Blog Feed

​America is FAT. 

That’s not shocking at all. We have McDonald’s, Wendy’s, Burger King’s, and other fast food chains everywhere we look in this country. Why is that? Because the healthy food industry doesn’t have as many advertisements as the fast food chains. But now, fast food chains are becoming “healthy.” Truthfully, adding a slab of lettuce, a tomato slice, or two pickles isn’t healthy.

Those unhealthy drinks that now say fat free, sugar free, diet, no added sugar, etc. seem healthier now, correct? According to a source, they all translate into something much worse: Fat free, but full of sugar and chemicals. Sugar free, but they have increased carbohydrates. “Diet” but it’s going to give you health problems if you digest enough of it. Sugar free, because the original has more than enough sugar as it is.  

False advertisement? Let’s look at it like they’re enhancing the part that will attract your attention and leave out the part that makes it a lot worse than it actually is. 

Another factor in the unhealthy eating habits is the lack of access to healthy foods. Here, there are fast food chains within walking distance from home, but the next Trader Joe’s or Whole Foods is 30 blocks or further from home.

Naturally, we all make up excuses and compromise. “I’m going to get a Big Mac meal and a diet Coke,” “I’m walking 3 blocks to get food so I should reward myself with a Whopper.” You should reward yourself with something healthy. You’re getting a soda that is TWICE as sweet as the original Coke with the use of artificial sugar and a heart attack in a box. Not only is it bad for your weight, but it’s going to give you a lot of health issues in the future - if you even have one. 

It’s normal, right? 

Personally, I’ve done small tasks and have felt obligated to reward myself with chips. But the one thing my family is against are those diet products and the products that say sugar free on the label. Yes, we do our research and it’d be beneficial for everyone to do that. Of course we’re lazy and aren’t in the mood to exercise to stay healthy. So the lazy way of improving your health would be to eat healthier. 

How do we change ourselves? 

First thing’s first, don’t be mislead by those “healthy” labels in your favorite food. They are much worse than the original package. Now the message isn’t to stop eating your unhealthy foods, just eat a lot less of it. 

The government’s position in this crisis should be to make healthy food more accessible and raise the prices in junky foods. People get soda and other unhealthy snacks under food stamps. They should be aiding the people to be healthier. Raise taxes for junk food, make it less available, do something to save everyone from their lack of self control. Promote the healthy lifestyle to everyone and make it more affordable. 

Honestly, who is to blame here; You, your parent’s for raising you to be this way, the government, or society?

We are fools to fall for these foods and developing the habits or was it our parents? They are the ones who raised you right from wrong. If they allowed you to develop such bad eating habits, maybe they’re at fault. 

In recent health statistics, the weighted average of obesity in 28 different countries was 14.1% with the U.S. ranking #1 at 30.6%. That’s not something to be proud of. 

Six word story

Social life sucks....not worth it...


Extra:

Today, was a crappy day. Today was a painful day. This morning it took me 2 hours to pull myself out of bed because I was so weak and tired, I could barely sit up. I managed to get up, get dressed and started off to school. On the way, mom and I hit every red light, ran into 2 road blocks, and I ended up using all of my stamina to stay awake. I knew it wasn't going to be a good day. I got to school at 11. I went up to A band. Didn't see my group, so I ran around like crazy looking for them. I found them in a different room, I was not happy. I sat in the class, quietly (still trying to keep my eyes open). I went to B band, and had to hear about how the fight that ensued yesterday, got worse. I started feeling sick again, so I asked to go to the office. I spent that whole time crying! Crying! Without so much as a "What's up?" or "Kimmi, are you ok?" from anyone. Zoe was the one who talked to me (my friends would too, but they were in class). I finally go downstairs to meet everyone...I got to Zack, who hugged me...and I broke down in his arms.  I was a wreck. I hated today, because I realized how big a mess I really was.

On the way home, I found out that only...2 people knew that I was actually in "the fight". The person who was on the same side as me, and the person who we were "fighting" with. At that moment, I felt like I was back in middle school, where no one listened to me, or cared if I was there, unless...I screwed up greatly.

Now, I didn't use names, nor did I write this to call anyone out. I just needed some sort of outlet in hopes that maybe someone would listen...

So If you read this, and you know about "the fight", calm down, it wasn't a hit on you, it was my way of blowing off steam...
​

Instead of worrying about issues that don’t necessarily concern us, America should look towards changing the bigger things that do and will impact us for the generations to come. A problem lies closer to home - in our schools.

According to Death & Taxes: 2011, which happens to be the most accurate collage of government spending we will ever get our hands on, the spending towards education has gone up six percent from last year. That’s swell, but there is also a section that tells us the percentage from ten years ago to now. So, that means that the difference between 2001 and 2011 is one percent. This only lead to a total spending of almost 50 billion.

Shocking, I know. The only possible explanation would mean that our funding for the knowledge we teach has dipped down in the past decade and is now finally starting to come back up, to the highest point it’s been at in ten years. Our values our put in other departments, which may only help us on the short term.

That’s sad.

The standards for education seemed to have lowered over the years. Between wars and recessions, our children have not be given the best that this country has to offer. This lacking has resulted in schools being a place of dread, in opposed to expectation.

In Philadelphia, a ten-year-old boy punched his teacher, leaving her with a black eye and him with a minor arrest. And, just last week, that same child was found carrying a BB gun on school property. Him, among countless others, have threatened and assaulted teachers and this is pattern is one that can be spotted throughout our states.

Across the country, in Chicago, many students find that they cannot attend the schools that they were aiming for. Despite the fact that have been going to school for the fifteen years of their life, what their records show isn’t good enough. That the education they have received isn’t what colleges are looking for.

We are limited, us students. Sure, we are given an education, but the way things are going, it’s doubtful that it will get us anywhere in life. Living in a country where degrees mean everything and fewer jobs exist than the day before, it’s all about intelligence. It’s a dog eat dog out there. And, if the country that you live in fails, no one succeeds. Arne Duncan, the Secretary of Education, answered to the problem of our education by stating that now is the time to change the face of American schooling. That with the million or so teachers retiring, we need fresh, becoming educators to take their place.

And yet here we are, with no sense of reassurance, with no means of support, this country now decides that it is the best interest to improve the American meaning of education. The ten years that have passed can never be taken back - and the students who were denied the wisdom they tried to obtain can never relive their chances at success, it’s too late for them. Maybe the future holds more opportunity for change in our system, and in turn more opportunity for the youth of our nation. But for now, in this moment in time, we must focus our attention on the hole that have dug ourselves, one that will take years dig ourselves out. Look towards the future. Change the world to come if we ever want our country and our meaning of education.

We fall down; but we get up. 

Getting off train, guy pees himself

My benchmark is going okay. It more or less just finishing up my story that will determine the next step. Otherwise I know where I want it to got and what I want to do. 

SO far, my benchmark has been going well. i have created a twitter and a facebook page for my character I have also researched other blog sites to make my character.  I am close to completely most of my story and i plan to be done by the time the deadline arrives.

​Solomon Islands and Haiti

The countries that I choose where the Solomon Islands and Haiti. They are kind of the same when it comes to the problem that they have. But the only difference is that Haiti may have a little bit more to lose. The reason being you'll find out if you look at the link. The process was not all to difficult thanks to my teacher telling to try out CIA fact book. it worked well till i had to get to the hostile neighbors and the society reaction to environmental problems. For some reason they were just the hardest to find. But I did realize that when I did research that i found our book the "collapse". The frame work for it was super super straight forward. I it was easy to do so I had fun with. But it was a bit difficult so it made me think of how to work. I enjoyed the project. I would say if I could change one thing about it, it would be to have some sort of link that would help fine the last 2 questions so a person would spend their time wasted.

everytime i think about your name , it reminds me of some lady named kathy battle .
i know you hate it when i call you that but , i guess you have to deal with it because its my mouth.
oh the plenty of people who wish i couldnt talk .

My father always said he would love to live in Florida, but he didn’t like the idea of alligators and scorpions. So for all the Philadelphians who go through the terribly cold winter, wouldn’t it be nice to have a glimpse of Florida where we live? That sounds pretty amazing. Yet in reality it’s just a repeat of history.  

We all remember learning about the revolutionary war. But do we all remember learning about the mini ice age going on during the time of the war? And what about the warming period? I don’t think anyone can remember that. But it’s true. There was another period of when the earth could only take so much solar radiation and in result had global warming. In effect to global warming, the earth had a mini ice age, in which it was indeed freezing during the summer as well as winter. 

NASA has recently stated that over the last 100 years the climate change for hot weather has went up to .80 Degrees Celsius. NASA has also looked into the time frame of 2005-2011 at the amount of carbon dioxide concentration in the air. It has gone from 378 to 392. 

This carbon dioxide creates a thicker ozone layer in which traps the solar radiation that enters Earths hemisphere, and stays inside! With so much radiation, what do you feel the Earth will do? Go from a warming period to a cooling period. Great reasons for the Carbon Dioxide would have to come from burned fossil fuels. 

People continuously burn these fuels in order to have the energy we need to support our modern life styles. But it also only causes trouble for the earth’s layer of protection. Not only does carbon dioxide thicken the layer, but also other chemicals in the air deteriorates the layer in which is the result of the hole we have it in now. 

Many people find Global Climate Change not a very large problem because if the earth warms and our fresh water ice caps melt, then eventually earth will cool everything back up and the fresh water will be there and our ozone layer will be fine. Blah, Blah, Blah.

No. They’re wrong. It won’t be fine. This earth is our life and our being of which we survive. Energy might not be the simplest to try and fix but it’s a large step to a better future. People only see the face of this problem and the fact that Philadelphia may one day feel like Florida. Yet in reality, Philadelphia will one day feel like Alaska and smell like the pollution from Los Angeles, California. 

Support our living with energy conservation and better ways of production. Like saving up so your kids can use solar power or wind and water. Such things are expensive but with hard work and great minds, it can be achieved. 

Development is one of our nation’s key issues. From infrastructure like roads and schools, to educational and societal development, which allows our country to move forward. Our nation’s developmental goals allow us not only to push forward, but gives the people something to look forward to. However, this nation’s goals of development are constantly merged with the goals of other nations. Is this the right direction?

 

At the turn of the millennium, the United Nations issued an ambitious set of goals entitled the “Millennium Development Goals”, which were to insure rights for hundreds of people around the world. These goals include things like give every child a suitable education; reduce child mortality rates, and many other great things that would, theoretically, better the lives of many people. However, what’s the expense to the US, and other super-nations, left to pull the weight of these poor nations?

 

For one, this should not be taken as a justification of selfishness and excuse to become frugal and hesitant with giving, especially in major times of need, such as natural disasters. That isn’t the goal here, and that thinking will leave one nowhere. However, the belief is that one shouldn’t blame themselves for situations and predicaments that are not one’s fault, nor should we take the reigns of other nation’s problems.

 

Foreign aid is an issue that is no “foreigner” to America. In 2008, figures estimate that nearly 25 billion dollars was reserved for foreign aid. Though a percentage of these went to issues of natural disasters and universal democratic uprisings, however most of these went to those precedents set by that list theoretical dreams known as the “Millennium Development Goals”.  These goals, in the expert opinion of many, cannot be reached within the allotted goal set, which is 2015. In short, from 2000 to the present, the US has spent an approximate of 100’s of billions of dollars, for goals that the majority believes will not be reached. This proves a major waste of many taxpayers’ money and many politicians ‘ time.

 

Also, who’s to say that America has any part to play in any of this? As a nation, we have no blood on our hands, no position to blame, and therefore no legitimate reason, beyond the kindness of our hearts, to continue our continued support. However, we do, and we should, as once again, that is not the issue. However, in a time where money is tight and people are struggling to make ends meet, this “kind giving” needs to meet its limit.

Here Your Go :D

Reflection:
This project was very enlightening and I was very surprised with some of the researched I found. I decided to look at Kazakhstan because when I typed it into to google.com, it provided a lot of information I could work with unlike the other countries in Central Asia. My decision to compare it with North Korea was mainly because of my huge interest on how their country is ran, knowing that it is very hostile. My process was basically to look up the country regarding to the 5 point frame work and provide a nice overview. It was a tad difficult because in certain topics like the response, because I had to dig around the web for a good piece of information. Other than small difficulties of that sort, the project itself was, to my belief, successful.  I'm quite proud of the finishing product and the one thing I would add , not change, is the inclusiveness of live videos of both countries current state.

Thus far, I have a pretty solid outline for my project. I have mapped out the events that will happen and when they will happen on the designated social networking tool. I struggled with how I should go about presenting the story because a lot of the story consists of flash backs and considering social networking is all in the present tense, I didn't know how I should relay the information. 

​Click to view the Benchmark.

Reflection:
The countries that I selected for this benchmark are Australia and Madagascar.
My process was ok. I feel like I have more than should actually have on the benchmark. The frameworks were straightforward. The only 5 point framework that I thought was difficult was "hostile neighbors." It was kind of hard to research this particular framework because I wasn't exactly aware of where to go to find information. The other 4 frameworks weren't hard to research. The problem was choosing the best source to use information from. If I could change one thing about my product, I would lessen the amount of words that I have. I think that I wrote a lot. Overall this benchmark was not difficult, but I didn't really enjoy doing it. It took me a while to actually start the benchmark, but I hope that my finish product doesn't reflect that. Putting my project together of a Pages application was simple. I just had to make sure it was organized and the layout had to be nice. 

The two countries I chose were, The District Republic of the Congo and New Zealand.They are both located fairly far away from one another but still have warm tropical climates. New Zealand is located in Oceania, and The DR Congo is in Africa. They both have extremely different economic histories, so it was very interesting comparing the two countries.
My process consist of a lot of research! It was really hard finding good sources in order to make my project accurate. The first thing that I did was write a script for everything I wanted to say. Of coarse I followed the 5 point framework for each country so it took quite a bit of time. After I found out what I wanted to so say I began to design my presentation using pictures, and graphs to make the my research understandable. Using the framework was a little difficult at times but it was helpful, because it gave me a good structure to work with. The only one that I thought might not have been the most unnecessary was "The Societies Response to Environmental Damage", the reason I say this is because this could have been clumped together with "Environmental Damage". I felt like I was writing the same things for both points in a way.
If I could change one thing about the project I would have done a website, instead of a PDF. I say this because I think the website organized the information much better, and it looked a lot better. In the end though I am very satisfied with my project . I worked extremely hard and I hope that it is shown through my final presentation. I think that if Ms. Laufenberg were to assign this benchmark next year, she should only make it one country so that students could be thorough about what they say about the countries they choose. I felt as though I was rushing with the Congo because I spent so much time on New Zealand.

Summary-​I chose Cuba a Caribbean island south of Florida, It is currently in an embargo with the united states. My other country was Great Britain which is to the west of Europe and is the third most populated island on earth.
Overview-I looked up my countries and used the benchmark description to pull information out on slides.
Reflect-The 5 point framework was straightforward, there were some that required some thinking but it wasn't to bad.
Change-I would make it more appealing with pictures
Other-Nothing really(my computer is about to die so ill edit this later)

Benchmark:
View here.




Reflection:
For my benchmark I chose to research North Korea, East Asia, and the Philippines, Southeast Asia. When I started this project I chose my countries and then, starting with the Philippines, I went into the CIA Factbook. I started up a document where I took notes and kept links that I used for information. I then began researching the two countries, again with the Philippines first, based on the "five-point framework" from Collapse. I went through articles from trusted news sources, articles from big organizations, and sifted through everything. As I went I took down information that I thought would help my process and kept track of the links I used to find the information. After I repeated the process for North Korea, I went through each of the five points and considered all of the information on my document and I rated them based on the countries' issues and how well they were able to handle it, for example the Philippines got a low rating for climate change because climate change could devastate their environment and ability to maintain food sources but they weren't at the bottom because they're making efforts to solve this situation. When using the five-point framework I found myself having a little bit of trouble. I didn't want to rate too high or too low and I wanted to make sure I was honestly taking different parts of each topic into consideration and not just surface level knowledge, like that North Korea has a high rate of water pollution; I also considered the effects and the weight of those effects on things like survival, economy and trade. So, rating took a little bit of time. If I could change one thing about my product I would add more diagrams, not just information and pictures of things that are being done, but statistics, diagrams and charts because they get a lot of information out in a tiny bit of space which would have saved me some writing.

 My Website

In this project I portrayed myself as a blogger who interviews officials from other countries over the internet about whether or not they will collapse.

Reflection:
        The two countries I've chosen was Cambodia and Pakistan. Cambodia, located in south east asia, I've always been interested in however knew very little of them and Pakistan I've always seen in the news however didn't know why, so I wanted to see if they were on the brinks of collapse. Originally I was going to do a "Hard Ball" type presentation, however last minute I due to lighting situations, and me being very tired lately I've decided to do the "Sleepy kid" who skypes with officials from other countries.
        My process of my project was simple, look up the information needed and rate it. Since I did an online blogger video I was able to make a script as I went to give it more of a "live" vibe to it. At first I used to the CIA factbook and that was no help to me in the beginning. Then I later went back to look at it again and it was a more than enough help for me when I had more patience to actually go through it, so it gave me more of a better ground for what I was looking for. It was like Ms.Laufenberg said "It's where you can start but it's not where you are going to end."
       For this project we went through the five point framework related to collapse, which made it all the more simpler. Knowing what I was looking for in 5 easy steps made this benchmark a lot less complicated and easier to present. Thinking back now on this project I would change one thing, and the only mistakes I made and that was doing the wrong country. Instead of Cambodia I was suppose to do the country of Columbia from my current South American region. I am confident I was still able to portray everything correctly, however that is my only flaw.