Articles by MaiYia Xiong

This summer, a learned a lot of things through AMA. I learned more about editing and taking photos, a lot of information on AIDS, alcohol, and drugs. I also learned about college and got a lot of answers about college. I’m not sure if I will have a need for the information I got this summer in my future jobs. But it’s good to have it in mind. I think that being able to go to college is a really great opportunity to have, so after high school, I’m going to go to college. As for which college, I’m still undecided. Colleges in MN is good and some are cheap. But not a lot of schools have the major I want. I also want to go to an out of state college, because I’ve been in MN for a long time and I’d like to experience new things and go  new places. But theres the problem of not being resident there. So college is still undecided for me. But for sure I’ll be going to college and put the things I learned about it this summer, to use. Goodbye AMA.                                    -MaiYia Xiong

One of the topics that were worked on last week was control and power. I think that anyone can have control and power if the other person isn’t strong-willed enough or confident enough to step up to the person in control and power. Depending on the amount of understanding of communication between partners, I think that power and control can vary. Very often when people hear about power and control, they’ll think that it’s the men in power and control. But it can go either way with men and women. It’s because of the cases that are reported in. Most of those reports, the women will be the victim and the men will be in control and power. The saying goes, “Everything a men can do, a women can do better.” In a way, when women are in control, sometimes it can be a lot worse compared to when men are in control. But everyone has their own opinions, this is just my thinking of power and control.

This summer, I was able to get into step-up and through that, into AMA. It was a great experience for me and I learned a lot from AMA. We talked about different topics almost every week and we did research on them. The 1st week, was just getting settled and getting to know the work place and getting used to how AMA do things. We also learned about our co-workers and about the community we were in. We went from teen pregnancy to Aids, to love, drugs, tobacco and etc. Mostly, it was problems that teens our age and such are going through or stuff that people are having a hard time about. One of my most favorite experience was working on editing and taking pictures. I learned new things about editing pictures and places that helps me do it. It was a really fun experience here and I hope next summer I can do something similar.

HIV/AIDS. Human Immunodeficiency Virus/ Acquired ImmunoDeficiency Syndrome. HIV is the virus you get before AIDS. There are many ways a person can get infected with HIV. Through any sort of sharing of blood, and body fluids. The origin of AIDS is Africa. It takes up to 3 months before HIV shows up in an infected body. There are many different symptoms of AIDS. These 3 days, people have came in and talk about HIV/AIDS and the ways we could get it. Honesty, I didn’t learn anything. It wasn’t because it was a bad presentation, but I had already learned about HIV/AIDS already.

A smart person doesn’t use smoking as an escape.
Because I love you, I won’t let you kill yourself with smoking.
Can’t you see that smoking isn’t doing you any good.
Don’t ever forget that smoking does not help you, ever.
Every time you grab that pack of cigarettes, I hope you know who you’re really hurting.
For every cigarette you smoke, you lose your lifespan another year.
Going for help, doesn’t always mean you’re weak.
Help will always be there if you call it.
If smoking was easy to stop, everyone would be smoking.
Just say to yourself, you can do it, and soon you will be able to do it.
Keep trying if you fail, help isn’t limited.
Love is a feeling that can make a person do everything for someone.
Maybe to you smoking is an escape, but to me, smoking is an escape to death.
Not everyone can stop just like that, but anyone can stop if they try.
Opportunities isn’t given easily. Take it when it comes.
Please know that smoking is like turning your mouth into an ashtray.
Quitting isn’t easy, but trying isn’t hard.
Remember that it’s not easy.
Stop and think before you think you can’t survive without the cigarettes.
Time doesn’t wait when you’re smoking your life away.
U
V
When you think you will stop, it doesn’t wait for you to fix your mistakes.
X
You don’t think it’ll be hard to stop, but it becomes, like breathing, a necessity.
Z

The meaning of peer pressure is that a student gets pressured from his/her classmates and/or friends to do something that they are reluctant to do. But it doesn’t necessarily mean that that person will eventually do it. I think that peer pressure can be avoided if that certain person is strong-willed enough to refuse and stay above all that.

A young man who just got into college,
on a friday night,
at a party with his friends,
because they wanted to relieve stress from school work,
drinking away his life.

Drinking isn’t thinking.

Drinking a cup of beer is like drinking a cup of poison.

Go green, with your lungs.

Not talking doesn’t mean someone’s quiet.

He had a bright future, great friends, everything he ever wanted,
but then with one drink, he lost it all, 1 drink became 2, and 2 became 4, and where there used to be happiness, loneliness replaced,
and it all disappeared because he made the mistake of not being careful of who his friends are,
he became unaware of what’s right and wrong and followed along to the beach,
and all this for what? He just wanted to fit in, and for that, he lost everything dearest to him.

———–

I used to lay in bed awake at night,
scared to fall asleep,
Nightmares used to come every night, and I’d always wake up crying,
They were really bad nightmares you know?
But now? They don’t come anymore,
because you see, I found something to stop it,
Here, in this small room, I like to buzz with some alcohol,
and the nightmares disappeared!
I was so happy, so glad,
but, that was before everyone found out,
after they found out what I kept doing,
before I knew it, everyone left me,
and I can’t stop this addict.

————

Addictive
Lonely
Con
Overdose
Hatred
Obsessive
LAME!