Journal #10

Wellll this blog is about Science versus Religion. I suppose I could type about the Puritans and the Enlightenment/Great Awakening, but I really hate anything to do with Puritans. I also really hate anything to do with religion. I am so sick of writing about nonstop religion and Puritans, and I think always having to type about them just makes me hate them even more. I get even more junk about Puritans thrown at me during AP US History. I can't wait until we finally start learning about something else. This being said, I am going to type about my own personal opinion of science versus religion.
I do not really care if a person supports science or religion as long as they do not try to push their beliefs on me. I am pretty sure I was just talking about this in my last blog. I think people who support religion are more likely to try to push their beliefs on you. Like I said in my last blog, I know a lot of people who would openly criticize someone for not supporting their religion. What I mean is that if I was to say, "Oh well I think evolution is just a little bit more believable" the person would start to lecture me on why I was wrong and why I should not think that. I do not like people who do not respect other peoples' opinions. I find that people who are not very religious are less likely to try to push their beliefs onto others. I know that there are people out there that will try to push their scientific religion onto someone, but I have not personally encountered someone like that. I think that if someone was to try and preach their scientific religion to me, I would react the same way as if they were preaching their Christianity to me. I really hate religion in any form, it doesn't matter if it's Atheism or Christianity, I just hate it.

Puritan Project! Yeahhhhh

This is my Puritan Project!

Journal #9

I do not like religion, so I do not have a lot to say in this journal. I do not care if someone is a Catholic, Buddhist, Atheist, or any other sort of organized religion. I do care, however, if they try to push their religion onto me. I do not like the type of people who will not accept any other religion besides their own. For instance, I know a girl who will go crazy and start preaching to you about God if you even mention that you are not a Christian. I do not like people who try to push their beliefs onto someone else. I believe people should have a right to believe in whatever they want to without being criticized. It should not matter to other people what someone else worships. I do not understand why religion has to be such a big deal.

This being said, I would have the absolute worst time living back in Puritan times. I would not want to worship God like all of the other Puritans because I prefer to just me a neutral person when it comes to religion. I suppose I would be an Agnostic person. If I was around during the Salem Witch Trials, I am almost entirely certain that I would be labeled a witch then burned at the stake.

In Act IV, John Proctor is sentenced to execution. His confession came too late in the situation. Elizabeth could not back up his story because she had already made up one of her own to go along with. Reverend Hale also spent some time trying to convince people that if they were involved in witchcraft, they should confess now to help release their sins. I found The Crucible to be somewhat of an odd book. It was really short, which I liked, and it was easy to read as well. I did not like a lot of the characters, though, because many of them were hypocritical.

Journal #8

I thought that the video was clever, but not really as funny as the comedian wanted it to be, I think. Maybe it was only me who didn't find the video all that funny because I don't usually enjoy crude humor. I think he made a good point about proofreading, though. I think people rely too much on their computer being able to recognize their mistakes then fix them. I think almost everybody uses Microsoft Word these days, and people rely heavily on the little zigzag lines under their mistakes. The red zigzag lines indicate a mistake, which I find helpful; however, a lot of the time people will just go through and use the first suggested word, which may not be the one they originally wanted. This is one of the points that the comedian made, I think. It was a little hard to understand him, but I know that he meant for it to be that way. Another valid point he made is that the computer will not add in a word if you forgot it. I've experienced that so many times when I type papers. I'll review it, then realize that I left out the main subject of the sentence. I usually will laugh at how horrible the sentence looks, then I will either fix it or improve it. I think a lot of the time I do not notice my mistakes, though. I will scan my paper and just skim right over it because I do not see it. I think it's because a lot of my mistakes are just accidentally spelling something wrong. Then that weird mind thing mixes me up, if you've heard of it. Where if a word starts with the right letter and ends with the right letter, it doesn't matter how the words in the middle are spelled. Lkie tihs, and tihs is werhe msot of my msitkeas cmoe form. It's ralely furtrstinag, but I apcect it.

Journal #7

I do not follow any superstitions. I am not a superstitious person, I never have been. I can't write about any superstitions I follow since I don't have any, but I can type about how when I was little I would follow superstitions just for fun. For example, I remember the rhyme "step on a crack, break your mother's back". I'm not sure that would be a superstition, but when I was little I still made sure to jump over all the cracks in the sidewalk. I only did that when I remembered the rhyme, but that's as close as I can get to being superstitious. I think superstitions are pointless. I don't know what else to type about since I don't believe any superstitions! I'll just talk about the different types of superstitions, I suppose.
I think the superstition I hear about most is walking under ladders. I can not remember what the consequences of doing that are, but I know it had something to do with having bad luck for however many years. I can understand why you should not walk under one because it's dangerous, but I do not believe it would give you bad luck.
I think the saying about a black cat crossing your path giving you bad luck is even more ridiculous than the ladder superstition. At least walking under a ladder is potentially dangerous so there is some logic to it. Having a black cat cross your path could not harm you whatsoever, even if it had some disease and tried to attack you. Cats are puny.
Another superstition is if you break a mirror it is seven years of bad luck. This superstition has a little logic behind it, as well. I do not think it would give you bad luck, but it is dangerous, just like the ladder situation. If you break a mirror you will more than likely get hurt, and maybe people take that as bad luck. There are many other superstitions, but these are the three that I remember the most.

Journal #6

I do not think anything good can come out of blaming someone for something they did not do. It's not ever a good idea to pin the blame on someone else for a lot of reasons. One reason would be that if your parents or teacher, whoever is upset with you, found out that you blamed someone else instead of manning up to it, you would probably be in even more trouble than if you had told the truth in the first place. Honesty is always the best way to go in a situation like that, I think. The punishment is always worse when you don't tell the truth.
If the person you blamed was your friend, then I doubt that they would want to be your friend after blaming them for something they didn't do. Blaming something on a friend is almost like stabbing them in the back. It would be different if they voluntarily took the blame for you, though. If your friend took the blame for you on their own, I think that would make them an even better friend because they are willing to take the blame for you. But if they didn't, I do not know any person who would want to stay friends with not someone who would blame something on them. I know that if one of my friends blamed one of their mistakes on me, I would be incredibly angry. I would confront them about what they did, then I would stop talking to them. But I think it also depends on what the person is blaming you for. If they were blaming you for breaking something then that's annoying, but if they blame you for stealing something from a store, then that would be something to worry and be angry about because that's a serious matter that could get you in jail. This would be another repercussion of not taking the blame.
Another result of not taking the blame would be it would cause the people around you to avoid you. If people found out that you lied about something you did, they would lose respect for you.

Journal #5

I think that taking away cellphones and games are pretty good punishments for the 21st century. Most kids these days are connected to their cellphones at all times, and I think they need to become accustomed to not having it around all the time. I really dislike the type of people who are texting when they are with another person, watching a concert, or are in the middle of a conversation. I can understand if it's important, but most of the time it isn't. I think those people really deserve to have their phone taken away when they get in trouble. I think the same goes for people who are addicted to online games like World of Warcraft or whatever other games are online, I don't even know the names of them. The same goes for kids who are addicted to xbox or playstation. I think kids should go outside at least for a little bit if it's nice outside. It would do them some good to get their games taken away.
Not everybody plays games or texts all the time, but I think a good majority of kids, teenagers especially, do. If they don't text or play games, then chances are they have a facebook that they are on all the time. I do not know how a parent would be able to take away their facebook unless they took away their whole laptop, which would also be a good punishment. That makes me think of another good punishment. The parents could put time restraints of the internet, or they could just unplug the router and hide it in their room or something. I have a friend who had that happen to him, but I don't think ti lasted for very long. I think parents these days are best off taking any technology away from their children because almost every kid has some form of connection to it. If they aren't attatched to any technology, then I think just grounding them from their friends for a weekend would suffice.

Journal #4

My family goes on a lot of vacations, so I'm just going to try and talk about a couple of the best ones. Every year I go to California to visit my Mom's side of the family. My grandparents life in Ventura, and my Aunt and two Uncles live in San Diego. I am just going to sort of summarize all the good times I've had as a while instead of talking about each individual trip to California. We always inevitably go to the beach, and we usually try to go to the Ventura Farmer's Market. My mom loves to buy organic foods from local market areas, so we always make sure to go every time. When I was younger my grandparents would take my sister and I to SeaWorld. I think going to SeaWorld so often made me want to be a Marine Biologist for half of my life. SeaWorld had a larger impact on me that I thought.
Another really exciting Vacation that I have been on was a cruise to a bunch of the little islands below Puerto Rico. I'm not sure I can remember all of the names of the islands, but from what I do remember, I visited Antigua, St. Martin, St. Lucia, Barbados, St. Thomas, and I can't remember the last one. I feel like it was Topolobampo, but I think that's a city in Mexico I went to. My memory is atrocious. Anyway, while on vacation we did a lot of sight seeing, and I was surprised at the living conditions of a lot of the people. There were a lot of little shacks all over the place. There were a couple really nice houses, but those belonged to either rich people or important people. I remember one of the most extravagant houses belonged to the governor of Barbados. I think this vacation impacted me a lot because it made me realize how fortune I am to have a good home.

Journal #3

If I was held hostage, I would feel either terrified or angry. I don't think I would cry, but I would definitely be really afraid. I think it would also depend on the type of person who kidnapped me. If the person who kidnapped me looked like a serial killer, I would be really scared. I imagine a serial killer to be buff, have a lot of scars, and tattoos. I know that's really stereotypical for a serial killer, but that's just how I imagine one to be. If my kidnapper was some old pedophile man, I'm not sure if I'd be more afraid or more relieved. I would be relieved because since it was an old man, it would be easier to get away because I would be more athletic than him since I would be younger. I am actually really terrified of pedophiles or even people who look like pedophiles. Old men with mustaches remind me of pedophiles. Actually, I think mustaches in general are a little pedophile-ish.
How afraid I would be would also depend on if the kidnapper had a weapon. If they had a gun or a knife, I think I would be more compliant and I would not try to escape. If they did not have a weapon, I would definitely try to escape. I would probably test out that break-someone's-nose trick that Sandra Bullock did on Miss Congeniality. I would probably try to escape from whatever the used to bound me, then run for my life.
If escaping was not an option, I would probably try to charm them out of kidnapping me. I would be really nice and sincere even though they would be holding my hostage. I would just try to be as nice as possible to see if maybe they would feel guilty about kidnapping me and let me go. I highly doubt that would work, but I think it would be worth a shot if it was my last resort.