Reflection: Weeks 9-12

I know that many people have probably said this many times already, but really where has the time gone??? It seems like we just started the semester a couple of weeks ago and learned how to blog for crying out loud and we're actually almost to Christmas, (Crazy)! We've learned a lot on interesting things the past few weeks which included:

• My Political Representatives
• Healthy People 2010/THOMAS
• Issue Overview 
• Photo Essay

The political representatives assignment was a very good yet challenging assignment for us because it made us figure out who are local representatives are along with the bigger fish such as the president and senators. This was an important assignment because by knowing who are local reps are the better chances we have at advocating important issues in the future if need be. I mentioned challenging above only because the elections were just finishing up when we did the assignment so people were changing in offices.

The following week after finding out who are political representatives were we had to pick an issue/bill using Healthy People and THOMAS to advocate for followed by a full issue overview the following week. I chose a bill regarding smoking because it's something that has affected me personally growing up and still to this day. Both my parents smoked from the time I was born until now. My mom passed away 10 years ago but my dad continues to smoke quite profusely even in the house which absolutely drives me bonkers and is why I don't visit home very often. I've had respiratory problems from Bronchitis to Pneumonia my whole life because my parents smoked a lot and that's a big reason why I chose the Youth Prevention and Tobacco Harm Reduction Act Bill of 2009. Kids are affected by tobacco and advertising every day no matter if they want to believe it or not; it's impossible to get away from advertising and marketing campaigns because technology is everywhere! It's really a shame because some kids don't have a choice if their parents smoke like in my case. I'm very passionate about this subject not only because of my health issues, but because smoking and tobacco is extremely bad for you (i.e. various cancers, respiratory problems, and emphysema), it's nasty and smells terrible especially on people. The overview portion of our bill that we chose gave me even more staggering and mind blowing statistics regarding tobacco and its effects on people and society. I learned a lot more of vital information about tobacco and smoking after doing some research for the overview section so I'm glad we got the opportunity to do that.

Lastly, we conducted a photo essay on anything that we wanted regarding the environment. This was probably my favorite assignment to do the past weeks because the essay I chose is something that I've been doing my entire life which is living off the land including: hunting, fishing, and wild ricing among many other outdoor things. I'm glad that I got to share pictures of myself and my family doing what we've been doing for well over 80 years or so now and probably even before that. Hunting, fishing, and wild ricing is something that I've been passionate about my whole life and they're things that I will pass down to my children and grandchildren just like my dad and grandfather did with me.

In closing, it's been a very fun, interesting, and extremely fast paced last few weeks and I can't wait to see what's in store for the final few weeks ahead. I'm also looking forward to getting to know some new blog members and what they have to say. Again I still can't believe that the semester is just about over, unreal.