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Everywhere I go I constantly hear that everyone should
be known as equal, we’re all humans and nobody should be treated any
differently. I’ve been brought up to except every individual for all of their
flaws, and beyond their accomplishments. It sickens me to see anyone else being
treated any differently.

For example, equality in marriage.

Why does it matter who someone else is getting married
to? It shouldn’t. If you don’t like it don’t look at them, don’t watch them it’s
none of anyone’s business to begin with who someone falls in love with. Everyone
is always telling me, “It’s okay to fall in love, even when it doesn’t feel
right it’s going to happen. Don’t stop who you fall in love with because you
can’t control it”.

In the article, “Equality in Marriage May Not Bring
Equality in Adoption” written by Andrew Giambrone expresses that even though it’s
beginning to become more popular within the states to be gay and getting
married doesn’t mean the ability to adopt and have their own children is going
to be legal too. In other words, it’s making gay individuals that want kids and
have no other way to have them impossible. Being gay doesn’t make you a bad
person, so why be punished like you are? There’s no reason for it. The fact
that America doesn’t think that children should be brought up by people of the
same gender is disgusting. If anything they would make better parents.

Although there is one study has proven that, “Good
same-sex parenting leads to positive outcomes for children”, in other words
having parents that are the same sex could be a huge impact on your life.
Mainly because both of the parents have gone through a hardship in life and
know how to overcome it.

People of the same sex should be legal just like
everybody else in the world, the same rights to get married, and the same
rights to have babies and adopt them when they can’t have them. Everybody
deserves the same rights.

Works cited: N.p., n.d. Web.

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More people are needing
organs, if someone is dying and has signed previously to donate their organs
why not make it possible. If someone is willing to save another person’s life
by giving them what they don’t need there’s no reason for doctors and specialists
to make it as difficult as they do for them to donate them.

In the article “The Art Of Asking for Human Oragans” by
Cari Romm she states that studies show that only a handful of organs are to be
donated because a majority of the organ donors are killed outside of the
hospital setting. Silly I know. But hospitals only use organs if they’re “controlled”
meaning that their death happens in the hospital. They only take the organs
from people if they’re in the hospital when they need them.

But if they’re in such a need for organs there has to be
a way to exam the organs from people that die outside of the hospital to try
and preserve the organs and figure it out through an autopsy.

Really it could go both
ways, studies show that between 30 to 60 percent of Americans sign up to donate
their organs. Just imagine if they found a way to preserve the organs that all
of those Americans agreed to hand over when they’re in no need for them.
Thousands or even millions of lives would be saved.

Hopefully in the future
when technology is taking over the world more lives will be saved, and donors
will get their wishes of saving another life when theirs is gone.

Works Cited: Romm, Cari. "The Art of Asking for Human Organs." The Atlantic. N.p., n.d. Web.

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Thousands of people use the birth control pill
regularly, but I bet that almost all of them didn’t know that taking the pill
increases the risk of getting breast cancer by 50%.  Studies show that the estrogen level
increases as much as three times to elevate the risk of getting breast cancer.

One of the main choices that the women would have to
make is increasing the risk of getting breast cancer or having babies. Seems
like a hard decision but then again taking a pill isn’t the only way of
preventing pregnancy.

Although studies show that even the pill has
cancer-fighting effects too. It’s not a huge amount that the pills fight off
cancer, it slightly fights away ovarian and endometrial cancer. So taking a
higher dose birth control pill wouldn’t be such a bad idea.

It seems ridiculous that there can be as many pros and
cons as there is for something that’s supposed to help and or prevent
something. But everyone has to think about the fact that with every medicine
made has its own risks. With every benefit that it gives, there’s a risk for a
majority of every single one.

In the end everyone has to make their own choice in
what they feel is right.

Work Cited: Khazan, Olga. "The Link Between
Birth-Control Pills and Breast Cancer." The Atlantic. Atlantic
Media Company, 01 Aug. 2014. Web. 01 June 2015.

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Dear Mrs. P,

You were always referring
to the poem, “Only A CNA?” written by Dawn Mazzola a poem expressing about all
of the perks of the entire course and the main goal of our job. Keeping a
positive attitude about everything and always looking toward the future, one of
my big inspirations about you. I couldn’t be more thankful for you pushing me
toward my goals when I just wanted to give up and walk away from it. I have
accomplished more than I ever could have imagined in 2014-2015, because of you
I strived to do my best and doing the unthinkable. Mostly certainly I’m
extremely grateful for being able to share my senior year with you, doing all
of those things too. From being a part of National Technical Honor Society,
second place at HOSA, two months throughout the year getting student of the
month. We can’t forget about me completely passing out while I was giving
blood, and you were right there beside me. I couldn’t have asked for a better
teacher to spend my senior year with. In the poem you always refer to there
were a couple of lines that stood out to me, “We also give our hands to hold, when
someone’s feeling scared” it really paints the perfect picture of you, no
matter how bad of a day you were having you were always there. Sharing our
stories from the past trying to fit everything in before our time is gone,
expressing our anger and being able to brush it all away before class started
or ended. The fact that I’ll be graduating soon, I want you to know you’ve left
a huge impact on my life, giving me the ability to have faith in myself and
you’ve given me the power to prove to myself that I do have what it takes to be
the best and that I can strive and succeed for what I want. Thank you so much
for being a part of my life, you truly are a huge part of my life that I will
never forget.

Sincerely,

Me

Works Cited:

N.P.,n.d.web

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What’s worse than
watching somebody with a long term disease or illness die? That’s the thing
there is nothing worse than watching someone you love die right in front of
you. Some might argue the fact that patients in long term care that are dying
shouldn’t have the choice to have lethal drugs to make their dying process much
faster and less painful. In the patient’s eyes, they don’t have a reason to be
there or want to be in pain any longer. Yes I can understand that sometimes
miracles happen. But what if it’s what the patient wants, to be taken away from
dying slowly and painfully.

In the article, “Doctors’
Secret Language for Assisted Suicide” written by April Dembosky, it states that
assisted suicide is illegal in all but five states. Some of the physicians in a
few facilities and try to help the ones that feel that it’s their time to go
and help reach their goal of death. In some other hands there’s people that don’t
even tell you that you’re dying they beat around the bush and tell you straight
up, you’re dying. In the same article it expresses how a man was dying and his
doctor told him that he was dying and then the patient immediately started
getting things around and together before his time was gone. The doctor saw the
pain that this man was going through every single day.

Even though it’s extremely difficult for the patient to
be dying and in pain it’s important for the family to know that it can be just
as hard for them watching their loved one die. It’s normal. It’s not easy
watching someone you care about wash away before your eyes, but if assisted
suicide is what they want then don’t be selfish and make their dream come true.
They lived that life, ran their course and their tired. Let them go.

Works Cited: Dembosky, April. "Doctors' Secret Language for Assisted Suicide." The Atlantic. N.p., n.d. Web.

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There’s honestly nothing worse than moving to a
completely different school not knowing any one, knowing how the school works,
or even what the teachers are like as a high school student. Personally I moved
when I was starting my junior year in high school. Here’s how I got through it.

1. Take
a deep breath

All you can do is breath and take
everything step by step, eventually you will figure out who will help you and
who is constantly going to be there for you no matter what. Starting a new
school always find that one teacher to go to, be yourself, breath and go with
the flow. Everything will be alright soon enough

2. Who
are you going to be?

It’s the middle of your high school
career it’s about time to get your shit together and pick what you want to do,
you have the choice to either try or hang out with a bunch of people or are you
going to be that person that only sticks to yourself? I chose to stick to
myself with very few friends, and I’ve never been happier

3. Create
a main goal

It’s about that time to start
planning your future, what’re you going to do after high school and what are
you going to do to prep for it. As a high school senior I knew immediately that
I wanted to go into the health care profession. With the health care profession
I couldn’t have anything distracting me or sending me off the right road. Which
is also another reason why I stayed to myself.

4. Be
patient

As a new kid not everybody is going
to accept you and all you have to do is accept it. You have no other choice but
to adjust it, and get used to it. You’ll find your place sooner or later, it’s
not going to happen immediately.

In another article, it also had some
good tips from staying positive to giving it a whirl in school involvement. In
comparison to the 4 points I made above everything will fall into place
eventually. In the end it’s all about how you do it, what you chose, and if you
graduate then looking at what you’ve accomplished with your choices.

Citations: N.p.,n.d.Web.

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Letting people out of an awful situation isn’t going
to let them learn anything, if anything it’s letting them out of their
situation the easy way.

Most people would argue that every single state should
have the death penalty law, and it shouldn’t be illegal.

But honestly what’s the point of it? Besides that they’re
off the earth and no one will ever have to deal with them. When they could be
sitting in the awful white, enclosed, small jail cells. Jail cells where they’re
not allowed to do whatever they want. One’s that make decisions should be
punished. For example if a person decides to kill an entire family and they’re
in prison for life I feel they should be able to sit in jail and rot.

Allowing individuals like that to have the death
penalty would just be doing them this massive favor that they’ve been waiting
for, that’s the most probable reason they did it, is to get out of where they
were.

Besides there’s currently a handful of states that
still allow the death penalty, and currently in 2015 it’s becoming more and
more uncommon to hear about someone getting the death penalty.

Along with the death penalty, all I hear now a days in
about how sex offenders should get the death penalty but NO.

No they shouldn’t. They made people suffer until they
finally got caught. There is no reason that they should get the easy way out of
things.

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Being the support of an emotionally unstable person
has got to be the most rewarding job. Working as a CNA, being there for
families and for the residents that are slowly dying right before your eyes,
making their last years, days, minutes, or even seconds worth being there.

With having a current experience of working with an
ALS resident (a disease that weakens all muscles and provokes physical
function), it was heart breaking. But being there for them and by their side is
what honestly meant the most to that person and their family.

As they lay there, all you could think about is why
that had to happen to them. Such great individuals with outgoing personalities.
Working with the resident is beyond challenging, but in the end more than worth
it. When I first met her I didn’t know what to expect, or how she was going to
react and how she was reacting with her lifelong disease. But she was happy,
and welcoming. Never fails to have a smile on her face, but honestly what more
was there for her to do. One day she looked at me and said, “I wanna get up and
walk”. Tears rolled down my face, knowing that there was no possible way I
could make this dream of hers come true. All I could think about is, she can’t
feed herself, and how is she wanting to walk. One of the struggles of the job
is expressing how bad their disease is and why they can’t function like they
use to be able to.

But there’s nothing like an individual that’s dying,
and willing to want to save another’s life. It’s astonishing.

Mezrich states in the article, “As They Lay Dying”
about this one patient that had ALS and he was set in stone on being able to
donate his organs before they all shut down and before he started taking medicine
to slow the disease. People like that are just amazing. Thinking about others
as they’re laying there dying.

In the end it teaches me that no matter how sick you
are, or what you’re going through it’s important to make the best of it. Don’t
be miserable, make it the best because you never know what’s going to happen to
you or when it’s going to happen.

Cited: Scalea, Joshua MezrichJoseph. "As They Lay
Dying." The Atlantic. Atlantic Media Company, 16 Mar. 2015. Web. 04
May 2015.

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There’s no shame in being
pro-choice.. Personally as a past individual having an unexpected pregnancy
happen wasn’t a choice for me. Still in high school, having my entire future in
head of me. No, the decision wasn’t easy. At the time it seemed like the right
thing to do.

At the time all I could
think about was, how I was going to do it. I couldn’t take care of myself how
was I going to take care of another individual. That was the problem, I couldn’t.
I couldn’t finish school, I couldn’t give the baby everything it deserved.

Emotionally and physically
unready, I made the call. Counselors, friends, and family to assure me that it
was my choice, and that everything was going to be okay.

I was ready to make the
decision and selfishly, getting my ass in gear and my future was how it was
going to be.

After everything was done
and over with, I struggled with bullying. One of my “good” friends turned on
me. I walked through the halls continuously I heard, “abortion is murder, baby
killer”. That’s what I was known for, and it disgusted me. When it was too late
I wanted to take everything back. Missing days on days of school to this day I
wonder how I managed to still pass that year. I was broken, into little pieces
that I never thought I could recover from. So I ran away from my problems. I
ended up moving and going to a completely different school starting over.

Frum’s article, “Why is
the Abortion Rate Falling?” it expresses how the rate of abortions are falling.
He directly states, “The CDC tallied 730,322 abortions in 2011, the smallest
number in almost 40 years”. If the rate is dropping tremendously, then people
should have the right without society going nuts on them with their own
personal choice.

In the end I have learned
that every individual has a choice and they shouldn’t have to worry about what
people around them are going to say. What people do is their own business,
they’re doing it for a reason and honestly that’s how it’s going to be. I’m
happy and wouldn’t be anywhere near where I would be if I didn’t make the
decision I made. I am not ashamed to be pro-choice!

Cited: Frum, David. "Why Is the Abortion Rate
Falling?" The Atlantic. Atlantic Media Company, 01 Dec. 2014. Web.
04 May 2015.

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Being a transgender isn’t
disgusting, or a mental illness. It’s called individuality. Yes, you wouldn’t
believe it but everybody isn’t the same. No one’s minds were made to think
alike or to be identical.

As frustrating as it is people have
trouble adjusting to other people’s ways of living, like it’s any of their
business to begin with. The real problem is making it challenging for a person
to find out who they really are, and who they want to be.

Because it’s society of course!
People don’t need reasons to judge you on how you’re choosing to live your
life. It’s almost like an enormous chain of lions, lined up…One by one. Once
that first lion has the nerve to attack, they all do.

It doesn’t sound real or reasonable
does it? In an article, “My Son Chooses to be Alice” by Lori Duron. Her son was
considered a transgender at the age of 7. On Halloween when CJ (the son) wanted
to be a girl’s Disney Character. Duron expresses that she wouldn’t let him
leave the house without him wearing a wig.

Why? Because of society.

The society is so judgmental that
these parents were too worried about what society was going to think instead of
worrying about how their son felt or what would make him happy. Eventually the
parents came to realization that is was their son’s happiness they had to worry
about, it was almost like that fairytale ending in a princess movie. Happily
ever after.

On the other hand in the article, “Born
in the Wrong Body: The Transgender Struggle” by the Week Staff. The week staff
a social experiment in which society states that the transgender right have
gone too far. The Week Staff state “The reality is that humans are born male or
female”.

Wrong. Wrong. Wrong.

Maybe they should consider why it
matters to them, and why they’re such judgmental jerks.

But hey it’s none of my business if
we’re not thinking all the same way.

In reality people need to start
worrying about themselves, instead of worrying about how others want to live
their lives. Nobody is alike, not one person is the same and society needs to
realize that they can’t change the way people want to live or who they want to
be. Society can change the way society feels.

Cited “Born in the Wrong Body: The
Transgender Struggle.” Born in the Wrong Body: The Transgender Struggle. N.p.,
29 Sept. 2013. Web. 10 Apr. 2015

Duron. Lori. “The Atlantic.” N.p.,
31 Oct. 2013. Web. 01 Nov. 2013 http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2013/10/my-son-chooses-to-be-in-alice-in-wonderland/280968/.

# data[].attributes.body
There’s nothing like that sweet spring smell, the smell of
the beautiful flowers, birds chirping, and bright weather. A new beginning
after a long cold winter.

Not
only does the nice weather mean pretty flowers, but it means derby season! No I
don’t be roller skating, I mean that “game” if you’d call it in which people
decided to take they’re old, crappy, rusted out cars and smash the hell out of
each other. Yes, indeed this may seem a little bizarre.. But quite
entertaining.

I was
never into them until my brother decided to get a car for it. I thought he was
insane. In my mind I was thinking who would possibly buy a car, completely tear
it apart just to smash it? Of course my crazy brother would. Oh and I almost
forgot to mention, his name is Zachary.

With
the start of spring you’ll be lucky if you ever see him out from underneath his
piece of crap car that he’s just tearing apart. He’s always been one to have to
be outside doing something, fixing something, or of course tearing something
apart. It’s just Zachary being his mischievous self. There’s nothing that I
love than watching him in his grind I suppose you could call it. So therefor I
had to adjust to this new derby fab of his, although I wasn’t one for getting
underneath a car getting covered in old oil.

After
realizing how important that It was to him, I started to become involved with
helping him, because honestly that was the only time I was ever going to spend
time with him. Helping him paint the outside of the vehicle, and tear apart the
inside is now what I do.

As a
little sister of could I was scared out of my mind, people get seriously hurt
all of the time running in a derby, that’s my number one fear. So of course
every single time he goes in I send that little text message of, “I love you,
and be careful ”. That’s my mushy side, then theres the rowdy sister side in
the stands, I’m very surprised my voice hasn’t completely went away from
screaming off of the top of my lungs, “WOOO, GO ZACHARY!!!!”

Within
the last couple years that’s all my spring, summer and fall consist of, and I
couldn’t be more thrilled to talk about it. The thrill of hearing those
excruciating loud motors making your ears feel like they’re going to bleed has
become the sound of heaven, the sound of tires popping when two cars smash
together just the right way, and of course the mud flying all throughout the
stands from the track.

In the
end, I would do anything to just spend time with my brother, adjusting to his
hobbies and getting involved with him and being happy for him even when things
don’t turn out has planned. Derby season is our season, it’s our time for
bonding and to completely be ourselves. Besides the two of us aren’t known for
being quiet individuals. I love my brother with all of my heart, and would do
anything for him. From here on out my brother will still be getting that, “I
love you, and be careful” text message. Thank goodness for spring, and it’s
time of renewal and a time to grow and build more memories with him.

# data[].attributes.body
It was only a couple years ago when an awful tragedy occurred,
but strangely it was for the best. It was the summer of 2010, I remember the
day perfectly it was a beautiful, bright and needless to say hot summer. It was
one of the days that I decided to go to work with my mother. It was around noon
when I got a text message from my cousin, explaining to me that she was so
sorry about what happened to my father. Needless to say I had no idea what she was
talking about at the time. Of course I further went on to ask her what the heck
she was talking about and then she told me, about your father getting into a
car accident.

Right then and there was when that beautiful day just came crashing down.

At the time my father was an alcoholic, and frankly
the only time that I really saw him was when he was drunk and needed somewhere
to stay, or if my mother and him were arguing about some ignorant issue in
which I had no concern about at the time.

After getting that message I was in shock, disbelief.
It couldn’t of happened not to my dad. I walked into my mother’s store and
looked at her with disappointment and it was an automatic hint that she knew
that I had found out about the accident. At the time I needed to know more.

So she
sat me down and explained that my father was drinking and driving, and hit a
car while driving. At the time my emotions were going insane, I was so angry at
the fact that he would put his and other people’s life’s at risk just for his
own selfish reasons.

Later
that day my mother and I went to go see my father at the hospital, nothing
could be more disgusting than the smell of a hospital so it didn’t help! But
walking into the room, and I saw a man there, but it didn’t look like my
father. All I could think was that he’s not supposed to look like that and it
couldn’t be. But I had to face it, it was him. His head all cut up and stitched
shut, dark purple bruises going through his face, his knees three times the
size of normal. But we couldn’t be more thankful that he was still alive.

A couple weeks later my dad felt the need to go see
his car that he had demolished, it was a black little sports car, but no longer
sporty. The passenger side door was caved into almost where the driver side
door it, the sunroof popped out from being so smashed together, the windshield?
Well quite honestly there wasn’t even one of those. Little speckles of
shattered glass was all throughout the car, I’m sure there wasn’t one place in
the car that didn’t have a piece of glass on it.

This was finally an eye opener, the fact that he shouldn’t
even be alive to this day and that he could of died because of an ignorant
choice he decided to make. Today he is no longer drinking and driving and if he
decides to drink he limits himself at home with nowhere to go. Getting his life
together was an ultimate goal he wanted to make for himself, along with this
new life style came in a beautiful new little addition to the family, a
daughter and for me a new baby sister. Still to this day he’s being the best
father that he can be to provide for his children and showing that he can be
father that he was meant to be.

# data[].attributes.body
When you’re beginning to read this
you might jump to conclusions that this is just some regular, boring blog about
a random person’s life well you’re wrong. I’m not the typical 17 year old
teenager, I’m an individual with goals, and already so many accomplishments.
Currently being a cross mix of a hard working certified nursing assistant, and
high school student I couldn’t exactly complain much about my life and the road
that I decided to take in my career.

It all
began when I was only 15 years old when I had to go in to testing out which
career field to venture onto. Visiting the different boces programs for juniors
and seniors, I went from cosmetology, animal science, and nurse assisting.
Quite honestly the list doesn’t even end there, being so young trying to
configure what career path to take was a constant image going through my head.

It was about that time that I was going to start my junior year, I eventually decided to move to a completely different school, which also led to a different boces program. Going into make my official schedule was a nightmare. Mostly because I knew it was the time to make a final decision onto what path to take. Being strong minded and knowing what I want to do in the future is a huge goal that I wanted to accomplish by time I was graduated from high school.

Time to
crack down to the decision making, the struggles of picking. So many decisions
but I knew that there was only one thing that was right for me. Let’s start
with cosmetology, my thoughts exactly were the fact of always having perfect
looking hair and nails (crazy I know!). Thinking about it I’m not the
materialistic type. I always had a thought for going for animal science, being
a veterinarian. Quite honestly after being bit multiple times by different
dogs, my goals do not include conquering the monstrous four legged animals on
the daily.

After
picking through and making my choice, I thought that nurse assisting was the
winner. No I had no idea what I was getting into by the way, but a challenge is
what I was looking for. A challenge is definitely what I got too! Starting my
first year as a nurse assisting student I was nervous, actually I don’t even
think nervous fits the description. Meeting new people at the new school wasn’t
a problem, it was the actual program that had me trembling.

Being a
nurse assistant there’s more to the job than what most people think. Everyone
that I’ve talked to looked at the job as “oh you’re just taking care of old
people?”. All I can do is laugh because in my class there were many obstacles
that I had to jump through just to be successful. Being able to look at an
individual was physical and mental problems is a struggle for most people,
including me! This was the challenge I was willing to take.

Going
outside of my comfort zone was one of the most amazing thing I have ever done!
After adjusting to people, and getting to know what the job was really about I
fell in love. Yes, I fell in love with what I was doing as a nursing assistant.
After that I worked my butt off to get enough clinical hours to take my state
exam to be certified as a nursing assistant. At the age of 16, in July is when
I passed my state exam! Crazy to think that someone so young could be taking
care of someone that could be your great grandparent right? Well I am that
teenager that did it, and I couldn’t be more proud.

Right
before my 17th birthday I was interviewing for my very first job as
a nursing assistant, and to this day still working hard to continue my learning
as an aide. I love my job so much it’s
more like I live at work and only visit home. Strangely it’s perfectly okay
with me!