Saving Our Planet and Ourselves!

I have always been a strong believer in philanthropy. 

From buying these heart stickers as a little girl to help raise money for sick children in Poland with 

Wielka Orkiestra Swiatecznej Pomocy 

(click on the link above to donate, google has translator to help with language barriers)

Even when I did move to the United States my best friends whom I would write letters with would send me these stickers.

When I came to college I learned a little bit more on how to be able to help save the world. I started by joining the Make a Wish Foundation at my school where students came together to raise money to grant one wish to a dying child. 

It has been very important for me to give back to the world.

Almost 10 years ago my younger cousin who was at the time 6 years old was diagnosed with lung cancer and because I was so young and did not understand much of what was happening and because I was half way around the world away from him there was nothing I could do, I wished and prayed that he would get better. My prayers were answered after a long time of hearing about all the things happening in the hospital. 

From then I knew that I wanted to somehow be able to help others in the best way that I knew how. 

In 2010 I learned in my sorority about Relay for Life, yes I have heard about it before, but I never really knew what it was exactly. I signed up the moment I knew that this was near and dear to my heart. I stayed at relay for 26 hours in 2010 walking with friends who supported me and the cause. In 2011 I signed up for the second year in a row knowing that I had to help as much as I could together with my school we were able to raise $33,821.96 and I was able to walk 26 hours for the second time.

I have done other things as well such as marches for breast cancer, helping Habitat for Humanity, working with Reading is Fundamental, and participating in many other philanthropic events.

Now I am thinking of other ways to save the world and something that I have always thought was a big way was to

  SAVE THE PLANKTON ! 

Plankton, yes that little one eyed dude that was on the famous cartoon Spongebob.

What many people may not know is that Plankton are very important to our world. And unfortunately they are on the very bottom of the food chain, I am not saying go kill whales.

Plankton absorb over 50% of all the CO2 that we produce by burning fossil fuels and producing about 90% of our air. How does this happen you may ask? Well plankton float on top of water, meaning they float on top of all of the oceans, seas, lakes, rivers, and any other fresh water watering hole you may find. Plankton are like plants and they survive by taking in sunlight, CO2 and water and creating air out of it, there are other ways that different kinds of plankton do this, but I will not get into detail on those. 

Plankton are killed daily in large numbers by being captured in nets, burning from the ozone layer, and even from the garbage they may come upon that falls into the oceans.

A way you can help save plankton and save our planet in more ways than just SLOWING OR POTENTIALLY STOPING GLOBAL WARMING or even CREATING FRESH AIR TO BREATH WITHOUT WORRYING ABOUT TREES, you can drive your car less often, walk or ride your bike to where you want to get because it's also good for your health, you can make sure to recycle, cut up plastic can net things to not hurt animals, or even by buying reusable water bottles instead of buying that 24 pack of waters that you will throw the plastic bottles away into normal trash anyway.

LETS SAVE THE WORLD PEOPLE!

If you would like to donate to any of the organizations click on the name that is attached to a link.

THANK YOU FOR READING THIS!

POLSKA!

            

There is a certain enjoyment that I get from being in Poland. It may be because I was born there and most of my closest friends and all my family live there, but I always feel happy when I am there. 

It is both difficult and easy for me to describe the experience I have when I go back home to Poland. 

The first place that I usually go is to my grandmothers house where most of my memories come from. My grandmother has a farm and lives in a not so large tourist town. There is a lot of wild beaches and a lot of forest. I like to walk everywhere I go because I don't exactly have a car, but also because I like to be able to look at everything and how much it has stayed the same over time. I am always able to see the place where I fell into a red ant hill and had my legs covered in bites, the place where I used to run around in the forest because there was a lot of freedom, the tower where hunters can spot wild hogs and other animals they maybe hunting that I used to go up because it was so high up you could see for miles.

I also enjoy seeing my friends because when we get back together after a long time of being apart it always feels like no time has passed at all. 

Or even when I am in my home town, walking the streets and knowing where I am makes me happy, seeing my old elementary school or even seeing the park where I rollerbladed with my mom brings back memories to me that I can't let go of. 

 All these things that I hold dear in my heart I will know that I can at any time return to. 

I know that if I need a place to stay my family will welcome me with open arms, or if I need someone to talk to my friends will crack open a beer and a bag of chips that we will drink and eat while talking about thoughts feelings and so on. 

I know my puppy will always greet me when I come through my grandmothers gate and be excited that I am there.

A feeling of welcome is always something that makes a person want to be somewhere. 

Wroclaw 2011

Miedzyzdroje 2008

Warszawa Palac Kultury

18th Birthday

Grandmothers Garden

Cake

Rode that leads to home

Polska 2010

Rynek, Wroclaw 2010

Train to the sky

Pobierowo 2010



On top of the World...

I am the type of person that doesn't care for what others may think, I do what I want to do without worrying that I will be judged by it.
I don't get embarrassed easily, it takes a lot for that to happen.
I also believe that everything happens for a reason. So if something bad happens don't kill yourself over it, think of it as a lesson for the future. You can also always think of moments as paths towards your future.
I live in the moment knowing that my past shaped me as a person and that my future is yet to come.
I would like to say that it is like living on top of the world.
Through my life I have learned about great places that have rich history, their history helped shape these destinations, while their future is still unknown.

Everything Has it's Purpose.

I am soon moving out of my current apartment, and it of course means that I need to pack all my things, get rid of anything that will become a burden, and organize what I would like to keep in order to create less stress.
I looked at cleaning out my closet as a sort of way of organizing my life. My clothes have a history with me and it is always difficult to move on from what was in the past. You always think "well maybe one day..." but that one day never comes, and the memories just stay.
Some times when you clean out your closet you just want to forget about the things that happened in your life. In a sense you make peace with what happened, and you let your last feelings fly for those events. There are also those events that you want to remember for ever and keep them in your memory so that you can feel the same feelings, and practically smell the same air as you did during those moments.
While living  life in the past is not good and neither is ignorance of what you have gone through in life. It is always good to organize your thoughts of the past and what you hope for the future.
My life has taken me all around the world and has brought many people, some whom I cant live a day without, others who I wish to not see ever again, and those that despite my feelings towards them will probably never go away.

By "CLEANING OUT MY CLOSET" or otherwise organizing my thoughts I make peace with myself that everything happens for a reason and if I don't know that reason right now, one day I will know it and I will become a better human because of it.

The video is by a Polish rap group Jeden Osiem L called "Jak Zapomniec" meaning "How to Forget" I think this song is good in explaining my thoughts on how hard it is to forget and how some things just stay forever no matter how much you want them to be gone. 

~Una buona mamma vale cento maestre~

Literally translating to: A good mother is worth a hundred teachers. From Italian to English.
Today in the United States is Mothers day, the day we celebrate our caregivers, the women who carried us in their womb through pregnancy, who would go through any length for our life to be good.
 Some mothers may have done that by putting their child up for adoption, all while knowing that adoption was the right thing and the way to give her child a better future.
 Mothers come in all shapes sizes, and not all of them may have the same DNA as you, but they cared for you, and will continue caring until the end. Sometimes what is "CARING" may not feel like caring, but preventing you from doing something that you may want to do, but in the future you will know that there was a reason to that prevention no matter what it may be. 
Our mothers spend their entire life keeping us, their children, on their mind in some way, shape, or form.
So instead of thinking "OMG this is just another one of those holidays created by the greeting card companies" stop and think about all the things your mother did for you, whoever this mother figure may be. And to a mother, a present worth absolutely nothing, as long as it comes from the heart means everything in the world.
So I say:

THANK YOU MAMUS! YOU ARE THE BEST AND MEAN THE WORLD TO ME!

Who am I?

I was born in September 1989 in a South-Western city in Poland. My parents traveled a lot while I was a baby and therefore I mostly grew up in my grandmothers village near the Baltic Sea and the German border. When I was 9 years old my mother decided to move with me to California and we have stayed there since. I attend school during the fall, winter and spring, and in the summer I traveled either back to Poland or to a place in the world that I have never been. Something I want to do before I die is visit every continent, see all the world wonders, and experience the many different cultures on out beautiful planet.
I don't exactly live by the rules that others believe I should go by, but by what I believe I want and should do. I do this by trying to do everything at least once.
Ask me my ethnicity and I will tell you North-Eastern European because I believe that I am not like all the other people and I dislike being put under a label that people, who I have nothing ethnically in common with, are labeled.