Entry 11 Simply the end

Can you smell that? That's the smell of summer!! Finally done with this semester and I couldn't be happier. This semester has been an emotional rollercoter, I've been stressed, I've cried, I've laughed, but best of all I have learned and encounter new experiences. One of them is my blogging Journey.
When I first started my blog, I was really nervous because I didn't know what to write about. It also made me a little uncomfortable knowing that my blogs were there for anyone to see. At the same time I liked that I was getting out of my comfortable zone "A smooth sea never made a skilled sailor"  right?

Yes, yes that's me on the left, my nephews, and my sister a few summers back.

So allow me to share some of the good stuff I have learned with my blogging journey and maybe this can help you start your own. It is important to keep your audience in mind this well help you set your tone and remember to always be true to yourself. Don't try to make yourself seem like someone you're not. That's not cool. Let your personality shine through your writing. I know this can be hard at first because it's human nature to want to be liked and accepted by others, but once you realize that regardless of that you do, not everyone is going to like you. You start to grow as a person, the only person you should be worried about if they like you, or not should be yourself.


I also learned the importance to set up a background to your audience. By doing so it gives the reader the reason for your entry and helps them make a connection and maybe relate to your subject. This goes in hand with the way you sign off . Just like  in the begging you give your audience background information, it is important to  end your blog with a final thought or closure so the reader doesn't feel like you left your blog half way done.

In addition, I also learned the importance of having good grammar. This was the hardest part for myself since I am not the best of spellers. To help me out I found this really cool website called PaperRater, which helped me look for spelling errors, word choice, and grammar. I feel like I have improved a lot with my grammar thought my blogs and hopefully you have noticed that as well.

Last but not least, I also learned the importance of visual aid. Visuals include links, images, videos, text, and even organization. The thing I enjoyed the best was looking for photos because it gave me time to look through old memories and helped me keep you entertained as well.


So my friend, it has come to the end and it's time for me to say my goodbyes and relax until summer classes start... I'm pretty excited for it actually,  I love learning. I hope you enjoyed my blogging  and hopefully I was able to motivate you in some type of way. So I'll leave you with this quote by Mahatma Gandhi "live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever".

 Peace  -Areli Hinojosa

Entry #10 Good vibes

Ladies and gentlemen  I hope everyone has been good. For some reason I've been in a really good mood. Nothing but good vibes! (:


This week I went to "first Friday"  If you are unfamiliar with what that is , it is basically  what it sounds like. On the first Friday of every month in downtown Phoenix people with artistic ability to
sell their art, jewelry or simply share their ability to sing and dance for people. It's a good date idea or if you just want to hang out with friends. There are food trucks everywhere and the food is freakin delicious. I ended up going with my cousin Ana, her friend whose name I can't recall, and my boyfriend, kurt.

Here are a few thing you can do at first Friday

1.Besides eating you can look at the street art and take cool picture. 

2. If you like a little adventure you can go inside a contraction cite. There are always new building getting build in downtown.  We were only able to clime up to the 3rd floor before I had to leave.

3. Support local artist by buying their crafts.

4. Get inspired! As we walked around I saw a women selling plants. I like DIYs (do it your self) so I looked up how to make them.

If you are interested ill leave a video here to show you how to make string moss ball plants. They make really cool tumbler decorations for any room.

Enry #9 media

In class we have been talking about the effects that the media has on us. I really enjoy subjects like this because they really keep you thinking. The Media shapes the way we think to a certain point. We believe most of the things shown to us on the News because we trust that they tell us the truth and they know this. The News keeps information form us and only tells us the thing they want to show.

The media tells us what we should buy, how success looks like, and how we should look. All this is controlled by the government. Have you ever looked up things that you wanted to buy on amazon or other places and when you went to YouTube or Facebook you saw a similar item that you  could buy on the side of the screen where the ads are? If not you should keep this in mind.

Here are two of my favorite songs by System of a Down.
sugar and Hypnotize
Sugar has a little clip that relates to the News and how they keep things from us and Hypnotize talks about how simple mined we are when it comes to the media.

Entry #8 kitty from hell?

Back in high school, I used to like hello kitty a lot and I low key still do. I just pretend not to care about her as much, but she's still cute.. in my eyes. When I turned 18 I remember being extremely sad because I was now an adult and basically I could get in "real" trouble now. So I got most of my hello kitty things and gave them away (except a 3 that meant a lot to me). So today as I cleaned my room, I looked at my stuffed animals and thought to myself " why doesn't hello kitty have a mouth ?" So I took my time to look it up and share what I found with you!


According to a legend,  a Chinese lady had  a daughter that had mouth cancer and doctors had given up hope for her. As a mother the Chinese lady looked for other ways to help her daughter and after prayer didn't work she begging to do satanic rituals.

The Chinese lady made a pact with the Devil in order for him to remove the cancer from her daughter's mouth. In return, she had to create a cartoon that kids would love, to trick them into worshiping him.

Which she did:
The Chinese lady made up with Hello kitty which means hello demon (kitty means demon in Chinese).
Hello kitty's ears represent horns, that why they are pointy..
She has no mouth to represent the  daughters mouth cancer.

It is said, that the daughter later on died of another type of cancer. In other words you can't cheat death.

The good news is, it's just a myth.
If you guys would like to read more you can check it out here.

Entry #7 Hashtag It'sLit

If you are in any social media it is very likely that you have come across the hashtag trend. I remember the first time I heard of the new trend my history teacher in high school, would say stuff like "hashtag homework for days" at first I thought he was simply weird. But as time passed, I noticed that it was a way to find things you were interested in. You could look up a "tag" and the hashtag you had searched up would pop up. So here is a an article I came across with today http://techforluddites.com  that can help you answer farther more questions and if you're feeling up to it after, jump in the bandwagon. I myself use hashtags from time to time. Mostly to be funny though.

My favorite hashtag in the beginning of 206 was #wasteHisTime2016 just because they were funny and mean.

Entry #6 Fly HIgh

So recently my boyfriend went to a parkour tournament in Las Vegas for his job. If you guys don't know what parkour is, its basically a sport that involves negotiating through obstacles involving flips, jumping, climbing, and of course running.

If you guys saw the video above it's  mind blowing how people can move their body. right? Kurt is so passionate with what he does that it made me look up it's history and how it became a sport.

It all started because of George Albert,  the founder of parcours. He was an officer of the  French navy before World war 1 and was a victim of a volcanic eruption. This experience lead to him, believing that being an athlete involved courage, skill, and selflessness. He travel around the world studying  indigenous people and their movement. When he came back home, he developed  new methods to exercise by using what he had learned in his journey. He is one of the founders of obstacle course training.

Modern Parkour

was developed  by the Yamakasi group in the 1980's using George Albert tainting method mixed with gymnastics. It is a way to express yourself with movement with in your environment
and at the same time encouraging  concentration, quick thinking, flexibility and Discipline.

Entry #5 Can I Get An Hallelujah

              Arizona State University, home of the devils known for its big campus, and it's many careers it has to offer to students. ASU is one of the most convenient university to attend in Arizona because of their online courses and  different locations. Yet, they are always finding new ways to help it's students be successful. I was reading an article called "Arizona State University to offer short classes" by Anne Ryman and she talks about how ASU wants to offer short courses that can be completed in 7 1/2 weeks instead of it's normal length of 15 weeks. In order to give students more flexibility, financial savings, as well as, helping students to graduate faster.

         Although, short classes are not for everyone due to its fast past. In an Online class, you still do all the work you would normally do in a 18 week course. Which means you have no time to procrastinate and you have to be on top of your work. On the other hand, even though you won't have time to do the things you would normally want to do, like hanging out with friends,  it is  a convenient route to take  if you are looking to catch up, or as mentioned before graduate early.

All in all, I believe more universities should offer short courses for those who want to get school out the way.  Not to throw "shade" or anything but  I know Wildcats are probably jealous of this.

Entry #4 Just Do It

Traveling most of us want to do it. so what's stopping you? To a lot of us, money is our biggest concern or at least in my case it is. So I've been doing a little research and found some great ways to travel with little to no money... If you're a risk taker that is.

The first option is to volunteer in return for a place to stay. This cool website http://www.wwoof.net/ shows  many locations that you might be interested in going to, along with a job description. It's basically like looking for a job in a place you would want to explore. Except you get paid with food and a place to stay in.

Another option similar to this, is House-siting. Yes, kind of like pet-setting  only that you get to stay in a house for free while it's owners are away. Sometimes they may leave for weeks or even months! This is a win, win for both parties because it gives you a place to stay and helps the house owners relax knowing someone is looking after their casa (house).

This is some of the website you can look into if you're interested in house- setting.
http://www.mindmyhouse.com/
http://www.housesittersamerica.com/

Lastly My personal favorite is would be crashing on someone's couch . There are websites like https://www.couchsurfing.com/ and http://www.globalfreeloaders.com/  that allow you to look up a place to stay with friendly people for free. A house owner kindly opens their home for travelers who don't have a place to go. Sounds pretty sketchy, I know but the website requires a background check for both parties and is said to be pretty safe. I would still recommend traveling with a friend though, you can never be too safe.

I came across a video of a man who talked about his experience and how he was able to travel around the world by doing couch surfing and relying on the kindness of people.

Entre #3 What the Fudge!

Recently, I happened to run into a video while I was looking for information for my research paper on rape and stumbled upon the "Steubenville rape case". I'm sure a  lot of you are familiar with the case, if not, in 2013 a 16 year old went to a party and got so drunk she could barely move. Two star football players who attended her school took her to different parties throughout the night and sexually molested her. They later on laughed about it on social media and posted graphic pictures with disturbing captions. CNN was one of the many news stations that reported the case. To my surprise and as for many who watched, the CNN reporter was extremely bias in favor of the rapists. 

The reporter says "these two young men that had such promising futures, star football players, very good students, literally watched as they believe their life fell apart."
The reporter tries to influence the viewer to sympathies for the rapist over and over again by saying that they are "good kids" who now have their life's ruined by a bad decision. The reporter never mentions how this has ruined the victims life forever. This show that CNN has poor credibility and is not always unreliable. This just shows how you should not believe what you watch on television, even if it is the News.

Entry #2 Pass the Tequila

Mexican liquor

Did you know that Tequila is actually the name of a city in Mexico? It is in the same state I was born in (Jalisco, Mexico) Just North-West of Guadalajara. In order to produce liquor and have it called "Tequila" it has to be made in the city of Tequila. I got really curious as I walked by a bottle of "Patron" at Fry's (I was buying "milk" hahaha No but seriously, I was buying a gallon of milk) I asked myself how it was made and discovered? So I did what anyone would do. I got on my iPhone and researched. Now I feel like a Tequila expert and let me tell you.

Tequila what?

(http://www.tequila-z.com/historia.html)

I found this cool web site that talks about the discovery of Tequila (which is in Spanish, but thankfully you have me to summarize it! ). Legends say on a stormy day, the indigenous of Jalisco were hiding in a cave, when they saw lightning hit an agave plant. Once the storm was over the indigenous people went over to see the stemmed agave plant and tried some of the liquid that was spilling out. They seem to like it and took some back to their people. One of the indigenous forgot about their drink for a few days and when he finally drank the liquid; his personality changed (the Indigenous got drunk). So the indigenous believed that the drink was a gift from god.

How is it made?

This entry is getting pre-t-t-y long so instead of me talking about the way Tequila is made I found this video. You can thank me later, it's quite interesting!

Entry #1 No way "Jose"

               My professor recently added a list of blogs we could look through to read and may I say I'm amazed at how much effort people put into a their blog!  People go all out and had a really well thought points and observations. There is a blog out there for pretty much everything. So I decided to share with you three of the blogs that I read and the reasons why I did or didn't like them.

#1:Google's Blog

https://googleblog.blogspot.com/
            Let me guess... You didn't know google had a blog? like "where we've been at though?"  I'm kidding, to be honest, I didn't know this blog existed, but I'm glad I do now. Google's blog shares interesting information about all kinds of subjects. For example, my favorite blog so far is about Abbey Road Studio where "The Beatles" and other impressive legends  have recorded. There blogs are well organized, short, and straight to the point. Which is really nice, I'm all about short and sweet readings. As expected google also is really good quality pictures and videos. There blogs are mostly to inform the reader and because they are of different subjects the audience is a wide range of people. All in all, google didn't let me down.

#2 The Huffington Post

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/

             I also liked The Huffington post which was also well organized, but it looked more like a website than a traditional blog. It was full of links, pictures, videos, and categories . On like Google's blog Huffington had more global  subjects like politics and the environment.  The audience of this blog is more for an adult you can tell by the subject they choose to talk about; not many teens are  into politics, although they should be.

#3: Perez Hilton

http://perezhilton.com/

             The last blog, I wanted to share with you guys is my least favorite. I know what you're thinking  "Addy, that a gossip blog" It is, Perez the writer of the blog does a good job with his links but could learn a thing or two from TMZ (also a gossip blog). I felt like he's blog wasn't organized  that well considering that he basically does this blog for a living. His blog looks somewhat "cheesy"  and his pictures weren't the best.

I like pina colada

Ayy that's me!

(a little declaimer I change my hair color a lot)

                                                     

                  Ladies and gentlemen, I'm starting this blog to share my thoughts with the world!... that and it's also part of my grade. Although, I've low key have been wanting to start a blog for some time just never got to it. So let me tell you a little about myself,  I'm Areli, but my friends started to call me "Addy" and it just took over, plus it's easier for people to say. I come from a Mexican family of eight and we are from Guadalajara, Jalisco, which I miss very much. I plan to move back in the future or at least I'm hoping to do so.

                                              

I've been attending GCC (Glendale Community College) for about two years. My goal for attending GCC is to keep a good GPA, graduate with my associates, and transfer to ASU main next year. I make it sound so easy just to trick myself into thinking that it is.  You see, I want to major in landscape Architecture which pretty much means landscape design. I want to help create Eco friendly areas for the public that people would enjoy going to. I would also like to minor in Interior design. I'm all about changing empty space into something beautiful.

I'm the happiest in the water, especially if there's a dolphin

As for hobbies, I like reading, hiking, traveling, and meeting new people. It's not about how long you lived, but how much you lived. So I try to push myself out of my comfort zone as long as public speaking isn't involved.

The Mayan Pyramids

Rocky Point!!