Basketball is boring but OW

I don’t watch basketball because it bores me. I don’t really understand it and there’s nothing in a game of basketball that grabs my attention except sexy guys. Today, during some game between Louisville and whoever they played, Kevin Ware suffered a gruesome leg injury. Mind you, I didn’t watch the game because I repeat BASKETBALL BORES ME but OW that had to hurt. I was at work when I saw a tweet about his injury and I was intrigued because honestly, how can someone get seriously hurt in basketball? This is the exception. Ware jumps up to try and block a shot and his leg snaps under him when he lands. You can see the reaction from his team as they all collapse to the ground, most in tears, when they see his leg. One can only wonder how a team can finish a game after such a horrible event but Louisville did it. They ended up winning their game and they hold the trophy up with Ware’s jersey. You can watch the video here but I don’t recommend doing so unless you’re sure you want to see it because as I said before, the injury is very gruesome. Please keep Kevin Ware in your thoughts and prayers.

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Interaction is corrupted

New technology is developed and released almost every day. Think about music devices; from the Walkman, to mp3 player, to the classic iPod, to the most recent iPod Nano which has a touchscreen and measures about 4 inches in length.  Phones used to be the size of a brick. After the brick came a smaller brick. After the mini brick, flip phones came, then phones with full QWERTY keyboards, and now smartphones which aren’t very smart at all. With all of this technology, it’s hard to have a conversation with someone in person without them looking at a mobile device. Families no longer talk about their day at dinner but about someone’s tweet instead. That is, if they can even stay off their phones long enough to converse about anything. Technology and social media have corrupted human interaction skills in people of all ages.

I often find myself out to eat with my friends or more often, my family. We usually go to a sit down restaurant to spend time together but is it really spending time together if at any given time, at least one of us is on our phone? As I glance around to other tables, I realize my group is not the only offender here. I admit I’m guilty of being distracted by my phone as well and that’s why it bothers me so much. Technology is so convenient for anyone to use that everyone is using it now. “They are supremely efficient at delivering information, allowing us constantly to measure the levels of connection radiating throughout our social network.” (Rosen, 93) Our society is desperate for a technology fix after a period of time so we take out our phone, open Twitter, and see the latest gossip in 140 characters or less. We get our fix, put our phone away, and find ourselves back on our phone in 10 or 15 minutes when we need another fix. Two people can’t have a face-to-face conversation without one of them, or even both, checking their phone at least once during the talk.

People are also dependent on social networks such as Facebook and Twitter for information. Whether this information is about a friend, a family member, even a stranger, you’re likely to find it on Facebook. Just yesterday I was scrolling through my “news feed” on Facebook and came across a status asking for prayers because this woman’s son was in the hospital. I understand the want for support, but by posting this status, she was bombarded with “What happened?” ‘s  and “Is he okay?” ’s.  She responded with “I’m not comfortable sharing the situation.” I think it’s a little late for that.

People no longer pick up the phone and dial a friend to tell them news. Now, people say “Did you see my tweet?” and “Look at this on Facebook!” If you think you haven’t fallen guilty to social media you’re either very lucky, or lying to yourself.  Human interaction skills lack in today’s society in people of all ages.  My grandma texts me when she needs me. My mom texts me when she needs something done in the house. My brother texts me to ask for something he needs. I rarely get phone calls and even rarer do I get asked or told things in person. All of this because technology has made it convenient and efficient to send a text to someone no matter where they are, when it is, or who you’re trying to reach. Amazing? Yes. Also very discouraging though, to think of the future generations who, because of developments in technology, won’t have any sort of human interaction skills instead of bad skills.

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Diabetes is SHIT

Disclaimer: This post is going to be a diabetic teenage girl bitching about how diabetes ruined her last night of “spring break” as well as how shitty diabetes is. Thank you.

If you don’t have type one diabetes, there’s a one hundred percent chance you don’t know how shitty it is. Even if your best friend, child, spouse, sibling, parent, or anyone you know has diabetes, you will never understand the shitty disease it is unless you get it. I, as a type one diabetic, would never wish diabetes on my worst enemy. The low blood sugars make your vision fuzzy, give you cold sweats, and make you shake uncontrollably. When your blood sugar is high, you get dry mouth so you chug water, and chug juice, and chug milk, and chug any liquid that will make your mouth wet, even if it’s just for a few minutes. When the few minutes is up, you chug some more. All this drinking makes you have to go to the bathroom A LOT, and I mean once every ten or fifteen minutes. If your blood sugar is high, there’s a great chance of you sleeping all day and night until it comes down into the normal range.

The worst part about diabetes is the long term complications if you don’t take care of yourself and your blood sugar. People go blind and lose limbs because of diabetes, because they didn’t keep their blood sugar down and therefore they lost circulation to their limbs and eyes. Woman with diabetes (me) should be extra concerned with their blood sugars if they want to have children. Diabetes can cause infertility in women due to the imbalance of hormones. Maybe that doesn’t bother some people, but I want my own family. Diabetes is not going to stop that.

One thing diabetes did stop was me from having fun on my last night of spring break. Friday night I had a great time with friends. We ate junk food, listened to music, and played cards. I promise you with all of my heart that I took insulin for everything I consumed on Friday night. It wasn’t until Saturday, however, that I realized my insulin pump cannula had come out. My blood sugar read high on my monitor, my heart rate was at least 150 at any given time, and I couldn’t eat without feeling nauseous. When this happens to me, it can take over 24 hours to correct. I, being the baby I am, wanted to go to the hospital where they can fix me over night and know exactly what to do. My mom, being the mom she is, wanted to fix me by herself. We didn’t really know the exact procedure but she did it. It took her staying up all night to check my blood sugars every hour and giving me insulin when I needed it, but she did it.

Diabetes can really put a damper on life. It’s a fragile thing to deal with and it’s so, so shitty to have. Sometimes when I feel like giving up and not taking care of myself, I remember my grandpa who had diabetes as well. I remember how strong he was and how strong I can be and that’s my motivation. 

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This didn't even work.

Yesterday, while I sat on my computer scrolling through Pinterest, I came across a "pin" on how to curl your hair without using heat. If you're unaware, Pinterest is a website where people "pin" pictures onto "boards" and these pictures link to websites. Pinterest is full of recipes, crafts, DIY's, clothes, jewelry, hair, nail, and so much more. Although it may take a while to get the hang of, Pinterest is addicting. It has transformed me into someone who loves to cook, try new crafts, do crazy things with my nails, and risk my hair looking bad just to try something I saw on a friends board.

This time, I took a shot at the curling without any heat. I had heard of this before but not using this particular method. Many of my friends use the method of twisting strands of hair and pinning them to their head when they get out of the shower. I've tried that and it doesn't work on my hair so I was iffy about trying this style. However, since I don't know how to curl my hair with a curling iron, I had no choice. Here's how to do it.

Take a shower before you go to bed and brush your hair after you get out. Make sure you part your hair where you want it parted the next day. Add some sort of shaping gel or product. Let your hair dry until it is wetter than damp but not dripping water. Place a soft headband around your head as a hippy would do. Make sure it's soft and goes around you're entire head. I used a Goody brand headband that came in a pack from Walmart. I chose not to curl my bangs so I pulled them out of the headband. Take a section of your hair, starting from the front on one side, and twist it over the headband. (Pull the band out from your head and put the hair over the headband and pull it through.) Repeat this along the side of your head until you get close to the middle of the back of your head. Do the same to the hair on the other side of your head until you get close to the middle of the back of your head. When you get to the last section of hair, you won't be able to twist it around the head band. Take this part of your hair, twist it, and pin it to the back of your head. Now go to bed!

When you wake up in the morning, unpin the section of hair from the back of your head and remove the headband. Voila! You have curls. Hairspray these curls and finish getting ready for the day. You can also style your hair however you like whether that be pinning your bangs back, pinning half of your hair back, or even pulling all of the curls back. Unfortunately for me, I ignored the "make sure your hair is wetter than damp" instruction and tried doing this by misting my hair with a spray bottle then proceeding to doing the head band and hair twisting. Some parts of my hair were much wetter than other parts when I did this so the curls didn't turn out as well as I would have liked. I ended up showering again, pinning my bangs and half of my hair back, and just leaving the rest natural. I would like to try this hair method again, paying more attention to the directions.

From the result I got when it didn't work, I would recommend it for girls who don't know how to curl their hair or maybe just don't want to take the time in the morning to curl it. Either way, it didn't end horrible for me and I did it wrong so if I do it right, I'm sure it'll be great. I'll attempt again tonight. If you do want to try this, here is the link to the video I watched. (Click the word "here") I'd be interested to hear from those brave enough to try something they found on the internet so please, if you attempt this, let me know how it turns out, if you like it, and if you would recommend it to others.

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PLAY A NEW SONG

I can’t stand when a horrible song comes on my radio and I go to change the station and either the same song or an even shittier song is on the new station. There are more than 5 songs in the world so why the hell do DJs choose the worst ones to play over and over again? Another thing I hate about the radio is how they over play songs. Songs being over played attributes to the overall shittiness of the radio. An example of an over played song would be “Blow Me (One Last Kiss)” by P!nk. When the song first came out, it was nice to hear every once in a while. It’s a typical song about heart break. Anyone, especially teenage girls, can relate to the lyrics “ think I've finally had enough, I think I maybe think too much. I think this might be it for us. Blow me one last kiss” and the catchy and upbeat rock tempo.

 

P!nk’s song isn’t the only one to be corrupted by the radio. Other examples of overplayed songs are “Some Nights” and “We Are Young” both by Fun., an indie band that is growing rapidly in popularity, “Somebody I Used To Know” by Gotye, “Home” by Phillip Phillips… the list goes on. It would be interesting to see how the sales of a single are affected by how much the song is played on local radio stations. Do single’s sell better because they’re played once every two hours or do listeners get enough of a song on the radio that they don’t need to buy it? I would venture to guess sales aren’t negatively affected by a lot because many people, especially the younger generation, including myself, don’t listen to the radio often. Instead, we use our iPod’s, MP3 players, or phones and an auxiliary cord to play our own choice of music.

 

I love being able to plug my phone in to my stereo because my selection of music varies a lot. I like country music as well as rap, pop, some rock, and what people might call alternative or indie music. The music on my phone is obviously there because I like it so it doesn’t make sense that I would ever get annoyed with a song which is nice. I also like listening to music on my phone because I have a lot of music that the majority of people I know haven’t even discovered yet so they haven’t been ruined by the radio.

I wish DJs could realize how horrible it is for the listener to hear the same song over and over again. If they understood this, then songs wouldn’t be ruined and it would be nice to hear them only every once in a while instead of the same song being on each local station at least 4 times a day.

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Biebs Bites Back

Justin Bieber is 19 years old. He has 5 number one albums and has seen the world while on tour. The guy has been on fire for the past 5 years. It was only a matter of time before he lashed out and damn! It was sexy. I’ll be the first one to admit to any stranger or passer-byer I HAVE RAGING BIEBER FEVER. Everything about him makes me swoon like a little girl. Some say I’m obsessed or crazy and I might even agree to some extent but how could I resist the perfect “hair flip?” The perfect smile. The perfect brown eyes. The perfect everything. Exactly, friend. I couldn’t resist any of it. Neither can you and you know it. If you say you don’t like Justin Bieber then you’re probably lying. Just a reminder, the first step to recovery is admitting you have a problem.

Recently, JB stopped in London, UK for his “Believe Tour” which I am unfortunately not attending. (A moment of silence please.) As Justin left his hotel in London, he pushed and shoved his way through a crowd of paparazzi to get in his vehicle. A certain paparazzi didn’t refrain from yelling obscenities at Justin as well as saying "Go back to America." Justin bit back by letting the "f-word" fly numerous times saying "Ill beat the f***ing f*** out of you!"

First off, this act of badassery was hot. Second off, YOU GO JB.

I, as someone who follows Justin Bieber in the news, on Twitter and Instagram, like he’s my God, am not surprised even a little bit by this outburst.  Someone can only take so much pressure and attention and I’m 95% sure that Justin Bieber has reached the limit that he can handle… but that’s okay because everyone can reach that limit. Unfortunately for the biebs, because of his fame and reputation, he was scrutinized and attacked for being human.

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Another post about a boy

It’s hard to deal with douchebags for your entire life because when someone great finally comes along, you don’t know if you should embrace it or push it away. Lucky for me, I knew right away that I had to embrace this. It’s not every day that you meet someone who makes you forget anything bad ever happened in your life. It’s not every day that someone becomes your best friend and soon enough, your boyfriend.

Meeting someone so perfect makes you wonder how you put up with anyone else. How did you handle your ex calling you a bitch and reminding you of all the things that could be better about yourself? How were you okay with your ex getting high and forgetting who you were for a few hours then acting like nothing happened? How did being treated like shit make you happy at all? How was the last 2 years of your life acceptable in any way? How do you get used to the bullshit he handed you? And the names he called you? How did you accept that kind of "love?"

Then you meet the guy that changes all of that. The one that seems like he should be from a movie because he’s almost too perfect to be real. His laugh, his smile, his arms around you and his way of making you feel ten thousand times better when all you want to do is cry. And when you do cry, he sits there and holds you. He wipes away your tears until you realize you’re stupid for crying in the first place. When he realizes how bad the last guy treated you, he confronts him. He claims you as his girl instead of being embarrassed to say he’s dating you.  He’s the one who changed how you feel about guys for the better.

 

How does a girl get so lucky? How does a girl meet someone so great without wanting to? How does a girl fall so fast for someone so perfect and be so okay with it? How does a girl get over all of her trust issues and fear of getting hurt because of one single guy in her life? How?

 

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No More Happiness

It doesn't really hit you that the biggest part of your life is ending until it’s already over. It doesn't really hit you that the biggest part of your life is ending until your director asks the seniors how they feel about the last practice before the last competition. It doesn't really hit you that the biggest part of your life is ending until you hug your best friend knowing that he’s graduating in two months. It doesn't really hit you that the biggest part of your life is ending until you take the stage and get ready to give the best performance of the season no matter how high your blood sugar is. No matter how fast your heart is racing. No matter how bad your eyes start to water when you get introduced as a competitor for the last time of the 2012-2013 season.

So many emotions flooded the warm-up room yesterday as Happiness got ready to perform in finals at Washington High School’s MoShow. As our director went around the circle of students looking each one in the eyes, tears started to fall. As a junior, I didn't show a lot of emotion because if I’m lucky, I still have another year to be a part of such a wonderful program with such wonderful people that eventually become my family. I am lucky enough to be able to spend more time with this group of people than my biological family. More of my time will be spent at school for practices and at various competitions than will be spent at my house.

All of this is okay with me because Happiness is such a big part of my life. I don’t know what I’m going to do now on Mondays and Thursdays from 6 pm until 9 pm. What am I going to do on Saturdays now that I don’t need to wake up at ungodly hours of the morning to get on a charter bus to go to out of town competitions?  So many good things have ended now that show choir season is over but I know for sure that the memories will always be there. The best memories made with the best people I have ever had the pleasure of knowing. It doesn't really hit you that the biggest part of your life is ending until you're writing a blog about the end. If you were a part of Happiness Inc. in any way this season; combo, crew, parents, or ensemble, please know that you have changed my high school experience for the better and I am so grateful for each and every one of you. Please excuse me while I go wipe away my tears.

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Blogging is sort of stupid

It’s Sunday night and you think all of your homework is done. Then you remember you’re an AP Lang student and you now have at least 3 blogs to write and the word count must total up to 1200 words. DAMN IT. What does one blog about when one has nothing to write about?  The answer is simple. One blogs about how much he or she hates blogging. Where do I begin?

Blogging is stupid because I don’t know if people even read what I write. Hello? Is there anyone out there? SPEAK TO ME IF YOU ARE READING MY POINTLESS BLOG. Maybe if I knew my rants were being read, I wouldn’t mind blogging. On the other hand, though, maybe not.

Blogging is stupid because I could be sleeping right now. I would much rather be rested for a full day of bullshit, I mean school, tomorrow. I think it would be safe to assume that my teachers would appreciate a rested Jenny in class rather than a Jenny that can’t focus because she’s seconds away from falling asleep on her desk. That’s just a guess, though.

Blogging is stupid because I try to be funny but am I actually making people laugh? I guess this also reintroduces the first question I had. Does anyone read my blog to laugh? If a tree falls and no one is around to hear it, does it still make a sound? If I write a funny blog and no one reads it to laugh, is it still funny?

Blogging is stupid because I feel like I need to write quality things and use my “skills” I've learned thus far in AP Lang. Diction is important for my audience… if there is an audience. Do you understand my words? Are they colloquial enough for you? Are my sentences structured well? Is anyone even reading this?

Blogging is stupid because I never know what to write about. What do people want to read? If I wrote about what people wanted to read, then would I have an audience to laugh at my funny blogs and judge my diction and syntax? THEN WOULD I BE GOOD ENOUGH FOR THIS CRUEL WORLD!?

Blogging is stupid because I’m missing the Blackhawks game that is on right now. If I didn’t have to blog, I could watch the game with my daddy, complain when things go wrong, and celebrate excessively when things go so very right.

I’m not saying I don’t enjoy ranting to a possibly nonexistent audience. I’m just saying blogging is sort of stupid. Period. Point blank.  End of discussion.

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