual victims will ever know exactly what it's like.

My Wiki

I currently started taking GED classes and have already taken 2 practice tests to help me study for the main test. I think this class will be fairly challenging, but I'm confident that I'll be able to get my GED before I leave. I'm supposed to leave some time in October, so I'll really have to kick it into gear if I want to graduate the class before I leave. I would like to have it before I leave so I can get a job as soon as possible. I have to find my own way in life and support myself and my daughter. I had a lot of trouble in regular school. It was just too much work all piled on me at once. Some of the work was too hard. Some was easy. I'm not very good at math, but I can handle anything to do with spelling. Either way, I think I'm capable of succeeding in the GED class.