South Dakota Mission Trip

This summer I am going 0n a mission trip to South Dakota with my church. I am not exactly sure what we will be doing there but I am pretty sure we are going to be helping at a green house and helping on an indian reservation. It is one of the poorest regions of the United States and we will also be helping build new houses and put roofs on houses etc. I will keep you updated when we actually go to do it :)


~Mildred

Procrastination

Procrastination is a terrible thing, it is what has led me to this, writing a blog post at 9:52 at night...The fact that teachers don't understand the meaning of end of the year also doesn't help when they pile on the assignments and extra work. Seriously I have so many projects going on in classes right now and I just put everything off until the last minute when I am cramming to get things done. Let alone dealing with other things in life let's just say I am ready for school to be over!!! ahha

~Mildred

Facebook...a mindless waste of time? I THINK NOT!

According to an article by Joe Crawford Facebook and other social networking sites may not be as much of a waste of time as people assume. You always hear oh, you are wasting your time on the internet, the internet is killing your brian cells, you are making yourself dumb by watching those youtube videos. But what about when you are talking on the phone, or when you are emailing a friend those are just as time wasting as facebook is but they do the exact same things, they allow you to connect with people and communicate with them at a more personal level and they help you stay in touch with people.

A team or researchers conducted a study of over 800 individuals and watched them as they interacted on social networking sites such as facebook and myspace. They found that teenagers not only interact with one another on these sites, they also express themselves creatively, flirt, develop relationships, and learn basic technical skills all at the same time. In face this type of stuff isn't rotting their brains at all it is actually necessary for normal brain development. Of course there are some down sides to internet use like child soliciting online, privacy factors, etc etc but from the evidence the benefits far outweigh the costs. So the next time your mom or dad or whatever gets on your case about wasting away online just make sure to tell them hey!!! I need this for normal brian development, get off my back ;P

"It may look like kids are wasting a lot of time online, but they're actually
learning a lot of social, technical and also media literacy skills," said Mizuko
Ito, a researcher at the University of California, Irvine who led the study."

~Mildred

Silent Mutations

Initially scientists believed that if a proteins makeup ended up being correct any small glitches in the process leading to its construction could not do a body harm. This was proved wrong eventually though. Point mutations, which are single letter changes to the DNA, can change a codon to one that specifies the wrong amino acid or to a stop signal, which makes the last protein shortened. A single base change can also change a stop codon so that it encodes an amino acid making the protein longer. Yet another change is possible, a mutation that alters a nucleotide but yields a synonymous codon. This is called a “silent mutation”. These silent mutations were called silent mutations because they weren’t known to do any harm or cause any damages to the body or cause any diseases. It wasn’t until the 1980’s that scientists realized that silent mutations could affect protein production in bacteria and yeast. They found out that the genes in the bacteria did not use synonymous codons in equal numbers. They soon found out that cells were using certain codons because those codons enhanced the rate or accuracy of protein synthesis. Scientists then found out that our bodies do show a bias for certain codons. So scientists thought for many years that these findings had nothing to do with silent mutations influence on the human body. When scientists started looking at whether silent sites in genes evolved at the same rate as non coding regions, they found differences, a sign that silent mutations could affect physiology after all. Today scientists have found that 50 genetic disorders are linked to silent mutations.
This is very important information and it does affect society in many ways. It shows how you can think something is safe but once explored further is far from it. These silent mutations affect people because if someone is affected by one and they didn’t know what was wrong with them that would be bad. Now we know that if someone has a genetic disorder and it isn’t apparent what it is they can explore further to see if it is caused by a silent mutation. As you can probably deduce by yourself this is fairly bad news considering that we don’t have stable vaccinations or treatments for these types of disorders yet. Eventually with modern medicine we will get there but it will take time. At least people now have some answers to their questions. They can know what is wrong with them and why we just can’t help them that well yet.
This was a pretty good article. I think it could have been a little more interesting to keep the reader’s attention but it was very informative. I would recommend this article to people who think they suffer from a genetic disorder caused by a silent mutation and also doctors and scientists who are studying these silent mutations because it has a lot of good information and they would be able to understand it well because they have been around this type of talk. It also explains some of the fuzzy areas that I didn’t quite understand well and helps me understand them better. Particularly people who suffer from a genetic disorder caused by a silent mutation would benefit from this because they could understand exactly what is wrong with them and it might help them out to find out how to get help about it.

~Mildred

Banquets Banquests Banquets

Tonight was the year end Band banquet. Last Thursday was the year end Tennis banquet, and Thursday will be the Thespian banquet. Banquets are what groups or events do at the end of the year to celebrate a great season. They are usually filled with heart felt speeches, goofy gifts given to underclassmen by seniors, and a lot of awards. They are a great way of looking back and remembering a great year. For the band banquet we usually watch videos of our marching season and listen to some music, for the tennis banquet the seniors were given gifts and that included a tear filled speech by the top varsity player, and the Thespian banquet is where the new Thespians will be inducted into the Thespian Society? (Not sure if that is what it is called haha) These banquets I feel are a fun way to reflect on the (hopefully successful) year and kick of the next year.

~Mildred

Wow this was a lame post....sorry I am getting desperate here lol

AP Exams

AUGH!!! The dreaded phrase AP EXAMS!!! Yes it is that time of year again where all the students enrolled in AP classes put on their biggest cramming face and try and shove a years worth of hard, confusing material down their throats so they can get a three or better on their ap exams. This year I am taking AP Biology and AP Lang. (I am actually taking a break from studying right now :) heehee) I used to get really stressed out by these exams but I have realized that I have nothing to lose. So what if I get a two on it? That means I will just have to go and take the class over again in college which for most of them I will probably end up having to do anyway because some colleges don't even count ap credits for actual credit and some colleges only take it if it is a five or a four and higher. Anyway my plan for this year is to do my best, study as much as I can just go in there and do my best and not worry about it :)

~Mildred

Glee

So I have this weird phobia of falling into the status quo and going along with what everyone else does just because it is a popular thing to do at the time. For instance when Twilight came out and everyone was head over heels obsessed with it I was determined not to like it. But I read the first book and fell in love with it even though I have yet to pick up the third and fourth books. Anyway I was the same way with Glee. My cousin showed me the first episode before it became so big and popular and I liked it but then it started becoming really popular and everyone talks about it all the time and I was like nah, I don't like it that much it is annoying but then one night my sister brought home the whole season one dvds and watched them straight through and I got hooked, mainly because of hottie Fin :D OMG!!! cough cough anyway it is actually a really good show and I like it a lot not just because everyone else likes it but because it is interesting, keeps me captivated and has really good renditions of songs in them. Here are some of my favorites!

"Don't Stand So Close to Me"


"Sweet Caroline"


"I'll Stand By You by Hottie McHothot Fin"


These are my favorite songs so far but all the songs are really good and it is fun seeing them performed by people other than the singers that made the songs in the first place :)

~Mildred

Catching the Culture: Wiccan Religion

The other day in French class my friend and I were sitting together working on homework. "I'm tired." She said. "I'm not!" I exclaimed. "Give me some of your energy!!" I laughed, "Okay haha." As I made a grabbing motion at my chest I "blew my energy" at her. "You're bad at making energy balls." She said. Still thinking we were joking around I laughed and asked how a proper energy ball was made in which she proceded to show me. She put her hand slightly on top of mine and asked if I could feel the "heat" between our hands. That, she said, was the energy between us. She told me how one day at her church a Wiccan came and taught them how to make energy balls and transfer them from person to person. (Which she tried to do to me.) She also said how this Wiccan taught them how to get answers from the universe by centering themselves and asking yes or no questions. I didn't know much about these people but I thought that they studied witchcraft and stuff like that so I dumbly asked "Don't they worship the devil?" She laughed and said that they had nothing to do witht that. That those were Satanists. I was still unsure so I decided to research a little about Wicca. Wicca is a Neopagan religion which goes back to the Celtic culture in 800 BC. The confusing thing about Wiccans is that they don't have a certain time that they started so there is no set in stone review of their religion. They have no main book or no main rules to their religion so it is hard for people to learn about them. Wiccans can be considered monotheistic, polytheistic, atheist, etc. Because they do believe in a higher god or goddess. Some believe these two are one (monotheistic), some believe they are two (duotheistic), some believe in these two gods along with many others much like the greek gods (polytheistic) and some believe in these gods but they look at them more as symbols not as actual living deities. Witchcraft and Wicca are not the same thing, some Wiccans practice witchcraft but witchcraft is the study of magic and Wicca is a religion. Not all Wiccans do witchcraft. Wicca is the belief in earth like stuff they pay a lot of attention to nature like the wind, rain, earth etc. They have a strong belief in preserving the earth and the environment.

~Mildred

Music

So music of the week :) I thought I would go through the songs I am obsessing over this week or this like month or whatever. I really like Iyaz :) He is amazing!!! He had a song earlier in the week that everyone was obsessed with called Replay and now he has come out with a new song called Solo that I absolutely love :)

"Solo"


I also like Taylor Swifts new song called Today was a Fairytale. I alwasy love Taylor Swift no matter what she sings. She always has good quality music and I really wanted to go to her concert here at the US Cellular center but it was sold out in like October!!! Haha.

"Today Was a Fairytale"


I also really like Heart Breaker? I don't know if that is the name of it I am not sure who sings it I think it is Iyaz also haha it has a really good beat and it is fast and catchy just like all of his songs!!! Haha Okay scratch that I just figured out it is by Taio Cruz featuring Ludacris. I really like these pop type songs with fast techno beats. They are a lot of fun to dance to :) Even though this has a bad message...haha I'm only gonna break break your heart? Story of my life...men!!! haha jk jk

"I'm Only Gonna Break Your Heart"


I also like the new song called Forever Young. It is a remake of an old song and it took me forever to realize why it sounded so familiar to me! Haha I really like remakes for old songs like the Cindy Lauper song Time After Time was remade recently so it was more techno and upbeat and it was amazing! I liked it. Here is the new song remade called Forever Young.

"Forever Young or Young Forever" whatever same thing :p


Well there you go! My random ramblings of the week :)

~Mildred

Friends

So I have typed three blog posts and am only up to 700 words and I was just thinking about random stuff. What to write about what to write about. FRIENDS :D My friends mean the world to me so why not write about how much they do mean to me? Without friends where would we all be in life? Lonely awkward losers....( no offense to those lonely awkward losers out there ;) haha) but seriously my friends are the core of all my drama this year and the thing that holds me together too. I have learned so much about friendships this year in school I have learned that your true friends are going to be there no matter what, thick or thin through everything and those are the ones that you really need to hold on to. Those type of friends take a real milestone in your life to figure out who they are. This year at the beginning of the year I went through some really tough stuff that really opened my eyes to see who my true friends were and weren't. I used to think that everyone was always going to be there for me no matter what or not matter how mad people got but I now know that not everything in life turns out like you expect it to but God will put people by you that will help you through it. True friends are those that don't judge you, listen to you and not only hear what you are saying but listen to what you are saying. True friends are willing to forgive you no matter how badly you messed up and no matter how mad you get at them or what horrible things you say to them you know that they are always willing to forgive you and you will always forgive them because deep down you know who they are and they know who you are. I have a bunch of really great friends that I have made so many great memories with and I will never ever forget any of them. Sure we all have had our fights but deep down I know they are always there for me, guys come and go and so does drama but these are the people I am going to look back on and know that this is truly what life is all about :) LOVE YOU GUYS :)

~Mildred

Senior Skip Day

Senior chronic illness day. The mysterious day when all seniors seem to dissapear from the face of the earth...hmmmm. Senior skip day is of course the Monday after prom when all seniors skip school or get called out of school or whatever. Now this raises the question of what to do with these skippers? I mean some teachers tell them that they have tests or quizzes on that day that is worth fifty points and if they don't show up they fail the class, some teachers count the students absent, some teachers offer their students extra credit for coming into class on that day. If I was a teacher I would'nt count kids absent on that day in fact I might not even plan anything for that day I mean they are seniors they have been working hard all year and it is the Monday after prom (they could use their sleep). Why not let them have one day off? Sure it is "against the rules" but most of the students that do it are good students anyway and deserve a little fun. It is their last year, they are almost out of school anyway and I mean come on most classes are watching movies or studying for AP tests anyway so we are really only hurtig ourselves when we skip anyway right? My philosophy is go on like any other day doing whatever and if your students skip like any other absence it is their responsibility to make up what they missed or catch up with everyone else in class. Other than that I say be a nice teacher and don't count them absent ;)

~Mildred

Prom

You get the dress, you do your hair, you have your nails done and now you have to actually go to PROM!!! The "biggest night of your highschool life" now althought I dont quite buy into all of that I do agree that prom is a very fun experience that you get to look forward to as a senior (and a junior in some cases and in some schools). Prom consists of pictures, dinner, grand march, the actualy prom, and finally post prom. How did prom get to be such a big deal? The answer is I don't really know I wish I did. I love seeing all the dresses and all the different hair styles. It is fun to see all the girls styles come out in their ensemble for the night. Everyone is dressed up and gorgeous and what I like about it is even the quietes shyest girl can feel gorgeous for the night no matter who they are or who they hang out with. Of course there is a ton of gringing and bumping at prom and that is kind of awkward. It is hard for people who dont do that kind of stuff to fit into the dancing scene but there are spots on the outside that more conservative dancers can get away too. All in all prom is really fun and makes for a great end of the year memory.

~Mildred