Jennifer Noel

(MOTORCYCLE AWARENESS)

Today’s post is unfortunately not going to be a fun one but a bit more on the personal and sobering side, since last night my evening took a heart wrenching and scary turn. If any of you are like me I never really understood the world of motorcycles until I found my significant other, who’s lifestyle is completely based around them.

That being said, I was at home last night around 5:00 PM when I got back from grocery shopping. My friend calls panicked because she is positive she has seen my boyfriend’s motorcycle wrecked near where he works. Quickly, I get into my car and drive to the scene, only to be horrified that, yes, it was his bike. Heart in my stomach, I drive to the hospital where his family is waiting and I go into see him. He is laying on a backboard in the bed, with a neck brace on, body, legs and feet scratched and bleeding in places. My heart sinks even further.

Apparently, another driver was trying to hurry to turn left off one of the in town highways before more traffic came. In their hurry they did not see that he was almost directly in front of them. Barely slowing down for the turn, the car hit directly into him causing the bike to slide and my boyfriend to complete three cartwheels in the air before landing on the ground.

Fortunately, my boyfriend was wearing a helmet, and thank God for that because otherwise he would probably not be here with me today. We spent five to six hours at the hospital before he was discharged, and he is now working on recovery.

So I leave you all with this– Drivers, PAY ATTENTION! Know that motorcycles are around and are very small, quick and hard to see. Don’t hurry yourself to the point that you can’t keep track of what’s going on around you, (that includes texting!). Hitting someone only takes a few seconds, but so does stopping to look! (You pick which you’d rather do…) Like I said before, I myself honestly didn’t think twice about motorcycles until I became part of and aware of the cyclist community; which is partly why I am posting about this so strongly. As a person who was not involved with cyclists all her life, I know how easy it is to forget about them and now I look around every corner and under every rock for them. Motorcyclists, also be aware of whats around you and never trust a driver. Most importantly, ALWAYS wear a helmet because you never know when it could save your life.

I just thank God for our miracle last night!

Jen

When I was walking into class this morning, I could not help but notice that it was way to warm for 9:30 in the morning. The suns warmth was much to hot on my face and back with my heavy backpack adding on to the heat of the day. I finally make it to the classroom that is lined with desks and chairs, so I weave around the maze of objects to finally reach my seat at the opposite side of the room. About halfway through class we are surprised with a delicious, cool treat provided by our professor. He slowly bobs and weaves around the room allowing each student to choose either ice cream or popsicles. When he finally gets to me, of course, I usually choose popsicles because they always remind me of childhood; walking around outside, seeing my dog sitting so patiently, with his big brown eyes, just hoping that I will drop some of my refreshing treat.

As I sit at my desk with my popsicle in hand, the wrapper is thin, almost tissue paper like. I can feel the coolness of the popsicle seeping through like ice cubes in a cup. I grab the seam of the wrapper and pull the top apart to reveal the brown stick of the popsicle and gently pull the it out of the package. Immediately, I dive right in and the slush completely fills and cools my mouth. The flavor is orange. I’ve never really liked orange popsicles. They often make me feel like I am eating bad, frozen orange juice. However, on this hot day and in this stuffy room, I’m just more thankful for the treat to get me through. The popsicle quickly starts to melt away so eating it must be rushed. Halfway through the problem of running into the stick is always awkward. To make it easier to eat I turn the stick sideways and begin to eat it that way. Finally, the popsicle is gone, so once again I slip the stick back into the wrapper until class is over.

Whale Vomit

Since we’ve been talking about newsworthy and un-newsworthy articles, I decided to use this article I found on whale vomit, (yes whale vomit), to question further if more often then not, news can be considered newsworthy. As I’m looking through my YAHOO! homepage, I’m was finding it very hard to pick an article that didn’t suck.

As we’ve discussed before, news should be intriguing. It should make you want to read more about the article from just the first few sentences. However, when I started to read this article, I couldn’t help but keep asking myself, “Why the hell am I reading about whale vomit!?” So to begin, this news article has a bad attention getter.

Other than the fact that I was purposely looking for an article that was bad enough to earn the title ‘un-newsworthy,’ I would never normally read something that takes until almost the end to get to the point of why this particular whale vomit is so important. Which brings me to point two. People like detail, but if it takes until the middle of a pointless subject to get to the ‘good stuff,’ then its already a crappy news release. Many people get bored easily, so you can’t lose them before you get to the point.

Finally, I could not have been more disappointed with the ending. The kid could get almost $300,000 for this piece of vomit and what is he going to do with it?- Buy a house for animals. Now, please don’t get me wrong, I LOVE animals. However, when your 8-years old, the fate of that much money should not be put in your hands. Why would the parents not put this in savings, or something like, a charity that feeds hungry people. We have lots of hungry people! In short, this is not a newsworthy article. Bad beginning, slow to get exciting and bombed the ending.

Jen

Good afternoon bloggers!

I have a bit of a feminist rant today. I live off campus, so as I’m on my way to class this morning, I happen to be walking with some girls I don’t know, that I assume to be freshman or sophomores. As we are going along, I happen to notice that, “Holy crap…I can see through this girl’s shorts.” Now when I say ‘see-through,’ I do not imply that they are just thin or light colored material, but literally lace\crochet, see-through shorts. To top it all off, she has a hot pink thong underneath them. Classy. (Please note the sarcasm!)

Now, very clearly she is aware her shorts are see-through and more than likely she purposely put on a bright pink thong, as well. This is not a mistake made due to being rushed in the morning or poor lighting. As I said before I do not know this person, and she could very well be a nice girl but no one, from first impressions today, will ever know that. Why? Unfortunately, she now falls into my generalization that when girls purposely dress this way, it is obvious she only has one goal on her to-do-list: Be A Sex Object.

So, ‘Shorts Girl’ and girls all over the world, when you dress this way, hear me when I say, “NO ONE IS TAKING YOU SERIOUSLY!” In fact, no one is even looking at your face to PRETEND that they are taking you seriously. I suppose my point is this, “The way you dress, especially if you’re new to a place, is a huge first impressions factor. When your in an environment where you want people to listen to you and take you seriously, then dial the sex kitten knob down a few notches. There is a time and place to dress sexy and also a good and bad way to to do it. However, if your going to class, no one needs to see your business or your bright pink thong!”

-Jen

Hello Morningsiders’ and Visitors!

I’ve always wanted to start a blog but wasn’t sure where to start- So here I am! I think my goal with this blog is to get more involved in news about artists, society, culture and maybe to even start being a bit more critical of the things in my environment. I am equally excited to be able to keep up with everyone else’s opinions, ideas, and news.

Jen