Apple Orchard

 

    This past weekend I went to the apple orchard with my best friend. Unfortunately, I didn't get to take any pictures of us together, but I enjoy the moment when I'm with her. I hadn't seen my friend in a while especially since I started school so this was the perfect time to see each other. She spent the night at my house so that we could wake up early and go to the apple orchard before it became crowded. In the morning, we hauled ourselves out of bed and made our way to the apple orchard. Even though we got there early, there was already a large crowd of people. Being at the apple orchard was a nostalgic experience because I hadn't been to the orchard since I was in elementary school. 

    Our experience started by getting on a tractor that took us all the way to the areas where you can pick all different kinds of apples. Unfortunately, most of the apples were already picked or had fallen off the trees so we had to walk to another area with more trees where we found some apples. The sun was beating down on us and our hands were turning red from holding our heavy bags of apples. We got back onto the tractor and headed back to the gift shop/ bakery.  The second you enter the bakery, you experience a wave of the smell of apples and cinnamon. We both bought fresh cider and apple donuts but everywhere you look, you can find so many different freshly made products and snacks. 

    After spending too much time inside the gift shop, we paid for our apples and our other findings. We decided that it would be best to take our stuff back to the car and then return for the other fun activities. My arms were ready to give out by the time that we made it back to the car. It was a very hot day and there was no shade so the sun was on you at all times but that didn't stop us from going into the corn maze. I gave up trying to read the map on my phone so my friend read the map the whole time and directed us towards the exit. My shoes were covered in sand and dirt by the time that we made it out of the maze but it was definitely still a fun experience. 

    We ended the trip by going to the kid's petting zoo. There was no petting involved since the animals are surrounded by fencing and considering the fact that most of them were sleeping or avoiding the tiny hands wiggling through the holes of the fence. They had goats, ducks, donkeys, and more. We took pictures of the animals and decided that we were both very hot and it was time for our trip to end. We both ran to the car where we could sit in the air conditioning and enjoy our apple cider slushies. I went home regretting the fact that I went out instead of finishing my homework but I think that I would do it all over again. School can become really overwhelming especially when you stop doing things that you love. I may have had to stay up later than usual to finish my work but at least I got to have fun before doing it. 

Exams

    

    Last week I ended the week thinking that I have two exams coming up and everything was going to be fine. I made Quizlets, worked on study guides, I even took practice exams, and yet I still felt like I didn't know everything. I looked over the slides that the teachers had gone over in class and yet I still felt like I wasn't fully prepared. I entered class today and I was so nervous for my first exam. I wasn't really sure what to expect. Overall the whole experience wasn't too bad, I felt like time was flying by as I moved along in the test. Towards the end, tons of students were getting up to leave and turn in their tests, and I began to rush. I felt like I was taking too long to answer the questions and I was going to run out of time. I hope that I did well on the exam because the material will only get harder as time goes on. 

    I recently learned that I now have an additional 2 more exams to study for and I have no clue how I am going to fit all of this information into my brain. I feel as though I need a better way to study and someone to struggle with. I am already overwhelmed and I don't know how I am going to get out of these four years of college alive. Four years seems like forever at this point and I hope to find better ways of getting through all of the work. I hope that anyone reading this does well on their exams and I wish nothing but the best for you. I am always open to new friends and having more people who feel the same way that I do. 

Update: I passed :)

My Sunshine

   

    I am starting off this post by saying that I genuinely could not come up with something to write about. I feel like I am just not a very creative person when it comes to writing. I decided I was going to talk about someone very special in my life. Recently my boyfriend, Luke and I celebrated our 2 year anniversary. We started dating at the beginning of our junior year in high school. I would have never gotten the courage to talk to him but one of my friends was trying to help him find a girlfriend and decided to set us up. Ever since we started dating, we have been inseparable. We do almost everything together and he can't get rid of me. 

    I had no idea that someone could have such a big impact on my life. Lately I have been super stressed out about school and rethinking my decision to become a nurse. I feel like I am slowly sinking into a hole and I don't know if I will be able to pull myself out of it. Going into college I knew that becoming a nurse was going to be hard work but yet I decided that I still wanted to persevere. I am going to be honest, I am very lazy and nursing requires you to study everyday and treat it like a full time job. My boyfriend pushes me every day to do my work and always gives me encouragement when I need it. He is always there for me and will always listen to my worries.  He gives me the motivation that I need when I can't seem to give it to myself. 

    We have the greatest memories together and there is never a dull moment. We share many laughs together and even through bad times we always find a way to cheer each other up. He constantly reminds me to not be so hard on myself. If I ever begin to doubt myself, he is the first one to scold me and remind me that I really am not as bad as I think. I don't know how he deals with me or why but I'm glad that he doesn't regret his decision. I don't want to go on and on about our relationship because someone reading this is probably cringing at the topic that I chose to write about for the week. I just thought that it would be nice to share this part of my life with someone. 

Guided Reflection - Chasing Coral

   

     For this documentary project, I have chosen a documentary called Chasing Coral. I feel that the name really suits the documentary because as shown in a large amount of this documentary, they are literally chasing different coral reefs around the world that are beginning to die. Something about this documentary that really surprised me was how the divers were able to install these underwater cameras. The documentary shows many scenes of the scuba divers going underwater and installing cameras to take pictures of the bleaching process. The divers have to work together to hammer these cameras into the bottom of the ocean and it shows them fighting the gravity as they're trying to work. Their only way to communicate with each other is by sign language. At one point of the documentary, they realize that installing these cameras isn't working so they have to go underwater every single day to take pictures with a camera. The reason why I think that this caught me off guard was because sometimes it's hard enough to work with a group and you are able to speak to each other and you're not trying to fight gravity. They must work together to get the job done while also having little resources. 

    A specific scene that got to me was the scene where they showed that the coral reefs were fluorescent and not many people knew why. At this point of the documentary, the divers had to go underwater every day and some divers had about 60 sites that they had to visit. Over time they showed the process of the coral dying and it almost made me emotional. The coral would start out as a beautiful, colorful reef and as time went on, the coral began to turn white and then it would eventually die and grow algae. Coral reefs provide protection and food for tons of underwater creatures and now these beautiful corals are dying because of rising temperatures. They even began to become fluorescent which was their way of giving off a chemical sunscreen in hopes to reduce the temperature around them but even though its beautiful to look at, its actually dying. 

    Corals provide food for millions of people around the world and most importantly they protect us by absorbing the heat. Coral reefs absorb the heat so that the surface temperature of the planet can be lower. We continue to neglect coral and we fail to realize how much we are hurting the planet and how it affects us. The divers were taking pictures of corals dying every day and the people around them were oblivious to the things happening around them. It made me so sad to see how fast coral is dying and yet not many people know about it. I personally didn't know much about this topic until I watched this documentary and little did I know that coral plays such an important role in protecting the earth. It almost made me wonder what else I am oblivious to and what else surrounds me that plays a role in protecting us and keeping us alive. 

    A question that remained after viewing this documentary is, are these corals continuing to rapidly die to this day? I know that global warming is still happening and continuing to progress but are corals also continuing to rapidly die. What else are we doing to save the coral bleaching and global warming? We are are at a day and age where we have so much technology at our fingertips and so many resources but yet we continue to neglect the earth and one day we will reach the point of no return. I wondered how if my parents knew much about coral bleaching so I told them about the documentary that I watched and they were amazed by the information I was telling them. They had no clue that this pretty piece of coral could actually reduce the heat around us while also feeding its self by producing its own food and continuing to do all of this while protecting, and feeding the fish.  

    We might avoid including research in our summaries because unless you are writing a summary on something that was just recently produced, the facts may have changed from then. My documentary was created in 2017 and the facts shown in this are no longer the same as they are now. Our summaries are based on the facts in these documentaries and if you begin to include updated research then it can contradict what was shown in the documentary. The research may take away the point being made in the documentary by showing other views of the subject.