Holiday Cheer

This time of year always brings holiday parties, which are my favorite! There is nothing like wearing ugly Christmas sweaters, sharing beverages, weird finger foods, and best of all hilarious gift exchanges. It brings out the best in people. The first holiday party on my agenda wasn't this sort of cheerful party though. It was the other kind of holiday party, the awkward gloomy kind of party. The party where your weird in-laws ask you all sorts of bizarre annoying questions about every minute detail of your life. After I survived all the strange family parties I moved on to my next holiday event, a Christmas party at my best friend's house. The theme for the night was a potluck with a "funny" gift exchange. The night turned out to be a success. Everyone had good laughs at the odd gifts and full stomachs from the delicious food. My holiday party experiences were overall good!

Textbooks: The Real Money Maker for Universities

With the winter term dooming closer and closer I ventured onto Portland State's bookstore website to inquire about the massive debt I was eventually going to acquire for some measly paperback book. My whopping total, roughly 250 dollars! That has to be a million percent mark up from the whole dollar that it took to make the damn book. I don't know how it is plausible that anyone could charge that much for textbooks. The over pricing of textbooks reminds me of going to the cinemas. You pay an expensive ten or twelve dollars to see a movie, much like paying tuition ( the meat of the purchase). But of course their is always the extras, you have to have drinks, popcorn, and candy (the textbooks). The only problem is these extras are WAY to overpriced. This is where these two institutions are making their money. A fountain drink for 7 bucks or a textbook for 150 dollars, absolutely ridiculous!

Young Americas Foundation =]

I recently attended the Young Americas Foundation conference in Santa Barbra California. For those of you who have never heard of the Young Americas Foundation, it is a young conservative movement that hosts conferences for college republican groups and high school conservative groups. Its mission is to promote conservative ideals to todays youth. I attended the conference with the Portland State College Republicans group. We rented a car and drove 15 hours to take part in the fun festivities. Many esteemed speakers were present including Dennis Praguer, a conservative talk radio host and author, Peter Schiewzer, another conservative best selling author, Michael Reagan, Ronald Reagan's eldest son, Congressmen Mark Souder (IN), screen writer Andrew Klavan, John Fund, a Wall Street Journal writer, and David Kim, CEO of many companies including Baja Fresh and Cinnabon.

The conference was an overall success. It was two nights and a full day. It was held at a swanky upscale hotel located right on the beach. Speaker after speaker went the day, the meals were great, and the conservative company was even better. It was a much needed change from the liberal ways of the people of Portland.

Dennis Prauger was by far the best speaker in my opinion. His arguments against liberals cant be detested. He is an intellectual genius. His speech about the left attacking the conservative Christian values and ideals is moving. If you haven't heard his talk radio show or heard him speak, you really should! You're missing out if you haven't. He is really a good read or listen for conservatives of any kind. The left could also learn a lesson or two by listening to his show. ;]

If you ever have the chance as a high school or college student to attend a Young Americas Foundation conference you should seize the opportunity. It is a fabulous couple of days. They put you up and treat you right! All while enjoying very intelligent and successful speakers.

Listed below is a Link to Dennis Praguers Speech

Dennis Prauger's speech

Hmm...what is my blog about!

I am writing this blog for the purpose of extra credit in my design and society class at Portland State. I'm usually not a big fan of blogs, but i will give it a try. Who knows maybe i will end up enjoying this. I'm not even quite sure what I'm supposed to write in a blog. So I have decided this blog will be a random blog about myself and things that interest me. I hope you enjoy!