My Final Blog

Wow, already, t he semester is coming to a very quick end. I cannot believe this is the last full three weeks of the semester, not including finals of course. To be honest, keeping a blog has not been my number one priority this semester as it has been very busy! ALTHOUGH… I have completed all of the blogs assigned. I sometimes feel it is hard to write a ton of “stuff” on some of the assigned topics. It has been fun though to read other peoples’ blogs in our class! I feel some people in this class come up with very creative topics for thei r blogs, or just their use of language. Many people used their creative imagination in their blogs which kept me very interested when I was leaving comments on my peers’ blog “walls”. As for advice for people who want to do blogs, if it is not a requirement, good for you! I give props to people who want to keep a blog. It is something that would be fun to look back on when you are older and to see what you did in your day to day life. I would only keep a blog if you are really into keeping journals. As for me ,I don’t think I would have done a blog unless it was required. Yes, it was nice to get my thoughts down, but I’d rather talk to my friends rather than write it. Also, if you are a very private person, I would not have a blog online because it is open to the public! As for me, I did not share much of personal information beecuase for all I know, some creep could be stalking my blog from the other side of the country, or world, and would have no idea! To me, that is just creepy and weird :/. Well I guess I will say goodbye to my English 101 blog, it has been fun, over all. The only hard part was writing about things that did not interest me or when we were not given a topic because I always found myself writing about my weekend. Everyone take care! Have a good summer and rest of the semester.

If you were in Normal... leave...?

Before my friends would have the chance to get in their cars and drive here, I would try to convince them to choose Chicago instead. Although Normal is a cute college town, and if they are looking for many fun things to do, I believe Chicago would be a better place to visit. There is the Sears Tower to visit, which has an amazing view from the top. Also, there are many different restaurants to eat at. I would recommend them trying Ed Debevics. It is a cute little burger place and they have the servers dress up as if they are from the 60’s or 70’s and kind of have an attitude towards you as the customers. After grabbing some lunch, Chicago has some great shopping! I would suggest them visiting State street and Michigan Avenue. They are both great streets with plenty of stores to browse, Forever 21 being one of my favorites! Not only are those two streets filled with many shopping possibilities, there is also a mall called Water Tower that is I believe around 7 stories high! It has every store you can imagine located inside. If you are looking for a place to spend your money, Water Tower is one good place to get the job done! If the day is nice out, I would also suggest making a quick stop at the beach, North Ave. beach to be specific. I would of course advise you guys to go on a weekday because weekends the beaches downtown are quite packed! Also, I would advise going on a day where it is decently warm, not extremely hot otherwise you may be miserable from the hot sand and sun burn you may find on your body later on in the day. Ouch…
Let’s say you went to Chicago during a season that is not as warm, like Fall, I would suggest taking the ghost tour. There are many haunted places in Chicago and you can be taken around to see them and here the history behind each location. If you a person who does not like scary things, I would advise you to skip out on this adventure! All of the above activities are very fun to try. Chicago has a variety of things to do for every type of personality!

Free Blog

Since this is a free blog, I will talk about what I normally do when we get assigned this topic for our blog entry which is my weekend. Last weekend, I went to my friends farm in McNab, Illinois which is a very small town containing a population of 300 people. When we arrived there, the weather was really cold so we just hung out around the house for a bit and played scene it TV edition. My friends dad owns many acres of land so we went out on their four wheelers and drove around which was pretty fun. I refused to hop behind the wheel on one of those things because I was afraid I would crash. After that, we went out to dinner at this small diner located down the street. I believe it is the only restaurant in the town which is not surpirsing considering how small the town is. After dinner, we went back to the farm and went in the hot tub. Although it was pretty chilly out, the warmth of the water felt so good! I couldn’t stay in there for long because my hands started to become pruny and that is something I cannot stand!
Saturday morning we woke up really early and went to breakfast at that same diner. Their breakfast food was delicious. Next, we went back and took naps since we were pretty tired from the traveling the day before. We came back , went in the hot tub, relaxed in there for about an hour, and then went on the four wheelers. This time I drove! I was really scared but did a pretty decent job. We went to the grocery store after that to get food for dinner and then we just hung out and watched a movie.
Sunday morning, we woke up really early and I was off to ISU. It was a very relaxing weekend that I enjoyed with my friends!

ISU event

I attended the Invisible Children event. During this event, there were a handful of young adults from all around the country presenting a video of the “Invisible Children”. In this video, there were a few young men went on an African adventure to help these children in Uganda, Africa. The meaning of their trip was to help rescue these children who were being kidnapped at night by an evil name named Joseph Kony who was a member of the Lords Resistance Army (LRA). He would kidnap these children and raise them as child soldiers. The beginning of this conflict started with problems with the North and South of Uganda and in the last two decades, 30,000 children have been abducted and transformed into soldiers.
Not only did Kony kidnap these children, he would torture them by mutating parts of their body and there was a massacre that killed over 300 children. If children tried to escape, they would be found and killed by the LRA. Some children were hiding in sewers so Kony and the rest of the LRA would not find them. There were interviews of some of the children in Uganda. They were talking about how scared they were of being kidnapped by Kony, it was very heartbreaking to watch. When these young men reached Uganda (the ones trying to stop Kony’s kidnappings), they wanted to form a peace agreement. Initially, Kony agreed to the peace agreements but did not show up to sign them.
At the end of the showing, the young adults came to the front of the room to answer any questions we had about the horrific things happening in Uganda. They also talked about a fundraising event being held in Chicago. They really encouraged all of us to attend and show our support for bringing these young soldiers home.

Free Blog

Since this is a free blog this week, I will write about my Spring Break was. First off, I did not get home until today actually. It was depressing coming back as the weather is now beautiful and plus, most of my friends are going to be home this week for their Spring Break. My spring break was pretty relaxing over-all. I did not do anything too productive besides a bit of homework! I was stranded in my house a lot since I did not have access to my car until the Friday before break ended which was unfortunate. None of my friends from home were home for break so I did not hang out with many people besides the ones who were home who went to our community college (college of dupage). When I was able to have access to a car, I did lots of shopping! I went to a new mall that was located a few towns over that was pretty nice. It was an outside mall, which was beneficial because it was around 50 degrees out and sunny. I was excited to get new spring clothes because I know very nice weather is approaching us soon. Also, I spent a little quality time with my mother. We went to see a movie and it was really cool because it was a theatre where they serve you food while you are watching the movie. We saw the movie, He’s just not that into you, and it was cute, but I thought it would be a little bit better! I still liked it though. Also, I visited some family and saw a lot of my cousins that I do not get to see very often, which was very cool. Although my break was not the most event-filled, it was nice to spend it with my family. Hopefully next year I will go to somewhere tropical!

Tuition Money

If I was given roughly 80,000 dollars (estimated amount it costs to go to Illinois State University for four years), there are a few ways I would spend my money. To begin with, I would go directly to the bank and put half of the money in the bank. I would want to save some of my money and have interest grow so that I would later on, end up having more.
Next, I would I would go on a mini shopping spree. I would not go too out of control, but I would spend maybe 500 to 1,000 dollars at the mall! I desperately need new jeans and some other new spring clothes. I have never been to the mall of America in Minnesota so that would be the place I would go shopping first!
After going on my mini shopping spree, I would want travel to Europe considering I have never been there before. I would want to go Ireland because I am mostly Irish, and then I would want to visit Italy and Germany. I would want to visit the Shannon River in Ireland, and I would want to go to historical sites in Germany. I would want to also visit France and visit the Eifel Tower as I hear it is a beautiful place to be.
After a vacation to the countries in Europe, I would give some money to family, especially my mother since she has done a lot of me in past 18 in half years. After doing that, I would donate to foundations, organizations, and medical research (especially for cancer since a family member of mine passed away from the disease).
After all of my spending, if I had any mother left over, I would try to remodel some things in the house I live in now in order to help it sell as it is on the market! I would try to help pay for a remodeled kitchen and basement. Although I would not be able to pay for much, I would as much as I had left over into my family’s house remodeling fund.

Advice to incoming Freshman

A few weeks ago, I ran into some seniors that go to my high school who are going to be coming to Illinois State University next year. My first suggestion to them was to send in their housing deposit as soon as they received the housing information in the mail! There is nothing worse than being placed in supplemental housing and then once a room opens having to leave all of your friends you’ve made. Also, another bad thing about waiting until the last minute is you may not get your first choice in where you want to live whether it be Watterson, west side, or south side. It is a bummer when you get placed in a dormitory you do not want to live in! In considering what dorm you choose, I would advise you to do it based on what you hear about the food near you! Tri Towers (west side) has great food and it is also a fairly new building.
The second piece of advice I have for you is, DO NOT ROOM WITH YOUR BEST FRIEND. I cannot tell you how many friendships I have seen completely ruined because a pair of students who were best childhood friends decided to room together. If you want to be close to a friend, live in the same building or the same floor even. If you room with your friends from high school, you will want to pull their hair out! Along with this advice, something similar to this is do not assume you are going to be best friends with your random roommate. Although it is possible, do not count on it. In the beginning of this year, I thought my roommate and I were going to be friends forever! It turns out, that is not true.

The third piece of advice I have for you is, be social! I know many people are nervous to introduce themselves in the beginning of the year. Everyone is in the same boat as you! They may know no one! If peoples’ doors are open on your floor, go introduce yourself. They may end up being your best friends throughout your college experience!

My Favorite TV Show

My favorite TV show is Full House. I began watching this TV show when I was about five years old. My brother always watched it and he was four years older than me. One day, I decided to watch it and fell I in love with it! From that day on, I watched it anytime it was on TV. During that time, the creators of Full House were still making new episodes so I would watch it weekly and whenever there were reruns.
This show became my favorite show because it portrayed a very well put together family. I loved all of the characters! The show is about a single dad raising his three daughters with the help of his best friend and brother-in law. Danny was a clean freak and a TV show host for Wake up San Francisco.(the dad), Joey was a comedian (the best friend), Jesse was a musician, and very good-looking (the brother-in law), and the three daughters all had unique, funny personalities! Throughout all of the seasons, each character encountered their own types of problems but in the end, everything always turned out okay.
Later on in the show, Jesse gets married to a woman named Rebecca and they have two twin boys who just add a lot to the family because they all still live in the same house on Jourard Street! Because each character has its own personality, it makes the show more interesting. Each show usually has a problem or two occurring and the creators try to switch up who is having what problem in each episode. Like I motioned before, although the problems usually become resolved, they are problems we as people can relate to in our everyday lives.
What make the show so good is how close and loving the family is to each other even though they get in their share of fights! I love all of the characters.
Although Full House does not make any new episodes, I have seen every re run at least 10 times and I try to watch it as much as possible! It is my favorite show and I am sure many of you have seen it before. If not, it is on ABC Family!

Blog Entry 5 advertisement

Clearasil cleanser for your skin. The advertisement was on a commercial. What sticks out in my mind about this particular commercial and product is the way they made it look like the product works so well for everyone .The young man stands up in one of his classes with a large audience and says “I know public speakers use tricks to help them relax. If you need to, picture me naked.” He then turns to his neighbor (a girl), and says “You too”.  At the end, it shows the young man in the bathroom with his Clearasil products. The narrator of the commercial said at the end, “Clearasil may cause confidence”. Although the commercial was only 32 seconds, it did a fine job persuading its audience to buy the product.  It basically was showing how Clearasil works very well on the skin and prevents breakouts and makes people feel confident in their own skin.  The young man had the confidence to stand up in front of the class and make a complete fool out of himself. The reason I remembered this advertisement so well was because it wasn’t completely over-done. It was short, sweet, and right to the point.  A pretty girl advertising a facial cleanser normally does not do it for me! Although it may have over exaggerated just a little bit, it creatively persuaded its audience to buy the product, or at least think of buying it. There are many products I see advertised that I do not even think twice about purchasing. This commercial made me think twice. Also, I myself use cleansing products for my face so I remember being interested in the commercial. I thought to myself, “Oh, maybe I will try this product when I run out of my Cetaphil”.  It turns out, I did try it, but it unfortunately was not as good as I thought!  I will continue to use Cetaphil but the Clearasil Company makes persuading advertisements! 

Free Blog

Since this is another free blog, I think I will talk about what my plans are for Spring Break! First off, I cannot believe that we only have 4 more weeks until spring break starts in about 5 weeks! It feels we just came back from Winter break. Although I am not going anywhere special for spring break, I am still very excited. I plan on visiting with my family a lot. I am very close with my cousins so it will be fun to hang out with them a lot! Although none of my friends have the same spring break as me, at least I will have one week to relax and not have to worry about anything school oriented (hopefully)! Also, my boyfriend lives at home so he will keep me company and it will be nice to have time to hang out with him. Also, I plan on working for my dad a little bit and babysitting! I hope to get some hours in at the place I worked at the past two summers. They usually need me when some of the high school workers take off for the weekend. I really need more spending money down here at Illinois State University.  In addition to that, I also plan on visiting my cousin at University of Illinois. She lives in an apartment and it is a fun place to hang out at. Hopefully I can attend some type of sporting event that is going on when I visit her. One of the things I am really looking forward to is spring clothes shopping! I feel I have absolutely no clothes!  I plan on going to Gurnee outlet mall as they have great deals! I also plan on going to the Aurora Outlet Mall. They have many name-brand stores but have their products discounted by a decent amount! Although both stores are quite a drive, it will be worth it.  I feel like there are so many things I want to do in one week and hopefully I will be able to.  If I find I do not have enough time, summer will be right around the corner! 

Free Blog

Since this is a free blog this week, I am going to talk about my weekend. This weekend, my boyfriend came to ISU to visit! It was great to see him since he cannot come visit here very often. He arrived here at the Normal Amtrak station at around 12 in the afternoon. Although I was happy he was coming early in the day rather than later, I was unfortunately in class at the time! I was very eager to get out of class to find him waiting for me in my dorm. Later on, I decided to bring him to McCalisters to enjoy a delicious dinner. After all, most Illinois State students crave MCcalisters at least once a week. We decided to make Friday night relaxing. I was exhausted from classes all morning and he was as well from traveling all morning. We hung out in my room with some of my other friends and watched the GSN channel. When Saturday morning rolled around, we found ourselves sleeping all afternoon! We visited my friend's fraternity and my friends apartment. On the way to the apartment, I accidently slipped on ice and bruised my tailbone. Thankfully the only people who saw me were Justin (my boyfriend) and my friend Lauren. I would have been completely embarrassed if there were any other ISU students around that I would just so happen to see in my classes on Monday. Saturday night we arrived back to my dorm and watched another movie, Wedding Crashers. The next day, we woke up at around 12 p.m. Justin and I laid around all day, watched the movie Love Actually and I did some homework, I later on walked him to the train in the freezing weather! It was a great weekend but of course flew by quickly! The next time Justin will be visiting is Valentine's weekend and I cannot wait. :) 

The Inauguration of President Barack Obama

Although I am not a very political person, I am currently in a politics class right now. It just so happened that I had my politics class yesterday during the inauguration. Our first chapter in my politics class covered idealism vs. realism. In order for us to understand the idea more, our professor had us watch a clip of President Barack Obama being inaugurated and then giving his speech soon after. In watching his speech, I felt goose bumps running up and down my arms and neck. It was amazing to see a new president standing in front of a crowd of over a million people speaking how our nation will be better. My professor had us pick out the ideas that demonstrated both idealism and realism and then we discussed it all together as a class. In doing that, it really helped me understand what President Obama was speaking about. He was being idealistic in the fact that he believes us as a nation can better our economy and better ourselves as people. He was also being realistic in the way that we as people are childish and that yes, we are not perfect. I felt us pointing out certain things he talked about in his speech (the things I listed above) really helped me learn more of what President Obama wants for our country and how he wants to better us as a nation. The girl sitting next to me was mentioning things she watched earlier in the morning about the move-in to the White House which I found interesting. She was mentioning how the staff in the White House set up a scavenger hunt for Obama’s daughters which I felt was very cute! It was a way from them to get to know their way around the White House and learn about all the artifacts inside of the White House. After watching something serious about the inauguration, our T.A. put on a you tube clip from the daily show to add a little humor to the inauguration which really made me laugh! He made fun of the inauguration and the whole Presidency. He also incorporated a little bit of Mccain/Palin which also made me laugh a little bit too. Over all, I am very happy with the way the election turned out even though I am not very into the political world. I feel the election of Barak Obama was a great choice. I am excited for our new beginning! 

Shannon's Introduction Blog

Hello everyone, I am Shannon. I am a freshman here at ISU! I am an elementary education major and am excited to begin my career as a teacher in the future. I am considering changing it to middle level education but have not made my final decision. I am very interested in young adolescents as well as young children. Family is very important to me a we are very close. I know I can go to them for anything I need! Each and every person in my family is there to support one another. I have many younger cousins that I love to be around. I believe they are part of the reason I want to be a teacher. Being around them gives me the opportunity to be a child again and it brings back many great memories from my childhood. On my free time, I enjoy working out because I want to stay in shape! The thought of the "freshman 15" frightens me! I also like to dance whenever possible as I took tap lessons for 15 years. I was very close with the girls in my class so it was very hard to say goodbye! A few qualities I value in any type of relationship whether it be with a significant other, friend, or family member, are honesty and respect. Having those qualities can get you very far with another person. I really believe those are the qualities that make the foundation of a relationship. Also, I love to meet new people! I hope to meet many more people this semester in all of my new classes.