Thursday, October 20, 2011

[Ce:] Texting and Driving

      What is with people these days? This article is about a freshman at Sonoma State University. While she was driving, she was texting at the same time. At that moment, Calli Murray who was 2 years old, was holding her mother's hand and leaving a park. All of the sudden, the freshman girls' Honda hit the mother and child, killing the girl and injuring the mother very badly.
       This is disgusting. Please, never text and drive. Never. Who ever is on the phone texting you, it can wait. It can wait five or ten minutes until you stop the car. It's not worth answering if you're going to kill someone! Don't get me wrong, I know how tempting it is because I drive and when my phone goes off, I admit that I want to pick it up and check. But I don't, cause that's a stupid idea. You never know when someone is going to walk into the street and it can be any moment that they do.
       The freshman, Kaitlyn Dunaway, was apparently only charged with a misdemeanor, which has a maximum of a one year sentence. What the hell is that. She killed someone and she's only getting a year? That worries me. There's another case of a woman who murdered her own child and got 10 years probation. No prison, no jail, nothing. Just probation.
     

[Re:] Littering

I was reading Gigi's post about littering. My sister and I were talking about it, and this is what we have to say:
       Littering has become a huge issue these days. Most people do not care that it's against the law to litter, and they can be fined for dropping even the smallest bit of trash around. Even if it's a small piece of plastic, it doesn't make it any more right than dropping a huge chip bag like Gigi described.
       At the same time, if young kids are dropping garbage on the ground, it might mean that their parent's haven't even taught them the basic manners to society. It's so easy to simply walk over to a trash can which is no farther than 50 feet away. This just goes to show how lazy people have become.
       While littering is against the law, it also deals with ones moral values. Do people not see a right or wrong in littering? People obviously have less moral values than they used to. This shows how selfish people can be because they are only thinking about themselves and they are too lazy to do the right thing, and they are making it someone else's problem because eventually someone else will have to clean it up.
       This is just an example of a decrease of personal ethics.

[Free:] Baby Leo

     My aunt that married into our family a few years ago just had a baby. Which is weird, cause I never thought she would have a child. Well, anyways, she did and he's now almost 4 months old.
     I was supposed to visit him in the hospital right after he was born, but I had actually just gotten out of the hospital for being sick, and yaknow, you're not supposed to be sick around any newborns because of their crappy immune system and all.
     I met him when he was about 4 or 5 days old. Maybe 7 pounds? He was TINY. I felt like he was going to break if I held him wrong. And the thing about newborns, is that they look weird. They remind me of little aliens. Their eyesight hasn't started really working well yet so they can barely see anything and they have this gazed look in their eyes. It's kind of funny, actually. All they do is scream, cry, eat (a lot), and crap. 
     Taking care of a baby is pretty simple, but very time consuming. I've been taking care of him on and off since he was born to help out my aunt. They require constant attention, which sucks.
     Anyways, in the past four months, he has grown a lot. I made him laugh for the first time ever, a few weeks ago. Before that he would just kind of smile a little, but I was holding him and while talking to my aunt, I laughed. He saw that, and mimicked me. It was so damn cute.
     And, I'm really excited, because in a few weeks my aunt and uncle are taking me down to Montery with them. They are really into scuba diving, before they had a child, they traveled around Honduras and other places to go diving. But ever since they had a baby, they haven't had the time to go. So, while they are diving in Montery, I'm going to be taking my little cousin to his first trip to the beach. It's going to be quite an experience.



     



Thursday, October 13, 2011

[Re:] Texting

Kristy posted:
"I remember when I first got texting, I would text all the time. I guess it was “fun.” But now, everyone is just annoying. I don’t know how to explain it… I guess I get irritated with people easily."
      You make a really good point, and I couldn't agree more. It was actually really fun to text people when I first got texting. I think that is the same for everyone. It was a new way of communicating that was convenient and easy. Rather than having to step aside to call someone, you can just text them, yaknow? Easy to multitask.
       But you're right. After a while, it looses its appeal. For me, at least, it's almost a nuisance. Don't get me wrong, I still enjoy texting people once in a while but it's when someone messages me on a daily basis that it gets kind of old. If I'm out having fun with my friends, it's annoying to have to constantly check my phone because of people texting me. More often than not, I ignore it now. It gets on my nerves when that certain friend (or friends) will text in the morning, afternoon, and evening multiple times, and that's after the fact that I don't reply to any of them.
      I mean, if I'm in class or by myself, it doesn't bother me too much. If the person and I actually have something to talk about, then yeah, I'll text them. Or to make plans to meet up, yaknow?
      It's weird..like, I enjoy it, but I don't at the same time. Depends on my mood, I guess. I prefer just seeing people in person.
      The one thing I REALLY hate is when people confront me about shit over the phone. It's like, really? Come on, if there's a problem, act maturely and speak about it in person. I know a few people who are afraid to say something to someones face, but has no problem talking shit over the phone. It's funny.
     

[Ce:] Haunted House

      I read this article about a charity Halloween event that over 100 women put together to raise money. Last year, they raised just about $90,000. The Candle Lighters are about to start their 42nd season with a Haunted Hotel. However, this year they are having to pay for 24-hour security because vandals destroyed part of the grounds. But they will be opening this year regardless.
     Well, that sucks. I feel bad for them because, they are putting together a huge event to entertain people of all ages, as well as give the money to charity because its a fundraiser for nonprofits. And here these guys go, vandalizing the place. I think it's kind of rude.

      This reminds me of one night the past summer. I was in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. The place kind of reminds me of Santa Cruz, in that its right along the beach and there's a boardwalk. There's a "strip" that has tons of stores, mostly selling "Myrtle Beach" merchandise, and every night the street is packed with people driving up and down in these really badass cars. There's a lot of old muscle cars, and then new cars also. Lots of fixed up Mustangs. Its awesome.
      Anyways, my point is, is that there's a "Haunted House" near the town that I saw. I thought it was going to be pretty fun, and a little scary, right? Because that's what I'm used to seeing here on the West Coast. Well I forgot that do things a lot differently in the South. Needless to say, my sister and I got tickets.
      We had to take this rickety old service elevator up to the third floor..It kept dropping on the way up. We finally got off, and started walking. It was PITCH black and I was in front, thanks to my sister. So I'm walking down this dark hallway, holding onto the walls so we don't run into anything. We turned the corner, and entered a room that had all these bags hanging from the ceiling, that had bodies in them, dripping with blood. Nasty.
     After that, another long dark hallway, tripping over things on the ground. Then we went into what I guess was the dining room. It was a big room that had barely any light, with spider webs and stuff everywhere (the typical "haunted" room), except no one was there. We stood there looking around for a few minutes and then I felt something touch my back. I thought it was my sister, so I laugh and turn around, and there's people surrounding my sister and I. The person who touched my back was a really life-like clown, and let me tell you, I hate clowns. He had a chainsaw, a real one, in his hands. I scream for my dear life and start sprinting. Haha, so scared that I started crying. He was fucking chasing me! I ended up walking onto a balcony where he's still behind me. I can't even describe how terrified I was.
      The chainsaw clown fellow disappeared, and so my sister and I started running down the hallways to get out of this place. We kept passing little scenes of creepy shit. Like, a dude getting an autopsy, someone getting electrocuted. Yaknow, stuff like that. We end up running into a creepy guy and he told us that if we beat him to the first floor, we got to leave. But if he beat us there, we had to do the whole thing over again. I was still scared to death, so I'm sprinting down the halls. All I remember after that point, was that my sister and I made it back outside before him. We ran so far away from the building.
      Wow, it doesn't sound so bad when I'm retelling the story. I assure you, it was fucking terrifying. But all I can do now is to laugh about it.



[Free:] College?

      I was always so excited to get to the point where I could start applying to colleges because it meant that I get to choose what I want, not what my parents wanted of me. In my situation, my father allows me to apply to wherever I want and I get to choose which one that I'm finally going to go to. Cool, right? I've been independent and making my own decisions for a while, but this is something big.
     Where I go to college could affect the rest of my life. And I really didn't realize how...annoying...the application process was. I've gotten to applications to the state schools done so far. But I'm still working on the UC apps. I was almost finished the other night, and I forgot about the essay/personal statement. I did write it, but both of the pieces that I wrote are so crappy that I'm going  to need to do a lot of work to get it presentable to show them. I just don't have time these days to focus of college applications.
     I really want to go to UC Davis. I've been motivated to go there for a while. I was talking to the counselor about going there and she insinutated that I shouldn't apply because apparently I'm not good enough to get in. Yeah its true that I haven't taken any AP classes and I don't have any of those awards and crap that they want, but hey, if I want to go there, I should at least try, right? There's no harm in trying. And I won't care if I don't get accepted to Davis because there are a few other places that I want to go to as well, that I have a better chance of getting in to. Who knows what is going to happen? It's worth a try. People should always at least give things a try because, hell, it might be worth it.
      I'm just excited to get the hell out of here and start something new. I don't understand how there's those people that are well into their twenties and still living here. Get out and do something.

Going for the Look

   


      Advertisement in our society today has reached a whole new level. Companies go to great lengths to sponsor themselves; spending far too much money as well as using people as a living, breathing, and walking display. "Going for the Look, but Risking Discrimination", an article written by Steven Greenhouse, takes a stance and claims that advertisement these days has reached a new, unhealthy standing. This article states and explains that discrimination is now a major problem within the world of publicity. Marshal Cohen is a senior industry analyst in a market research firm. He states that having a "brand enhancer, or what [he] calls a walking billboard, is critical." I agree with both Greenhouse and Cohen, in which they both have arguable and legitimate points.
      It is very important in today's society to have an enticing image to promote business. Matthew Sheehey, a high school student from Chicago, states that, "If you see an attractive person working in the store wearing Abercrombie clothes, it makes you want to wear it, too." This is quite accurate in that seeing a pleasing image will make the customer interested in looking the same way, in hopes that they will look just as good. No one wants to wear clothing or accessories from someone who looks unattractive. From first hand experience, I have been with people at a mall and realized that my friends and I are more interested in the stores that have attractive and alluring employees.  We are not interested in the stores that have people we don't want to look at, it's the cold, hard truth.
      As simply part of human nature, people have a tendency to gravitate more towards the things that they see as enticing. Cohen states, "In today's competitive retail environment, the methods have changed for capturing the consumers' awareness of your brand." Sadly, this is true. The world of retailers is highly aggressive in the fact that companies will go to great lengths to make sure their products are the ones that the consumers want. It is perfectly reasonable for companies to hire whomever they want in order to promote their business. They should be allowed to hire people that they think would project what they are attempting to sell. It's their responsibility to hire their employees and if they pick certain people, then they should deal with the outcome of what kind of business their employees bring. 
      However, the means in which they find these "seductive" and "sexy" employees are not very fair. They discriminate against people who are thought of as not "good-looking". There is a certain approach that Abercrombie uses to hire new employees. Mr. Serrano, a manager for Abercrombie, describes this method, "We were supposed to to approach someone in the mall who we think will look attractive in our store." Rather than carrying out the normal interview process to see who qualifies for the job, they simply use looks as the deciding factor on who gets hired. This means that someone who is highly qualified, with past experience, might not get the job because they aren't what is considered attractive in today's society. While at the same time, someone with no experience, and possibly under-qualified will get that same job because they fit the criteria. This is a accurate representation of discrimination. 
      Although it is important to promote a positive and attractive image for advertising retail, I feel that it is unconventional to let that pave way for unfair business chances. For example, Michele Cornell is a 47 year old waitress who has worked at her job for 23 years. The restaurant had closed for renovations and when they opened it back up, they had refused to rehire her based solely on the fact that "she no longer fit the young, trendy look it had adopted."  It is not just to discriminate based on looks under a circumstance where qualification should be the deciding factor.
      It is not illegal for businesses to hire based on physical appearance. However, when it interferes with the quality of the employees and if it acts unfairly upon others, it is unjust. Businesses should have the freedom to hire whomever the want because quite frankly,  good looking workers and models are going to bring in more business and profit. Promoting a good image makes the overall shopping experience better for the customers, persuading them to spend more money. But, even if this is the case, it should not prevent anyone else from having an equal chance at a job. Everyone deserves a chance to get a job, regardless of appearance.