The Declining American Economy (halfway finished)

A little over a week ago newspaper headlines confirmed what the American people have been suspect of for months now. The American Economy is in a recession. As I read those very headlines I thought to myself, "Ok, great. Now tell us something we didn't know." The effects of the economy are felt at home on a daily basis by everyone. Families across the nation are having to be more careful and observant of their spending. Cutting spending on vacations, extra luxuries, and minimizing use of fuel, families are feeling this recession in their pocketbooks. Now, the cause of this recession is not the decrease in spending by the American people. No, it started long before Americans stopped spending their own money. This recession that we are currently in began in Washington D.C. with poor government spending.
Ever since I can remember the U.S. has been fighting some sort of war in the Middle East. Currently thousands of American soldiers are stationed in Iraq. Now, if I do recall the issue of oil in Iraq was brought up to President Bush, and he stated that U.S. forces were not fighting there because of oil. We are over there to liberate the Iraqi people from totalitarian ruler, Sadaam Hussein, search for weapons of mass destruction, and help establish democracy in their government. So, what our President is trying to tell us that our reliance on the Middle East for fuel has absolutely nothing to do with the fact that we are spending millions of dollars doing damage control there. I beg to differ. The U.S. is fueled by oil. And unstable governments in the countries of which we get our oil or close to those countries could stop our readily available oil supply. Our dependence on foreign oil is a problem. It is a problem that we have more than enough resources to solve. There are alternative fuels that we, as a nation, could begin using in order to "wean" ourselves from foreign oil. This dependence also causes unnecessary spending on insanely expensive crude oil. It seems to be that when our country irritates the wrong people in the middle east, we pay for it by watching the price of oil per barrel sky rocket. The American government and people must become less dependent on foreign oil if we expect our economy to get better.

Compare and contrast

When I was younger I used to love coming to school. I'm not joking, during the summer I would complain about how I missed school and how I couldn't wait for it to start again in August. During the school year, I would wake up early with ease just to get ready for class. I was always excited about school and something that was going on during or amongst the class. School presented me with challenges, it was my escape from home. Now, however, as a senior in high school I find it more and more difficult everyday to drag myself out of bed just to get ready for school. School has become boring, tedious, a waste of time. I am no longer excited about school because it no longer presents a challenge for me, so I've given up on trying. It is no longer an escape because with everyone in class perpetually gossiping, you can't escape anything. I can not wait to graduate this spring. I am told I will miss high school once its gone, and if you had asked me 5 years ago if I was going to miss it, I most likely would have said yes. But now, now I don't believe I will.

My Thanksgiving.

This one is for all of you who are going to ask me how my Thanksgiving went. I'm going to be completely blunt and honest here, it was pretty much just another day. Except I got to eat pie. I worked all break, which even though I really need the money, it sucked. People are crazy durnig the holiday season. And I'm not just talking about shoppers here. Employees at your friendly local Target can get a little crazy as well. Me being one of them. Try getting food for 10 impatient cutomers all at once....by yourself. The person who was supposed to be helping me was stolen by the floor team. Damn them. I literally was running around back there trying to keep everyone happy. No joke. Not once have I ever panicked back there in that little hole in the wall they call Food Avenue, but Friday I did. I just wanted to sit down and cry. But I made it through, barely. So just so you know, everyone should be a little kinder to food service employees. We work hard trying to make you people happy so have a little patience once in a while. All weekend I was running on no sleep and Red Bull. It wasn't a bad weekend. Like I said, just another weekend I had to survive.

Awkward Turtle defined.

Alright so i'm going to be honest here I don't really know what it is or why it is what it is. So stop doggin on me about it. But instead of the real definition, I'll give you mine. So the awkward turtle is something I learned during speech last year, but I didn't really start implementing it until this summer. You see I seem to be really good at getting myself into awkward situations and conversations, usually I only make the situation worse. Well, whenever one of these situations arises I just throw up the awkward turtle so that way everyone around is aware that Tessa is feeling awkward. That's it. Sorry I can't help you understand better but that's all I got. :)

Focusing in class. An unending battle.

So here's the deal. I used to be able to focus in class. No problem. It was cake. But now, forget about it. Getting me to focus in class is like trying to pull hen's teeth. (hen's don't have teeth for those of you who didn't catch that) And it's not just me. It's practically everyone. Even teachers sometimes have troubles focusing on keeping their class focused. Right Mr. Willey? It's not that the classes are all boring, no that's not it at all. It's just that at this point in our lives; as seniors we have so much going on all at once that focusing is practically impossible. Personally I have all my homework for my classes to worry about, scholarships, grades, speech, and yearbook to worry over for school related stuff. Outside of school I have a job to keep, a social life that I like to endulge in (yes I do have friends haha). And I'm not even going to get started on my home life. I'm not complaining, I am completely aware that everyone has some sort of different version of what I've just listed. I'm just using it as an example. Each and every one of us has our own set of problems and worries, especially with our future staring us in the face with graduation coming up fast. I just think that when it comes to school, once in a while the teachers need to cut us a break. We've got a lot on our plates right now.

Blind .vs. Deaf

If tomorrow I had to choose between either going deaf or going blind, I would give up my sight. I would make this choice because even though I would be blind and unable to see anything, without hearing how could you listen to music? I practically live for music. How could you listen to the rain on your rooftop on a summer night? What about laughter? It's been proven that laughter is good for one's health, but what if you could not hear? No laughing at jokes, no laughing at your friend's dumb comments. No lauging when you hear the sound of others laugh because you can't hear them. Personally, if I could not hear any of these things, life would be monotonous and depressing. That is why I would certainly, without any question or doubt give up my sight if I had to choose.