In my class I took this year, I learned more then simply the practices of the world's famous 5 religions (Judaism, Christianity, Taoism, Buddhism, and Hinduism), along with Sikhism and Atheism. I learned that I can see the logic of following a religion, any of the ones I learned, but I personally couldn't follow a specific one down to a T. I don't see a personal benefit from committing my life and sensuality to beliefs of those from TIIIIMMMMEEEEEE ago, when I've lived this long, happily, without any. I was raised in a Non-theist household and was taught science and evolution, which makes sense to me to this day, and I feel no need to change those views.
    Even though I agree with the beliefs of Atheism and Humanism, I learned that I am not limited to them. What I mean by this is by learning the details of each Religion, some have grown on me and have made perfect sense. Not whole Religions, but aspects of them. For example, I've always loved to do Yoga. I find it helps with stretching and clearing my mind, so I am able to think about what is most important. Hinduism and Buddhism have opened my eyes to the many benefits of Yoga and Meditation that I didn't realize, like withdrawing inward and finding yourself, clearing your mind and achieving a 'higher' state of consciousness. This aids greatly in stressful and busy moments :)
    Another example of something that I have taken from Religion is the wearing of the Hijab and other Muslim attire. Allah dictates that the women's beauty is sacred, and should only be known to her husband and close family. Now, I don't think of myself this greatly (even though i apparently should), but I do feel that my body is MY body, and that the opportunity to look at it without my permission is abused by many (especially working in a convenience store). I intend to end this by wearing Muslim attire of loose-fitting clothing and head scarfs for my hair, even though I will be wearing my PJ's and no Hijab in my own house. See what I mean?
    What I loved about Religion was the connection I had to Buddhism and Taoism, and how my ideals and morals lined up fairly close with them. I am very peaceful, focusing on my own happiness, with selflessness in the back round. I work, I go to school, and I volunteer my time with 3 organizations. I will be donating blood frequently when I am 17, and can't wait to travel and see the Religious Holy Lands and Famous Sights and Pilgrimages of the World. I find Religion fascinating, even though I have not found my own yet. What religion ultimately taught me is that I don't simply believe in nothing. Thank you Mr. H for the wonderful semester!!

I recently watched a Tedtalk with my English class about a woman who decided to read books in pairs. Sometimes they were very similar, either about the same person, or about different ppl in the same event, but they could also be very different, like te roles they had in those events.

I think this is a great idea, and allows you to make connections, and also compare and contrast ideas that are mentioned. It gives you two outlooks on similar ideas, because you wouldnt read two random books that have no relevance to eachother. It requires out of box thinking, but so do books in general, haha.

I recently read this book called 'Prisoner B-3087 by Alan Gratz about a boy (started as a boy) who survives the holocaust, going through 10 different concentration camps, sometimes hiding or helping others, always playing the Nazi's 'games', but lost his family. He ha a strong mentality, most times, that he WOULD survive the war, and that hes been through too much to die suddenly. He was a strong boy, and it was based on a true story.

I thought this would be interesting to read along with Mein Kampf by Adolf Hitler that he wrote in the 1920's about himself when he was imprisoned, about his political ideas and the plans he hopes to do in the future. It was titled 'my struggles' in German, so its kind of self explainitory.

These would be so interesting to read together, to get the ideas and thoughts from one mans perspective, but to also get the perspective of someone experiencing Hitlers thoughts and ideas, and how unfair it was to the Jews, and Yanek,, but also how good of an idea it seemed like to be done. Both would make me sympathetic and angry at moments, but they're moments easily connected between stories.

If you ever get the chance, try this! Maybe not these two novels if they'ren't your genre, but its an eye opening experience.

This morning I am sitting with my Uncle watching some cooking shows, and every now and again he starts explaining to me why the cook is doing what hes doing, and i thought these tips might be useful to other people as well, because they took me by surprise.

First off, you should buy your fresh fish whole, not filleted, in order to tell how old it is. Apparently the fishes eyes will go and turn almost white when it gets old, and that the markets will usually fillet the fish at this time, because people don't buy them, and you can't tell. Some fish will taste fine even after their eyes turn, but will always taste better the fresher it is.

Another thing i learned if you wanted to skip the step of determining on whether it's fresh or not, buy it while its swimming! But be sure you watch WHERE it comes from. I was told if you buy farm catfish, it will often taste muddy because they're all kept in a pool type habbitat. Rather than a river or a lake, where it has a natural open environment. I was also told that the same thing could happen in a pond, so beware.

You know how all fruits and vegetables come either overdone or way to early picked? Well canned tomatoes will often stay fresh, being put in it at the time its riped, instead of looking in the market where you can get from green to mushy tomatoes. Because they come from so far away, they're picked early and will go bad fast, but canned tomatoes will stay good until you need them.

I learned another thing,not from my uncle, but to watch how much salt Rachel Ray uses in her meals! You want good cholesteral, dont follow ALL her measurements, haha.

Also, things wrapped in bacon will ALWAYS taste good. You can never go wrong with Bacon!!

    One of the final things I have to prove to my teacher I have done is be an active citizen. This basically means to do things around your community in a way that benefits them, and I believe I have been doing this slowly with the activities I partake in.
    The first thing I did was I went to the library, and asked for any volunteering opportunities. They put me down for helping with special events, like Center of the Arts at City Hall and the Multicultural Farmers Market taking place, and we will set up booths for kids to come and learn about reading. I have a passion for novels, so I thought this was a good choice.
    I also did things like attend local events to show my support to things like the TEDx Talk at Huron Heights, a zombie survival play for my school, and I signed up for a Cop and Community youth program starting in September. I even participated in the earth clubs rain barrel sale, helped advertise it on my blog and at my store, and wrote about the benefits of them in hopes of showing you all insight on how amazing they can be. I also did this with composts.
    I signed back up for giving a hand with kids with disabilities and horses program that goes on, where I pull them around and make them comfortable. I did this before, and it was pretty far away, but now I have my longboard!
    I even try to be an active citizen at work, I help out at another store twice a week due to a shortage of employees, I asked the manager to start reusing the coin rollers, and now we collect them in a bin, and have been thinking of taking the newspapers we throw out and donating them to the animal shelter for the bottom of cages. When the weathers nice, I'll go outside and sweep up the cigarette butts xP
    I did the book review for my library, I bought a necklace that provided water for someone for an entire year in a 3rd world country! If you look around you, opportunities will present themselves so you can be an active citizen too. All you

Failure, to me, is the natural way of learning. By doing something, and not succeeding the first time, you would usually learn how to do it properly by NOT failing. And if not, you try again until you don't.

Failure is a necessary step in learning to do things independently, too. If something went wrong, and you need to fix it, you can try different methods to find a solution. This flexes your thinking, uses your creativity, and makes sure no one comes and does it for you.

Failure can also be leverage, say something bad could come from failing. You would try your hardest, and probably put more effort towards         whatever it is your trying to not fail.

To fail is to do something, and not succeed at its final task. But the good thing to failure is that the opportunity doesn't go away, you can try again! And you tend to avoid the way you did previously, or maybe you'd alter it to be more.. successful.  Either way, you learn a thing or two.

    In class, we watched a TEDTalk (in the TEDTalk tab) about Grit. In this talk she talks about how IQ doesn't always matter with learning, but GRIT; how hard and motivated you work and are. She believes if kids have grit and want to move forward in your life, and you can by how hard and long you work on it. Not just you, but ANYONE. I agree with this, you don't have to know everything about science to go into a biology class, just work towards it, and slowly but surely you'll be a biologist :) If you feel like you absolutely want to do it, and it's your dream, and you work towards your goals, you'll achieve them.

*This is a reminder to all that are interested! My earth club at Galt Collegiate Institute on water street are selling rain barrels out front of our school on May 31st 2013 for $50, which is a lot cheaper then most. Or you can order online at www.rainbarrel.ca/gci and then come pick it up on May 31st. You can come between 3 and 8pm, and I'll be there till 5! Hope to see a lot of people out there :)*
ALSO!: All proceeds go towards a new water bottle refill station (because our fountains are awful, old and dirty D:)

    In regard to uniforms, I am on the line between wanting them and avoiding them. There are some benefits to them, but I like to wear my clothes, considering I have a lot and wouldn't be able to wear them all if I was restricted to that. <---
    Uniforms, I think, would be a big time saver in the morning to get ready. Always wearing the same thing, it would be a simple choice. It would also save money by not buying as much clothing, which is extremely over priced these days. It prevents people from wanting to steal them, too.
    There's also the fact of bullying (if that still happens) and looking the same as everyone else wouldn't make you stand out if you were, say, wearing a pink shirt. People are irrational, and may not like the fact that you are wearing it, and say something to you. I don't understand bullying, but it happens.
    But if we wore uniforms everyday, it be the same uniform.. I don't like that. I'd wash it too often, and probably wear it out because I don't like the fact of wearing something after I already have, especially for a week straight. And I like my clothes, if you look in the pictures section of my website you can see some of my t-shirts, and choosing my outfit everyday shows my mood of how I woke up. It's also kind-of fun :P
    Those are my opinions on uniforms, how do you see them? Could you wear them? Or if you do, do you like it?

    As I mentioned on my home page, I watch Leafs hockey. I only started getting into it this starting short season due to my boyfriend watching it, and helping me understand the game. After lots of questions, observations, and explanations, I finally like hockey.
    I like it for the fact I'm always on my toes, the puck being constantly passed from around the toronto goal net, then 3 seconds later its back down to bostons side, shoots, SCORES! Anything can happen, people score all the time, the puck goes up and into the crowd, passed from player to player, then to the other team, it could slam into someones jaw, fights break out, big groups of mosh fights break out where the refs have no control, equipment breaks and gets lost, people fall, get pushed. Its all so surprising, and I don't usually get bored.
    I also like that the teams don't take turns with the ball (puck) which is what it was like when I watched football. You'd have to wait around for something to happen, someone to break free. And when their running down the field ahead of everyone, you know ahead of time their gonna score. With hockey, even though your near the net, there's no guarantee your going to score. And you could shoot the puck from far away, and still get it in! Or it could be intercepted, and taken to the other end. Football in an interception, you stop and the play restarts for the other team.
    The rules were hard to understand at first, and a lot happened in the games that I didn't understand. Like the fact if the puck passes the blue line, everyone has to go back to their side before continuing the play, so every offside that was called I was very confused and asked always what had happened. I'm like that with most penalties, not knowing the official terms used in the game. Soon enough I will know :)
    So if you haven't watched a hockey game, I'd suggest watching the next Boston and Toronto game. Boston won sadly last night 5-2, but toronto won the one before. Overall, the totals are 2-1 Boston in their playoffs. Good luck Maple Leafs, and I hope you readers watch the next one tomorrow on May 8th, 2013. Who do you root for?

    Today I want to talk about ways you can reuse rainwater collected by a large plastic barrel. I want to talk about this because with the earth club at my school that I am in are going to host a fundraiser for new fountains in our school, by selling large rainwater barrels similar to the one shown to the left <--- except not painted like that... More plain green. They will be sold May 31st 2013 at Galt Collegiate Institute (GCI) on Water street, Cambridge ON. Come out if your in the area :)
1. Reuse to water gardens (be cautious with edibles), less on your water bill, less consumption of local water.
2. Less on your energy bill to get water to your home.
3. When used to collect gutter water, prevents stormwater runoff that could collect motor oil and fertilizers, that could lead into bodies of water.
4. Perfect for cleaning glass and other ceramic surfaces because doesn't contain lime or calcium.
5. Super easy to make, cheap to buy.

They will be on sale, again, May 31st 2013 at GCI for $50! Hope to see you there!!!

   No, rafiki beads are not given to people saving other people, I just didn't know what other title to give this, but I definitely wanted to talk about it.
    The other day, my boyfriend came to me with this thing he bought for me that his school was selling. It was blue, circular, and  very big when not looped around itself. They're called Rafiki Beads.
    I thought it was surprising, because my boyfriends not the kind of guy to randomly do this. It was even 10 dollars! But then he told me it's not just the beads he thought I'd like, but the fact that the 10 dollars spend on it goes towards supplying someone with water for a full year in a 3rd world country, personally made by a mother in Kenya. When he told me this, it put the biggest smile on my face, because he wouldn't have bought it if not for me, and knew I'd love it.
    It also warms my heart, knowing that he helped a sadly unfortunate person live for an entire year with water. Its fantastic, and I wish I could tell everyone to buy one too. 10 dollars seems so little to us, but makes a huge difference to someone else. If everyone could do this, who knows the difference we'd make.
    I'm told that a lot of things like this happen at his school, and that they have tons of projects to help a lot of problems around the world, and I smile at that too, knowing that someone has cared enough to try and make a difference, and most definitely is.
    Every time I look at my wrist, or sometimes I'll wear it as a necklace, or a headband, I am reminded that I saved someones life, and that really is a good feeling.
    If you want to help the cause, check out this website that sells Rafiki beads online for water in 3rd world countries. It explains all their goals, how their achieving them, and how you can be involved. Check it out :)
                                                    http://www.nikawater.org/about-us/