Christmas Tree NOT Holiday Tree

Religion has become one of the biggest controversies when the holidays come around. This year it has become even larger. In magazines and newspaper advertisements, Christmas Trees are now being called Holiday Trees. I think this is disrespectful to people who celebrate Christmas. For years trees have been the symbol of Christmas and now all of a sudden, people from all over the world come to America and now we have to change our ways? I believe they should conform to our customs instead of Americans who have been fine with the idea of Christmas Trees for decades. Do we call menorah's for Chanukah, holiday candelabra's? Each religion has their own way of celebrating and Christmas trees are what Catholics use to celebrate Christmas. People actually refuse to buy trees from stores that sell them as holiday trees. These stores are losing business from the only religion that buys trees. The Lincoln Center Tree lighting that occured Tuesday night was called the Holiday Tree Lighting. The Rockefellar Center Tree Lighting was called the Christmas Tree Lighting. Alot of people haven't and refuse to conform to the changes that society is making and I agree. It is getting ridiculous that we have to change the ways we've been living.

American Music Awards

The American Music Awards on November 18, 2007 were held at the NOKIA Theatre in Los Angeles, California. Jimmy Kimmel, comedian, writer and talk show host returned for the fourth time to hose the 35th anniversary of the awards show. For the first time the winners will be determined by voters online. There were many performers from Alicia Keys to the Jonas Brothers. Celine Dion sang her new hit Taking Chances, and Lenny Kravitz sang Ill Be Waiting which he played on the piano which was a surprising change from his usual fast paced rock songs. The performances were upbeat and kept the show alive. Daughtry, who was founded on American Idol and was voted off at 8th place, left the show with music awards in three different categories; Favorite Breakthroug Artist, Favortie Rock Album, and Favorite Artist in the Adult Contemporary category. Other winners included Justin Timberlake, Carrie Underwood and Linkin Park. Beyoncé became the first female artist ever to win the International Artist Award at the 2007 American Music Awards. She performed Irreplaceable with the band Sugarland who added their own twist to the pop song. The American Music Awards is a wonderful event to show America's love for music and to support those who make this music.

Today's Energy

Today’s world is constantly using hydrocarbons to fuel our homes, cars and businesses. Researchers are trying to find a new and improved way of using our earth’s resources to do this without harming the environment. Renewable, nonpolluting sources of energy could help stop future damage that this world will eventually cause. Some experts say that we are slowly running out of hydrocarbons, but this isn’t the main reason we should start looking for new resources to use. It is because we won’t be able to live much longer with the consequences of using oil, coal and natural gas. Changes can be made, but lifestyles would have to be altered and many wouldn’t be in favor of this. Global warming could be slowed down, maybe even cease to exist if cars, homes, and factories are made more energy efficient and an aggressive investment in renewable energy is sought out. Even though plans sound feasible, this world is far from off the hook. There has yet to be found a renewable source that could replace the tasks that hydrocarbons can fulfill. Changes all over the world would have to be made for renewable sources. Car engines would have to be rebuilt to allow corn, sugar cane or hydrogen as their source of gas that would let the engine run, power plants would be built to collect energy from the sun and wind, and networks of pipelines would have to be laid out across the nation to transport hydrogen rather than fossil fuels. Some sources that could in the future be used are, solar power, which would collect energy from the sun, wind power, which would harvest energy by using windmill farms, geothermal power, which would gather heat from the earth’s core, gasification, which cleans coal so it wouldn’t emit harmful substances out into the atmosphere when being used, ethanol power, which would turn corn and sugarcane into forms of energy, nuclear power, and hydrogen power, which would use the earth’s most abundant source, water, to supply this world with clean energy.
(Time Magazine)

Alochol In College

College is a big transition from highschool and alcohol is a big part of the change. There is a chance alcohol will be present when going to parties or just hanging out with friends, so it is important to remember to be safe about the amount of alcohol consumed. One shot, one beer and one glass of wine all have the same amount of alcohol in it so remembering which kinds of drinks you consume is an excellent idea. Watching out for your drink at all times and keeping tabs on how many drinks you have had are some precautions to take. Drinking games make it harder to keep track of how many drinks you’ve had since the enjoyment of the game will distract a person from remembering their own limit. Going anywhere alone after drinking is never a good idea since judgment is impaired after only a few drinks. Also never leave a friend alone if they have been drinking to assure their safety as well. It is inevitable that all teenagers have a drink before the legal drinking age, so it is a great idea to have these labs for first year college students. Learning the ways to stay safe while drinking alcohol could help save many from becoming victims of DWI related accidents or even abuse due to intoxication. It is good that people aren’t naive to the fact that alcohol has become a large part of the college transition and instead of brushing it off they are addressing the situation in a rational and effective way.

The ups and downs of living at college...

In high school I thought it was the greatest thing to live in a dorm. I was jealous of my friends that would get that chance. I’ve been to most of my friend’s dorms and living at a college definitely has its pros and cons. The dorms themselves aren’t that big and sharing them with either two or three people makes it even worse. Having my own room all of my life, I couldn’t even imagine having to share such a small living space. School is hard enough already and having someone else to cope with is ever harder. Roommates don’t tend to have identical schedules so while one has to study the other one might want to have friends over. Dealing with roommate’s habits and the habits of their friends can be the worst part of living in a dorm. On the other hand, roommates can become a person’s best friend and they could have the best four years together.

Besides living with the people in your room you have to deal with the other people sharing the floor. Loud music and parties can be very distracting when someone has to study or do homework. The smells of the food that each person cooks in their room could be nauseating. Every person on that floor has to share a bathroom. Granted there is usually more than one stall in that bathroom, they could become pretty disgusting. The showers also have to be shared and trying to clean oneself in something that has everyone else’s filth in it can be disgusting also. There are some positive sides to this though. Having so many people on a floor, a person is bound to find a friend to hang with or a party to go to on a weekend. The other aspect of living away from home is the food at a college. It is almost all of the time much different than home cooking. Only having a few choices of food that you might not like is hard with all the other changed that college brings. Some people like being able to choose what they eat instead of having someone telling them to eat healthy foods or to eat more or to eat less.

Freedom is the ultimate positive point in living at college. Parents aren’t there telling you what to do every second. There aren’t any curfews and school work can get done whenever you feel up to doing it. Siblings aren’t there to annoy you and chores like cleaning are optional. Living away from home has its positives and negatives so each individual has to evaluate which situation has more ups than downs.

Halloween in the Village

Some people think its crazy to go into the city on Halloween. I, on the other hand, pictured it to be spontaneous and fun. With three of my best friends, we set out on the journey to go the Halloween Parade in the Village. Gettin on the ferry we got a sneak peek at what the parade might look like. Crowds of people all dressed in different costumes ready for the parade. Getting into the city was the easy part, finding a place to stand was not. Stepping on to the train was a tight squeeze. Barely room to move around people were all over the place in strange, yet amusing attire. Some dressed like superheros or other homemade costumes like Willy Wonka from the newer version of the movie. People were already drunk or maybe just drunk with excitement. Getting off of the train at Christopher St. was an adventure in itself. Not getting trampled was my goal as I stepped onto the platform, making sure my friends got off safely as well. Walking down the street was almost an impossible task. Adults with strollers and young children oblivious to their surroundings were at the parade. Thankfully it was a beautiful night to walk around because it was hard to get into any of the restaurants and stores. The parade was hard to see with the massive amounts of people standing as close as they could to the street. Some people resorted to standing on newspaper dispensers or bike racks to see what was happening. There were alot of floats in the parade so those were easy to see since they were above eye level. Wings was the theme of the parade this year so oversized shoes, skeletons and people had wings attached to them. Other people barely had a costume on at all. It wasn't unusal to see most of a persons body exposed on the streets that night. Leaving the city wasn't as hard as getting there. The trains weren't as crowded and the ferry had barely any people at all. The parade was fun but just seeing the strange people that come out in the city was the best part of being in the Village on Halloween.