our generation

It seems that every generation cares about something different. There was the hippie generation the save the whales generation. I believe that the new generation is set on helping Africa. I don't want to call us the save Africa generation because that sounds too cliche. It's my thinking that Invisible Children started the whole thing off by showing us about the war in Uganda. Because of the power of technology and video this generation is able to see beyond our own borders. Maybe I'm wrong but I think that a lot of why we care about Uganda in particular is that they can't speak for themselves. In essence it's the need to help the helpless. Though people complain that technology and how it has "corrupted the minds of the youth" it has also let us see places that we never were able to before. Telling people about an injustice only goes so far in 21st century America. Showing people takes them into the heart of the problem. Middle aged and beyond complain that the younger people are lazy and have no motivation because the internet is at their fingers. Though this might be true, some people of the same technology generation have used technology to help people other than themselves. They have grabbed the attention of internet, cell phone loving kids and made them truly care about a cause that is worth fighting for.

this is probably one of my top 5 favorite proposal ideas.

euphemisms

We were studying euphemisms today and here are some of my favorites

-visual harassment: staring
-targeting process error: looks like we killed a lot of civilians
-isolated reflection interval: timeout
- psychological violence: disapproval
-robust peacekeeping: killing troublesome locals
-poorly buffered precipitation: acid rain
-occupant restraints: seat belts
-deer management: shooting all the deer
-made possible by: we don't take advertising, but here comes an ad anyway
-intercommunal coexistence: getting along
-involuntary normal attrition: laying off workers
-managing down: laying off workers
-rightsizing: laying off workers

horse show

my barn hosted a horse show this sunday and I figured I'd tell a little about it. It's a barn show so it's not all high and fancy like most horse shows people think of. But it still had those annoying white pants which I disdain. The two main groups of riding that people think of are western and english. Western is the one with the horn on the saddle, some of the events are reigning, barrel racing, and calf roping. English is the one with the white pants and black boots. In english we jump over fences, when you have to jump fences in a certain order that's called a course. A course usually consists of anywhere from 7-12 jumps the typical course is about 8. There's three types of disciplines all judging on different aspects of the horse and rider.
Equitation- it focuses on how well the rider is able to control the horse with as little struggle and obvious cues (telling the horse to do certain things) as visibly possible
hunter- it mainly judges the horse and how it moves. They judge on the fluidity of the horses movements and how well they are able to deal with the course.
jumpers- my personal favorite are the jumpers. It's completely objective with just a timer as the judge. It is almost exclusively for advanced riders because it requires the horse and rider to be knowledgeable in knowing how to get around a course well and fast. There is a set time limit and whoever completes the course with the least faults and lowest time wins. It's a rediculus amount of fun because it's a race of who's the fastest and who can turn the quickest. Though it's the most dangerous of the three it is by far the most fun to watch and participate in.
I did a few hunter courses and a few jumper courses at this show. Though my horse is technically a hunter he is much more suited to be a jumper. Both of us like to go fast and we love to jump. But, jumpers requires intense amounts of skill to be able to do it at a significant height (ie. 3+ feet). It requires being able to turn tight turns while still balancing the horse. So there's the basic gist of a horse show.

I went to my schools version of prom last night. I say my schools version b/c the school doesn't support dance so it's called JSB (junior senior banquet)...yeah I know. Anyways, it's basically a tribute to the seniors. They had a long slide show with pictures from middle school, sports, and just hanging out with friends. It was kinda fun going down memory lane and seeing what everybody looked like 5 years ago. The last picture was the pic we took after we won spirit week and it was kinda weird seeing pics from seventh grade year up until the end of senior year. I've spent 6 years with a lot of these kids and even though I wasn't really close to a whole lot of them I'm kinda gonna miss us as a class. Ever since spirit week this year the class has gotten a lot closer to each other than we have in years past. It's a shame because I'm just now meeting a lot of nice people that I've been taking classes with for half a decade. What I've learned is that you can tell the freshman class and the seventh grade class to hang out with everybody and enjoy the time they have with each other, but nobody will truly understand until they realize that after all these years they're going to be leaving and probably won't see most of the kids ever again. All of us only have a week left and then the six long years at WCA are done. Even though I'm more than happy to leave and never come back to the school, I'm going to miss hanging out with all my school friends. I'm going to a lot of grad parties knowing that it's probably the last time I'll see a lot of them. So here's to the class of 2009.

haha