Snowing Echoes

Sparkling and comfortable
Sleeps motionless upon the tree
And covers deep beneath the cold dark sky
In white waves they come trickling
A remembrance of another time
Comes blowing past the lighted tree
And everything smells of pumpkin pie

And nothing can stir the kids
And nothing creeps within those dreams tonight
Something stirs and comes jingling
Leaves behind gifts under those lights

Waking at dusk to only see
A miraculous display of gifts beneath the tree
And laughter giggling jumps of glee
And which one to tear open first
And save the biggest for last
And joy you can see
From the parents' eyes

And nothing can stir the kids
And nothing stops the smells of pumpkin pie
No disturbance of white waves
Nothing stops the sparkling from the sky

Idea In Process

Globalization has taken off to a new level due to the newest technologies.  People can now contact colleagues and have business meetings from across the world through one simple camera connected to the computer.  Cultures are blending more often.  It is more accepted in this day and age that an Indian can marry a Jew or Mexican or American.  

We are connected more throughout the world and can come to understand other cultures, languages, and religion easier than before. 

Oh what an Influence

Soccer was the first sport introduced into my life.  I was the starter, on offense, and it was pee wee soccer.  It commenced my competitive side to win.  I learned how to operate together as a team and that jumping on the ball was considered a penalty and meant for another sport.  It made tough... I was on defense and the ball was kicked flat into my face... it stung a little but I ran it off.  Thirty seconds later, the same guy kicks it and hits me in the same exact spot... my eyes started watering up but I ran it off again.  Now there is only so much one can take... and I reached my point... A minute later another player takes a shot and guess where it hit... I couldn't take that last shot and started bawling my eyes out.  But I did stick it out the first two blows to the face.
 A couple years later, soccer faded and volleyball took over.  Bumping, setting and spiking were my perfection.  I played for six years and continue to still coach it.  I miss playing and try to incorporate it into my life any way possible. 
And then you have the occasional football games.  The guys call me up in the neighborhood to play tackle football at Wentworth Park.  They consider me an advantage because the guys on the other team are too scared to tackle me.  But even back in first grade at recess, the guys asked me to join in and play some football.  I was one of the few girls who could throw a perfect spiral and catch a throw.
Oh and how can I forget about the sports I watch: hockey and baseball.  My interest in hockey started young when my uncle played in the minors and we would go to watch him.  My friend Sam caught my attention onto the White Sox.  Ever since third grade I've been a diehard Sox fan.  I enjoy going to the ball games and watching it on television.  I even have a White Sox tailgate cover on my car.
Sports have been a real large portion of my life.  It's a part of me and allows me to show my competitive side.

Blah Blah Blah... McCormac

It is 1:30 a.m. and I am drained from the day.  I’m running on E and conserving every amount of energy I take in from breathing.  I struggle to keep my eyes and mind focused on this screen.  And at this point, I have very little to say to you, Cormac, about your book The Road.

I believe that the human race will one day almost be exterminated.  It is plausible, considering history tends to repeat itself.  It is only a question of time.  When is the world ready to cleanse itself again and begin anew?  And when that time comes, we do not know exactly what is going to happen.  We can only imagine and scrap together ideas of the worst possible situations.  I believe that you really portray the end of the world to what would possibly happen.  Of course people will be greedy and only care about his or her survival.  It’s every man for himself in the end.  And the fact that you leave out specific environmental factors and descriptions of how the world becomes the way it becomes is, in a way, a good thing.  No one knows exactly what is going to happen and science can only guess at what is to come.  You leave our minds to form our own predictions. 

The way you leave the ending also leads us to form our own endings.  We don’t know if everyone is going to die or if a select few will live.  It these ideas really pull together to make the story realistic and makes us wonder if this is exactly what our fates comes to. 

But for now, I will leave my mind to rest and only subconsciously think about the matters of the apocalypse.  It is a conversation that will never end until it is here in our sights.

Where do we go

I believe the path we’re on in class is a great path already.  Reading our books is independent from the class work, aside from discussions of major themes.  The class pushes us to form opinions of our own.  The answer is never just handed flat out like a highlighted open book.  Our discussions are mostly class lead. 

            Class discussions really help to push our thinking capacity to the next level.  We can form and say our opinions which can leave to someone else making a counter argument, leading us to defend our opinions or broaden our minds to other possibilities.  But without these rebuttals, where is the challenge to push our minds and push us to stand strong by our opinions and defend what we believe to be true.  This is where I believe everyone should participate in discussions.  Everyone has an opinion and should learn how to say their opinion and accept the opinions from others in the class. It will only help them grow, help them to develop opinions or help them to form valid arguments or have a stronger belief in your own opinion.

Daddy's little boy and Mommy's trouble maker

Father and son, the bros for life. The boy looks up to every aspect of the father.  He imitates his father's masculinity by walking around the house with nothing but his boxers in the morning following dad, playing with his box of tools trying to fix his toy car like his dad and even learning how to aim when first being potty trained.  A bond that could never be broken.
Mother and daughter, the best of friends.  Just like the father and the son, the daughter imitates her mother.  The one thing different about this relationship is that the girls love to chat.  There is a sense of compassion lying there which is a warm welcome to any concerns, boy problems, school problems, or anything along those lines.  She's the one who nurtures and blossoms the girl into a young woman.
The son always goes through a momma's boy period.  He trips and falls on the ground, "moooooooooooooommmmmmmmmmmmy" he sobs.  And if dad comes over there while he is crying, he'll scream even louder, "NOOOO I WANT MOMMMY."  Because again, the mother has a sense of compassion, a warm loving sensation.  The care taker of us since the neonatal period of our life.
Oh and don't forget about daddy's little principessa.  Sure he might not have been the one she would run to if she got hurt, and yes dad was tough on her at times, but he'll always be the one who she would run to if the monster was in her closet or if she wanted to play a game of 007 Nightfire.  And on the day another man takes her away from him, he'll be there walking her down that aisle assuring that there was no time in between to leave her without the protection she deserves. 

ALL KNOWING

My knowledge has been developing from the day I was born and I still am continuing to gain knowledge.  The first ways in which we knew anything were through our parents.  They were there the day we were born, the first steps we took, and we followed the movements on their mouth to produce our first form of words.  They helped us develop the first ideas of basic words like cat, dog, food, drink etc.  Also, a lot of our views towards society or anything controversial starts from an opinion our parents make.  We might first agree with their opinions, but later down the road after we gain more knowledge, we might realize that our opinion now changes on that view.

Continuing down our road of knowledge, we have our second encounters: our teachers.  They are the foundation to learning.  We could not know the complicated solving mechanisms in calculus without first knowing that 2 plus 2 IS equal to 4.  Our teachers’ opinions affect us in just the same ways as our parents’ opinions did.  They may say a bias statement and we could believe it.  And like before, our opinion can be manipulated by a greater knowledge and thus change. 

The most important way in which we have come to know what we know is through experience.  There is no way to prove something wrong when you experience it at first hand.  By experiencing something, you are able to form your own opinions from it without being influenced by other’s opinions first.  To me, this is the purest knowledge we could gain.   

Need more than just existance

Everyone has or will ask themselves this question: “Why do I exist?”  After all, we were put here on this earth for some reason, right?  All this schooling, hardships, achievements set forth, accomplishments and just overall experiences were not just put there for any reason, right?

We all want a reason to live.  In fact, we all NEED a reason to live or else you would hear about millions of suicides happening daily. 

But as for me, I do not know exactly why I am here yet.  I doubt that people on this earth hundreds of years from now will even recognize the name Courtney Barrios.  Although, I could care less about my name being known to all. 

As of right now, the one thing I hold important to me is being a role model to people who come to me for help or even just for the girls on the grammar school volleyball team which I assist coaching.  I believe that I can influence them positively and lead them down a path of clear thinking from right and wrong.  At least that’s what I hope they acquire from me…

Small influences will add up and actually help develop that person.  If I could help be a part of someone’s development, I believe that is one thing worth living for. 

Smite me O'mighty Smiter!

All loving, all caring, all knowing, all powerful. He is everywhere and he is everything.  But he is only acknowledged when we need something or need to blame someone. 

God, in my eyes, has lost the true meaning.  He used to be someone who people feared.  If you did not do something he would smite you or toss you between a rock and a hard place.  He was an idol, someone who people could always look up to and depend on.  People actually went to church every weekend and spent an hour rejoicing his name.  People actually prayed to him everyday even if there was nothing needed  but just to thank him for life itself.  But above all, he was there no matter what (even though he still is).  He was the only one anyone could trust and could put one's entire faith into.  He was the one thing we based our lives on; did we live up to his standards on earth so we could spend the rest of eternity sitting at his side.

God is now just thrown out there like another word.  The meaning behind his name is wearing away and people are focusing more on feeling accomplished or just plainly looking for a good time here on earth.  Every now and then we might throw out there a thank you to God but it might as well just be like thanking some random stranger on the street. 

So if you ever need anyone to help you achieve that A on a test, thank someone for making it onto Broadway or blaming someone for that horrible decision you had to make between the boy and the best friend, walk up to the closest stranger and thank him (or scream at him.)

What hand decides your fate

He was clearly doing what was right in his own mind... but to the troops, it was like committing a sin and the only way to repent for it was to be punished.  I believe being beat nearly to death for any sort of crime is going too far.  After all, who are we to shed the blood of another man on the earth's ground. There are men out there who commit a myriad  of crimes, crimes in which are not seen as crimes but are worse like shedding another's blood for pure "nationalism", and are not even considered to be in the category of punishment. 
But that was just one punishment he endured within his whole journey through the hells and heavens of life.  This punishment, we could say, was one of many he would encounter after being thrown from his “paradise.”  A small peck on the lips was all that was needed to punish him for his life.  Was throwing him out into a cold world a truly just punishment?  Not to mention, Cunegonde was the one who initiated the kiss.  Fair?
Well, one wrong turn at the beginning, just a slight coincidence, and he is forever shunned from paradise. 
We can refer back to Adam and Eve… does banishing them from the perfect world seem like a just punishment for eating an apple from a “forbidden” tree… but if they were not to have eaten this apple, would we be existing here now? Or do you believe we would have been in a better place?  Do you believe Candid would have been in a better place than happening by some random chance to come in contact with a situation which would lead to punishments…

The world COULD live as one...

Socrates was a philosopher hundreds of years ago.  He philosophized what seemed to hold true for people at his time.  Now it is time to come to derive new philosophical ideas based on the new updated life we live in.  It would have to be someone who lives(d) an everyday life, seen the world at total chaos and at its most wondrous times.  It doesn't have to be someone who is sagacious or venerable. Some may even think song writers are philosophers, throwing in underlying meanings into their songs here and there, like John Lennon.

John Lennon had a very communist view of the world.  His ideas expanded through the sixties as riots and hippies filled the streets in America.  Many people were introduced to John Lennon when he was apart of the Beatles.  When they split up, John went his own direction to pursue his own music. 

Through the song Imagine, we see his philosophical views:  
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xhkab_john-lennon-imagine_music 

Imagine there's no Heaven
It's easy if you try
No hell below us
Above us only sky
Imagine all the people
Living for today

Imagine there's no countries
It isn't hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion too
Imagine all the people
Living life in peace

You may say that I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope someday you'll join us
And the world will be as one

Imagine no possessions
I wonder if you can
No need for greed or hunger
A brotherhood of man
Imagine all the people
Sharing all the world

You may say that I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope someday you'll join us
And the world will live as one

It is a very strong view.  To live a life without heaven or hell, no religion, no government, or even possessions.  To live everyday as it comes, enjoy the beauty of life around us and to live united.  A world full of peace. But can this only just be a dream…

"The unexamined life is not worth living"

Through the developmental stages of life, we are only exposed to our parents and their thoughts and beliefs on life.  When we start attending school, we are introduced to the beliefs of our peers and teachers.  The school teachings are taught in a way to reflect our society and are centered around a certain way to perceive life or the ways we do things.  However, there is a time in life when we start to question the things we were told to believe as universal truths. 

            Take hold of this time in life.  Use it to a higher advantage by examining everything we were told and starting to muster our own opinions.  By developing our own beliefs we start to mold an individual in a society where we all label ourselves the same or segregate ourselves into groups.  We need to break away from a single view and broaden our minds.  

            So if we don’t take hold of this time and examine just what exactly is true to ourselves and what is something just put in our heads, we will lose a part of ourselves: our individuality.  The ideas and teachings we grew up knowing are of those of everyone around us.  We would be living in everyone else’s beliefs on life; Almost as if we did not exist in ourselves but through others eyes.  So to say our “second sight.”  We would just comply with this whatever everyone perceives to be right.

            Why go on living someone else’s life?

Eulogy

Courtney Barrios, daughter, sister, volleyball player, student.  Being all these things are not what makes who Courtney was.  It was how she viewed and lived her life.

Courtney Barrios once said never live life with regrets.  She took the situations she was in and instead of regretting making a choice, she learn from them.  She believed that everything in life happens for a reason and that life should be lived without regrets, otherwise real beauties in life will be missed.

Courtney stayed true to this.  Never once did I hear her complain about how she should have never done something.  It was more about how she could do it better the next time around.  And she always found the better way.And certainly, she would want us to look at her death not as a mourning, but as a situation which will contribute to our growth on this journey through life. 

She always was there for her friends and family.  She always wanted to know what was going on in their lives.  She felt that if they were ever stuck between a rock and a hard place that she would be the one they would come to.  She wanted to help her loved ones in any way possible, even if it was just sitting there quiet just to keep them company or giving girlfriends corny advice about how not to attract the wrong men.

The one thing she knows she would never regret was putting the smiles on the faces of her loved ones.  And so today, as we say our last words to our friend, daughter, lover, sister, lets put on a smile and show her just how happy we were to have had her in our lives.