We need more handicap accessible things.

So for the past few years, my grandfather has been in and out of the hospital for different surgeries on his foot. He has diabetes and it has been affecting different parts of his body. He recently came home from a rehab that he had to stay at when he got out of his most recent visit to the hospital. I live with my grandfather and we are currently trying to make our house accessible to him.

He isn't able to walk and has very weak arms and legs from not being able to do anything for days on end. It's very hard to make our house accessible to him since we live in a house with two floors, and a basement. His room is upstairs and while I'm at work today, my aunt will be switching my room with my grandfather's. We just got a new recliner chair that makes it easier for my grandfather to get ino his wheelchair. We're now in the process of trying to get a ramp for him outside, either an actual ramp or one of those portable ones. Also, he isn't able to get out of his bed due to a recent injury to his neck from falling so many times and a hospital bed that would allow him to sit up and get up costs about $10,000, which we don't have.

I could keep going on and on, but I won't because I'm pretty sure you get the basic idea. My point in all of this is that there should be a lot better equiped and accessible things for handicapped people. Houses should be better built for unexpected circumstances like this, or costs shouldn't be so much so it would be easier to make things accessible in one's home. And it's hard for us to watch him and make sure he's okay because none of us are home during the week. Our house isn't the safest place for him right now, and I know he isn't the only one with this problem. :/

Chapter 11 Response!!

The part of the chapter that I found interesting was titled “Cooking Up You Own Story Ideas.” I found this interesting because now that I am the News Editor for The Comment, I have the responsibility of thinking up some new ideas for the issues.

The book broke up different ways of formulating ideas, which is what I took out of the chapter. Now when I am “cooking” up story ideas I know that I can start by thinking of a topic and then make some boundaries. From there I will be able to ask questions that will need an answer, which will form a story idea.

 I also need to make sure that I come up with stories that people will be interested in. Stories shouldn’t bore readers. It should intrigue them and answer the questions that they may have.

I guess I have learned a lot, but I also have a long way to go if I want to be a good journalist.  This chapter helped me realize that some of the approaches that we may think is okay when we’re covering stories may not be the “correct” or “better” way of doing it. This part of the chapter helped me a lot.

List of annoying things that happen at work..

So as lame as this sounds, I work in a fast food restaurant, Mcdonald's, and I am always in a drive thru. This is a list of things that are super annoying...

-When you tell me I have beautiful eyes, it's creepy.
-Make sure you know what you want before you get to the speaker.
-Read the menu.
-Don't pay in all coins, especially pennies. I've had that done to me before.
-Hitting on people that work in a drive thru is weird. We're covered in grease and smell like burnt french fries. Come on, now!
-Don't ask to add something on after we've totaled your order out. It takes so much more time to ring in a separate order, then try to find it on the screen.
-Do you really need to order no salt fries?
-Death glares? Really?
-Asking how much things cost is annoying. I just look at the total when it pops up on the register.
-We are NOT Dairy Queen or Friendly's.
-Whoppers are sold at BK
-Large Frappes have about 500 calories in them. Stop ordering them.
-If we tell you we will be right with you, don't start placing your order.
-We do not have the same specials as the Mcdonald's in Whitman. Our Big Macs are not $1. They are $3.71.
-Extra dipping sauce costs an extra $0.21 per dipping cup.
-BK is our neighbor. Go there once in a while for food. They never have customers.
-Order you food the way you want it when you order..not after.
-If our credit card machine isn't working and we have a huge sign saying it doesn't work, don't ask us if we're taking credit/debit cards. Also, don't get mad at us for something that's out of our control.
-Don't give us $50's or $100's.
-Waiting for you to dig for exact change is annoying. Either have it  at the window ready or don't give it to us.
-Don't tell us we're going to slow when you like took 200 seconds to order.
-$30 orders? Really?
-"I want a #2 with a large diet coke..." -_-
-Crew members aren't managers.
-We make your food. Careful what you say to us. (JOKE! we would never do anything to it! But it's a thought that crosses all our minds!)
-Why do you need a tray for one drink?
-Our sweet teas are already extremely sweet (and tasty!) why do you need more sugar??

Okay. I know this may sound extremely mean..but it is stuff that's annoying at work. It's not my ideal job. I would much rather be working with clothes or something, but it pays for my car! :D but seriously, all this stuff happens. And when people say smartass remarks to me, it takes everything for me not to freak out on them or jump out the window into their car.

Well, I hope this entertained you today! :D

This is going to be short but.....

So I would normally write an actual blog, but I thought I would share this real quick..

Due to an unfortunate and unexpected vacancy, I am now officially the News Editor for The Comment. Meetings are at 6:30 pm Tuesday nights at the lounge chairs in front of OSIL if anyone is interested. We are always looking for new faces! (:

Need some inspiration?

Nick Vujicic

Click this. It's very inspirational, moving, and I do believe you might have your eyes tear up. I did. But this is just amazing. My aunt showed it to me.

My twitter addiction?

So recently I discovered that I am in fact, a twitter addict. I have no idea why because I used to think it was the dumbest  thing ever created and now I'm up to almost I believe 1000 tweets. I have 60 followers and follow like 150 people, a lot about or who are in my favorite tv show. I'm not sure really why I am writing about this yet, though.

But think about it: All you are doing on twitter is writing statuses about your life. Who cares, right? Maybe I like it because of the mere fact that you do everything you can to try to get more followers. It's almost like a contest. But if this is the reason I love tweeting, then that's a bit odd considering that I hate competition. Hm. I guess I will have to ponder this a bit more...in any case....

Oh wait! I forgot! You can post pictures up on twitter. They are called twitpics. How original, huh? They also have twitvid. Also, when you tweet, you can have a tracking thing that tells your followers the location of where you are tweeting. Pretty much, twitter is a stalking website. XD

follow me at xocolleenmarie ;)

One more thing before I go to bed...Positivity.

I had a bad day today. An extremely bad day. But instead of feeling sorry for myself and going on a rant about everything going on in my life, I thought I would help myself by posting positive things about myself and my life.

I'm a strong independent person who has come over numerous obstacles in my life. I can take all these emotions and write it into a story or poem and it will come out fantastic.
I'm a good, hard-working student who had anyways, for the most part, gotten good grades.
Apparently I have beautiful eyes according to numerous people in the drive thru of my work. WTF? 
I have money!
I always know that no matter what problems I have, I can go to my aunt and talk about them. Whether I actually do it or not is a different story.
Apparently I also have cute outfits I wear.
I work well with children and they love me.
I can get along with pretty much anyone.
My life is good even though it may not seem like it at times.
I will be successful in whatever I choose to do with my life.
People are jealous of my natural curly hair.
I can act.
I can sing.
I can dance.
I can write.
I'm good at all of the above.
I'm not fat.
I'm not completely ugly..
I have awesome friends!
Even though she hasn't lived with me since I was 13, I have an awesome mom!!!
I am the News Assistant for The Comment.


Hm. Okay. This is enough. And it helped! Now i'm going to sleep because I'm falling asleep at my computer. Night(:

Reading for Class. Blah.

One thing that really stuck out for me was at the beginning of the Chapter 7 in The New Journalist about who a journalist really is. I think it stuck out because it's something that I think about a lot. If anyone can post whatever they want online , what is considered journalism in today's modern world?

Think about it. Wikipedia. Anyone can go onto it and add whatever they would like to the site and BAM! You have information on whatever topic you are interested in. What kind of information is that? Seriously. If you can post whatever you want without any reliable sources, what kind of journalism is that? This would be the reason why when we write papers, we aren’t allowed to use Wikipedia. I have to admit, though, it’s funny to read information that makes absolutely no sense on there. :P

(Honestly, I'm half asleep right now typing this, but I think what I'm saying is kind of making sense....)

Before I end this little post, I want to point out that the ten elements for good journalism struck my interest. I think this is a good thing to follow when looking at or writing a news article. The first two, “Journalism’s first obligation is to the truth” and “It’s first loyalty is to its citizens” are both important. Journalism should speak and reveal the truth for its citizens and readers. In my high school, our newspaper was named The Veritas, which translated to The Truth. We based our paper on truth and facts and won awards at journalism conferences for our good journalism and our well-written stories. This is what journalism should be based on, not on phony false information on these kind of sites going around.

This is a bad post on my part. I’m not happy with the outcome of it. I thought it would be better and I wish I had more time to post it.  Well, enjoy!

So in my social work class...

Well, I was going to write about how the world isn't going to end in 2012, but I didn't feel like going on my rant today or getting bombarded with comments saying that I'm wrong. Either that would have happened or a debate would have been started. So in any case, I decided I wanted to write a short something on a video I watched in my Human Behavior class.

So in my class yesterday, we watched this video on hysteria. It went all the way back to the 1920s, maybe earlier. Anyways, what really got me was the section on WWI when soldiers would all of a sudden be caught in this hysteria and wouldn't be able to do certain things. For example, soldiers would be admitted to hospitals because they would be twitching or admitted because they couldn't walk properly. Numerous of these cases were found and thousands of soldiers suffered from this.

At the time, it was considered not "manly" enough because only women were seen to suffer from this due to stress and high anxiety levels. Men were given shock therapy and talk therapy to try to knock this case of hysteria out of them. Shock therapy didn't necessarily work and talk therapy was a long process. Men were sometimes executed because of this "disease."

After the long process of talk therapy, they started seeing improvements in these men. They were able to function normally, walk normally, talk normally, etc. The cause of the hysteria? Suppression in the unconscious of memories from war, fear, anxiety. What does this prove? That even in today's world, we suppress tragic moments in our lives to try to forget them so we don't have to relive them. The problem is that no matter what, those memories are still in our mind somewhere and it affects our everyday lives. Depression, sleeping disorders, anxiety are what I see as proof of tragic events haunting us everyday.

In today's society, there's less talk therapy and more "poppin' " of pills. I say this phrase because individuals are now given prescriptions to help chemical imbalances in the brain. Talk therapy may take a very long time but it's better than risking the side effects of pills. But that's what our society is built on today. "The easy way out" or "less work to do."

I don't know. Maybe that's just my opinion.

While I am sitting in the RCC Lounge area...

So, I figured since I have to go to a section meeting in a half hour, I would share some random, facts about me. (:

*My middle name is Marie.
*I haven't lived with either parent since I was 13.
*I am 20.
*My favorite color is blue.
*I am obsessed with the TV show The Vampire Diaries.
*With that said, I think vampires are awesome, but I would never be creepy about my obsession. ;)
* I'm a double major in Social Work and Communication Studies, but I'm coming to enjoy my comm studies classes a lot.
*I have had the same boyfriend since June 13, 2009.
*One of my best friends is a freshman here at BSU.
* I'm a shy person, but once you get to know me, I'm extremely loud, obnoxious, and fun!
*I have one sister and two brothers, but one of my brother's lives with my dad.
*I love anything that has to do with theatre and dance <3
*My favorite teacher in high school was Chad Bigsby, my English teacher Junior year, because he really opened us all up to the world of literature and writing without it being tedious and boring. It was my favorite class in high school. He really prepared us for college as well as the process for getting into college. He wrote one of my recommendations.
*I have 25 minutes until my section meeting.
*I don't know how to use gmail. It's too complex for me! :x
*I was 4'11 until about halfway through my sophomore year in high school. Now I'm only 5'2. I just hit that mark in December.
*I want to move south. Preferably Georgia. I love it down there. Don't judge me! :P
*I'm bored.
*I love recording and editing videos!
*Okay. I'm done. Mostly because I have to go to the bathroom and I feel like I've rambled enough. haha. Alright byeee y'all!

This is what I woke up to this morning...

So can I just say that I woke up to one the most bizarre stories I've ever heard? Listen to this:

I was woken up this morning by the news talking about a murder and pizza. Legitimately, that was all I heard. I went back asleep, and woke up a bit later to the same story, but again, I missed it. After my class, I went to hang out with my friend because I had a three hour break between my two classes and decided to look it up online in the Boston Globe. Apparently, there were these three "kids" who ordered up a pizza and lured the pizza delivery guy inside of this house that they were hanging out in. This delivery guy was in his 50's and working two jobs to pay for his kids to attend college. He was stabbed and murdered inside this house, and the pizza was stolen. The kids not only stole the pizza, but took $100 from the delivery guy and took off in his car. A little bit away from the scene, the car was found with the pizza box inside of it and all but three slices were eaten. The suspects pleaded not guilty.

You know, I've heard a lot of messed up things, especially the town I live in, but this is definitely in my top. I mean, who in their right mind does that? Who murders a guy like this for pizza and then pleads not guilty?? Honestly...what is this world coming to? I would love to hear the reasoning as to why they thought this was okay. I'm sorry, but this just angers and upsets me. 

If you want to read some of the articles for yourself, you can go to these websites I found from The Boston Globe: 

http://www.boston.com/news/local/breaking_news/2010/09/three_accused_o.html?camp=obinsite
http://www.boston.com/news/local/breaking_news/2010/09/friend_says_tri.html

Hi. My name is Colleen and I am a Junior at Bridgewater State University with a double major in Social Work and Communication Studies (concentration in media studies). This is due to the fact that I am extremely into social issues and the well being of kids and adolecents, but I also love writing and anything that has to do with journalism. I'm not sure what I want to do with these majors, but I know I would love to make awareness for physically, sexually, and verbally abused children and adolescents through journalism somehow.

I write for The Comment, the student-run newspaper here at school, and I am the News Assistant this year. Hopefully next year I will be the news editor or some sort of editor. That would be cool! I started writing for the news section at the beginning of my sophomore year, and loved every part of it, which is when I decided to pick up Comm Studies as a second major. I also wrote for my high school's newspaper, The Veritas, when it was offered as a class my Junior and Senior year. I was the feature editor my Senior year.

In addition to all of this, I love acting, singing, dancing, etc. I came here as a  Theater major, but the program here just didn't appeal to me, so I dropped it. I am a believer in everything happens for a reason, so even though it hurt me to drop something I love, I also think it was for the best. I would still love to go into acting and become famous on film one day, but people have put a lot of doubt in my mind about that happening that I don't think it will.

That was an introduction to myself. Now on to the reasons for the blog!

I feel that everyone in this day in age uses the computer somehow in their everyday lives. It's something we've become dependent on. Blogs aren't only to share information about ourselves, but they are also used to relay important information to those readers interested. Now I can't sit here and honestly tell you what my blog will be about. I have no idea. I know my last blog, which I don't remember the password to, was going to focus on social work issues because I thought people would read it. Maybe that's what I will do here,  but only time will tell. And it doesn't help that I can't sit here and say, "I have to for my class..." (insert sad face here). Can you tell I have an informal side of me as well? (:

Anyways, I want to make this blog as interesting as possible so I don't bore people to death. I want to appeal to my audience. I want to be able to have them relate to what I write and in order to do that, I can't always write "formally" on a blog. With news articles I obviously can. With that said, I'm sorry, but if I feel a smiley face is needed on my blog, I will insert it. But that's just me. :D

I'm a very opinionated person as well, and I will state what needs to be said, but my goal is to try not to offend anyone. I'm not racist, I'm not homophobic, etc. But if something comes of as so, do tell me and I will fix it or word it differently. Does that make sense? I hope so.

I will also try not to drag on about my personal life to much, rather, the ups and downs of it. There's a lot of drama in my life right now, but no one wants to hear about it. Why blog about something like that? That's what friends, family, and personal diaries or journals are for!! (:

Since this is my blog, but also my class blog, I will posts things I want to post up here, but probably not much since I am talking six classes and working and probably won't have a lot of time to posts my random stuff.

I hope this makes sense. I know it's very long and seems tedious to read, but I tried to make it less boring and more interesting. I tried to get small laughs here and there. Hope it worked!! ^_^