Hello Blog...

     So I thought I'd make a blog post just for the heck of it. At the moment we are reading Into the Wild and I am actually enjoying the book quite a bit. I think the whole mystery as to what McCandless's motivation was is definitely a component of this book that keeps me going. I will say though, I have always found it a little hard to follow Krakauer's writing style since he will sometimes go off into these separate descriptions and stories and I kind of get a bit lost while reading because my mind wanders. Other than that I think that this book is actually really interesting and a good book for us seniors to be reading at this time of the year. A lot of us are pondering what it is we are going to do after high school, some are going to college or trade school, but I know there are a lot of people who crave for this adventure after high school; and this book definitely is an eye opener into just how much of an adventure/journey some of us could experience. It also gives us some warning as to what not to do and how not to be stupid on any potential adventures we might embark on.

     Speaking of after high school, any one else so ready for this all to just be over? I thought I had senioritis before, but now that I am both 18 and a senior (like a lot of us) it is becoming harder and harder each day to pull together some motivation to get to school. It's crazy to think, though, that just yesterday we all were entering our first day of 7th grade worried because it was middle school (no recess!!) and now we are just nearing the end of our entire high school career. I TA for a 7th grade class and I always laugh a bit when I over hear them talking about who's dating who and the current drama going on in their lives because in a matter of seconds they'll be in high school months away from graduating and all that drama will be so irrelevant. Leaving high school seems to be a fresh start, you can be who ever you want to be in the real world and that is so exciting. Anyways, that's all for my thoughts at the moment...just thought I'd share.

AF: Off the grid!

AF: On NPR today>>the rise of fake meat

Everybody recognizes that our meat consumption is just not sustainable.  So is fake meat the answer?  Will the food scientists come to the rescue?  If we can make meat in the lab, then gee, that frees up lots of land water, feed, and cleans up the environmental problems inherent in feed lot life.

Is it really okay?

Meat production is a tricky topic due to the fact that many people worry about the morality of the situation. I personally think that it is something that must happen in order to sustain staggeringly growing population. However, i do believe that there should be some sort of good in their life prior to their death.
Animals in the food production industry have a life filled with misery and sadness. They must be pinned up in an undersized cage all day, while their bodies grow at an exponential rate, their bones hardly able to support their own weight, and most likely have a sickness of some sort. Then, they must reproduce and watch as their young are taken away from them, as they too will meet the same fate as their parents. If this isn’t discerning and doesn’t make you want to change your lifestyle, you should read what goes into the ingredients that goes in hot cheetos- you’d be surprised.

Bumble bees.

     Bumble bees, an insect that causes severe pain once stung. I've been stung five times by a bee, and for those of you who haven't been stung, let me tell you guys that it hurts like hell. The first instinct I get when I see a bee, is to run away and try my best try not to cross paths again. There are cases in which I just want to kill them right then and there because I'm scared that there's a possibility that I can be stung again.
     However, I came to the realization that bees are more important that I've ever thought. They are amongst the smallest things in the our world, yet the most influential in the agricultural world. Bees contribute their source of power which is getting into flowers to collect pollen.
     Bees are responsible for more than half of the fruits and vegetables we eat. They allow flowers to bloom and grass to grow. Furthermore, according to Marla Spivak, more bees continue to disappear each year.
     My question is, Would life be sustainable if bees were to extinct?
    I think life would be sustainable, for while at least. The human population would depend too much on animals and other sources of food in order to obviously survive. But the thing is, fruits and vegetables are the main food groups in which we get our nutrition from and are considered the healthiest.
     Overall, I hope bees stop disappearing because they are desperately needed on Earth.

Bees

I was talking to Brett Savage today about bees, and I told him how I think that bees are dying because they're dumb.  Now, I may or may not think bees are dumb, but I did have a good reason to think that.
I left a bowl of water out for the bees to drink because it was pretty hot outside, and when I went to check on them, I saw that they had all drowned.  I'm not sure if that makes me a bad person or not... :(  Anyways, the other day (Last Wednesday to be exact), I saw a bee drowning in a bowl of water (I didn't learn my lesson from the first time, oops :c ).  I rushed over and took it out, and luckily, I saved it.  I was super happy that I had actually saved the life of an endangered insect.  But then I thought, "why would the bee land in the water if it knows it can't swim?"  Also, why would a bee sting if it knows it's going to die?  Do bees actually know that they're going to die when they sting people?

Since we're talking about bees, I thought it would be appropriate to tell a bee joke.

What's a bees favorite novel?







The Great Gats-bee! 

Soylent

Most of the problems in our country revolve around food whether it's too much or too little. Obesity is a huge problem in America and even if we could fix the problem, I don't think people wouldn't want to. A man named Rob Rhinehart invented a powder mixture of everything the body needs to survive. All you have to do is add water. This could save malnourished children in other countries or stop over eating here. Rob says that he's never felt healthier and he has lost weight. Losing weight may concern doctors, but if that's the biggest concern then this should be mass produced to save people. It's not going to be popular because it's tasteless and takes the fun out of eating, but the fun of eating got us into trouble in the first place. This should be about survival, especially for starving people all over the world.