The Journey is sometimes more important than the destination

Life is a journey.
Treat it like one.
Every day is a new part of it.
No need to waste even one.
Be thankful for what you have.
Despite the hard times.
Strive to make yourself better and stronger.
Live freely, but cautiously.
Cherish every moment.
Make a difference and leave your mark.
Life is a journey worth living.


You have seen what has been dancing through my head in just one part of my journey in life... and my thoughts just keep dancing, dancing.

Young adults who haven’t grown up yet

They may have physically grown to the size of young adults. But, I can not believe how many of my peers are just so immature. At 20 years old, I am no longer a teenager anymore. It is about time for people my age to act their age. I do not understand the incompetence of some people. Life sucks sometimes but there is no need to whine about it like you are four years old.

There is also a freedom in knowing that you can live without your parents anymore. Learn to do your own laundry, cook your own food, take care of yourselves, mommy is always going to love you but its time you begin to act your age.

I am glad that I went to college far from home because I did learn to grow up real fast and be an independent and sustainable young adult.
College is the perfect time to do this because you have a buffer between you and the real world. This is your time to test it out and find yourself.

Retreat from the city

My grandparents and some other family live out in the country in Nebraska. I go out there every so often to visit them. There is absolutely nothing there except for wide open fields and the occasional barn or house. I am definitely a city girl at heart, but I do love retreating to the country. The world just seems to never end, you can see out forever. This gives me a sense of calmness in nature to see the corn stalks blow in the wind and watch as the clouds appear to touch the ground in the distance.

My grandmother's house has a swing seat in the backyard that I used to sit in alone sometimes as the rest of the family was inside chatting and helping in the kitchen to cook our meal.

Nature. Beauty. Retreat from civilization and technology. Alone. Family. Friendship. Purity.

Under a Cruel Star Book Review

I had to read this autobiography for my CF class and I do not usually enjoy reading long books for school, however this book was so intriguing and captivating. It even brought me to tears at one point. The women who wrote this book suffered so much in her life and it just seemed unfair.

Below is an excerpt of what I wrote after reading this great book:

Heda Margolius Kovaly writes in her autobiography that “truth alone does not prevail. When it clashes with power, truth often loses. It prevails only when people are strong enough to defend it.” In her life as a Jewish woman, she witnessed the horrors of the Holocaust in the concentration camps. She also lived through the post war time in Prague where Communism seemed to be the most appropriate solution to the economic conditions of the time. Through all this, there was always a figurehead as “the leader” in power. First it was Hitler, a fascist, and then Stalin, a communist. Moreover, Under a Cruel Star offers its readers a better understanding of what can happen to the truth under authority and what must be done to restore truth for humanity.

It is important to be challenged to read books like this one in school in order to better understand history so that we do not repeat it. After reading this book, I am thankful for freedom and the progress that we have made in the US as a society. However, I do also realize that the human race is inevitably going to be violent, or emit unfair suffering to people.
I hope that someday we can all find peace, but who knows if we can maintain that?

The Smartphone Epedemic

My dad just got a new blackberry for his work so that he can get emails to his phone. It seems like nowadays everyone is discovering the wonders of the smartphone.

Getting emails on your phone is so helpful. I sometimes wonder how I did without them We all have such busy lives that it is very useful to be able to check and respond to emails on the go. They are especially important when there is a time sensitive announcement, because who knows you could be far away from your computer for hours and miss out on an opportunity or waste your time going somewhere to find out that it was cancelled, you just didn’t know because that message was sitting in bold in your Inbox.

I think that email on your phone is the Smartphone’s greatest feature. I use it every day and do not know how I would go back to life without it.
It’s funny how we adapt our necessities as technology changes. Who knows maybe in 20 years people will say they cannot live without something that doesn’t even exist yet!

Social Responsibility of Advertising

Let's face it, we live in a world full of mass media and advertisements are all around us. From Billboards, to computer popups, to TV spots and posters on public buses to snail mail. Pretty much everywhere you go, you can find an ad for something. Because advertising is so visible to our daily lives and to all of humanity, advertising has a great responsibility.

Every individual ad represents the business as a whole and can affect society. If is important to think about this responsibility when making an ad rather than purely just selling the product. Advertising as a whole has done a much better job of being socially responsible than they were in the past. Today there is industry self regulation with the NAD/NARB that enforces this responsibility.

The first step to being more socially responsible in advertising is being conscious of the issue and thinking outside the box to how someone could possibly interpret your ad or what it could be associated with?

Adverting is a powerful force that can reach many people across the globe and with that great power comes much responsibility.

Questions to ask:

-Will this ad reach children?

- Will they understand it?

- Is the joke offensive to anyone?

-Is it racist, sexist?

-What is the underlying meaning?

What can you do with that space?

It is amazing that when you look at this room you could think of so many different ways to decorate it. I have recently been hooked to HGTV's "House Hunter's" and "My First Place." I love seeing what different homes look like and what the designers and new homeowners do with the space they have.

It is really important to be happy in the space that you live in, after all, you will spend so many hours of your life and money on it. Also, your environment can affect your overall mood and productivity.

The best part is that you can experiment with it because by just painting a wall a different color, adding a new bookshelf or picture on the wall can completely change the feel. Thanks to HGTV, I may have found my new form of creative expression- room decoration and arrangement!

Let's Go Grab a Cup of Coffee

So many reasons and so many choices linked to that one hot beverage...

When do you drink it?

Hey! I'll meet you at Starbucks in an hour to hangout? OR

I need my caffeine!

Coffee is a universal drink with many uses. A lot of times people will go to a coffee shop to socialize or relax alone with a book. A cup of coffee also becomes a ritual for some, part of their daily routine.

What do you choose?

Coffee, Latte, espresso galore...

I always wondered, how do people decide what to order at a coffee shop? Do you try all the flavors and options in order to decide what you like best and then get that every day before work or every time you go there?

Why?

Regardless of the different types of coffee drinks. Why do people start drinking coffee in the first place. It's taste is definitely one I had to get used to. At first I didn't like the bitter taste and preferred tea. However now coffee is my best friend when it comes to late nights studying, or a chance to catch up with an old friend.

Restaurant Work

I worked in a Greek restaurant called It's Greek To Me for three summers in high school. It was my first job besides babysitting. I got the job because I wanted some pocket money that has a more steady schedule than random babysitting jobs. My mom also thought it would be good to do before college. I definitely learned more than I thought I would working in that restaurant. And I also learned about work ethic. This job was definitely a lot of work for little pay.

Each shift was 5 hours long and mostly during the dinner hour. I started out as a hostess for a while, then learned how to ring up checks at the cash register and answer phones for take out orders. It was not until my third summer did I get the opportunity to become a waitress. Seems pretty simple right? That's what I thought too. Working in the restaurant business is much harder than I thought and the customers are so demanding and rude sometimes. They do not have any sympathy for the fact that you are actually trying to remember and process about 10 things in your head at once.

I only got paid minimum wage too. Think about that, after 5 hours at $7.15 an hour, you make only about $32 after taxes. That can barely buy you a tank of gas. And, of course you have to think about the gas you use to drive to work and the quarters you use to feed the meters for parking. That is pretty sad.

You couldn't ever live on this minimum wage budget! This job really did teach me to value my money and to work hard and get a good education so that my skill level and experience will allow me to be happy and secure in my career. I think it is important for all teenagers to have a job regardless of if they need the money or not whether its in retail, or the restaurant business or even at the local ice cream shop because it teaches responsibility more than a parent or school can.

Across cultures

I will be studying abroad this summer in Italy. In our orientation meeting we learned that the culture is very different in Italy and Europe than it is in the US. This is true for different places all over the world. In Italy you cannot touch the clothes in a store when you are shopping, you must ask first. I even learned in my management class that in Germany it is considered flirting when a cashier smiles at a customer. Everything from body language, to phrases, to food and just simple ways of acting can mean completely different things in different places. What I really find interesting though is how all this was created? Who decided what is appropriate and what isnt appropriate to do in a specific society. We all represent the human race, yet we communicate in different languages and create different standards. Can these cultures ever change or will they stay with that region forever? What does it take to change this?
After asking these questions, the answer is not clear. However, maybe the answer is that even if we could change them, there is no reason to. I have learned that when you travel to a foreign country, you should try and adopt their culture as much as possible and respect their ways. And anyways, the difference between cultures allows people to belong to a smaller society than just the entire human race.

Collectables

Why do people collect things? I do not understand why we need so many of one kind of thing. Kids begin keeping collections at a young age. The phase of the 90's was collecting beanie babies. I must have over 200 of this small stuffed animals in my house. They are cute, soft and fun to have, but why so many? That is clearly over consumption at its finest. They really just become dust collectors. I am obviously a culprit of this practice but seriously next time ask yourself do you really need so many playing cards, shot glasses, thimbles,snow globes, stamps, ornaments, or coins. There are people all over the world homeless and living in poverty but we are concerned about what is the latest stuffed animal to add to our collection?!