My Weekend Trip

This weekend I will be going on a trip with my girlfriend to see her brother and then to see my grandpa I am very excited. Her brother lives in Houston and I have never been so this will be my first time there I really want to check out the aquarium when we go down there. After that we are going to go see my grandfather that lives in Gonzalez it’s about two and a half hours away. I don’t get to see him as much since he moved there so any chance I get to see him now means a lot to me. We planned to rent a SUV for the trip but with the way gas prices are there’s no way we would be able to afford the gas so instead we are going to take her car I don’t mind sacrificing the space when her car gets 26mpg. Hopefully everything goes good and we have a good time.

Riveras Mexican restaurant

Today I went to a new place called Rivera’s Mexican Restaurant to have dinner with the girlfriend. We had heard of this place before but never went so today was the day we decided to give it a shot. As we started walking up to the door there was trays and trays of boiled crawfish apparently they were having all you can eat complimentary crawfish that day. I immediately think to myself “alright this place is off to a good start” so we have a seat and try the crawfish which was my first time ever to try them and some fried jalapenos both were great. We were then about to order our meals when the waiter informed us of the drink specials needless to say we didn’t eat anymore and stuck with drinks the rest of the night. Apparently they have drink specials everyday and on the weekend it turns into a club after dark  will definitely be going back again.

Doctor Visit

I've been to the doctor many times in my life but this post isn’t about me it’s about my girlfriend and how expensive health care is when you don’t have insurance. So we go to the doctor because she's been having foot pain we go to the front desk fill out the forms and the nurse informs that just for the basic visit it would cost anywhere from $110.00-$150.00. I was in shock but she says ok about 30 minutes later we get called to the room; the doctor comes for about 8 minutes asks a few questions and then told her that it would be best to have x-rays and blood work done. He then says that the x-rays will cost$100.00 and $25.00 for the blood work she agrees in total the x-rays and blood work take a total of ten minutes. After all was said and done she had to pay $282.00 for a total of about an hour of being there, we had seen the doctor less than 15 minutes the whole time we were there.

Lost Phone

So I woke up this morning late to class I had to stop by the library first to print off some papers so I go to the computer set my bag and phone down print my papers grab my bag and off I go to class. I was in such a hurry I didn’t even notice I had left my phone! I didn’t notice until my class had ended that I had left it I thought to myself “hey maybe someone that’s a good person found it and turned it into the lost and found.” I go back to the library to ask and of course it wasn’t there I was crushed man it sucks losing a 500$ phone. I go to Best Buy to see what I can do and they tell me I am pretty much out of luck. So now I am stuck using one of the oldest flip phones I’ve ever laid eyes on, so what did I learn today? Print my papers at home and avoid using the school library.

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Bonded labor in India

http://thecnnfreedomproject.blogs.cnn.com/2011/03/08/generations-pay-off-debts-through-slavery/?hpt=C1


Generations pay off debt through bonded labor

Cause: Older generations borrowed money and could not repay.
Some people are being bound to bonded labor because the generations before them borrowed money that they could not pay back, now the younger generations must work for free to pay off the debts.

Cause: The economy in India is bad so there are few jobs.
Some families are desperate to find work, they are being told that there is work in other villages but in order for them to get there they must borrow money. Once they borrow money and get to the village they are in debt and so are their children and must work as bonded laborers

Cause: High illiteracy.
People that are working as bonded laborers do not know how much they are paying back each day they work. They do not have balance sheets or any other form of showing them how long it will take them to pay back the debt and if they did they do not know how to read them so they can’t tell how much they still owe, how much longer they will have to work, or even how much they borrowed.

Cause: Lax enforcement.
Bonded labor has been illegal in India for over 30 years yet law enforcement does nothing about it and allows it to continue.

Thesis: Slavery or bonded labor is often thought of as being an issue of the past but many people do not realize that bonded labor is still going on in countries around the world today.

Libbya Journal/Solution

In order to fix things in Libya or help make things better many things must be done I believe the most important being the removal of Moammar Kaddafi, He has oppressed the people for far too long. I am on the fence if the United States should get involved or not on one hand I do believe so because the effects of this turmoil are making gas prices sky rocket, but on the other hand the Unites States already has too much going on. If the U.S. were to get involved they could demand that Kaddafi step down or even threaten to bomb if they continue to slaughter their people and the U.S. could establish a no fly zone over Libya to stop innocent killings. Other ways to help would be to help reconnect communications with Libya since most communication have been broken. Sim cards could be provided to the Libyan people so they can use their cell phones or for those that fear their lines are not safe.

Libbya cause and effect

Currently in Libya Moammar Qaddafi has his troops fighting and killing protestors. For 42 years Libyans have been ruled by Kaddafi and his oppressive reign and finally had enough. On February 17th a day of rage was planned that was inspired by pro-democracy uprisings around the Arab world. On February a lawyer that had represented families from the 1996 Abu Slim prison massacre was arrested, later that day he was released and the protest started thousands joined the protest and started battling Kaddafi’s troops hundreds have been killed.