Welcome Mr.President

I only got to watch a little bit of the ingauguration but what i saw was very powerfull. to see an african american president walk out after white president really shows the change that is happening to the country before Obama even takes the office. As usual Obama's speech was well written and well spoken, i especially liked the part where he said "we have to get up and dust ourselves off". this is true, after Bush we really do have to rebound, forget the past and move forward. The inauguration was nearly perfect except for the exception of the oath mess up where "execute" and "faithfully" were mixed up. although it was a day for hope, celebration, and change when Bush came out he was boooed and people were singing "na na na na hey hey hey goodbye" i feel like this should not have happened because the day was for Obama and Biden not to criticize Bush. i also only watched a little bit of the inaugural balls but i thought it was funny when Obama was dancing at the first party and there was a circle of secret service people around him dancing as well.

Inauguration Celebration

Over the weekend i watched the Presidential Inauguration concert, and it was amazing. there were so many awesome famous people that gave speeches and sang patriotic songs. and also there were so many people that were in front of the Lincoln Memorial. it amazes me that for the actual inauguration there wiil be even more people there. the whole concert just made me feel good. and it seemed the same for the audience who started channting "Obama" over and over again. it was very powerful to see that many people doing a chant for one person. there were a couple of things that i laughed about during the concert. during some of the performances Obama was standing up clapping and dancing, he seemed very loose and comfortable, it was very funny to me. also another thing i thought was funny was when beyonce came on stage one of Obama's daughters started taking pictures of her(this was after she seemed very bored the whole time before). it was as if the girl would never see beyonce again even though her dad is the president. if she wanted she could hang out with beyonce let alone just take pictures of her. but over all i thought the concert was a very compelling experience to watch and i am very excited to watch the actual inauguration that is coming up.

Finals Finals Finals

I think i stand for everyone when i say that finals week is the worst week of the entire school year. Finals are just off of break so people are still trying to get back to the mode where they go to bed before 2am. And the winter does not help, it just makes things much more gloomy. During junior year students really work hard to get a good score on the ACT, and the thought of studying for the ACT and finals just makes you want to quit school(not that i would want to do that). And it also does not help that New Trier is a hard school. my mom was talking to a New Trier alum that had just gotten a teahcing job at another school and he said that college was a breeze compared to NT. That statement always gives you a warm feeling inside doesnt it?

Happy New Year!

It is now the year 2009 and it should be a good one. Whether it is a new president in office or the superbowl i am excited to see what happens. And along with the new year comes resolutions. People always say they are going to acheive their resolution, and it never happens. For instance lets say a person's resolution is to do better in school. They come to school fresh off of break put their papers into new binders, organize the desk they should be doing their homework at night but never do and go into see their teachers more often. This happens for about a week and then it is bye bye to the resolution. They get home from school one day and sit down to do their homework at the desk they cleaned and of course they say to themselves, whatever i can do this later tonight. When later that night comes they say again, whatever i can just do it tomorrow during a free period. And just like that they are back to their normal selves. I think that new years resolutions are very hard to keep and i applaud that people that do follow through on them. But for me i have decided to take this year off on a resolution, i want to keep my mind free and not be worried if i break my resolution.

Tokenism

After all the talk about tokenism in modern day dramas it really made me think critically about how this was going on. during class we were asked the question if anyone knew a TV show that had an african american person as the main character. frankly i could not. the closest thing i could think of was in the tv series Friday Night Lights. For each episode of the show it seems that there is a new main character. one episode it is the white coach or the white quarterback and another episode it is a african american runningback. this is the only show that i have seen someone african american take the role of main character for some episodes. i feel that this is wrong, the fact that people even think about how many diffent races are on shows makes me angry. everyone is an equal person and when it comes to picking a role for a network drama they should just pick the people that have the best talent. i have always wondered, what if there was a tv that featured a cast of african americans, would there need to be the token white person? This discussion in class stirred up another thing inside for me. i watch my fair share of TV and i have noticed there are never any red haired people. everyone either has brown, blonde, or black hair. never orange. i feel as a person of the red haired community there should be more red haired people on TV. Along with my question before about the token white person i also would like to ask if there should be a token red head.

The Big Daddy

O Yeah the BCS championship game is just around the corner and i cant wait. After watching most of the bowl games over break i expect the match up between Oklahoma and Florida to be a great battle. but before i talk about this i would like to bring up some of the other bowl games. it was a dissapointment to the Big Ten having Penn State lose to USC. USC is always a power house team and they really showed in this game. Penn State could not do anything against their good defense and struggled to stop USC great offense. There were many upsets during this week like Ole Miss over Texas Tech and Utah over Alabama. The Utah game was great, i love seeing the underdogs win big. Utah finished the season undefeated and beat Alabama who was ranked number 1 in country for 5 weeks. Utah racked up 11 sacks on the quarterback John Parker Wilson, and the defense shut down the powerhouse team. Alabama was hurt on the offensive line because arguably the best lineman in the nation was suspended due to taking to an agent about the draft. What a shame for Alabama haha. Another game that i enjoyed watching was the Buffalo vs. UConn. buffalo was playing for their 1958 team that made it to a bowl game but refused to go because two black players were not allowed to play in the game. Buffalo started out strong but could not stop the run. Donald Brown had over 200 yards rushing against Buffalo in just the third quarter. Buffalo lost and i felt bad for them. ok on to the big game. Florida against Oklahoma. heisman winner sam bradford versus last years heisman tim tebow. this will be a very good game and i hope will be the closest out of all the bowl games. floridas dominating defense will have to be able to stop the passing attack of bradford who threw for over 4000 yards and had 48 tds. but on the otherhand the oklahoma defense will have to stop the lightning fast speed of percy harvin and the amazing player in tim tebow. this should be good.

chimpanzee attack

I went to the lincoln park zoo over break, and the monkey house really amazed me. as i was standing watching some of the chimapnzees peacefully sleep i overheard people saying how much the chimps looked like humans. i saw this too, not only did they look like humans it was amazing how they slept like humans too. they would lay on their sides, backs and stomachs just as humans do. i thought they were very peacefull and nice until i read a story about a chimp. on march 3, 2005 james davis was going to visit his monkey he had at an animal haven. he had this chimp for 39 years and was going to visit it for the chimps birthday. as he entered the haven he was greeted by two chimpanzees that has escaped and attacked him. the chimps completely mutilated the man. he lost his eye, all of his fingers, part of his nose, lips cheeks, butt, his foot was badly mutilated and so was his genitals. he survived but had serious injuries and had to have extensive surgery. i cant help but to think that those peaceful animals that everyone stares at at zoos could almost kill a man. i have heard other stories of monkeys attacking people and it amazes me. to think that we evolved from these animals and we are not that much different. we evolved from something that completely mutilated a human. i wonder what people would be like if we evolved from like sharks or bears.

wonderful time of the year

for me the holiday season really is the best time of the year. we get two weeks off to spend time with family and relatives and just relax. this is exactly what i did all break and it was perfect. but during this time it bothered me hearing all of these stories of what people got as presents. i know for my family we really cut back this year on how much we spent on presents but i see other families spending bunches of money on things that i would never think people would buy at a time like this. for one, the tax in cook county is outrageous, you could buy rock band for $189 but the tax would bring it up to $208. i dont know about you but i think $19 of tax is a little much. second since the economy has been down people have been losing money left and right. i feel that spending a ton of money on something right now would be very stupid. and anyways the point of the holiday season is not just to go out and spend money, i would rather be with my family then recieve anything for christmas, but that is just me.