Journal #32

Personally, I have never revolutionized anything. Then again, I am only sixteen years old, and have to rest of my life to do extraordinary things in the world. But many people in the past have done this, and it has made our world better time and time again. We have had many great thinkers in the world going back to Socrates and Issac Newton, and even more recent with Thoreau and Emerson or influential authors of the 21th century. These thinkers have some up with many ideas that have shaped the way society runs today. If we did not have thinkers like this is is very plausible that we would not be living in a free independent America. Great thinkers of the time decided that we were better than just being ruled by another nation, like England and the various kings of the era,  and decided to be their own nation. Whether it be social rules, or educational idea and theorems these thinkers have changed the world for the better. Other people who have revolutionized the world are inventors. Could you imagine a world if Alexander Graham Bell had not invented the telephone? I definitely could not. Or if Benjamin Franklin never voiced his ideas we would not have things like libraries, or glasses, or fire houses. These inventions and more have changed the way we live and have paved the way for even more inventions to change our lives for the better. Besides inventions and ideas, purely just people have changed the way we live. People like Martin Luther King Jr., fighting for the African Americans, or John F. Kennedy, deciding that we could put a man on the moon in ten years, changed American's views on what life is like. Many people have revolutionized the world and will continue to do so well into the future. Everyone wants to have their ideas remembered for changing the world, these people have accomplished this feat.

Journal #31

We are high school students; therefore gossip is a huge parts of our lives- even if we do not want it to be. Personally, I try and not include myself in any unnecessary drama and the gossip that goes along with it. But of course, this is quite hard to do. Being a teenage girl, we talk a lot. A lot of that time we talk about other people, and that is all considered gossip, not harmful gossip- but still gossip the same. This is harmless. There is no spreading of vicious  rumors or saying things about people's personal lives. This discussions are more like, "Hey, did you know so and so got a A on their test?" or, "I bet that person over there knows what happened in class yesterday!" Harmful gossip is anything that can hurt someone else's feelings. Talking about peoples families or their relationships are examples of things that people should just not talk about. Stuff like this should be private, and kept to themselves. Basically everything that we discussed in Spoon River is stuff that you should not share with other people because it is not your business. I try not to gossip because its not something I want to spread around the school, but its hard because almost everything is gossip in some form. Good gossip, like I said earlier, is beneficial and helps spread good messages where you go. Talking about who good someones performance in the talent show was, or how much you admire someone are just two of the many examples how gossip can be good. Bad gossip, on the other hand, are lies, or something you say with the intention of hurting another person or a group of people. This is what everyone needs to avoid. If we lived in a good world where there was no gossip, and everything people said had a positive impact, life would be good. Hopefully we can reach this goal, if everyone tries.

Journal #30

Civil rights is a very important subject for people to learn about. To understand how our society works today we have to look back and study how America evolved from a nation with no equal rights at all, to one with almost every person equal. Before 1928, women were not equal to men, and it took even longer than that to have African Americans equal to everyone else. Now everyone is equal according to race and gender. Right now, our society is focusing on gay rights, gay marriage specifically. Once this issue is settled and gay people can get married, America as a whole will be equal. Looking back to history to see where the civil rights movement started, Abraham Lincoln is a figure who stands out. Lincoln started the war that would eventually end slavery. If he had not been shot, and was able to oversee  the Reconstruction of the South, African American's might have had equal rights earlier than they did. Johnson did not handle Reconstruction as well as Lincoln would have. He treated everyone harsh, instead of treating everyone peacefully and the same like Lincoln had planned on doing. Racial civil rights are important, but they are not the only civil rights that have been addressed in America in the past. Women's rights were a big deal in the early 1900s. Before then women were not treated even close to equal to men. After the addition of the amendment for women's rights, genders were considered equal in the eyes of the law. Even with the law saying women were equal to men, it was not actually the case. Women were still looked down upon and not given equal opportunities. This is still slightly true to this day. It is not nearly as bad as it used to be, but there are still instances in today's society were women and men are not equal; most of the times this occurs in the workplace.

Journal #29

Nature is control of most situations in our lives.Whether it be a natural disaster like a tornado, or a hurricane, or just the changing of the weather, like rain, snow, or sleet, nature dictates how we live our everyday lives. When we wake up in the morning the first thing we do is check the weather to see how we should be dressed. Before making plans, or going outside, we look outside to see if we can brave the weather. My own job in the summers is dependent on the weather. I work as a lifeguard at an outdoor pool, and we have to be very aware at what nature is going to throw at us for the pool patron's safety.  Nature is a funny thing really, it can never make up it's mind. Like today, I live in the middle of Illinois, where its almost sixty degrees outside! It should be closer to thirty or twenty! Nature is in charge of all natural disasters. We have had several tornadoes here in central Illinois, and most of them do quite a bit of damage. We also have bad ice storms ever few years which cause many power outages and days of school for us. A very big instance where nature was in charge was hurricane Katrina, which caused thousands of lives to be lost, and thousands more to have there houses destroyed and become separated from their families. The earthquakes in Haiti several years ago is also a good example of when nature was in charge. they came out of nowhere, completely destroying the country basically. Clean up and aid is still being administered to the people of Haiti today. Nature is in charge whenever a natural disaster occurs, which happens more often than we would think. Every time is snows or rains we have to change our whole day on account of what nature throws at us that day. I enjoy nature, but only when its very pretty and mild temperature outside.

Journal #28

I have never really left the country (its debatable if we drove through Canada on my family's trip to New York when I was four years old) so I have not been in a place with a very different culture or status then what we have where we live. I have been to New Orleans and Las Vegas, both places are quite different than little Pleasant Plains and Springfield. We went to New Orleans when I had just turned ten, and some of the people who live in the South really surprised me. For one, it took me a long time to figure out what they were saying because their accents are so thick. They also eat food that is very very different from here, alligator, gumbo, and other very strange dishes are served all the time in New Orleans. They say words differently and use completely different words sometimes then I am used to. In New Orleans in just a few minutes you can walk from the very pretty French Quarter, with nice buildings (Cafe Du-Monte!), to a very scary neighborhood where you do not want your car to break down (Our car had a flat there, very scary situation). This same layout of the city is also prevalent in Las Vegas. It is not everyday when you are walking down the street, and creepy people try and hand you cards of naked women. Also Vegas is called the city that never sleeps, and that is definitely true, something is always happening! There is such a mix of people who visit Vegas at any given time, so you never really know what culture you are around. Rich people, and poor people all come to Vegas to try and win money or just to have a good time. When you are under twenty-one, like myself, there are still quite a few shows, shops, and other things too see. Both New Orleans and Las Vegas are very different place from Illinois, but I enjoyed going to each place.

Journal #27

I think having to go really far away from home to defend our country would be hard. In the first place, that takes a tremendous amount of strength and courage to be able to put your life on the line every minute of the day in a war, and it does not help that you have to be stationed away from home for long periods at a time. Personally, I do not think I could do it. I do not think that I would be able to handle the stress that you have to deal with in this situation. I would miss my parents the rest of my family and friends. Letters, emails, and Skype calls just do not cut having a real life conversation in person. I have never moved before, so I've lived in the same house my entire life, so I'm sure how I would cope with being away for such a long time with no familiarity with anyone or anything. I have to get used to being away from home with college though. I plan on going far away to school in Nevada. Also, my parents are going to be retiring in a year or two and moving to Nevada too, so that helps with not being to homesick because they will only be a seven hour drive away. I think that having control of a gun and being in the situation where you might have to hurt someone would be really hard. I really respect everyone in the service for being able to get though that and protect our country because I know that I would not be able too. I have a cousin in the military, but she is currently only stationed in North Carolina because she and her boyfriend just had a baby. She had to go to Afghanistan two years ago, and that was really scary cause I did not want anything bad to happen to her, or anyone really.

Journal #26

A time when something did not turn out the way I thought it would was our vacation to Las Vegas when I was fourteen years old. My parents were planning on, and still are, retiring to Summerland, Nevada. Summerland is located fairly near Las Vegas, so we like to go there and check out the area. Plus, Las Vegas is awesome, and there is so much to do for everyone! Some other members of my family like my grandpa, aunt and uncle from Washington D.C., and my aunt and uncle and brand new baby from California also flew/drove to meet us there. It was a big old family reunion for a lot of us! Our plan for the week was to go see all the sights, and go shopping, and go out to eat, really just hang around our family. Our plans were changed when the weather changed. We went to Las Vegas in December, and there it is still fairly warm (jacket weather with long pants). It very very rarely rains, and even more rare than the rain was snow. Its probably only snowed in Las Vegas a few times ever! So about three days into our trip, we wake up and look out the window, and what do you know, there are snow flurries! This changed the next few days of our trip because a lot of people were freaked out about the snow/rain mix, slush. We could not do any of the outdoor activities any more because they were all closed! I was not able to go on the New York, New York roller coaster, or see the Treasure Island show that I really wanted to see. (We ended up going to that show when my family went back to Las Vegas in 2012, but were not able to see the show. But that's another story entirely!) This snow changed our trip, but we were still able to have a fun time with my entire family indoors!