11/9 late post

I've learned that Mr. Gowans is a fast driver, and a nascar driver...OPPS! Haha! I got pulled over on Tuesday coming home from Moab and got a ticket.  I don't think the cop liked me very much, because he gave me a really dirty look, and a ticket.  He wasn't very happy that I was driving eighty miles an hour in a sixty five.  He didn't even crack a smile when he told me to have a nice night and drive safe.  I now have twenty one days to pay off my ticket, and if I get one more ticket I have to go to court and have to be on probation for six months like my sister. 

Weekly Post 12/2/11

I am scared that our society is going to come crashing down.  I work one day a week, Sunday, and I usually go home around noon, because we are so slow.  In the summer I used to come in at six in the morning and have to stay till around four in the afternoon, because of how busy we would be.  I love to drive around and look at the town, and while I'm driving around I like to pay attention to how busy the town, and business are, most of them aren't very busy, and that just worries me.  Everyones hours are getting cut and families are struggling for money.  A lot of people are working two or three jobs just to pay their bills!  I hope we don't go into another depression, that would be horrible and cause so much more stress to our society.  I can't even imagine how horrible it would be, but I am kind of curious how people lived during that horrible time.  It would be very interesting, but extremely scary.

Basketball

Basketball is an extremely physical sport.  Somebody on our team always gets hurt every year!  This year I am hoping to break the chain.  Our team has the potential to go very far if we just work at it.  And when you work for what you want, you'll go as far as you let yourself. 

We had a tournament in Richfield this weekend, we played two games, Milford on friday and Bryce Valley Saturday.  Let me just say Friday was a bit rough.  I know it was our first game of the season and let me tell you, you could definatly tell!!  Our defense was so lazy and lax, out offense was rushed and sloppy, it was just.....rough.

Saturday night came around and we were ready to play.  Just as nervous as the game before, we all huddle up and say our chant.  I felt different.  I felt like it was time to show our fans that we are better than what we showed them on Friday. 

The whistle blows, MT jumps, the possesion is ours.  We make our first basket and hustle back on defense.  Everyone could already tell the difference in our team already.  As the game went on the score stayed a pretty close but in the end we lost by ten.  But that is AMAZING because they have been in the state championship game for like 4 years in a row!  We worked our tails off, and it paid off!

11/11 Late Post 11/18

Getting everything ready for college is so stressful, especially when you can't get higher than a 17 on your darn ACT!  The money is already stressing me out enough and now that I got my ACT score back I'm even more stressed!  I have such good grades and I try so hard to do my best and then I get let down.  But I am not going to let that stop me!  I know that if I try my absolute hardest and do all my homework, college will be easy for me.  You don't really have to be smart to do good in college, you just can't be lazy and you have to be ambitious, and I am very ambitious and not too lazy.  I can get the job done when I put my mind to it, and I am willing to do everything I can to accomplish my goal.

I want to become a nurse after college, and nursing requires a lot of dedication and hard work.  I love helping people, and making them feel better, so what bette job could I ask for!  Blood doesn't freak me out too bad so I'm pretty sure I'm going to become a RN and see how that works out.

Family

This weekend was probably one of the best weekends I've had in forever!  I got to spend time with my family including my sister! I'm sad that she wasn't here for my actual birthday but that made me realize how much my family really means to me! Without them I would be lost. I love them all so much and appreciate everything they do for me.  I just wish I could show and prove it to them.  I know I don't really show it but I want them to know how much they mean to me!  In so thankful that they're a part of my life.  I love how much they want me to succeed in life and how much they support me in everything I want for myself.  They have faith that I'll go far and that motivates me to want to succeed, and try my best to get as far as I can.

A Laugh To Die For

I've learned that in life your not always going to get what you want.  No matter how bad you want that million dollars for no work at all, it's probably not going to happen unless you work for it or get really really lucky.

Today I saw this little boy in a wheelchair...I could tell that it was something he was born with, I'm not quite sure what he had, but it didn't look comfortable, in fact it killed me to see him having to sit in that chair, not by choice, and watch everybody else walking around.  How unfortuante. He wasn't looking for pitty and I loved that.  He was just living his life to the fullest, with the biggest grin on his face, and a laugh to die for.  Somebody with no feeling in his legs, no strength to move around on his own, NO independence.  "My chair is a five speed," little Jeremy informs me, "that's fast."
Still not looking for any pitty.  His innocent, weak voice making my stomach drop, not knowing how to respond to this brave young boy. 
"That is fast!" I reply with a grin on my face.

Throughout the day little Jeremy was all I could think about.  I admired his strength.  All of these selfish people in this world, including myself, have no idea what "picked on" is.  We all pitty ourselves for not having the money to buy our new favorite pair of shoes, when some people don't have any feet to put shoes on, when some peoples shoesm, are their wheels on their chairs.  People these days are so selfish, they don't appreciate what they have in life and it drives me absolutly insane.

Independency is a Virtue

Feleisha Antillon
Mr. Gowans
Language Arts 12
October 15, 2012

Independency is a Virtue

Independency is a much needed quality in todays society. Without independence you will have struggles that you won’t be able to overcome on your own. You will always need someone else to depend on. In the case of “Woman Hollering Creek” Cleofilas is forced to depend on her husband and becomes accustomed to not being independent and then depends on her friends to help her get out of the situation she was in. In the story “Train Time” Eneas’s grandparents depend on him to help them as they grow old and weak. Because of their dependence on him Eneas feels that he needs to be there all the time and not go to school. But in the story “Clothes Mita is very independent because even after her husband dies she still decides to stay in America.

When Cleofilas’s husband wasn’t home when it was time for bed, she couldn’t get herself to sleep. She would just lay awake thinking about what he was up to and why he wasn’t home. “But a parents love for a child, a child’s for its parents, was another thing entirely” “This is what Cleofilas thought evenings when Juan Pedro did not come home, and she lay on her side of the bed listening to the hollow roar…” (Cisneros Paragraph 4). Without the comfort of her husband next to her, she wasn’t able to fall asleep...not alone. Cleofilas was not strong-willed enough to sleep alone. She didn’t have the strength to be alone. She always needed someone. Before her marriage she was always with her mother or father. She wouldn’t just go to the movies on her own if she didn’t have a cousin or an amiga to go with her.
“The first time she had been so surprised she didn’t cry out nor try to defend herself. She had always said she would strike back if a man, were to touch her” (Cisneros Paragraph 18). As a woman I tell myself, every time domestic violence comes up in conversation that I would fight back or leave the man that abused me. I’m sure most women say that, but when it actually happens they’re too scared to do anything about it because of what could happen because of their independence. Statistics prove that more women are too scared and don’t leave the man rather than fight back and leave. Men are stronger and more aggressive. Even though it is hard to leave, staying in a domestic relationship shows weakness. For you to have the strength to leave a relationship like that you need independence.

In the story “Train Time” a small boy by the name of Eneas is a very independent boy, but his grandparents are far from. “He knew about Eneas. Most of the boys and girls were mere names....But little Eneas her knew” (McNickle Paragraph 12). They grew older and weaker day by day and needed more and more help from Eneas. It was not their fault that they were old, they cannot help that, but they relied on their grandchild for just about everything. “There was wood all about them. Lamartine was a woodcutter besides, yet there was no wood in the house...The Major had but to look at the bed where Lamartine lay, twisted and shrunken by rheumatism....He tried to wave a hand as Major entered” (McNickle Paragraph 14). Grandpa and Grandma had no strength to fend for themselves, they were much too old. With no help from Eneas they wouldn’t survive, and Eneas knew that. He would have to care for them as parents would their young children. He would have to step up and cut the wood to warm the house. “ Clearly she wasn’t, not for wood-chopping, She sat close by the fire, trying with a good-natured grin to lift her ponderous body from a low seated rocking chair...she could scarcely have come within striking distance of a stick of wood. Two blows, if she had struck them, might have put a stop to her laboring heart” (McNickle paragraph 16). When I get sick I get weak and lose my independence because I don’t have the strength to get up and do anything for myself, and it makes me want to do everything and anything I usually don’t even do. I hate not being able to help myself, I can’t even imagine getting so old where I can even barely move. Without independence I feel like I have nothing of my own to have pride in.

In the story “Clothes” a young woman named Mita is set up for an arranged marriage, at first she is very dependent on her parents, she doesn’t want to leave her home. “..I’d be going halfway around the world to live with a man I hadn’t met. Would I ever see my parents again? Don’t send me so far away, I wanted to cry...” (Divakaruni 18). But towards the end when her husband passes away and she becomes a widow she has to become independent. She had no other family or anybody else that she really knew in America that she could depend on. “She took an edge of the sheet and rubbed the red marriage mark off my forehead. She was crying. All of the women in the room were crying except me” (Divakaruni 18). Mita wasn’t healed from the death of her husband yet but she was starting to become stronger. “ Thats when I know I cannot go back. I don’t know yet how I’ll manage, here in this new, dangerous land. I only know I must. Because all over India, at this very moment, widows in white saris are bowing their veiled heads, serving tea to in-laws. Dove with cut off wings” (Divakaruni 33). Even without her husband with her in America she still decides to be independent and fend for herself. America is a completely different country than India, and she isn’t used to it, and still then she stays.

In conclusion, in today’s society, independency is a must. Without any independence you will be depending on everybody else to help you out and solve your problems. As in the stories, “Woman Hollering Creek”, and “Train Time”. But in the story “Clothes” Mita is a young independent woman that could now probably deal with pretty much anything that is thrown at her.

Teen Pregnancy

My teenager years have been the best years of my life, and I can't imagine giving them up to be a mommy.  I am far to immature to even be close to being a good mom.  I haven't lived my life yet I definatly want to give it up to raise a baby.  But I guess some girls don't care.

I've witnessed many of my friends and family's teen pregnancys and they all wished that they would have waited.  Being responsible for something that precious is too scary.  To be a good parent you have to be emotionly stable, finanically stable, and phisically stable to be able to raise a child the right way.

Being a parent at any age is hardwork, let alone a teen parent.  Watching Teen mom and 16 and Pregnant let me see the struggles of being a parent and it is something I never want to go through.  A friend of mine ust recently had her baby and its only been day two and she is exhausted.

She loves her little man to death but she also wished she would have waited.  Seeing this makes me very aware of what will happen if your not careful.  I just wish girls would understand how much having a baby at a young age ruins your life...It's not easy.

If you do stay in school it would be hard to leave your baby, or if you decided not to attend school anymore it would be hard to get a decent job when your ready to.  Finding babysitters are always hard, keeping a strong relationship is always a struggle and girls don't see that.

I want to make girls more aware of the struggles.  It doesn't only affect you, it affects everybody that cares for you.

Believe It or Not

Every Sunday morning I wake up at 4:30A.M. to get ready for work.  My shift starts at 6 o'clock sharp.  Dreading every minute of the dark cold mornings, I roll out of my bed and onto my feet.  I start my routine with a nice yummy bowl of oatmeal.

When I get to work I don't feel like putting up with any grouchy attitudes, but I ALWAYS end up with an old grouchy couple to start my day off.  I don't let it bother me though.  I stay strong and pretend that they don't affect me. I put on a big ol fake smile and go on with my shift.

Today was different from all the rest.  When I got to work there was no body there except the graveyard employees sitting at the counter about half asleep. 
"Fish! I love seeing your face" the cashier states "It means I get to go home!"
I told him he was out of his mind if he thought he was leavin me by myself on a Sunday morning, because Sunday mornings are always slammed!  He tells me that he had one table the whole night so he was going home early, there was no changing his mind.

I was so nervous that I was going to get hit with a bunch of customers with no one to help.  But I didn't it was dead from the time I got there to the time the second waitress got to work at 7.  Not one customer, not any locals, not any old grouchy people, and definatly not any hot guys!  There was absolutly no one.  I kept wondering what the heck was going on, and then finally my first customer comes in, a local, he tells me how he didn't want to wake up because of how cold it was.  It made sense though because that was exactly how I felt too. 

Belive it or not at 4:30AM it was 33 degrees outside!  No wonder nobody wanted to get up this morning.  It was freaking cold!  The weather is changing so fast!  It's already October! How exciting! It's getting closer and closer to graduation! Yippy!

Appreciation, Hard work, and Respect

I've been around so many people that have everything you can imagine having as a young adult AND more and they still are not satisfied.  They get one thing and they want something bigger.  They get something bigger and better but want something more exciting and expensive.

I see people struggling for food on their table while these other families are getting their kids brand new cars for their 16th birthdays.  It makes me feel so bad and angry to see them working their butts off getting paid minimum wage and getting so little and struggling for everything they do earn, while these spoiled brats are doing nothing and getting so much.

So many people take for granted what they receive in life.  They look at what they don't have instead of appreciating what they do have. I wish everyone could walk a mile in somebody else's shoes.  Maybe then they would appreciate what they have in life, and quit being so greedy.

 I have learned that no matter how much you work for something your not always going to get complimented.  I have also learned that working hard DOES pay off and people DO recogize the good effort you are putting in.  Not getting recognized and complimented on all the things I do makes me appreciate the little things I do get recognized for a lot more.

Having something that nobody else has may make you "cool" for a moment, but when you don't earn it yourself I see no value what so ever in that "cool" thing.  When I see teenagers at work, doing their absolute best makes me respect them that much more.  I see them earning what they have, and they deserve everything they EARN.

Woman Hollering Creek

In the story "Woman Hollering Creek" by Sandra Cisneros, Cleofilas compliments Felice on how she is an independent woman.  Cleofilas loved how Felice took care of herself, how she paid for her own stuff and was responsible for everything she owned.  "Felice was like no woman she'd ever met"(Cisneros paragraph 82).

Cleofilas envied Felice because of how well-off she was.  Women in the Mexican culture don't usually have a vehical of their own.  The women stay home and take care of the house, but Felice drove a truck, a truck of her own. While, Cleofilas basically had to beg her husband to buy food.

Cleofilas moves from Mexico to Texas with her husband she hardly knows.  They have a little boy together and their relationship begans to fall apart when her husbands starts to abuse her.  She cannot get away now.  She doesn't speak english so Cleofilas feels hopeless and trapped.  A woman that is abused by her husband is seen as a weak person, and that is exactly what she doesn't want to be seen as.

Cleofilas then can't handle the stress and pain any longer.  With the help of her friend Felice and she escapes back to Mexico to be with her family she left behind, and away from her abusive husband.  Without the help of her independent friend she would be lost and weak.

Felice was an independent woman that needed nothing and no body but her own strength.  Felice had things that Cleofilas once had but lost with her marriage.  Strength, happiness, love, and respect.

Treat others the way you would like to be treated

I've learned that treating others right helps you be a better person. You get a lot more respect and a lot more people that are going to like you.

The other day I was at work and I had this really rude, ignorant, older man come in and he was put in my section.  From the time he walked trough the doors, and to the front to wait to be seated I could already tell he was going to be a hard one to wait on. But I stuck it out and was very polite, respectful and bubbly.  He turned out to be an extremely picky old fart, shocking right?  But I did as he pleased.  I did order him a Philly Swiss with no green peppers and a side salad with nothing but lettuce and cheese, with a side of blue cheese and Italian dressing, instead of fries or chips.  I did check on him regularly even though he was rude and didn't even look at me to say thank you or ask for anything else.  He would just grunt and demand some more of something.  I just wanted him out of my section, but as much as we would love to scream and yell and punch the ungrateful people that come in....We can't.  So I asked if he would like a slice of our delicious, homemade fruit pie and a scoop of our rich incredible vanilla ice cream. 
"Just give me the check" he demanded.
"Okaaaay sunshine"  I respond back in a sassy tone, with a big grin "Thanks for coming in, Enjoy the rest of your morning sir."I give him the check and he is immediately heading to pay. 

I noticed he is writing on a piece of paper.  I'm thinking, oh great I did something to make him mad and he is writing a complaint.  Turns out he was an extremely, amazing, rich man.  He wrote a little note to me and my boss letting us know what a great job I did and handled a difficult situation very well.  He added that he was very satisfied with the food and my bubbly personality. He enjoyed every minute in West Winds.  He left me a 30 dollar tip and he was on his way.  Like I said, treating others right will benifit you in the long run.

Arranged Marriges

The Indian culture is way different than the American culture.  In India there are arranged marriages.  It doesn't matter what age you are, the girl's father will look for a very high class family and pay them to have their son marry their daughter.

 In the story Clothes, by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni,  a girl named Mita was set up for an arranged marrage.  She had never seen or met this man in her life.  If she was chosen by this mysterious man, Somesh Sen, and his family, she would be moving halfway around the world with a stranger to live an American life she wasn't used to. 

Mita would marry this man.  His family liked her enough for their son to marry.  How would she know if she loved Somesh?  She wouldn't...It didn't matter if she did.  The Indian culture doesn't marry for love. 
"A married woman belongs to her husband, her in-laws"(Divakaruni 19).
She hoped for a good looking man.  She knew it would be easier to love someone she was attracted to, since she didn't have a choice if she was chosen by the Sen's family.

If your husband dies in India, you have three choices.  Marry your husbands brother, lay on your husband grave as they burn it and die with him, or  be a widow for the rest of your life.  Some would say this culture is cruel and unfair, but for them it is normal, this is what they are used to. 

Many people disagree with arranged marriages.  In America it is "normal"  to marry for love.  Both the man and the women decide together weather they want to be married, if they should be married, when they would marry, and even where they would be married.  The couple decides all of it together.  Marriage is not a must in America, as it is in India.  It is a totally differnt culture from what we are used to.

You Learn Something New Everyday

One extremely dark, stormy morning I was awaken by a loud crashing noise outside.  It was way earlier than I had to actually be up and getting ready.  I could already tell that day was going to be a long long day!

"RIIIIIIIIING! RIIIIING! RIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIINNNNG!!" 
All I could think was stupid alarm, and what time is it?!  The time read 8:15.  Ugh I thought to myself.  Time to get ready for school.  Ah ten more minutes won't hurt.  Snooze button?....Yeeaaah. 

No time to shower now! It was 9:25 when I woke myself up because my alarm didn't!! I'm rushing around the house trying to look as decent as possible, gathering everything I could at once so I would make it to class on time. 

9:51, I'm pulling up to the school in a panic.  Running like a mad man while the bell is obnoxiously reminding me to run faster or I'm going to be late.  I get to class late of course because I drop all of my books in the hall.  My teacher doesn't want to listen to my "excuses" so I just bit my tongue and listened to the lecture.  We were learning about famous chemists.  My teacher immediately let us know that we had to do a report on one famous chemist of our choice.  That added more stress to my horrible day.

 I picked Soren Sorenson.  I learned a lot about him throughout our discussion.  He was famous for inventing the pH Scale.  The pH Scale is used alot in science today.  Basically its a measure of how acidic something is.  Like in swimming pools, you need to keep the water at a certain pH level.  The chlorine does too.  It's used more in chemistry than anywhere else because the pH balance can affect chemical reactions.

I've always heard people talk about the pH Scale but I never knew, or cared to know about it.  Like on CSI.  They always talk about it.  And now that I know what it's used for and how affective it is in the world today, I'm glad I came to Chemistry class.  I enjoyed learning about Soren Sorenson and his invention.

Big Mistake

A few of my friends and I decided to go out riding our fourwheelers.  CC Pond was the spot.  Everyone wanted to go out there.  We all met up at gun, the hill right behind our High School.  My friends were the friends that liked to have a "good time", and to them, drinking was a good time.  Unfortuantly I wanted to fit into to that group, but boy that was a mistake. 

About  6PM on a Wednesday evening we all got out to Gun, FINALLY.  Everyone was talking kind of quiet and suspicious, so I knew something was up.  I asked my sister if she knew what was going on.  She told me she thought Alex was coming too, but he was in his truck and he had a bunch of alcohol.  I was a little nervous because I've never drank before.  I told Adrian what was going on and he kept telling me it was a bad idea, and not to go out with them.  He told me he would take me home, beause he wasn't going out.  I wasnt changing my mind, a boy I had a crush on was out there and I wanted him to notice me.

Adrian got a call a couple minutes later saying that the cops were called for suspicion of underage drinking, but nobody believed him.

Alex gets there and we all head to CC.  We got out the cooler from the back of Alex's truck, and the bottle from the front and started drinking.  We were all laughin havin a good time, tellin each others funny, embarrassing stories, you know the good ol ones only you bestfriend should know about!?  Yeah..those ones.  All of a sudden Tarren screams out "I need to pee," and kind of squats.  He hurries over to the bushes and not even ten seconds later we see him running back still zipping up his pants screaming, "5.O, 5.O!!" 
Everyone was thinkin yeah right, but we obviously want to make sure it wasn't true so Jordan and Frank crept over to the bushes to see if they could see the cop, and of course they see the cop comin in hot!!  We get so nervous, because we could see the looks on their faces ment that Tarren wasn't lying.  I've never seen someone run so fast in my life.  Unfortunatly the cop saw them and made them go back and talk to hi, but of course our first reaction is to run away..I run behind the bushes so the cop can't see me and the rest of them ride away on their fourwheelers, including my sister, I was left by myself scared as heck, hinding from the cops!  About three minutes later I hear my sister pull up behind me telling me to get on the fourwheeler.  We both still have a doubt in our minds that there is no way we are actually getting busted for drinking.  We pull forward just enough to see the two boys talking to the cop, we flip around so quick I lose my sun glasses I was wearing on the top of my head.

We saw Tarren and Kyle infront of us so we hurried to catch them.  When we finally caught up to them they stopped to talk to us.  Tarren tells us to fallow him because he knew a way to get away from the cop.  We ride for about forty five minutes, thinkin we're going to get away, about ten minutes later we get to the hill right before the gate, we all look at each other, eyes like we've just seen a dead body. 

There they were..three of them posted up.  Three sheriffs, Tarrens mom,  Kyles mom, and my uncle Mikey with the tow truck.  My mom wasn't there yet.  There was no way out of it now!  We start shoving our mouths full of gum hoping it would cover up the smell of the alcohol on our breaths, we knew it wouldn't, but we had to try everything we could.

We decided to just give up.  We start creeping forward all together.

I heard all of the grown ups talking, the cops were telling them that they didnt need to call them because we weren't all drinking.  But somebody ratted us out right there, I'm pretty sure I know who it was, but we were never told for sure who it was. 

The first one to get breathalised was Tarren and he blew, so that ment the rest of us had to blow too. When I blew, I blew really low because I didnt drink very much before we got caught...So it wasn't even worth it.  My mom pulled up while I was blowing and she started to cry, so did I.  She didn't think we were drinking so she was really disappointed when she pulled up to see both of her girls with the cops.

After everything was done and we had gotten our tickets, they loaded up all the fourwheelers onto the trailer and hauled them away.  We all went home with our parents.  My sister and I laid on my bed, and talked about how stupid we were for going out there.

Why did I want to fit in with that group?  What was so cool about drinking?  A ticket?  A bad reputation?  A bad record? Family problems?...Embarrassment.