Attitude

Do you find it strange how people with the worst of luck tend to have the best attitude?

A little girl out there is probably sitting on a hospital bed going through chemo, and she probably has a better attitude towards life than you and I. We might say, "Why do i have to do chores while my friends get to go outside and play. Uggh! My life sucks!" It's more than likely that you do not think about the people who have it worse than you. Do you stop to say "Well at least I have running water and a roof over my head"? I highly doubt it.

I really think that people should look at the positive before they decide that their life is "terrible" or that it "sucks". For example, if you get invited to a sleepover at a friend's house, but your parents say you have to babysit your little cousin, look at it this way; "At least I have a family and I can hang out with my friends tomorrow." NOT; "Come on! Why do I have to take care of my stupid little cousin? ALL my friends are going to be at the sleepover!"

So next time you're having a bad day, or something's not going quite right, make sure you have a positive attitude about it. No one wants to hear any complaining about something that's not HALF as bad as you think it is.

Look Ahead

In life, it's always good to have something to look forward to or something to compare to. Whether it's tough times, or a long period of time, such as the school year.

One thing you can do is set goals. For instance, you could say, "Just get through September. Just get through October." (etc....) Another thing you can do is look forward to certain holidays, vacations or birthdays. For bad times, you can compare yourself to someone who has it much worse. Or, if there's an end to the bad times in sight, set steps to that.

For this school year, I have a couple things to look forward to;
Step 1 - Pass through September.
Step 2 - Get to my family vacation in November during thanksgiving break.
Step 3 - Christmas.
Step 4 - My birthday in February.
Step 5 - My family vacation to Mexico around Easter.
Step 6 - Spring Break.
Step 7 - End of school year.

During the school year, you see i only have 7 steps, but as long as there's something exciting in sight, it doesn't matter.

The Princess Bride

The Princess Bride is my absolute favorite movie. Although, many people get thrown off by the title and think that's it's a girly movie about a bunch of princesses getting married. That is not AT ALL how it is.

In the movie there is this girl named buttercup, who after her fiance, Wesley was murdered by the dread pirate roberts, was forced to marry the awful Prince Humperdink. One day on her daily horse ride, she was kidnapped by an evil man named Vizzini and his 2 assistants, inigo and fezzik. After that, she is kidnapped from the dread pirate roberts, who is truly her "dead" fiance. He was never dead in the first place! On their way back to the village, they passed many obsticals such as the fire swamp which is filled with deadly things. Once Wesley and Buttercup got back to the village, the prince and some of his army surrounded them. To make sure Wesley wasn't harmed by the men, Buttercup made a deal to marry Prince Humperdink as long as Wesley was returned to his ship safely. Humperdink did not keep his word and Wesley was taken to the pit of despair, which is as terrible as its own name describes it. There, Wesley is killed for the second time. Inigo and Fezzik took him to the miracle Max and then found out that he was only "mostly dead". There, he was given a magic pill and after awhile he awoke. The three stormed into the wedding and saved Buttercup. This is the only "heroic or heart-warming" part of the story.

If you watch the Princess Bride, I can almost guarentee that you will love some of the classic quotes from this fantastic movie.

Pandas

Why are pandas becoming extinct? What is being done to help them? What do we need to know to save them? These are all question we need answered in order to save the panda.

Pandas are becoming extinct for a couple of reasons. First off, agriculture has invaded any low altitude part of their habitat. Next, logging has destroyed the trees that give bamboo the shade it needs in order to grow. Another reason is that illegal poaching, (before it was banned) took its toll on their population drop. Lastly, because of their slow breeding process, (Only being able to have a baby at best every other year) it has been hard to boost their population numbers.

There are a couple things that people are doing to save the panda population. An organization called the WWF (World Wildlife Fund) is doubling the amount of bamboo forests by planting more bamboo trees. This plan will cost around $63.5 million dollars. The organization of WWF is also trying to educate the local people on pandas so that they can help too. Another thing is that China has set up patrols in some of the panda ranges to prevent illegal poaching and exporting. Lastly, there are many panda reserves and zoos that are trying to help save the panda population, such as Wolong National Natural Reserve.

There are a lot of things to know about pandas, but what we need to know to save them is a different story. Some things we might need to know are that they are born very small, blind and helpless and a mother can only take care of 1 panda at a time. (This is why, unfortunately if there are 2 cubs, 1 will not survive.) We might need to know that pandas do not hibernate. If well taken care of, a panda can live up to 35 years old. Once a panda is 1 year old, it should be adept at climbing trees to protect itself from predators.

A pandas diet is 99% bamboo. They eat 20-45 pounds of it each day and spend about 10-16 hours it every day! The other 1% is made up of different grasses and (rarely) small rodents or musk deer fawns.

There are about 1,600 pandas left in the world today. They used to exist over a much wider range than the 6 they have left today. A range is basically a couple of mountains. They now are only found in the mountains of central China, in Sichuan, Shaanxi and Gansu. The last thing we might need to know is that they do not hibernate so therefore, they do not have a specific home. They move up and down the mountains based on the temperature. So if you are looking for a panda during the summer, you might want to look at a higher altitude.

Pandas are on the endangered list, and we need to help them. What will you do to help these adorable amazing creatures?

My panda project