Facebook

I think that Facebook is the most distracting thing for people my age. I am guilty of being an FB user, but I don't even know why I go on it. I just log onto my page and stare and for some reason you can spend hours on it. I used to go on it every day, but now I'm realizing I could be doing more with my day than reading about how horrible John Dow's day was, or what Mary Jane has to do tomorrow. People write the stupidest things in their status. I don't care if someone is eating ice cream while watching the Amazing Race, or if someone is going to take a nap before there next class. These are real ones that I've read before.
Facebook is so distracting because I'll be doing something on the computer for school and I'll go to Facebook just to see if anything new has happened, then I start looking at other peoples profiles, then someone starts chatting me and next thing you know it's midnight and I still have to type a 3 page essay. For example, I have to write this blog for Written Communications and I'm Facebook chatting two other people right now and every time I can't think of anything to write, I go onto my Facebook page. So I could have had this blog done by now but I only have half of it done all because of Facebook.
It seems like all of my friends have the same feelings towards FB. They have one and go on it all the time, but they don't even like it and say they're going to get rid of it soon. I also have these same feelings for it. I hate admitting that I go on Facebook a lot but it's true. The only real reason that I have it now is so I can keep in touch with all my friends that went away for school, so I think that's a pretty good reason for having it.

South Dakota

My family and I went to South Dakota a few times in my life. Although it doesn't seem to be the most exciting place to be in the world, it can be pretty fun. We went when I was about 4 or 5 years old. Again when i was 13, and once more when I was 14 years old. The most exciting place seems to be Mt. Rushmore, but there's a lot better places than that. We went to a place called the Bad Lands. Its a very dry and hilly area in South Dakota named after the Indians. It's pretty amazing because you can look out over them, and see miles and miles of hills with no civilization. Another cool monument besides Mt. Rushmore that's in South Dakota is Crazy Horse. It's still in the process of being finished. Crazy Horse is named after a famous Indian Chief who was murdered under a peace flag. The monument is of Crazy Horse riding a horse. It's supposed to be Man-Kinds biggest art project and it's been worked on for over 60 years and not even close to being finished.

When you think of South Dakota, a lot of people just think of flat, boring ground with nothing to do, but when you get out to the western part of South Dakota, it's very hilly and has lots of mountains. Rapid City is the city where Mt. Rushmore was built and also is the most Mountainous region of South Dakota. The car ride out there was not very fun. My family of five had to squish into a tiny Mercury Sable. And I was stuck in between my 2 older sisters for over 10 hours. It was hell. The animal life is different from here. You'll be driving down a road and all of a sudden there will be a giant buffalo in the middle of the road. There's also fields of prairie dogs popping their heads in and out of their burrows. Mountain goats climb all over the hills in the western part of the state. It's a totally different atmosphere. We also went to the hotel that was featured in the old movie North by Northwest. One day, our whole family went on a hike and my mom almost passed out because of the high altitude. Another interesting place to go to in South Dakota is Wall Drug. It's the biggest drug store in the U.S., at least when we went there. There's signs promoting Wall Drug at least 400 miles before you get there. They say things like "Free ice water at Wall Drug", or "5 cent coffee at Wall Drug." My mom and dad even saw one when they went to Europe.

Although South Dakota doesn't seem like a very exciting place, you'll be very surprised.

Bad Weather

The weather has been so crazy lately. We had no fall season at all, at least so far. It is only mid-October but it feels like mid- December already. Our summer was pretty mild in the Mid-West, so I hope that means the winter will be as well. Although, I don't think that's going to be the case. I think that mother nature is going to totally skip over fall and go right to winter. We haven't even had any 60% weather. That's the whole good thing about fall is that we go from scorching hot summer to nice breezy fall. But instead we go to bone chilling winter. I don't know if we have Global Warming to blame for this or what, but I don't like it.
It snowed for the first time the other day and it's only October 15th today. I usually get excited for the winter, but this year I'm just dreading it. It's going to be long, cold, and pain full. Winter used to be so fun when you were little. You could run around in the snow and make snow men, have snow ball fights, go sledding. And when you would come home you drink a big mug of hot chocolate and snuggle up in a blanket. But now its just a pain to drive in and I'm cold for three months.
The weather hasn't been bad just because of the cold. It's also been raining for almost a month straight now. I think we've had maybe 5 nice days in the past month. Every where I go now I need to bring a poncho. I just can't wait until spring comes. The only thing I'm looking forward to this winter is skiing and snowboarding, but I might not even be able to do that since it costs a fortune. Hopefully I'll find something to do this long boring winter.

Driving

I live in Trempealeau and I have to drive to school in La Crosse every day. For those who don't know, the distance between the two cities is about 25 miles. To some people, that number may not be very large compared to how far they have to drive, but for most people it's far, and it's not very fun. In the morning I feel like falling asleep on the way to school because I'm so tired and the drive feels never ending, but don't worry. Depending on what traffic is like, those 25 miles can take anywhere from a half an hour to over an hour.

Some days I have class at 9 O'clock in the morning, and other days I have class at 10 O'clock in the morning. The difference between the two times is night and day when dealing with traffic. At 10, there's hardly anyone out on the road. You don't have to worry about crazy drivers ridding your tail, or long lines at stop lights. But at 9, it's a whole other story. There's cars flying by you on the free way. People are not paying attention, talking on their cell phones and doing their make up. And forget about going the speed limit. People piratically run right into you trying to get around you even if you're going 70 mph.

When I finally get to school there's a whole other obstacle. There's no where to park. I can usually find a spot in the parking lot when I have class at 9, but the rest of the days I have to park 6-7 blocks away. I think if people are blowing their money on a $70 parking pass, they should at least get a parking place so they don't have to drive around trying to find a spot on the street. Westerns whole parking theory is horrible. They have an unlimited amount of parking passes but only a certain amount of spots. I think that's a little ridicules.

It's the same story on the way home as in the morning. I get done at noon on some days, and 3:30 on other days. At noon it's a nice relaxing drive home, but at 3:30 the roads are so congested that I'm thinking of just riding a bike home because I'd get there faster. Hopefully this whole experience will pay off in the end. I don't even want to know what it's going to be like in the winter.

Six Cats

Many people may think that living with six cats might get on your nerves after a while, and it does. I still live at home with my parents, but I’m seriously considering moving out soon because of our cats, and because I don’t want to live with my parents forever. I live with six cats at my home and they are a real handful. Their names are Violet, Gordon, Annie, Maggie, White Cat, and Black Cat. We have never gone out looking to buy a cat. We’ve never wanted pet cats. They all have just showed up at our house with my older sister.

My sister, Jennifer, has brought all of the cats we own to our house unannounced and now my parents and I are stuck with them now that Jennifer has moved out. I do admit that I don’t mind the cats that much. They’re usually outside most of the time, but when they are all in the house at the same time, I feel like punting them across town. Our oldest cat, Violet, came home with my oldest sister about ten years ago when she decided to adopt an unwanted cat from her boy friend’s. The second oldest, Gordon, was a stray that showed up to our house one day. We felt sorry for it so we made the mistake of feeding him, and he has lived with us ever since. Annie and Maggie were a double package. We got them when my dad, sister, and I were driving down a country road and were forced to swerve into the ditch to dodge two little dots sitting in the middle of the road. These little dots were Annie and Maggie. They were in the middle of the country with no home in site. They had weird cuts and wounds all over and weren’t even old enough to eat on their own. My sister nursed them back to health, and they too have been living at our home ever since. The most recent case was two cats, one a white male and the other a black female. They go together pretty nicely. They have names, but my mom keeps changing them, so I just call them White Cat and Black Cat. They came from one of my sisters friends. Her friend was moving away so she couldn’t have them anymore. Her dad was going to shoot them so my sister swooped in to save them and dump them on us. At this time, my sister was moved out of the house.

When I tell people that I live with six cats, they think I’m crazy. They can’t imagine living with six little fury, scratchy, noisy, sneaky, jumpy, stinky cats, but now that I think about it, I’ve lived with them for so long I can’t really imagine not living with them.