Christmas Cheer :)

It’s the end of November and the slight chill in the air reminds me that winter is on its way! Now to be honest I don’t exactly like winter but I love playing in the snow and going sledding and snowmobiling. It is also the season of my favorite holiday, Christmas! Christmas time to me is so exciting, I see both sides of my family exchange gifts and eat lots of food.

It was the night after thanksgiving and my family and I had been in the holiday mood, we started to put up our big tree, my brothers had the genius idea to actually help this year which I don’t know if you would say is a good thing or a bad thing.. Some of the branches were put in the wrong spots making the tree look uneven but for the most part it made it look more like a real tree.

Standing at 9 feet tall it was hung with lights, and all different types of ornaments. Our theme is candy cane, we have a bow on top that’s red and white striped, with giant fake candy canes hanging out the side and little plastic ones hanging from all around. The tree also includes homemade ornaments back from when my brothers and I were in kindergarten.

After all was finished we made homemade cookies, they turned out to taste amazing! They were chocolate chip, also my favorite! They were the Original Nestle Toll House Chocolate Chip Cookies, the recipe had called for: 2 ¼ cups all purpose flour, 1 tsp. baking soda, 1 tsp. salt, 1 cup of softened butter, ¾ cup sugar, ¾ cup brown sugar, 1 tsp. vanilla extract, 2 large eggs, and the main ingredient 2 cups of chocolate chips! They would go in the oven at 375 degrees farenheight and bake for about 9 – 11 minutes.

While the cookies were in the oven baking my family and I had turned on our favorite Christmas movie, Elf. No matter how many times I watch this movie I never get sick of it. What I can get sick of is watching the movie with them and they recite ALL the lines to it, it bothers me when people do that but I shouldn’t be talking because I do the same.

Our house had filled with the aroma of chocolate chips, the timer had gone off and it was time to enjoy our cookies, overall it was a great night.

The First Globie Debate

Yesterday we had a group discussion, debating back and forth on the topic of the Rwandan genocide. I am a member of the National Revolutionary Movement for Development, debating back and forth with my fellow members we are stating the facts and proving that we were defending our country and doing nothing else. While sitting in the circle we had the bad idea of starting off, from then on in we were pointed the finger at for most of the violence that had happened. Debates are very new to me, im not the type of person that likes fighting, so I wasnt too excited and since I had a group that was for the violence happening in Rwanda I didnt know what questions would be fired at me and what I would respond with.

As far as debates go, I kind of enjoyed it but at the same time I think I wouldve had a better experience with a group that was against the killing of the Tutsis instead. I think its definitely a good way to explore what each group thinks and has to say about the issue we are trying to resolve.

My grouo the MRND was formed by Major - General Juvenal Habyarimana. The interahamwe was known as our “youth group” and were trained, armed, and indoctrinated into a racial hatred against the Tutsi civilians. The interahamwe had choices as to join this group or not. We believe that the Tutsi’s had shot down our leaders plane because they had intentions to invade our country, after being forced to leave theirs to take over once again and treat us Hutus as second class citizens in our own homeland. Many groups blame us for having the radio station that was simply the only way to communicate to other Hutus throughout Rwanda. It also was a chance to inform Hutus about the upcoming invasion headed our way and informed them to defend themselves and their country.

We didn’t cause this tragedy all groups are all to blame here. When warned the U.S. and the U.N. didnt step in and take nearly as many actions that they shouldve. The U.N.'s job is to keep peace among the countries and that definitely didnt happen in this situation. The U.S. wouldnt stop bringing up the tragedy in Somalia and said it was at a different time, well yeah obviously they happened at different times, what does this have to do with anything? We dont care with what happened in Somalia we care about you (U.S.) not helping with the Rwandan genocide. Like I said one group isnt to blame for this issue, all groups contributed wrong doing and little things to make a bigger problem leading to the result in the genocide.

The American Scholar Essay

Emerson’s argument in “The American Scholar” about American society stills holds true today.

One reason Emerson’s argument still holds true today is because the jobs given to the American worker only provide one skill. This allows the workers not to think about the other options out there. For example, a doctor has the skill of caring for another patient and they don’t think about caring for the persons feelings like a psychiatrist would. In the article “The American Scholar” Emerson states “The priest becomes a form, the attorney a statue book, the mechanic a machine, the sailor a rope of the ship.” When saying this he means that workers are becoming very much like robots and only continue to do what they know and are trained to do.

Another reason why this argument still holds true is because the man thinking actually thinks about other options, explores further and asks questions. American workers today dont do much of that, we have become a very lazy generation and expect things to be handed to us without doing any of the work. When only exploring one skill you leave out all the other possibilities. People may never know if they have a special skill at something if they dont use the opportunity to try it.

NO MORE BRACES! (:

I have had my braces on for a year and a half now and each visit to the ortho is the same as the last, a tightening that includes yanking of my teeth, a headache, and only being able to eat soft things for the next three days. I was told I would have my braces off in the summer of 2009, that rolled around and never happened, then I was told "for sure" I would have them off before ninth grade and the beginning of the year started and they still werent off, then came the oh you will definitely have them off for your school pictures guess what DIDNT HAPPEN - yet again. Oh and of course cant forget the promise of having them off in time for homecoming and I think you can guess... So waking up on my day off for my scheduled appointment didnt leave me with much of a different feeling, I learned not to get my hopes up too high when it came to things like this - my father said "Of course they are going to lie to you and tell you what you want too hear, thats how they make their money!"

Before 3:30pm had rolled around I did the usual routine of brushing and flossing my teeth over many times in order to impress the orthodontics that had worked in the ofice. We had arrived in the office and sat down in the waiting room since I had been a patient there for awhile my mom struck up a conversation with the workers while we waited until I was called back. While Laying in the chair I looked around through out the room and counted the ceiling tiles located above my head, stupid I know but it made the time pass by a little faster. Once my orthodontist came in and took a seat next to me in his blue spinny chair he had layed these plyers on my chest and said "Are you ready for the big moment?" I was shocked when he had announced that I would be getting my braces off at that moment! Due to the excitement my mom and I had both gotten very excited and let out a shreik! My wish had come true, no more braces for me! (:

power outage! (:

As I awoke too my iHome blaring “Shake it” by Metro Station, I grabbed the remote to turn the volume way down I dreaded getting up to get ready, I thought about laying in bed for another half hour and just wearing sweats to school but considering the fact I’ve been wearing sweatshirts ever since we started school, I decided against it but honestly I mean would it kill someone to turn the heat up in the building? Anyways, I got up a few minutes later walked into the bathroom and plugged my straightner in next was too decide my outfit since the weather predicted for cloudy skies and high winds, I decided on my skinny jeans and a tan t-shirt under a tan and yellow polka dotted sweater.

Once I was dressed I started on my hair, since I had straightened my hair the night before I just had to go over it a few times before I was ready to leave. I decided on pinning half of my hair back and letting the rest fall straight. Once finished perfecting my hair it was time for makeup. The usual foundation, bronzer, blush, eye shadow, eyeliner, mascara, and an occasional lip gloss was good for me, I went to reach for my perfume when I heard my phone go off; I ran to grab it and saw Katelyn was calling, I answered not knowing what to expect she had told me that Stevenson had no power and that we didn’t have school which was awesome because I could now look forward to two days off! One for the power outage and the next for conferences!

With a permanent smile on my face I skipped down the stairs to tell my mom the good news! Her attitude automatically changed to pure jealousy she went back to her exercise video will I continued back up the stairs I decided to change out of my clothes back into my pajamas. I layed back down in bed, grabbed the laptop and along with at least 30 other students immediately changed my facebook status to “no school!” After checking my farm I logged out, shut the laptop off and went downstairs. After a goodbye hug from my mom, she was on her way to work. I had looked in the cupboard and stumbled upon a brown cinnamon sugar pop tart which sounded good to me. I grabbed the pop tart and headed back upstairs to go back to bed and hopefully not wake up until lunchtime.

The Swine is Spreading!

The article by the New York Times about the Swine Flu had got me thinking about what a serious problem this has become for the world. The outbreak of the Swine Flu or H191 virus was declared as a global pandemic on June 11 2009. Mexican authorities had noticed a spike in the number of hospitalizations and deaths among healthy adults. In the United States over one million people have been infected, causing more than 600 deaths and over 6,000 hospitalizations. The Pandemic has now reached 168 countries and citizens are becoming more aware of what a big deal this has become. Many Patients have been put on Tamiflu or other antiviral medications. Some people aren’t very sure of what the swine flu is, According to the BBC the swine flu is a respitory disease caused by influenza, the symptoms include fever, coughing, sore throat, body aches, chills and fatigue, shortness of breath, low immunity, loss of appetite, vomiting, limb and joint pain and runny nose and sneezing. The swine flu is spread from person to person by sneezing or coughing.

Schools have been shutdown due to this situation and in my opinion I dont think it's necessary, if not in school kid's will be outdoing other things like going to the mall, going to the movies, going to a friends house where they will all either way be exposed to some type of germ wherever they go, depending on how long schools are shutdown for the students and teachers will most likely have to makeup for it in the summer.

The World Health Organization has stated that the pandemic is developing at such a high speed that there is no point to document each case of it. Even though a majority of the people affected with it usually recover with in a week of becoming sick, even without medical treatment. The rates of the number of people that are infected each day continue to rise but now that the cool weather is here we need to be more aware, and keep ourselves from getting sick.

There are many different obvious habits that people all over the world can be doing to prevent themselves and others around them from getting this swine flu. For example we should get our flu shots for those of us at high risk - we are around teachers and kids all day some who may be sick and others who arent but that gives us a high chance of becoming infected. Wash your hands whenever possible,this should be common sense to most people. If you have to sneeze, sneeze into your sleeve instead of your hand because once you touch things like doors, desks, other people you spread your germs onto them as well. Avoid close contact with those who are sick, Stay at home when you are sick, and be sure to follow good health habits like getting the amount of sleep you need, be physically active, eat healthy, and drink plenty of fluids.

Bay Harbor (:

The day had finally arrived Saturday August 15th and I could not wait to get in the car and head up north! Of course something has to go wrong before things can start to get going, we packed up the car and turned it on, once we went to back out the wheels had locked, and we couldn’t get anywhere luckily our neighbor works for Ford and he came over and had to take the steering wheel apart and mess with the wires. Once everything worked again we were on the road and I was hoping I would be able to make it there without having to kill my brothers on the way, you see my brothers are twins and they NEVER stop talking and they talk so fast that it all runs together and after awhile you could see how that would get annoying. The first night we stopped at Birch Run and shopped for a little and stayed in West branch so we could drive up the rest of the way to Bay Harbor the next morning. Once we arrived at the Quality Inn parking lot we stepped out of the car and immediately started gagging it was like someone had taken the fresh air out of us, we open the door and it definitely did not look like a hotel the walls were plastered with white paint and chicken wallpaper bordering. Whatever we thought it was only for one night, we all hit the sheets early because we knew we would be getting up early. I awoke to my mom, her voice shaken then all of a sudden I heard jumping and laughing and slamming of doors. I didn’t really think anything of it considering I was half asleep. I started to drift back asleep when I heard the hotel key being inserted in our door and someone trying to open it my mom quickly got on the phone with the front desk and they said they had security on it. Things had seemed to calm down I had looked at my phone and the time read 3:00am, I decided I would fall back asleep. The next morning we went down to the main lobby to check out and we were informed that there was a wedding party staying that night. All six of us – Me, Katelyn, Joey, my mom, and my twin brothers climbed back into the car all half asleep and were on our way to our final destination! After a two hour car ride we got to the condos! Even though I had been there before I couldn’t remember it being this amazing, the condo we stayed in accommodated 10 people, it had a balcony with a gorgeous view of Lake Michigan. Overall the trip was really fun and I can’t wait to go back!

A B C

Art. I love to draw, paint and color in my free time.

Bosco. I have a one year old bichon frise Shih Tzu mix (Beat Tzu) and his name is Bosco.

Commerce. I was born at Huron Valley Sinai Hospital in Commerce Michigan; I lived there until I was 2 years old after that I moved to Livonia.

Dance. I have been dancing for 11 years now, I take ballet, jazz, modern, lyrical and hip hop. I dance at Pointe Counterpointe in Garden City on Wednesday and Thursday nights.

Ears. My ears are double pierced.

Forever 21. Forever 21 is one of my favorite stores in the mall!

Grace. Even though I’m a dancer I’m not a very graceful person, I’m always tripping, sliding, and falling.

Hair. I LOVE doing peoples hair, when I’m a junior and a senior I’m going to go to beauty school and get my cosmetology license and be a hair stylist when I’m in college.

Ice cream. I am a big fan of ice cream! My favorite flavors are chocolate fudge brownie from Ben and Jerry’s and chocolate chip from Baskin Robbins.

June 17. I was born on Saturday June 17 1995.

Kraft Mac and Cheese is one of my favorite things to eat! It puts me in a good mood.

Lyrical. Lyrical is my favorite type of dance.

Music. Music is a huge part of my life, since I am a dancer I am exposed to all different kinds of music and I’m almost always listening to it.

Nurse. When I grow up I would like to be a pediatric nurse, because I love working with little kids.

Olivia. My full name is Olivia Nichole Campo.

Polka dots. Polka dots are one of my favorite kinds of designs. They have been since I was a little girl. I have a pink bedding with white polka dots!

Quickfire. The AT&T quickfire is the phone I currently have; it’s an orange and silver touch screen that has a keyboard that slides out.

Roses. I love pink, red and white roses!

Seafood. I hate seafood! I don’t eat any kind, no shrimp, calamari, swordfish or anything.

Twins. I have two younger twin brothers their names Jackson and Jordan they are 12 years old and are in 7th grade at Holmes Middle School.

Umbrellas. I find umbrellas very awkward, but once it starts pouring rain and you’re stuck outside their not so awkward anymore.

Violet. I think violet is a very pretty color, one of my favorites.

Watermelon. Watermelon is my favorite kind of fruit; I love it when it’s really red!

Xylophone. When I was little I had a very bright and colorful xylophone that I used to play all the time.

Yellow! There is a tie between pink and yellow for my favorite colors.

Zebra’s. Zebra’s are one of my favorite animals!

A whole new world.

“Olivia! You need to go to bed now! It’s your first day of high school tomorrow!” my mother yelled to my room. Those few words stopped me in my tracks, I layed there in bed my mind racing with what ifs. What if I get lost? What if I can’t find any of my friends? What if my teachers don’t like me? I looked to the left of me and found the minutes on the clock ticking by faster than ever, before I knew it minutes were turning into hours and I still couldn’t fall asleep. To take my mind off of things I put my headphones in my ears and put my iPod on shuffle – not knowing what I was going to get could really help me relate to how the next four years of my life would be.

My phone went off the next morning, leaving me almost deaf in my left ear… I was so worried I wouldn’t be able to hear my alarm in the morning so I set it on the loudest possible ring and fell asleep with it next to me. Laying there startled, my eyes open wide dreading what the day would bring. I looked at the clock, it was 5:30am I was so exhausted, I slowly crawled out of bed, tripped over my dog and fell flat on my face but luckily there was an ocean of clothes on the floor to cushion the fall. I layed there for a few minutes debating on whether I should get up or not, after fighting back and forth with myself, I finally got up off of the disaster pile most people call “laundry”. I found myself stumbling into the bathroom feeling up the wall in desperate search of the light switch, once I found it the lights flickered and then flashed so bright it was almost blinding, I quickly plugged my curling iron in then ran out to try and find an outfit because the five possible outfits I picked out the night before didn’t seem to appealing now.

Each outfit I tried on I could always find some reason not to wear it. I took a break from trying on clothes because I was having no such luck. I moved back into the bathroom and decided I would start on my hair after a few burns and getting hairspray in my eyes time and time again, I decided my hair was good enough. Attempting to find an outfit to wear I went back into my closet and through the pile of clothes on the floor. I must have tried on a million and one different things jeans, sweaters, tanks, shirts, and couldn’t find one thing. I finally found my new skinny jeans, a blue halter tank with a braided neck and paired that with a black sweater. To finish it all off I put on my heart necklace, and spun myself through a tunnel of my favorite perfume “Viva La Juicy”. I threw a couple pencils and pens in my purse, grabbed my folder and notebook and made my way downstairs, I grabbed my lunch and was out the door.

The car ride there was just questions from my mother. “Are you nervous? Excited? Scared? Do you have any classes with your friends? What about lunch…oh yeah did you remember to grab your lunch from the fridge? “All I could manage to say was “Mom!” thank god at that moment we pulled up to school; I quickly got out of the car before she could start a whole new round of 20 questions. I walked through the path leading up to the main entrance in front of the school. I set foot in the building and found hallways filled with people in their phones, couples holding hands, and friends laughing, it was like I opened a door to a whole new world and this “new world” I would have to be doing some getting used to because it will be my new home for the next four years.

The beginning of the "best years of my life."

High School is definitely something that I will need to be getting used to. Waking up each morning at 5:30am, spending almost an hour trying to figure out what to wear, finding and getting to all of my classes on time, and adjusting to lunch because it is one of the most different things, at Holmes we had two lunches for each grade, so it was like you knew almost everyone in there but in my lunch now it’s mixed with freshmen, sophomores, juniors, and seniors, there is really only a few people I know, and trying to find a seat is like trying to find your friend in times square, it’s really almost impossible.

Its now the third week of high school, nearing the fourth and so far I’ve adjusted pretty well. Even though my classes are nowhere close to each other, I manage to make it on time every day. I first start at the end of a hall for biology, then to g hall for art, then to e hall for global ed. world history, then to b hall for global ed. English, then back to a hall for geometry, then to d hall for Spanish, My locker is in c hall which is good and bad. Bad being that its always crowded and good being because it’s in the middle of the school.

I am hoping that I can make these next four years the “best years of my life” and achieve my goals for good grades and meeting some new people. The football games and the dances are definitely a lot of fun. So far I have met lots of new people and I’m hoping to get to know some of them better. If things keep heading in the direction they do now I believe high school will be a lot of fun!