Journal #34

Walt Whitman's concept of Self encompassed three separate smaller versions of self: the soul, the way you see yourself and the way others around you perceive you. When applying this concept to your own life, it really makes you think about who you really are. So, who am I? When thinking about just my soul, or my spiritual self, I have changed a great deal in just a few short months. I have recently become immersed in the culture of Christianity, and it is wonderful. I now attend church weekly, and actually listen to the pastor and get a meaning out of each sermon and try and apply it to my life to become a better person. I am trying to become a better person through Christianity, but it is hard. I will be continuing to work on bettering myself probably for the rest of my life, and I am really thankful for my friends to have brought me into the church. When thinking about the way I perceive myself, I think I am a good person. I think that I am fairly smart, both in books and on the street. I believe that I am way funnier then I probably actually am, but that is okay: confidence is a good thing to have in some areas. I have quite a few friends that I really care about, and would tell them anything or do anything for them. I look at myself as working through some issues in my life, and those will get better with time and trust. When looking at my life and self through others eyes, I hope they like what they see. I get along with almost everyone I meet, and I am able to make friends easily and quickly. I hope other people think I do not come across as mean or annoying, and I do not believe that I do. I know my parents raised my to be very polite and respectful to everyone, and I know that adults and other people notice this and appreciate it. Thinking back to my Self in its entirely  I believe that I am a good person. I have my flaws in each area of Whitman's self, but I am trying to solve thees and make myself a better person.

Journal #33

Bring a Junior in high school, I am in many advanced and/or AP classes. These types of classes can cause me quite a bit of stress. I have homework all the time, and there is always the constant fear of the AP test come the beginning of May. To try and reduce this stress I do a number of things. I try and be very efficient with my time. I like to plan when I will be completing each assignment so I will not be swamped and have everything to finish in one night. Except for tonight. I made the unfortunate decision to put off all of my homework from the four day weekend until tonight. Oops. I normally try and do not do that though. Another thing I try and do to avoid and or reduce stress is step away from school. On Sundays I try and not do any homework  or maybe just a little. I have church in the mornings, and then I go out to lunch with my friends afterwards. I go to FCA later in the afternoon  and then my youth group at my church after that. It is nice to have a day to be completely focused on something other than school. It helps me refocus my attention on what is really important in my life. Another stress reliever is that I reward my self after finishing my homework or studying for my tests by watching an episode or two of my current favorite TV show, Dexter. I am trying to watch the whole series, so by finishing my homework early I am able to fit in an episode every night, or at least part of one (they are all over fifty minutes long). I have quite a bit of stress in my life, and I try to do these things and more in order to manage this stress, and make my life a much easier and happier life.

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.