Wildfire

On April 26th, a wildfire broke out in Sierra Madre, California. Sierra Madre is located about 15 miles northeast of Los Angeles, and borders the east side of Pasadena. Since my house is on the east side of Pasadena, I was very worried about this situation. I was constantly checking the news updates online, and by Sunday the fire has already burned about 400 acres and was only about 5% contained. One of the websites had what looked like a MapQuest map that showed the burning area in red. It used to only take me about 7 minutes to drive to my high school, and the fire was much closer to my house than that.

I don’t get homesick, so when I’m at school I don’t really think about my house very much. But this situation made me realize how important it is to me to know that my house is there and that I can go home at anytime. I think that this is a pretty common way of thinking. We don’t realize what is truly important to us until we are about to or do lose it.

This situation also made me really think about what material possessions I actually value. When I talked to my mom on Sunday, she asked me what I would want her to get out of my room if the worst happened. At first I had absolutely no idea. When I thought about all my stuff and realized that I actually had to decide what I would want to be saved, I was at a total loss. But the more I thought about it, it was actually not as difficult as I had first thought. The things I found myself choosing were not clothes or shoes or my TV, instead I wanted pictures, my yearbooks, and other things with similar sentimental value. I think that those are the things that are truly important. The things that can’t be replaced. Fortunately, by now the fire is mostly contained and my house is safe.

Sierra Madre Wildfire
Over 1,000 Flee Wildfire Near Los Angeles

Blog Comment

I commented on GoldBracelet’s post “A Quiet Place to Study?”. It’s about how crazy Fondren Library was a few nights ago.

A Quiet Place to Study?

1 Piece Only

Recently, airlines have started changing an important policy. Starting with United and Delta and progressing to Jet Blue and most recently American Airlines, airlines are now only allowing passengers to only have one checked bag. I think that this is very inconvenient. I definitely can’t fit all of stuff into just one bag, so that means that on top of the expense of having to fly home, I now get to pay an extra penalty.

I understand that the airlines are doing it in order to offset the rising gas prices, but I don’t feel like $20 or even $50 per passenger is going to make that much of a difference. But maybe if everybody is having to pay that much the airline will see some change.

I think that this new policy will especially affect college students. Going home for the summer or Christmas Break is like an event. With all the packing and getting ready and finding a way to get to the airport, traveling is stressful enough, but now there are even more restrictions. Our breaks are so long that there is no way to fit everything you need into one bag, I took home two bags just for spring break. While that may be a little bit extreme, I still feel like this new policy is going to affect college students more than anyone else.

Blog Comment

I commented on LMD’s post “Are computers really our friends?”. It’s about our dependence upon computers and can be found here .

Who said Sing-Song was Greek only?

On April 4th, the annual Sing Song competition was held in McFarlin Auditorium. This year’s production was call “A Night on Broadway” and features 7 performances comprised of 13 groups. For those who don’t know, Sing Song is a competition that involves singing, dancing, and acting. This year each group had to perform their interpretations of different Broadway musicals, and all the groups practiced hard for months in order to be ready.

However, Sing Song is not really a campus-wide event. All of friends who are in sororities attended, and they were expecting 1,500 people to be there. But, I also have many friends who are non-Greek, and none of them went. Why? They all said that it was a sorority/fraternity event so they didn’t want to go. While the contest is mainly comprised of Greek organizations, does not make it a Greek function. Sororities and fraternities usually just the ones that enter.

Sororities and fraternities are often accused of being close-minded and exclusive, but I think that my non-Greek friends were behaving the same way. They were not wiling to attend simply because they did not wan to support Greek life. However, the group that ended up winning almost all of the awards was Delta Gamma and the men’s swim team. The only non-Greek organization in the show.

This shows that the event was in no way centered around or biased towards the Greek community. I think that sometimes those who are not in sororities and fraternities and say that Greeks should be open-minded and accepting, often need to work on these traits themselves.

Sing Song 2008

Argument Paper

Today, there are so many couples that are having a difficult time getting along, and that’s not good. I think that people should spend more quality time with their spouses in order to improve their relationships.

I think that the more quality time couples spend together the happier they are. If they are able to accomplish goals and work together, they will become closer and be a stronger team than if they do not have experience working together.

Being happier not only benefits the couple, but also their children. Children who come from homes with divorced or unhappy parents are more likely to be worse off in a number of ways, including having less education, having children before they are married, and being more likely to get divorced themselves.

Blog Comment

I commented on Powerade’s blog on his post “Love on TV”. It’s about all the reality and dating services that are so popular today.

Love on TV