learn

“before Aids hit Africa, the word ‘orphan’ did not exist.”

That was just on a commercial for something, I guess Aids.

Well, I know that there have been some kind of detection of an Aids-type disease in the early 1900’s, and I don’t think that the first child with no family appeared in the last hundred years or so.

So… maybe there was another word for ‘orpahn’ that was used… and that’s what they meant?

Who knows.

Barack Obama has… A FLICKR ACCOUNT?!

If that isn’t the coolest thing, then I don’t know what is!

: )

::glow::

I just remembered that about a week ago I was curious about country codes and looked up the one for USA.

It said “1” and I didn’t get it because I thought something like “why would 1 be a country code, that is long distance, they just don’t know”.

And then it kind of made sense.

They don’t teach you that kind of thing in school!

I used to use calling cards back in high school (me and my best friend then had friends in another city and didn’t have long distance) and they always talk about country codes on the back of those cards.

It was one of those things where I read about country codes, but I never got it.

It didn’t click until last week.

One thing that I’d like to know about other countries is if they have area codes.
Or know what their version of what an area code is.
And also in other countries, if they have a “long distance” and if they have to dial their country code to contact the long distance.

Some interesting country codes I bet you never knew:

Antarctica: no country code (ha! all that country and no code!)
Bahamas: 1-242
Vatican City: 39-06-698; 379
Belgium: 32
Croatia: 385
Greenland: 299
Rwandese Republic: 250
Yemen: 967

Two that I don’t get:

South Africa: 27
I thought it was one country code per… country.
Hmmm.

EMSAT (Mobile Satellite service): 88213
Satellites are in space.
How are you going to call space?
^{(oh man i just thought… how fun it would be to play a ouija board in space, talking to those in other galaxies)}

This is all kind of funny though.

I did not know that Malcolm X was assassinated!

I was just on the PostSecret website and there was a postcard on there that had x’s on four people who were assassinated (JFK, MLK, etc.) and a certain caption, and I guess that person was concerned for Obama.

I didn’t understand what the postcard was about at first but I wanted to find out, and then I read the comment underneathe it and I started thinking… and then it clicked that maybe Malcolm X was assassinated?

I Googled it and I was right!

I had no idea!

I had some quote of his that I really liked written on a yellow Post-It in green Sharpie on my wall for years at the old house, and I never thought about how he died.

I just assumed it was old age.

I do not want my aunt to ever find out that I never knew this.

She has worked with the NAACP for many, many years and she’s really into our black heritage like that.

She has a poster of Malcolm X in her living room, and pictures of MLK and other black people she likes in that living room too.

I think that she would be really dissapointed and would not hesitate to ridicule me for not knowing this!

I think that people who study dinosaurs, Paleontologists, have a pretty neat career.

I mean, just look at that picture.

The dinosaur.

How could you not want to learn about something like that?!

If they were alive today, I think that people would not know what to do.
We’d be scared.

I know how we know exactly how each dinosaur looked, but I don’t know exactly how we’ve (I mean the Paleontologists) have figured out the color?
I think that pieces of hair have cells in them, or something to know colors and other features.
But I don’t think dinosaurs had hair.

Are they even classified as reptiles?

I just Googled some questions and this website says that dinosaurs are classified as reptiles because they have no traces of hair and hatched from eggs.

The word “dinosaur” means “terrible lizard”.

lol

Fossils cannot tell us things such as color and behaviors, and the scientists make educated guesses when they compare the dinosaur they are studying to something that is living today that closely resembles it.

Dinosaurs did not fly.
These “flying animals” that people call a dinosaur, like the Taradactle, are not dinosaurs at all.
Even though they lived in the same time as dinosaurs, they are a class all of their own.
This class is called Pterosaurs.

I just realized that rhinocerous today closely resemble Triceratops.

But then, I don’t think that certain animals have evolved from dinosaurs (like a rhino and a Triceratops) because the dinosaurs were wiped out from the planet.

These paragraphs from the website remind me of the Lochness Monster (I believe in the Lochness Monster!):

“Sea Reptiles
Even though they, too, were not real dinosaurs, a lot of interesting reptiles lived in the sea during prehistoric times. There were two important groups of marine reptiles, the plesiosaurs and the ichthyosaurs. The plesiosaurs were dived into two groups, long-necked, and short-necked. The long necked kind looked like swimming Sauropods, while the short-necked kind sort of resembled whales. They all had very sharp teeth and were very scary.

The Ichthyosaurs looked like evil dolphins from hell, and like to stare at people in the museum. All these marine reptiles were very large and ate fish, ammonites, and each other. They were not fish however, so they had to come to the surface to breathe.”

You see, dinosaurs are a lot more interesting than people think.

I was watching 60 Minutes and they had a segment about two brothers, Francisco Rivera Ordoñez and Cayetano, who are the most popular matadors in Spain right now.

Being a matador is a lot more dangerous than I ever thought.
A lot of poeple die in this sport, something I never knew before watching this program, and it is a lot more than just waving a red cape at a bull and trying to kill it (I hate that part).

One of the brothers, I forget which one, I think the younger one, was talking about how when a matador is in the ring with that bull, there is a kind of connection that you build with the bull.
He could not really explain that connection, but I definitely understand it.

These two brothers were really interesting.

Their grandfather and their father were both really famous matadors.

The brothers wear the same gold and white outfit that they had both worn when they were fighting.

Their father died in the ring after being hit by a bull.

One of the brothers was asked by the interviewer if he was scared every time he left the hotel to fight a bull that he might not return.

He said that he thinks about that every single time, and that when the time is right, he would like to die fighting a bull.

It is the people like these brothers that I have a lot of respect for in sports like bull fighting.
It is not just a game for them but an entire lifestyle, and they reach more levels with this sport than most of us can’t even imagine.

These brothers continue a family tradition and want to die doing it.

That is just amazing to me.

I found the article on the program that I watched.

I’ve learned from my mistakes, I’ve learned from my mistakes, I’ve learned from my mistakes, I’ve learned from my mistakes…

A really old friend came back into my life the other day, and I know that she’s into things that I’ve worked really hard on getting away from…
and I’d really love to hang out with her again, but knowing me, if I’m around certain things I’ll probably jump back in the pool.

It’s really strange being one way for so long, and then being another…
and everybody knows you as this one thing, but then when you clean up you know that they’re happy for you but it’s hard to adjust when you are around that certain kind of lifestyle again.

I need to learn how to be around things and to not feel like I want it.
I just want to be able to say “nope, but thanks anyway” and let that be that.
Not even second guess it.

This is such a hard thing to learn.

I guess the more appropriate word to use here would be either disciplin or self control.
I think self control might be better.

I am really determined on this one, like a lot of other things.
I’ve come too far to backtrack for a few good times.

I want to say “I believe I can do it!” but I know that it just will not be that easy.
I know what I need to do to accomplish this.
I need to stop cutting people out of my life that remind me of these things, and learn to be around them and resist temptation.

I do NOT define a friend by their habits.
At all.
As long as they are a nice person to me and other people, that is all that matters!

One other battle I have to get used to when it comes to this is music.
There is a lot of music that I have an extremely hard time listening to now because I’m so used to feeling a certain way when I listen to it, and to just be… normal, I guess… is so weird and it doesn’t sound the same.
It almost doesn’t make sense, and I hate that feeling.

For something to not make sense anymore when it made sense to you before is a really bad feeling.

It’s scary, almost.

...lots to work on.

I’m watching a special on the Smithsonian on the Travel Channel, and I learned that what we’re all taught about the American flag was a complete lie.

Betsy Ross did not sew or create the first American flag.

It was Mary Young Pickersville.

The lie/fabrication was made by her niece or nephew, one of the two, I can’t remember what the lady said.

The original flag wasn’t made until nearly thirty some-odd years after Betsy Ross was said to have made whatever she had made, which wasn’t the flag.
Probably didn’t even make anything.
Probably didn’t even know how to sew.

lol

Anyway, all of our school books are completely wrong, and this is about the fifth piece of information I’ve learned in my life where the information we received back in school was completely false.

Anyway, this special is so interesting, my eyes are glued!

I was looking through my “Most Beautiful” list, and I noticed that every single guy on there has (or had when they were younger) dark brown hair (except one, light brown).

Weird, really.

I never realized I mostly liked guys with brown hair.

I always knew I liked a strong flaw (jacked up teeth, weird scar on the face, big ears, lazy eye, stuff like that), but the brown hair is all new to me!
I mean, I guess it’s always been there, but knowing it is new.

I talked with two people who live in the UK this morning.

Like we were lead to believe in school and during the French classes, they don’t carry around bread like that everywhere they walk!

Bread and cheese really are as big as we think.

NKOTB are really huge over there.

And some other bands I forgot the names of.

They think fat American teenagers eat peanut butter.

lol

I got that comment after I was talking to someone about what they’re having for breakfast.
I recommeneded waffles with peanut butter on them, and he told me that.

They’re funny people, and not all of them have that really dry humor like those shows on BBC.