Tag: environmental science

What a crazy 48 hours it has been for me and I can’t say that it hasn’t been worth it. The other day, I ran into some problems with my car over at the bank, and I had to get it towed unfortunately which led me to think, now how am I supposed to get around? The next few days I took my dad’s jeep to work and school but then Tuesday came around and I realized then that it would be unfair for my dad to take the bus so we both came to an agreement that I should take the bus. As I walked towards the bus that morning, I realized we had a debate that morning in science class and I still had no clue what to say or even if my group would be willing to stick to our position. As I sat there, I realized that waiting for a bus can be tedious. I thought about my life, the weird things that would be happening or had happened in my life in the year that has gone by, and I then I wondered that you can’t make up some of these things. As the bus approached, I was amazed that for the first time in almost four years I was on a bus. I got on the bus and saw that there was maybe 3 people on there. As it got closer to the downtown area, I saw a guy getting handcuffed with 3 cop cars surrounding him near Fair Oaks and I then thought to myself  “This day is getting off to a fantastic start”.  I saw a somewhat attractive girl getting on the bus and it occurred to me that you can look “cute” and still ride the bus no matter how the circumstances may be. I was blaring the music through my headphones, thinking about this long journey that this bus takes, all the different people on it, everybody had or almost everybody had headphones on, and I was happy to be on that bus. It seemed that me getting on that bus for the next 2, 3, or maybe even 4 days gave me the lesson that you should never take anything for granted. Me having a car is and was still fun but there were times I didn’t appreciate how lucky I was. My dad and brother are trying there hardest to get it fixed and it should be ready within the next few days but transportation in any form really isn’t that bad. I would drive around to these far away places and I never once stopped to realize how horrible it was that I was living for that moment to be excited just to go somewhere. Taking a bus, I looked forward to school and this debate as well. It prepared me mentally to be prepared for school instead of just driving in a hurry. I got to school and I didn’t realize how big of a debate this was going to be until I saw the dividing groups and what there positions were. The debate was focused on whether we should drill in Alaska for oil or not. Some were pro ANWR drilling and others were not. We had the politicians, environmentalists, the natives, the fisherman, and the oil companies. For all intents and purposes, this debate seemed to be split down the middle as we had the argument of this is bad for the environment because of how much drilling is done to provide for America, it’s bad for the ocean, future generations will miss out on further opportunities, and the negative side mostly was all about money and what it could do for the United States. I felt sitting there that this was pretty epic because of the fact that I felt my team (Public) did present some very strong cases but seeing as how this is an environmental science class the good guy has to come out on top. It was amazing hearing the natives present there case as well because not many get to present there case such as they did. They did live on the land for quite a bit of time and the fact that they did get shafted shows how much people may actually care in the end. I was happy that the oil companies presented the argument of bringing in more jobs but what I found compelling is that this group only had two people and they still managed to get there point across. In the end of all this, the environmentalists were the ones that were voted as having the best argument due to how much of a case they made for America being able to drill elsewhere instead of just sticking to Alaska territory. I left promptly to catch the next bus available and waited gracefully as the next one came. This one felt like the old days when I would come home from middle school and the bus would be packed but in this case I had a place to sit. I sat there wondering, if the bus ever gets packed do people still keep there one open seat next to them? In my two days taking the bus, I have yet to see the case where even if the bus is packed would people still sit next to each other. A few hours passed and my brother had come to a decision to let me decide if he and I should take my mom out to eat for Mother’s day. I told him yes finally and I waited for my mom to come home so we could go out but then she told me aunt was coming over which was actually a surprise because I hadn’t seen my aunt in a while. But then I realized that my brother was going to bring his daughter and she can be a handful as she keeps growing up. I played with her a while while she tried to chase my dog out of the backyard but she keeps getting smarter everyday as she has that keen sense of intelligence. She is also growing up pretty fast and seeing her trying to put her two baby dolls to sleep is pretty funny because she believes they’re real. Having my Aunt there was pretty cool as I feel whenever she is there my mom seems like a much more positive person and her two daughters that were there are always willing to talk about anything when it comes to what is going with them. I had fun with that and it was nice to get to spend some quality time with some family members. As the day ended, I felt really tired and I asked myself this next day is going to be even more epic. Yesterday, I got onto the bus again and to pass the time I started doing some reading I had for POLI sci and the time went by much faster this time with me focusing on doing my reading. I got to school and went straight to the weight room and I did eventually tire myself out from so much exhaustion with the weights so I just called it a day at 12:10  and headed out to change and grab something to eat which I rarely do when I’m at school. I grabbed some food from whole foods and I was thinking if the A’s were playing thinking they might be ahead of the Rangers but turns out they got rained out! I just heard Chris Townsend blast the A’s for their lack of commitment to players and their ineptitude. I just kinda shrugged it because the A’s offense has to and will get better but then the most interesting part of my day started when I went to school to do a survey for my class. I headed off to school to do a survey that our professor had instructed for us to make up. I found my partner rather quickly the Monday before and she was rather attractive for my taste and plus add in the fact that she was very shy so I wanted to see if what one of my bosses at Big Red said was true. He told me last week about how he goes about hiring people and I remembered something he said and that was that “if you hire someone who is shy and who is to themselves they will eventually start to slowly break in and come out of there shell”. I saw her and I quietly observed that she is too herself but I enjoy talking to someone like that. We had a difficult time communicating the first day but yesterday was nice because I was able to reserve my judgments and I was able to have a decent conversation with her. We made our questions monday and they had to do with injustices, news, media, community, and also technology. We went around asking our questions and at first my partner and I felt our questions would fall flat. But, to our surprise most people were very open with their responses. My funniest moment was when we found my working buddy Walt and his girlfriend. I asked the questions and him and his girlfriend were very willing to answer the questions which more often than not led to some giggles. I then found this military guy who had a little bit to say and also my partner interviewed this middle eastern girl that had a lot about to say how she had been treated unfairly throughout her life and I could see that she didn’t complain about it but she would rather not have it happen like it does. As we were doing this, my partner was quite in fact talking a lot about what was going on in her life, her family, her up coming birthday which is pretty close to mine, and school as well. I was surprised that she had more to say than I did and right there I had this feeling that I might have been right about this shy girl thing. She talked about many different aspects of her life and I had quite a bit to say too and for some reason I didn’t want it to end but she had to go and take a test for her math class. With me having no car I caught the bus and I called my always trusting buddy Rick. Lately, Rick and I have been doing this weird voice that one of his friends from high school did and in this case we used it too. We combine it with the fact that some of our friends in life have used the phrase or some usage of “yeah man I think she likes me man”. We had a good chat and it is always good to catch up with him because we can get so busy but we forget that there are those people that have been there when it is good and bad. We caught up about our favorite baseball team the Oakland A’s but of course there wasn’t much to talk about because at the moment we know what we are getting with them anyway. They can only get better and I hope my friend shares the same thought as well. We caught up quite a bit and who knows maybe in the next week we’ll see each other once again. The rest of the evening was filled with taking my mom and the family out to eat for the special occasion of mother’s day. We stopped by the old stop El Amigo Burrito and we brought along our crowned jewel Jaz with us. She once again was a handful as she just wants to walk around and look at herself in the mirror which is a site to see because she doesn’t know that the magic of doing some of the things she is doing at that moment in her life is going to last her for that period. She didn’t want to eat and she just wanted to walk around. It was a good occasion for the family and it was one of the few times in the last few years that we have all gone out to eat. It was special because it made me optimistic that family will never go away and after a few tumultuous days I settled down to relax with my family and have a good two days with them. I hope I can have as good day or even two days like I did the past 2. Till next time and remember apparently the world is ending next week so stay safe!