The soundtrack of my life would have to begin with the song "Without You" by Harry Nilsson. This was my parents wedding song and when I was two years old they got divorced. Whenever I hear this song it reminds of them and how I never really knew what they were like when they were married. I have heard this song so many times because my dad still plays it to this day, and I love it because I grew up with Harry Nilsson's songs.

"I saw the sign" by Ace of Base. This song is the epitome of my childhood. When I was growing up my mom had this song on repeat for a number of years. I don't think my life's soundtrack would be complete without this song. Although I hate this song because I've heard it at least 1000 times, I used to love this song. For some reason this song reminds me of my two sisters, my mom and I going to my favorite bakery on Saturday mornings and getting the world's GREATEST cinnamon rolls.

"Better Man" by Pearl Jam. This is one of my all time favorite songs. When i was in seventh grade I got into a full on obsession with Pearl Jam. I fell in love with Eddie Vedder and his voice. In my early teen years Pearl Jam was all I would listen to. I remember summer going into 9th grade Pearl Jam came to Summerfest and I begged my mom to take me, and when she said she couldn't I just cried.

"Hide and Seek" by Imogen Heap. This song reminds me of the beginning of my relationship with my boyfriend when I was a freshman in high school. When he showed me this song I fell in love with it. I used to make him give me his Ipod so I could listen to it in study hall. This song just reminds me of such a great time in my life. I was just starting high school and I was in love. This song brings back a lot of great memories for me.

"Just Dance" by Lady Gaga. I can't even begin to express how much I love this song. Not because I think it's a good song, but because it brings back so many great memories with my 5 girl friends from high school. We always played this song. During our lunch break senior year we would go off campus to eat, and all of us would squeeze in one car, and we would blast this song and dance and scream. And when we all went to Mexico for spring break all 6 of us stayed in one room and one day when we were getting ready to go out, we put this song on and danced around singing and jumping. It was probably the greatest trip of my life. I love that song and it really made my senior year so much fun with all my girl friends.

"Christmas (Baby please come home) by Mariah Carey. I chose this song to represent my first year at college because it is one of my favorite Christmas songs and I had to play this song so many times to get me through finals week. The worst thing about the University of Wisconsin is first semester finals week. Christmas is one of my favorite times of the year and I didn't get to experience any of it this year because of finals week. I had the hardest time focusing on studying because all I thought about was Christmas. At one point during finals week I just broke down, I was so tired of studying, my brain was fried, and all I wanted to do was go home and decorate my house with Christmas stuff. To get myself through the rest of the week every hour or so I would play this song so I would feel better.

"Marinus van der Lubbe, burned down the Reichstag building in protest against the injustices of unemployment…Van der Lubbe's lone act was portrayed by Joseph Goebbels, soon to become Reich Propaganda Minister, as the result of a Communist conspiracy to stage an armed uprising. This convinced many middle-class voters that the decree (Hitler's decree to suppress the Communist party) was right."

Evans, Richard J. "Hitler's Dictatorship." History Review. Mar 2005: 21. Print.

This can be used as evidence in my paper of how Hitler manipulated people agree with his actions. Hitler is said to be a master at speeches and exploiting people to see in his favor. In my paper I want to find out how Hitler was such a convincing leader. Hitler hired Goebbels as his Propaganda Minister and in turn Goebbels made persuasive movies highlighting Hitler's leadership and effectiveness. I think that without Goebbels, Hitler would not have been such a powerful Chancellor. Hiring Goebbels was a very smart move for Hitler and was one of many tactics he used in his manipulation of the German people. The rest of my paper will be researching and recording his other methods in how Hitler became such an effective leader.

research topic

"Why is Hitler more widely recognized as a brutal dictator when Stalin, who killed many more people, is less recognizable?"

Hitler and the Holocaust have always interested me, but I wonder why Stalin, having killed over 20 million of his own people, has never interested me. I think it's a very peculiar that Hitler is more widely known for his mass murders although Stalin murdered much more. I think this topic would be easy to research because there is so much information about it. I would like to research the differences in their dictatorships and then figure out what made Hitler stand out so much.

I am nineteen years old and I truly love the cartoon movie, The Incredibles. I think this movie has a lot of character. It's funny, it's exciting, and it's about superhero powers! What's not to love? I personally think this movie is great for kids. First of all, it is a cartoon letting all children know that this movie is NOT real. This movie does have "bad guys" and "scary parts" in it, but in the end the "good guys" win. This is the message being sent to children.

I think the review on this movie is a little absurd. The author of this review clearly takes everything too seriously. He says although there is "no matters of witchcraft, sorcery, wizardry, Satanism or occult, but did find a number of uses of God's name in vain but none with the four letter expletive". Can anyone tell me what the "four letter expletive is"?? Basically the author of this review is coming up with excuses to not like this movie because they never used God's name in vain.

That wasn't even the most ridiculous part of the review. On the side of the review it states every instance the movie score was docked for and the Sexual Immorality (S) section is just the best. He says the movie shows three cases of sexual immorality: 1. smacking on the "bottom", TWICE...wow! someone's butt got smacked!! 2. rude gaze at posterior- meaning rude gaze at someone's body...how do you even notice these things? and number 3. (which is my favorite) dressing to maximize the [cartoon] female form and/or skin exposure. Enough said. This guy is so anal it makes me laugh. Clearly this guy is just thinking about sex and naked women because who else would come up with this? Who cares how the cartoon is dressed? IT'S A CARTOON!!

This guy criticizes every little detail in this movie, but never states anything good. The dad in this movie, Bob Parr, wants to fight evil to protect innocent people. The mom, Helen Parr, tells her children, Violet and Dash, to use their "powers", or if you want to think of it abstractly, she tells them to use their talents that God gave them. I think this movie has plenty more positive messages that I could find if I looked into it as much as this guy did, and I think The Incredibles is a great family movie!

Trip to Memorial Library

Finding a book at the library was a little intimidating. It was only my second time a Memorial Library and I didn't really know what it was like. I looked up a book I was thinking about reading called, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, by Stieg Larsson. I wrote down the information and took it to the circulation desk to find out where I could find it. She explained to me that the "regular stacks" meant the whole library so she asked for the call number I told her the number: PT9876.22 A692. She explained that the PT books were located in the South stacks of floor 4M. I walked away thinking, "Um, ok. What the heck is floor 4M??" It turns out floor 4M is the floor between 4 and 5. I don't know why that is, but I guess you learn something new every day. From there I took my little sheet of paper and went to the South Stacks like she had told me. I felt strange. I can't remember the last time I looked for a book in a library, but I was pretty sure I remembered how it worked...and then I came to the stacks. I looked at these stacks and I thought they were from the future! I've never seen moving stacks before. I tried to move them by hand but when I realized that wasn't working I finally noticed the move button on the stacks. Yeah I know, I'm a genius. When I finally moved stacks I got to the book I was looking for. It wasn't hard to find because all the books around it looked old. I felt relieved when I found it because to tell you the truth, the library scares me.

Larsson, Stieg. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. New York: Knopf Doubleday Publishing, 2008. Print.

thought crimes

I think the government SHOULD be allowed to regulate in cases of "thought crimes". I think that as a government they have the right to protect it's people. Although these people aren't necessarily acting on their thoughts, these thoughts can be overly inappropriate or jeopardize the safety of the country. For example, if a person is writing a book about how to be a pedophile, people might use this information to BE a pedophile, which is extremely disgusting and illegal. I don't think that even though the writer isn't a pedophile and he is just having these thoughts that he should be able to write about it. I think the government has a right and a responsibility to protect it's citizen from these peoples' thoughts because they can cause disregard for rules and order. I don't think that the government should have a limit per say because they will only use force when they believe it is truly necessarily.

I am a strong believer in gay rights. I don't even understand why it is an issue personally. I get that some people don't support it because of their own personal beliefs and good for them, but who are they to frown upon them. Gays aren't breaking any laws, they aren't doing anything wrong, they are just being themselves. Who are homophobes to pass judgement; they are discriminating, therefore they aren't being good "Christians", which could be considered sinful, and aren't all sins equal? So wouldn't that mean that they are going to hell too (since they think all gays are going to hell)?

So now I bring up the whole issue of gay marriages and I wonder why aren't they legal? First of all the government is discriminating by not allowing certain people to get married. AND the government is allowing religion to play a role, indirectly of course, because if Christians weren't so against gay marriages it would be legal. They should be allowed the same rights as everyone else. Even if churches don't want to accept their marriages, the government should. They should be allowed the right to the same tax credits, inheritance laws, and hospital marriage rights as everyone else. My cousin is a lesbian and has two children with her partner; what would happen to the kids if they ever broke up? Who would get custody?

Personally, I think it's really sad because they should be allowed to commit their love and join in matrimony. People can't help their homosexuality, and it's a proven fact. Take my two boy cousins for example, they both were adopted into the same family, and one is into hard rock and the other is into clothes and makeup. He didn't choose to be that way, he was born that way. And I'm confident that in a few years they will legalize gay marriage.