While I was doing my homework for one of my classes earlier tonight, i came across this quote:

"The man on the mountain didn't fall there..."

I don't know why but it just really made me think. It made me think about my life and all the stuff that I dream about being able to do. Being a gymnast, I dream about a lot. I am always thinking about my routines being perfect, and just me being able to do them without any mistakes or flaws. I think about how cool it would be if I was in the olympics, or even just on a good college team. I think about being on TV and all this other stuff that I'm sure you've all thought about before. And even with other things besides gymnastics, like school, or even just making friends, I used to dream about those kinds of things all the time. Maybe not always dream about them, but you know when your trying to fall asleep and your just laying there thinking about stuff? Like that. That's what I mean by dreaming. To tell you the truth, I really don't remember a lot of my dreams. Only every once in a while one will stick with me. It's kind of wierd. But anyway, just that time before you actually fall asleep. I think about everything. Most of the time it's just gymnastics, thinking of how good I could be. Well, to me all this thinking is kind of like goals. I tell myself that next practice I'm really gonna make this "dream" come true. I'm going to be able to do all my routines perfect. That never really happens. I don't think I've ever done any of my routines absolutely perfect. But it really does make a difference when I go into practice with a positive attitude towards myself, with goals in mind. I may not be able to have a perfect practice. But when it turns out better than normal, or I'm able to improve on one little thing, it really makes me happy with myself. I feel like I'll actually be able to progress in this sport. Other times, it doesn't work very well at all. I'll end up having the worst days, which is ok. Because it happens. But I never feel that way with myself. I'm always telling myself how bad I am, and even sometimes that I should just quit. All those years of hard work were for nothing. But, lately i've been trying to keep positive and be "PP". That's an inside joke, none of you will get it. But it just means to be positive all the time and just think of the best of things, even when times get hard. I kind of feel like some inspirational speaker or something. Oh well, I didn't know what to talk about and I saw that quote and it reminded me what I think about at night. Random I know but, if you didn't notice the name of my blogspot... it's called RANDOM, cause I never know what i'm going to be telling you about. Sorry if that really didn't make sense. I'm tired, and I'm ready for bed. Ü Oh, I kind of forgot about this part. But the whole quote and picture thing, it's just saying that guy didn't fall on top of that mountain. He had to work for it, and climb higher to reach his goal. So when your down and sad and stuff that just remember that your not always going to be able to have a perfect life, and it will get better. Just keep climbing. Oh my. That just made it sound even more like some inspirational speaker. Oh, well. Time for bed.

So much for new years resolutions...

I really wonder why I even set new year's resolutions sometimes. I really do. Because I am the worst at fulfilling them. Seriousally I really am. Like one of my main one's was -- Don't procrastinate, get stuff done early so you don't have to worry about it. Well this blog is one of many examples of how i have already broken that resolution. And it's only been a month! Actually, less than a month. Crazy. Let me just share with you some of my mini life stories... haha.

Well, first off let's just start with this blog. You see this blog, it was supposed to be due Sunday at 11:59 P.M. And if you look at the date of this blog, it says Monday. Not sunday. Monday. I'm really bad at getting things on time. Normaly I'm ok with schoolwork and stuff, I only mess up once in a while and forget my assignment or something. But with stuff that's kind of more my choice, or stuff that doesn't have consequences for being late, I'm normally one to take my time. And truely I sorta hate myself for it. So the reason this blog is late is because of my procrastination problem. You see, I do gymnastics as most of you all know, and I compete. Well, this past weekend I had a competition down in St. George. So after school on Friday, we left for that long road trip. It actually wasn't bad. Only about 4 1/2 to 5 hours, but still with my siblings in the car, it seemed like an eternity. We stayed with some friends down there for 2 nights, but for the last night we stayed in a hotel with all of my cousins that live in Reno, NV. We hadn't seen them in about 2 years, so they decided to come watch my meet in St. George. Well, anyway long story short. I forgot to do this blog before I left because I usually do it on sunday after church, but because I was in St. George i didn't have internet access so I couldn't get on and do it. So I could say that was my excuse, but really I could of done it earlier and I wouldn't of had that problem at all.

My other example is reading. If you read my last blog, it told you all about how i don't really like to read so much unless I'm really into a book. I also told you how I'm not quite done with The Chosen, one of the choices we had to read for honors english. To tell, you the truth, I'm still not quite done with it. I was totally planning on reading it on the way up and back from my trip, which would be about 10 hours, which was more than enough time to finish it. I'll let you guess. Do you think I opened it once? Actually I think I did, but only cause it fell out of my backpack and i had to put the book mark back into it's spot. But other than that. I didn't read a single word. I am so bad. I thought about it. I really did, a couple times actually. But I never read it. And it think it's cause we figured out how to set up the wii in our car, which therefore means we could play guitar hero. And if you were given the choice between guitar hero and reading, what would you choose? Haha. I know I don't have to think twice. Well, it's a good thing we don't have school tomorrow, i'm gonna be reading all day. Joy. But it's my fault, and I gotta deal with it. So, oh well.

So I mess up on school assignments sometimes, and reading doesn't always get done as quick as possible. Those are normally the usually things I put off. But one of the bigger things I avoid more often is cleaning. I really don't like doing my chores. I just don't enjoy it. Sometimes I'll get in these moods where I'll be like I should clean my room, and I go start this huge project. That doesn't always last too long. I normally just get myself into a bigger mess by pulling every out to "clean" it. Cause once I do that then everything is everywhere in my room, which is just an even bigger mess. I just hate myself so much for doing those types of things. So when my mom asks me to clean my room or something on a saturday, I usually put it off. For a long time. My sister and I share a room, and she likes to get it all over with. So she normally starts cleaning and pretty much does it all. But don't worry I step in now and then to do somethings. This really sounds bad. But sadly, it's kind of true. Not all the time does this happen, but enough for me to say "most of the time". The only time I really like to clean things up is when I know somebody is going to be looking at my room, or if I can't go somewhere unless it's done. Then I normally do a pretty good job. I also like to clean things up when i'm not at my house. I always feel bad when I make a mess somewhere else, so normally I clean up extra good for those places. Or what I think is "extra" good. I don't know about other people. So pretty much I just like to put off my cleaning cause I don't really like to do it. Plain and simple isn't it?

So here's just a couple of my many examples of how I procrastinate. I could probably tell you much more right now, but I'm going to save those for other days when I don't know what to write about on my posts. Ü. Oh, and if it's ok, I kind of made sure this was about 1,000 words so that I could make up last weeks post and get credit for this one. I'm really hoping that will work out because if not, I just wrote a really, really long post for nothing. Anyway. There's my mini life stories for ya. Sorry that my blog late, along with everything else.

Reading

Just to let you know before you read this, all I do is ramble on about reading. It's not too exciting and it probably doesn't make sense. But if you would really like to read it; go for it.

Ok, so everyone's always been asked the question of "Do you like to read?" Well, normally I answer yes because I like reading good book that interests me and let's me enjoy doing it. While other times I say no, because I'm not the type of person who likes to read whatever is thrown at me. Like old classic books, unless I'm forced to read through the whole thing, I normally don't get through the first hundred pages. Except there are a couple exceptions to that. I always put off reading. I know I shouldn't, but I do. It's kind of like a procrastination problem I have. I guess it'll have to be added to the list of my new year's resolutions. But I really do always put off reading til the last minute. Like AR points for instance. I only have eight. And that's only because of having to read Dandelion Wine before midterm for this class. But don't worry I actually just finished New Moon a couple days ago, so I can go take a test on that. (It's way good by the way). So, with taking the AR test on that book, I should come really close to getting thirty points. But even with that, I still have to finish "The Chosen" book by this week i think... that should be a challenge. I'm not too far into that book I have to admit. But don't worry I'll find time. I hope, that's what I always say. I think that's one of the reasons why I don't finish all the reading I should until the last minute, because I don't have enough time. Here's my daily schedule, you ready: wake up, get all ready for school, go to school, go straight to gym, go straight home, eat dinner, do my homework, go to bed. That's pretty much my week day schedule,except for thursdays. I don't have gym thursdays. Ü. So since I usually don't start my homework til about 8:00 or 8:30 everynight, and then I don't finish until about 9:30 or ten, depending on how distracted I get, I guess I would say I'm too tired to read. So there's one excuse. Just kidding. That's not much of an excuse, I should be able to find time to get my school work done. Another reason I guess I don't get my reading done is because during those 25 minutes the school actually gives us to read in the morning, I don't read. I'm usually talking or finishing up my assignment for 1st period. Brinkerhoff doesn't care, and it gives me less to do at home, but it doesn't help me get my reading done like it should. I should try to do better at that. Well, speaking of all this reading I don't have done, I think I'm going to go try to get at least a little bit of it done. Sorry for all the rambling. I didn't really know what to talk about so, sorry!

Child Soldiers

In Mr. Carter's geography class, we were each assigned to do either a powerpoint presentation or a scrapbook about one of the world issues he had listed on a paper. I ended up doing a powerpoint presentation on Child Soldiers, or Children at War. Doing this assignment actually was almost depressing to me, not the actual assignment part, but the topic about child soldiers just made me sad. It was really hard to look up all this information about these inoceint children being forced to participate in war. This is the essay I wrote about it. (Have to put together this huge presentation and then having to write a two page essay on it... annoying I think).

Anyway, Here it is:

Child soldiers are a major problem world wide. In over twenty countries around the world, children are direct participants in war. They are denied a childhood and often subjected to horrific violence. Children also participate in terrible aspects of war. They serve as human mine detectors, participate in suicide missions, carry supplies, and act as spies, messengers or lookouts. These types of things are what make this situation so bad. Many Armed Conflict Recruitment units use children to their benefit, while others participate in many programs that are attempting to prevent children of war in all they can do.

Child soldiers are recruited in many ways. Some are voluntary, with the attempt to get even with others for the killing of their close ones, or to get away from domestic violence. Some have no other choice; joining seems to be the only way to survive. But on the other hand, most recruitment is not voluntary. Most is forced; children are taken from there families and made to do terrible things. Some even witnessing the killings of their parents, or having to kill them themselves, to ensure the children have no place to escape to once taken in. If caught while trying to escape, a new child will have to then kill the attempter, to make sure he knows what will happen if he tries to get away also. Another way children are recruited is by forcing pay. If unit officers come in demanding a high amount of money and your parents can’t give it to them, your parents are killed and you are then used to be another participant in war.

When Officers recruit all these children into their army, they do it with a purpose. They do it so that they have ways to do the “dirty work” without hurting themselves. For instance, kids are the ones to set the time bombs, and lead the pack so that they newcomers will be killed before the experienced. They also let the children do most of the suicidal attacks, and major bombings around so that again, the experience will be saved for last. Many children do often become unaware of what’s happening to them with all the war going through their minds. They just do as they’re told, for they’ve learned if they don’t. They’ll be killed.

Child soldiers are not always men, or boys. One definition recalls that a child soldier is any person less than 18 years of age who is part of any kind of regular or irregular armed force or armed group in any capacity, other than family members. The definition includes girls recruited for sexual purposes and for forced marriage. It does not, therefore, only refer to a child who is carrying or has carried arms. This definition tells us that a child soldier could be anyone. Some recruitment units take children as young as eight, even though obviously under age, and give they fake documents claiming there eighteen just to get past government laws. Girls also are taken in to become soldiers in their own way. Some cook, and prepare meals; others are forced to marry with former soldiers and are sexually abused.

With this world wide problem happening everyday in our world, there of course are many organizations and programs that are trying their best to do what they can for these kids. Many of which are fighting with and siding with governments about age-limits and what not that should be set within each country. The most common age that a child should become a soldier is eighteen. Very many countries are breaking this law, especially the ones with children that start ranging from 8-12 years old. Organizations like the ‘Coalition to stop the use of Child Soldiers’ and ‘Amnesty International’ are just two of the many who are trying to put an end to this issue.

With all this said, I feel that we need to pay more attention to the global issues around us and try to help as much as possible. There are so many things like the Coalition to stop the use of Child Soldiers that we could participate in that would just make this world a better place by the simple little thing we stepped into do. I think we should all try to do better at helping out others in need, even if it is just a little bit at a time.