you have now donated ___ grains of rice

when i'm chilling at home with nothing to do, i like going to freerice.com. freerice is a place where you answer simple questions, and for every question you get right, 10 grains of rice is donated to a third world country to help feed hungry people. 10 grains of rice might not seem like a lot, but after a while of playing, you'll find that you've donated quite a bit of rice. go back every few days when you've got nothing better to do (we all have those days), and keep giving. when you think about the thousands of other people in the world playing at the same time you are, that's a lot of hungry mouths being fed. but they can always use more. so next time you get bored of creepin the book, go to freerice.com and give your brain a work-out while feeding hungry people. its easy!

i hope this makes you think

i could make a list to the moon and back of things i've hoped for in my life.

i hope we eat soon, i'm so hungry. i hope i did good on that math test, i probably should have studied. i hope i didn't miss jersey shore, what time does it come on again?

a few things that i'm sure go through the mind of every american teenager at some point in their life.

but how often do we say things like;

i hope we eat tomorrow, there wasn't much today. i hope mom doesn't die, i don't think i can take care of my siblings on my own. i hope we had enough money to pay for heat this week, my toes are so cold they're turning purple.

hope is wishing and believing that something better will come along.

i think americans have a distorted vision of hope sometimes.

Two Dead, Assault Suspected

Two beloved family pets were found dead in their homes this morning.

Butternut, tadpole, of Albert Lea, lived a short life. She enjoyed music and often swam about while the piano that served as the foundation to her home was being played.

“Butternut always seemed to enjoy the music I played, and never yelled at me when I hit a wrong note,” said Lani, neighbor of Butternut. “her dancing was beautiful.”

The coroner stated the cause of Butternut's death was loneliness, as the autopsy revealed a broken heart. Butternut’s husband and lifelong friend, Peanut, passed away only a few months ago of natural causes.

Joshua, fish, also of Albert Lea, was found dead after a short but intense search of his home and surrounding area.
"Joshua and I grew up together," said Noah, friend of Joshua. "we'll miss him a lot."

Joshua is survived by his wife, Samanthapoo, who was unavailable for interview as she is being questioned by the authorities.

The cause of Joshua’s death is yet to be determined. The investigation continues, and domestic assault is suspected.

Funerals were held for both Joshua and Butternut this morning, and they were laid to rest at Flush O' the Toilet cemetery at approximately 10 am.

HP 7.1

i saw harry potter and the deathly hallows part one today with my friend lynzee and her grandma. this is the first harry potter movie i've watched when i didn't know what was going to happen next. i read the book 2 years ago, and i can only remember a few parts. it was weird.

*SPOILER*

"blue. what a crazy color"

• putting makeup on the guys and making fun of those who tried to do it themselves
• bursting out into song at applebee's
• telling jokes backstage and trying not to laugh too loud
• playing catch phrase with more than 20 people
• eating homemade pizza from heaven
• hearing the audience laugh at the things we forgot were funny
• getting flowers
• making new friends and getting to know the old ones
• creating inside jokes and confusing the rest of the world with them

being a part of this year's high school musical, guys and dolls, was pretty amazing.

i wonder how many people i’ve looked at all my life and never really seen

i have this friend. we haven't been friends for a very long time, maybe 4 months. but for how close we are, you'd think we've known each other since we were toddlers.

i'm not even sure how we became such good friends. we'd met briefly before, but never really talked. he came up to me one night at a party and said hi, and suddenly we were best friends.

my life has completely changed because of him, and i continuously wonder to myself why we weren't friends before. it's not like we'd never met. we'd had several opportunities to become friends, but neither of us ever took advantage of those opportunities. maybe we became friends at that exact moment because that's how it was meant for it to be. maybe it was fate.

but i think a more logical explanation is that we as humans just don't pay enough attention to each other.

what i've learned in biology10

adaptation is "the evolutionary process whereby a population becomes better suited to its habitat."

1. all animal species have certain traits that are different from animal to animal, such as the size and shape of a bird's beak, the color and pattern on a snake, or the how fast a horse can run.

2. some of these variations can be beneficial to the animal that possesses it, while others might make their survival more difficult. for example, if the color and pattern on a snake make it blend into its environment, that snake's predators will have a harder time preying on that snake because it is camouflaged and therefore harder to see. but if the snake is colored in a way that makes it stand out, its predator will see it more easily than the camouflaged snake.

3. so if the camouflaged snake is harder to kill, it would make sense that more of them would survive. over the years, more camouflaged snakes would live and reproduce. eventually, all of the not-so-camouflaged snakes would die, and all that would be left are the camouflaged snakes.

that species of snake has adapted to its envrionment.

oh, the power of the human mind

according to biologists, there are only a few things that separate "homo sapiens" from the rest of the animal kingdom; humans are bipedal (we walk on 2 feet), and we have a more complex cerebrum and fully opposable thumbs. that's what we learned in biology anyway.

christians (for the most part), on the other hand, believe that humans were created in god's image, therefore are the only animals that have souls.

i'm not sure my beliefs fall on either end of that spectrum.

i'm not really even sure what my beliefs are.

i used to be a hardcore, stereotypical christian when it came to the concept of humanity. but now that i've learned more about it, i'm not really sure what i think about it. its something that i think about a lot, but it's such a vast topic, it's hard for me to even comprehend what i'm thinking about sometimes.

metacognition makes me dizzy.