Halloween Experiments

This is a little different than what I normally do but it is a special week. It is Halloween week! So because I love chemistry and science I think everyone does.....haha not. But this is a pretty cool video. I know you actually learn something but just move pass that and watch the pumpkins go BOOM!!!! YAY! haha I hope that you enjoy!

Your Desire is Your Mask

It is all Hallows Eve, time for the spirits to come out and play! Ah, yes most people are sitting down, getting ready to watch a scary movie or getting dressed up to go to a Halloween Party. It is simple you see, Halloween is a holiday people like to celebrate because people like to be scared. They dress up their houses and homes alike to scare those who dare to visit. What other day is it acceptable for children to go around to stranger’s houses asking for treats, which will probably rot their teeth? There seems to be a festive atmosphere for most as they get out the decorations and celebrate again the scariest day of the year. As we go back in time, when witches and wizards were real and practiced their wicken deeds.
It is absurd to think about, young and old alike dressing up as what they truly are not. It is the one day where you can be someone or something other than who you truly are. Then again, who truly are you? Is Halloween just a holiday where we dress up like in costumes that we buy at the local grocery store or is it a holiday where we show more of our inner thoughts? People are really revealing a bit of their true personality as they head for the extravagant makeup. Halloween is a day where you can magnify your inner desires in costume form and show the world without them truly realizing what has been revealed.
Little kids are the best example to the belief that Halloween is for people to illustrate their inner desires. What little girl doesn’t want to literally be a pretty princess or a little boy be a strong superhero? It is obvious to anyone that little children choose costumes for Halloween that are their actual desires. They really want to be that fairy or angel or batman or Thomas the train. So, why would it be such a leap to say that we don’t continue that tradition as we get older? Sure, costumes get more violent as the age grows but maybe that has more to do with the anger and aggression that grows within people as they get older. Who has ever seen a little kid keep a grudge for more than ten minutes? I know I even have kept grudges for years. It is a fact of life, as we grow we loose our innocence and we become angrier and so our costumes usually just correlate back to that.
Not everyone wears scary costumes as they get older though. Some still want to be that pretty princess or superhero. Those people are either genuinely sweet or they just cannot let go of their childhood yet. I know that I never want to fully grow up. I like the age I am at and kind of just want to stay here. I find this to be very apparent in my costume choice as well. I went as a teenager in the 80s. If you look past the obnoxiously bright colors of my costume and the overall 80s fashion you would see a teenager. I went as myself just in a different decade because I do not want to grow up.
Through my costume I realized this just as anyone can look deeper into their costume and find their desires blasted across the makeup. For instance, my brother went as a hunter. He says that he was an army man or whatever. He was a hunter. Now that does not mean he wants to be a hunter when he grows up but if you look closer it does reveal something about him. Hunters go out and kill because that is what they want to do. They are still human but they kill. My brother is a very aggressive person. You get in his way, make him mad. You better run! It ain’t pretty. He is like this most of the time too. He really likes to shoot at his friends, with air soft guns yes but still. He likes to also hide himself from people in my belief because underneath it all, he still knows he needs his mommy. His camouflaged costume hides what normally the aggression hides, himself.
Well, I hope you all have fun dressing up in your masks and makeup. Have fun letting your desires go free. Happy Halloween!

Be wise in disagreeing with the government

Every act of creation is first of all an act of destruction. -Pablo Picasso

In recent weeks there has been obvious hostility between the Chamber of Commerce and the White House. It seems that now that the Chamber has started to disagree with the White House on certain issues, they have become enemies in the eyes of the White House. The conflict that they are disagreeing on the most is, of course, the Health Care reform. The Chamber of Commerce is concerned that if not handled properly a move in our health care policies will create overall downfall in the economy; as of current date one sixth of the economy deals with health care. The Chamber is not the only ones feeling the heat. Anyone who presents information against the health care reform is discredited by the White House by any means necessary. The Chamber is receiving comments from both the Energy Secretary Chu and the President Barrack Obama. Secretary Chu has made comments about how good it is that major companies are withdrawing from the Chamber, which has 300,000 companies, and Obama has tried to discredit the Chamber through comments on their spending throughout the years. It seems that the White House not only wants to discredit the Chamber of Commerce but is leaning towards its demise. The strangest part about the situation is that they had no problem with the Chamber of Commerce when they agreed earlier on things such as the stimulus package that the Chamber helped push through.
It seems that people should really be worried if the disagree with the government. The right to free speech seems to have been lost on the new government that wishes for anyone that disagrees with it to be destroyed, no matter the past. This is very worrisome. It makes you wonder what kind of society we are turning into. The health care reform to people is the first step to a socialist, or worse, communist government. Yes, there are problems with our system of health care right now but I do not see reason to change the parts of it that are working. It is really not that bad and putting too much money into it is really not going to help our nation’s debt problems. Now, where is our freedom of speech going? If the government doesn’t like what an organization is saying they start to discredit it and call for disbandment?? It sounds to me like the new people in charge has let power get to their head a bit. I mean seriously I understand that you don’t want people to be telling information that goes against what you want, but find a better way. If your plan cannot withstand the critics that are trying to discredit it through information then it probably just is not good enough. LET IT GO AND MOVE ON!!! There is a reason why we don’t have this type of health care system; it is because the people have not wanted it. It is a bad idea. That is why not a single president before Obama who has suggested this has been able to do it. It is too costly a risk and it will likely be the downfall of the Obama administration. This reform has lead to the government feeling the need to do some pretty hard core censuring and rebutting, in the wrong way, and may even end freedom of speech. What I do know is that the White House needs to sit down and take a good look at what they are doing and determine if they really think it is right. If they continue on this path, I fear for America. I would also advise looking into moving somewhere else.

For the information used in this post click here.

It's a School day? Oh, no. I'm sick!

If you treat a sick child like an adult and a sick adult like a child, everything usually works out pretty well. – Ruth Carlisle

We all have had days where we have just not wanted to get up in the morning. I however seem to have quite a few of these days where I would have given anything to stay in bed. Sure school is a time to meet with one’s friends; to talk about what happened last night on your favorite television show; to build new relationships; and to learn of course. But there are so many days where I will wake up in the morning and just know that it is better for me to stay in bed or other days when I just feel like my time would be better spent outside than in a brick building. Well, continuing on in my ode to Shel Silverstein I could not pass up the opportunity to blog about one of the silliest poems about attempts to not go to school, “Sick.” Let’s face it we all have done it claimed to be deathly ill when in reality we just wanted a break from learning and a day to relax and watch TV. Well in “Sick,” little Peggy Ann McKay gives a list of excuses as to why she just cannot go to school today, all of them dealing with her being supposedly ill. If you read the poem close enough though, you realize that as her excuses go on they start to have nothing to do with being ill but are actually just how some parts of the body function; such as, her belly button caving in and her elbow being bent. In the end after listing a ton of reasons not to go to school, someone tells little Peggy Ann McKay that it was actually Saturday! All the attempts to get out of school and she actually did not even have school that day. So little Peggy responds to the news that it is actually Saturday by telling the person, who she had just complained about all these illnesses to, that she was going out to play. Shel Silverstein really out did himself again in this poem with his ability to tell a story so smoothly while still being self-conscience about keeping up with his rhyme scheme. This poem just makes you have to giggle about all the effort little Peggy put into not having to go to school. It’s something to think about next time you want to be ‘sick’ and skip school.

One Dollar equals Five Pennies :)

You are led through you lifetime by the inner learning creature, the playful spiritual being that is your real self. Don’t turn away from possible futures before you’re certain you don’t have anything to learn from them.-Richard Bach

This week has been a very interesting one for me. It was my first week back to school after the wretched swine flu attack and so I was still recovering a little bit. I found myself taking quite a bit of cough syrup this week. If you know me well enough you would be very frightened by that last sentence. You see, I react very strangely when it comes to cough syrup. I have several times been accused of being high because I act a little strange; ok, I act extremely strange. Well I guess it is probably because I was acting so strangely, that I remembered one of my favorite poets when I was younger. Since his poetry is aimed at a younger audience it has been quite awhile since I have opened Where the Sidewalk Ends by Shel Silverstein but today I did. Shel Silverstein is a genius, if I do say so myself. His poetry is so light and humorous that it makes you just want to giggle. You can tell just from the title of his books that he is a man who likes to have fun and is also very creative. One of my favorite poems from Where the Sidewalk Ends has to be “Smart.” In this humorous poem a boy is given one dollar bill by his father and by the end of the story he had traded it for five pennies. Because five is more than one, the boy thought his father was too proud of him to speak when he showed his father the final outcome of the dollar bill. This poem is an excellent example of the ability that Shel Silverstein has. Silverstein uses an intricate rhyme scheme in this light-hearted poem while also giving a moral that quantity does not beat out quality in money. The poem is taken from this little boy’s perspective and how he thinks he has tricked all these people out of something but in reality he is the one who has been tricked. The progression in the story is eloquent yet peppy at the same time. The boy goes around trading his one dollar bill for two quarters, his two quarters for three dimes, his three dimes for four nickels and finally his four nickels for five pennies. Shel conveniently runs through our currency by quantity in this poem while supporting the theme that quality is better than quantity. Overall the imagery in this poem is also so amazing that you really can imagine this scene as it happens. If you are ever in need for a laugh I urge you to read this poem about a boy who learns a lesson about money.

Swine Epidemic

In spite of your fear, do what you have to do. Chin-Ning Chu

President Barrack Obama has declared the recent outbreak of the H1N1 virus a medical emergency. But what does that truly mean? Not much, to the average person actually. The proclamation of swine flu as a medical emergency does not give reason to hide it out under your covers; it merely means that now hospitals can skip over some red tape to keep sick people away from the rest of the sick population. With more and more cases of swine flu being acknowledged everyday it is hard on hospitals to room all their sick patients. An even more daunting task is keeping patients, whose immune systems are already down, away from the risk of the H1N1 virus. Now that the proclamation has been made, hospitals can work to create off-site facilities for people with flu symptoms to go to get the proper help. These off-site facilities are a barrier for other sick people against the raging virus and have been greatly needed. The red tape that hospitals had great difficulty passing in past months has been lifted by this announcement made by President Obama. The true question though, is why did he wait so long? The H1N1 virus has been attacking our neighbors to the south since last year; it managed to kill hundreds of Mexicans and the fear it would migrate north was realized not many months after. Sure, the cases slowed down for a couple of months but this past month you turn to any channel and you will hear more news about the spread of the swine. It had been previously predicted that the flu would return in the coming months after its break and once it did the president should have immediately made it a health emergency. Personally, I have never been a fan of any kind of red tape. I am not really sure I see a reason for it other than financially and the way Obama has been throwing money around doesn’t seem like it should matter even in that case. It seems like a risk was being taken on the health of people for the past month and for no true reason. Swine flu is not only a force to contend with but evidence has shown it comes with some troublesome friends that can bring harm, even death, to the elderly and young. I think this proclamation is long over due and I just hope no one’s life was actually risked by slow reaction to this harmful virus.

To see a map of Swine Flu activity click here.

Acting OUT

My role in society, or any artist's or poet's role, is to try and express what we all feel. Not to tell people how to feel. Not as a preacher, not as a leader, but as a reflection of us all.- John Lennon

I thought I would turn again to a song this week for a little poerty inspiration. Ashley Tisdale is known to most as Sharpay Evans, aka the mean girl, in the High School Musical Series. After High School Musical, she started to take her music career a little more seriously and has recently released her second album. For some reason the album has not actually been very popular even though I think it is amazing. My favorite song is "Acting Out" which is a very empowering song that talks about well a girl wanting to act out. I decided to add the youtube video to the post of the song for you to hear for yourselves. It has a very different beginning but a nice beat that goes along with the up beat lyrics of girl about to jump out of this skin that people have percieved her as. It is definitely a different type of expression than most of the poems I have presented but I believe that songs are poetry just put to music. My favorite part of the song is the lyrics and just how they really motivate you to do something that you havent done before to show people a different side of yourself just like she has shown a new side of herself in her new album. Hope you enjoy this song as much as I do!