Disappointing day...

So today was a pretty unhappy day for me. I went to go for my g2 road test and I was pretty nervous...and guess what? ...I failed :(. I have never felt so disappointed as I did today. I mean, I went to driving school and I passed so I thought that I had a pretty good chance of passing. Getting my g2 would have been so awesome and I didn't feel that I was that bad. But I guess if I failed that means that I just wasn't completely ready to be able to drive alone. The thing is, I don't feel that it was fair in a way because the lady that tested my driving was a pretty big and tall lady and I'm a pretty short and small, so when she sat down she put her seat all the way to the back and I realized that she was blocking my blind spot and I told her that but she didn't do anything about it. As I was backing out of the parking lot, cars were coming from every direction and I thought that I had waited for them all to move but there was still one car coming up behind me that I didn't see and I would have hit it if she hadn't said anything, so I got marked for that. So in exactly a month from now I can retake my road test and hopefully I'll do better then. I realized that it doesn't matter that I failed, what matters is learning from my mistakes and using that experience to better myself the next time. Make sure to check out my blog in a month to find out if I passed or failed once again.

Photo Essay- Buddha

Bearded Dragon is the common name given to Australian lizards of the Pogona genes. Their name comes from their habit of puffing out their throat when they are angry or excited, giving the appearance of a "beard".
There are seven species in total but the most common pet is Pogona vitticeps commonly referred to as the Inland Bearded Dragon which is what I have. Their color varies from a dull brown or gray to a bright yellow or fiery orange-red. They are one of the best family pets because they are extremely gently, they love attention and they are decently small.

Taking care of a bearded dragon isn't as easy as some people think. Before purchasing one, you should make sure that you have the time to give them everything they need and be sure to have all the necessary equipment for a proper living environment. When choosing one, you should pick the one that's the most alert and active, you don't want to pick one that can barely lift up it's head.

For a baby, under 10 inches in length, you should have at least a 20 gallon tank, but they will outgrow that in about 3-4 months. When provided with the proper habitat, heating and UVB lighting, young bearded dragons are capable of growing up to 1 inch or more per week. An adult bearded dra
gon needs at least a 40 gallon tank because it has more floor room and they will need that to be able to properly turn, sleep and to fully grow. When fully grown, they can reach up to 16-22 inches in.

When housing a bearded dragon, here is what you will need:

1) You will need a substrate to put on the bottom of the tank. For a baby, it is preferable to tape paper towel or plain white paper to the bottom of the tank so that they don't digest any little pieces that can clog their intestines. For an adult, it is better to use play sand that you can buy at your local hardware store, like Home Depot instead of sand that you can buy at a pet store because there are more little pieces in it that won't digest properly and that could cause an impaction (a build up of sand in the digestive system). PS, be generous with the sand, they love to dig!

2) You will need to have three kinds of lights. The two heat lights will need to be put on both sides on the tank. You will need to have a basking light that produces heat that's about 150 watts, another heat light that's about 100 watts and a UVB fluorescent light that should be put in the middle of the tank. They will need these two lights at different temperatures because they need one area of the tank that's hot and another that's cooler in case they need to cool down. The UVB light is NECESSARY because it sends out rays that helps the bearded dragon absorb the calcium powder that you will need to give it, which is what helps it grow at a proper rate. These lights should be on for about 12-14 hours a day and all turned off at night.

3) Once you have all the necessary lights, you will need to be able to keep tract of the temperature levels so that your bearded dragon doesn't freeze or burn to death. You should get two thermometers, one on the hot side of the tank and one on the cool side. On the hot side, the temperature should be around 95-105 degrees F and the cool side should be around 80-90 degrees F. At night, when you turn off all the lights, the temperature should not go anywhere below 60 degrees F or else it can freeze to death over night. Bearded dragons need their heat to keep their system flowing and to help digest their food.

4) Once you have all that covered, your bearded dragon will need to eat and have water available for him whenever he needs. Bearded dragons are omnivores, which means that they eat insects and veggies. As babies, dragons eat mainly crickets and need to be fed about 2-3 times a day. As they become adults, their diet consists mainly of leafy greens ( collard greens, kale, and chopped or grated veggies like carrots) and should be fed about 1-2 times a day. Every morning when your about to feed your dragon crickets, you should dust them with calcium powder with vitamin D3 to ensure that your dragon grows big and strong.

5) There you have it, all the necessary equipment to keep your bearded dragon healthy. But one last thing you should know is that, as your bearded dragon is growing, it will shed, just like a snake. Don't be alarmed, this is normal for it's new skin to come in and make more room for it to grow. Your dragon should shed about once a month as a baby and only every few months when it's an adult. If your dragon isn't shedding enough, you can give it warm baths once a week to help moisturize their skin. If you have any worries about your dragon, you should consult a veterinarian that specializes in reptiles.

We need to help the animals from global warming!

To the editor,

Over the past years, global warming just keeps increasing. Every year, researches find new effects on hundreds of species around the world and barely anybody realizes how big of an impact it has. All these consequences are caused by mankind and our technology, like incinerators, oil spills and industries that cause pollution to float in the air. As a result, this has been affecting many different aspects of the world, such as the temperature change which is affecting birds, plants and many different creatures of the sea. In time, more animals will keep dying or getting sick which in time will lead us all to be sick and who knows what else could happen after that.

This is not the best way that we could be living. As human beings, we should work together and find alternative solutions to still keep on living with the help from our technology but in a way that it doesn't harm the animals or the earth. Animals aren't capable of protecting themselves from our technology and still maintain their security, so why can't we help them keep that? Animals also have emotions. Why is it, that if as many people died as the amount of animals have, something would be done to fix it? But instead, in the case of the animals, some people try to help them but it's too hard alone, so they stop and forget about it.

We all need each other, every living species on this earth to help keep the cycle running. Why is it alright to let them suffer? Animals are living and breathing creatures just like us humans. If we don't do anything now to stop it, sooner or later they will all become extinct. What will we do then? The world will become completely out of balance and eventually we would all die off as well. Please, look into the future and see a better place. They need your help! Thank you for your time.

Cristina Lessard

Dream meal:P

In class the other day, my English teacher asked the class to write a journal about what our dream meal would be. I decided I would like to share that with you, although I am kinda picky and my meals are normally pretty simple. My dream meal would have to take place in a nice room with candles and music with my boyfriend Nick. As an appetizer, I would love a couple pieces of garlic bread and a poutine dripping with cheese and gravy, and maybe also a salad on the side if I'm feeling healthy. For an entree, I would love a nicely cooked lasagna with a lot of meat inside and some spaghettie topped with velveeta cheese. To wash it all down, red wine would be preferable but a big glass of A&W root beer would be just as good. For desert I would love nothing more than to have a funnel cake covered with icing sugar and strawberry sauce. Mmm what a delicious meal, I think I'll be making that tonight. :)

Nostradamus- Predictions true or false?

The other night, I watched an episode on the Discovery channel on Nostradamus and I found it pretty interesting. For those of you that don't know who Nostradamus is, he was a French astrologer that supposedly went into a meditative state and had visions of the future. Nostradamus was famous for his book "Les Propheties" that contained 950 quatrains written in the 1500's about events that would happen in the future. This book was famous for predicting many major world events such as, JFK's assassination, the two world wars including Hitler, 9/11 and a supposed third world war and anti-Christ that would come in the near future in 2012. 18 of his 950 quatrains refer to a third world war but they have no indication of when, only that 2012 the third anti-Christ will learn from the mistakes of the first two and will successfully make the world come to an end. Many people believe that his prophecies are false and researchers are just trying to fit historical facts to these prophecies because in the quatrains the information linked to these events can't directly be matched with them. They are only interpretations and they could be misinterpreted. In my opinion, i think that he only had hallucinations and believed them to be real. Researchers believe that he used a form of old witchery and inhaled hallucinogenics and thought they were visions. I believe that these events that they claim to link his prophecies to only happened because it was written and people thought it was really going to happen which made them cause it. For example, researchers believe that Hitler red Nostradamus book and thought of himself as the second anti-Christ and therefor decided that he was the one that could take over the world..or at least try. I believe that these events happened because people were convinced that it would, so they, in result, end up creating it. Here's some numerology that I learned about when doing a project on 9/11, that's pretty weird and makes you think a little...
On 9/11 the first plane to hit the twin towers was Flight 11 by American Airlines.
-Flight 11 had 92 people on board... 9+2=11
-Flight 77 had 65 people on board... 6+5=11
-New York City has 11 letters
-The State of New York was the 11th state added to the union.
...Pretty crazy, but are these prophecies true or false?

Global Warning-What's going on with the weather?

What’s going on with the weather? Every year the weather just keeps getting worse and worse. The summers don’t feel like summer and the winters don’t feel like winter. One day it’s really cold to the point where you can’t even go out anymore because your skin will freeze and the next its so worm that people think they can go outside in a t-shirt and nothing will happen to them, but then it tricks them and then they’re sick for the next few couple of days. This constant temperature change certainly doesn’t have good effects all over the world, like for example, in the arctic there is ice everywhere and the animals that live there, such as polar bears and penguins and many more, are badly affected by the temperature change. Instead of being cold enough to keep the ice frozen like it should be, the sun is getting closer and closer to the earth and therefore getting pretty hot for the area, so as a result the ice is melting and flooding the areas that aren’t made of ice… What will happen to the rest of the animals? So many have already died because of these consequences and it’s all because of humans and our ignorant way of living. When will things change for the better?