To Give Thanks

Every year the time comes to gobble til you wobble.  Thanksgiving is a cherished holiday for some, while others focus their time and efforts on the bigger picture, BLACK FRIDAY. You put up with ridiculous lines, grumpy smelly people, and getting run over with carts just to get a good deal.  This year stores are making things even more “special” by beginning the sales even earlier and starting on Thanksgiving night. Which forces workers to come in on this special holiday and for what to save you a couple bucks? What on earth were retailers thinking?  Everyone who works in retail will tell you, it’s just not fair that shoppers are taking away their holiday.

How about a reality check for those cry babies?  Let’s consider this; you don’t hear people who work in the healthcare field that sometimes have to spend every holiday away from their family crying about it. Nor do you hear about people who have loved ones in the service and can’t be home for the holidays complaining like them.  Not one of them is throwing a fit about working the holidays.  Yet people who work in retail fuss every single year about having to go into work on Thanksgiving.  How about you try to be thankful for any time you get to spend with your family because in reality you are lucky to be able to spend any of that day with your loved ones.

Black Friday sales are only going to get more extreme every year due to the simple fact that people aren’t going to stop shopping as long as it is available.  Instead of being so negative about it you should be thankful for your family and that you actually have a job.  Isn’t that the whole meaning of the holiday anyways, to give thanks. 

Vaccinattions, good or bad? The real truth.

Today, one of the major debates I see all the time is whether or not to vaccinate your child.  Many people I know are at the stage of having kids and deciding what’s best for their child.  Not having children myself, my judgment may be a little bit different than someone who does.  I feel that the pros of vaccinating outweigh the cons of not doing so and that children should continue to be vaccinated as they have been for years now.

One debate towards not vaccinating is the risk of your child having a life threatening adverse reactions to the vaccine, but that child would be worse off if they were to catch a disease such as measles or whooping cough. All parents want to protect their children but everything out there today runs the risk of hurting them.  Vaccinations offer a greater chance of helping a child than they do harming them. Another illogical reason for not vaccinating is the fact that such diseases aren’t seen in today’s society.  This however just proves that the vaccines are doing their job.  I was vaccinated and everyone I know has been vaccinated, because of this we grew up not worrying about catching any of those illnesses. The lack of vaccinations in today’s society has opened up the opportunity for these diseases to reemerge.  In the past years there also been false research stating that vaccinations are the cause of Autism.  Such false statements about vaccinations put a negative light on something that has saved thousands of lives.  Although many people wouldn’t think such diseases could be an issues in the United States today because of the advances in medicine, but not everyone was alive during the time when preventable disease were killing people daily. 

Essay #3

Sit. Stay. Play Dead.

Dogs have always been a huge part of my life.  I grew up with them and now have two of my own.  Recently, I became more interested in shelters and the whole idea behind them.  After adopting a puppy from the shelter and a puppy from a rescue in Detroit, my desire to know more began to grow.  All this led me to what topic I want to write my comparison essay about.  I am going to show the different views between kill animal shelters and no-kill animal shelters.  I’ll use these different views on over population, treatment of unwanted animals, and animal rights to support my opinion that all animal shelters should establish a no-kill policy.   

The Simplicity of Classical Music

In his TED talk, “The Transformative Power of Classical Music,” Benjamin Zander enlightens the audience with the untold side of classical.  Zander speaks passionately of his desire for everyone to love and understand classical music.  Zander is optimistic towards what classical music can bring to us as well as what having such an open mind can offer.

Zander makes the topic of classical music interesting with his humor and energy.  Most people including myself would have never looked into classical music so closely without someone making it so simple.  Zander’s examples such as the young boy developing his skills over the years playing piano or teaching us to think specifically about the vision or long line during the prelude are very insightful.  To have such an open mind towards classical music could to other things as well and I think that is what Zander is trying to convey.  

Watch for yourself.