Life

So my good friend Chandini inspired me to start blogging again.  I have thought about it a couple times before when I was really emotional or just had a really strong opinion about something.  The last time I blogged was when I was a junior for my AP Lang class.  That brings back memories.  It seems like everything now brings back memories.  Now that I am in college and everything is new there is so much to look back on and reminisce about.  I miss so much here.  I miss my best friends who could make me laugh when I was crying, who I could get the best advice from at all hours of the night, who knew me almost better than I knew myself.  I miss my family, although I hate to say it not as much s I thought I would, I'm enjoying my freedom a bit more.  I miss the activities I was in, like band and speech.  I'm on the speech team here at Wartburg but it is not the same as high school speech.  The same goes for band.  I have to do band to get scholarship money but it is so much different than high school band.  I'm realizing though that's the way things are supposed to be, it's college, it isn't high school.  If things weren't any different what would be the point of graduating?  We would just get our degrees from high school and nothing would change and life would be amazing right?  Don't get me wrong.  I am ecstatic to be at college. I am loving meeting new people and starting new relationships, trying new things and figuring out who I am and what works best for me.  I love having my freedom but every now and then I get a wave of sadness.  I feel like I'm the only one still having these issues too.  Like I should be moved on by now.  My biggest fear is that I will be forgotten by all the old people I care most about.  They will move on and have happy lives but I will still be thriving to hang out with them and...I don't know.  This whole college thing sure is a roller coaster of emotions.  I am having a lot of fun though.  My roommate and I recently had a sentimental bonding moment and it's safe to say we know A LOT about each other now.  I'm glad I can actually relate to my roommate though and she is more than just the girl I room with.  I can see her being a good friend too.  There is also this boy....which is terrifying.  I mean yeah, I'm not going to lie, finding a boy was definitely on the top of my college to do list but now that I have found someone who reciprocates the feelings the commitment thing kind of gives me the chills.  I guess I just don't want to get my heart broken YET again.  So I have decided to take it slow...and let things happen, ON MY TERMS.  I'll keep you posted.  Also this is dedicated to Chandini who has become a new good friend of mine this summer.  Her blog post made me decide to do this...I'm not copying you I promise!!!!  Thanks for the inspiration.  She is a beautiful person inside and out and I hope she is one of the people that doesn't forget about little old me.

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