Rachel's Challenge

What is most important to me is definitely my family and my friends. School work and making good decisions is also very important to me, but my number one priority is my family and friends. The people that are always there for me and that I have the most fun with are the people I focus on treating right and just having a good time with. I care about them so much and that's how it's always been to me. I want to be remembered as someone who cares about the big things in life, the things that really should matter and someone that doesn't let the little, useless things get in the way of anything.

Alcohol

The fascination with alcohol especially with teens is that they want the feeling that alcohol first gives you. Another reason teens may resort to alcohol is that they do it to look cool, or to fit in and they don't understand the effects teen drinking has on them. And the last reason that I can think that teens would drink is to take away their problems and they go to alcohol to settle their problems. Alcohol is definitely not healthy for your body. It breaks down the liver, increases the risk of arthritis, increases the risk of cancer in the liver, pancreas, rectum, breast, mouth, pharynx, larnyx, and esophagus, causes physical and behavioral abnormalities to the fetus, raises blood pressure, blood lipids and the risk of a stroke and heart disease in heavy drinkers. Heart disease is generally lower in light to moderate drinkers. It raises blood glucose and it can lower blood glucose, especially to people that have diabetes. It enlarges the kidneys, alters hormone functions, and increases the risk of kidney failure. It also causes fatty liver, alcoholic hepatitis and cirrhosis. It increases the risk of protein-energy malnutrition,; low intakes of protein, calcium, iron, vitamin A, vitamin C, thiamine, vitamin B6 and riboflavin, and impaired absorption of calcium, phosphorus, vitamin D and zinc. It causes neuropathy and dementia and impairs balance and memory. It increases energy intake, but not a primary cause of obesity. And last it causes depression, anxiety, and insomnia. I don't think alcohol should be banned because the people who don't abuse it shouldn't have to be punished for the one's who don't.

Soy

My personal opinion on Soy is that I wouldn't eat it. If it has many negative consequences including high levels of phytoestrogen and derivative of the female hormone estrogen, why take it? Even if it's said to be a superfood and has a variety of health benefits cuch as preventing cancer, I still don't think taking the risk of the negative consequences is worth it.
The American farm has drastically changed over the past 50 years and doing this allowed us to have more variety and more consistency, at lower prices, in our grocery stores. The negative health aspects of industrialized farming is it's not all natural. It's pumped with chemicals to make it grow faster, bigger, produce more meat, eggs, and so on. That's not always healthy for people to eat. And yes, there is a very easy solution to reverse these trends, and that is to just go all natural and keep it the way things are meant to be.

As I've grown up, my childhood dreams have been changing and developing into different dreams and goals. My main dreams are to finish college, get a good job, become successful, live a long life and be proud of myself and all of decisions I've made throughout the years, and to not be ashamed of very much in my past. In one year, I see myself in the middle of my junior year in high school doing very well in school and trying to do good on all of my test that you have to take as a junior. I plan on getting ready for college and really trying in school. In five years, I see myself in college. I'm not entirely sure what I want to go to college for yet, but I have an idea, and I want to do something that has to do with law. In ten years, I see myself hopefully married and having a good job that I've always wanted. In fifty years, I see myself still married and living happily. I'm not sure where I'll live, but I do know it won't be in Erie still. I'm planning on moving to a bigger city, preferably Chicago. For a living I think I'll be doing something in the law area, and I plan to make good money. I think and I hope I'll be married with children, that's one of my goals to accomplish. I'll reach these goals by being myself and trying my hardest to reach them.

Decision Making Model

I found this decision making model to help me sort through this problem in my life. My brother Matt and I got into a fight over where we're going to go on vacation. My dad put the decision up to us to decide on our own, but we have to agree on a place together. He wanted to go to Florida and I wanted to go to California. I looked over this model to help us make a decision that both of us agree on. First, we identified the problem by basically saying we disagree on where to go. Then we the second step on the chart says to gather information, and we did. We looked up what we could do in both places and what the weather was going to be like in both places. Then we analyzed the situation and we found out that the weather wasn't suppose to hold up in California at the location we would go to, and we found more fun things for the both of us in Florida. Then we developed our options. We had two options that included going to where one of us wants this year then go where the other one wants the following year. After that, we evaluated our options. We thought since Florida weather and activites would be more reasonable for a vacation this summer, we were thinking about going there. Then we selected a preferred alternative, and we made a decsion that made us both happy; we were going to Florida. The last step of this decision making model was to act on the decision, and that's exactly what we did, and we had a good time.

Introducing Myself

I'm Amanda Mangoni. I'm a sophomore in Mr. Corbin's health class and I am fifteen years old. There are many things that make me who I am. The things that are most important to me in life are my family and friends, so i spend most of my time with them. Summer is definitely my favorite season, I'm not a very big fan of snow and the cold. The activites I like to do in my spare time are running, swimming, hanging out with friends, shopping, going to the beach, and I love to go on vacations. My interests are sports, traveling, and boys. I'm not entirely sure where I want to go to college yet, but I know I want to go pretty far and I don't want to stay in Erie at all. The colleges I have in mind are Notre Dame and Florida State. My career plans are for sure going to have something to do with law. Law interests me and I want to be a lawyer or something like that.