Recently Read #18

The presidential innauguration was today, and I found an article on Obama's speech caclled the 'report card'. The question was how did Barack Obama do on his presidential speech, and a few famous people answered. John F. Kennedy said "he's good. he's damn good.", and thinks that Kennedy and King are saying that in heaven too. Alex Castellanos, a strategist, said that it was a really traditional speech, and the beginning deserves a b-minus, but the end deserves an a-plus. Hillary Rosen, a cnn contributor gave the speech an A, and said that he really delivered and reminded us of the price and power of our citizenship. I thought it was interesting to read this article and get different people's take on the presidential speech.

Recently Read #17

Today I read an article called, "can sex cause a heart attack?". It was on cnn.com, and it was about the myth that having sex can cause a heart attack. The article says that the chances of that are very low, and sexual activity is a factor in less than 1 percent of heart attacks. It also says if you have cardiovascular disease, to check with your doctor, just to be safe.

Recently Read #16

Recently, I was on cnn.com, and found an article called "9 money-saving travel tips". It talks about how even though the economy is fluctuating, people still want to travel and see new things. The tips are: 1.score perks and deals(hotels want to increase booking-offer deals), 2.take to the waters(cruises are trying to be cheaper and easier), 3. be loyal, 4. go all-inclusive, 5. sleep like a local, 6.follow the incentives, 7.stop hoarding your miles, 8.fly business class, 9.choose a package. I thought these were all interesting, and good ideas for someone who is planning a trip.

Recently Read #15

I finished Tuesdays with Morrie, and I thought it was really good, but it was sad. Morrie has gotten weaker and weaker by the weeks. His joke had always been that he knew he was actually dying when somebody had to wipe him after he went to the bathroom, and that day had come. Morrie had always been welcoming and eager for people to come talk to with him and hear his ideas, but now even that was getting to be too much. Mitch was one of the only people who could visit him until he got worn out, and he realizes how special these last days are. At the end of al this, Morrie feels he is going to die, and Mitch and him say their goodbyes. Mitch decides that he's going to visit Morrie's grave every Tuesday (since that's tradition), and talk with him just as he always had. Morrie dies quietly, his funeral was on a Tuesday, but he will definitly never be forgotten.

Recently Read #14

In Tuesdays With Morrie, Mitch has started coming to visit Morrie every single Tuesday, to take advantage of the time he has left with him. He flies out there and flies home every time, and each time he visits Morrie, they talk about a new topic. Morrie is getting closer and closer to dying, and slowly is losing control of his body. Mitch feels so helpless, but Morrie stays cheerful and just wants to get his story out to the world. Since Morrie was a professor and had to quit teaching because of his ALS, Mitch has become his new "student", and this book was Mitch's final 'essay'.

Recently Read #13

Right now i'm reading a book called, Tuesdays With Morrie, by Mitch Albom. It's a really good book so far, it's about an old man that's dying and he knows he has less than a year to live left. He was a professor his whole life until he found out he had ALS. Morrie tried to keep teaching with the disease, but he became too weak to leave his house. One of his old students (the author), hears about his story on TV and realizes how long it's been since he said he would visit his old teacher. Instead of just mourning and getting weaker by the day, Morrie takes advantage of his time left and he starts to meet every Tuesday with Mitch, who has become a big time sports writer and lost track of what he really wants. Right now they are just starting to meet again, and I will see what comes next.

Recently Read #12

Today I read an article called "the graying of the presidents". It is about a book written by a doctor who carefully studies aging, and he tells his theories about the aging of presidents. One of his theories is that presidents age 2 years for every year in office. So if a president is in office for 8 years, they will physically age 16 years. He says it doesn't matter what their background is, if they played sports, smoked, were republicans or democrats, they will still age twice as fast. One of his examples is Theodore Roosevelt. At the time, his life expectancy was 75, but he barely lived to see 60.

Recently read #11

Today on the internet I found an article about the death of John Travolta's son, Jett. Jett died friday in the Bahamas, when he had a seizure and hit his head on the bathtub. Jett had autism, and the Travoltas had just arrived in the Bahamas to celebrate New Years. Jett had been taking a medication for his frequent seizures, but the medicine slowly stopped working for him after several years. I think this is really sad, and you can tell by his parents quotes in the article that they really loved him and wont be able to get over this.

Recently Read #10

I went to texas over break, and on the way, I read a book called Almost Home. This book is by Jessica Blank, and it's about a bunch of kids living on the streets of LA. All the kids are different types of runaways running from different things, like sexual abuse, parents abusing them, and just wanting to leave. You get to hear perspectives of all the teenagers and they all come from different backgrounds. I thought this book was really good, the stories were based on real stories, and it was interesting and scary to see what some people face.