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Imagine you are riding your bike (if you have one, but if you do not, just follow along) on the sidewalk and you  fall off and you get a cut and you bleed. Later a scab forms over your cut. After a few days your scab falls off and your cut is healed. What happened under the scab that healed your cut?

Your skin is made up of skin cells. When you get a cut, skin cells fall off and you bleed. When you bleed a scab forms over your cut to stop the bleeding while your body gets to work to heal your cut. Here is how it does that.

When a scab forms over your cut, the skin cells outlining the cut actually multiply. They do this by dividing themselves into two cells. They keep doing this until the cut is completely healed. When the cut is healed the skin cells do not know that the cut is healed, so the brain sends a signal to the skin cells that tells them to stop dividing, and then the scab falls off. And that is how cuts heal. 

When Kourdakov was writing his book he used many contrasts to show the differences in his life and in his work. One of the contrasts we see in his book is between his communist meetings and Sunday afternoons. At communist meetings they made plans about their next raid of the Christians that were living in the Soviet Union. They really hated the Christians and believed that they were the enemies of the Communist party. They called the Christians “believers”. They enjoyed persecuting the believers and would sometimes celebrate after a successful raid by spending all their money on vodka. These meetings happened extremely often. They did not really have any days off of work being a part of the KGB. Sundays were the exception. Most Sundays were free days and Kourdakov enjoyed those off days. One specific Sunday, Kourdakov’s boss told him about a raid that was going to be happening in the woods. Kourdakov took his men and went early to try to enjoy what was left of their usual off day. They hung out in the woods until it was time to begin the raid.  

Another contrast Kourdakov discussed in his book was his public and private life. His private life involved his work with the secret police or KGB. Kourdakov’s boss told him to keep the police work that they do (specifically persecuting the Believers) secret because if the public knew what they were doing, than the public might revolt against them. In contrast to his private life was his public life. His public life mostly involved drinking vodka with his friends. As I mentioned before, he drank vodka with his cadets every time they completed a raid, but this was not the only time he enjoyed drinking. His cadets were his family because his father and mother died, his brother left him, and he was raised in several different orphanages. He did mostly everything with his cadets. No one else knew of his secret job and no one suspected him of any wrongdoing. But we would not have known this if he had not contrasted his public and private life.

Another thing he contrasted was the leaders of the USSR and the leaders of the Believers. The men and women who worked in the USSR were evil! They enjoyed hurting people. It did not matter if the person was a Believer, or a Russian, or anyone else. They were extremely ruthless and showed absolutely no mercy. The leaders of the KGB or the USSR were liars and were quite deceptive. They cared more about controlling religion than about actual crime that was going on in their country. The leaders of the Believers were the opposite of the KGB in almost every way possible. They showed love to anyone who came through their door, even if it was a KGB agent. One even tried to preach to Kourdakov’s boss when he was being interrogated by the KGB! Contrasts make reading and writing more interesting because it shows both extremes in a story. 

What are three goals that I am committing to achieve by age seventy? Lots of people have goals in their life. Some might want to be a pastor, some might want to be an engineer, and some might want to be a mechanic. But I have a lot of goals that I want to achieve before I am seventy years old. Here they are. I want to be a famous herpetologist (someone who studies reptiles and amphibians), I want to get married and have children of my own, and I want to be a missionary and teach other people about Jesus. This is why I want to be these three things.

I want to be a herpetologist because I love reptiles and amphibians and I want to study them in further detail. I have made and am still making a YouTube channel about reptiles and amphibians. I have even written a speech about reptiles. I love them so much. I really want to become a famous herpetologist someday before I am seventy years old.

I also want to get married before I become seventy years old. I really want to have children of my own someday and teach them about God so that they can go to heaven someday. I want to be in charge of and be responsible for actual real human lives. I want to have children and grandchildren that look up to me. I also want a loving wife who loves Jesus. I also hate being alone. That is why I want to get married.

I also want to be a missionary before I become seventy. I want to be a missionary because I want to tell other people about Jesus so that they can go to heaven someday. I want everyone in the world to know about Jesus, but I know that I can not make that happen, but I can at least tell some people about Jesus. I want to be a missionary because I believe that everyone should come to know Jesus and I can help with that by telling other people about Jesus.

How will owning my own business increase the likelihood that I will attain these three goals? One way owning my own business will help me attain my three goals is that I will get a lot of money because I need a lot of money so I can do what I need to do. It will also help me manage my money because a missionary needs to know how to manage his money right? Another way owning my own business will help me attain my goals is that I can learn how to solve problems, or problem solving. If I am out doing herpetology stuff or missionary stuff and I come across a problem, I can solve my problem because of my experience at owning my own business. It can also help me communicate with other people. It can help me be a good teacher to teach about Jesus. I really hope I can attain these three goals someday.

Why a blog site with lots of content will help me get my first full-time job after college. A student in the “normal” school system has assignments and papers and tests that he or she must complete in order to earn good grades and do well in the class. A good student will work hard on his or her assignments. They will study, they might spend many hours in a library doing research, they might even interview people. They turn in their paper with pride knowing they have worked hard and have done a good job. But what is the point? The teacher may like it, you may get a good grade, but where will it go? Most likely it will be stored in the teachers files and trashed at the end of the year. Even if the student still gets his paper back, it may still end up in the trash. This is not the case with the Ron Paul Curriculum. I still do papers. I still do the same assignments as “normal” schools. I still do research. I still ask questions. But here’s the big difference. Instead of my papers ending up in the trash or a filing cabinet, I get to post my papers on my blog and let the whole world see them.

I have a lot of content on my blog that can help me in the future. This is how. First of all, I want to tell you what my blog is. It is called “Herping With Owen”. It is where I type in and keep all of my school papers. I have a blog so that people all over the world can read my papers and maybe even learn something. If I want to get a good  job I can show the company my blog and they can see that I have been interested in that job and maybe they can give me the job. I also have a YouTube channel about herpetology. If I want a job as a herpetologist than I can show them my channel and they can see that I really want a job as a herpetologist and maybe give me a job.

My school makes me publish my content to the internet to help me build skills that real business’s need. WordPress powers thirty-five percent of the internet. That is about four hundred, fifty-five million websites that use WordPress. So that means that the business that you want to work for will most likely use WordPress. So lets say that there is a business that uses WordPress and they need a new employee and there are two people who want to sign up. One knows how to use WordPress and the other does not. Which one do you think the business will hire? Well, it has to be the one who knows how to use WordPress. Same thing with you. If you want to be part of a business that uses WordPress, than you need to practice your skill in knowing how to use WordPress. My blog is built on WordPress so I know how to use it. Same thing applies to YouTube. My school is structured around preparing me to add value to a business.  

Sergei Kourdakov wrote down in his autobiography that in the beginning of his book The Persecutor, he jumped off of a Russian boat into the ocean off the coast of Canada during a storm. How did he get into this situation and why would he ever jump off of a boat into the ocean? Here are some of the choices that led him to this failed assignment. He chose whether to join the Army or Navy, joining a crime syndicate or staying clean, and telling the truth about suicide or telling a lie. We will look at each of these in turn.

Kourdakov’s father and grandfather were both in the army, until they were worked to death at an enemy camp. Later in Sergei’s life, he wanted to go to either the army, or the navy. He talked it over with some other people. He asked them if he should go to the army. They all said no. They told him to stay away from the army. “It’s a hard life ” they said. “You come out of the army and you start as a factory worker. What kind of future is that?” Then he decided to talk with people who were actually in the navy at one point. He talked with them, and after hearing of their experiences in the navy, he decided to join the navy.

When Kourdakov was a teenager, he joined a crime syndicate. According to the dictionary, a crime syndicate is a loose affiliation of gangsters in charge of organized criminal activities. A crime syndicate is another word for mob or mobsters. A crime syndicate makes money by drug trafficking, arms smuggling, extortion (threatening people to get what you want), theft, and financial crime. Because of this joining of a crime syndicate, he did very well at being a KGB (Komitet Gosudarstvennoy Bezopasnosti) agent (which he received the honor of later in his life).

When Kourdakov was in the military a fellow officer jumped off a three story building and died. Kordakov’s boss told him and other officers to spread the word that the officer who had just died was drunk and did not know what he was doing. Kourdakov knew him better. Kordakov tried to help the officer who had died, but instead of accepting Kourdakov’s help, he committed suicide (the act of killing oneself). Suicide is such a terrible thing. Instead of telling the truth and coming clean about the officer, he did what his boss told him and lied.

There were many turning points in Kourdakov’s life, including these, that led to him jumping off of a Russian boat in the ocean off the coast of Canada in the middle of a storm. I have not finished his autobiography, but I am interested in other turning points in his life, and where they will eventually lead him. So far, Kourdakov’s life decisions have led him down bad roads, but jumping off the Russian ship is a huge turning point, maybe his largest. Maybe this turning point will not only change his life, but also his decision making.

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!  

The average American watches four hours of TV every day. This means that nearly 20% of your entire day is spent on watching television! Is it worth it? Twenty five years ago when my parents where kids, the only way you could watch TV is if you where literally sitting in front of the TV. This is not the case today. There are several different ways that we are able two watch TV today. Some of the ways are on your TV, on your phone, on your tablet, and the computer. So as you can see, ease with which you can watch TV has really improved. The ability to watch TV on even more devices and with much more ease does not make it acceptable to watch more TV. I only watch TV for one and a half hours each day.

Is there anything wrong with watching TV? Well, no. There is nothing wrong with watching TV. There is some pretty decent stuff on TV. However, it does become a problem when you begin watching TV more than living your every day life.

How much money won’t I have at age 70 if I keep watching TV? Well, I am 12 years old. The current minimum wage in Illinois is $9.25 an hour. If I work for one day I’ll have made $37.00. Let’s say I work 4 hours every day, for 5 days every week. That means I will have earned $185.00. If I work every week for 1 entire year, I will have earned $9,620.00. Finally if I work until I’m 70, that is 58 years of working, and by then I will have earned $557,960.00! This is how much money I will NOT have if I instead choose to watch television for 4 hours every day. So no, watching TV is not worth it.

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.

Water

Posted 4 years ago by OwenPitts

Water is extremely important to every single living thing on earth. Even plants! Water is both an acid and a base. If you have ever seen salt dissolve in water, you might have thought,” How does it do that?” Well, it is because water is an acid. It can dissolve anything, although somethings may take years to get dissolved by water. Water is also a base so that means we can drink it. Your body is 60% water. Have you ever been sweating and dehydrated? That is because you lost a lot of water and you need to drink more.

Plants also need water. They need it to make their own food. They also use water to grow. If a plant’s leaves are drooping and they look brown, that means they are not getting enough water. All healthy plants should be green. Water can also be used for swimming, supporting sea life, making electricity, and a lot of other things. Water is very important to every living thing on earth.      

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.