Digital Voices

Listen to Alex’s speech here

I never believed the words” I love you” when I was younger. I wonder why I never understood the words “I love you” they were told to me. But then my thinking changed when my dad would say “I love you” to my mom. What is the word I love you, I thought to myself. Well when I was little my mom and dad obviously loved one another. They proved that by getting married and they were marred for 14 years until they got a divorces, This showed me that love must not be real to them, so what was love? I wondered, should I not love? I thought to myself, was love a bad thing to have.

So when I was in 7th grade I met this kid named Kyle. I thought he was nice and charming. So I hung out with him and I got to know him. We both liked to do the same things. We liked to go snowboarding, and to the moves. I liked hanging out with him, I had so much fun. I thought to myself, is this love or what? Or is this a stage that a girl in 7th grade girl goes through, what was it? When we went out one night to the movies he said that he loved me and that made me feel like I was special, so I said it back. After three more weeks we went snowboarding and we went on all the hills. But when it got close to dark I let him go off on the hill with some friends. I was happy that I was having fun with him, I guessed that I really loved him because I was happy. My friend Heather and I went on the hill that he went on to see if he was going to do a trick, but what I saw was him kissing another girl. I think he did it just because I was not ready to kiss him but it hurt me. It was not love, love is not real, I thought in my head. If that was love Kyle would not do that to you, also the word I love should mean they love you with all their heart. also you should not say I love you if you don’t mean it. I went home crying to my mom. She told me that he was not worth it, What I thought was the end of all love for me so that meant that I never wanted to date a boy again. For him being the first boy that I liked and not some kindergarten crush, I really thought that I loved him..

Well I went on throughout my life and I had friends with boyfriends and it didn’t bother me at all, not even when my mom met this guy named Matt. Matt was my mom’s boyfriend. I was glad that she met someone because after my mom and dad divorcesd it made her pretty sad until Matt came. I still didn’t believe in love. When someone asked me out I’d say “no”. My mom felt pretty bad for me and told me that I will have to give another try, but I didn’t want to.

Last year in 8th grade it felt great to go to a school where you are the bigger kid in the school. I thought that it would be fun. I would go to all the home football games that they had, and I did.
It got exciting? when this kid all of sudden just came out of nowhere and started to hang out, it kind of sacred me until I found out he ? he was my friend that I knew from the bus. I asked him why he was hanging out with me. He told me that he liked me. I thought wow that’s “cool because I liked him to so that was kind of great that he liked me but when he asked me out, I kind of stopped and had nothing to say. I didn’t know what to say, so many things where going through my head. I just didn’t know what to tell him and all of a sudden the word ”yes’’ came out of my mouth. It was the greatest day of my life I thought.

Cameron and I are still dating today and we have been for at least a year and 7 months. We have so much fun together. We go snowboarding and to the movies, just about every thing we do is fun. So I do believe in love, BUT does it last forever? When I say this I mean that love is out there and it will come, but let it take it time, I still have to.

Questions

A) Well what I understood about pod casting was that it basted upon having a MP3 Player and trans forming it to something you must know what you are doing before doing what you have to do.
B) I listened to Dan Tani I selected him because he was the only one on there but it was ok because I liked listing to what he has to say.
C) When Dan Tani started his speech he had a clear voice but there was static in the back ground.

Alex’s “This I Believe” podcast

I believe there is no love…only hate. Today, we live in a world of violence and hate. Terrorists are everywhere, killing themselves to kill others. Why? I ask myself that very same question a lot. I suppose there is no good reason as to why. Sure, we may have differences in views and the way we live our lives, but is this any reason to develop so much hatred towards another group of people? I certainly do not believe so. Recently I have been asking myself, where is the love? This brings me back to a song released a few years ago by the group, “The Black Eyed Peas,” in which they asked that very question, where is the love? I believe there is no love, only hate.

Not only do we see this hatred in the world of terrorism, we also see it here at home, on a lesser scale, but still we see it none the less. Whatever happened to the days of chivalry? For all the young ladies out there, when was the last time you had a man open a door for you? This is something so small that we don’t even think about it. Growing up I was always told stories about how the “olden days” where so much better. Descriptions of a world in which “please” and “thank you” where not so uncommon, a world in which one referred to their elders as “ma’am” and “sir”, have made me jealous and ashamed to live in this rude world. Where is the love? I believe there is no love, only hate.

Having recently acquired a job at a local fast food restaurant, I have seen the worst of hate filled people. Is there any patience in this world today? Is there any love what so ever? I tend to think not. Working a job that can already be stressful to begin with, it often times seems like costumers want to make it even more hectic. One thing goes wrong with their order and they are cussing up a storm. The storm will soon develop into a hate filled hurricane once you begin to try and explain what happened. They don’t want to hear an explanation or an apology; they just want to hate you. Hate you for something as small as forgetting to put a double cheeseburger on their tray. We all make mistakes, is this really worth going on a rampage over? I ask myself again, where is the love? I believe there is no love, only hate.

I can’t help but wonder what is happening with this world. We are falling apart. If we don’t find the love once again, we are only setting ourselves up for self destruction. Where is the love? I believe there is no love…there could be…but for now, there is only hate. Let’s all do apart to find the love again, I will, will you?

*The song I have referenced in this essay entitled “Where is the Love?” was apart of the album “Elephunk” released by the Black Eyed Peas in 2004.

About Alex:

Alex is currently a senior in high school and is undecided as to where he will be attending school next year; however, he plans on attending a four year university, major in political science, and then attend law school.

Podcasting is the newest form of personal expression in todays world. A voice recording, saved as an mp3 file, and posted on the internet for anyone to listen to and possibly download. This, to me, is simply amazing.What a wonderful way for people, who may have never been heard before this technology, to express themselves. When listening to “this i believe” essays, i was really amazed at how prfessional they sounded. You could tell that a lot of time and effort had been put into them. The authors of the speeches were able to further express themselves with the tone of their voice and the way in which they read their speech. This is a very effective way of speaking on their part.

When choosing which speeches to listen too i chose some at random and others i selected based on my personal interest to the essay. This ability to search and choose any speech one would like to listen to is also another great aspect to this type of internet technology. Podcasts and mp3’s are a much faster way of “getting the word out” in comparison to other types of technology, or perhaps lack their of, that we have experienced in the past. For example, the mail(once a day) or the news(once a day). The internet can be updated as many times a day as one would like, this can be much more effective.

To wrap things up, podcasting, the internet, and technology are all changing the way we, the population, express ourselves. Further more, it is dirastically changing our lives…

alex