Cyber Monday

If you do not have time to shop on Black Friday or if you do not want to run around stores or get stomped on in a store, you can always shop online on Cyber Monday. Cyber Monday is the first Monday after the Thanksgiving holiday. The term "Cyber Monday" made its debut on November 28th ,2005 in a Shop.org press release and since then it has become one of the biggest online shopping days of the year.

"It's a new phenomenon called 'Cyber Monday'.  Millions of Americans returned to work after the Thanksgiving holiday and fired up their office computers to take advantage of high-speed internet links and continue the arduous task of hunting for Christmas presents." (The Economist)
  

Black Friday!!

Only hours after Thanksgiving, people are lined up outside of stores ready for Black Friday.  This year Black Friday started earlier than it did in  years past. Some stores started opening their doors for customers at times like  9:00pm on Thanksgiving night , giving families the opportunity to quickly eat their  Thanksgiving dinner and immediately run to the store to start buying items on sale.

There is always someone who gets injured or arrested on Black Friday because people become selfish and get crazy right after Thanksgiving.

I have never shopped on Black Friday ,but I have alot of friends and family members that always do. What  happened to being thankful? People anticipate Black Friday more than they anticipate Thanksgiving.  There is nothing wrong with shopping on Black Friday, but when people are getting arrested, getting injured, and beating each other up to buy something on sale, that is when it gets too carried away. Whether you go shopping on Black Friday  or not,remember to be careful , do not start fights,but most of all be thankful that you even have enough money to go shopping when so many people around the world do not even have enough money for food.

Thanksgiving!!!!

Right after Halloween,people start thinking about and decorating for Christmas. Thanksgiving is usually ignored. People think "Oh,Thanksgiving is just a day to eat. I eat everyday." There is a meaning behind Thanksgiving that makes it more than just turkey day. The first Thanksgiving happened here in America when the Pilgrims and Indians ate together.

Thanksgiving is a day to give thanks for everything that we have and to realize how blessed we are for even having something to eat. So the next time you think about Thanksgiving ,remember the things that you are thankful for.

Veteran's Day!!!!!!!

NOVEMBER 11th is VETERAN'S DAY!!!! A day to honor and remember the people that fought for our country.

In my school,we honor all veterans by saying their name in chapel ,by saying what they served  in like the army ,the airforce, the marines ,(to name a few),they stand in the front of the chapel ,and they usually receive a gift.

Halloween!!!!

 Costumes , Candy, Parties, Pumpkins ,scary movies,haunted houses ,TRICK-or-TREATING,Halloween usually comes to mind when people think of these things.                                                                                                                                                   Halloween is an extremely popular holiday. Some people think that it might be the 2nd most popular holiday after Christmas. People cannot wait for Halloween every year. Kids,teenagers,and even adults love and celebrate Halloween,but some people are completely against it. Instead of thinking that it is a fun day to dress up as your favorite Disney princess or your favorite superhero and eat candy,some people think that Halloween is evil and that it should not be celebrated at all. Some people celebrate Halloween for the wrong reasons ,like when people wear certain costumes that they should Not wear ,like a devil costume. Yes,Halloween can be a very frightening holiday,but it can also be a normal fun holiday when you eat as much candy as you can.Then comes the problem with Halloween candy. Some candy  is sometimes opened or has had glass in it and other things that should not be eaten.   There are certain things that you should and should not do on Halloween night.

1.Always have a responsible adult with children that are trick-or-treating.Never let little kids trick-or-trick alone even if they are in a group.It is still dangerous.

2.Always carry around some type of light ,like a flashlight,a glowstick ,or something with lights on it.

3.If you are walking with any kind of group,like with friends or family ,never walk away from the group.Stay with the people that you know so you won't get lost on Halloween night.

4.Never eat candy that looks like it's been opened,because it could make you sick.

5.Make sure that you trick-or-trick in good neighborhoods or in neighborhoods where you know people so you can trust them more.

6.If you don't trick-or-treat in well-known neighborhoods,try to find out what kind of neighborhoods they are before you even think about accepting candy from strange people.

7.If a random person drives up next to you in a car and offers you candy on Halloween night or any night ,do NOT accept it if you do NOT know the person.

Overall,it's October,so let's just have fun , get a little bit scared , eat candy that won't make you sick, and stay safe.                         HAPPY HALLOWEEN EVERYONE!!!!

GUITAR!!!!

         Many people all over the world own guitars and know how to play them. (Let it be known that this is being written by someone who does not own a guitar and kind of ,but does not know how to "professionally" play a guitar.) I used to have a little guitar when I was like 5 years old, but I have no idea what happened to that little guitar. Technically,I actually CAN play the guitar. I mean , if there was a guitar somewhere,I might try to play it and it might even sound professional. Like one time ,one of my friends left their guitar in the same place that I was at. At first ,I was scared that they would come back , see me with the guitar ,and get mad at me , but they never arrived back in time to actually know if anyone had touched their guitar.       

The definition of  "guitar" is a musical instrument usually with 6 strings plucked with the fingers or a plectrum.
There is not necessarily one universal guitar.Because when people think about guitars,different types of guitars come to mind. Acoustic, electric, electro-acoustic, twelve-string, arch top, steel guitar,resonator, double-neck, bass , mandolin, banjo,and el cuatro-these are several of the many types of guitars that are in the world.

    

     FUN FACTS ABOUT GUITARS:

1. The ancestor of the modern guitar can be traced back to ancient Central Asia and India.

     2. The first sign guitar in ancient writings is the ONE.

    3.In Ancient Times, the stringed instrument was called many things such as the following, cithara, qitare, gitarre, guitare, guittarra.

   4.  There are Left-handed guitars and Right-handed ones with a change to the string order.

   5.  Acoustic guitars are made out of nylon strings.

   6. Electric Guitars emit string vibrations that are then turned into electrical signals making the sound.

    7.  Baroque guitars are used as rhythm instruments.

    8.  This is the greatest accumulation of guitarists in the history of humanity! More and more guys in their 50's and 60's are spending time reintroducing themselves to the joys of playing the guitar. Many  retiries have spent alot of cash on great instruments.

   9.  

According to a census report in Music Trades - of the 1,153,915 guitars sold in the United States last year, 611,415 were acoustics and 542,500 were electrics. Most guitars were priced under $800 but sales in all price ranges continue to rise.

 This is a BEAUTIFUL golden-colored guitar!           This is an AWESOME glow-in-the-dark mandolin!!

 

 

As you can see , guitars are extremely popular. If they were not, then nobody would bother to spend so much money on them. I am definitely a fan of the guitar and I really wish I could own one(like that glow-in- the-dark one) to learn how to play it. Until then , I will just have to play the air guitar like everyone else that cannot afford a guitar. They jam out to an invisible guitar when they hear one of their favorite songs,lol.

 

 

I Hate Spiders!!!! ...especially poisonous ones!!

                   We have all probably heard of or have seen spiders before. Whether in your house, the forest , in a science center, photos ,or a spider on you biting you, people know what spiders are. The fear of spiders is called Arachnophobia. It is estimated that at least 50% of women and only about 18% of men have arachnophobia. It seems logical because women usually will ask men to kill spiders and insects ,no matter how big or minuscule. People always mistake spiders as insects,but spiders are not insects at all. They are called arachnids. That is why the fear of spiders is called arachnophobia. The systems of arachnophobia at the sight or sometimes even the mere thought of a spider are excessive sweating , clamminess ,rapid breathing ,nausea ,dizziness,and a rapid heartbeat.

                  If a person isn't scared of spiders at all,then maybe the thought of having a spider bite you (especially a poisonous spider) might at least have you checking your surroundings a little bit more carefully than you already do. I recently wanted to research Poisonous Floridian Spiders and my research led me to discover that there are at least 5 species of venomous spiders living in Florida: the southern black widow ,the northern black widow, the red widow, the brown widow,and the last one that can sometimes be harder to identify than the widow spiders is the brown recluse. I honestly believe that I am one of the 50% of women that have Arachnophobia because while researching these spiders , just looking at the pictures of these spiders makes me cringe and look carefully around my house for any arachnids.

southern black widow

                                                                           



norther n black widow

                                                            

 

                       


                      red widow

 





brown widow



                        

       The 4 species of widow spiders look alike in body shape. All are about 1/2" long with legs extended.Their life cycle is also similar.The female lays about 250 eggs in a pear-shaped egg sac that is about 1/2" to 5/8" in diameter.The eggs hatch in 20 days.In Florida,all of the widows breed year-round except the northern black widow.Anyone bitten by a spider should preserve it in rubbing alcohol for positive identification.Most spider bites are not considered dangerous,but if you suspect that one of the recluse or widow spiders bit you or someone ,you need to get medical attention IMMEDIATELY!

Brown Recluse Spider

Do you wonder why I decided to "randomly" research Poisonous Floridian Spiders? Well,it wasn't randomly at all.Over the summer,one of my friends,named Naomi Baumbach,went on a little nature walk with her boyfriend and when she first came home ,she felt normal,but the next morning she noticed either 2 or 3 huge bites on her legs.She went to church in the morning,then immediately went to the doctor to try to figure out what had happened to her legs. She soon discovered that they were bites from a poisonous spider.

This is what her spider bites looked like.

The doctor wasn't sure what spider had bite her and some of the things that she researched didn't give her a straight answer.So,for a while after she had received a shot from the doctor to take away the venom from her bloodstream,everything was okay and nobody worried about spiders..................UNTIL,one day Naomi had 2 friends over at her house,one of them being me,and we were all awake at night talking in the guest bedroom AND THERE IT WAS. A huge spider on the wall that looked alot like the brown recluse spider.Luckily ,her other friend that was there killed it with a paper towel.All of us freaked out for a while,but then we calmed down a little bit  because we thought that that was the last spider that we would see for a long time. We were so wrong.
Only a week after that ,I went to Naomi's house and we didn't think that much about spiders except the fact that we looked everywhere that we set foot around the house in case there were more.After a while at her house,I went in her mom's car where Naomi's mom drove ,Naomi was in the front seat next to her mom,and I was in the backseat.They were driving me home.Suddenly,when Naomi was inside the car(we were all inside the car) she sees a SPIDER crawling all around the car.Not just any spider ,but a spider that looked exactly like the one that we found in her house,like the spider's family member or something, and we were all scared to death.Then it was gone and we thought that maybe it's not on the car anymore since the car is moving(because we're driving back to my house).Then on one of the car's windows WE SEE THIS!!

Time for us to panic?? ABSOLUTELY! Naomi and I did NOT want to get out of that car because the spider was outside of the car.Not to mention that it was Sunday,August 19,2012 and the first day of my Senior year was the day after on the 20th. I didn't want to get bitten by a poisonous spider and die the day before I start my last year of high school. I'm even trying to get perfect attendance this year and that spider just might ruin it.Luckily,it was raining outside and we were hoping that the spider would be swept away by the rain.When I got home, I jumped out of that car and looked all around the car for the spider. I didn't see anything.I went home and started researching poisonous spiders from Florida.The more I researched,the more it seemed that it was the brown recluse that had been tormenting us for several weeks. At least everything that Naomi had told me about the spider and how she got bitten matched the brown recluse. I'm NOT 100% sure,but I know that it has the same characteristics and features of the brown recluse,so if it isn't ,then it must be related somehow to it. Brown recluse bites are not felt right away.They come from forests and they cling onto your clothes and you cannot feel the spider on you even after you get home.Brown recluses are common house spiders and unfortunately after you see one there is at least one or more spider family members traveling with them.If the bite is poisonous ,you should really go to the doctor as soon as possible, because the doctors told my friend that if she had waited too long to go to the doctor, that the venom would go through her bloodstream and her veins until the poison reached her heart.
I have never been so scared of spiders in my whole life!!My fear of spiders has increased by like 90%!!!! I personally think that spiders are EVIL,especially after what they did to Naomi and to anyone else that has gotten bitten by poisonous spiders like my uncle. I Hate regular spiders and Especially Poisonous ones!!!! The most ironic thing about my hatred of spiders,is that even though I hate spiders, I LOVE SPIDERMAN!!!! <3 He is more HUMAN than spider ,anyway.   :)