Yelena Pavlik

Yea- I do have to admit that it is a little sad that this is my last newsroom shift. I re-wrote a package and made a multimedia graphic.

So this week I decided to write a blog in the form of a conversation with my best friend.

We will examine traffic safety and road rage. Is it really the other guys fault?...

Yelena: Yes. It is always his fault.

Jessica: Wait, we haven't even presented a situation yet.

Yelena: It doesn't matter what the situation is. I am always right in traffic. Anyone that does something I don't like is automatically wrong.

Jessica:  This is a very serious topic. Car's are dangerous, and it is so important that our readers understand how to handle traffic while under pressure.

Yelena: Okay. I very seriously believe that as long as I always have the right of way, traffic is fine. If you cut me off you, well, you just don't want to do that. Trust me.

Jessica: It is driver's like Yelena that you must watch out for and monitor your own behavior against. According to the Kansas Department of Transportation, over 500 people die and over 30,000 are injured in traffic related accidents each year. You must be a defensive driver. You never know what other people can do. A car is a deadly weapon. When you are driving, you have a civic responsibility to other people on the road.

Yelena: Yah, a responsibility not to cut me off. Besides, only the offense scores points.

Jessica: Remember the principles you learned in driver's education? It seems that all too often we forget about those rules, because we become comfortable with our cars and daily routines. It takes tragedy before we respect the road.

Yelena: Yah, Driver's Ed. The class I spent most of my time doing Sudoku in?

Jessica: You did Sudoku while driving?

Yelena: Are you surprised?

Jessica: That is exactly what I am talking about. When people become too comfortable, they start partaking in distracting activities. I even saw one driver eating a steak once; a plate of steak.... with the knife, fork, and everything. This is not funny. This is the reason 5 states, the District of Columbia and the Virgin Islands can all ticket for driving with cell phones... and rightly so. The laws passed because of the horrifying statistics on the matter.

Yelena: I spend an hour and a half everyday going to and from work. An hour and a half!! I couldn't imagine doing that without a cell phone and I-pod. Do you have any idea how aggravating it is to drive next to a huge truck and behind a car going 15 mph in the left lane!? Not only is that costly in gas, it is costly on my sanity. I come extremely irritable, as I'm sure you know Jess.

Jessica: I understand how frustrating traffic can be. It is nevertheless imperative that you consider other drivers. Everyone else is stuck too. Beeping your horn and weaving in and out of through traffic, like Yelena, is not going to make you get there any faster. In fact, 80 percent of drivers surveyed admitted that honking and gesturing does not make them feel any better, according to a recent a Woolcott Research study. Some even said it made them feel worse. 

Besides, think about the happy feeling you get when you let someone in and get a little courtesy wave. I am big fan of the courtesy wave.

Yelena: Let someone in? Why would I do that? That would just slow me down. As for courtesy waves, I have a special wave for you ;)!

Jessica: Yelena goes out of her way to stress herself out on the road. Just a pinch of patience. According to a AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety study, aggressive emotion with small-scale outbursts will not improve the driver's ability to overcome and concentrate on the situation.

Yelena: Ok sure, but I don't understand why traffic starts to begin with. If everyone goes a hundred miles an hour and slow people get stopped instead, there would be no traffic.

Jessica: Just because your car can go that fast, does not mean that it ought to.  If we all followed the safety basics, we could lessen the amount of accidents and increase the amount of resources available to research fuel-efficient transportation methods. This would decrease traffic levels and alleviate some of the economic hardships we face today. The first step is patience.

Yelena: That's a good idea in theory, but I can't do patience. Do you know what I did after I got my fifth speeding ticket in a three-month period?

Jessica: Please don't tell them that.

Yelena: I never intended to slow down. I got a radar detector instead. Works like a charm.

Jessica: This is going too far. I am talking life and death. In Colorado one summer, my friend drove everywhere we went. He always verbally objected to my seatbelt rule and argued when I asked him to slow down. Luckily for me, my stubbornness usually won the battle. I left for school in August, and in November he died. He was going too fast and was ejected from his car. He died on impact. A guy I met in my geology lab fell asleep at the wheel one night after a long stressful day, he can't walk anymore.  I am no stranger to dangers of the road myself. I was in a nearly fatal accident two Christmases ago because I was driving too fast in the rain. I hydroplaned backward at 70 miles an hour on I-70. I consider it an act of God that I am alive. In those split seconds, time stopped, and I realized how precious life is. Please, do not think that you can control the road. In the blink of an eye, you can lose everything you always took for granted.

Not to eventful did all the usual wrote 2 stories for web and made graphics.

So sometimes I get a little obsessed. With a certain song, movie, web site, food. You name. Ask my old roommate- September was the month of Oreo Pop Tarts- three boxes a week didn't seem overboard at the time. The past two months have been Perezhilton insanity (Lara can tell you all about that). And the last week I forced my best friend to listen to the new Taylor Swift song on repeat- for three hours straight, needless to say I am currently best friend-less. Ok or not.

But that leads me to wonder about society's obsessions. Take a look at the news stands. Every other story covers Angelina and Brad's every last move. Look at Sarah Palin- election is over, yet the media is still following her every last word. Sure sites like my TMZ and my always favorite Perez make this easier. So are people who are consuming this information  just contributing to the never ending cycle?

Its not healthy, we know its not healthy yet we continue regardless. Why? Perhaps the more we know the more we want to know. Is our 24-7 news consumption culture leading us down a path of accepting the most mindless information as 'late breaking' and critical?

Some like associated content's columnist Teri Taylor have a strong opinion one way "come on, America, it's time to grow up and get real lives - lives of purpose, meaning, integrity and character - instead of living vicariously through empty-headed celebrities who don't know or care that you even exist. Pay heed to the words of poet and painter Washington Allston: "Make no man your idol; for the best man must have faults, and his faults will usually become yours in addition to your own."

And others feel completely different."Human nature may share some of the blame," says columnist Helena LaFarve, explaining that people have been tempted by what is tabooed for hundreds of years.

So be it Pop Tarts or celebs maybe we should just follow what a bumper sticker on the car driving in front of me today said "take life in small doses, no need to swallow in one big gulp."

Reading a friend's Facebook status this morning informed me about this story that happened shortly after the election. I quickly did a Google search and found out that "a UT football player is kicked off the team because of a racial comment he wrote on Facebook, a social networking site" (CBS News Texas). 

The comment you wonder that could have caused him to be removed from the team? "All the hunters gather up, we have a #$%&er in the Whitehouse" (queetry.com).

Wow. I am offended. No Obama was not my choice for president, and for that fact neither was McCain. But a comment like that should have gone noticed by both his school and coaches. Sure networking sites like Facebook allow you to express your thoughts and opinions but where do you draw the line?

I read Facebook comments like "I'm so wasted" and " wow I just broke up with the biggest loser." Other comments ranging from "I hate K State" to "prochoice is the only way." So yes, those are all opinions and yes they may be offensive to some. But when do you cross the line in just offending someone and a comment like the football player made?

Perhaps it is as subjective as the comment itself. Or perhaps since you are willing to put your photos, thoughts and opinions out there you should be ready to back them up.

College Recruiter posted an article recently discussing the legal ramifications of employers using Facebook for background checks. But I take it from the employer's standpoint. If I am looking to hire a trustworthy, reliable worker to head up my new department, I doubt my first choice would be someone doing a keg stand.
 
 

i did hawkwalk and rewrote the main package of the day and made a graphic for it. the web site didnt work so i couldnt tell if what i was working. brian wasnt here so i dont know if i was doing it correctly. 

Web shift was really fun I made a slideshow- my first ever of the homecoming week. I didn't have time to post stories but i did do hawk walk. 

It is on every web site, TV ad and front page. The economy. Or more like its decline. The front page of MSNBC today had an article about people preparing for the next great depression stalking up on 'beans, bullets and band-aids.' I never thought that my generation, the one of Starbucks, I-pods and camera phones would ever think about going through anything like the great depression.

Sure the bail-out and foreclosures are on the mind of the nation as a whole but the problems in the economy are affecting me too. I used to spend $35 a week on gas. No joke when I first got my car. But now it's more like $65. $65! Sure the prices may have fluctuated some-what to the lower end now, because of the election, but I know all too well that that will change again as soon as the next president is in office.  

But gas is not the only commodity food prices have increased as well. McDonald's Dollar Menu has gone from a dollar to $1. 05 and is now "considering making some changes to its popular dollar menu -- either by changing the items on the menu or bumping up prices -- saying the cost of selling meat at such low prices might be too high," according to the Boston Herald.

 We ran a story on KUJH today about how the economy is not only affecting people but animals too.  Now in Lawrence there has been a "15 percent increase in the number of pets turned in" to the humane society because people cannot care for them.

 

  

not too hard- did everything before 2pm and tried to find out more about the project we are helping the 692 shift but didnt know what to do with it. 

I have been a vegetarian for 3 years now. I never really liked meat or fish because I felt guilty eating it. I finally decided to become a vegetarian when at a restaurant the guy next to me cut into a steak and blood filled his plate. He put the fork of bloodied meat into his mouth and I never touched meat again.

My friends asked how would I eat out, my mother asked how I would get my protein and my littler sister wanted to know if I would be eating tofurkey for thanksgiving.

I did research and found some astounding facts that confirmed my decision. Like the fact that 7 billion animals die every year because of human consumption.

Why eat animals when there are so many other options available to me that are still nutritious and taste good?

I was sold. I then began the second part of my journey, finding ways accommodate my new lifestyle to my life. It was much easier then I thought. I found that I could get protein from nuts, beans, boca burgers and tofu.

I found that any place I went to eat always had one vegetarian option. I also found that I found I prefer boca cheeseburgers to real ones.

After 3 weeks I didn't even give being a vegetarian a thought. I was proud of my decision.