My friends band. Beauty For Ashes

Beauty for Ashes is a alternative christian band founded November of 2011 by Joanna Maldonado. Their wish is to spread the Gospel of Jesus Christ through their music to all who are willing to listen. They are a relatively new group composed of a few musucians and the lead singer Joanna Maldonado. They have played and ministered in a few church events and concerts and are looking to keep on doing so for the Glory of Jesus Christ.

More info in the link below:
http://www.beautyforashesband.com/

A few pictures from my trip to the Dominican Republic.

I went to the Dominican Republic this summer on vacation to visit my family. Here are a few pictures.This is a picture of a few of my family members in the beach I grew up in. I love this scenario, it reminds me of the humble little place that I came from.

This is the house of the woman who raised my while my birth mother worked here in the U.S.

Houses in Samana.

The beach in Las Terrenas, Samana.

Los Haitises.

Fish, I believe sardines, in El Parque Nacional Los Haitises.

Cueva Boca de Tiburon. Shark Mouth Cave.

A cave in El Parque Nacional Los Haitises.

My Nintendo 3DS is awesome!!

I bought my Nintendo 3DS about two months ago. I chose the black one and got The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time along with Super Mario 3D Land. I loved replaying Ocarina of Time. This time around I actually beat the whole game. Last time I attempted to beat it I was ten so, I guess that is why it didn't work out. The game was so fun I couldn't put it down. I found myself taking my 3DS out while waiting for a class to start and I would play Ocarina of Time. It was fun the controls were good and the story is great just as I remember. I highly recommend it to everyone.

Super Mario 3D Land is fun, this one I still haven't beat maybe I am just to lazy. The game is great, when they said it would be 3D they really meant it. All the levels have great detail and are overall fun to play. The game has a twist after you beat the eight world but I will not reveal that, I'll let you find out on your own, or at least YouTube and Google it if you are curious to see what it is. Like always, you are saving Princess Peach but the layout of the game is very different to other Mario games. You get new suits one of my favorite being the Tanooki suit, which dresses Mario in a raccoon like outfit giving him a tail he can whip enemies with and the ability to jump and fly in the air for a few extra seconds that a regular jump allows.

I am very glad I invested my money into my 3DS. I am now anxiously waiting for E3 to come so I can see what new games are coming out and what I might buy. Next week I intend to buy Rayman: Origins, it comes out June 5th. I can't wait, the demo was really fun and I'm looking forward to playing it.

"The Avengers" peeps in my Swackett app

A holocaust story

     I recently had to visit my schools holocaust center during a class to learn more about what happened and how it can relate to the U.S correctional system.  We had a guest speaker, she is a survivor of the holocaust. Here is a brief summary of her story.

          Her name is Jane. She was born in a small town in Germany to a Jewish family. She was a teenager when Hitler came into power. For her family the treatment of Jews was not as bad as in other places because it was a small town away from the capital city. Because her family did not want to be around when things got worst, and to avoid being sent to a concentration camp her father tried to get them visas to get out of Germany. Unfortunately, many other countries were closing their doors to immigating Jews. The only choices they had where China and Cuba. They bought tickets to go to Cuba on a ship and because they could not keep the German money her father decided to buy first class tickets. She states that they rode comfortably until they arived to Cuba.

         When they arrived to Cuba they came across a problem. The Cuban government had to check all the doctor records of the Jews and after about a week they decided they could not enter into Cuba, that they could not find the records or something of the sort. The ship set off to try and find somewhere for them to go, or they would have to return to Germany. Her father did not want to go back because they no longer had money and couldn't get all their things back. They ended up in France. She was sent to an orphanage with all the other children her age. Her parent lived in France, too but separated from the children, they did however see each other occasionally. After a few months of being in France, her father found a way to get them visas to the United States. She arrived at New York, and moved to Queens and has lived there ever since. 

People are getting dumber?

I have been meaning to put this blog up for a while, but I have been busy with school and work so I find it hard to find the time to do it. Well, here is an article I found in The New York Times website in the opinion section. I like to go into this section and see what people think on the subjects given. This particular article caught my eye since it is something I think about constantly. Are people getting dumber? Where does society's value lie? Has the whole world turned materialistic? Well, in this article I saw how many people agreed and disagreed on the subject.

I for one, do not think people are completely stupid. I think that they are very lazy. Why do I think they are lazy? Well, there are so many ways to find information on current events in this world yet this generation seems to only care about the latest fad and not the important things that are going on. Just the other day while sitting in my Corrections and Sentencing class a fellow classmate stated that we go to college to "gain common sense". That statement blew my mind. All I could think was "what are you doing here?" and "how did you get into college?" I think that rather than looking up which famous person is engaged and what new sneakers are in style we should worry about becoming smarter humans so that the next generation will be better than the one we are living in. I do not want to bring children into a world where people quote Drake by saying "YOLO" several times a day. I do not need Drake to tell me I will only live once, that's common sense but now that I think about it maybe my classmate gets her knowledge from Drake.

I leave you with this, rather than seeking the material thinks in life, strive to become an intelligent person in society and make the world a smarter place for our children to live in.

Here is the link to article I found. http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2012/02/26/are-people-getting-dumber/people-are-getting-dumber-and-its-no-joke?scp=1&sq=people%20are%20getting%20dumber&st=Search

Valentines Day PEEP on Swackett.