What has power in people's lives?

What is power? How does someone gain or maintain power? What holds the most power in your life? What makes you powerful? Those are some questions that people wonder about every day. The big word POWER. What does it mean? My opinion of what power is, is something that runs your life, something that you follow or something that you look up to. If you notice, the things that you do in your life control you. The way you do things, and the way you act creates you as a person. Music, Personality, Emotions, Hobbies, Education, Your personal mind and body are some of the things that hold power in people. Other people gain power by other people, or the people have power in them. For example, your family has power in people's lives because they are the ones who you look up to when you need someone or they are people that usually raise you and help you become who you are and your legal guardian has the power to tell you what you can and cannot do until you are the age of eighteen.

Cause/Effect Essay

Why do people gossip?

Gossiping. Everyone looks at it a different way. In a good way, fun way, bad way, funny way, or even amusing. Some may argue over which reason is the main one, but the main reason people gossip is because they think it will make them popular.

To start out, people think it’s amusing. Why? I don’t really know. From what I’ve noticed, people think it’s funny and when a bully harasses someone else, they know that they are getting attention from others who think it’s entertaining to see. For example, one time, I saw this girl sitting alone with one other friend at the lunch table. Before I knew it, there was a group of about maybe twelve people or so that went up to her. Only one person in the group said anything to her and that was the bully. The girls’ face turned as red as an apple as she sat through the harassment not knowing where to go or what to do or say. As the bully went on and on pointing out flaws and throwing hurtful words into her face, all the others just laughed at the hurt they were causing her. Pretty soon, more and more people showed up to listen and watch what was going on because they thought it was exciting. That day, effected that girl and how she looked at school and socializing the rest of her life.

The main reason for gossiping is that they think they will become popular. The bully starts getting more and more friends, but does the bully not understand how fake that her “friends” really are? They aren’t really her friends. They are more scared of her, than what she or he knows. They aren’t trying to be nice, by being the bully’s friend. They are simply afraid, and don’t want to get put into the same situation as they saw as in the story about the girl sitting alone at lunch. Or they don’t want to get hurt. For instance, I once saw this girl who was friends with a bully. I could see the fear in her eyes, and the guilt written all over her face as she stood behind the bully watching her attack one after another after another. She didn’t want to be friends with the bully anymore, but couldn’t say it because of the fear of getting hurt. A bully may think that they are cool, and pretty, or hot, and popular, and so great because they can hurt another person. But to be honest, the bully may be pretty or hot but the choices he or she is making, just makes them an ugly person. Bullying may cause you more “friends”, you may think, but if you truly think about it…they aren’t really “friends” they are just people that are afraid of you.

Therefore, the many reason of why a person might bully such as fear, and amusement but the one main reason that people bully is becaseu they think they’ll gain popularity. If people start to recognize how bullying affects us and each other’s feelings and their future and what could happen if they continue to do it, maybe it will stop.

How do relationships effect school work?

To start off with, relationships. Oh boy, what could we say about this topic. Relationships are what most teenagers worry about. Does this boy like me, does this girl like me. How can I impress him/her? Students go around during school worrying more about if they look "hot" or if the boy/girl they are crushing on is noticing them. This effects student's school work. Students focus more on what's going on in their personal life with their relationship and cannot focus on their school work. If the guy or girl that they are crushing on or in a relationship with is in any of the same classes, it could cause distractions and lower your grades. You push off your school work, and worry about them. It's hard to have a relationship with someone sometimes especially when you see them at school all the time and something happens. Say you get into a fight or something, then you are extremely upset all day and start to cry. All day, all you think about is if you guys are going to be okay, and what is going to happen. I've done it. I know it's extremely hard to focus but you just have to try. Relationships are a big part of an average teenagers life, and they are usually pretty hard to keep strong. Another thing i've done, is just pushed off my homework and hung out with whoever I was dating and then started to get low grades. My mom was extremely upset and told me that if me having a boyfriend was going to effect my grades then there was going to be a lot of consequences. If you just mainly worry about school when your at school, and worry about your relationships later, then you will have much better grades, and probably improve. If you spend all day upset and worrying about everything else going on then you aren't going to have much better luck.

Co existence with drugs!

There are many effects that drugs give on people. Such as heart problems, lung problems, mouth problems, stomach problems, or problems with any other organ in your body. Drugs even cause death. For instance, alcohol damages your brain and could distort your vision. It is no better than other drugs. Alcohol causes blackouts and leads to memory loss. It damages your brain which damages other organs in your body. If you smoke tobacco or cigarettes you are putting nicotine in your body. Nicotine effects the brain quickly and produces feelings of pressure and is extremely addicting. Cigarette smoking accounts for about one third of all cancers including about 90% of lung cancer diseases. Cigarettes increases the risk of heart disease, including stroke, heart attack, vascular disease, and aneurysm. Smoking has also been linked to leukemia. On average, adults who smoke die 14 years earlier than non smokers. Other drugs could do just the same thing, but if you try hard enough there is a cure for the addiction of drugs such as alcohol and smoking. The parts of the brain that control emotions, memory, and judgement are affected by marijuana. Marijuana causes short term memory loss, and weakens problem solving skills. It can also block information from making it into long term memory. After you get addicted to these types of drugs, your body depends on them and pretty soon you feel like you can't live without them. I suggest that if you are starting to get addicted to drugs, that you should try to stop and get help before it's too late. Save yourself while you can.

All About Hinduism

Hinduism(The picture to the right is the Hindu symbol)

Hinduism was a commonly practiced religion by many people. Hinduism has many interesting things that we don't have. Hinduism had no founder but was followed by 900 people. Hinduism is mostly practiced in India, the United Kingdom,

and the United States of America. In Hinduism there is no purpose of life but four words they follow. One is Dharma which means to fulfill ones purpose, Artha which means prosperity, Kama which means desire, sexuality, and enjoyment, and lastly moksha which means enlightment. Hinduism is divided up into four sections. Vaishnavism, Shaivism, Shaktism, and Smartism. Smartism, Shaivism, and Vaishnavism are the monotheistic group and the most practiced by the Hindus.

Holy Books(s)/Sacred Texts

The Hindu's had four main sacre

d texts. One of the collections

of sacred texts were the Vedas. The Vedas were the most sacred scriptures to the Hindu's. The Vedas were "books of knowledge." They were written in Sanskrit from about 1200 BCE to 100 CE. Another collect was called the Upanishads. Upanishad means "to sit down near". Which meant to try to get people to look at the Upanishad as people gathering around their teacher for philosophical instruction. The theme of the Upanishads is the escape from rebirth through knowledge of the underlying reality of the universe. The Sutra is another one of their sacred texts which is a distinct type of literary composition based on short aphoristic statements. And last, the Bhagavad Gita. The Ghagavad Gita is one of Hindu's most important sacred texts. It has 700 verses. The content of the Gita is the conversation of Krishna and Arjuna taking place on the battlefield befor

e the start of the Kurukshetra war.

Religious Holidays

The Hindu's had a lot of religious holidays. To start off, the Mahashivarat, the night of Shiva or the Great night of Shiva, is in mid Februrary. It is a festival celebrated on the night before and day of the new moon. It's celebrated by offerings of Bael leaves to the Lord Shiva and fasting an all night vigil. The Ramhavami is a Hindu festival in late March celebrating the birth of Lord Rama. At some places this holiday lasts for nine days. Images of baby Rama are placed on cradles

and rocked by devotees. Since he was believed to be born at noon, temples and family shrines are elaborately deco

rated and traditional prayers are chanted together by the family in the morning, and several other things are also done those days. the Dusserah is in early November. It is celebrated on the tenth day of the bright fortnight of the Hindu autumn month. Clay statues are made and they honor mother earth. Diwali is in Mid November. This is a five day festival and is also known as the festival of lights. They celebrated faiths to light small clay lamps filled with oil to signify good over evil within on individual. it also celebrates the staying of the Demon king. Both signifying the victory of good over evil.

Rituals/Customs

The hindus

had many customs or rituals. One was meditation. Meditation is when one is alone with their thoughts in a room and you do physical exersize. Another one is reincarnation which is what they believed. They believed that you could be reborn succesfully into one of the five classes of living beings such as a god,animal,human,angry ghost, or denizen of hell depending on your actions. And lastly Puja. Puja is modeled on the idea of giving a gift or offering to a deity or important person and receiving their blessing. The two main areas where Puja is performed at is home or at the temples.

Dress/Clothing

The Hindus dressed in their own particular way. The girls would wear a Sari which is like a blouse. They would also wear lehanga's which are peated shirts. Two other things the girls wore were Salwar Kamees which are dresses or a Choli which is a very tight blouse. The men wore Sherwanis which is like a coat that is knee length or longer. They also wore Lungi which is cloth worn around the thighs, and a Kurta-Pyjama which is a knee length shirt.

This is a picture of how a female and male would dress.

Hierachy/organization

The hindus hierachy was Guru or Sage. Guru was the one who was regarded as having great knowledge,wisdom, and authority in a certain area.

Why do students bully?

There are a lot of problems in high school but two main problems in high school are students bullying and judging others. Students often complain to their parents at school that they are being bullied by other students and don't want to go to school. Usually parents just think it will go away as time goes by, but students still think about why me? Why do people bully in the first place? Some of the answers I have come up with is because they are just jealous. Maybe you have something that they don't that they wish they had. Or maybe they've been raised being bullied and that's the way they are now because it's what they are used to. Some kids bully because they think it's cool but in the end it's really not and they will realize that eventually. Students also bully because of different interests or personalities. Just because your different doesn't mean that you should feel down about yourself or worry about what others think about you. There are some nasty people out there who just get pleasure from seeing another person hurt or upset. Yeah it hurts to hear some things that people have to say about you, but remember that there is always people that love you and care about you like your true friends and family. Try not to let bullying bother you but if it gets to far, immediately tell someone such as a teacher, the counselor, or even the principal if things get way out of hand. There are several ways of being bullied and a lot of people mostly girls cyber bully on websites such as facebook or myspace. There is also physical contact involved with bullying sometimes. There are many different types of bullying but if anything ever gets to out of hand just let someone know as soon as possible. You have the right to feel safe in your own community. It might take time, but just take a deep breath and take it one step at a time.

High School Fears and How to Survive Them

I found a really cool website on how to survive freshman year and relationships or other facts about home schooling or other facts related to the subject. This web site is useful for high school students. The website helps students overcome fears about high school, and helps them feel more confident in entering the new school. There are tons of helpful tips for high school students and freshman. Such as what to do if this happens, or what do you do when this happens and so on. There are also tips about dating, relationships, and other things. A lot of students don't know what to do in a relationship or what to expect, or look for, or if they even should be in one. This website gave of a ton of great facts and tips for dating, and what to do about it and how to fix a problem in a relationship. This website has a lot of ways to help students entering high school or already in high school. There are also study tips for those students who have a hard time studying. This web site really interested me because I took some of the information seriously and most of the information is extremely helpful for you to realize different things and overcome what you are afraid of. I recommend this web site to students grades 9-12.