GRRRR

I think the reason that students plagiarize so much is because they really don't want to to the assignment or the topic is too hard for them to understand so they don't really know how to answer it. Granted there's the occasional student who thinks that the teacher won't notice that what they handed in wasn't written by them, but half the time it's because the student doesn't fully understand the topic and is afraid to ask the teacher.

Stupid Cell Phone

Ok so I went to Verizon 2 weeks ago and complained about my phone and how when I would call someone there was some sort of a reverb that only I was hearing. They gave me another phone (same model) and it was working fine for like 2 days and then it wouldn't vibrate when it was on vibrate mode. I went to the Verizon store up by school (I usually go to the one in the mall) because it was so early last Tuesday that the mall wasn't open yet, and I asked them if they could give me another phone even though I just got this one the week before. They said it was fine and would take about 20 minutes but when I asked if my pictures would transfer over like the other time they told me no so I walked out. A day later my phone started to vibrate again and then this Wednesday my phone just suddenly stopped vibrating again so now I have no idea if I have a text or an incoming call unless my phone is on an actual volume. I'm going to the mall hopefully tomorrow after work to complain AGAIN to verizon and see what they can do. And the best part is as of yesterday, the reverb is back so I'm majorly ticked off. I despise my cell phone with a deep burning passion.

Horrible!!

My mom forgot the pumpkin pie yesterday....I was so upset by this :'( But otherwise Thanksgiving wasn't that bad. There was 14 of us and both my dad and I had to work from 6a-3p yesterday which kinda sucked but it was time and a half which means mucho christmas spending money!!! I'm pretty happy since I have everyone's presents done except my dad and two of my bestest friends....then I'm spending the rest on myself.

Thanksgiving Day!

So working this morning from 6 in the morning until 3 in the afternoon kinda stunk but the customers were all in a pretty good mood so I'm not going to complain, plus 9 hours of getting paid time and a half = a very nice check. Family is coming down around 4pm and this year there's 14 of us instead of 10. There's going to be loads and loads of food when the family gets here so I'm pretty excited, expecially since I come from an all Italian family so that means there's A LOT of food. I just can't wait for the pumpkin pie :)

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Darn classes

Last Tuesday night I could've sworn that my Chemistry teacher had said that we were only having the lab portion of the class and not the lecture portion because she had something to do at the high school she teaches at during the day. I was all excited that I was going to be home by 515 instead of 8 but I was highly mistaken. Turns out I had mixed up the weeks. Tonight I wound up having 2 lectures instead of a lab and a lecture...or as I thought it was going to be just the lab...but she wound up letting us leave at 545 because she couldn't really find something else to talk about or teach us so she told us to go and have a good thanksgiving.

Toll prices to go up!?!

On the front page of the Asbury Park Press yesterday made me so mad! Next monday the toll prices are going to be raised. I was so mad when I read this because I take the parkway to school every day since it's a lot faster and easier than taking route 9 all the way from Lacey to Toms River. My mom and dad weren't very happy either when they found that out. I'm kinda mad because now I have to leave for school earlier and it's bad enough I leave between 7 and 715 in the morning. I'm really starting to hate this state. >[

Simon Night of Giving is Tonight!

I'm excited for tonight because tonight is the Simon night of giving where the mall closes at 630 to everyone who doesn't have a ticket to get in. The mall is open from 630 til 930 to everyone who has the tickets (you could buy them ahead of time or at the mall) and the bracelet. It's great, almost every store has great discounts and there's a lot of free samples from Starbucks and Auntie Ann's and the chocolate place in the mall (can't think of what it's called). To make the night even better, one of my bestest friends ever is down for the weekend and I haven't seen her since September when I went to see her up at college.

I love the smell of technology in the afternoon

The best purchase I have ever made has to have been when I bought myself a $100 giftcard from Barnes and Noble....I know...it's dorky....but I'm in absolute LOVE with Barnes and Noble. I'm addicted to reading and even more addicted to that store. It has to be the best most amazing store in the entire universe!

Is it harmful for children to be in day-care centers all day?

Yes, it is harmful for children to be in day-care centers all day. It is harmful because the parents drop them off in the morning, go to work or go and do their errands and then leave them there until the day-care center closes. It doesn't give parents a chance to spend a lot of time with their children, in turn, the children could feel neglected and ignored and will develop psychological problems as they grow older because they would feel that their parents did not love them and want to spend time with them. I think that day-care centers should limit the amount of hours that parents are allowed to drop off their kids per day.

How can the individual citizen reduce the probability of his or her home's being burglarized?

In order to reduce his or her home's being burglarized, the individual citizen can make sure that there are short or no bushes at all in front of windows that are on the first floor. Also, they can make sure to have alarm systems and keep lights on at night to let people know that someone is home. It's a good idea to put lights on timers so this way when you're not home, it will look like someone is since the lights will be on. Also, try to keep branches of trees away from windows or keep the trees trimmed so that you could see them at night.

Is anger ever beneficial?

To me, anger is never benificial. It's only good use is that it allows us to get out what has been bothering us but other than that, there's nothing beneficial. Anger only usually leads to pain of others and then we regret what we said because we wound up hurting someone close to us or someone that we don't even know. It's not good to keep things bottles up inside and when it comes to the breaking point, we just explode and it's never good.

THANKSGIVING!!!!!!

My most favorite thing out of the entire holiday has to be the pumpkin pie :D

Should American students be required to learn a second language?

I think Americans should be required to learn a second language. Many people would disagree but in today's world there's more and more immigrants (be them illegal or not) who are coming to the United States for work, a new life, or whatever it is they are looking for. With all the diversity, there is a language barrier and some of the immigrants are learning English, so I feel that as Americans, we should be respectful and learn a second language in order to make the language barrier smaller. Even though we will never be able to get rid of it completely, we can shrink it.

Are Americans too dependent on the automobile?

Yes, American are too dependent on the automobile. When given the option to either walk or drive the car a couple blocks away, almost 100% of the time, Americans choose to take their car. Also, more and more families have 2 or more cars, where they don't even drive all of the cars half the time. A lot of people are taking any public forms of transportation instead of walking to say if there was a movie theater in town or to wawa up the road or a couple blocks away. Cars have made it extremely simple to travel from place to place and a lot faster than walking. It all comes down to how lazy Americans have become and take the fastest and easiest way out.

Tonight was A-Maze-Ing!

So on Thursday Bill and I planned on hanging out tonight after he got off work at 3. Well he texted me at 12:30 telling me that his windshield was smashed and when I went to work to see him (we work together but he works outside pumping gas) and was there for over an hour talking to him. I told him that he didn't have to worry about hanging out tonight so he could take care of the whole car situation and he told me that he still wanted to hang out (which made me incredibly happy!!!). So around 6ish I headed to blockbuster and rented Saw 3 and then went to his house to watch the movie with him and his cousin Tommy. I don't think I've ever laughed so much at someone's house while watching a horror movie. He has to be one of the funniest people because he's so random with like everything he does it was great. It was so nice finally getting to see him not at work and get to know what he's really like. He's got the cutest 3 daschunds..bark like crazy but adorable....and he's so sweet towards them it was so cute seeing him play with them. When I was leaving I wasn't expecting him to put his arms out for a hug because the other 2 times I saw him and we were saying goodbye, I was the one who would put my arms out so I felt like an idiot when he did it because I wasn't expecting it at all but it was cute....he smelled really good too.....which was a total plus. Tonight was AMAZING!

Why do the good die young?

Ok so today after I came home from the gym, I found out my cousin died. He was 59 years old and his birthday was last week. On the sunday after his birthday, he went to the bathroom and didn't feel good so he told his wife to take him to the hospital and then threw up blood. She rushed him to the hospital and it turns out that he had a severe form of stomach cancer. He wound up losing all his blood so they had to replace it all, they took out 70% of his stomach, part of his colon, and his appendix. After that surgery, the doctors gave the family 2 choices (he was in a coma) Either they could operate again on him but he would only have 3 months to live and would be in excrutiating pain, or they wouldn't operate, giving him only a week to live. Well the family decided to pull out the breathing tube yesterday or the day before and go from there, hoping he would go without pain or breathe on his own. He wound up dying as soon as they pulled out the breathing tube. I wasn't close to him, but I was very close to his daughter Lori who is 30. When we lived up north I was always with her and we still talk a lot even though we are far away. Next week is gonna suck and I'm way depressed now.

It's the most wonderful time of the year

Personally, I despise any type of advisor or counselor because the one I had all throughout high school sucked majorly and has made me lose all faith in advisors. Then when I came to Occ I was like ok, I'll have an advisor assigned and I'll go meet them and they'll help me with classes....WRONG!!!... I went onto WebAdvisor to see who mine was and it said does not have one. Uhhhh ok???? So I've pretty much been winging it and hoping I'm taking the right courses or else I'm screwed. Advice that I would give to advisors (haha how ironic) is to make sure you know a little about the students beforehand and then make sure they know what they want to go for. Make sure the student is taking the best possible courses for their program or major and that they get all the requirements they need if they are planning on transferring to a 4 year college.

What foreign country would you like to visit, and why would you like to go there?

For some reason, I've just always wanted to go to Greece. Ever since I've gone to Italy, I've always wanted to go to Greece and see all the ancient ruins that are there. I'm not really sure why but I've just always wanted to go there.

Name one or some of your family's traditions and discuss why they are important to you.

Two of my family's traditions that I look forward to every year are our 2 weeks in the summer that we go to Florida to the same resort since they own timeshare and when we go pumpkin picking about a week or two from Halloween. Every year for 2 weeks, usually the last week in June and the first week of July, we go to Florida and stay in Lauderdale-By-the-Sea at one of the resorts that my parents own timeshare at. It's so nice to get away from everything and everyone for two whole weeks and just wake up and either go lay by the pool or just walk down the steps to the beach. Then around Halloween, we go up to somewhere around Old Bridge and we go pumpkin picking up at Casola Farms. After we go pumpkin picking, we used to go to Friendly's up the road until they knocked it down. Also, me and my dad always put up the christmas tree and decorations every year about 2 weeks before christmas (my mom doesn't like going into the attic).

The trouble with renting

Sad to say but to get anywhere in life, you have to be forceful in getting what you want. I've learned the hard way that when you're nice people walk all over you not giving two craps (in use for a worse word) People don't want to do things when they need to be done, but when you threaten them with money it's like they think they are going to die tomorrow so they will fix it as soon as possible. Money speaks and lately it's the strongest persuader we have.

What types of reading materials do you prefer?

Types of reading materials that I prefer are books and magazines. I can't read the newspaper because I get wayy too bored, but I can read the comics in there. I have so many books in my room and a majority of them are mystery/horror fiction. The only kinds of magazine that I really like to read is seventeen because there is a lot of different stuff in there. There's things about college and jobs and makeup and clothes and pretty much everything in between.

If you could relive one day in your life, which day would it be?

If I could relive one day in my life, I would relive the say where my grandma died. I still remember it perfectly too. That day we had family over for a party and me and my cousins had gotten into a fight. I got sent to my room and wound up falling asleep by the time everyone left. I never got to say good night to my grandma like I usually did every night. It wound up that about an hour after everyone left, my grandma asked my dad (her son) to take her to the hospital because she wasn't feeling the greatest. Turns out while she was there, she had a massive heart attack and died right in the hospital. My dad came home and I remember waking up from a dream to my mom crying on the phone with my uncle. My dad was downstairs when I walked in and he was crying but I didn't know why until my mom sat me down and told me what had happened. After I found out my grandmother had died, I told my parents about my dream. My dream was me and my grandma sitting at a table playing cards (we would always play cards) and all of a sudden, she stopped breathing and disappeared and I was screaming out to her to come back. My mom told me that that was her way of saying goodbye to me since she didn't get to say good bye in person. I still to this day regret not getting to say good bye to her and start to cry whenever I think about it.

I'm. So. Tired.

My dream school of all time is Yale but I know I'm not smart enough to get into that college, nevermind just having the damn funds for that school. I actually decided to come to Occ the week of May 1st, which is when the colleges need to know if you have accepted their scholarships/acception into their school. I had planned on going to Rider University the day I stepped on the campus and I had my heart set on it until my parents kept ragging on me to do the Stars Program. I wound up choosing Occ only because of the Stars program since I plan on going to med school in a couple of years and know that I'm going to need to save as much money possible to pay for it. Rider is usually almost 40 grand a year but I would have been paying 29 grand a year. My parents have 100 grand saved for my college and I figured that if I went to Rider I woulda blown threw that in 4 years and would be up the creek without a paddle for med school so I decided to go the cheaper way and do stars. I sometimes regret not going to Rider but I know I made a smart choice financial-wise. After Occ, I plan on transferring to Rutgers University in New Brunswick.

Explain what motivates students to strive for good grades in college.

Things that motivate students to strive for good grades are that sometimes the parents bribe the students that if they get good grades then they get something in return. Also, depending on the grade of the student, they strive for good grades to make sure they get into a good college or into the they want. For me it was a little bit of both. My parents would bribe me with going to the restaurant of my choice while I was in middle school and when I was in high school my parents made me keep up with my grades because they knew I would get into the NJStars program if I did and I would get into a good college with good grades. Also good grades mean scholarships and the better the grades the more the scholarhips would be worth.

Should parents encourage their teenage children to work even if the family does not need the money?

Yes, parents should encourage their teenage children to work even if the family does not need the money. By teenagers having a job it teaches them responsibility and the value of a dollar. I have a friend whose family doesn't need the money so my friend feels that she doesn't have to work. Her mom keeps telling her to get a job but then goes and tell her that as long as she goes to school, her mom will pay for her gas for her car. Now to me that makes no sense because she wants her daughter to get a job and make her own money but then she gooes and gives her money every week. For me, I work part time at least 20 hours a week and go to school every day except on weekends and I pay for my truck to get filled every like 5 days (I only let it get to half a tank) It stinks having to pay to fill my truck and then go to work. By having a job, it teaches the teenager the responsibility of making sure their drawer isn't short or over, how to deal with the public, and how to deal with management and people that you have to work with but don't like.

With news readily available from the electronic media, why are newspapers still popular?

With news readily available from the electronic media, newspapers still remain popular because not all people have the ability to access a computer or use a cell phone for the news. Also, it's much easier to run into a store and pay for a newspaper then go onto the computer and hope the stupid thing works and loads. Not everyone has a computer so a newspaper is the only way they can keep up with what's going on in the world.

Would you want to survive a nuclear war?

It depends on who was left living. If my parents and brother died, then no I would not want to survive a nuclear war. Even if I still had other family that survived the war I would still not want to survive. Also I wouldn't want to survive since there would be too many health problems from all the radioactive substances left behind. Even after surviving, I would have the remnants of the radioactivity in my body because it would be in the air and the water and the land no matter how much we try to filter it out.

Several thousand "Fun size" candy bars later....

I can't exactly feel your pain on being bloated with snickers and babe ruths since I'm not a big fan on chocolate, especially any kind that has caramel in it...uck...and yes I realize that I'm a poor excuse of a girl for not liking chocolate, my friends and boyfriend make fun of me all the time. I know how the back thing goes, a heating pad or something warm will make it feel better for a little bit. As for the best form of enertainment that's out there, I have to agree that anything hands-on is the way to go. It's easier to learn when things are hands-on instead of reading out of a manual or book. Personally, I'm a visual learner, I learn and comprehend things a lot better when they are right in front of me and explained to me then, but I have a harder time if I had to read from a manual with no pictures or anything. Then I just sit there trying to not pull out my hair.

I hate when plans change!!!!

Ugh I cannot stand it when people change plans last minute, especially 2 hours before. It has to be one of my biggest pet peeve, considering it's been planned for almost 2 weeks!!! Bill and I are supposed to go to six flags today with 2 of his friends and we were gonna go around 1 since it's only open til 10, and when I went to text him at 11:15, he had texted me saying that we couldn't go til around 5 since his one friend doesn't get off work til 4:30. His friend waited until today to tell him that! My day was totally thrown off because of that. I really hate when people cancel or change their minds/plans last minute!!!!