Live Hail Mary

This past Sunday, I got to go to my first NFL game. I am a fan of the Bengals and my friend is a fan of the Browns, so this was a perfect game for us to attend. We sat very close to the field and witnessed a Hail Mary with A.J Green receiving the pass. It got me thinking about how a Hail Mary got to be related to football. I looked up some information and found "How 'Hail Mary' Became Inextricably Linked to American Football" by John Walters. In this article, Walter defines what a Hail Mary is and how it made its name in American football. It even goes on to give examples of famous Hail Mary's.

This article mostly educates. Discussing the history of it all, defining Hail Mary, and giving examples of them is all to educate the reader. For football fanatics, this could also be considered an entertaining read.

Whether the team is on the winning or losing side, they will remember if a Hail Mary occurred during a game they once played. However, for the Browns, I am sure all their losses are meshing together, so they probably are not sure what happened during which game anymore. I cannot say too much though, considering my Bengals are only 3-4. Maybe executing more Hail Mary's will help.


http://www.newsweek.com/2016/10/28/theres-something-about-hail-mary-510723.html

Christmas in Amsterdam

Every year, my mom and I have a tradition that for every Christmas we go on a vacation. My mom believes since I have everything I need, the best gift for her is to give me memories that I can have forever. I know some people may prefer gifts, but we both love to travel, so I think this tradition is perfect for the two of us.

What does that have to do with my article? Well, this year we are contemplating about going to Amsterdam. I started looking into it a little more since I do not know everything it has to offer. I only know of the typical tourist things to do. During my search, I discovered a short read called, "How to Spend the Perfect Christmas Day in Amsterdam" by Jane Szita. I was curious to see what this had to say since I may be in Amsterdam on Christmas. The article says a perfect day consists of ice skating, light festivals, church services, watching the Christmas Circus, and then seeing the Opera perform Hansel and Gretel.

For me, this article was educational, enlightening, and emotional. I learned about what typical people in Amsterdam do for Christmas, so I am now more informed and have a better feel for what it is like over there during that time. The reason this article was emotional was because it made me excited for the Christmas trip with my mom. Now, I just have to keep reading and see if this is actually where we want to go.

http://www.travelandleisure.com/articles/Amsterdam-christmas-what-to-do

Unconditional Love

The article I read is called "What my disabled girl has taught me about life" by Ian Birrell. This is more of a personal piece written for the Sunday mail in October of 2011. Ian shares his story about raising a daughter with a disability. Birrell describes how "She suffers from a rare life-threatening condition that means she cannot walk or talk. She is blind, endures daily epileptic fits and needs round-the-clock care." Her name is Iona and she was born in the fall of 1993. Raising Iona has not been easy and they have struggled a tremendous amount with raising a child that will be forever dependent on them. However, Birrell says his and his wife's life would be so much poorer without her. The article discusses how Birrell and his wife found out Iona had brain damage, how they dealt with it while she grew up, and their thoughts now. The only thing that matters to Birrell is that he still has his daughter in his life and she brings so much joy to him that he never imagined.

This piece definitely hits a soft spot in my heart because I do a lot of work with the mentally disabled. So to me, this article educates, entertains, enlightens me, and evokes emotion. To hear their struggles on raising a mentally disabled child and still being positive shows how strong these parents are. They talk about her disabilities mostly, but also describe how shes just like everyone else which is very heartwarming. This article shows how much parents love and care for their child.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-2049382/What-disabled-girl-taught-life.html

Forgot Again

So, for the past two weeks I have forgotten to do my weekly blog. I have an entire week to do it so why can I not remember to take 30 minutes (at the most) out of my week to do it? I thought maybe reading an article about the different theories of why people forget would be a good idea for me.

I read an article called "Forgetting" by Sam McLeod. In this article, he discusses forgetting from short term memory and long term memory. I remember  learning about all of this in a psychology class I have previously taken, but clearly I need a refresh. After this article educated me on the different types of theories for forgetting things, I believe displacement is the reason for me forgetting about my blogs. McLeod described displacement as, "...the information that had been in the short-term store for the longest was the first to be displaced by new information, similar to the way in which boxes might fail off the end of a conveyor bet- as new boxes are put on one end, the boxes which have been on the conveyor belt the longest drop off the end."

McLeod goes on to discuss and evaluate the popular theories such as trace decay, interference, lack of consolidation, and retrieval failure. Maybe after reading and being informed of all of these, I will step it up and do my blogs!

http://www.simplypsychology.org/forgetting.html#con