Author: OwenPitts

We all face moments in our lives when we must make decisions that will determine which way our lives will go. These moments are called turning points. Some people experience many turning points in their lives, while others only experience a few. For someone, it might be stopping smoking after being told that they have lung cancer. For another person it might be choosing to start wearing a seat belt after getting into a car accident where they were injured because they were not wearing a seat belt. Maybe your turning point was a spiritual turning point, like mine was. Let me tell you about it. 

I have grown up in a Christian home all of my life. My family and I go to church every Sunday. We also go to Awana every Wednesday night. Both my mom and my dad are Christians. They have always taught me about Jesus, and they still do! They taught me about Jesus and that He died on the cross to pay for my sins. They showed me in the Bible that the only way to get to Heaven was to be saved, to ask Jesus to forgive me of my sin and to be my Savior. 

Even though I understood what I was being taught at home and at church about Jesus, I still had not made the decision to follow Jesus. When I was around 4 or 5 years old, I began having a lot of nightmares. Almost every night I was waking up and going to my parents bedroom because I was so scared. My parents would always pray with me and then tuck me back into my bed. This went on for a while. My dad started playing an audio version of the New Testament on his iPod every night when it was time for me to go to sleep.  I feel asleep every night listening to the Bible. During this time, I finally believed in my heart that I was a sinner and needed Jesus to save me. I prayed and asked Jesus to be my Savior! After becoming a Christian, my nightmares completely stopped. I was no longer living in fear. I knew Jesus was protecting me and loving me. A few years later I chose to be baptized to show the world that I was choosing to follow Jesus. I am not a perfect person and I still struggle with sin, but I would not be the person I am today if I had not trusted Jesus and asked Him to be my Savior. Becoming a Christian was a huge turning point in my life, and it will probably be the biggest turning point I ever experience.

A smaller turning point in my life has been starting the Ron Paul Curriculum. I had to change from PACEs to doing all online schooling. It was difficult getting used to writing papers every day instead of taking tests every couple of weeks. This is my third year and I am finally understanding how to do it well. I am extremely thankful that I get to stay at home and do school through the Ron Paul Curriculum!  

Is it better to determine one’s own ideas of right and wrong or follow the crowd? Imagine you are walking on the sidewalk on your way home from school and some some kinds want you to throw rocks at passing cars with them. What do you do? You should make your own decision on whether it  is right or wrong. And then you should make your choice. In this case you should not follow the crowd because the crowd is doing wrong. Imagine you are in church and the crowd is singing praises. In this case is it better to follow the crowd or make your own decision? It is better to follow the crowd because the crowd is doing right. Now, if you see the crowd doing wrong and you know it is wrong, don’t do it. But if the crowd is doing right, follow along with the crowd.

Do you believe it would be better to raise the driving age to 21? Imagine the driving age is 21 and you are 18. It is your first day of college. You can’t drive yourself to college so your mom has to. What if your mom has work so you have to walk. Or what if your late. What if your mom or dad has to drive you every where you needed to go. To school, to a friends house, on a date. Not good. That is why the driving age should stay at where it is at, at 16.

Their is good argument for raising it to 21 though. This is because 21 year old’s tend to be more responsible and mature than 16 year old’s. They are also less likely to break the law and get into accidents. If the driving age has to stay at 16, then 16 year old drivers need to learn to be more responsible.

Should students be able to listen to MP3 players of headphones while studying? I think so. One reason is that music soothes the mind. It makes you feel relaxed while you do school. It also helps you concentrate better. It even makes you feel more good about life. Different kinds of music can help you do these different things.

Music also keeps you from being distracted. If you go to school, or if you homeschool, their might be some distractions. Well, music came help you if you let it. Just turn on some music, and listen to it while you do your school. It will help. 

Music can also help you with memorization. It clears your mind so you can focus on your school. It can also help aid endurance. Most children are bringing  headphones with them to study halls to listen to music. That way they can study better. 

I used to listen to music when I did school. I homeschool, so when I have to read a book online, I sometimes turn on some music and read. It really helps. Also, sometimes at night, my dad lets me listen to music on my headphones when I read at night. Music can also really help if you have problems. Music is just amazing.

Should celebrities who break the law face stricter penalties? I do not agree with this statement. Celebrities are famous people like, movie stars, television stars, musicians, bands, politicians, movie directors, and sports players. These celebrities are just the same as people who are not celebrities. One reason is that we are all part of  the human race. Also, we all work for a living. In the end, God is going to judge us all by the same standards. 

Unfortunately, the world doesn’t always agree with me. Recently, there was a collage admissions scam where celebrity parents lied and cheated to get their children into collage. They were caught sentenced to minimal prison time. One celebrity mom only got two weeks in prison! The reason they got so little prison is because they were worth so much money. They Did not have to lie or cheat to get they kids into college. They had the money, but they thought that since they were celebrities that they could get away with it.

All people are individuals. We all generally agree that people should not be judged differently because of their skin color, their origin, or their net worth. The statue of Lady Justice is portrayed as a woman wearing a blindfold holding a beam balance and a sword. Since Lady Justice judges people and deals out punishment, as represented by her sword, she should not be bias by peoples attributes.

If a celebrity does something good like donate a lot of money to a children’s hospital, people praise them. We cheer them on when they win an award that none of us would ever be able to win. But how quickly we change our minds when they do something wrong. We do not cheer them on when they receive less punishment than you or I would get if we did the same wrong thing. This is called a double standard. Until the people stop holding the celebrities in high esteem, the double standard will remain. 

The first thing that I liked about John Lehrer’s book, A Bus of My Own, is the fact that after he had his heart attack that almost killed him, he changed his full life style entirely. He changed the way that he ate since that was probably the main reason why he got his heart attack. He said that he had the diet of a fifteen-year-old. He ate so much trash food. Like pizza, fritos, chili, candy, ice cream, chips, soda, etc. It also says that he changed his diet, which was very good for him. Instead of trash food, he ate fruit, vegetables, juice, toast, etc.

He also decided to exercise a lot to get his heart back in shape. First, he worked out in the hospital workout room. At first he didn’t want to do it, but he soon realized that exercising was very important too his life. When he returned home, he exercised every so often. He preferred walking as his main exercise. He also decided not to make any more speeches, however, before he had the heart attack, he promised his daughter that he would present a speech at her one graduation. After his heart attack he remembered that he would give a speech at the graduation. Although he promised himself not to make any more speeches, he realized that it was her one graduation. She would never get it again, so he decided to be a good father and give that speech. He even decided that he would take a nap every day to rest himself. He decided not to get angry, which was very good for him. Although I think that that was sort of hard for him. He made new friends who were in charge of rebuilding his soul, Charlie Berman and Harry Smith. What’s good is that he wrote it all down on paper to remind himself of all the things he had decided to change in his life.

I also liked it when he got a new Flxible Clipper bus from the advice of a friend. He named it Betsy two, after his first bus, Betsy. He bought it from someone who  bought it from another person who kept in his garage for fifteen years and never used it once, however, he did keep it in good shape. Lehrer was so happy after he bought the bus. It did take some getting used to, but soon he got the hang of it. He was so proud of Betsy tow that he called her a part of the family. All that next week he wrote letters to his family saying that he bought a new bus. He even sent a photograph of Betsy two in his letters. He was so exited.

John Lehrer was a very good man. He was also a American screenwriter, journalist, playwright, and novelist. He even worked with PBS NewsHour. After all of this, he must have been very famous! He died in the year two thousand twenty.

Should student’s textbooks be replaced by computers? I think so. Why? Well, one reason is that computers are very easily portable. School textbooks are so big and heavy. There is one massive school textbook for every subject in school. While the computer only weighs a few pounds, and it can be carried in a backpack.

Another reason for why students should have computers instead of textbooks is because computers are updatable and text books are not. You can’t just update a textbook. If you want to update a textbook, you have to rewrite the whole thing. But if you have a computer, you just have to type stuff in. So easy!

One more  reason about why students should have computers instead of textbook is that computers have significantly more information than textbooks. If you have a textbook, you can only look up the information that it gives you. With a computer, you can look up any information you want. A textbook only gives you the information that the author of  the textbook wants you to have. Most of the time, this information is bias. If the author of a textbook is not a Christian, his book will teach you that evolution is real and that God does not exist. However, if you look up the same information on the computer, you will find articles by Christians that teach that God does exist and that He created the world.  It is important to know both sides of the story.