"You Look Pretty Today"

What I decide to wear for the day completely depends on how I feel when I wake up in the morning. Today I decided, why not? I am going to wear heels again for the third time this week. With the hound tooth heels, leg warmers, skinny jeans, white ruffled top, and a black vest I would like to say I did put together a cute outfit. However, I left my hair the way I would normally wear it, and my face blank like I often do.

I have received about ten complements from various people today, most being from students. I have gotten the:

"You look nice"
"I like your shoes"
"Those leg warmers are cool"
"Nice Outfit.."
and "You look pretty today"

I greatly appreciate these complements. But what I don't understand, I may never will, is that how do the clothes that I am wearing affect my beauty. Why do the clothes you wear, or don't wear, change the natural beauty that everyone is born with.

Occasionally, I walk into school in baggy sweats, a white T, and sneakers. Keeping my hair down and no make-up on my face. I get no complements from anyone saying that...I look pretty today.

There are many websites, stores, and blogs that put materialistic things on pedestals. They insert the false fact into a persons head that without these things they aren't as good, and aren't as pretty.

A friend of mine has been keeping up with some blogs like this, the one she follows the most is Cherry Blossom Girl. Even though I enjoy reading her blog and think that that pictures she take are beautiful, her blog has that superficial vibe that I am talking about. That you can't have beauty without the right accessories.

Similar blogs are:
Knock Out Niki Presents

Le Blog De Betty

Unejeune Demoiselle

Le Blog De La Mechante

Cachemire & Sole

And just because I don't understand what the words are saying, doesn't mean that I can't understand what the blog is saying. Clothes are beauty. Well, I think that beauty is beauty and I wish that more people could see it that way too.

I am going to wear sweats tomorrow and see if anyone says anything...

Mika 6:8

"Do Justice, Love Kindness, and walk humbly with your God" was the scripture one Sunday morning. I realized that this was the verse from Mika 6:8, but what I didn't realize that after this service my minister would ask me to join an awareness group he had organized specifically around this scripture.

This group consisted of our minister and four other active youth members. After a very long discussion we decided what our focus would be on: social justice.

Doing Justice is not as easy as it may sound. Becoming a part of this group gave me a realization that the social and humanitarian work I have been doing over the past few years was worth it. Not only did the family, children, and communities get a lot out of it; but so did I. I received a spiritual and personal high in my life and it has been the greatest emotion i have ever felt. Just seeing the faces of the ones receiving the help, gave back to me, what i have given to them: love.

One could say that this has "ruined" me for life. And in fact, it has. A friend of mine gave a sermon discussing our, and her personal experiences on our church's missionary work in Guayaquil, Ecuador. She tells of how once someone becomes a part of a movement like this, they are in it for life. It becomes a part of the heart, and a part of the soul. The term "ruined for life" is not meant in the negative way how most would view it. Yet, in a positive way, that for the rest of my life I am part of something wonderful.

For the rest of my life... I will be doing justice, loving kindness, and walking humbly with my God. I will continued to be "ruined for life." And this I truly believe.

The Lieberman Let Go...

Recently, it seems that all of the blog entries written on My Left Nutmeg are Joe Lieberman, Joe Lieberman, and some more about Joe Lieberman. In fact, in the most recent blog entry, he is referred to as Joe in the title. I guess that he is blogged about so much they are now on a first name basis with him.

Since Election day, there have been 20 (as of Dec. 4th, 40) blog entries completely and totally devoted to bashing Joe Lieberman. In these blog entries there have been many, in a way, campaign buttons that say "just say no to Joe" It seems that every day there are just more and more thing out there to get Joe Lieberman out of Connecticut office. Well then maybe it is time to actually do something about it.

There have been many statements saying things like:

"To reward Senator Lieberman with a major committee chairmanship would be a slap in the face of millions of Americans who worked tirelessly for Barack Obama and who want to see real change in our country"

Joe Lieberman has stabbed Connecticut Democrats in the back too many times. It is time to strip him of all committee memberships -- he no longer deserves such respect from Democrats.

And there have been many blog entry titles like:

Senator Dorgan States That Joe's Behavior Is Unacceptable

Greenwich DTC Votes to Censure and Repudiate Joe Lieberman

Lieberman Wins, We Lose

After reading all of the multiple blog entries about how awful of a person Joe Lieberman is, it made me think that it is time to change to title of this blog... maybe to something like wehatejoe.com or a name of that sort.

With all these bloggers out there writing about how much they hate him, it is sort of funny that no one is actually doing anything to take a stand and push him out of office. It is just a bunch of anonymous bloggers trying to sway peoples opinions. I am not in anyway saying that I am for Joe Libermen, nor am I saying I am against him. There is nothing wrong with blogging negatively about Joe Lieberman, but maybe it is time to be a little more mature about it...

Joe The Paskudnyak*

*A horrible, horrible person. (completely unnecessary)

The Power Of Inspiration!

My Childhood, wouldn't necessarily be labeled as a normal one. I did have a loving and caring family at home, but I also had my church "family". Being raised in the "family" of over 600 was an intense thing to try to comprehend at this young age. But now, it has inspired me to become a Sunday School teacher so that I will become a part of inspiring the next generation of children in this church "family"

Alongside this "family" of 600 is who one could call the father of the house, Rev. Gary Smith and his wife, Linda Smith. While watching in the background as Linda and Gary go on multiple mission trips over the summer to places like West Virginia and Ecuador with dozens of volunteer youth from our church along for the ride; I just couldn't wait for my tern to come. And it did, that day finally came, but without the love and support from Gary and Linda I would have never been inspired to be a part of this mission work.

In every child's life there will hopefully be just one of "those" teachers. The one that moves their students to thrive on the knowledge that they will gain not only out of their classroom, but also out of life. I have found this teacher. In his own weird, and very negative way, he has inspired me to do my best and get my work done (although not often on time.) He has made me a better writer, a better speaker, a better thinker, and even a better person. Someday, I hope to thank him for all that he has done for me. To let him know that he helped me to get over the speed bump in my life and has inspired me to move forward.

I don't know where this world would be without the people who give out their time and their knowledge for the well being of others. Everyone has somehow been inspired to be where they are today and has been motivated to spread that inspiration.

I believe in the power of inspiration. That hopefully sometime in every ones lifetime they will be in the presence of someone that can truly inspire them to do great, be great, and someday have the power to inspire others in the same way that they were. With inspiration come responsibility and the motivation to reach their full potential in life. Over the course of my lifetime i have been inspired by a number of people. I consider myself to be very lucky to have such great role models in my life who have help me to become who I am today.

This I Believe...

Well, for starters i have four ideas rushing around in my head. The first is inspiration, and the power of it. this is where i would tell stories or a story of a person who has greatly inspired me. I am also thinking about respect and the importance of it; respecting adults (including teachers), family and friends, and respecting the Earth. Two other ideas that i have swimming around in my head are on different things both relating to my religion and my church.

Mika 6:8 and my strong belief of it, and i try to follow by what it say.

Youth Ministry and the importance children getting involved.

I have the same assignment for one of my other classes. And because my teacher for that class told the class to steer clear from writing about religion I will be using the power of inspiration for her class.

My Day At SCSU :)

When I first heard about this flied trip I was very excited. And I am not going to lie to you, it was because I really did not want to be in school that Friday. On the way there, certain things started running through my head, like: should i have really came on this trip, what if its boring, I am missing a lot of work to go on this trip, and I already had a pile of absences and it is still not even the 2nd quarter of the year.

But when I got there, I knew almost instantly that I had made the right choice. Being a senior, it is pretty sad that this was my first time being on a college campus and in a way, I am glad it was. That just made my day that much memorable.

We started off the conference with an opening "meet and greet" session, at least that is what I called it. A few of the different speakers and professors who were running the conference introduced themselves and talked a little bit about what it was all about. Not to long after that began was it time to break up and find our designated rooms.

Previously I had signed up for two discussions to go to. The first was "Getting it right: Journalism Ethics" I had signed up for this workshop because I have always been interested in ethics, so i wanted to learn about how ethics ties into journalism. I most definitely did, and I learned so much more then expected. As I have said in my most recent blog entry, the Professor Jerry Dunklee is a really cool dude.

Once it was time to move to the next workshop, I, along with a fellow classmate, Maddie, decided to go to "Literary journalism: Fictional Techniques to make Reporting Sparkle. Unfortunately, this workshop had no sparkle. We then moved on from workshop to workshop until we finally found one that we felt would provide us with the valuable information that we wanted to get. "All you need to know about journalism" was very informational and both Maddie and I learned a lot and got a lot out of it. One of the things she said that really stuck with me was "From here on out, it is all a competition."

We finished off the session with a keynote speaker, Rob Parker. He is a famous sports reported who graduated from Southern. He told all of us to keep dreaming and to never give up because we can do it. He was a very inspirational speaker who said "If you fall down and bump your head you can always get up and keep going."

In conclusion, this day was more then worth it and I am extremely happy that I decided to go and I hope something like this comes up again before this semester ends.

Jerry! Jerry! Jerry!

Last Friday, October 24th, Mr. Miller took some of the students from our class and a few students from the school who are very interested in journalism on a flied trip for a day. the trip wasn't too far. we went to a high school journalism day at a local Connecticut college.

While we were there, i was honored to be able to listen to one of the professors teach us all about journalism ethics. Professor Jerry Dunklee, a journalism professor at SCSU, is one of the most unique men i have ever met. he used his own way of teaching to ask us the answers, and sometimes even ask us what the questions are to get his point across. i have yet to come across any teachers like that so far in my almost 13 years of education. He is just one of those people that can get your attention by just saying "hello" and then you are stuck and you don't want to stop listening to what he is saying.

On top of how great of a educator he is, this man is also hilarious. Professor Dunklee talked in a manor that was extremely amusing to his audience. He used the phrase "Brother from another mother!" which one could say got the large crowd laughing. yes, including teachers and advisers. However, he can say the type of things that can really get you thinking about who you are.

"There are some students who should say 'just shut up and get out of our way'". That made me wish i could be one of those students, one of those students who just get it, everything clicks, who knew what they were doing and don't need be be told how to complete an assignment in many different ways. Unfortunately, it takes me awhile to comprehend something, but once i do finally get it i get the ball rolling and understand something enough to write about it.

SCSU is one of the colleges that i plan on applying to for next year, after meeting Professor Jerry Dunklee, It made me want to go there even more.

Lemon Justice Deja Vu

I haven't gotten a chance to write as much as i would have liked to over the weekend. i had some great things in my head that have sort of fallen out after such an eventful weekend such as this one. but i am going to try my very best to get my point across

Like i said in the previous blog entry, i am going to start blogging about "themes" (with some other stuff as well) With our country's current economic crisis, corporate greed has been in the news quite often. However, i have yet to hear about it in class until recently. Last Thursday in my sociology class my teacher put on a documentary on corporate greed. now, normally when a movie goes on, and the lights go off, that it is time for Megan to take a nap. especially with the comfy couches that my teacher has provided for us. This was not the case today, i was awake and attentive through the whole thing. It seemed that even though this was not at all a new documentary, it fit in perfectly to what was going on right now.

Later on in the day when i got to mr. miller's class, i found a blog entry on corporate greed. The entry i found was on the blog, Lemon Justice. This blog is written by Sergei Lemberg, Esq. According to the top right hand corner of his blog Sergei Lemberg, Esq., focuses his practice on Lemon Law, Consumer Fraud, Auto Warranty and Auto Injury litigation. He is licensed to practice in New York, Massachusetts, and Connecticut.

His blog entry, Philadelphia Lawyers Take On Corporate Greed, focuses on the lawyers who have been fighting the injustices of corporate greed. "Corporate greed often results in poor decisions being made by companies who place profits over the people who buy their product" was something said by Lemberg that tired together the whole blog entry for me.

He then goes on by using different examples that show how major companies would rather make that extra buck then make sure there clients are happy. After reading this blog entry it made the current crisis truly real to me. i knew it was happening, but this entry showed me how it was happening.

Continuing on with my theme of greed...there was an article written in "The Proclamation", the Wilber Cross High School newspaper. The article was titled "AIG Bailed Out by Government" and was written by a student (for sake of safety, i wont say his name). The reason that this article caught my eye when i was flipping through it last Friday, was one of the two picture that were chosen to be placed on the article. the picture that caught my eye was of hundred dollar bills and the word "greed" in capital letter spelt out at the bottom.

While i was reading the article, discussing how the insurance company's stock value had dropped more then 50%, i noticed how perfectly it fit with Lembergs blog entry. The government gave AIG the help it needed to get them back to the top. at least that what the government had thought, but apparently it was not enough. after AIG asked for more money, they finally went back up on top, but according to this article this is not the only company that is struggling.

Even though the price of gas going down is a good thing, our economy going down is not. Hopefully a year from now the things that i will be reading will be written in a different light.

Themes Of The Week...

Have you ever had those days when everything seems to be playing off of each other? that everything is a theme? recently for me, that has been happening. it seems like everything that i am learning, reading, or over hearing can somehow blend in perfectly to something i thought earlier. even throughout a week i will have encounters extremely similar to the next. i have decided that these are going to be my themes of the week...

Oh Snap...I'm a Star

Yesterday after class I stayed and talked to Mr. Miller for a while. The topic came up of posting comments on our blogs, so I asked him why he never comments my blog. He claims he does, but he doesn't. After listening to him bicker for a while, I convinced him that I was right.

Today when I logged onto Blogger, I noticed I had a new comment. I was assuming it was from Mr. Miller. I was excited to read what it would say because I was expecting a "happy meg? i commented your blog entry" or "comment". But it turns out that it wasn't him at all. It was "Ryan", it took me a little while but when i clicked on the link he sent me i figured it out. It was Ryan McKeen, the author of A Connecticut Law Blog.

My first attempt to show my teacher I was mentioned in a blog was a failure, so a minute later I decided to just to shout out; "Miller! my blog was mentioned in A Connecticut Law Blog!" You could say that got his attention.

The blog entry I was mentioned in was him discussing the blogs and articles he has been reading, and mine was one of the six. How cool is that? I am defiantly smelling some extra credit. So thanks Ryan, it was greatly appreciated.

Blogging in the News

One of the first assignments this year was to find news articles about a certain topic. we all choose an educational topic to be reading about in the news. i decided on reading and blogging about local news. at first i thought that local news was only limited towards Branford, so with millers help i found this website. over the first few days of reading the articles, that's what i thought this was, a web page. it wasn't until a saw all the comments that i realized it was really a blog.

The Branford Eagle is a blog written by Marcia Chambers. She is a writer who has completely devoted her blog to writing articles about the news in Branford. This is a great blog because it gives the residents a place to read about what is going on in Branford. Because Branford is a somewhat small residential town, we don't typically make it onto the news, this gives us a chance to let others even outside of Branford to know whats going on.

Laws and Baseball??

I am now 0 and 2 with finding blogs from blogrunner.com and technorati.com. I cannot even take credit for finding the past two blogs that i have been reading because they were both recommending to me by Mr. Miller. This blog is A Connecticut Law Blog, not only is that what it is, but it is also this title. But that's not all that the writer of the blog, Attorney Ryan McKeen, writes about here... there is also baseball, no wonder my English teacher knew about it.

Last week, Connecticut finally decided to legalize gay marriage in Connecticut, making us the third state to recognize gay marriage. In the past week, this has been all over the news, I have heard many people discussing it. the majority of these people saying how happy they are that homosexuals finally have this right; some jerks saying they want to move.

Because this is such a new, and controversial law, McKeen has blogged about the topic a lot in the past week.

Blog Entry #1
Blog Entry #2
Blog Entry #3
Blog Entry #4

After reading these four blog entry's if gave me a realization of what was really going on, of who was stepping up to get this law passed. Also of how difficult it was to do. However, with a lot of work and time Kerrigan vs. Commissioner of Public Health finally got the right to gay marriage and put into place last week.

There was also another blog entry on the current civil unions in our state. where would they be in all of this? according to the facts on this blog entry, the partners who are recognized as a civil union may either continue on and keep their union, or may choose to be married.

My Left Nut, Meg. (That's real amusing :p)

I have been following this blog for a few days now, and still every time that i type in the address, i laugh. The blog title is My Left Nutmeg (where Connecticut dems scratch that progressive itch), this is amusing for more then just the obvious reason. My name is Meg, so when i was first introduced to this blog, i heard it as "my left nut, meg." After a moment of utter confusion, i caught on. My teacher also realized why there was such an odd look on my face.

This blog is devoted to the Democrats of Connecticut. Mainly those democrats who are very far left on the line, explaining the title of the blog. There are many writers that add to this blog. recently there have been many blog entry's written by ctblogger. this writer, to me, has to most interesting blog entry's. His blog entry on the "democrat" Joe Lieberman showed how liberal this blog really is. He has also written a blog entry showing a controversial picture of Obama which was deleted from Blogger (this site). In this blog entry he even said "I hope this asshole gets a phone call from the authorities."

Atempt To Keep Driving From Getting Too Dangerous...

There have recently been new laws put to place for teenage drivers. These laws were put into effect August 1st of 2008, which makes it old news. However, but of the serious affect it has had on teenage drivers all over Connecticut, I believe, along with many other teenagers and parents, that it is continuous news.

Many teenage drivers think that these new rules only apply to those who obtain their licenses after August 1st. But that is a misconception. Most, in fact almost all of the new rules do only apply to those 16 and 17-year-old drivers who just got their licenses, but none of the punishments do. All penalties and suspensions also apply to drivers who have had there licenses for even as long as a year.

The old driving rules still apply to drivers who were "grandfathered in" such as; midnight curfew, driving friends after six months and driving within Connecticut for the first six months. I being one of these drivers who has been "grandfathered in with these old laws have been paying close attention to these new rules, because of the fact that my parents are much more strict on these laws then the police are. Many parents, not just my own, believe that all these laws apply to all 16 and 17-year-old drivers. If someone were to know of a parent, or a driver who are not aware of these new laws, guiding them to this article will keep them up to date.

Post Hacker Dan

With the Internet growing more and more every second there needs to be multiple ways people can share information. Many people have found this in blogging. Blogging ranges from small personal blogs to major corporate blogs that companies use. For this assignment we were told to read three blogs; Lifehacker, Huffington Post, and dy/dan. With these three blogs I found new information and great ideas. I also found people discussing and debating about the various topics being blogged about.

Lifehacker is a blog completely focused on helping people with different computer needs. It shows how to use computers in different ways and how to set up all types of cool new screens and backgrounds. This blog can help people who love computers, make their computer even better, it had different ways to download software, and how to upload gadgets. This is not a blog for just anyone, someone like me who hardly uses computers would have no use for a blog like this. However, anyone who has a love for technology would have a great time using this blog.

Huffington Post is a completely different direction then Lifehacker. This blog is political. It discusses all the topics about the up coming election. It tells us who did what, who won what, and who is up in the polls. But something that needs to be considered when reading blogs like this is that they are bias. This blog displays more blog entries on McCain then Obama, but the blog entries on McCain are more negative then the stories about Obama. At first I had thought that the blog was in complete support of McCain, because of the lack of blog entries on Obama, but after I started reading a few I realized what it really was. This is a great blog for people who are very interested in always knowing whats going on. However, because this blog is bias, looking at other blogs similar to this one would be a way to get all the facts and opinions.

Dy/dan is much different then the other two blogs. The first two blogs were large blogs that were frequently being looked at and commented. Also, many different people are writing and contributing to these first two blogs. Dy/dan is only one person and his blog is written on a much smaller scale. His blog is designed for teachers; even his subtitle tells us that, "working hard to make it look easy." Many teachers use his ideas from his blog and take them to the classroom. Dy/dan is a blog not only for information, but a great place for teachers to discuss various things that they have tried and failed or tried and succeeded in.

After reading many blog entry's from each blog I found that blogs are written at many different scales. Even though Lifehacker and Huffington Post are great blogs, dy/dan is defiantly my favorite. His blogs was very simply and the easiest to navigate. Because his blog is a personal blog, there were no advertisements on the page to distract from the reading. The other two blogs had many pictures, which was nice, however, too many picture also can take over the page. Dy/dan had pictures but not too many and they fit the blog entry perfectly.

Using Blogger

Using blogger is not a new deal for me. i was honored enough to have Mr. miller last year for public speaking where we used blogger to write about our speeches and how we can improve. having this blog for public speaking gave me a place to write about the speeches i gave therefore letting me realize what i have done wrong and what i can do better. now that i have Mr. miller again i can know use this blog for 21st century journalism i can have a place for my writing.

Blogging is great to use in school because it is a place to put work. Instead of using a portfolio for a class, that could easily be lost or damaged, the work could be done online and posted onto the students blog. Blog are safe and school friendly because using last names and putting in any information about yourself is optional. Using a blog gives other students a chance to see examples of work already completed and get an ideas from it.

Because blogs can be seen by anyone, other people can read the work done on the blog and comment on it and express their own ideas. that will give students the chance to hear other peoples opinions rather then the single opinion of the teacher.

Fish Kill...

One of the first articles that I decided to read was "Major Fish Kill in Branford River" written by Marcia Chambers. this article informed the readers about the recent news about the dead fish in the branford river. it describes to the reader where and when it took place, also that a similar fish kill happened a few years earlier. the writer tell us about the possable reasons of why this fish kill could have taken place. some reasons being that the fish were pushed into a smaller area by larger fish which would cause the fish to die from lack of oxygen. also that the possably could have died from the pollution that is being dumped into the branford river from various companys along the river. the writter then goes on to talk about the Alantic Wire company that is belived to have a major cause in the pollution of the river.

From reading this article i have felt more knowagable about something that has happened in our town. suprisingly, the branford river has come up in conversation alot in the past few days. at work, many people talk to me about fishing. unfortunalty, i don't know very much about fishing but i was able to join in the conversation with them because they were talking about the fish kill. i was able to imform them about the article i have read and told them what i learned from the article. i was also able to talk to another man about this fish issue and i learned something from him. he told me that about 15 years ago, on branford point, he witnessed hundreds and hundreds of bunkers get pushed up onto the beach by bluefish, and that all the fishermen were running into the water trying to catch the bluefish. because of this article i was able to have some great conversations.