Blog # 4 Satire

Los Angeles is a great city where our beloved celebrities have their 10-million dollar homes.  We can even go on a guided tour to see their homes, see popular celebrity hangouts, and find out lots of other useless information about these celebrities (YAY!), since they are so important.  You can walk around the city, enjoy the sites and sounds, and all that Hollywood has to offer.  As long as you don’t mind stepping over and around all those lazy homeless people they have there.  I mean really, are they that lazy that they can’t find a job.

In a city where they are willing to pay Adam Sandler 27 million dollars a year to deliver such dramatic and thought provoking films like Happy Gilmore and Mr. Deeds, you think there would be enough money just floating around for these homeless people to find a job.  I mean what it is?  Are they just lazy.  If you’re that close to Hollywood you could probably just walk on set and star in a movie.  They must just like being homeless and bugging people for money everyday.  There’s no way in America, the richest and most powerful country in the world, they could allow their citizen to live like that, unless it was their choice.  Homelessness is not a federal or state problem.  It’s obviously a personal choice.  No help or handouts needed.

(In the time it took me to type this blog – Adam Sandler would have earned $1,753.92.  Oh yeah, and something probably happen to some homeless people too, but whatever.)

Blog # 3 Devil's Advocate

My research paper is on kidney function and dialysis treatment.  In the dialysis treatment section I am focusing more on hemodialysis rather than the other two treatment option, which are peritoneal dialysis and organ transplant.  The reason I am choosing to focus more on hemodialysis is because I have a family connection to this type of treatment and it is the most popular.  I will still mention the other treatments, but focus on hemodialysis since it is more popular in our health system.

Also mentioned in the research paper are symptoms to watch for that could be indicators of (early) kidney failure.  However, some of these symptoms are very general.  The symptoms are not always specific just to kidney disease and could be nearly impossible to diagnose from something as simple as ‘trouble sleeping’.  However, I will point out that when several of these symptoms come into play that a person should be check by a doctor to diagnose the problem in which kidney failure could be a possible result.

Review - The Lucky One

The Lucky One is a 2012 romantic drama film, directed by Scott Hicks, and based on a 2008 novel by Nicholas Sparks.  The film stars Zac Efron as a Marine, Logan Thibault, who returns to the United States after this third tour of duty.

In the film, Efron's character, Logan, notices something shinning in the distance.  He walks over to pick up the item, and then realizes it is a picture of a women with a message to "keep safe x" on the back.  Moments later, where Logan was just sitting is attacked, killing several people.  Logan keeps with picture with him, and after several more close calls he begins to think of this picture as his good luck charm.

When Logan returns home, he tries to locate the women in the photograph, Beth.  He notices a landmark in the photo, researches the location, and goes there in search of the unknown women.  After showing the picture to some locals, he learns where Beth works.  He gets a job at Beth's family-run business, unknown to the her that Logan thinks of her as his good luck charm. Logan does not know how Beth will react if she finds out about his motives for tracking her down.

The Lucky One is similar to other Nicholas Sparks novel to be turned into film, like The Vow and The Notebook.  The film is slightly predictable as it follows the same template as other Nicholas Sparks novels.

A romance develops between Logan and Beth, but Beth's trust issues, an obsessive ex-husband, and Logan's ulterior motive for meeting Beth, all complicate things between the two.  Logan hopes that Beth will end up as more than just the women in the photo that seemed to save him over and over.

Blog #1 (Topic Selection)

Four years ago, while sitting in my grandmother's hospital room the doctors gave her a choice: death or dialysis. Her kidneys were failing, with no chance of regaining their function.  For younger, healthier people there would generally be a third choice of organ donation, however, due to other health issues my grandmother was not a suitable candidate for receiving a donated kidney.  So, thankfully, her choice was dialysis.

To be honest, I didn't know very much about what dialysis was and the commitment that is needed from the patient.  Three days a week, four hours a day, my grandmother is hooked up to a dialysis machine to cleanse her blood and remove toxins that would normally be preformed by fully functioning kidneys.

There have been advances in this type of treatment over the years.  Eligible patients are able to preform their own dialysis in the convenience of their own home.  This is an important advance for people living in rural communities, as well as it helps to alleviate the high (and increasing) demand in hospitals for dialysis treatment .  Also, the ability for some people being able to do home-dialysis makes it more convenient for them as they are able to undergo the dialysis as they sleep.

Advances in medicine, like dialysis, make it possible for someone like my grandmother to live with kidney problems, when there once would have been no options.  Sometimes we take these advances in medicine for granted, until it hits home and you realize how important these common treatments are.