The Miracle of Modern Medicine

Medicine is such an amazing thing!  To think that you could get a liquid injected into you that would cause you to be unable to contract a certain deadly disease or a pill that makes your body temperature drop from 101 back down to normal.  I can hardly believe all the amazing developments in the science of medicine.  People truly are geniuses to come up with all of the advancements.  Human life has been so greatly improved, and so much suffering and pain has been help, and sometimes even cured.

I don’t think that we realize that amazing things that are happening all around us.  My neighbor was diagnosed with cancer, yet he’s now completely fine because of radiation and chemotherapy.  There are so many diseases that before we expected to kill, but now are easily cured.  Another example is Polio.  This used to be an awful disease, but now children are given shots that will prevent it.  The life expectancy rating is constantly rising, through technology.  People used to be expected to live into their 20’s or 30’s, but now many people live well past their 70’s and 80’s.  

Yet, there are those who fight against this.  I can’t believe that any one would start smoking with all of the knowledge that we now have.  They know that it does horrendous things to your body and will eventually kill you.   But still, thousands start every year.  
Doesn’t that seem kind of like people are heading backwards?

We all need to appreciate the great miracle of modern medicine, and make sure to keep our bodies in good shape, so we don’t have to use it!    
    

Smarties

Do you want to know a really random fact?  It was bugging me, so I figured it out!  

I was wondering what the chance was that you would get a random Smarties package filled all with the same color.  Since there are 6 different colors and 15 candies per package, there is a 1 in 4,738,381,338,321,616,896 chance!  

My Halloween Sweet Tooth

Most of the year I am very good at not eating junk.  I try to pay attention to what I’m eating, and I can often go for weeks without eating any candy at all.  Unfortunately, Halloween brings out the worst in me.  As soon as it gets close to this season, I start craving candy.  I walk around the house wishing for something sweet.  Maybe I’m like this because all I’ve been eating for the last month is very healthy food (apples, peaches, pears, etc.), but lately I feel like I just want to be constantly eating sugar.  Have you ever done something that you know you shouldn’t do?  That’s candy and me.  Candy gives me such awful headaches.  The sugar just makes my head pound, and yet I still eat it!  Isn’t that awful?  The thing that makes it okay, though, is that my mom truly doesn’t have any junk food in our house.  If I want anything, I have to go begging to my younger siblings, and their supply is usually fairly limited.  
Since I’m telling you about candy, I may as well tell you what my favorite kinds are, just in case you were wondering.  My absolute favorite is Cookies and Cream Candy Bars.  They are so good!  It’s white chocolate with small Oreo pieces in it.  I also love Twix and Skittles.  I love all kinds of Skittles.  My most favorite, though, is the tropical ones.  My family always has a trade right after Trick-or-Treating.  We swap for candies we want and get rid of the ones we dislike.  I think it’s a very good game.  Well, I was determined that I wasn’t going to write about anything having to do with Halloween, but oh well!!      

I'm trying to make something work... but this is my darling baby sister!!! I love her so much! She's 7 months old right now.

If

I am going to write my blog about the following poem. I’d greatly appreciate if you’d read it before continuing.

If
By Rudyard Kipling

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or, being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or, being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise;

If you can dream - and not make dreams your master;
If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with triumph and disaster
And treat those two imposters just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools;

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breath a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on";

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings - nor lose the common touch;
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run -
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And - which is more - you'll be a Man my son!

This poem has really influenced my life. At some points in elementary I had some rough goes, and this poem really helped me see the bigger picture. It applies to so many of aspects of people’s lives.

I love the encouragement in the poem! It tells you to keep going, no matter how hard things get or how mean people are, but to do your best. It follows up, though, by telling you to keep going, even when your best doesn’t cut it. In the first stanza, it does a great job at teaching self-confidence. It really doesn’t matter what others think. Remember to keep your personal standards high, and not sink to others levels. As soon as you do that, you truly sacrifice yourself. It also reminds you to not be too sure of yourself. Balance is very important. It’s very important to be able to be proud of yourself, but not too proud. Be sure of yourself, but not sure enough that you realize you are human and can make mistakes. In books, that’s usually a villain’s downfall: their inability to realize the fact that they can’t make good decisions and that they can fail.

In the second stanza, it says, “If you can meet with triumph and disaster, and treat those two imposters just the same.” This is one of my favorite lines in the whole poem. Notice that it says imposters, not visitors or changes, but imposters. No one really has triumph or disaster that much. It may appear that people have “everything going for them” or that others have no lucky breaks, but the outward appearance is often very wrong. Everyone experiences these things. Everyone has good days and bad days. Be careful with “triumphs”. They tend to leave people off in worse shape than disasters. People will feel like their life isn’t worth as much if they don’t have continued success or prosperity. It seems easier to bounce back from a disaster, and they usually leave people stronger, while triumphs can do the opposite. Learn how to deal with these two extremes and life will be better.

Be willing to risks things! Some of the richest people in the world were willing to take the biggest risks. You must understand, though, that there is the backside to risks: losing. You can’t win every time. Make sure that these chances aren’t so big that everything will be gone. It’s important to be moderate and careful. If you went for it, and it didn’t work, please don’t complain about it! You were the one that made the final decision, and it’s your fault. The third part also discusses endurance. Once again: it’ll get better if you just keep going!

Everything in the forth paragraph is very important to life, too. Be able to mingle with everyone, yet keep your individual standards and remember who you are. Don’t give into peer pressure. That’s one of the greatest challenges faced by teenagers and too many succumb.

I always have to think of this poem when I run. “If you can fill the unforgiving minute, with 60 seconds worth of distance run.” That means, take the hardest time for you, give it your all, and it will pay off! If you do this, you will be rewarded all throughout life.

Remember to keep all the good things around you going on and to always remember who you are. I hope you can now see why I believe this is such an influential poem and why it has had such a great impact on me!

My Joseph Smith Poem

My stake is doing a production in November about Joseph Smith.  We were asked to contribute our talents and efforts to make it a wonderful thing.  My mom and I decided that we would each write a poem, to be displayed in the foyers at the production.  Here’s my poem:

The Power of Prayer

It didn’t seem any different than a normal, springtime day,
Yet it would change the world in a very important way.
Joseph was a normal, teenage boy who sought answers to a question.
He didn’t know which church to join, and this really vexed him.

There were so many options!  Yet none of them felt right.
How could this be the work of God if the preachers only fight?
Don’t they know that the word of God is peace and humility?
Instead they made him wonder what the real answer would be.

He turned to the Book of James one day, such a simple, little act,
But this verse would change him and teach him a small fact.
“If ye lack wisdom, let him ask of God.” It was so plain to see.
He wondered, “Could such a thing really apply to me?”

He knew that God was truthful and that he would never lie,
So he decided to give this offer a chance and it was well worth the try.
Joseph entered a grove of trees, just a little ways from his home.
He knelt down in a group of trees, covering him like a dome.

When Joseph was a little boy, his parents had taught him to pray.
He knew that God would answer him and would help him know what to say.
He had never prayed aloud before, but he would listen to his parent’s heed.
Joseph knew that now was a time he really had a need.

He began and an overwhelming power came, as if to crush him to the ground.
It was so great that he felt as if he couldn’t make a sound.
He continued with his humble prayer, needing rescuing form above,
Now he knew that evil was real and he needed the God of Love.

Then appeared a light, so beautiful as to defy the brightness of the sun,
And in the midst stood Heavenly Father and His Anointed One.
The Father pointed to His son, calling him by name.
Joseph knew that his life would never be the same.

After Joseph explained his problem, he was then gently told
Not to join any church, and that he would restore the gospel, as of old.
He learned many truths that day, not the least of which, was prayer.
Joseph now knew that the Father answers and is always there.

We can also have this help, at any time in our life.
We don’t need to have big problems or be wading through great strife.
It can be done any time or anywhere, and Jesus will help you.
Through prayer we learn about him and can become more like him, too.

May we have the faith of Joseph, and remember everyday
That the Lord is really there for us, and he will help us if we pray!

A Little Bit of Color

Wow!  I absolutely love color!!  I was intending to write this blog at an earlier time, when the leaves were more vibrant, but another train of thought over took this one...

I think color is an amazing thing and such a blessing.  I love to observe lovely colors that go so well together.  Rooms seem to become warmer when painted with deep reds and light brown or appear to smile at themselves when painted yellow with flowers.  Color is one of the reasons why I love spring and fall so much.  I love the flowers and their bright, cheery yellow, pinks, reds, and purples.  The whole world seems to be celebrating new birth and life.  How does it show it?  Through color!  I believe that things in nature really bring out the true amazing colors.  To see an ocean, sparkling blue, a new flower, blooming to the warmth of the sun, with small drops of water covering it’s small and delicate petals, or a bright sunrise, welcoming in a new day.  Nature seems to express it’s joys and sorrows through color.  It teaches us all about how things go naturally together.  Have you ever seen a tree that seems to clash with its leaves?  It shows us that our lives are completely surrounded by color, and that it is a great thing!

When a movie is portraying something as dark, sad, or discouraging, it is often shown in black and white, showing that things aren’t good, but then if the situation becomes better, it often goes back into color.  Color can completely change the mood of people and situations.  If a person is sick, don’t you always hear that people will paint their room a bright color?  But on the other hand, if you walk into a dark room, you’re more likely to be unhappy and often an unexplained glumness will seem to settle.  Doesn’t it amaze you that such a simple thing can so greatly affect everyone?

In The Giver, you discover that they have taken away color to try and make the world more equal.  I think that in doing this, they greatly threw many things out of balance. Different colors don’t make things worse or make people feel bad; greatly on the contrary, they make them feel better!  The world is a more wonderful place because of color and the great influence it has on people.

Disappointment

Have you ever been bitterly disappointed about something? I was today, and it’s awful. You just have this very unpleasant feeling that settles in your stomach and doesn’t want to go away. Today I was beaten in something that I thought I had done fairly well in. First of all, if you really know me, you know how competitive I am. Everything is a challenge, race, or competition for me. I just thrive on it, but if you know me, I hate losing in those things too. It just seems to eat me away like some corroding acid. Then, insult upon injury, the people that beat me were all eight graders, besides three. The worst thing about it was: I had been fairly confident about how it would turn out. I had practiced hard on it, and even though I knew some of the 8th graders were better, but I didn’t think they were that much better. I guess that’s my lot, though, and I really shouldn’t complain about it. It just has really been bugging me, and this kind of helped me to vent, but oh well!!

Mr. T- I just saw that you scheduled the Honors English thing on my birthday!!!

Is it Convenient Enough for You???

Everything in our world is about convenience.  I don’t know why that is.  One of the partial reasons is all the technology we have.  We get annoyed with our computers for not coming up with our search results fast enough, but if we had tried to look up the information by hand, it would’ve taken hours.  And really, what is another seven seconds of waiting?  Another thing we tend to take advantage of is the microwave.  It’s really hard to think that it only takes three minutes to take something frozen solid to completely done.  In the oven, it would’ve taken eighteen minutes to heat up that corndog, but now it only takes three, yet we still complain about time.

Is that the real reason for all of these changes?  Is it time?  Maybe we’ve realized how important time is, and we all feel, sometimes very acutely, that we have no time to spare.  What are we doing to make our lives so busy that we must drive through something, as opposed to walking in and picking it up?  I think we all need to take a reality check on time.  Now, please don’t get me wrong, because I love when things are convenient.  It’s very nice to have things done quickly, but I just think we all should be more gracious and realize that we’re already saving a lot of time.  Even if we do have to cook something in the oven, it’s much faster than cooking it in a fire!!!       

Next I’m going to write about some of the more fun and exciting things that make our lives so much easier, a.k.a. technology.  The first point I would like to discuss is cell phones.  Cell phones are one the most amazing ideas!  To think that we can reach any one, almost anywhere, at any time, on a tiny portable device that is usually smaller than a deck of cards!  That is a crazy concept.  It’s really funny that people who haven’t had a cell phone for most of there lives, now can’t leave their house without it.  I mean, what would we do if someone called us and we didn’t answer!  Horror!!  

I also am amazed with iPods.  On Thursday I saw an iPod Nano for the first time, and I was shocked!  They’re so tiny.  To think that something that small could store so much information is crazy.  It makes you wonder how many years it will take until that is the big, clunky thing to carry around.  My parents have a camera that, when we bought it in 2003, was a very small one.  It’s 5 inches by 3 ½ inches by 1-½ inches.  Now it seems kind of big and awkward.  You can’t even buy a current computer any more.  It seems that the second you buy one, the next better, faster, smarter computer is out.      

It seems like the faster technology advances, the more impatient we become with it.  I think that we all really need to realize what a blessing it is.  We have so many opportunities and options.  We can do so many things, but the trick is to be careful and appreciate what we do have.  We should you these resources, though, because they’re remarkable and empowering.

“I love technology.  But not as much you, you see.  But I still love technology.  Always and forever.  Always and forever!”