Bowling For Columbine

When I watched Bowling For Columbine I thought that America is very violent. I do not understand why the U.S has over 11 000 gun related deaths every year and Canada has less than 100. When we saw the surveillance video of the high school students in the cafeteria at Columbine shooting everyone, i was shocked. I don't understand why or how anyone would be motivated to go into their school with guns and fire over 900 rounds wounding many people and killing a few, including themselves, especially since they were only weeks away from graduating an would never have to talk to their classmates again. Even if they absolutely couldn't wait a couple weeks to get out of school, the could have at least just killed themselves and not the innocent people at Columbine. I am interested to find out what motivated them to do it. After watching the film, I would like to find out why America is so much more violent than Canada, why so many children are motivated to kill themselves and other innocent people.

Stress Assignment

Stress is a "load" on the system of physical, mental or emotional pressure or strain. You can recognize stress through different behaviors/emotions such as: mood swings, concentration problems, grinding teeth, eating less, depression, trouble sleeping, nail biting, and drug/alcohol abuse. Some ways to reduce stress are exercising in a non competitive way, meditating, having a sense of humor, and by avoiding situations that you know will be stressful.

1. One stressor in my life is a lot of homework. This stressor exists in my life because I get assigned a lot of homework from math and science 10. I can identify this stress by concentration problems and changes in my sleep habits. I will deal with this stress by trying to complete more of my homework in class, or getting it done before I game some Halo so I am not rushed before I go to bed. I will reduce my reaction to stress by having a sense of humor, and getting more sleep.

2. A stressor in my life is working too much. This stressor existed in my life because I worked 8 shifts a week while going to school. I could identify this stress by confusion, concentration problems, depression, not being able to sleep, and a change in my eating habits. I dealt with this stress by taking a 3 week vacation ad getting a massage, then quitting one of my jobs, and eventually also quitting the second one. I try to reduce my reaction to this type of stress by reducing the amount of time I work.

3. A stressor in my life is my family. This stressor exists because my family always expects me to do things that I do not have time to do. I can identify this stress by mood swings (yelling at them) and grinding teeth. I deal with this stress by killing stuff in WoW. I reduce my reaction to this stress by either tuning them out when they talk, or do the things they ask me rate away so i don't have to listen to them complain.

Journal Entry - Relationships

If I was going steady with someone for quite a while and we both agreed to have sex but he didn't want to use a condom, I would say no. I would either get both of us checked for STI's and if we were both safe, I could get birth control or force him to wear a condom. I think if the guy doesn't agree to use a condom after you told him you want him to, then he doesn't really care about you or how you feel. Either way, if you are going to have sex you should be on birth control AND use a condom to be safe. I think people should always use condoms, because teen pregnancy is not a good thing.

Photo Booth

Analyzing Relationships

The healthy characteristics in Elvis and Courtney's relationship are that they talk about a lot of different things, the fact that Elvis can count on Courtney to help him make decisions, They both spend time with their friends and family, and they both have their own part-time jobs.
The unhealthy characteristics of their relation ship are that Elvis is not allowed to hangout with any friends that are girls because Courtney will get angry, Courtney wants all of Elvis' attention, Courtney threatens to break up with Elvis when she is angry, Courtney started a savings account so her and Elvis can get married some day.
I think that there are some signs of trouble in the relationship. I think that Courtney and Elvis spending all their time together and taking all the same courses is unhealthy. Courtney should also trust Elvis and not be so jealous.
If Courtney and Elvis took different classes I think it would help with their relationship because they wouldn't spend so much time together. I also think that if they got couples counseling it may help with Courtney's jealousy.
Courtney seems like she would be most likely to end her and Elvis' relationship. She seems like the one who is in control and since Elvis needs her to make all of his decisions for him, he wouldn't dump her. Since Cortney is jealous of him hanging out with other girls, she might get overly jealous of him and his female friends and break up with him.
For Courtney to end the relationship she should approach him and talk to him about it in person, let him know what is going on and why she doesn't want to be with him anymore.

Abussive Relationships

When I think about people who are in abusive relationship's, I don't understand why girls even stay with their partners. I don't even understand why guys would want to beat the person that they love and care about in the first place. I think it is sad that there are so many girls out there who are in abusive relationships, but I also think that there is something they can do to stop it. Most girls are too scarred to leave their partners, which I think is stupid. If you are getting abused you should just go to the police or to a friend/family member who can do something about it. Mainly, I believe that the guys who do this need the most help to get over their anger and find out why they are so abusive. The girls who suffer through this also need to get help, not only help to leave their partner, but most of them would need a councilor because an abusive partner would severely lower your self-esteem. I think in some cases, girls may bring it upon them selves, for example if they cheated on their partner, but for the most part girls don't have any thing to do with weather or not they get beat.

Supersize Me

I think that if fat people find it acceptable to publicly question people who smoke, do drugs, or drink excessively, then it should be okay to publicly question fat people. I think people should be able to do this because excessive drinking, drug use, or eating are all very dangerous. Other than obesity, if you eat excessively you can get joint problems (from being overweight), and increase your chance of getting a stroke or heart attack. I think it should be acceptable to publicly question excessive eaters so they can be aware of it's dangers and all the side effects it can have. You could let people know about healthy choices by making them go to websites like "Healthy Living".

Drug Use

When we watchd the video on drug use I found it very interesting. I don't understand why people start doing drugs in the first place when they know what can happen. When the users in the video were talking about their past experiences I thought wow, thats pretty stupid. They talked about the things that had happened to them in the past like overdosing and how severe their withdrawals were. One lady overdosed on cocaine and had brain damage. The girl that was currently using the drugs met the lady who had the brain damage and I think that it scarred her because after she decided to quit. When i saw the past users in the video it just made me realize that i was right.. it is stupid and pointless to do drugs.

Journal Entry #3 - Goals

One goal I had was to beat James in Halo. The barrier was that I couldn't beat him because he is just too good and kept killing me. I overcame his barrier by hitting him then I went and killed his guy. I felt very proud. After he recovered from my punch he started beating me again. I decided to play against James' little brother and I beat him. I decided that I could at least kill MJ so that was could enough and I gave up my goal of trying to kill James.


One goal that I would like to set for myself is to actually do my all of my homework and study for all of my classes. I will accomplish this by doing my homework everyday before I play World of Warcraft, and then review all the notes that I took that day. I hope that If I make it so I can't play WoW until I am done my homework and studying, then I will get it done rate away. The studying part may be a problem because I have never studied in my life and really don't like it. I will do my homework and try to study everyday for the rest of the school year and hopefully get acceptable grades.

Journal #2 - Issues Assignment

For my issues paper, I wrote about Hate Crimes. I chose hate crimes because I thought it would be an interesting topic. I found out that over 40% of the people who commit hate crimes are white, 2% are Asian and the rest is unknown. For the most part I didn't agree with hate crimes, but there was one pro that I agreed with. I like the fact that if there are a lot of hate crimes, it will keep the minority levels low in Canada because a lot of people are afraid to come here. By the end of the assignment, I could view the topic from both points of view. It wasn't very possible to just choose one side, but by the end of the assignment my opinion on the subject had changed.

Journal Entry #1 - Going against your values

One of my values is school. One day I told my mom I was sick so I didn't have to go to school and I could play World Of Warcraft all day. I made my mom call the school and tell them that I wasn't going to come that day because I was sick. All day I sat on the computer and gamed with my friends, while my mom made me a lot of food because she thought I was sick. I felt bad about lying to my mom, mostly because she was making me food all day, but I told myself not to feel bad because I had fun playing WoW and it was better than being stuck at school all day. There were no consequences because my mom didn't know that I was lying, I just told her I felt better the next day.

One time I helped my auntie clean her house because she had just had a baby and had no time to do it herself. I thought I would help out because she has another one on the way. I was unexpectedly awarded when she decided to pay me for all the help.

Values movie

1. I agree with the old guy with the glasses who said, "Everyone has the right to life." I agree with this value of life because he is right, everyone has the right to life and no one should be able to take that away from you.

2. I feel that todays values cannot be the same as yesterdays values because the world has changed. Years ago, many people got their values from their religion. Now not as many people are choosing to follow a religion, therefore they will not have the same values as some people who do go to church. Values are no longer forced upon children by their parents, they are introduced to them but it is up to the child if they would like to accept it as one of their values. Television also has a major impact on our value systems. We are exposed to many things that our parents/grandparents were not, which changes the way we think effecting our value systems.

3. I think one value that all people share is honesty because no one likes to be lied to. Even if you may think Honesty isn't one of your values, if you like it when people are honest, then you value honesty.

My Introduction

My name is Meghan. I was born and raised in Prince George. I spend my time listening to music and playing video games, mainly World of Warcraft. I play a lot of Mario also, it is one of he most intense games ever made, besides WoW that is. During the winter I like to go snowboarding. I work for an accounting firm, it sucks.. I would no recommend it. My favorite movie is Superbad because.. it was a hilarious movie, McLovin is my hero. Harry Potter is also awesome, same with Anchorman. I dont read, I would rather just watch the movie.. and if there is no movie about it, it probably isn't worth reading anyways. South Park, Family Guy, Metalocalypse, Futurama, and the Simpsons are some of my favorite t.v. shows. One of my favorite things is going to concerts, I enjoy seeing the bands I like perform. So far I have seen Lamb Of God twice, Behemoth, Children Of Bodom, Slayer, Chimaira twice, Arch Enemy, God Forbid, Devil Driver, Mastodon, Thine Eyes Bleed, and many others.

Thursday, September 6th 2007