Senior reflection 3

I can't believe senior year is ending. In the last four years of my life I've grown up and changed so much. I remember starting the first day not knowing anyone and being so scared and it's actually amazing how different I am and feel now. I feel like I've made serious headway on the road to becoming an adult and I can't wait for the challenges and opportunities college is going to bring me. The biggest thing I learned from high school is that the best way to go through life is to look at everything as a possible success and as an opportunity. I look at myself and I simply see a happier person more prepared then I ever thought I would be for what is going to come. I'm ready for what's going to come next and I can't believe how far I've come, but I'll always remember what I'm leaving  behind and the effort it took to get here. Goodbye Herndon :) you've been great, but I'm ready to move on.

“Pink Slime” Rejected by Most of Nation’s Schools is a disgusting article about the pink slime that was being served in cafiterias all over America. I don't really understand the big deal. In the article it says that the pink slime isn't even dangerous (duh) and that it just looks gross. I mean, if we were to see all of the food we eat prepared most of it probably looks pretty gross before it gets to our plate. Apparently there are three states: Iowa, South Dakota, and Nebraska; that are still going to continue buying the slime and I say all power to them. People know those lunches aren't healthy, but they buy them because they're cheap and easy. What doesn't kill you makes you stronger. All these complaining mothers are making it so that people can't learn to suck it up and build character. A little slime never hurt anyone. 

In this article it talks about the book by Dan Ariely called The Honest Truth about Dishonesty in which he makes the conjecture that people in most cases lie in order to make themselves feel better, but also beniffit by cheating and as such we actually trick ourselves in order to make ourselves believe that we're not actually cheaters. This means that, for example, given a test with two possible ways to cheat: looking at your neighbors paper or looking up and "accientally" seeing the answer key to the test on the teacher's desk, most people would look at the key and then convince themselves that they weren't actually cheating as the key was sitting in front of them. I thought this was actually really interesting because just a few weeks ago my Dad and I were in an airport with Mr. Hannon when these two guy who were on a waiting list to get on the plane went and asked the lady behind the desk if they could see the list of names of people waiting for the seats. The lady said no as she said the names list was confidential and the two men kind of huffed and then went back to their seats. A few minutes later the lady was called away for something and all of the sudden I saw the two men run up to the desk and start blowing really hard. They were actually blowing the papers off the list so they could see the names as if that was somehow less wrong then simply reaching over and moving the papers. Too funny. This is exactly what this man was talking about. Crazy. 

According to an article by Grant Schulte, Iowan farmers are having to remove layers upon layers of sand from their farms after a flood of the Mississippi river covered their farms. It's actually a pretty big problem as the sand has to be removed before any of the plants can hope to grow again as sand doesn't have the necessary nutrients for plants to grow. When I read this article I was a little shocked. If I was an Iowan farmer I would be really surprised/angry to wake up one day and find my field covered in sand rendering everything useless. I hope that they are able to remove all the sand quickly and that it doesn't cause irreparable damage. I think it's hard as a Farifax County student to understand what it is like to grow plants for a living and as such it is difficult to truly understand what these farmers are going through, but I know that what's at stake here is their livelihood and it's kind of scary to think about.

Fit to Fat to Fit

In the article from Yahoo this morning, "Fit to Fat to Fit," a personal trainer gained 75 pounds and then lost it all again in order to see what his clients were feeling when they were trying to loose the weight. Though he was able to loose all 75 pounds in six months after returning to his regular habits, this shows how easy it is to gain weight and makes you think about the obesity epidemic that's sweeping the nation. Personally, I think it would be more benificial to try to work towards stopping poverty than to work towards limiting the amount/kind of food people can buy.

Senior Reflection 2

I'm sitting here in biology trying to write my second senior reflection. I just wrote a senior letter in english this morning and it was pretty intense. I would do that here, but it's public. I want to go to Africa this summer :). Hopefully I'll go from the 8th to the 20th then go to workcamp from the 21st to the 27th. Then I'll go to college and everything will be awesome. I gotta tie up all the loose ends before I go tho. I'm ready to move on, but I'm going to miss everyone and everything I'm going to have to leave behind.

Senior Reflection 1

I'm not really sure what I'm supposed to write here, but I might want to look back on my life sometime so I guess I'll detail my plans for the future. This August I'll be getting on a plane for South Florida where I hope to double major in biology and psychology with a pre-med concentration. I'm not really sure what kind of clubs I want to do yet, but I know that I want to get involved. If theres something I learned from switching schools its that trying to integrate yourself in a school where you don't participate in any clubs is impossible. And you're just happier when you're involved. Yup :)