Wednesday, December 31, 2008

Happy New Year!

Here are my NYR:

1) Read my Bible everyday
2) Work on my novel at least once a week
3) Try to post something at least once a day on my blog when I can
Sometimes I'm camping though...so just a heads up.

Have a great 09!

Abortion sucks

Abortion
–noun 1. Also called voluntary abortion. the removal of an embryo or fetus from the uterus in order to end a pregnancy.
Definition taken from dictionary.com

You know what I never got about abortion: why would anyone ever want to have one? To kill- oh sorry, political correctness: to remove- a fetus/an embryo- a growing, living piece of tissue!- from a mother serves no purpose in life (how ironic). Why, why, why?
Embryos and fetuses are living things.

By the definition of a living thing, it must satisfy 7 requirements (yay biology):

1) Grow and Develop- fetuses and embryos do this; their cells divide and they grow fingers...etc
2) Respond to stimuli- a stimulus (pl. stimuli) is a change in an environment; if someone threw a ball at you, you'd either catch it or run away. You'd also feel scared or nervous. Those are all stimuli. The most obvious no-science-y stimulus shown by fetuses and embryos are their fingerprints. Fingerprints are determined by the movement of the unborn baby as well as the mother. They respond to how their mother moves- a stimulus. Also, alcoholic mother may lead to some diseases in the baby- it changes based on the environment.
3) Homeostasis- the ability to maintain a stable environment. These unborn babies are warm blooded- they make their own heat. They can maintain a stable body temperature. They have hair to retain heat, etc.
4) Organization- living things need to be organized; cells make tissue, making organs, making organ systems, making a living being. Fetuses and embryos are made of cells, have organs...etc
5) Metabolism- metabolism is anything that needs energy (ie, eating). Unborn babies have umbilical cords which bring nutrients and food over which are converted into energy.
6) Evolve/ Adapt to surroundings- Genes from parents are passed on...leading to adaptations which help them survive- longer legs for running away, smarter for thinking, etc.
7) Reproduce- Later in life, they can reproduce.

So there we have it. Unborn babies are still alive, even though they are dependent on another being.

Brio and Beyond magazine points out in their January 2009 issue with the article "Know That You Know That You Know" that unborn babies are definitely not part of the mother. They have their own genetic code, therefore they are different beings. They could be a different gender, for crying out loud.

Federal law and 37 state laws state that killing a pregnant woman accounts for 2 charges of murder.

So unborn babies are, in fact, real living breathing things. Take it from science, take it from logic, take it from the law.

Therefore, doesn't a living thing get its choice if it dies or not?

Either way, whichever place you put your vote- dead or alive- you know life very explicitly. You're living it; you've been through a lot: good, bad, happy, sad...that one time you jammed your finger on the car door...that other time you were happy for the guy who won a million dollars on "Wheel of Fortune"...seeing the dead body of one of your friends after he died of cancer...that inevitable but rare boredness during winter break...prom night in high school...caramel and mint chip icecream at the parlor...fighting and yelling regretful things with your sister. We've been there, done that. There are good parts in life, and there are bad parts.

Now take your life however many years back so you're into the womb of your mother. Unwind it all so you go to the point of conception. And then she kills you.

Do you really want to do that? Can you even support that? Isn't that just one of the scariest things possible? To never have touched, smelled, tasted, laughed, saw, experienced, perceived, thought, ran, jumped, loved, hurt...

That really stinks.

Proverbs 31:8a (NIV): Speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves

Nosebleeds

Today I want to talk about nosebleeds.
I've been having them...since forever, I suppose. For the last week, I've had them while in the shower blowing my nose. (Yeah, yeah; hot showers and blowing noses are bad when you've been having nosebleeds.) In school, I used to miss entire periods (1 hour) because I was sitting in the health office with a tissue over my face. And once I even got to skip PE because I had a bad one early in the morning. (Oh yeah, my middle school nurse once said a Hail Mary over me...according to her, if I didn't stop within the next five minute she would have to send me to the hospital. I stopped. Sort of. I didn't want to go to the hospital so I kept sucking the blood back up into my nose.) And I have an ENT (ear, nose, throat doctor), who burned off a bit inside my nose to stop the blood vessel from doing something or another. They're (nosebleeds, not my ENT- he's nice) really annoying...painless, but really annoying.
I've always wondered why some people never get nosebleeds in their life and the others of us are plagued with them. Meh, whatever.

God made me special :)

Monday, December 29, 2008

Twilight- a MAN'S opinion

Twilight-by Stephenie Meyer

Half the girls say that Edward Cullen is the hottest man alive, the other half hate it. What should you think if you haven't read the book? Here's my opinion:

Twilight is a novel about Isabella (shortened to "Bella") Swan, who moves to Forks, Washington, to be with her father, Charlie. Bella notices a boy at school, Edward Cullen. Eventually she concludes he's a vampire from some legends from a Native American (Jacob Black). Bella loves Edward and Edward loves her back (blah blah blah, the usual love story stuff). Edward knows Bella knows he and his family are all vampires, so they don't keep it a secret from her anymore. As vampires, they have super abilities, like super strength. The Cullens choose not to drink the blood of humans, unlike other vampires, but the blood of animals. Soon, while the entire family and Bella are playing baseball in the woods (to avoid being seen by others), another human-blood drinking group of vampires discover them playing. One of the vampires, James, wants to drink Bella's blood. Eventually, James dies because Edward killed him, but not before James is able to harm Bella. Bella begs to become a vampire, but Edward won't let her.

Okay, now we have the book out in front of us, let's take a look, shall we?

The Good:
  • It has a good plot. Some action, little romance, very nicely done.

The Bad:
  • Half of the book is about how hot Edward is. Plot is slow to develop. Think of it this way: you know those plot lines you saw in high school? If the line were 10 inches long, it climbs up narrowly (very very narrowly) first, then spikes up at 8 inches and comes back down at 9.5 inches. Not that greatly presented, but it's not a bad story.


Note that the line does move up a little before the big spike. A little. It moves, though.


The Ugly:
  • There isn't that much ugly inside this book. There is one part that I thought was horribly ridiculous, and this is the most criticized part. Somewhere inside the "I love you"'s, Bella and Edward go into a meadow....which puts him in direct sunlight. When vampires are in direct sunlight (according to Meyer), they start glowing. Like with the light of a thousand glittering jewels. (Yeah...awkward.) That's the stupid part. What Bella and Edward say and what they do inside the meadow isn't that bad (just more "I love you"'s), but honsetly, glowing? That's a little too much.

Well there you have it: Twilight, the first book, for you...it's not horribly obsessive, but it isn't as long or as action-packed as Eragon so that way you can remember everything that happened.

7.5/10 stars.

Hey! I'm up and running!

Welcome to AsTheWorldChanges! This is my blog and I'm just going to post stuff here that's my opinion. Go ahead and take a look at what I think about the world around us as it changes.

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