She’s awesome and she’s KATY PERRY!

I have been seeing her music videos everywhere, from TRL to Yahoo and elsewhere. I kept seeing her song I KISSED A GIRL, being number one. I decided to give listening to her music a try, and I FELL IN LOVE! She is truly awesome and just totally different, her styles is incredible. As for the song, I Kissed a Girl, as weird as it seems. I love that song, I’m 110 percent straight and I just can’t get it out of my head. To all the gals, if you love the song it doesn’t mean you’re gay, it’s just very catchy.

PLEASE TRY TO TAKE THE TIME TO LISTEN TO SOME OF HER SONGS! YOU JUST MIGHT LOVE HER!

Abby Wambach Out of the Olympics… OMG!

I was so sad when I heard the news on ESPN like a week or two ago. Abby Wambach is one of my currently new favourite players on the US women’s national soccer team, besides Hope Solo. It was hard enough when the well known players like Mia Hamm (Who is my idol), Julie Foudy, and the other 2 or 3 that retired. I believe Abby to be the next Mia Hamm of the team. When I heard that she broke her leg (fibula and tibula) during a 1-0 victory game against Brazil, I was stunned. I did not understand the idea of breaking a leg in a soccer game. It’s like hearing Mia Hamm isn’t going to be playing in the Olympics. I sure will be wearing my soon-to-be new gold Abby Wambach jersey for all the upcoming games they will play next month. The USA team will still be the greatest team you’ve ever heard of with or without Abby, but still won’t be quite the same.

Home from New Orleans

I’m back! As I mentioned already, Gallaudet won College Bowl! Unfortunately Dr. Davila was unable to attend due to a family emergency, but our provost Steve Weiner was there along with several BoT members, graduates, and friends of Gallaudet. And we did it! I will tell the truth, I was so nervous leading up to the competition, but once I was onstage it was just like it always has been when I have done academic competition. You get your head in the game and you just play, and you hope you win. Like I said on the NAD vlog about College Bowl, the way to get smart is by reading. And our team is full of strong readers! I can’t wait till the next contest…we get a year off and then it’s time to start practicing again. But hopefully at Homecoming this October, we will have another “alumni vs. students” game, because that was fun.

Anyway, the rest of the NAD conference was great too! I did NOT want to leave on Friday morning. It felt SO good to be surrounded by deaf people for a whole week! I bet that’s what the DeafCruise is like too…maybe I’ll have to go on that after all. But by the end, the thought in my mind was…”you mean I have to rely on my ears again?” As a hard of hearing person, I can go back and forth between worlds pretty easily…but after being surrounded by the warmth of the NAD conference and over 1,000 deaf people, I didn’t want to leave! Hopefully I will feel that warmth again when it is time for the new semester to begin. Over the summer I spend a lot of time being “hearing” though…nobody in my family signs, and for work I have to listen to interpret, and it’s just more work than being in a deaf environment.

Now, as for Bourbon Street…it was okay. There was a huge party put on by HOVRS on Wednesday night, but it just didn’t hold my interest. It was great in terms of deaf networking, but you had to have a wrist band to get in, and not all of my friends did. So I left instead…I’d rather party with my friends. (Let the record show that Rob O’Connell still owes me a drink because we won College Bowl!) The most popular drink on Bourbon Street is the hand grenade, and I had about four of them over the course of the week…good stuff. Little did I realize at the time that it’s melon-based; knowing that, I bet it won’t be too hard to replicate, just need to buy some Midori. I don’t think I need to revisit Bourbon Street though, or even New Orleans…nice town, but too hot. I can’t wait to find out where the next NAD Conference is!

You Only THOUGHT It Was Highway Robbery

I can guarantee that almost every person in the U.S. has been affected by the skyrocketing gas prices, weak housing market, and ever-rising, everyday living expenses. In this kind of economy, no one wants to get ripped-off. At least, I don’t prefer to be. I want to be informed, and I want to be money smart. Saving a few cents or dollars here and there can make a major difference in my budget, plans, and life.

I know that we live in a “crooked and depraved generation” (Philippians 2:15, NIV)–one that is filled with greed and power-hungry people/businesses. I also know that the government has put various laws and organizations in place to supposedly protect me from these said crooked, greedy people/businesses. As much as I hate government interferance and intrusion in my everyday life and privacy, I once believed that the government was good for something–protecting me from these terrible, greedy bullies who are out to collect every last penny I own.

Needless to say, I now understand that this previous notion was simply a false hope in a “crooked and depraved” government. Government agents are just as greedy and wicked as the consumer companies from which I buy my food, clothes, gas, and other necesities. The government WANTS us to be interreliant on them and to not think for ourselves. I was letting them get away with it. The poorer we are, they more dependent on government support we become and the more the government can control everything we do, say, and believe because we are led to believe and trust that they are watching out for us and doing what is best for us. Since when has the government laid aside their agendas and only focused on the right thing to do for the people in our country?

Anyways, the other day, I was talking with a lady whose husband works for an oil company, and I found out that gas stations are charging an additional 20-30 cents per gallon to the posted $3.89 I thought I was paying per gallon. There was no telling how long this had been going on before I found out. My jaw dropped when I heard the news and I stuttered, “But, but, that’s…that’s stealing! That’s highway robbery! They can’t do that. Isn’t it illegal to make customers pay more than they think they are for gas? I mean, for anything for that matter?”

Then came the dreaded response, “No, it isn’t illegal. Gas companies found a loophole where they can charge extra to those buying gas with their credit or debit cards. The only people paying $3.89 are those paying with cash. They say that it is the customers’ responsibility to notice if the price they are paying per gallon and the number of gallons add up correctly on the gas pump.”

“Are you serious?” I asked in disbelief. “Isn’t there some company or organization out there…the government even…who regulates these kind of things and protects customers from these kind of rip-offs?”

Her answer, of course, was “no.”

Now, not ALL gas stations have added this extra “surcharge,” but I would encourage you to look out for the ones that do. At least take it into consideration that you may be charged more than the price on the station’s sign or pay with cash instead of with a credit or debit card if saving an extra 20-30 cents is important to you.

This is just another (Ahem, rather, the first) money-saving tip brought to you free of charge by your caring and commited Gblogger…

Is it July Already??

July… already? Seriously. It feels like only yesterday when I first started work (which is now approaching the fourth week of it; TWO more weeks left!!) and two days ago when I came home from school… and it’s July? It’s so hard to believe that in one month and a half, I will be back at school and away from home. Here’s the ironic part: I’m kind of dreading it. I’ve gotten used to being home, used to being back in my room, used to seeing my family everyday. I’m also looking forward to it. It would be nice to not have to deal with my family everyday, nice to be able to do what I want when I want to, be able to eat what I want without feeling increasingly guilty by the looks of my parents, to have a job and steady money-flow.

So, the question of is it July already pops into my head. It’s so hard to believe that nearly two months and a half has flown by like a blink of eye. I finish my summer class in approximately two weeks, and so far it’s going well. I feel very religiously knowing now, and it provided a new way of looking at things, I guess. This is going to be one heck of a short post, I feel, but there’s not much to expound on right now.

Miss Deaf America Results

I am happy to announce that the new Miss Deaf America is Gallaudet’s own Michelle Lapides! She is a graduate of Maryland School for the Deaf and she competed as Miss Deaf Maryland. Way to go Michelle…everyone I’ve talked to said they knew it would be you because you totally deserve it!

(I know these past 2 posts from me haven’t been under my name…can’t change that via my Blackberry so I’ll fix it at home. And the post times too if necessary. But I had to post about Michelle!)

Gallaudet Won College Bowl 2008

Ladies and gentlemen, I am pleased to announce that Gallaudet won the 2008 College Bowl competition at the NAD conference in New Orleans! The team consisted of myself, Jon Chanin, Tyler DeShaw, and David Uzzell. Our alternate, Jonah Meehan, was also there. And let me just say…we kicked BUTT!

I won’t lie, I was really nervous before the game began. I was nervous all day long, but in the last 20 minutes before the game began, I got really pumped up and excited. After the first round, we were ahead of NTID by just a tiny margin…but as the game went on, we pulled farther ahead, and all my worries went away. By the last few questions, we had clinched it – even if NTID had challenged each of them and gotten it right, they wouldn’t have passed us.

It was fantastic, and I am so thrilled. But I’m also exhausted. So that is all for tonight…just wanted to share the good news!

‘008 Casino Royale

For the fourth of July, my parents decided to take my sisters and I to Shreveport. Shreveport is like a mini Las Vegas with towering casino resorts, fabulous shopping and dining, and a lively boardwalk that runs along the river. We stayed at one of the casino resorts for one night, spending our first day in Shreveport relaxing, watching TV, and gambling and the second day shopping.

It was my first time to ever go to a casino. My parents had been a few times and this time, my dad wanted me to see what it was all about. My family is not the gambling type. In fact, the whole time we were there, my parents kept explaining how to set a limit as to how much you will spend, making the experience something like a this-is-just-for-entertainment, see-how-long-you-can-play-the-game idea rather than a this-is-the-last-ten-dollars-to-your-name, try-to-win-big mentality.

It was fun, I suppose, watching those brightly colored icons spinning around over and over again in their rhythmic patterns. Hey, there were even exciting bells and ringing noises that would sound off when I would earn a whopping single point. I guess my point is that I looked at the people’s faces around me and all I saw were sad, hopeless-looking people walking around like zombies. I felt sorry for them. Those who were there, racking up the last of their available credit, trying to get a little cash to make their next bill payment. No one should ever have to feel like gambling is the answer for their financial problems.

It is a completely different story though if someone wants to gamble for fun and it does not matter if he/she wins (or loses for that matter). However, even in this case, I still feel like there are better things to do with money than to spend it on a machine that tends to eat money rather than spit it out. For instance, instead of spending twenty bucks on a measly fifteen-minute game of Wheel of Fortune, I could have sent twenty dollars to some organization to feed the starving children in Africa or to find the cure for breast cancer. If I did that, I would feel better about myself and I would be doing something positive for my community and for the world in which I live.

At any rate, I had a wonderful time shopping with my family, watching an entire afternoon’s worth of NCIS, laying out in the sun by the pool, and eating fine cuisine at the resort. I experienced the casinos and can now check it off my to-do list. Instead, next time I go to Shreveport, I may just stay in the hotel room with my precious sisters, watch “007 Casino Royale,” and give my twenty dollars to the Blood:Water Ride:Well Tour which can provide twenty African villages with clean water for a year. That sounds like a much better trade off to me.

The Carribean Festival

On June 28th 2008 was the Caribbean Festival where people from different Islands come out to represent their Countries. There couldn’t have been a better day to have the festival because it was nice outside. Yes, it did rain hard for about five minutes, but after that the sun came out and it was even hotter than it was before. They had food, CD’s, Caribbean artifacts, towels for sale. They even had a live band performing for the people. It was a great day.