Car Rides

Long car rides are just unenjoyable. There is barely any leg room, its always either too hot or too cold and the car rides seem like they will never end. The worst is when you start feeling car sick and there isn't anything to do about it. I have been on my fair share of car rides. Practically every weekend I am driving somewhere for hockey. Right now I am writing this as I'm on a 10 hour car ride to Ohio, on Homecoming weekend and I am here to share my advice from years of experience.

First, always bring a pillow and blanket. Its never a bad time for a nice nap. A pillow can always serve as a makeshift desk for school work and a blanket its the ultimate cuddly buddy. Also dress in layers. A car never seems to be the right temperature.

Depending on how long the drive is going to be, always bring things to do. A good book, homework, or playing cards. It is actually really easy to get homework done in the car because there isn't anything else to do. If you get car sick easily try not to read or do homework, it will make it worse! It is also good to bring a book light if you have one, then you can read on those late night car rides. Bring food and drinks, and also gum.

The one thing that is a must have for long car rides is an ipod/mp3 player. They are life savors! If your little sibs are getting annoying or your mom just won't stop talking, you can just put in the head phones and zone everything out. Before leaving for long trips it is also helpful to get some new songs to listen too. It spices up your normal playlists. Also bring a laptop or a DVD player so you can watch movies!

Number one tip: when in doubt, sleep. Sleeping is the best way to pass the time and who couldn't use an extra couple hours of beauty rest? If you can't sleep take some Nyquil and you'll be out in no time. Who knows, you might sleep all the way there!

These are just some of my tips for car rides. Long drives are always going to be frustrating but you just gotta make it through. Its all about staying entertained and trying not to think about how long you have left. I hope my words of wisdom helped! Happy car ride.  

Musical Therapy

Listening to music can really have a big impact. It can change your mood or even bring you to remember things that happened when you heard that song. I don't know about you but I like to listen to music basically any time I can. I listen to music the most when I am doing homework or just hanging out. I am in love with my mac book, its a amazing and I would totally recommend it to anyone. Well anyways, while I am doing homework on my wonderful lap top I get very bored. This is when I know I need to spice up my study experience with some music.

I usually don't like to listen to my itunes on my computer because I listen to it enough on my ipod. There are many websites that have online playlists for different genres or they can even play music to match your mood. Here are some examples of these websites:

8tracks:

www.8tracks.com/

8tracks is a really cool website that has different playlists. These playlists are categorized in many ways like by words like love, summer, or chill. Once you create an account you can like a playlist and then listen to it anytime. They have thousands and thousands of playlists and my favorite part is that these playlists are made by other users on the website.

Songza:

songza.com/

Songza is a lot like 8tracks except the playlists are made for your mood. When you first enter the website it will ask what you are doing like studying, having a dance party, or cooking. After choosing one it then asks you which genre you want like soft pop or rock. In the end you get a playlists that matches the mood and activity you are doing.

Pandora:

www.pandora.com/

Pandora is a classic. On pandora you create stations for different artist or songs. You can create as many stations as you want and if there is a song that you don't like you can dislike it and the song will never play again on your Pandora.

Well I hope these enhance your studying or hanging out experience. They become especially useful once finals come around. Happy studying!

Summer Camp

I am a strong believer in the benefits summer camp. It is one of the best decisions a parent can make for their kids and I can't thank my parents enough for sending me away to camp because I wouldn't be the person I am today if it wasn't for it. Over the years, camp transforms from a just an average place to the place I call home. It is the place that teaches self-confidence, love, and friendship. It is an environment where people accept everyone and laugh uncontrollably. It gives children the chance to try new things while having the time of their lives'.

Because I feel in love with camp, I kept going back. I did the leadership in training program then counselor in training program. Over the years, I have spent closed to 14 weeks at camp. Those 14 weeks taught me more than all of my years in school and in sports. Now that I am to old to be a camper, I hope to be a counselor this coming summer. Being a camp counselor is more than a job, its who we are. Everyone has similar reasons to be a counselor. I want to be a role model and help kids grow and learn.

This past summer while I was in the counselor in training program, we were given a paper titled “What is a Counselor?”. It is an essay that speaks right to the meaning of camp:

“A camp counselor is a rare combination of doctor, lawyer, Indian and chief. They are an excellent child psychologist with sophomore textbooks as proof. They are an underpaid baby-sitter with neither a television nor a refrigerator.”

“You wonder if they really know how much they are worth and you realize that you can never pay them enough. Yet when they leave, they wave good-bye and say, “See ya next year!””

So its hard to put into words what camp means to those that love it but this quote pretty much sums it up:

“For a moment you will be reminded of your summer here. You will think of a child with whom an interaction deeply affected you. It will be the child you helped learn to swim, or the child who so desperately needed a friend to take care of them. And you will not be able to figure out if the true gift was the one you gave to them of yourself, or if the gift was, in fact, given to you.”

(405)

Forever in Our Hearts

As I was watching my favorite show, Grey's Anatomy, I remembered a tragic event. On this episode of Grey's, a shooter comes to the hospital and commits a mass murder. The shooter is upset because he believes that one of the doctors killed his wife. What really happened was that his wife was brain dead and she wasn't going to wake back up. The man files a lawsuit but loses because of medical evidence. Overcome with grief, this man sets out to the hospital to kill the doctor that “killed” his wife.

This episode aired in May of 2010, years before the tragic event in Newtown, Connecticut. While watching, Newtown was all I could think about. I usually don't cry during movies or TV shows but this episode seemed to hit close to home. It was almost unbearable to watch. Watching the terror on the character's faces and the evil in the shooter's eyes was horrible. I pictured the overwhelming fear the kids, teachers, police officers, parents, and the whole community must have felt during that horrible Friday. I can't even imagine what they went through, and are still dealing with. My heart aches for everyone who lost a loved one, or had to experience the shooting.

In Grey's Anatomy, the characters experienced post-traumatic stress disorder and survivors guilt. Some of the doctors couldn't even go back into the operating room or couldn't sleep and had night terrors. The kids at Newtown probably still feel fear when going to school, I think even the strongest person would after what they experienced. The horrible thing is that school should be a place where everyone feels safe. A place where we grow and learn, not a place filled with horrible memories. As the kids grow older, they will start to overcome the event but will probably never fully recover.

Its horrible that the country to experience the loss of children to figure out that something needs to be done. This should never happen again. The event also, in a way, opened our eyes to whats important in life. Family and community. I know my parents tell me they love me more than the used to. The country, and world, will never forget Newtown and they will always be in our prays.  (380)

Women in Politlics ~ Miss Representation

In our society, men lead politics. In the documentary Miss Representation, this issue is discussed in relation to men being superior to women.  Women are looked at as incapable of holding a higher office position, especially in politics. Why are there more men in politics than women? Is there a sense of power, or leadership, that men feel women don’t possess?  Are women looked at as having too many feminine qualities to lead a country? Will there ever be a women president of the United States? So many questions can be derived from this issue but the hardest one to answer is why can’t women be leaders?

According to the WCF Foundation, this is the first time since 1987 that the United States hasn’t made growth in the number of women in congress. In Miss Representation, the quote “You can’t be what you can’t see” is a possible reason for why our number of women in politics hasn’t increased.  Young girls don’t have many powerful women to look up to. Positive role models are important in the development of girls’ self-confidence. Perhaps our society feels that men are the only ones capable of running a society. This ideology then sinks into women’s brains and they start to feel that they truly are less than men.

The women that are in politics are constantly being criticized for various things:  their appearance, family life, and education.  In Miss Representation, they stated that there are more women in politics in countries like Afghanistan than there are in the United States. Is this because women here are so criticitzed for their looks? Apart from politics, some woman new anchers wear low-cut shirts and a lot of make-up because they are expected to look a certain way. Why don't men have these expectations?  

ESPN recently came out with a dress-code for women covering MLB games. This was done to make reporting more "gender-neutral". These rules prevent the stereotypical image of female news casters.  In politics, there isn't a dress-code but women are still critizied even if they are dressed appropriately.

If women can't be taken seriously because of their looks then how will they gain respect? It seems that no matter how smart a woman is she is still a woman, not a man. Hopefully, this unfemanist view will fade away with time. Its important to have women in leadership because they bring another view point to topics. With the state of our country today, we need all the women in politics we can get. (419)

Winter Fever

This time of the year seems to drag oooooon and oooooon. We are in the dead of winter with wind that takes the breath right out of our mouths' and long, cold nights. Even though we aren't having a harsh winter, it still seems endless. The fact that there isn't much snow this year makes the winter seem worse. Snow is beautiful and is a reward for the cold days. Without snow, the trees and grass look dead and droopy. This winter we are also having some very warm days which causes the snow to melt into dirty slush. This slush is not beautiful, at all. Summer, when will you be here? We are in great need for warm and sunny days. We need some quality vitamin D. There is currently about a month and a half until spring will come, and it couldn't come any slower.

During the winter, statistics show that suicide rates increase. Our surroundings effect our mood greatly and when winter rolls around, there isn't a lot to look at. In the summer, flowers bloom and the grass is green. Every thing seems more beautiful. Personally, when I look outside in the morning during the summer I feel happier. I feel more motivated to go out and do things. On the other hand, during the winter I look outside when its gray and cold, I just want to lay in bed all day. The cold weather obviously causes us to spend more time inside and as humans we need fresh air. Being outside brightens our mood, well for most people. All of these reasons cause depression and suicide rates.

There are some great ways to get out of that wintertime depression. Exercise more. Working out causes a release in endorphins which actually make a person feel better. Endorphins are what cause “runners high”. Another way is to add more light. Brighter rooms increase our mood, for the better. Yoga can be helpful and also getting a massage.

So get past the mid-winter depression but remember that spring and summer will be here before we know it. We can do this. A month and half. Its not that long. Well maybe it is but you know what they say, what doesn't kill you makes you stronger! (380)

The Benefits of Playing a Sport

Sports have been around since humans started to socialize, we are competitive. They are a large part of who we are. Whether you are an olympian or a you have never picked up a soccer ball, sports are still interesting. Everyone gathers around the TV for the Super Bowl, the Olympics, and other major sporting events. Sports are apart of us. Perhaps, what is more special than the bond that humans have with athletics is being the athlete playing the game. That bond that athletes have with their sport is what makes athletes who they are. Sports teach us lessons that we can't learn anywhere else. It's hard to narrow down the most important lessons taught by playing a sport because they are endless. Hard work, determination, respect, maturity, and perseverance, just to name a few.

Being an athlete myself, I know first hand the dedication it takes to a student-athlete. Its definitely not easy! It actually really sucks sometimes. We have all heard the research that playing sports can increase kids GPAs. The reason behind this is that athletes don't have time to lay around during the week, or on the weekend, because we are busy practicing and playing games. So when we do have time to do homework, it is limited. Its now or never. Either you work hard to finish assignments now, or get a zero. Like right now, I am writing this post in between my hockey games because I know I won't have time to do it tomorrow. If I was just at home now I wouldn't have the motivation to do it.

Sports are a big part of growing up and maturing. They teach social skills and also how to speak your mind. Playing hockey definitely teaches how to stand up for yourself but also how to let things go. There is a lot of shit-talking in sports. Athletes get called names by other players, yelled at by coaches, and criticized by parents but we learn just to let it go. I have learned over the years to channel my anger into something productive. Anger can cause many bad things to happen that you will later regret so it's important to know when to just chillax.

At the end of that day, I am glad to be a student-athlete. I so thankful to have something to be passionate about. Juggling school and sports have allowed me to grow as a person and I know many athletes would agree with me.  (424)