Goodbye Jacksonville. I will miss you.

So for Spring Break this year I went to Jacksonville, Florida along with 12 other students from Southern, one student from Ozark Christian College, and two mentors on a mission trip.  This was the second year that I had went with the Koinonia Christian Campus Ministry and as amazing as last year was, I think this year was even better.  My week went like this. 

I woke up at like 5am Friday the 18^th so we could all meet at the Criminal Justice Building by 6 and we were on the road by 6:30am.  We took two 15 passenger vans, one belonging to the organization and the other borrowed from a local church.  I’m pretty sure we drove all day.  I can say the 7 (not counting the driver) of us in the van slept a substantial amount of the day.  We arrived in Tiftonia, Tennessee at like 7pm (we changed time zones) and we ate dinner and crashed.  We also woke up early the next morning to get back on the road.  By Saturday afternoon, we had made it to the North Florida Christian Service Camp in Keystone Heights, Florida.  This camp is absolutely beautiful.  It consisted of an office and recreation building that literally sat on the edge of a lake, as well as the Dottie Shaw worship building, cabins to sleep in, a pool and even a human foosball court.  We went and bought groceries and just spent that night getting settled at the camp.

On Sunday we woke up, had a small service on the beach of the lake and then went to the ocean!! We went to Little Talbott Island State Park and the beach was absolutely gorgeous.  We were there and I spent the entire time walking up and down the beach.  Between the people that went with me and myself, we found about 15 sand dollars that were over 85% intact.  I even got to touch a jellyfish.   That night we went to a seafood place not far from the beach (the chicken there was really good.)

Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday we spent working at the camp.  We were given 27 time consuming jobs and were not intended to finish all of them.  These jobs included painting the office, putting up porch spindles, cleaning the beach, raking leaves, clearing brush from the side of the road, putting up batton strips, dry walling the office, sheet rocking the office, fixing some plumbing and so on.  By Wednesday night, after working 9-5 days in the 90 degree Florida weather we completed every task we were given.  The director of the camp told us that the work we did in three days would’ve taken him several months.  At nights, we were allowed to enjoy the lake and just have some “us” time.

Then came Thursday.  This was my favorite day of the week.  We went into intercity Jacksonville and worked with their City Rescue Mission.  Any given night in Jacksonville there is at least 4,000 homeless people.  The  CRM’s goal is to help these homeless.  For some, they offer a Life-Building program where the person must be sober from whatever they are doing for 7 days before they can enter.  They are given a bed (for up to 900) and they are started in the program. The program is like almost every other except for 2 things: they do not take any government money and they teach about Jesus.  The program is cleaning the person up, showing them a new way of life, getting them back on their feet, and placing them in a stable job for at least 6 months before graduation.  It often takes 12-18 months to complete.  The success rate of nation organizations are about 25% and the CRM has a success rate of 87% and the one difference:  Jesus.  We were able to serve the entire day sorting clothes at the goodwill and serving food to homeless.  It was by far the most humbling experience in my entire life.

If anyone who reads this would like to join Koinonia Christian Campus Ministry, we meet on Tuesday nights in the Lions Den.  At 7:15pm we have a prayer time, 7:30pm – a free meal provided by an area church and at 8pm we start our worship.  It is one of the best things I could have ever gotten involved with on this campus.   

Putting a Flag at Half-Mast

So I was on Facebook Monday and my friend posted a status saying “thoughts on having flags at half-mast for Japan today?” and I knew this would be my blog for the week.  I waited until the day today to post my blog just so I could see how people responded.  Well, first of all, I just want to make it clear that the flags were NOT at half-mast on Monday due to the disasters in Japan, they were at half-mast to honor the passing of the World War I veteran, Frank W. Buckles.  And I found that on the Missouri Office of Administration’s website http://oa.mo.gov/fmdc/flagnotifications.htm  But some of the responses to this friend’s status include “What are we supposed to think about it? There are thousands of people dead and thousands more missing, we should be in mourning as human beings” or “I was wondering why they were like that today. I think it's good. People loving and caring for other people... the way the world was meant to be” along with “I also didn't mean to suggest that I don't care about the people involved in this disaster. I'm not at all saying that showing compassion for other human beings is bad. All I'm saying is that it sets a precedent. Anytime any country has a national disaster or war or really any kind of humanitarian crisis the U.S. should fly the flag at half-mast. To do otherwise would leave us open to accusations of favoritism” or even “it’s called the AMERICAN flag...not the world flag.”  The reason I chose this is I would like to see how people respond.  How do you feel (if it were the case) that America put their flags at half-mast for a disaster in another country???

My first thought, no.  I do not feel that putting an AMERICAN flag at half-mast would mean anything to the Japanese or any other country for that matter.  I mean, I totally understand wanting to honor and respect someone injured or lost but personally, I feel that doing something like that should be for Americans.

I know, I know, this really makes me sound like I’m some cocky, insensitive American girl who only thinks about her country and not others.  But here is the deal.  I feel like we need to invent a different way to acknowledge crises in other countries but still be able to have our own acknowledgement for Americans.  I am not saying that we should not acknowledge others but I feel like every country should have their own special way to acknowledge their country members and then a way to acknowledge those from other countries.   I feel like if we use the flag at half-mast for our citizens, that there be another form of recognition for people from other countries.  I’m not sure if it would be feasible or not but I think it is really something to consider.  

Nuclear Reactors

So it is no question that the earthquake in Japan is a big deal, but at the moment I really think their nuclear reactors are definitely a bigger deal.  When I first heard about these, I didn’t even know what a nuclear reactor was.  According the World Nuclear Association, “a nuclear reactor produces and controls the release of energy from splitting the atoms of certain elements…the energy released is used as heat to make steam to generate electricity.”  Components of a nuclear reactor include fuel, moderator, control rods, coolant, pressure vessel or pressure tubes, steam generator, and containment. 

ABC News posted an article titled “Emergencies at 5 Japanese Nuclear Reactors; Radiation Levels Spike at Most-Affected Site.”  According to the article, these reactors exploded after the earthquake which caused the cooling system to lose power.  Because of this, the level of radiation in the air was over 1,000 times what it normally was.  “Officials declared a ‘nuclear emergency’ at the plant (Fukushima Daiichi), about 200 miles northeast of Toyko, amid the cooling system failure after the No. 1 reactor lost power and automatically shut down.  Later, officials announced cooling ability also had been compromised at the second reactor at the site and in three of four reactors at the nearby Fukushima Daini plant.” 

Because of the dangers of these nuclear reactors, workers have been evacuated from the plants in fear of the amounts of radiation that has been released in such a short time.  Yahoo News reported “The level of radiation at the plant surged to 1,000 millisieverts early Wednesday before coming down to 800-600 millisieverts…Experts say exposure of around 1,000 millisieverts is enough to cause radiation sickness.”  Anywhere from 30-70 percent of the reactors at each of the plants have been damaged by the earthquake and tsunami.  The idea of this is absolutely terrifying.

Why do people rely so much on nuclear power plants to supply energy? There are definitely other sources out there that could and might possibly actually be better for people and the environment.  For instance, we could use solar power.  EHow explains solar power as “Solar panels create power in direct relation to their size, latitude and weather.  These panels convert sun into power and store it in batteries that can be used at anytime.”  We could also place windows and doors in proper places around houses and businesses that would help to heat and cool that location according to the temperature at the given time.  Another option is wind power.  Wind turbines generate the power.  The other option (also from EHow) is geothermal power that uses” water heated deep in the earth to the surface and utilizing the steam to power a generator.” 

Now, granted, I am no expert on the use of nuclear power plants as opposed to solar, wind or geothermal power.  I’ve done some research but I do not know a crazy whole lot about the situation.  But these are other options.  And with the situation that the Japanese are facing at the moment, it will interesting to see what happens to the future of these plants.  

Tired of Bad Publicity

“Charlie Sheen is all over the news this week because he's a rambling train wreck. Justin Bieber was all over the news because he got a hair cut. While Andrew Wilfahrt 31, Brian Tabada 21, Rudolph Hizon 22, Chauncy Mays 25, Christopher Stark 22, Kristopher Gould 25, David Fahey 23 are all soldiers who gave their lives this week with no media mention.” 

So this quote has been circulating around people’s Facebook statuses this week and I couldn’t agree with it more.  I am so sick and tired of hearing about overpaid celebrities who are going crazy or sharing every aspect of themselves for the world to know.  All of the publicity Charlie Sheen has received for saying things about the creator of the show that made him millions and getting that show cancelled is so boring.  I don’t care what he does with his life.  He is a human being and will live his life as he pleases.  I’m pretty sure he wouldn’t even know if one of us disappeared, so why are we going to sit here and judge every decision he chooses to make with his life?  Because of his ridiculous amounts of money, he instantly gets all the media coverage from everywhere.

There are men and women sacrificing their lives each and every day and our society is so stuck on money that they focus on where wealth is rather than the people giving up their lives so we can live ours freely.  If it weren’t for these men and women, Charlie Sheen would NOT have the opportunities to say the things he has to the people he did, he wouldn’t have a job where he makes something like $1.25 million an episode or something ridiculous like that; we wouldn’t be able to get outrageously expensive haircuts, we wouldn’t have any of those things.  I’m sick of seeing these things in the news. 

Now don’t get me wrong, death is a very depressing thing and it isn’t something we want to hear about all the time.  But here’s the thing, we should be acknowledging the lives these men and women spent and the good they have done.  Yes, the circumstances aren’t the greatest, but we should be spending the time and news coverage that has been devoted to people such as Charlie Sheen, to these men and women and their suffering families. 

I feel like in society today, we are so undeserving of the military we have been blessed with.  People like Charlie Sheen make me feel guilty for having people give their lives for our freedoms because all most Americans do is take these freedoms for granted.  He says bad things about the people who have helped to bring him to where he is today and then expects them to keep his show.  Who really cares.  Why don’t we instead focus on people sacrificing their lives for our safety and why don’t we give them the publicity they deserve.  

"No Child Left Behind" is starting to get left behind...

Everyone has their opinions about how situations in our society today are handled.  Being an education major, I feel that one topic that is brought up so often in my classes is the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001.  This is a very heated argument among educators today.  According to Answers.com “The ‘No Child Left Behind’ law requires states to give students in grades 3-8 an annual test in reading and math.  In 10 years, all students are supposed to test as ‘proficient.’”  So this act was established to help give every student an equal opportunity at getting the same effective education as any other student. 

Well, published just today on Fox News was an article titled “82 percent of US schools may be labeled ‘failing.’”  In this article it plainly says “The Department of Education estimates the number of schools not meeting targets will skyrocket from 37 to 82 percent in 2011 because states are toughening their standards to meet the requirements of the law.”  According to Education Secretary Arne Duncan “This law has created a thousand ways for schools to fail and very few ways to help them succeed.” 

When the No Child Left Behind Act was first put into place in 2001 by then president, George W. Bush, I truly think he had the best intentions at heart.  The idea of opening the playing field to every student, regardless of race, gender, ethnic background, or disability was something unlike anything we had seen before.  But the act was very unpolished with gaps and little things that needed to be fixed about it. 

I love the idea of boosting test scores nationwide, I really do.  I’m just not sure that the No Child Left Behind Act was the way to do it, and by statistics, I think it’s starting to show that.  I think each region of the country or even each state needs to come up with a method for increasing these scores.  People in the Northeast live a completely different lifestyle than those in the Southwest, and their test scores are going to reflect that.

Another problem being that some students just do not do well on standardized tests.  I graduated with 375 students; I was in the top 12% of my class with a 3.89 GPA.  I took honors classes all through high school in almost every subject.  I could not do well on standardized tests at all.  I took the ACT 5 times and still was not satisfied with my score.  I don’t broadcast my score but let’s just say that the score I got, most people associate with the “dumb” kids (or so it was said in my high school.)  Whenever I took a standardized test, whether the ACT or the MAP test, I froze up. I couldn’t remember anything and I got super nervous.  I even went to tutoring for them to help my scores; it didn’t work. 

So forcing children to take a standardized test every year and expecting them to be in a certain range is not realistic.  And we can only hope that maybe there will be some revisions done to the No Child Left Behind act that could help make it a lot more realistic.  

Is it Possible for our Amendments to be stretched too far?

As Americans we are given so many freedoms that most countries dream of having.  The sad part of this is that we often times take these freedoms for granted.  Just this week the U.S. Supreme Court voted 8-1 in defending freedom of speech for the Westboro Baptist Church.  Now, the name “Westboro Baptist Church” may not sound too harmful, but when they have a website with the web address www.godhatesfags.com  that puts them in a totally different light.  Now right now their website is not running, from what I read, it has been hacked so they took it down.  But the short description of this church is lead by Fred Phelps and they picket gay and military funerals.  They carry signs saying “God hates the U.S.A.,” “Thank God for 9/11” and even “Thank God for Dead Soldiers.”  According to Yahoo News, the case started when the family of slain Marine, Matthew Snyder, sued the church “for intentionally inflicting emotional distress after they picketed at his funeral.” Also stated in the article, “As appalling as most Americans would find these protests, the Supreme Court in an 8-1 decision found that the picketers could not be successfully sued because the protests were protected by the First Amendment.”

Now the Supreme Court’s ruling wasn’t supporting what this man and his followers are saying and doing at these funerals but they are saying that it is their American right to do so.  Now, I completely do not agree with what this group of people is saying at all.  There are men and women dying every day for these people’s freedoms and how do they return the favor, they picket their funerals.  It’s actually rather frustrating to think about.  But Fox News published another interesting article titled “Why the Supreme Court Decision of Westboro Baptist Church Challenges Us All.”  The following statement came straight from the article.  “It would be far easier to ban the protests by Westboro, and certainly more comforting in the short term, at least.  But, it may be that the Supreme Court has done us all a favor by taking that easy road.  In making an unpopular ruling, they are offering us all an opportunity to strengthen those laws which keep it from being abused, and strengthen our commitments to each other both as citizens and as neighbors.”

That statement is absolutely true.  I am not saying this will be easy.  But if we do our best to stop reacting to the church’s decisions, we will stop fueling their fire as much as we have been.  And with resources such as the Patriot Guard Riders who put themselves between the family of the fallen and the picketers to try and help ease the family’s distress, we can severely narrow this group’s goals of upsetting these families more than they already have.  They were granted their freedom of speech, so we are also entitled to expressing our freedoms of speech as well.  As upsetting as the ruling was, it is fair.   But instead of complaining and being mad about it, we might as well just put our foot down when it comes to dealing with them.  Then we can show them how we really feel about expressing our sacred freedoms.   

Is Spring Break Really Worth Dying For?

Personally, my Spring Breaks do not involve partying, drinking, and sex with strangers but I do know so many people who do want to do that on their week off in the middle of the spring semester.  Some people do this within their town, some choose to travel hundreds of miles across the country and even to other countries as well.  Fox News posted a story to their website just this week titled “Dangers Lurk in Some Spring Break Destinations.”  After reading this article, I wouldn’t travel south of good ole Missouri even if you paid me.  

It’s no question that Mexico is definitely a hot spot for many Spring Breakers.  I mean, really, it would be so cool to spend a week with your best friends in a foreign country.  No curfew, no parents, no classes, it would be the life.  But I can truly say that if I hadn’t read this article for my blog, I would’ve never known the dangers some of these high school and college students are going to unknowingly get themselves into, and as bad as it sounds, some of these kids could not come home.

Some known hot spots for Spring Break include Acapulco, Mexico, Jamaica, South Padre Island, Texas, Mazatlan, Mexico and the infamous Cancun, Mexico.  All of these places, including South Padre Island, are facing some rough times with drug cartels and situations students from our sheltered country could never imagine.  In Acapulco, deaths by drug cartels increased 147 percent between 2009 and 2010.  In Jamaica, there is a line in the sand where the sand changes color and that’s the line Americans are not to cross.  Just past the resort side of the line (which is safe to Americans), anything goes on the other.  There is also a warning of people being raped by the hotel or resort staff.  South Padre Island is in the United States, but just a few miles south of it are two of Mexico’s most famous trafficking hub.  Most students probably don’t know that but they do know that alcohol is much cheaper there along with a younger drinking age, so those are the things that stand out more than the fact that they could die.  Mazatlan is home to the country’s deadliest drug cartel, the Sinaloa Federation, and they are killing people so often the bodies can be found on the streets.  In Cancun, probably one of the most popular places thanks to MTV, U.S. citizens can act like they are still in the states, but don’t have the consequences which can be disastrous.  The researchers also warn that the undertow can also be deadly.

So, I can safely say, I never knew ANY of this, at all, if I hadn’t read this article.  Spring Break is supposed to be a time of fun and relaxation with family or friends.  It’s scary that the world today has to now worry about being shot or raped or something like that.  As a college student, I feel like a matter this horrific should be addressed in schools before our Spring Break.  If students really knew what was going on, I know if I were considering travelling to Mexico, I would really think otherwise.