Self – Reflection

1)      When we had first started blogging, I was not really looking forward to it. I thought it was just going to be writing essays but doing it online. I didn’t think it would be as fun as it was. We had done our wikispaces, but for those we did not choose our own topics. When you told us that we were going to do it for ourselves, and you would not be guiding us with what we write about in my mind I thought to myself how am I going to think about what to write? What do I do this on? Many questions went through my head. I think that it was better to do blogging because people are able to comment on what we do, we are able to show our work to the outside world. Many people are recognized with small little things like this. Many people out there are reading our blogs. If they notice an outstanding job, they could email the person. It starts out with a hand held diary, to a stack of written work, to a portfolio, to a blog. And from there it goes on, once you are exposed anything could happen. A load of inspiring things have happened to people who start of with something so small, and they end up being professional in whatever they do. I think you chose for us to do blogs so we are able to be more independent. As we had to choose all of our topics on our own. Also when we do traditional writing activities, our peers are not able to read what we did. They are not capable of seeing our talents that we all have hidden inside of us. Teachers see them everyday, but other students don’t. Having an online blog, we are online all the time. We can look at other peoples work, and comment on what they did so they can improve. We all help each other as one. After a while, teachers get used to our work and the comments are the same. As students are able to see our work they can give us feedback that students notice and teachers don’t. Also with blogging we are able to have fun. We can decorate our blog, put videos, put pictures, etc. This makes the assignment much more fun to do, and shows our creativeness. With blogging a lot more comes out of us then as to when we do a normal assignment. Personally, I prefer blogs much more than traditional paper and pen writing.

 2)      During blogging, I didn’t think that I had accomplished much. I did my blogs, and went on with it. When I thought about it, I had realized that there is much more to it then writing and moving on. I accomplished a more efficient skill in writing, I know this for sure. My grades were well rounded to 95% or higher. Compared to when I look back at my pieces of writing I have improved greatly. When blogging I had to gain a sense of independence. It wasn’t just writing, I had to be able to think about what I want to blog about. Not only did I have to choose my overall subject but also my sub topics. We didn’t get a lot of help on the blog, if not any. As the blogs took a lot of effort into them, I had to be able to multi-task. We have had a lot of homework this past quarter. And I had to evenly spread out the importance of all tasks. I did this by starting things the day I was assigned it. This helped me keep everything on time. I gained the knowledge of the other angle to writing; I saw the more fun side of it. I always thought it was boring, but as blogs made it more fun. I learnt that not all writing has to be in complicated ways. I will explain this more in depth in the next question. I don’t know if this counts as an accomplishment but I was able to hand in everything on time, not because of the way I handled my time, but also the effort I put into my work. It made me more confident to hand it in. When we started blogging I made myself a promise and made sure that I will be able to get all A’s on my blogs. And so far with the 5 that I have handed in I have gotten A’s. This could be considered as an accomplishment. I am quite consistent with my work, but this quarter was much harder so personally I am proud of myself. I don’t know about other people but I know I am.

 3)      While blogging, I learnt a lot about a various range of things, including technology, writing, and myself. I had always thought of myself as a computer brainiac. But blogging hit me in the face with the real answer to that. The first few blogs we had done were quite easy, and they were on the down low. But when we got to about the fourth one I had realized I need to fish these up a bit. They were plain and unattractive. I learnt that not everything seems to be as easy as it looks. Especially when dealing with technology, things go wrong at the last minute and you get really frustrated and irritated which affects the quality of your work. This happened when I was trying to get my cluster map in the correct place, it was in the middle of my blog and with this you would not be able to read what I had written. I thought you were also marking us for picture usage, and the overall look of our blog. So I put a great load of effort into this, and it usually didn’t work out the way I wanted it to, so I went to Google and searched “How do I?” which really helped me out. When it came to writing I learnt a lot about the sentence structure, I was completely confused when you had introduced it to us. I had no clue what to do, so I just wrote randomly. And happened to end up with a few of each. When it came to compound complex I had to use my knowledge of what we had learnt before to compile it together. This is when I had a hard time, but when I put the effort I needed to put in, I got it. It turned out to be quite easy. When it came to learning more about myself, I learnt I was a pretty good writer. When you had given us weekly requirements I was really able to focus on them and do my best on that area. I learnt that when given specifics it was easy for me to portray them in my writing. As to when just told to free write I do a bit of everything. As I said I will explain more about the complications of writing. I had always thought writing was complicated and you had to be skilled to do well in it, but blogging showed me that anyone can be a skilled writer, if you try. As I look through this answer all of it relates to putting effort and trying your best. As it leads to my overall thought of if you try anything can be succeeded.

4) I probably do not realize it but I probably apply many of the things that I have learned with other things. I know for sure that I will be able to use the information that I had researched to educate more people. Most likely this would not happen but people are able to notice my work and even link it to their sites, and as we know out internet life is like one big family. Once it’s on their, its basically shown to everyone. In school, later on in my English classes I will be a better writer. Practice will make you better, and with the practice I got with blogging I know I improved. Also with the fact that I learnt about effort and time consuming I will be able to use my time more wisely with further projects and assignments. Though I did not mention it, I learnt a lot about qualification of certain research pieces and when you know if the information is reliable. This will help me as I know now how to check if I should be able to use the information. While blogging I had to make sure I had good information, and not just put random facts that I see when the page pops up. For further projects I will be able to help other people when they choose information, and especially my self. I know many people just use wikipedia which is a good first source to use, but when comparing it with other sites a lot of their facts are incorrect. Hopefully I won’t run into a lot of problems with invalid information.

Eating Disorders

Many teenagers think way too much about their image, it get’s to a point where it can effect their health, many of the health issues take place because of peer images. When kids see other friends skinnier them it hits their mind that they are not right, they get thoughts that other people are better than them so they break down and end up with a eating disorder.

     Eating disorders are more than just going on a diet, or losing weight, they are intense behaviors in eating, leading to a diet that never ends. About 5 million Americans undergo a type of eating disorder, such as Anorexia, Bulimia or Binge Eating. About 95 percent of sufferers are female. The most common types of eating disorder are anorexia nervosa and bulimia nervosa, which are also known as just Anorexia and Bulimia. Even though Anorexia and Bulimia are the most common, the other eating related disorders are showing up more frequently than they used to, which is harming out teenage population drastically. Many teenagers are not used to handling big issues, such as joining a new school, the death of a close one, family issues and so on, all of these things cause feelings of low self-esteem. Though many teenagers do suffer from eating disorders, mostly being energetic people, so they deny the fact of having a problem. They are actually so common in America that 1 or 2 out of every 100 students will struggle with one. It doesn’t seem like many but it really affects one person, and to go back to normal it needs extreme medical help.

     Anorexia is an extreme eating disorder which gives people the desire to be extremely thin, or having a certain body image, resulting in not being able to maintain a normal body weight. They do this but controlling their food ingestion by dieting, fasting, or too much exercise. They barely eat at all. People with Anorexia are called Anorexic. Anorexic people tend to do something called binge eating, where they eat a lot of food and then try to get rid of the calories; they do this by forcing themselves to vomit. It is a horrid thing to do to ones self, but people cannot stop themselves once they start.

     Bulimia is another eating disorder that involves frequent bingeing, it is gross when you think about it, but it results in them losing weight which is what they want. People with bulimia tend to hide what they do, Bulimic people are usually ashamed of their behavior, but they cant stop since they are mentally into the process. Not only mentally, but socially and physically. But when you look at a Bulimic person you cannot detect that they have the disorder, unlike anorexic people. Bulimia can cause permanent damage to the teeth, stomach, and heart. Which are all important parts of our body.

     Treatment of these types of disorders usually includes working with a team of specialist such as a therapist, a nutritionist, or a physiologist. Treatment is different for every teenager. For people who think that their image is not right, be happy with who you are, we were all made different for a reason. Stay strong.  

http://kidshealth.org/teen/exercise/problems/eat_disorder.html#

http://www.youngwomenshealth.org/eating_disorders.html

Online Predators

The wonderful technology of internet that us teenagers are revealed to can come in handy yet still can also expose us to many dangerous situations. Everyday we are linked with millions of people we don’t know, and unfortunately many of those people use the internet to do inappropriate things.

A lot of us are online for hours of the day and don’t realize that there are many places that we go onto that could ruin our lives. Dangerous people exist all across the world, but on the internet is a major place for them to do things. We are able to go on chat rooms, emails, instant-messengers etc. which allows these people to be able to communicate with young people easily. On chat rooms it allows these people to disguise their identity, which allows them to pretend to be a child and find out information.

Saul Dos Reis, David Fuller, are two child molesters who used the Internet to meet their victims. No one really knows why they do things like this; some people are thought to be sick in the head to do such a thing. Many parents are not home to see what their children do online, and many of us are not aware of the dangers that we can get into.

A disturbing story that I read I had to bring to this blog:  A 13-year-old girl in Minneapolis, Minnesota, met Joel Rensberger in a chat room. After a telephone conversation, she agreed to meet him, thinking that he was 18. The eighth grader told police that Rensberger took her to a motel. Once they got there she said he gave her a video game to play and some wine coolers to drink. Rensberger then raped her while she struggled to push him away and told him to stop. After he raped her, he took her home. She didn’t know any better. This is only one of the 1000’s of cases that occur every single day. They get much worse than this; young teens are even killed starting from an online conversation to a so called “dinner”. Our lives are in danger. But I have realized that in the past few years, the awareness of online safety has increased. In my old school in Canada, we had a group come talk to us about the dangers of the internet. They had given us real life situations that happened which made us all scared about being in that type of problem.

There are many precautions we can take to avoid ending up in harmful situations, which will help our teen population. For our parents, one thing that will help is keeping the computer in a central place where parents can see what we are doing. Don’t give away any personal information to people you do not know. Also, don’t talk to anyone that seems like they are doing something fishy. A good thing that gave me an idea of how many things happen around the world through the internet I went online and searched stories. They alerted me, and I know for a fact I don’t want to be in the shoes of those poor kids, and I’m sure you don’t either. Make sure you use the internet wisely, don’t take advantage of the opportunities that we have. And if anything seems out of place, tell an adult so you don’t end up regretting the choices you chose.

Teens Knotted up in Violence

        Teen violence is something that we don’t regularly acknowledge directly, yet it still affects many people just like you and me. It includes many different sorts of things, like bullying, gangs, child abuse, suicide, and rape; all of them being harmful, some leading to suicidal thoughts, and suicidal actions.

 Many of us have been in situations where we have been bullied even though bullying bullied is an awful time to be in. Bullying includes a wide variety of actions, although all forms of bullying involve a person harming another person who is weaker or defenseless. Kids are bullied in ways such as hitting, threatening, name-calling, sexual remarks, stealing or damaging belongings etc.; bullies often use more clever and sneaky ways such as spreading rumors. Bullies tend to bully people because they have their own problem that they don’t know how to deal with or they don’t like the person. Bullying can get so serious that people get beat up, and even end up committing suicide. Almost 30 percent of teens in the United States which is over 5.7 million are estimated to be involved in school bullying. And in every single case of it someone gets hurt. Many forms of bullying get so severe that the kids end up killing themselves, which is also known as suicide.

Suicide is the act of killing yourself intentionally. Many teenagers go through so much trouble in their lives that they can’t take it anymore, so they kill themselves. A killer statistic shows us that in 2001, 11 people between the ages of 10-14 committed suicide each day. This is back in 2001, the violence rate in our society has increased drastically; an increased violence rate means an increased suicide rate. Every single day eleven people kill themselves, knowing that is one of the most disturbing things. Many kids are exposed to firearms around the house, when in a depressed mood firearms just encourage you even more to kill yourself. Teenagers do many ignorant things that they have been pushed to do, for example drugs. When it gets to the point where they can’t take it anymore they get so sad and annoyed they take there lives. This is all because of someone who forced them to do something.

Another major exposure of teen violence is gangs; gangs shatter the innocent lives of teenager’s everyday. Every day we see stories on TV and the news telling us how gang violence interrupts teenage lives and leaves a trail of blood and sorrow in family’s lives.  I read a story online a young boy joined a gang at the age of 9. He though it was fun, he grew up in the gang and at the age of 13 he was shot by a rival gang member. How could you do such a thing? He’s an innocent child that made a mistake in his early childhood, and it lead to him getting killed. Not only are gangs located in big cities but also in rural areas. The violence has spread all over our world. Gangs do things like rob places, have fights, sell drugs, sell stolen goods etc. Most gang leaders get the youngest members to do the bad things. Here are some bothering facts that I found about gangs:  

• About 7 percent of teens say they belong to gangs
• Gang members usually range in age from 12 to 25 years old. The average age is 17.
• Many large gangs have members of several age and ethnic groups. Some gangs may have specific ethnic groups, while other gangs contain only white members.
• About 20 percent of all teens know someone who was killed or injured by gang members.

I was quite amazed after reading those, and I’m pretty sure you were as well. As you can see, three out of the many things that cause violence and harm to our teenage population. Thanks to the awareness around our world, hopefully we will be able to decrease the amount of issues we are in.

Sources : http://www.teensuicide.us/articles1.html

http://www.familyfirstaid.org/bullying.html

http://library.thinkquest.org/06aug/00344/suicide.html

Slow Teenage Killer : Smoking

When starting this blog, I knew I had to choose something interesting. Something that I know will interest people. I chose something that does not only interest me, but aggravates me at the same time. Adolescent Smoking.

We have all been in a position where we have felt down, gloomy or irritated. Many people assume that the correct thing to do is to go and smoke. Why would you do such a thing to yourself? It’s bizarre. A countless number of kids out there are being influenced by their older siblings that parents think are dependable. To me, I know for sure that being dependable does not mean giving your younger sibling a cigarette. When a kid walks down the street and observes someone smoking, that’s the first time in a day, and then they watch television, and watch a show with someone smoking. It’s just promoting them to make an attempt to try it. There are ridiculous statistics out there about adolescent smoking, I was shocked, worried and wanted to make a change. In fact I was thinking to myself, why would people even bother doing it? I just don’t understand. I repetitively think about it, but I just fail to find the answer. It irritates me. Day by day kids are putting them selves in hazardous situations.

Not only does smoking affect you physically, but also psychologically. I wonder, why do they even sell cigarettes? They have a sign saying “this will cause cancer,” well then if it does why even sell it? I just laugh every time I see the signs above a whole box of cigarettes saying “Lung Cancer”. As a matter a fact, teenage lungs are much more delicate than adults. It is much easier to ruin our lungs. It does horrid things to body such as, causes you bad breathe, bad skin, reduced athletic performance etc. As well, when you see a person smoking particularly a teenager it just looks disgusting, horrid, revolting, the way they intoxicate themselves with the chemicals inside it. Inside a cigarette there are numerous toxins that do different damages to the body. The major ingredients are Tobacco and Nicotine. Nicotine is the drug that gets people addicted to cigarettes. Not only does it cause you to be addicted but is also causes high blood pressure. I have looked all over the internet and I have not found ONE positive thing about smoking. But yet still so many people do it, including teenagers.

I had a few of my close friends who used to smoke. I saw how addicted they were to it. At times they were so bad-tempered when they weren’t able to smoke. Two of the three have quit. Well at least that’s what they told me. The hardest part of starting smoking is the quitting part. The Nicotine is what causes this. Now time for the appalling statistics on Adolescent Smoking. We all knew that teenagers out there smoke, but I didn’t know it was to this extent. 

Did you know?

• Each day, nearly 6,000 children under 18 years of age start smoking
• At least 4.5 million U.S. adolescents are cigarette smokers
• Most teenagers report that they want to quit but are not able to do so
• Cigarette advertisements tend to advertise youth strength, sexual attraction and independence themes
• If the rate of tobacco production persists, an estimated 6.4 million children will die from a smoking-related disease
• According to a 2001 national survey of high school students, the overall popularity of current cigarette use was 28%.
• 5.5 percent of 8th graders smoke cigarettes daily, in the states.  

5.5 percent? Is that a joke or something? 5.5 percent of 8th grade? That’s 13, 14, and sometimes 15 year olds. I cannot believe this. We are obliged to to make a change and spread the awareness somehow. Smoking is a dreadful thing, and is unhurriedly taking over the health of our population. Do NOT be one of the people. 

http://www.lungusa.org/site/pp.asp?c=dvLUK9O0E&b=39868

http://kidshealth.org/teen/drug_alcohol/tobacco/smoking.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cigarettes

A Ball and Hoop

Enjoyable, exciting, and cooperative.  Three words to portray a wonderful sport like Basketball.  Basketball is a very popular sport played around the world. It is played by all ages. Most of you know how basketball is played and the basics so I won’t go into the boring details. It is important for teenagers to exercise. Now days a typical teenager spends almost 30 hours a week in front of the computer or T.V, while eating high-fat snacks. Exercise could mean walking to a store and back, just as long as you’re not sitting doing nothing. An easy way to have fun and same time exercise is by playing a sport such as Basketball.

Basketball was created in December of 1891 by Dr. James Naismith. I was quite amazed on how it came across his mind. Apparently he was looking for an indoor game for his P.E class to play. He started off with a small basket on a pole called the peach basket. When a point was scored someone would have to go and get the ball out of the basket, to come to think of it, that must have been a pain. As time past people made a hole at the bottom of the basket so the ball could go through. These baskets were used until 1906, so it was the same for about 15 years until in 1906 they were finally replaced by metal hoops with backboards.

Right now, the major basketball league is the NBA which stands for the National Basketball Association. This is the men’s league. It contains 30 teams, 15 from the Eastern Conference and 15 from the Western Conference. Every year, the NBA holds a national dunk-off. It is an amazing thing to watch. It in once a year and amazing dunks happen. For those of you who don’t know what a dunk is, here is a video of one of the greatest dunks ever seen. Nate Robinson at the height of 5’9 jumped of Dwight Howard who is 6’11. It was unbelievable.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BuWqluTCSc4 . Also they have the playoff around this time of year where all the teams play against each other and round robins until the final two teams face. For girls out there who would like to pursue their dreams of playing on a national team, there is the WNBA, which stands for Women’s National Basketball Association. It is the same as men’s league except the ball is smaller. The NBA is more widely spread and known around then the NBA.

For a typical game of basketball with just friends, all you really need is a basketball and a hoop. There are many variations of games that you can play. A standard game is played with five players on the court, each having a specific position. When just playing around, you can play 4 vs. 4, 3 vs. 3, 2 vs. 2, or even 1 on 1. Games like “H.O.O.P.S,” where one person does a skill and the rest have to try and copy are just fun games to play to practice on skills. I enjoy playing basketball with friends and family just to enjoy it. I don’t take it seriously though.

            So get out there, have some fun, and play some basketball. Make sure you keep yourself hydrated as you will be doing a lot of running around.

Fun Facts

·     Basketball became an official Olympic event at the Summer Games in Berlin, Germany in 1936

·     The Boston Celtics have won the most NBA championships being 17, including seven in a row from 1960 to 1966

·     Current Atlanta Hawks coach Lenny Wilkins has won more basketball games than any other coach.

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