Valentine's Day

I just wanted to tell you how different people and cultures are. Valentine's day is a big day for some, and nothing special for others. For example as some might already know the school system is very different in USA and other countries. I would like to tell you something that my school used to do for Valentine's day.
Well, first of all our school was decorated. It was all in red,pink colors and different posters were hanging on the wall. Since in my school all students had to wear uniform, such as nice pants and a jacket, something that you would wear for work, holidays such as Valentine's day, Mother's Day, Teacher's day were special. We were allowed to wear anything. So those days were the exciting days for student because they could show off what kind of style they have outside of school, because you can't really see it when everyone is dressed almost the same. So that was one big thing on Valentine's day, we wore anything we wanted. Another thing was that 2 students were chosen among the juniors or senior that were the "mail people" their job for the whole day was to deliver mail. On the main floor at out school ( we had 5 floors) there was a box set up where students could drop off their valentines and cards with the name of the student and the classroom. You are wondering how would you know all the classrooms!? Well, our school had about 1500 students from 1st grade to 11th. And the schedule was posted on the wall for everyone, for the whole week, because classes change everyday, so does the order and time. So you could come up to that wall and look up your classroom by your grade and a letter. Every class had a letter. We had four classes for every grade, so 4 classes of freshman. 9a, 9b, 9c, 9d. And so on with all the others. So it was pretty easy how the schedule system worked. Anyway, back to the mail, students would drop off their valentines into the mail box and the two chosen students would deliver the valentines throughout the whole school day during the classes. During our passing period, as we call it here, in Stevenson, we had a mini disco. Since the breaks between the classes were 15-25 min, we had a DJ in the hallway on the main floor playing music, and surprisingly people were dancing and having fun. And pretty much the last part of the Valentine's day at school was the concert. Our students would prepare a concert for students and teachers to attend after school. After all classes were done students were invited to a theater at school and we all would sit down and watch the convert.
Also, on Valentine's Day teachers were nice and we didn't do anything in class except talk, play music, talk and have fun. So Valentine's day was a big day for our school among the other holidays.
Well i hope that made some kind of sense to anyone who read it, it is actually really hard to compare or explain the differences between the countries and the cultures and the people, because you guys would look at me like we are crazy =) But i tried my best! =)

NIU Shooting

I got a call from my dad telling me to turn on the TV because there has been shooting at one of the Illinois's universities. Not really believing i turned it on to find that there has been a shooting at Northern Illinois and no one knew at the moment how many were hurt, but it was known that some were already dead. The first thought that came to my mind is to call my friends that go there. I tried to reach my friend several times and i got through. I was one of the only people that could reach him. He was 2 feet away from Cole Hall so after the campus was secure he rushed outside to help the injured. He pretended to be a reporter and somehow he got in. He was calm on the phone, but i could hear that he was horrified and really still in shock. He asked me to call him mom because he couldn't reach her. So i did. I obviously had to start the conversation somewhat nice and calm, knowing that if i don't she'll be yelling screaming and all. So i told her that my friend is fine, he is safe and all, so then i told her what happened and as i predicted she didn't know about it. She almost started crying, she was petrified and scared but i tried my best of calming her down.
But what i really wanted to say that i can not believe that this has happened to us, i mean a place so close, a place that a lot of people that we know go to, it happened in Illinois, our state. When Virginia Tech happened it was horrible but it was so far away and it felt so distant although we all prayed and gave out our heart to the lost lives and injured. But now, when it happened so close it is so different. It makes you think that what if i come to school the next day and somebody would pull out a gun and start randomly shooting? What if somebody just decides to blow up our school? Or not even a school, a store, a library, anything. It just makes you so scared that at some point you don't want to go anywhere. But together people are able to get through hard times, together there is more power in their hands...
If you look at it on the other hand, you can't prevent it. You really can't do anything except being cautious and careful.
I say live your life like it's your last day and get a full taste out of it, because no one knows what might happen tomorrow!