Bullying forces girl to kill herself...

Nine teenagers from MA has been charged for bullying the 15 year old girl from South Hadley High School who killed herself in January. Two of them are charged with statutory rape. Phoebe Prince was from Ireland and transfered to South Hadley High School. After 3 months of being tortured through facebook and text she commited suicide.

She was dating an older football player and this created a problem because she was only a freshman. South Hadley is the town over from where I live and I know how this school system works. I played 4 years of basketball against them and I can say that it doesn't surprise me. I hated that school and hated playing there. I'm not saying everyone there is terrible because I am sure there are some very intelligent people there but I don't like it. The school is somewhat out of control. They have problems with drugs, fighting, and anything else that should be prevented.

South Hadley's high school has about 700 students and my high school had 500 students and we are right next to each other, yet our school systems are extremely different. I always had the feeling that South Hadley High School was out of control and that the faculty didn't do much to stop it. I have friends who went there and would agree with me.

I feel bad for this younger girl who had to kill herself because of how bad they were treating her. What is this world coming too? People are so happy with themselves if they can make someone else feel unworthy. I think this is really terrible.

T-PAIN!!!

The other day my friend was talking to me about a new thing that the rapper T-Pain was promoting. It's his new application that can be used on your ipod. It allows for the audio tuner to distort your voice like it does for his voice in his songs. This has been advertised everywhere and there are many YouTube clips of people singing with this incredible application. I recently purchased this application after seeing a remake of "Charlie Bit Me" and the President's last speech. I have been playing with it for the past few hours and it really is incredible. It allows for me to sing the lyrics to his music for songs such as "Kiss Kiss" or "Bartender." There are many other things I can do such as upload them to my face book wall and share them with the world. I wanted to tell everyone that if you were thinking of getting this do it! If you haven't heard of it then you should YouTube it because it is quite entertaining.

Girls Just Wanna Have Fun...

Constance McMillan is high school senior who wanted to go to her prom in a tux with her female date. She was told that she couldn't go to the prom with another girl and she went to court stating that her first amendments were being violated. She stated that she had been "out" since 8th grade and was planning on going to her senior prom with her "same-sex date." Luckily for her a judge agreed with her and they reinstated the prom because it was cancelled after this. The school officials had to allow all students to go to the prom and not discriminate because of someones sexual orientation.

I think this girl is very strong for standing up for what she believes in. She lives down south in a state that is very different from MA. They aren't liberal and don't typically agree to these types of acts but I think this girl set a pattern for change. A pattern that was going to happen eventually.

Mahalo ;)

During Spring break I travelled to Hawai'i. It was one of the most amazing experiences of my life. It was warm and sunny all week. I stayed on the Big Island in the city of Hilo. In Hilo it rains something like 277 days per year. But, the difference with the rain in Hawai'i and the rain in MA is that the rain in Hilo is warm and it can be on and off all day. One thing that I found really interesting was their radio stations. They only had a few stations that were local and none of the stations played newer music. All of the hip hop songs that I listen to and enjoy never made it to Hilo. My friend was listening to my ipod and couldn't believe all of the new songs that she hasn't heard. I thought it was weird that this would occur. I would think with how technologically advanced the United States is that it would be different?

Tsunami Scare!!!

On Friday Feb. 26th there was a massive 8.8 earthquake that happened just outside of Chile. This earthquake, which took place under the ocean, caused a bubble to occur. This bubble created a tsunami that was headed toward all of the Pacific Islands including Hawaii. I have a friend who is currently staying at the University of Hilo. While I was watching CNN they put up a map that showed the island and the only city they would show was Hilo. This was because that is where the tsunami was supposed to hit the worst. The tsunami was scheduled to hit Sat. Feb. 27th at 11:05 Hawaii time which was around 4pm here.

While the whole world was watching to see if the tsunami hit the small city my friend was texting me while she was hiking up a mountain to get as far from the bay as she could. This also gave them a good view of the bay so they could watch the waves. While we were texting she was saying that there were at least 4 helicopters ciricling around and filming the tsunami. CNN would show a time lapse video of water receding out into the ocean revealing a small reef and then the water.

The media definitely over dramatized the whole situation making the entire world panic. My friend in Hilo said thaty they were given warning 5 hours before it was supposed to happen. She said that people packed their things, went to breakfast, went shopping, and then went to the top of the mountain to watch it. She texted me pictures that showed hundreds of people on the mountain with telescopes, standing on their cars trying to see the bay, and even having barbeques. The media put most of the panic in everyone. Fortunately, the largest swell that Hill Bay received that day was 3 ft tall, which did not cause any damage.

I'm very glad this didn't destroy anything or cancel my spring break plans to go to Hawaii for 10 Days !!!! :)

Killer Whale!!!

At Sea World in Orlando, Florida on Wednesday Feb. 24th tragedy struck. One of the trainers, Dawn Brancheau was killed when a killer whale by the name of Tilikum dragged her underwater and drowned her. Visitors say that Dawn was standing on a platform when the 12,000 killer whale came barreling up behind her, grabbed her ponytail in his mouth and dragged her into the pool. Many people question whether SeaWorld should let Tilikum free or put it down. SeaWorld mentioned that they can't let him free because he was raised in captivity so he would not be able to survive on his own and they will not put him down because he is involved in much of the breeding that happens at SeaWorld and is the mate of several other whales there.

SeaWorld has postponed its killer whale show until all of the trainers have gone over the safety procedures and have also understood why Tilikum acted the way he did. This killer whale in particular was know to be involved in two other deaths in the past decade. In 1991 a woman fell in the pool in British Columbia. In 1999, a body of a man was found on Tilikum at the same SeaWorld in Orlando. The man had been said to die from hypothermia. Although the 1991 death was completely Tilikums fault. This recent accident was very tragic.