Oakdale and Toastmasters

So yesterday I got back from Oakdale. Spent the first 3 days there babysitting Riley the dog. She barked on and off until 12 at night. She was overprotective since the parents were gone and it was just the 2 of us guarding the house. As for the ghost issue, didn’t hear anything during the day. But Saturday night, I woke up without my glasses on and thought I saw a glimpse for 2 seconds of someone standing in the entryway of the living room. The dog got up and ran toward it and barked. It all happened in an instant and I can’t be certain what I saw. But I did think I saw someone and the dog obviously saw something. What else could it be since I was home alone? But it was late and I didn’t exactly have my glasses on. The dog barked and ran toward it then 2 seconds later turned around and came back into the living room like the problem was taken care of. Weirdness.

We picked up Sarah and Thomas from the airport Monday. Hung out with them until Tuesday when I had to go back home. Also went to lunch with Grandma Cookie and Grandma Margo. It was interesting hearing what their side of the family has been up to. A girl named Katie I haven’t seen since she was 2 is now 8. Crazyness.
Had Toastmasters today. I was all prepared to talk during table topics about phobias. I could have handled the first 2 questions in table topics, but the last 2 were kind of out there. Either way it didn’t matter because I didn’t get called on. I was relieved and disappointed at the same time, because I did feel like I was prepared enough to handle getting called up there.

4 people gave speeches today. My favorite 2 were from women named Josephine and Dawn. Josephine talked about Susan B. Anthony and recited her speech she gave to congress justifying a woman’s right to vote. It was pretty inspiring, especially when you consider the fact that now we’re getting close to having a female president.

Dawn gave a speech on stem-cell research because she works for a science lab that is working on develop and implementing it. The most interesting part of her speech was when she talked about where they get the stem-cells –an issue that any consider to be controversial. She says you can get stem-cells from inside people’s brains, but the surgery is too dangerous. The easiest way to get stem-cells is from 3 to 5 day old embryos. Their stem-cells are like clean slates that can change into whatever type of cell is needed. Most people take issue with this because they think they get the embryos from abortion clinics and that, in theory, people could try to get pregnant on purpose just to abort the embryo to go towards stem-cell research. But Dawn says they get their embryos from fertility clinics. A batch of embryos is made for potential mothers who are having difficulty conceiving. The best embryo is elected and given to the woman while the others are discarded. The embryos are essentially made in Petri dishes. Embryos are like the ingredients to make a food dish put together, but not the end dish in itself. Like dough you would use to make bread, but without time and development does not become bread. Maybe that’s why they call it a bun in the oven. Either way, it’s just the materials to make potential life, but embryos at that state are not alive and should be used towards stem-cell research which can cure people of many types of diseases.