Monday, February 22, 2010

Creative Story

Person: A high school whose girlfriend just told him she’s pregnant
Detail: An earring
Setting: A city on a hot summer night

Labor Day weekend was already here for Matt and Alyssa. They were extremely excited for their senior year of high school and were planning on going to college together next year in Virginia, which is far away from their home in New York. Alyssa was excited until this past week, when she learned that she was pregnant with Matt’s child.
Alyssa thought that this would never happen to her and that she would be living her senior year the way she wanted to by having fun and going crazy. She knew she needed to tell matt that she was pregnant but she just found out and hadn’t even told her mom yet. She needed to tell him and she needed to do it now.
On Saturday Matt and Alyssa were going to go into the city to watch the Yankees play – it was a hot day in New York but Alyssa knew it would be the best way to tell him. Alyssa had decided she was going to tell Matt after the game just before he dropped her off at her house. She had everything planned out and she even knew what she was going to wear. Alyssa has a favorite pair of earrings that have been passed down through her family that started with her great-grandmother, then her grandmother, then her mom and now they belong to her. They are her favorite earrings and she always wears them in situations where she is not sure of how it is going to go.
Alyssa was not ready for this night- she thought she would never have to tell someone she is pregnant until after she was married and had graduated from high school and college. When Matt picked her up she was extremely quiet and matt could sense that something was wrong. While they were at dinner, Alyssa noticed that one of her earrings was missing and she had to find it. When they started looking neither of them saw it around the table they had been eating at or in Matt’s jeep. Alyssa began to panic and she knew she had to find the earring because she needed to wear them while she told Matt she was pregnant. When they were looking Alyssa was becoming even more anxious and mad and when Matt asked her what was wrong she snapped at him and then she began to cry hysterically. Matt knew that something was wrong and wanted to know how he could help her. Matt then proceeded to hold Alyssa while she cried and that’s when she gave in and told him that she was pregnant.
Matt didn’t say anything to her right away and she wasn’t sure what he was going to say. After this long day, Alyssa asked Matt to just take her home and think about what is going to happen to them and talk about it the next day.

Monday, February 15, 2010

Technology

Technology is great, but when it decides not to work it is a pain in the butt! As I am writing my blog this week, I sit at the empo, specifically computer 3H3 because my laptop crashed this week and I am waiting for a new hard drive to arrive from HP. Every time I needed to check my email or to work on school work, I either had to go to the library, Math Empo, or use friends laptop since mine won’t be fixed until later this week. I have come to truly appreciate having my own laptop this week while mine is broken. Many people take for granted having a laptop and not having to go to the library or somewhere else to use the Internet or even complete work. Along with not having a computer, Facebook is also gone too. It seems that everyone is always on it, even if it was just sitting there and you were doing other work. I know that we have done that and I was bad about it, but let me tell you that we can survive without Facebook. The Internet has become addictive to everyone, along with technology in general. Along with Facebook, there is ITunes, computer games and many other social networking sites that are very addictive. My computer crashed on Thursday and since then I have come to realize that I rely on my computer to do everything. I think if everybody had to go with out technology for a day- including iPods, cell phones, laptops and what ever else we use daily, we wouldn’t know what to do because we are that addicted, especially to our cell phones. Everybody has their cell phone with him or her wherever they go. One of my friends actually has to go to his biology professor and ask for his cell phone back and explain while he had it out during class, because he left it after class and his professor now has it. It would be very difficult for me and I know it would be harder for some people who are even more addicted to their iPods and phones. So I challenge you to go one day without a computer, cell phone, or iPod. It is very difficult because in today’s society we use them for everything.

Monday, February 8, 2010

Reality TV

In the TV world there are so many different reality shows that are based on different things. You have Jersey Shore, Survivor, Big Brother, The Bachelor, and Real World/ Road Rules plus many more. I have yet to figure out why we are so interested in watching people on TV. Most reality shows are competitive but Jersey Shore has no competition in it that results with a prize because some people would argue that there is competition on Jersey Shore in between the cast in different areas. I have never watched Jersey Shore but that is because I chose not to watch it because it is all about rich kids throwing money away during summer getting drunk and doing other stupid stuff. Other reality shows at least have a point behind them. On survivor, you have to be able to survive the elements of Mother Nature and outlast the other contestants by beating them in challenges and not being voted off. I feel this would be a difficult show to be on because you are completely exposed to the elements of Mother Nature and on the other shows, you have a place to sleep and shower and food to eat.
The other question that I always come to think about with reality shows, is it worth competing to come down to the final two people and you are the runner up and win nothing, but do everything the winner has and get nothing out of it? If I was the runner up and didn’t win anything I would be very upset with myself, trying to figure out what I could have done better or what I should have done instead of what I actually did on the show. I think it would also be very hard to be away from family and friends for several months because we all know that you can’t film a reality show all within one week. Along with missing your family, you would have to take time off from work and in today’s economy, it would be very hard to ask your boss off for work to go compete in a reality TV show. No matter what reality show you watch they are all the same and will continue to be the same. They will have drama, and will always have a winner and loser and there is nothing we can do to change that.

Monday, February 1, 2010

Winter Weather Part II

I just realized that I blogged about the weather last week, but it seems to be the cause of all problems during the past few weeks. I didn’t mean to blog about this again, but it is always on my mind because it is just so cold outside.
The weather in Blacksburg is one thing that I would say many students would want to change if they had the power to. Most of us like the snow, but it is just not the same from when it snowed while we were in high school. When in high school we would have snow days and they were what we always looked forward to in the winter, but while being here at Tech, snow is something that really isn’t wanted around here. When it snows the school does not shut down and it is not very fun to walk across the drill field when the temperature outside is less than 20 degrees. Today is an example of a day that everyone could have used as a “snow day”. Many students have fallen on the steps, slipped on black ice, or even just stepped in a big puddle of water that has melted from the snow causing their pants/ shoes to be wet. Even though a lot of the sidewalks are clear not all of the steps are which makes it hard for students to pass each other as they go to class. As I walked to class I saw many sidewalks still covered in snow and some were beginning to melt making an even bigger mess. When the snow melts, we do not know if it is going to freeze back but it is not very safe it does.
Along with the snow, the weather tends to go from one extreme to another all within an hour or so. You could leave for class at 10 in the morning with the sun shining thinking it is going to be a good day, then you get out of class at 1 and it is bitter cold and it is snowing. There is no way to predict the weather in Blacksburg. The weather today was pleasant, but then for tomorrow they are calling for a wintery mix and then snow for next weekend also. No matter who you listen to or what website you look at, we will never be able to predict what the weather in Blacksburg is going to be.

Monday, January 25, 2010

Winter Weather In Blacksburg

Blacksburg, Virginia is known for having unpredictable weather and it always seems to happen at the most inconvenient time. This past week, classes were cancelled on Thursday starting at 3:30 and the University didn’t open until 10 am the next morning. It is just my luck that I happen to have a recitation at 3:00 on Thursday afternoons for Vector Geometry. The first week of classes everyone is trying to get a feel for what to expect for their classes for the semester and if having class cancelled during the first week must be a sign that the class is going to be extremely hard.
Vector Geometry is set up into a 75 minute lecture and a 50 minute recitation the following day and then you have a quiz due by the following week by 9 pm. The lecture is no big deal and you do all of your work during recitation to practice what was taught during the lecture except for this week, we didn’t have our recitation because classes were cancelled. Since we haven’t had recitation how are we suppose to take our quiz this week. I know many students had their recitation class earlier in the day but my class and the ones after me shouldn’t be punished for the weather we had last week. It might simple algebra skills but it is still part of a new class that we have never taken before and should be able to have the same classes as other students who are in the class. Hopefully our professor will change when our quiz is due or let us have recitation before the day the quiz is due, but it still isn’t fair for us who may have wanted to take their quiz earlier. It is nice to have classes cancelled but sometimes, it would be better if they were not when you are responsible for taking a quiz by a certain date. I love it when we have classes cancelled but having recitation cancelled for vector geometry was really inconvenient for me and the other students in the same class because as of now we have no idea what we are suppose to do.