Being the youngest in your family

Are you the oldest sibling in your family? Are you the youngest? Or the middle? Have you ever wanted to switch places with someone in your family that is in a different position than you? When I was little, I would always find myself angry or jealous of my older siblings. There are both positive and negative points in being the youngest of the family, although I feel that the positives outweigh the negatives. First, I always found myself at home with my parents, although I wanted to be doing something else. Second, I get to spend more time with my parents than any one of my other siblings did. Third, I am often “spoiled” because I am the youngest. I always thought that my siblings were always luckier than I was.

My first reason was that I always ended up at home with my parents. I always thought of this as a negative thing. I wanted to be with my friends on weekends, but I never really got to. From my parents perspective, I was too young to be out with my friends on weekends. They always made me stay home, and play games with them, or watch a movie or do something else that I thought was “lame”. I never really understood why they made me stay home with them. I always thought they were trying to ruin my life. If I ever did get to be with my friends, they made me come home early. Although I thought that spending time with my parents was a negative thing, I now have a different outlook on that situation.

Second, I actually do get to spend more time with my parents than my older siblings ever did. I know they lived with them for the same amount of time, but they had other siblings they had to “share” my parents with. Since my older siblings are all grown and living away, I am the only sibling left at home. I do not have to “share” my parents with any body else, which has allowed us to bond more, and grow closer together than my parents did when my other siblings were still living at home. Spending time with my parents was a good thing, but being the youngest has an other positive point.

Third, I am often “spoiled” by my parents. My parents pay for more of my clothes, shoes, and other “wants” that they didn’t ever really pay for the other kids things. Also, their expectations have changed as we both get older. They are more laid back with the rules that were always enforced with my siblings, and myself when I was younger. My parents now let me stay out with friends later than they would ever let my older siblings stay out with their friends when they were my age.

In conclusion, being the youngest in your family can have both positive and negative points, although I feel that the “goods” outweigh the “downs”. When I was younger I thought that my parents were trying to make me miserable, when in reality they knew what was better for me than I did for myself. I now have a different perspective on these events, and am glad that they enforced rules when I was younger.

We shouldn' have to write weekly blogs!

Do you ever think about how much you really don’t like to write essays, papers, or do big projects? Do you ever complain because you could be doing something better, more entertaining, and easier? Well that’s what I am feeling like right now, so that will be my topic this week. I know I have chosen to take this class even though it is not required, but I still have many reasons why we shouldn’t have to write these essays. First, because we have other homework to do already, we don’t need more busy work! Second, because I want to be spending time with my family, not doing this in the time I don’t have other homework. Third, I barely have enough time for myself, my family, and even for my other required homework. Homework is not a fun thing to do, and I don’t need more of it to do!

My first reason was that we already have homework to do. We do not need more busy work. I think that at least if we need to do busy work, we should do worksheets or something like that. The worksheets should make us focus on the parts of speech because no one really knows them or examples of them anyway. By now, I am pretty sure we all know how to right an essay, even though some still may not be very good, or sound very intelligent. It is very difficult to think of a new subject to right about each week! There are only so many things you can right about without repeating yourself over and over, and basically just retyping the essays and changing a few things. That is what my essays have come to. I find myself repeating my past essays over and over. Whenever I try to think of a different subject that I have never written about, I still repeat my past opinions. Although we don’t need busy work, we also need time with our family.

My second reason was that the time I spend writing this essay, I could be spending quality time with my family. I hardly ever get the opportunity to spend time together as a family with everyone in it. The last time all of my siblings were together was a couple of years ago because of the fact that my sisters and brother all live in different states. Whenever I write these essays, my family is over. I know that I could write these essays when family is not over, but as I mentioned before, I do have other homework that needs to be done that I usually do when my family is not over.

My third reason was that I barely have time for myself. I never really get to spend time with just me, doing my own thing. By the time I get done with my extra-curricular activities, I have homework that needs to be done. Once my homework is done, I am so exhausted and I go to bed!

In conclusion, we shouldn’t have to write weekly blogs because we don’t need more busy work, we need time with family instead of doing this, and because we don’t have time for ourselves!!!

Parents

Have you ever felt so sick of chores? Like your parents are giving you chores so you can’t hang out with friends and have any fun? Do you ever feel like your parents are just doing or saying things do make your life miserable? Or to embarrass you? I often feel like this, but despite what we may think or feel at the moment we are going through these hard experiences, parents do have a purpose for everything they do, think, or say. One experience is when parents make you do chores. The next experience is when your parents make you spend some “quality” time with family. Last, is when your parents want to “supervise.” These experiences, including chores, are not always fun.
The first experience was when your parents make you do chores. Yes, I am a teenager, so I do realize that chores are not a fun thing to do. It always seems like they are just giving me busy work and they always give me chores at the most inconvenient time possible. I always wonder why they don’t give work to me when I am bored, but they do when I have plans. But parents always have a reason for what they do, but I never remember that while I am going through these experiences. There are several reasons they give you chores. One of the reasons being: Who wants to live in a mess? It is so much easier to be organized and put things away in the same spot every time. It will save you more time in the long run to stay organized, so you won’t have a huge mess to clean up later. Through chores they also teach you hard work. If you are lazy, and never do chores…what will your own house look like when you have to take care of it? No one wants to be around a lazy, messy, unorganized bum. No one. Although chores are not fun, this is not the only experience that is not fun.
The Second experience was when your parents make you spend “quality” time with your family. If I have plans with friends, those are the times my parents plan some kind of activity with my family. I know being with your family is not always cool, but in the long run, who cares? When you are old, it will not matter how popular you were in junior high and high school, but it will matter what your relationship with your family is like. If you spend a lot of “quality” time with your family, you are very likely to have a good relationship with them when you are older. Often times when my parents want to spend some quality time with me, they supervise, my friends and me.
The Last reason was when my parents supervise my friends and me. I don’t always want them watching over my shoulder, but I am glad they care. If they don’t worry about where I am, or don’t supervise, that tells me they don’t really care. When I am a parent, I will probably do the same, because I will want to what my children are doing, even if it is not convenient for them.
In conclusion, parents may make us do things we don’t want to do, or inconvenience us, or embarrass us, but they do all those things for a reason, or to teach us a certain lesson.

The positive and negative qualities of phones

Phones are an amazing and big part of today’s technology and can be both positive and negative. My mom has always told me that if you have too much of a good thing, is no longer a good thing. Phones can cause greediness and take away the courtesy we had once for each other. They can slowly take away our intelligence and common sense without us even realizing, but can also make life much easier.

First, phones can make us all very greedy. It all started out when we were younger, and one person got a phone. Slowly they became more and more popular, and are now considered a necessity in today’s society. If a person looses or breaks a phone, they just get a new one. If the phone doesn’t come with certain features, or if we do not necessarily approve of the way it is laid out, we just get a new one. Without phones, people would be way more courteous. With phones, they are so inconsiderate. If you are speaking with someone, and they pull out their phone and start to text, it is safe to assume that that phone is more important to that individual than you are at that particular moment. Without phones, people believe that the world would come to an end, and that we would cease to exist! Little do people know, this is not the case! People in the past, have lived without technology, and actually were much smarter than many of us are today.

Second, people seem to believe that you can just be lazy while you are texting. No one bothers to capitalize the word “I”, spell things correctly, or use any other form of correct grammar. Studies have shown that the intelligence level of today’s youth is decreasing because of “texting grammar”. Be honest with yourself: would it kill you to use correct grammar while texting? To take a few extra seconds during your text to exercise your grammar skills as opposed to loosing intelligence? People don’t bother to use common sense and spell words right that we learn in Kindergarten. They won’t take a couple seconds to calculate a simple equation like “6*5” or “4*3”. Today’s society just depend on the phone to do all the work for us, and in a way, the phones are much smarter than we are. Despite many negative things, phones also have positive qualities.

Phones were designed to make communication easier, especially through longer distances. (Ironically, it makes the communication with your family worse!) For example: I have a sister that lives in New York, and thanks to phones, I am able to contact her (almost) from where ever I am. It would be much harder without phones, and to hand write a letter, get it sent, and have her receive it, in a reasonable amount of time.

In conclusion, phones can be a very useful tool, but when we get to the point of greediness, laziness, or when we are inconsiderate to others, it has gone way too far. “Too much of a good thing, is no longer a good thing!”

Advantages of being an aunt

Being an aunt include many advantages. Some experiences seem bad at the time, but then I realized they were to my advantage. For example: Babysitting is sometimes inconvenient at the time, but then I realized it was an advantage. Second, sometimes my nephew is not very careful around breakable things and I get mad, but I realize now this has an advantage also. Third, if my niece and/or nephew are in a bad mood…I know I will be mad too, although this sounds all bad, it has an up side.

First, when my sister asks me if I will watch my niece and nephew, of course I say yes, because I would feel terrible if I said no. Sometimes it is hard to watch to kids because if they both want something, one will take it and the other will cry. The advantage of this is that they always come to me, and I will help them work the problem out so that they are both happy. In the end my nephew ends up thanking me, and telling me how much he loves me. Babysitting is one of the things that makes me bond with my niece and nephew, and has helped develop the relationship we have today. Often when I am watching the kids, something will break or come close to breaking.

Second, when the kids aren’t being careful around breakable things, something breaks, or bends in a way it isn’t supposed to, or valuable things get lost. Although this seems all negative, these experiences make me laugh when I look back at them because my mom and I laugh, knowing and remembering that I was exactly like that too! Experiences often are not “fun” when you are going through them, but when you look back on them later, you realize they were not as bad as they seemed to be. They are sometimes kind of funny! We must choose to look on the better side of situations like these though. No one else can make us feel like it is better looking back on them. This is not the only experience that is better when I look back on them.

Third, if my niece and nephew are in a bad mood, I tend to be too. If they are crying, they give me a headache then I am not in a good mood. If they are screaming or mad I get frustrated. This also sounds very negative, but the positive side is that if they are in a good mood, I am too. No matter how mad or frustrated I am, they can always make me feel better. When they are happy, I cannot be mad. They always lighten the mood in a room, and make everyone laugh.
In conclusion, even though many experiences may seem bad while you are going through them, they almost always have a good side to them, but we have to decide to be optimistic and look on the better side of situations