Sunday, November 27, 2011

I Am Thankful

Things I am thankful for,
 I barely question anymore.

 I am thankful for the trees,
 That blow in the breeze. 

I am thankful for good food,
That brings up my mood.

  I am thankful for my family and my car,
 I like to keep them just as they are.

 I am thankful for my boyfriend Roy,
 Sometimes he can be such a joy. 

And I am thankful for my cat,
And that is that. 

Such a corny poem,
As I am heading home.

At Thanksgiving I guess too much turkey,
Cause me to be a little quirky. 

Thursday, November 17, 2011

"The Value of College Degree" written by Katherine Porter

The ideas in the essay, "The Value of College Degree" written by Katherine Porter, make a lot of important points.  The one part where she says, "These statistics support the contention that, though the cost of hight education is sidnificant, given the earnings disparity that exist between those who earn a bachelor's degree and those who do not, the individual rate of return on investment in higher education is sufficiently high to warrent the cost," (Porter, 488) the problem is you end up paying years and years afterward just to pay off your collage degree, after you start earning any income.  The availability of jobs are causing a lot of students not being able to find a job in their field of interest, and end up taking lower paying jobs and struggling to pay of their collage bills, which results in taking it longer to finally get the income that they went to school for.  Where as if they start right out with a low paying job to begin with, and work straight through all those years, without going to collage, there income has increased through the years with raises, etc, and seniority in the working place.  More than likely they probably at this time built up a considerable amount of retirement savings.

  Also in the essay it says "there is a tendency for more highly educated women to spend more time with their children for the future," (Porter, 489) this can be the extreme opposite for quite a few.  These women can become so into their field and making money that their job becomes their number one priority.  It becomes all about making money.  It also becomes all about their kids being extremely educated, and having degrees, and other recreation becomes not as important as education and making money. The familes "value" gets lost.  I have seen this through personal experience, in my Aunt and her family.  She was so into making money, that she traveled out of town for years, while her children were basically on their own.  She would leave town for an entire week just to come home, do her laundry and get ready for her next trip out of town.  There was no one at her home to nuture her children, or be there for them when they were in need.  I remeber my cousin being so scared on her first day of school every year, that she would throw up, and there was no one there to tell her it would be alright.  When her sister, my other cousin, was in high school, she would roam the streets all hours of the night.  There was no one to ask where she was, until her dad came in late at night from doing farming.  I just always felt like there should have been someone there for them.    They all did turn out ok, but it could have been very bad without a parent to guide them.  

Thursday, November 10, 2011

Should Gay Marriages Be Legalized

Should gay marriages be legalized?  This should be an easy question to answer, right?  Two people in love should have the right to solidify their love by marriage vows.  But for some reasons some individuals are dead set against it due to the fact that it's not a man and a woman getting married, so it is just wrong. 

My standing is who are we to be the judges of what two people in love wish to do to solidify their life-long vows to each other?  Some say it's in the Bible that a man marries a woman...  My guess is that when the Bible was written, they didn't know they needed to be very specific on genders or expand to include two men or two women.  It was just left up to our interpretation (beliefs) of what WE as individuals think is wrong and right.  So if we think gay marriage is wrong, then "that's what the Bible meant by saying a man and a woman" and "it doesn't say a man and a man".  My definition of a marriage, two people in love that want to bind their vows and commitments to each other.  In the dictionary, "marriage" is "any close or intimate union".  In the dictionary "marry" is "to get married; take a husband or a wife."  Where does it state (other than in our OWN mind) that a husband can't unite with a husband, or a wife with another wife?

Further more, why would we not want two people to be committed to each other, instead of spreading whatever diseases come about because they are not happy in a relationship that is acceptable to society, and the one they want to be in is unacceptable to society.  What they want to do behind closed doors is none of our business - EVEN when it's a man and a woman, so why is it for us to say it's wrong just because we do not feel a committment to the same sex.

When gay couples get married, they aren't asking us to join in the relationship, only to celebrate their unity as a couple.  This is the same as a man and a woman getting married.  They aren't asking us to join in the relationship, only to celebrate their unity as a couple.  Many gay couples have better relationships and commitments than many married couples, and we don't ask them what goes on in their bedroom, so why does it matter if they are the same sex.

Sunday, November 6, 2011

Readers Choice

I saw on another blog that they chose “The Glass Castle” as their favorite book, which truly amazes me, because I honestly thought the book was so blah. The last few chapters were the only parts that kept my interest.  There are better stories out there. When I was at the book store getting this book for school, an older lady there told me how much she enjoyed the book, and how good of a book it was. Was I disappointed when I started reading it!  I just went online and looked at some movie trailers people have made. The National Review had a comment on one of the trailers that said some parts of the book were “exhausting”.  This is exactly how I felt right up until the last few chapters, when the kids started saving money to move to New York.  I thought “there…we’re finally getting somewhere.  An actual story is coming together.  There is a purpose to all the gibberish.”  She could have done without half of the boring stories, and still kept you up on what happened.  Jeanette described fights that happened in one of the towns for one and a half pages…who cared about THAT much detail…we got the gist of it in a couple of sentences!   


Honestly, I think “The Glass Castle” would make a good movie, just not a very entertaining book.  Some of the movie trailers were proof of that.  I will have to admit, I do not like reading books at all. I like reading magazines a lot, if to read anything.  If I were to choose an inspiration book, it would be “Little Girl Lost”.  This book is the younger years of Drew Barrymore’s life.  She was just a young child when she made her first movies “Firestarters” and “E.T.”. It tells about going to Hollywood “after production parties” with her parents.  She eventually grew bored, being the only child at these parties, and started drinking which lead to drugs.  Look at this girl’s life today!  Talk about inspirational!  Now THIS was a book I could not put down.  Even though some of things that happened to Drew were repetitious, the writer did not drag on and on and on about each episode.