weekend

I think I always write about my weekends… my week days I guess aren’t exciting enough to write about. Oh well, life goes on then you die anyways.  So anyways my weekend… yup you guessed it, it was another eventful one. Well I’m moving, I can say that in the open now. So on Saturday, my parents took my brother, my other brother, and I to the new house to look around again. We looked around and talked about what will have to be done to get it to where we want it to be, because there was a Jamaican family that lived there before. So we have to do a lot of changes on the house. For instance we have to paint. The paint job in the house is not even good. There were different colors in every room with stripes everywhere. It wouldn’t have been that bad if they made the stripes straight and there weren’t any drip marks everywhere. And since they were practically kicked out of the house they didn’t clean it or anything and they left random junk everywhere, but enough about the house. It was a fun day there. 

Then later on Saturday, we watched Lord of the Rings. I have never seen Lord of the Rings before. When I was younger my parents let my watch it. However, I got really scared when I watched it. So I hid my head a lot when I watched it. So when I watched it fully a lot of parts looked familiar. But it was still good. I got to watch all three movies on Saturday. It was a real good day that day. On the final movie my parents ordered pizza. It was my dad’s birthday so he got to pick what he wanted for dinner, and he picked pizza. We got the pizza from Pizza Hut. It was really, really, really, really yummy. My dad wanted the meat lovers, Hawaiian, and chicken pizzas. They all were really yummy. My favorite pizza would have to be the meat lovers. However, I didn’t like the sausage that was on the pizza. I am defiantly not a fan of sausage. I don’t like how it has a rubber texture. But I do not know. I mean I used to like sausage, but just not anymore. I do not like the texture about it. You know some foods you just can’t stand because of the texture. Well that is how it is for me with sausage.

I love weekends. They are always full of joy and happiness. Well… at least it is for me. I normally don’t have to do any homework buy this week I do. I hate when that happens. Oh I am babbling about. I guess I am just excited for Christmas. Christmas is in exactly one week. That makes me very happy. I may sound like a little kid. But at this time of year, that is exactly what I am. A little kid.  

Breakfast with Santa & the Forgotten Carols

Over the weekend, I went to see the Forgotten Carols and I went to volunteer for breakfast for Santa. It was a fun weekend because my sister came home for this special event. She is usually away in Logan attending Utah State University, so this was a unique time.

                On Friday was when we went to the Forgotten Carols.  It was shown at Cottonwood High School. It was a long drive to get there but in the end, it was worth it. The play is about a nurse, Connie Lou, who works a lot and is a workaholic. Then her boss thinks she works too much and has her go to a patient’s house to help him out. The play goes on to tell some Christmas stories that the old man, Jon, has to share. As he tells these holiday stories, Connie Lou’s outlook on Christmas changes for the better, she realizes the true meaning of it.

                My favorite part of this play was all of the stories and songs. For each story, there was a carol to go with it. My favorite carol would have to be the Inn Keeper’s. His carol is about how he should have let Mary and Joseph into the Inn for the night instead of sending them away. This song was very well written. I liked it so much; I even have the song on my iPod so I can listen to it when I feel like it.

                After the late night Friday, we got up early and went to volunteer for Breakfast with Santa at Thanksgiving Point. We had an extra seat in our van so my dad said that I could invite a friend to come with us, I decided to invite Brenna Sorenson. She is one of my best friends and was an easy choice to choose her. My dad and I went to pick up Brenna while everyone else finished getting ready. When we got there, she was not coming out, so I called her. The operator on the phone said that it was not able to go through. So I went and knocked on her window. I was afraid that I would scare her when I did this. But she was not even up yet, her alarm didn’t go off. So she woke up when I knocked on her window. She realized that we were within for her and she hurried and got ready. Then we went and picked up our family and we were off to Breakfast with Santa. When we got there Brenna, my brother Garry, and I were stationed at a table where we would help kids make snowman out of candy. The little kids were so cute. They were so excited when we said that they could eat the extra candy corn. They would get the biggest smile on their face. It was cute. After everyone left, we were told that we could go ahead and eat.  After we ate, we loaded back into the van and went home.

                This weekend was so much fun, from the Forgotten Carols to Breakfast with Santa. All of this made my weekend so much fun. I just love my family and friends.

sugar trade

I love sugar don’t you? Sugar is a magnificent invention. It was first recorded back in 1317 in England. England loved sugar so much that they wanted to make a lot of money off of it and keep it all for themselves. The quantity of sugar increased due to the high slavery population. The sugar trade was driven by consumer demand, slavery, and profits. These three concepts are very significant involving the sugar trade.

Consumer demand was important because people treasured sugar so much they wanted more and more of it and couldn't get a sufficient amount of it. In document 3, the author illustrates how much people loved sugar by showing little kids licking the barrel in order to get every last bit of sugar they could. This is called addiction. They loved it so much they started putting sugar in everything. In document 4, the author says that sugar was used as a sweetener. They put sugar in coffee, tea and just about everything you could imagine to make it sweeter. They wanted the things they ate to taste better, so they put sugar in it. Over the years sugar became really popular. The population of Britain began to increase causing more sugar to be brought into the country. In document 5, the table says that the higher the population, the more sugar is imported, the more sugar consumed by each person.

Seeing as consumer demand was so high, they needed additional people to help make the sugar. So slavery was brought into the picture, although they were expensive to buy. There was a great price to pay. In document 9, the author says that you can buy adult male slaves in 1748 for 14 pounds. You had to be a merchant in order to afford that much money to be spent of a slave. In document 10, the table says that when there is an increase in the slave population there is an increase of sugar being made. Since slaves made the sugar it only makes sense that this happened. For example in Jamaica 1703, the there was the slave population of 45,000 and 4,782 tons of sugar produced. Then in 1730 there was an increase in the slave population and how much sugar was made. In document 11, the author lists certain things that English merchants traded for slaves. They would trade bullets, iron bars, copper boars, woolen goods, and so many more. Slaves were such in high demand that merchants were trading everything that they had to get slaves to make sugar to make money.

Since everyone sought to make money off of sugar, profits are another thing that drove the sugar trade. If you wanted to make money then you had to foremost get the plantation in order and all set up. In order for you to do that, you have to have the money, so all of the plantation owners had a lot of money. In document 7 the author says that they inherited their money and was an absentee owner. In document 8 the author illustrates how it would have looked like to make the sugar. You had to boil them and the workers weren't treated like humans. If they were treated fairly then they wouldn't have been able to make as much money off of the sugar, because they would have to pay the workers causing them to lose money.

As you can see there are three main points that drove the sugar trade. One of the points is consumer demand. There were numerous people who sought sugar, so sugar was in high demand. Slavery was the second point. If there were no slaves then there wouldn't have been as much sugar being made. The third, and final point, is profits. Everyone wanted to make money. Making and harvesting sugar was the perfect way to do that. So to answer the question of what drove the sugar trade, the answer is profits, consumer demand, and slavery.

Recycling

Since I didn’t go to the biology field trip, I had to write a summery on these articles. So I’m going to share 2 of the 4 that I had to do. I hope you enjoy.

Recycling Facts and Statistics

There are so many random facts in this article. It’s hard to organize them all. So this is just a list of some important ones that I liked in the article. And I quote:

“The United States has finally reached a landmark in its paper recycling efforts in 2006 with 53.4% of the paper consumed being recovered for recycling.

Mount Rumpke is the highest point in Ohio at over 1000 feet, it’s no Mount Everest; however, Mount Everest is not made up entirely of garbage. Mount Rumpke is literally a mountain of trash and is located in the Rumpke landfill.

Greece falls short with only 10% of its waste being recycled and the remaining 90% going to the landfills.

Just one quart of motor oil that is disposed of improperly can contaminate up to 2,000,000 gallons of fresh water.

Motor oil gets dirty but does not wear out.

Oil too can be recycled by re-refining the oil it can be used again and again and can help to reduce our dependence on foreign oil.”

As you can see the littlest things again have the biggest impact. Did you know that oil does not wear out? I sure didn’t. This article was another eye opener. We should take these to heart and really start recycling more in this world.

Recycling Stats

            In this article it has many cool little facts that are important for everyone to know. It says that the average person goes through 4.5 pounds of trash/garbage every day. That is a lot of trash for one person. Just imagine all of the people in the world going through 4.5 pounds of trash each and every day. That is a whole lot of garbage.  No wonder that our world is in the state that it is in with all the pollution. A lot of that trash is wasted food. Every time that you throw away a sandwich you are taking up more space in the landfills. If we recycled the food we would have thrown away we would save a lot of space in the landfills. You could put some leftover food in your garden. Some foods are great fertilizers.  

Food is not only a great contributor to the landfills. With all the construction and demolition that is going on with homes, we are using up a lot of trees. The article says that if we used the 1.2 million new home’s lumber and set them side by side it would extend 3 million miles. That would be like going to the moon and back six and a half times! That is a lot of wood. If we would just be conscious of all of the wood that would be thrown away we would save a whole lot of trees and it would cost a lot less.

As you can see there are a whole lot of little factors that in the end make a big difference. With all the food that we don’t eat because we don’t like it or whatever the reason may be, we would save a lot of landfills around the world. So think before you act when it comes to throwing away things.

Thanksgiving

Since Thanksgiving is next week I thought I would talk about thanks giving. Thanksgiving is not one of my favorite holidays. As for the rest of my family they just love it. I don’t hate it or anything; I just don’t particularly like it. I think that it’s a waste of a day. You have to bake all day and then stuff yourself with as much food as you can. I don’t like a lot of traditional foods that you have at the dinner table on Thanksgiving. For example I don’t like stuffing or yams. I don’t like turkey which people think is weird. I am also not very fond of pies or desserts. I will eat them, but I just can’t have very much. I do however like what Thanksgiving stands for and symbolizes. I like how it remembers the pilgrims and their good harvest and how thankful they were for everything.

Here are some symbols of Thanksgiving.

1.     Cornucopia stands for the good harvest.

2.     Turkey is a reminder of the “Four Wild Turkeys” served during the first Thanksgiving feast.

3.     Corn is a reminder of the importance and heritage of the harvest festival.

4.     Cranberries with its pink blossoms and drooping head reminded the ancient pilgrims of a crane. 

5.     There is the pumpkin

There are so many more, I only gave you a small number of the many symbols of Thanksgiving. There is also a song that goes along with Thanksgiving.  Here it is.

Thanksgiving Day Turkey Song
O turkey dear
O turkey dear
How lovely are thy feathers

O turkey dear
O turkey dear
There could be nothing better!

We celebrate Thanksgiving Day
By putting your carcass on display.

O turkey dear
O turkey dear
You thought we were friends who came to greet you.

O turkey dear
O turkey dear
We gathered here to eat you!

O turkey day
O turkey day
The family is all together

O turkey day
O turkey day
We've over come bad weather

Seeing the family is so fab
We'll see ya'll again in rehab.

O turkey day
O turkey day
We'll drink away your memory.

I think my favorite line is “O turkey dear O turkey dear We gathered here to eat you!” Isn’t it just a comforting line for the turkey? A turkey probably heard this and was scared dead. He didn’t even get shot. Just when he heard this he was so scared that he died. Isn’t that just horrible?

There is so much on Thanksgiving. I only gave you a few things about this what some people call awesome holiday. Hope you all have a wonderful Thanksgiving. :)

Fun ideas :)

Are you ever bored and you do not know what to do or you just want to make an experience more interesting? Well I am going to help you do just that. I am going to give you some ideas on how to make something better for simple things.

1.       Bring a rope and a Cowboy hat to a local park, find some geese and have yourself a fun time trying to roping some geese.

2.       Write down deep questions on the toilet paper in the public bathroom

3.        Do a few laps in the next revolving door you encounter

4.        Walk down a busy street and then freeze for no reason

5.       Sniff random people on the streets.

6.       Pretend to make a very personal and odd conversation in an elevator with a lot of people.

7.       Greet everyone that comes onto the elevator.

8.       When the money comes out of the ATM, scream, “I Won! I Won! Third time this week!"

9.       Walk behind someone and have an argument with yourself. (It's even better if you talk in two different voices.)

10.   Buy something entirely with pennies.

11.   Walk through a drive through pretending your driving.

12.   5.  Ask to see the manager, and then complain to him about all of life’s problems. If they don’t let you talk to the manager, walk out muttering, “You're gonna be reading about this in the papers.” 

13.   Push the buttons and pretend they give you a shock. Smile, and go back for more.  

14.   When the doors close, announce to the others, “It’s okay. Don't panic, they open up again."

15.   Challenge other customers to duels with tubes of gift wrap.

16.   Sing your questions.

17.   Leave permanent markers by the dry-erase board.

18.   When the professor calls roll, after each name scream “THAT’S MEEEEE! Oh, no, sorry.”

19.   Hold up a piece of paper that says in large letters “CHECK YOUR FLY.”

20.   Wear your pajamas. Pretend not to notice that you’ve done so.

21.   Ask whether you have to come to class.

22.   Start a “wave” in a large lecture hall.

23.   Ask to introduce your “invisible friend” in the empty seat beside you, and ask for one extra copy of each handout.

24.   Watch the professor through binoculars.

25.   Claim that you wrote the class text book.

26.   In the middle of the lecture, ask your professor whether he believes in ghosts.

27.   Laugh heartily at everything the teacher says. Snort when you laugh.

28.   Bring a typewriter. Use it to take notes.

29.   Bring a fishing rod. Try to catch things on the professor's desk.

30.   Randomly get out of your seat and sit on the floor.

31.   Cry out randomly that everyone is against you.

32.   Tell your teacher you don’t need to do your homework because you’re
skipping school tomorrow.

33.   Randomly laugh hysterically

34.   Raise your hand and wave it around like you know the answer. Then ask
the teacher why they called on you.