Shyber’s Blog…

My name is Shyla. I live in a small town in Northern Manitoba. It is really boring here. There is not much to do here. Not a lot of people live here so everybody knows who everyone is, and everything about them. Which can get really frustrating because the whole town knows your buisness like 10 minutes after you find out. Just being honest. HaHa.

It is a mining community and lot’s of new mines are opening up in the area so lots of new people will be living here.

I go to JHK school. I am in grade 8. My teacher is Mr.Fisher. He teaches us E.L.A, Math, Social Studies and Science. My Home Ec teacher is Ms. Nogier. My health and phys ed teacher is Mrs.K. 

In the fall I play volleyball. That is my favourite sport. I wish that is ran all year long but in our school it usually only runs September-October or November. We have co-ed volleyball now but it’s not the same. Sometimes I join the floor hockey or soccer team, only to go to frontier games out of town, because I don’t particularily like those sports.

In the summer I mostly hang out with my friends at the beach and swim. It sounds boring to do everyday but it actually is a lot of fun. Me and my family got a pool last summer and I didn’t really get to use it so that is something that I am looking forward to this summer.

I have a job as a waitress at the Diamond Willow Inn. All I do basically is dishes, serve tables, and book hotel rooms.  I sometimes help out with housekeeping and clean rooms on the weekend. It is an okay job, I complain a lot about it, but if i quit I would probably miss it… and the money, so that’s why I keep working there.

Anyways, that is pretty much all I can think of about me.

Before I leave home I want to know what I wanna do with my life. I don’t want to leave home and just get a job somewhere and never go to school. I want to know what my careers going to be.

I want to travel. The places i want to go to most are Australia and Europe. Another thing I really want to do before I leave home is become an exchange student for a year. Go live in some foreign country and another kid would come live here in my home and go to school. That’s something that means a lot to me and I really want to do that.

Before I leave home I want to make sure I know all the stuff about the law and like stuff about doing taxes and buying a house. All the boring paperwork stuff.  I wanna learn that.

Before I leave home I would like to be able to drive. Also do all the car paperwork and junk.

I want to know how to do all my banking and stuff and how to get loans if I need one. Just basically how to manage my money and make sure I don’t end up broke and starving while I am in school.

Mainly, I would just really like to travel and then come back home to Canada and become very successful and happy. Before I leave home I want to know whatever it takes to do these things.

What is the most Important thing that a parent can do for a teenager?

I need a lot to be happy, sorry to sound high maintenance. I’m thankful for the things I have and my parents are a big part of why I have those things. Living in a heated house thats warm in the winters and cool in the summer is important to me. Having hot water when I shower is something that I really appreciate. My parents do this all for me. They fill the fridge with food and they give me money when I’m broke. Most of the time I say I will pay for my own things. It’s important to me that I have make-up, a bed to sleep in, a computer, internet access, electricity, tv, straightner/blow-drier, nice clothes and shoes, soap and so many other things.

All of the things I just talked about, my parents provide for me. I may sound a little high maintenance, but these are the things I am used to having.

When I’m going through rough times with my friends or at school or anything, my parents are usually there to give me advice. I am pretty close with them. I am lucky to have parents like that.

I need my own space and privacy, so I have my own room. When I’m in a bad mood and tell my parents that I don’t want to talk, then they listen and leave me alone. When I am out with my friends they tell me to be home be a certain time. By doing this they are giving me freedom.

I think what makes a great parent is one who actually cares about their kids education. One who cares what their kid is doing on their free time when they are out with their friends. One who cares what their kids eat and all that stuff. I think your parents need to do all this but at the same time give you space and freedom so that you can have time to figure out who you are.

I think that what kind of person you are reflects on how your parents raised you.

Parents need to raise their kids the right way to make sure they are successful adults.

Today I looked around the blogs of a few of my classmates here in Snow Lake. Then I looked at the success and culture posts the students in L.A. wrote.

The kids in L.A. know a lot about their culture. Some of them are from El Salvador, some are Vietnamese and some come from the Philippines. In Canada, we all have many nationalities but we are all born in this country.

We all live the same here and have a Canadian culture. We could say that culture doesn’t have much of a role in our lives, but really, Canadian culture does. Our nationalities cultures don’t though.

I know that some of my nationalities are Indian and German. My Dad’s side of the family comes from Nova Scotia. But mostly I live in a Canadian Culture, no matter where I come from, I was born in Canada and that is the way I live. That is the way most people live around me too.

I got most of my research for my TED “Talks project from search engines (google) and when I didn’t understand a word I looked it up on Dictionary.com.

The  site I found most helpful during all of my research was Avert.org. Avert focuses completely on AIDS. They have great statistics and information on where you can get help and lot’s of other things.

I also subscribed to The Nata Village blog. I searched HIV/AIDS in technorati and subscribed to that on my iGoogle account.

As you know, I was doing my TED Talks project about HIV/AIDS. I already knew a lot about AIDS before I started this project.

One thing I learned is the theory on how people became infected with AIDS. The most popular theory is Dr.Beatrice Hahn’s. She studies the origin of AIDS. Her theory is that HIV came from Chimpanzee’s in a hunt.

I also learned that HIV stands for Human Immunodeficiency Virus and AIDS stands for Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome. Immunodeficiency means when your immune systems slows down, more and more over time until it completely shuts down.

The definition of Culture is the behaviours and beliefs characteristics of a particular social, ethnic, or age group. I think culture is a group of people, like a family, with traditions, religions, foods and languages that are different from others (cultures). Some cultures are Ukrainian, Mexican, Japanese, etc.

The elements that combine together to make culture, like I said, are traditions, foods, languages, holidays, values, religions and many other things.

I wouldn’t say I really have a culture. A tradition in my family is that every Christmas morning we have Creamed Shrimp on toast. It sounds so gross but it’s like really good. My family (on my Dad’s side), comes from Nova Scotia, and I think that is where that tradition came from.

What Is Culture?

Success is achieving what is important to you. Whether that is fame, wealth, good health, achieving goals, etc. It is what is most important to yourself. Success is different for everyone.

To me, living a successful life is being happy. I still haven’t figured out what makes me happy, since I’m like 14, but, in the future I want a job that makes me happy and brings in the ca$h. I want to get married and have a family eventually, but not when I’m really young, maybe when I’m like 30. I think for me having a successful life would be to achieve all my goals.

People I consider to be successful are people who are truly happy with their life. Like Oprah and Dr.Phil. Other people I find successful are Bill Gates, Thomas Edison, and other wealthy, successful people.

I think Oprah is successful because she seems happy what she is doing and helping other people. She is wealthy and very famous. Dr.Phil is successful because he is wealthy, famous and helps others.

Bill Gates is successful because he is the richest man in the world. Thomas Edison is successful because he made the light bulb, which is one of the best inventions in all of history.

The Mediator is a series by Meg Cabot. I just started reading it this Monday and now I am about three quarters of the way through the second book.

A mediator is someone who can see and speak to the dead. The girl in the book, Susannah Simon, is a mediator. She had just moved from New York to California to be with her mom and her new step dad and his three sons.

Suze’s job as a mediator is to help the dead stay in contact with the living. She delivers messages from the dead to the living, and she helps the dead finish and unfinished buisness.
Suze was a loner before she moved to California, she only had one friend in New York, Gina.

At her new school in California there is a girl who comminted suicide about a month before, that had attended this school, Heather. The ghost of Heather is trying to kill her ex boyfriend, Bryce, who happens to like Suze. All these rare occurances are happening at this school, which is caused by the ghost, but no one but Suze, and Father Dom,(the principal, who is also a mediator) knows this.

Suze becomes popular mainly by telling off the other popular girls and saving Bryces life when Heather attempts to kill him.

Oh and one more thing, there is a dead guy living in Suze’s bedroom, who won’t leave.

You’ll have to read to see what else happens…

Winter Whoot is coming up this weekend. Winter whoot in our town, there is a bunch of fun events going on, where kids can just have fun.

There is an event called the ice worm. Ice worm is when an adult in town hides a stuffed animal and some candies and goodies and such somewhere in a pile of snow in town. There are clues posted at the legion to where it could be found and a new clue is put up every hour until someone finds it.

The ice worm starts at 4:00 on Friday. That is when the first clue is put up. I don’t think I am doing that this year.

Other things that happen during the winter whoot weekend is that all the kids go to the hall and play in the bouncy house. There are little prizes to be won when you play silly little games, like a little carnival. The winter whoot is not nearly as fun as it used to be when I was little…but I hope all the little kids in town have fun this year!