lost memories

In the book within chapter five, it gives us this great article about Yoshikazu Ehara. When he was 80 years old he was diagnosed with the Alzheimer's disease. This document gives a great representation of what a person with this disease goes through. It has not only affected him, but his family as well. This is the story of him and his wife. I love how throughout the entire story, they give pictures to help guide you along. It pulls you in deeper, like that fish hook effect. Now, for Yoshikazu, life has become a daily struggle. He puts on pants as if they were a shirt or he will talk to a doll all evening long about the day he has had without even realizing he is talking to no one. His sleep cycles are all sorts of messed up. He wakes up in the middle of the night and takes naps sporadically throughout the day while his wife, Sakae, waits for the caregiver to arrive from the nursing home. And he is constantly saying that he has to leave when no one really knows where to or why he wants to go. His story is just one of thousands that go unheard. People with Alzheimer's have to fight for their memories. When they disappear, it could take a miracle to bring them back.

undercover

When I was 16, I was approached by a cop while getting gas. Now, when a cop approaches anyone, their first reaction has got to be, "what did I do?" Don't lie, you have all thought it. Anyway, I hadn't done anything that I knew of and what he ended up asking me made me feel full of power. He asked me to help him bust bars for underage drinking--undercover. I felt so cool that he asked me! All I had to do was go to a few bars and restaurants with him throughout the day and order alcohol. How hard could it be? The officer proceeded to tell me that I also would get paid by the hour. The way I heard it? I got paid to talk, eat, and order beer.

When I go out to eat with my mom, on occasion, the waitress will end up reading me the drink menu because I look older than I am. So I thought that this was going to be a breeze. WRONG! The first waiter laughed at me and said come back in 5 years. It ended up being a common theme at the next 3 restaurants I went to. I felt stupid for even trying. I was constantly getting laughed at for thinking I could order alcohol, especially in the bars! Finally, we went to this local bar out in Washington. It looked like a little run down shack, and was apparently know for selling to minors. The rule with the officer and I was that I would walk in first and grab us a table and menus. Then he would come in later. When he finally came down and sat, we ordered our food and I asked for the drink menu. The bartender actually brought it back to me! when I placed my order for a Miller Light, she asked to see my I.D. and I thought for sure I was busted. What happened next shocked both of us.

This bartender was a 5 foot nothing, bleach blonde, tattooed girl who seemed like she didn't care
about anything, but she was super sweet. when she took my I.D. from me, she held it up to the light, squinted, and said, "alright one miller light coming up!" Uh, WHAT?  Highlighted on my license in florescent yellow, are the dates for when I turn 18 and 21. How did she not see it? Or did she even look. If you were going to fake reading my license, I would make it look a little more believable than what she had done. She ended up getting herself a fine of $150 and then the entire institution got fined another $500 for selling to a minor. This equaled to a lot of paper work, which meant more hours on the job, which meant more money. I was completely fine with that! What a way to end that day!

After everything was said and done, that was our one and only bust, but it was so much fun to be apart of something like that. Since then I have been asked to continue on helping them with their alcohol stings, and something about it just makes me feel like I am in charge. I love it.

social networking: is it destroying our future?

Social networking is now and forever will be in our lives. But is it doing more harm than good? According to Bernhard Warner, the author of "Is Social Networking a Waste of Time?", says that it helps kids and young adults to help bring out their inner creativity. I think that it is certainly bringing something out of them. Laziness. Teenagers these days spend an average of 12 hours a week on these social networking sites, whether it is Twitter or Facebook, they are constantly on them. Now, these sites do have some pros to them, I'll admit. For instance, it is a good way to keep in touch with your loved ones that may not live so close to home. I have family in London and I do like to talk to them time to time on Facebook, but that doesn't mean I am on it 24/7. Kids have even came to admit to be on their phones using social media while in class! In the article I talked about previously, it states that "No educator would knowingly allow such a distraction in their classroom and yet, it appears to be happening right under their noses." I would not want our future children to lose their education opportunities because of some dumb post on Twitter that they have to "retweet". This is our future generation and to tell you the truth, I am a little frightened of what is to come.

Now some teachers have tried to use all of this to their advantage. Warner, who also is a university lecturer at John Cabot University in Rome, encourages his students to use social media to their advantage, like posting about an online student newspaper or build and promote projects they have worked on in class to produce feedback. This is very helpful, I will admit, but I just feel like we could come at this from a different angle, or create a different way to promote a project--the old fashion way. Tell someone about your project or paper you have to write in class. instead of posting a picture of your homework asking for answers on Instagram, get together with some friends and make a study group. The best part about this? IT IS IN PERSON. No hiding behind a keyboard or a phone, just good ole' face to face conversation. I think that is what todays and future generations are lacking.

Live Your Life!

The three birds that continue to consume my life: Twitter, Flappy Bird, and American Eagle. Now, when people hear the slogan "Live Your Life", most people take it literal. Well when I hear it, all I can picture is American Eagle, because I literally LIVE MY LIFE there! I started working there this past August. I can remember it being 3 am and I would be in the stock room folding clothes. That was one of my very first shifts at AE, and I don't know about any of you, but that is not what I would want to be doing at that time of night. Don't think that I am going against my job, because I am not. I absolutely love it there, but there are just some instances where I would rather be anywhere else but there.

According to the very popular twitter account, @AEOproblems, a huge number of people feel the same way that I do. The AEO family has sort of what we call a love/hate relationship with our store. Some days we want to rip our hair out at the stupidity of our customers and/or coworkers, and other days we just want to hug everyone! We especially dislike the customers that stay after store hours. OUR STORE CLOSES AT NINE FOR A REASON. Since we have a manager that can't say no to anyone, sometimes we are there until 10:30 dealing with customers. Which means that as employees we will not see the outside world until around 1:00 am because of closing procedures. Now on a positive note, there are quite a few good days at the bird, (that's what us employees call it). For example, we will have contests as a workplace to see who can get the most credit cards approved, or who can sell the most pair of jeans. Whoever does so gets things like free items from the store! It sure is a great tool to use on us to get us to sell more!

All in all, I love my job. I could not see me working anywhere else. Even though working retail may cause me pain, it sure is a great part time job to have as a college student! want to know more about what really goes into working at American Eagle? check out the link below to the twitter account I talked about previously to get the inside scoop from employees all over the country!

https://twitter.com/AEOproblems