School Stabbing

Students of Montrose High School are evacuated after a school lockdown following an attack on a 16-year-old female student early Tuesday morning. (William Woody / Daily Press)

I'm kind of in shock today because I heard some very sad and intense new this morning from my hometown of Montrose. First of, if you aren't familiar with the area Montrose is about two and a half hours north of Durango; it's a pretty tight knit community of about 20,000 people. The high school I attended, Montrose High School has probably 1000-1200 students total.

My aunt texted me this morning and told me that MHS had been put on lock down because a young man had slit a girls throat(or I guess stabbed). It honestly took several minutes for me to actually believe this. It was complete shock to me and a very scary thought that it happened where me and many others attended or are currently attending high school. The reason my aunt knew is because one of my cousins works for the sheriff's office and was called to the scene.

The victim was a young girl named Mallory and is currently in the ICU, after having surgery. I'm not sure of all the facts and I don't think a lot of them have been let out to the public. The important part is they have the guy that did it in custody and he won't be out anytime soon.

It's just a very sad and shocking incident. These events are the ones you hear about on the news, not the ones that happen in your hometown. It seems to be that way with any tragedy or death. Everyone has the "that won't happen here" outlook on things. So when it does it's very very surprising to everyone.

I personally think it is very sad because the students and parents of MHS will not feel as safe in school anymore. The thought of being safe at school never crossed my mind in high school, but I'm sure it will be heavy on the minds of the students at MHS now.

Mallory, her family, and everyone involved will most definitely be in my thoughts and prayers.

Here is the link to the local newspaper and the story covered Montrose Daily Press.

SNOW!!!!!

I went to bed last night hoping and feeling like I was going to wake up to snow. So you can only imagine how stoked I was to wake up and see snow outside. I woke up at 4:00 this morning, don't ask me why, but I looked outside and it was snowing with the ground lightly dusted. I had a hard time going back to sleep because I was so excited to wake up again. Then the time came around and my roommate woke up at 7, so I got up and looked outside. I was so happy to see more snow. Currently, I'm sitting in my room drinking tea, looking out at the beautiful view, and looking at a ski magazine with my suite mate, Julie. I can't wait to go play in the snow though.
Hope everyone is as happy as I am about this, if not then I'm sorry.

Australia vs. America- Voting Differences

One of my best friends, Alyce, is actually Australian and we had a conversation about the election and voting the other day. I thought this was was very interesting because Alyce was telling me that if you don't vote in Australia you get fined. It's the law; everyone must vote. The voting rate is 95 % of people vote in Australia, where as in America in 2000 the turn out was only 64%.

This idea of enforcing voting is known as "mature democracy." Another country that uses this is Belgium. What do you think of this idea? Is this smart because then it would be all the people voting, it would be America as a whole voting? Or is this stupid because the people that usually wouldn't vote, will just go and fill bubbles in without doing their homework? These are many questions I thought to myself.

I don't think that America will ever enforce voting as a law. I just think it is interesting to think about the effects if we were required to vote. What would it mean for Americans?

Acai Berry

Lately, there has been alot of talk about the Acai Berry and how it helps your body. It is known to have many benefits on the human body. The first time I heard about this berry was when I was living in California and was getting a smoothie at a local place. The Acai Berry smoothie was on the list of one to get. I didn't order it because I wasn't sure what it actually tasted like. But after that incident I started hearing more about this fruit.

Some of the nutrients in this berry are high level antioxidants, dietary fiber, essential amino acids, protein, and low sugar content. Some of the health benefits that go along with these nutrients are boost of immune system, more energy/stamina, improves digestion, improves circulation, get better sleep, more mental focus, and aids to prevent Alzheimer's. Those are just the main benefits of this fruit.

Acai, pronounced "ah-sigh-ee" is known as a super food. Some other super foods that Americans eat are blueberries and pomegranates. The acai has even more antioxidants than that in blueberries and poms. The acai berry is from the rainforests of Brazil and has just started becoming a new fad in America, but has been around for quite sometime.

I think it is great to be informed about super foods, foods that are very beneficial for the human body. If you haven't given it a try, I would recommend trying it at least once. If you do end up liking acai berry in your food, then it would be a great helpful addition to your diet. Or should I say healthy addition to your lifestyle.

More About College Decisions

So this is kind of referring back to the College blog I did earlier. I seriously have been thinking a lot about whether or not college is the right thing for me at this moment. I mean I do eventually want to get some type of degree from a college, but I'm not sure what I really want to do now. I was majoring in elementary education, but i'm freaked out about spending four years and all that money just to get one ceritificate that says all I can do is teach.

So I'm trying to figure out some major that will allow me to possibly do more than one thing . I think I'm going to finish out this year and take some classes like pysch, sociology, and anthropology to see if any of those subjects interest me. Also I am planning on talking to the head of all those departments to see what I could do with a degree from those subjects.

Another career I have been seriously thinking about is massage therapy. When I was younger my aunts and uncles would pay me money to give them a back massage or foot massages, and they always said I should go into the business when I'm older. I never thought about it as a career in high school or anything, but now I am starting to think about it now. There is a massage school here in Durango which would be awesome because I love Durango so much. So I am planning on going down to the school and sitting in on a class and get information.

I'm hoping that I will figure out what I'm going to do with the next few years of my life and am happy with my decisions. I don't really enjoy making decisions in general like where we should go to dinner or what movie we should see. So to make such a large life decision right now is kind of stressing me out. Oh well, I'll just have to get through it.

Election Day 2008

Well luckily I did a mail in ballot and don't have to go stand in line this election day. I didn't know I signed up to get a mail in ballot but since they sent it to me I was pretty stoked. The funny thing was that I didn't mail it in on time, but I did end up dropping it off last night down at the courthouse.

It took me quite a while to go through all the ammendments and figure out which way I wanted to vote. The way they word the issues on the ballot is way too confusing. I actually ended up borrowing my mom's issue bluebook. Those are extremely helpful for me because it explains what the issue is about in regular enlgish and also explains arguments for it and against it. Another thing it explains is, for example, the ammendment about the severance taxes from oil company's being used to help fix Colorado roads, it explains currently what the taxes are being used for and talked about the relationship of that ammendment to another that is on the ballot that is similar. Well the point is those little bluebooks are non-bias and definitely helped me out at with filling out my ballot.

The time as finally come to see our fate of the country. I honestly can't wait for it all just to be over right now.

Tryptophan

We are now in the month of November and you know what that means, Thanksgiving is coming soon. I'm stoked for a week off of school and of course the awesome dinner that my family will cook up. After the early dinner everyone in the family gets sleeping. Is this a myth or fact that turkey makes you tired?

Well turkey does have the essential amino acid called tryptophan within the nutrients. This is what is thought to cause the extreme sleepiness. But other food products such as dairy, beef, poultry, brown rice, and fish also contain tryptophan. We never hear about those foods making us sleeping.

Also, another thing to note is that tryptophan in a large enough amount will indeed make you sleepy. But the amount of tryptophan in the turkey you eat won't be enough to have this effect on you. So overall this is all just a myth that most Americans believe. Maybe the true reason Americans get sleepy is just from overeating and most definitely over drinking.

All that really matters is that you have a great family dinner and have fun spending time with the family and friends.

Interactive Stuffed Animals-Webkinz

This last weekend I went to JcPenny's to look around for some things I needed and for presents from my nieces. Anyways, I came across an bunch of little stuffed animals that were pretty cute. There was camels, frogs, snowmen, dogs, and almost anything imaginable. They made me think about when I was younger and collected Beanie Babies. My mom was with me at the store and was saying that some of my younger cousins were big on collecting these stuffed animals. What are these animals you might ask?

These plush stuffed animals are known as Webkinz. They are an interactive stuffed animals that you can play with virtually. When you purchase one of these, they come with a unique secret code which you enter into the Webkinz website, or the "Webkinz World". At this website you get to name your stuffed animal, play games, feed your animal, purchase things for your animal, and lastly you get money to decorate a room for you and the dog. They call this process adopting the animal and interacting with it.

I think this is definitely a large technological step for children's toys. Never when I was younger would I think about having a stuffed animal that I can play with online. I feel like the use of the Internet/technology is being pushed upon younger and younger children. Although I think it is good to teach kids how to use technology and all that I'm not sure if this is an excellent invention because the kids will want to play with their animal on the computer all the time. I guess I'm just a little more traditional/old school and would rather have my children go outside and play with more active things.