Too Close of a Look

     Racism is such a problem in our country that people question  everything  you do when people are dealing with a person  of a different race (Mexican, African-American, etc.). So many people are accused of being racist that had evil intent. I have a theory that when people are at one extreme, they go to the other extreme to break it. Take Disney actors and singers such as Miley Cyrus or Demi Lovato for example. They start their careers as happy "be the best that you can be" people and to break that they post porn and other inappropriate things of themselves. So, people used to think it was okay to insult people because they were a different race. Now, racism is so watched that even people question a police officer who shot an African-American man when they wouldn't question the action if he was white. I am NOT saying that he was definitely not being racist, but he could have been completely justified in what he was doing. I'm just saying that sometimes we look a little too closely into these things.

The Evils of Our Society

     So it's Thanksgiving Eve and time to make a food that you couldn't have Thanksgiving without it. Other than the obvious turkey, you can't have the special day without pumpkin pie. But how do you make it? I mean I could just use canned pumpkin puree, but that is just so cliché. Everyone uses canned pumpkin and some people so far as to just buy the pie crust ready-made in the pan, or just by the entire pie ready to go. But not me and you don't have to either. I found a recipe online to make my own. Here's the link: http://www.simplyrecipes.com/recipes/suzannes_old_fashioned_pumpkin_pie/. 

My single pie crust recipe (no topping) is as follows... 

Ingredients:

• 1/2 cup Whole Wheat Flour
• 3/4 cup All-Purpose Flour
• Dash Salt
• 1/4 Teaspoon Sugar
• 1/3 Cup Even Mix of Butter and Shortening
• 1 Water Bottle( it should squirt water)

Instructions:

1. Mix flours, sugar, and salt.
2. Cut in butter and shortening with pastry cutter. Dough should be about the size of small peas.  
3. Using water bottle, spray water in bowl while tossing with fingers. Do this until the dough forms grape-size balls.
4. Using hands, form the dough into a large ball.
5. Roll out dough on a smooth surface with a rolling pin using excess flour to keep the dough from sticking. Dough should be a little larger than your pan. 
6. Roll up dough to transfer to your pie pan.
7. Using your fingers, try to fill in any gaps or holes in the dough. 

     I really like this recipe because it has a fabulous texture and an amazing taste. The shortening is for texture and the butter and whole wheat flour are for taste. This recipe came from a pie maker named Richard who goes to our church. He makes extremely good pies and that's why I always use his recipe. Thank you for not falling to the shortcomings of this generations who buy pie crusts just for convenience when they don;t taste nearly as good.

A Mystery

     Aliens. A question that has fazed our race for more than a century. There have been many science fiction stories about them such as one I have written: 

I ran from ‘It’. I don’t know what ‘It’ was, but I did know that ‘It’ was scary.

          I live on Or, a planet in a galaxy close to the Milky Way. Everything on Or is always nice, pretty, and wonderful. We have no laws or government, but we do know right from wrong. If someone is waiting, you stop for them, if someone needs help, you help them; little things like that; the unwritten laws that everyone follows because it’s in our nature.

          Our system has worked perfectly for millions of years, until ‘It’ came. ‘It’ arrived about ten minutes ago. As soon as ‘It’ landed his strange ship, ‘It’ immediately started destroying everything; buildings, parks, etc.

          ‘It’ also put a strange piece of fabric on a pole into the ground.

          “I am claiming this land for The United States of America,” stated ‘It’.

          On Or, no one claims land. If you need a place to live, other Amplas (the name of the main species on Or and surrounding planets) near you help you build a house anywhere there is space without demolishing any buildings. I guess we all own all the land, but we just know how to share very well.

Around Or, there are many planets just like Or. Their system works just as well as ours does.

Our personalities are different, but that does not bother anyone. How boring would it be if we were all the same?

In school, the teachers teach about the planets that don’t get along. I've heard that they are always fighting with each other. I didn't really believe it until today.

Well, ‘It’ was here and chasing us and there was nothing we could do about it.

Suddenly ‘It’ stopped.

“I’m hungry, go find me some food,” demanded ‘It’.

“No,” I sassed back.

Oh no, my sassy side came out. My mother says to never let my sassy side come out. It usually doesn't come out especially if the thing is trying to hurt me.

Suddenly my mother was right alongside me talking to ‘It’.

“Please leave Or immediately,” she stated calmly. “Returned to your home planet and leave us in peace. Do not bother any other planets in this galaxy with your nonsense. If you do not take our request, we will be forced to remove you.”

I had never heard this side of my mother before. She was usually quiet and soft spoken. Today she was bold and confident. I wonder what changed her.

“I will contemplate my choices,” ‘It’ said uncertainly. “What will you give me to leave?”

“Nothing,” I boldly declared. “We have stated our circumstances. Either you will leave or we will make you leave. This is the best thing to do for our species.”

“Well, I may not have enough fuel to return home,” argued ‘It’.

“We will help you repair and refuel your ship.”

“May I stay a week, to observe?”

“Yes, but you must follow our ways,” resolved my mother. “Emma will teach you.”

“I will?”

“Yes,” responded my mother.

This took some thought. Teaching ‘It’ would certainly be difficult. I could already see that. ‘It’ had no common sense—‘It’ probably didn't even know what common sense was. But what would the right thing to do be? This is a two-sided problem. Teaching ‘It’ would certainly be very difficult, so forgoing the teaching might be the right thing to do. But then again, it could be wrong not to try. This problem has no correct answer.

“What do you think I should do?” I inquired from my mother.

“I think we should let him observe and you should teach him,” my mother forenamed. “Repairing the ship may take a week anyway.”

“Okay.”

My mother turned to ‘It’, “We have reached a decision, we will let you stay a week.”

So ‘It’ will stay in our house (we had a lengthy discussion about this). I would tell you—but I don’t want to bore you.

For the next week I tried my best to teach ‘It’. I had to explain everything to ‘It’ even the easy things such as helping the elderly lady who lives across with her groceries. My word of wisdom to ‘It was to follow everyone else. I started with telling ‘It’ (and yes, I called him ‘It’) to never claim land because no one owns the land so claiming the land has no purpose. An Ampla’s nature tells us never to do wrong, ever. That isn't in ‘It’s’ nature, I can tell. ‘It’ is so self-centered. He never thinks to do what is best for another person before himself.

Two Days Later

          It has been two days since ‘It’ came and ‘It’ has done nothing but cause problems.

          On Or, volcanoes exploded, the fields ruined and all the food for winter was destroyed—why?—all because of ‘It’. Okay, let me explain. The volcanoes were really vinegar, baking soda, and red die. They were obviously ‘Its’ idea. I didn't know the volcano was going to explode. We don’t have volcanoes on Or and apparently we’re lucky. Never before have we had an explosion on Or.

          Then ‘It’ wanted to look at the fields. ‘It’ was feeling generous and gave us a pesticide. ‘It’ said the pesticide would kill all the harmful bugs. What are harmful bugs? Well we use the substance anyway thinking it would make the food better in one way or another. I didn’t know ‘It’ would lie. Okay, lie is a little too harsh. I didn't know the substance would make the food unsafe to eat. One of the workers ate a berry and died. Now we have no food. I can’t wait till ‘It’ leaves.

          ‘It also called our world boring. How dare him. Just because we don’t have conflict does not mean we don’t have change. We have unexpected changes all the time. We might move houses or towns and make new friends. We don’t all like each other. If you are alone someone will come talk to you because that is the right thing to do. But if you have friends, other Amplas so not fell obligated to talk to you and that is just fine. This shows that Or is not boring.

           The week dragged on forever. that week was the longest week I have ever experienced, but like every bad thing, (actually this was my first bad thing) the week came to an end. ‘It flew away in his space ship.

­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­Two Weeks Later

          We heard from a neighboring planet, And, about ‘It’. He has been causing problems there too! And disposed of ‘It’ much quicker than we did.

          We call upon other neighboring planets including But, For, Yet, and So, about ‘It’. ‘It’ has been to all of them. Finally ‘It’ returns home and the peace is restored, but not forever.

     So that's my alien/Utopian story, but do aliens really exist? There is evidence on Mars of water, but water does not always mean life. But Mars is so close to us. Here is a video of how big we are in relation to the universe. I really like this video because it shows me that the universe is so large that every mistake I make is so small because I don't really matter, but God reminds me that he cares about me and my good and bad sides. Anyway, my point was that the universe is so big that aliens could exist anywhere and we wouldn't even know about it. I really don't think aliens exist for religious reasons. I believe that when God created us, we were the only ones. I don't think he can handle more than us. I know I certainly wouldn't be able to. So I don't aliens exist, but you might think that they do. 

What Do You Want To Hear About?

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The Influences of our Lives

     Yesterday I was at a speech and debate tournament and did and expository (informational) speech on autism spectrum disorder (ASD). One of my competitors did a speech on swear words. It was very well done. She explained why people swear and the entomology of swear words. I didn't know how you could do a speech on this topic, but I found the topic very interesting and decided to talk about it today.
     One of the parts of the speech she mentioned was  idiomatic swearing or swearing for no purpose. I think this is really shown through modern music. I don't know why musicians have to put "bad" words in their songs. You would think that people wouldn't buy them because of that, but really, the teenage population is more drawn to them. They are another way to rebel against parent. In South Korea, all music is edited for swear words and sexual meaning. This is much different than America where we look for that. Why, I don't know. A lot of music features swear words. At least new music. I'm very sure that classical music didn't have swear words, but that's beside the point. The younger generations are continually to drawn to things viewed as rebellious or "bad". It is my theory that teenagers are tired of their parents after spending so much of their younger years with them, but we don't even consider the fact that they spend even more time with us and are probably glad to be away form us.
    Music has more of an influence on us than we think. For example, right now I am listening to the radio and a song called "Stay High" is playing. Someone could hear this song and think that drugs are a okay way to deal with your problems because an iconic person uses them, while really, drugs will have a much worse long-term affect on your brain.
   I am hoping you will not listen to the lyrics of music now that you have read this and don't curse for no reason. There should always be a reason.

Wasted Time

     I have a theory. I think that we just like to waste time. Every day, I spend from 8:00 to 3:00 in school. I think that time could be significantly reduced. I don't learn enough in science for that to be an entire period and social studies is completely useless. We are studying New Mexico history right now. If you've ever studied the history of New Mexico, then you'd know that there's not much to learn. We don't do very much in language arts either, except learn third grade grammar. I have a computers class completely devoted to wasting time. My point is that we don't need a seven hour school day. It's not necessary. No matter how much we value education, we don't need to learn how the "Indians" (Christopher Columbus was completely justified in calling that) roamed and land and where. There isn't much that happened in New Mexico. 
     I believe that education would be okay if the government wasn't involved. Especially the federal government. When the standards are lowered, people respond. There is a problem now that people aren't being thought the proper amount of material in the lower education. Colleges are having to teach materials that should have been thought in high school. And if it should have been thought in high school, it must be extremely easily because high schools doesn't teach much. But now that Common Core Standards are being brought into our sacred education, the education is spiraling downhill. 
      Currently in language arts, we are reading The Call of the Wild by Jack London and reading articles that connect to it. Today, we read an article on dog packs and it talked about the hierarchy of the dog packs. To understand what hierarchy means, we talked about the hierarchy currently existing in America. We decided on a triangle that looked like this. 

If you have one, two, or all three of these things, then you high on the hierarchy in America. That is just the sad truth. 
     Every week, we read what we are going to "learn" that week. It is usually the same from week to week. I don't think there are enough standards for them to vary it form week to week.
    Here's a link if you want to read a bout dog packs:http://www.laschools.net/cms/lib07/NM01000458/Centricity/Domain/512/Dog%20Pack%20Mentality.pdf

"Beyond Mountains, There Will Be Mountains"

There mountains beyond mountains. This saying is taken to be encouraging and discouraging. My take on this is not encouraging. This Haitian saying means that after you conquer one challenge there will always be another. That just seems overwhelming to me. Why would I want to know that  if I conquer what I’m going through now, then there will be a bigger problem to conquer?

I read about this in a book called Mountains Beyond Mountains by Tracy Kidder, adapted for young people by Michael French. I would have read the unabridged version, except that I found it in a library with a sign saying “I’m a true story.” I thought it looked interesting so I read it. It was, until the end. The book was about this doctor name Paul Farmer who gave up all his power and fame to conquer tuberculous in the central plateau of Port-Au-Prince, in Haiti. Port-Au-Prince is the capital of Haiti and the central plateau is an area of farmers. Before the hydroelectric dam was built, the Artibonite River’s banks was farmed by Haitians. When the dam was built, the fertile farm land was flooded leaving the farmers nowhere but the steep, rocky banks to farm. You can read more about that at http://www.thestar.com/news/world/2010/11/21/a_dam_for_the_people_and_a_people_damned.html
Because the people were now living so close together, tuberculous and other diseases were a major problem. Paul worked for a few years raising money and buying medications and finally treating this problem. There were five types of medications. People in the area started having a problem MDR-TB which is a disease that the patient is resistant to four out of the five medications for TB. According to WHO (World Health Organization) MDR-TB was not treatable in third-world countries. But Paul refused to give up, he treated that and then took his accomplishments to a world-wide scale. Farmer obviously found this statement encouraging.
     This statement is the one reason I hate science. I mean I love science except for this one aspect. Sometimes science can feel like I'm not really moving forward. I'm not making process. Because answers lead to more question, I feel overwhelmed is a good way to put it. But I want to be a scientist when I grow up and go to college and have to work. I know that it is very difficult to make money in a non-science related occupation. And most of the time, I love finding the answers even if it does make me wonder. I love how science shows us how the search is of more worth than the answer. I love that science makes so much sense. 
     Now that you've read this, you can decide for yourself whether you'll be encouraged or discouraged by this proverb.