Dog Training For Dummies

So over Father's day weekend  my family rescued a corgi mix puppy. From that day on she has ripped my summer reading book, chewed my power cord for my laptop. Today we took her to her first day of doggie training camp. Seeing as the puppy sleeps on my bed and spends the most time with me my mom thought it would be a good idea that I come along. So now I am working on sitting and staying and teaching her how to walk properly. I feel like this training is more to train me how a huge softy I am. I have attempted to do the sit stay on my own but I spin around her twice and she just looks up to me and I cant help but pick her up and play with her.

Finnal blog post of the year

I see:

A brick cell phone

A black and white screen phone

A color phoneI see one flip phone

I think:

That America is becoming more reliant on technology

That as technology develops the American culture is progressing to the point where information is becoming too available

We as nations are becoming less interpersonal

I wonder:

What caused this short evolution of technology?

What was the time frame of this evolution?

What was going on in American culture that caused this change in technology?

This relates to our classes use of interactive technology. Earlyer in the semesters we disscused how technology has taken over our lives as teenagers. An anamerican studies blog that inspired me to write this.

New Trier Beer Scandle

Around ten minutes ago my father called me into his office to show me a news story about the New Trier High School year book. The news story was about a student photographed with a beer can in her hand. The picture was snuck into the yearbook last minutes unfortunately that was a huge mistake. I have known both the girls in the photo since the 5th grade. I am going to be perfectly honest and say that its not the first time I have seen these girls with beer in their presence. I find it funny that the school is not doing a good job of covering up the incident from the press. New Trier as a school is usually propped up to this high pedicle. Personally I do not drink but I do have friends that do. I really don't have a problem with it as long as it doesn't effect me. The administration can not pretend that drinking does not happen. Earlier in the year a house three blocks away from mine was broken into by a classmate of mine and they started throwing parties there. The students were punished and that was the end of it. I don't know why the administration cares more about this issue of a beer can showing up in the year book more than a home being broken into. I think that no matter what they say to protect these girls from the ramifications of this picture people will always be able to find it.

Showing a different sort of Pride

While driving my little sister home from Karate I drove past this red Ford pickup. As I stopped at the stop sign conveniently placed right across from it I saw the stickers on its window. In an attempt to be stealth I quickly parked my car took out my phone and snapped this pick then quickly speed off. I thought it was a once in a lifetime chance to find a country car with a confederate flag on it in the middle of Winnetka. I now have remorse for leaving in a huff because now I wish I could see the owner to see if the car matches the person.

The Great Gatsby chapter one SPOILER ALERT

SPOILER ALERT


After reading the first chapter of the Great Gatsby I found my self having a hard time picturing the life of Tom and Daisy. Living in a richer neighbor hood I still can't reach my head around all the white and superiority of the upper class portrayed in the book. When I was informed about the movie by an AIS classmate I knew it would help me better understand what one persons interpretation of life for the characters was like.

Flag out with the Garbage

For our assignment I took a lot pictures. The one that stuck out the most for me was the first picture I took. The picture was of how my family uses our American flag. We only really put our flag out on fourth of July and memorial day. Though we have family Friends that are in the military we as a family do not really show our pride for our country. The placement of the flag next to the garbage is not staged but actually how we use our flag. It goes out when it has to just like the garbage.

This is why I chose my topic

Death by transition

Currently I am working on the transitions in my paper. I have so many good ideas of how I want my paper to sound it is hard to put them down on paper. I have to find a way to bridge the military's use of performance enhancing drugs to civilians to high performance athletes to teenage athletes and then to teenagers.

jr Theme intro

“When I went upstairs and I found him, and it was like, a mothers nightmare.”(http://www.connectwithkids.com/tipsheet/2004/188_aug04/ster.html) Gwen Hooton found her 17 year old son Taylor Hooton hanging from his bedroom door with a belt around his neck. Taylor was only 15 years old he started taking steroids. During his withdrawal from steroids he decided to take his own life. Suicide or thoughts of suicide is only one effect of steroid withdrawal. Steroid abuse among teenagers has become more common due to body image issues and the accessibility to the drug.

I really don't know how to finnish this please help.

Conducting an Interview

The Taylor Hooton foundation was started after the suicid of Taylor Hooton. I am interviewing the vice president of the foundation.  Today I going over my interview questions and I realized how hard it was to ask questions that I could use in my paper when I don't even know what direction I want to write my paper. After this interview I am going to conduct my future interviews.

Altering my topic

This week i changed my topic a little bit. My original topic was why dose professional baseball care more about steroids than any other sport. I changed the topic to why do some high school athletes take steroids. The main reason I changed my topic was because I am really not interested in baseball at all. I really don't get why it is americas past time no offense to anyone who is a huge baseball fan or plays baseball I just don't  get it sorry.

Finding the perfect quote

While reading my Jr theme books I was having difficulies findings quotes that work with my subject. None of the books in the library seemed large enough to provide me with information. The one book I was really looking forward to reading that could provide me with a lot of information was the one book that we couldn't find.  Other than that I am finding Jr theme to be tough but enjoyable.

Starving to be elite

Today I walked into my living room and my little sister exclaims Shawn Johnson put on some pounds. I asked her what she was talking about and she showed me a picture. Shawn looked no different than she did in the Olympics she look muscular and strong the only difference is that she is she was standing next to Jewel who has to have a negative 1 waist. Body weight is a major issue around athletic females, the pressure of staying fit and toned is a hard thing to endure. I have seen girls first hand purposely not eat or throwing up what they eat to stay in shape for their sports. The main female sport that may lead to a eating disorder is gymnastics. I just feel bad for the girls who put themselves in a environment that stresses over weight.

Incentives leading to STRESS!!

For the past four days I have not been going to bed until around 1 o-clock in the morning. School work, volleyball and stress have kept me from sleeping. I know it is a proven fact that kids work better in school when the get a longer period of sleep. But there is no way I can get my life back to the complete order it used to be and still get sleep. Especially in AIS I have let my constant stress and sleepless nights get to me. I can't seem to finish a any of my assignments on time and I know that if I don't step it up there will be a lot of things I will have to give up on. I have been lead by incentives my entire life, I love having a challenge but lately the Incentives have been getting larger. One incentive that has truly taken over my life is the incentive of college. The school of my dreams is a tough school to get into because of its academic prowess. The only problem is my GPA is to low currently to even get me on the waiting list. I don't want to give up any thing to help me achieve this goal of higher education but maybe it's time to slow down a little.

Gaza up in Flames

I didn't really know about the fighting in Gaza until last night when I turned on the news and saw horrific pictures of the devastation. Living in the town I do some times I feel like I am in an untouchable bubble and I know other kids feel the same way. But when I went to school this morrning it seemed as if no one cared about the fighting in Gaza. On the other hand if you asked them who got kicked off American Idol or what happened on Scrubs they would be able to give you a play by play. Recently there have been a lot of kids I know going onto a web site entitled FML. This web site is surrounded around stories of people who think there lives stink. I have a new post for them yesterday my house got blown up by Israeli bombers FML!

My One Night Stand with Mark Twain

I spent one night in Hannibal Missouri over this week end. While walking around the town I took a lot of pictures and read about Mark Twain and his famous counter parts Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn. Since our class is reading The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn I really focused my time in Hannibal on that characters journey. The entire trip around took 2 hours when they say small town they mean small town. Since its winter time the Mississippi river ferry, that almost parallels Huck and Jim's adventures on the river, was closed down. But I didn't let that stop me. I traveled to the top of Lovers leap a hill that over looks over all of Hannibal and Jackson's Island. Other than Jackson's island there is nothing that really represents the characters of Huck and Jim. I went to the Huck Finn house which is based off the house that Tom Blankenship lived in. He was the inspiration for Huckleberry Finn. Though the character of Huckleberry Finn never really lived in house. I stayed at the Garth Woodside Mansion, which was the highlight of the entire trip. If you don't believe how lonelily Hannibal is just check out there live footage of down town Hannibal which consists of three blocks.

Is the Naked Cowboy a Cowboy?

The self proclaimed "Naked Cowboy" Is notorious for walking the streets of New York in just his tighty whites and a guitar. During class we classified what a mythological cowboy was to us. In our mythologies naked was not even mentioned. The Naked Cowboy has got the boots and hat and guitar that people identify a cowboy with, but none of those things were described by our class. According to our class. He does fit the criteria of being Unkempt, White, and the ladies love him so I am guessing he is heterosexual. But what makes him a cowboy? I do not see any cattle for him to wangle and where is his big horse? So what about this "urban cowboy" makes him a cowboy? I do have to admit it is pretty courageous to walk around the big apple in your under wear!

The New Trier Myth

With the Evanston game swiftly approaching there has been a lot of smack talk being thrown around my volleyball team. My team is made up of 4 Evanston girls and 8 New Trier girls. The things that the girls from Evanston say are often jabs at the population of New Trier and how we are not a divers school at all. Usually we as New Trier students are typecast as preppy overachievers or that we are filthy rich and do not do any thing because we have people to do it for us. This is so not true (well at least I don't think it is). The comments about how rich and up tight we are usually come when there is an athletic event going on. The first time I had witnessed this mythology of the New Trier high school experience was during freshman year when at a sporting event, I over hear some kid from the other school say "This is where they get there Helicopters flown into and in the other court yard that's where there Limo drivers go to drop the off." OK this kid was hyping up the myth to the extremes but he isn't the only one thinking this. I think it's New Triers tendency to have a superiority complex about it that causes kid and some adults to get caught up in the New Trier myth.

Grandma's got Facebook

Two days ago I signed onto my facebook and saw that I had a pending freind request as I opened it I had no idea that the person requesting my freindship was my 70 year old Grandma. Other than being compleatly creeped out I was confused by how she even got a Facebook. She does not have a network that she belongs to and it is all a little weird. I don't understand why older people want to use facebook anyway.

What are you comfortable with?

What makes a person comfortable? Is it the people they are around or the place where they are. Between the two men bellow which one do you think is the safest?

This one ........................ Or This?

If you said the young man on the left maybe you should learn a little bit more about him

This is the young man on the left currently. His name is Denis Radar better known as the BTK killer. He has killed 12 people . Radar picked his victims and would get him self close to them on a level that made his victims feel comfortable with him around. Then he would attack them.To learn more about BTK click here for a video.

So what about him so comforting to people? Why did people not call the cops when he walked down a street? What is the difference between him and the black rapper next to him? I think maybe it is that the rapper on the right (50 cent) looks stronger and has a gun right in your face. Or is it the fact that he is black? Could we only be comforable around our own race. Lets look at this again but with two different guys.

Which one are you more comfortable with?