Thoughts on Guns

Less than a week ago a terrible thing happened at an elementary school in CT. There was a fatal gun shooting and many children and adults passed away. I'm not entirely sure on the numbers. I first read 28 dead - 18 were children, but recently i read 26 dead - 20 were children. Either way it saddens me that such a thing could happen.

Furao and I talked about it and he made a point that shootings (or people bringing guns to school) sometimes happens because are bullied. It's not a justified reason but there is more of a reason why they would bring a gun versus a random man with no connection to the school.

It's is just so sad and heart breaking I could not imagine the pain and grief those parents are going through. My deepest sympathies and prayers are sent their way.

Since this has happened I have seen a number of picture post and status post about guns and gun laws in US. I guess, in my mind I wouldn't say lets ban guns...but I do think there should be tighter restrictions on them (however, I don't know how they are as of now :p). Maybe we could have gun owners go through psych evals before buying and yearly after. Maybe there could be a limit to how many guns people would have. It should be a requirement that if you own a gun you are also required to have a locked safe where it is. I wouldn't say these things would 100% prevent things like this tragedy be prevented, but I feel that it could be a positive step without making people feel attacked over their right to own guns.

One of the recent facebook status post I read was from a classmate in high school. His post honestly just made me want to tell him how wrong I thought he was. But instead of posting it on facebook I decide to blog about it. Right from his facebook post...

"Tired of hearing people saying that guns need to be taken away from citizens! This country is what it is today because citizens overthrew their government because they had their own guns! We would still be part of England if we hadn't, guns Are a RIGHT in the amendments and would illegal at state level to ban them! My home and family will soon be protected by 2nd amendment! I just hope nobody is dumb enough to make me have to use my right!!!"

To start I'm not sure I even understand what he is trying to say in his second sentence...and as for American being apart of England still...well that is what really just pushed my buttons. Because without guns America would still belong to the Native Americans and Mexicans who the English  stole the land from. (Maybe I'm just strongly opinionated because I am one of those minorities). The next sentence is also messed up...and Finally, I hope that he will feel safe having a gun at home. But I hope that he keeps it away from his baby and has the common sense to not shoot someone because their "dumb"...whatever that is supposed to me.

I know right now I don't plan on ever having a gun. But I hope those who do own them have them safely locked up when not in use. And only use them for hunting, the shooting range, and other legal things.

QBD

Last Fall Semester

This week I started my last fall semester at GVSU. I'm pretty pumped about it, but also not sure if I'm ready for all the things that I will have to do this semester. I hope I can handle it all.

My last week of summer was pretty stressful, I took a physiology class over the summer and didn't do well in it. I knew I would have to retake the class, but wasn't prepared to get an email the week before classes that said I had to drop one of classed. I was freaking out! Banner wouldn't let me sign up for the class and I felt like everything was falling apart. But luckily everything has been sorted out and I am currently retaking the class again this semester. This time things will go much better. It has to.

I am only have 13 credits, but I have 5 classes! Each class seems like it will have it's fair share of being time consuming. I am taking a special populations class for exercise testing and prescription. It's pretty simila to a few other classes I have had where we make exercise prescriptions for people in class. But this class seems to be focusing on applying our knowledge to people that we will actually see in the workfield. People who are not "normal, healthy adults". (This is what my prof. describe special pops as. It's kinda silly). I'm also taking my capstone class. It's an SWS so that means A TON of writting, which I'm not really looking forward too. But hopefully it won't be as bad as I think it will. It actually sounds like a pretty interesting and useful class. To be honest, I've always thought capstone classes were going to be boing and not that useful. This prof. seems to really want us to be prepared for the workfield. She wants to bring in people with different jobs and give us a chance to see what is out there that we can do with our degrees. I'm taking an ECG course this semester too. I would have really liked to do my internship in cardiac rehab, but two of the places I have applied, I got rejected. And now that I have two classes I need to take in the winter semester along with an internship, I'm not sure I want to have such a big internship. I would love it, but I just won't have the time. I'm still going to take the class. It's sounds pretty interesting and maybe it won't heart to have the skills from that class. The last class I have is fieldwork. I had my first day today. I'll be at the YMCA - Visser family. It seems like it's going to be a great learning experience and  I can't wait to see what else it has in store for me.

Other than school things, it's kind of been the same ol' same ol'. My few weeks of summer were...well, short. It was about 2.5 weeks and it went by fast. The first week Robbie was sick so I was taking care of him, then I got sick. Then I worked through out the week and finished up volunteering with Spectrum PT's. Last week was packed with things. I worked two days of the week, then on Wednesday we went to Holland and just walked around a bit, in and out of shops. It wasn't super exciting but it was nice to get out of the apartment and just enjoy hanging out with each. To end our trip we went to New Hollanding Brewing Co. We got some beer chips and beer/whiskey cheese, and a few other things that were pretty tastey. And of course we each had a few beers. The next day we headed to Kalamazoo to visit some good friends of ours, and see their new place. It was fun and nice to hang out for the day. It's not always easy to find good times to get together because they have two kiddos and are always up to fun actvities and we have always been doing school things. We just hung around at their home for a while, went for a walk around their neighborhood and checked out one of the playgrounds. We didn't stay long at the play ground because some little punks were talking about gang banggers...those weirdos. Then we went back to their place and had pizza for dinner soon after. We played around with the kids for a while. They seem to always enjoy having us around. It's pretty great to know we have made such an impression on them. :) Then the kids went to bed and we just chatted for a bit and went home.

Oh, and one last pretty exciting thing that has happened recently. Robbie graduated from college. He won't start work until next Tuesday. But it's pretty exciting. I'm excited for him, he is going to do great things things as an engineer. :)

-Quebs

Venting

Okay, so I have a hard time not letting things bother me. I tend to take things very personally, and when one someone hurts my feelings or does something to offend me, I also want to say something back. Well this happened to me just now. I decided to write about it on here instead of say something back to the person who sent me something.

Last weekend we had a cord making party. We were originally going to go to one of the students parents cottage to makes cords, however, when first planning it, I was unaware at how far away the place way. It was about an hour. I was still game for the idea, and made a facebook event. I had several people reply saying they could not make it if it were that far away. Carpooling was going to be available. But the idea for a cord party is make as many cords as possible. We may not have gotten as many cords done if we had. I don't know for a fact, but considering we would have gone swimming and doing other fun activities, my guess is no one's goal would have been to make cords.

Any how...there were about 4 or 5 students who weren't able to make it if the party were so far away. Believe it or not, that can make a pretty big difference. Since no one else had any other suggestions besides the night before and day of, I changed the party to normal kids class times. Class was getting canceled on us anyone because they had a BJJ event going on so we couldn't train. A fellow Capoeiraista was just bitching at me for a good ten minutes when we got there. They were saying it was too had to make cords, and that new people had shown up and where were they going to train since the mats were being used. My first defense here should have been that they didn't even inform anyone that class would have been elsewhere so people would have shown up regardless. I tried to keep my mouth shut though, mainly because there were children there and I didn't want to make a seen.

We ended up making 12 cords totally. We labeled the ones that the students made which they would receive next week at the ceremony. Things settled down after an hour or so, people made about 1 or 2 cords then the mats opened up and people began to train again anyway.

I knew my colleague was pretty ticked off at me, but I had assumed things had blow over. I saw them a few times throughout the week, and they said a few things that I took as being snarky. I told Furao and just told me that is how that person is. So I went with it and never thought of it again until now.

I have a separate facebook page that I tried to keep for only capo stuff. (It hasn't worked out that great). I posted a message after the event to thank people for helping out and such. I even brought cookies and punch the following week as a thank (which I might add, since I have been training no one has ever done that. We usually tried doing a pot luck that never worked out). I checked my other facebook again today for the first time since then.

This is what I had in my inbox:

speaking of the cord thing. l was pretty pissed that you guys canceled on what could've been a fun party just cuz you didn't want to drive. everyone that showed up could've carpooled except you two and since we were there past 4 and still went to boba l suspect that you too would've had the time. and l could've still trained a real class, l get that you don't care to train that much but most of us still do. don't do that to me again.

I'm pretty upset by this message for multiple reasons. This is everything I want to say to this person but won't.

If they would have just listened to me when I tried to explain myself (or looked at the FB event page), they would have understood/seen that it was not because I didn't want to drive an hour away, yes I think it was a bit far but I still would have gone. They would have seen that the event was switched because it was an inconvenience to others as well. This person often talks about doing things as a group and more people should go to things. Well, sometimes it's hard for people to go places that are far way.They assumed that we couldn't carpool with others...I'm not even sure why they came to that conclusion to be honest because we never said we couldn't...and because we hung out until from about 1 pm tot 4:45 that day doing capo doesn't mean we had time. I'm not going to lie we left and had dinner with some friends and hung out and it was great. But spending time in town all day versus all day an hour is a huge difference. Travel time really kicks me in the tush sometimes.

Another thing that was irritating was the statement "I get that you don't care to train that much..." I don't think they understand why and when I train. Maybe they were an actual friend instead of criticizing me every time I didn't make it to class, maybe going to class would be fun again. It's also been really hard to get back into. I have more free time right now so it's easy to go, in a normal semester I don't have as much because my priorities are set on my school work and not capo. Just because my priorities are not the same anymore doesn't mean that I don't care/like to train.

I suppose this person won't have to worry about me doing this to them again. I just won't do crap for the group here anymore and we'll see how well things get done. I might not do a ton, but I do enough to make sure things get done, and done on time.  If I do end up planning something else for capo, I'm not even going to discus it with others. I'm just going to pick a date, time and place and that's final. I will not take suggestions. Sometimes I guess you have to be a bitch to get things done.

Erg...this has helped a little. I just need to let time pass and let it blow over.

-Quebs

Getting our Fit(ness) on!

In case you were wondering what the "ness" in fitness is in parentheses, you can blame my lovely boyfriend about that one...apparently it is cooler to say getting our fit on versus getting our fitness on.

Any who, the two of us have had a pretty busy year. I've been working on getting better grades which meant that I spent more time on school work and less time working out and less time to relax. When I did have extra time it was generally to relax, because let's be honest, neither of us wanted to go workout during our free time (since I didn't happen often). Not only that but I've had just some personal issues that have happened of the past year which made me not want to attend Capoeira, and I wasn't really about staying late at school to go to the gym alone. Furao has been busy with school as well, he's graduating from college in August, but the past year he has been really busy with big projects each semester.

So, with all our time going to work, school, and doing homework. Staying fit hasn't been one of our main priorities...until lately. It's basically gotten to a point, that if we keep living the way we are, we are going to be even more dissatisfied with our images then we already are. It has really sucked we go to put on a pair of jeans and they fit just a little bit tighter than yo remember, or putting on a t-shirt, and had some pudgy-ness peeping through. We started talking about what we wanted to start doing about this back in April, but we decided we were going to wait to jump back into working out until the summer semester (we wanted to finished off the winter semester, and not add additional things to take up more time).

We started this week. Tuesday night we botch did a little over 30 minutes on the Wii fit. It's pretty fun, and it's nice to have a place to weigh in. I don't think it's complete accurate, I would say it might give or take a few pounds but I like the consistency of it. I know that measurements will be more consistence versus using a different scale at the gym each time, or it being calibrated differently than the last time. It's also an easy way to keep track weight and the activities you have done for the day. I started out with some yoga poses and stretches, then worked into some strength training (doing push-ups, v-ups, planks, etc) then I ended with some aerobics (hula-hopping, boxing, and jogging). 

Wednesday afternoon we went for a run/jog on the treadmills at school. We were starting a 12 week program with Nike+ to train for a 5K. but we kind of decided we were not huge fans of the things we set up, plus we are trying to get back into capoeira too, so we also don't want to wear ourselves out. I ran for a 1.5 miles and walked another 0.5 miles. At around 1 mile, my knee was really hurting (I've had knee issues since highschool because of running. Capoeira made them worse). I really didn't want to stop because our goal was to get through 2 miles. I probably shouldn't have, but I pushed myself another half mile, I sped up the pace. Then a gradually slowed down to mediocre walk to finish.

Thursday my legs were fairly sore, but not as bad as I expected. That night we did Wii fit again. I took it a little easy because of some of soreness, but I still started with yoga, then did strength training, and ended with aerobics.

Friday night and Saturday afternoon we went to Capoeira. I forgot how tiring it is, but I also forgot how bad it has been on all of my joints. Sometimes I feel liked I'm 50 years old, and my bones and muscles are just getting to weak to perform. But I have been able to do most things, I definitely have lost a lot to my game and movements, but I think after a month or two I'll be able to get back into the swing of things, and be close to where I was when I stopped going to class.

As far as my joints go...my right ankle was hurting Friday so I wore an ankle to capoeira and then wore it again on Saturday. both of my knees hurt (the left more than right...it was the initially injured knee), to prevent further injuries, I wear a knee sleeve on both legs and have been icing them when I get home. Lastly...my hips. some kicks have been irritating them a lot, but they have also just been in bad shape for at least a year. the tendons and ligaments pop often. I thick I have a lot of muscle imbalances going on. I just need to find which specific muscles need to be stretched and which need to be strengthened.

Well, this will be an interesting journey to become fit once again. It's going to be a long process and some days we just aren't going to want to workout, but that's why we have each other to keep ourselves motivated! :)

Another Semester Over

Well my senior year of college is over. It's pretty crazy to think that just 4 years ago, I graduated from highschool. Even more crazy, is that there are some friends from highschool I haven't actually seen in almost 4 years. But life goes on, and I'm not terribly concerned about it. I have so many great friends now though. I am very thankful for all the wonderful people I have met the past 4 years. So many things have happend that have shapped the person I am today. :)

Even though I have finished 4 years of college I still have one more year to go. Meaning I won't graduate until next April. It seems so far away, but at the same time, I'm freaking out about all the things I still need to do. I need to apply for internships next January - April. I'm working on getting letters of recommendation and writting cover letters for internships in cardiac rehabilitation. It really sounds like something I would enjoy. So I hope I can get an internship doing it. It's pretty competitive to get into. The other internship I will be looking at is with motion analysis. On top of the internship, I have 2 months exactly to find a site to do my fieldwork. But I'm also going to try for the motion analysis for that, in the chance I get the internship with cardiac rehab. Then I will have more experience in different areas. On top of those two things, I will be taking 6 credit hours (3 classes) this summer, 4 classes plus fieldwork in the fall, and 1 class and my internship next winter. Wish me luck on the next year of adventures!

So this coming weekend is going to be loads of fun. Friday night Furao and I will be visiting our friends Pomba and Sombrio and their two kids. I love hanging out with them, they are all such great people. On Sunday we are hanging out with some other friends Bethany and Tuki. We are making them dinner, just having one last night of fun before we start summer classes.

I'm looking forward to the next year and starting a career.

-QBD

de-stressing?

Well it's getting to be the end of the semester. Final exams are in two weeks. YIKES. I really don't need the added stress right now, but alas it's always the little things that just get me in just the right spot.

So this post will be mostly complaining. You have been warned....

So last week I was driving in my apartment complex. There are basically two main roads to it. I live off of one of them towards the back. So as i'm driving trying to leave complex, this lady comes out from one of the side roads, she doesn't stop and pulls right out in front of me. There are no stop signs I must say...but I also think it is just common sense that she stop since she isn't on the main road. This kind of ticked me off right? well I got over it later. But today, the SAME THING happend again, the same lady too. I was like come the F on lady. What is your problem. Today just hasn't been my day to push my buttons. I'm very annoyed by this lady still...she really needs to learn to drive and learn her basic driving skills like stoping and driving slow in a parking lot...

The second thing that irritated me today happened at school. I go to school where things are normally pretty chill and no one is going to rob you if you leave your stuff somewhere while you use the bathroom. So today i was really looking forward to my late lunch. I hadn't eaten much today, so I decided to get a burger. any who....I set my bag down at a table. This isn't unusually by the way, people do this all the time. Getting food took longer than I thought, but when I got back to my table what did I see? I saw three chumps sitting at my table with my bag on the chiar just shoved assigned. I was once again very upset about this. I kept my cool though. Those kids are pretty lucky. I can be pretty sassy...this can be bad if I want it to be.

But now im just trying to get some hot air out before I begin to study for an exam I have tomorrow. I'm definitely looking forward for this semester to be over with.

On a positive note, I get to have a short break this weekend for a friends baby's first birthday. I'm excited to see Mamma and Sombrio and of course their two lovely kidlets. It will definitely make my day.

QBD

Exciting News!

Well, I should be doing some research or working on some other homework...but I just want to say that I am a very proud girlfriend. Why, you ask...because My amazing and smart boyfriend has a job lined up for after graduation which isn't until August. I'm really proud of him. He will be working as an embedded systems engineer.

Because we're so excited we are thinking of traveling somewhere next year. We have a few places in mind, but there are so many places to choose from.

On another note, I will be graduating in one year from April. I'm excited but also really nervous. I'm not sure what I'll be doing yet which is the scary part. But I keep hoping that what ever God has in store for me, he'll help me get there. I'll be the first person in my entire family (both mom and dad's sides) to graduate with a Bachelors degree. It's really exciting, and even though it's been a big struggle for me to get there, I'm going to be there and I'm very proud of myself!

QBD

Children's Education

So, I decided to write about how I feel about education for children (k-12). These are simply only my opinions about what I know about the schools I went to growing up. This is just a way for me to express my thoughts and not cause any conflict.

Well, first off...I have a nephew who is in 8th grade right now. He is basically my brother and I know most things that go on with him in school. Recently the school district changed a lot of things about requirements for graduating. Much different and maybe even more strict than they were when I graduated. One thing they have changed is their grading system. I'm not entirely familar with it, but from what I have heard is that they no longer go by letter grades (so A, A-, B+...etc), they only use a 4.0 scale. which in theory, letter grades follow. My main concern was when my nephew came home, and said the teachers and school said that they should aim for 3.0 on things, and that getting a 4.0 on something is basically extra credit. I guess I feel like it would be such a confusing thing to learn. that once they come accustomed to one way, later when they get into college, the 4.0 scale that they thought they knew won't be the same. I guess I just thought it was a strange thing to say. To me, it's basically saying, do the bare minimum to get a decent grade.

Another thing I don't like how the system has changed, is now in 8th grade, they want kids to know what they want to go to college for. I'm thinking that's insane! The reasoning makes sense...they want kids to take the right classes to set them up for college. But in reality, kids are going to change what they want to do several times. They don't even know what kind of opportunities there are in the working world. In 8th grade they do take a trip to the local community college, but even so, there is still only a limited exposure. I just don't think it's a good idea, to make children decide what they want to go to college for when they are only 12-14 years old. I know when I was that age, I wanted to be an architect. Then at some point in highschool I thought a dr, now im studying clinical exercise science in hopes to be a physical therapist. Some many things can change.

The last thing I have an issue with is how my nephews teachers don't give him homework. They do all of their assignments at school, and never have to do anything at home. I feel like it's not a good set up for college, since they seem to be jumping the gun on everything else. They should be sending home at least small assignments on reading or worksheets. Because in college, I have found, there is ALWAYS something to be done. People do have hw, a lot of reading, and most of all just general studying/reviewing. I think now at this young age, they should be encouraging and teaching kids different ways to study so they don't struggle with it later. They can find what works better for them, so they can succeed in life.

Well, there is my little rant on that. Again, this was only for me to express what I thought about this. I don't want to start conflicts with anyone who disagrees on the matter.

-QBD