What's Your Blood Type?

I have a question for you, but I think you'll need a little background information first. And bare with me, because I'm not sure how well I'll be able to explain all of this.

Credits to Wikipedia for this wonderful diagram.

There are 4 blood types (plus the whole negative/positive thing, but I haven't learned that yet), each with different marker proteins and different antibodies. The marker proteins tell the rest of the body what type of cell each blood cell is, and these markers are called antigens. Type A blood has A antigens, B has B antigens, AB has both A and B antigens, and type O blood has no antigens.

Blood also has antibodies, which fight off certain cells. Type A has anti-B antibodies, so it essentially kills off all of the type B blood. Type B has anti-A, type O has anti-A and anti-B, and type AB has neither anti-A or -B.

(That's all a very simplified and probably very confusing version of what we'r learning in out biology class. I'm betting Wikipedia will give you a better explanation if you're interested in learning more.)

When giving and receiving blood, doctors must take into account what blood type the patient and the donor are. If John Doe has type B blood and he gets some type A, his body will reject the type A blood because of the anti-A antibodies in his type B blood. His body would gladly accept type O blood, hoever, because type O has no A antigens for the anti-A antibodies to kill. (Still with me? I know this is a tad confusing.)

After learning all about compatibility in blood types, our teacher explained that type O is the universal donor, and type AB is the universal receiver. Someone with type AB blood can accept any other type of blood, and anyone is able to receive type O blood.

So finally, here's my question: would you rather have type O or type AB? Would you rather be the universal donor, or the universal receiver? Would you rather help or be helped?

This Year I Will...

The X in X-Mas

I initially started my last blog post complaining about the abbreviation of "Christmas" to "x-mas." It all flowed very nicely, and I felt that all of my points were fully conveyed. I was ready to post, so I sent it to a few friends to be sure I didn't make any grammatical mistakes. The feedback, however, was not at all what I had anticipated.

The post started with me ranting about the lunch ladies at school wishing us a "Merry X-Mas." This really bothers me. Christmas is about Christ. You can't just shorten it to "x-mas" in order to save a little time and space. It's Christmas for a reason.

I was told that was too harsh, so I added that I do realize that the lunch ladies aren't intentionally taking Christ out of Christmas, but I also think it's worth the extra effort to go ahead and write out Christ instead of writing an X. This made it a little better, but my friend still had some feedback to give.

The term X-mas comes from the Greek symbol ☧ meaning Christ. Many other words use the same symbol (Wikipedia does a fine job of listing those for you). The X was not someone being lazy and shortening Christ to X. The X is not people trying to take Christ out of Christmas - not initially, at least.

I tried to keep all of this in my other post, but it just didn't fit. Once I edited it out, though, I realized it was something I really needed to share. I'd been assuming that people were lazy and sacrilegious when really there is a totally legitimate reason for the abbreviation. I guess the point of this is to do a little research before deciding to judge others. You never know what you'll find.

Christmas

Oddly enough, I've been thinking a lot about Christmas this Christmas season, especially the meaning of it and all of that cliché stuff. I've seen a lot of Christmas movies in the past few days with great messages. In The Grinch, the Grinch is horribly mistreated as a child and becomes bitter and lonesome, but is loved and accepted by Miss Cindy Lou Who. In A Charlie Brown Christmas, Charlie Brown is characteristically depressed and searches for the true meaning of Christmas. And then there are all of those Halmark movies that focus on a girl finding her true love at Christmas time. It seems to me that film and cinema have a bit of a differing opinion on the real meaning of Christmas.

On another note, there's a Justin Bieber song that I heard on Michael Bublé's Christmas special on NBC. When I heard it, I fell in love. I'm not a huge Justin Bieber fan, in all honesty - a lot of his music is actually pretty annoying - but this song just made me want to grab my ukulele and sing along! I started learning the song so I could perform it at our choir's Christmas concert, and I discovered... well... here, read the lyrics to the bridge.

Aye, love, the Wise Men followed a star, the way I followed my heart, and it led me to a miracle. 

He's saying following his heart to his girlfriend is as miraculous as the Magi following the star to find the baby Jesus. This irks me. No person is as miraculous as the birth of Jesus. Justin Bieber's girlfriend isn't even comprable to the miracle of Jesus. It's a cute song, but Christmas is not about your girlfriend; it's about Jesus.

After Jesus was born in Bethlehem in Judea, during the time of King Herod, Magi from the east came to Jerusalem and asked, "Where is the one who has been born king of the Jews? We saw his star in the east and have come to worship him." Matthew 2:1-2

Changing subjects again, I have a friend whose family doesn't play along with the whole Santa thing. I was extremely confused when I first heard this. I mean, how could you not have Santa!? That's what Christmas is all about!

Except, that's not what Christmas is all about. Christmas, hence the name, is all about Christ, like I said before. I spend so much time correcting people like lunch ladies and Justin Bieber when they miss out on the real meaning of Christmas, and then I find myself doing the exact same thing!

Christmas isn't about the presents under the tree, or the stocking stuffers. Christmas isn't about cookies and milk for Santa or carrots for his reindeer. Christmas isn't even about spending time with family or accepting people for who they are. Christmas is first and foremost about Christ. Yah, all of the shopping is great. Getting presents on Christmas morning is wonderful. Even giving presents to others is amazing, but if you're not giving those gifts in order to glorify Christ, then you're missing the point.

... they went on their way, and the star they had seen in the east went ahead of them until it stopped over the place where the child was. When they saw the star, they were overjoyed. On coming to the house, they saw the child with his mother Mary, and they bowed down and worshiped him. Then they opened their treasures and presented him with gifts of gold and of incense and of myrrh. Matthew 2:9-11 

Do everything you do to the glory of the One who made you.

The real meaning of Christmas is Christ. 

Tech Notes

Check out my blogging debut on my dad's blog here! Hooray for my very first Tech Note! 

A Christmas Tradition

In all honesty, I'm really not a rebellious kid. I don't say this to brag, but as far as teenagers go, I'm one of the more cooperative ones when it comes to rules and regulations.

Once upon a time, though, I did have a rebellious phase.

A few years back, I decided I would wear a bright orange shirt on Christmas morning. You may say, "So what? It's just a shirt!" but to a photographer, no shirt is just a shirt. My mother would be taking pictures Christmas morning, and I knew she would hate this bright orange shirt, and that is precisely why I wore it.  This orange shirt was my rebellion.

You see, this wasn't just any bright orange shirt; this was the type of orange that needed batteries to be so bright. The orange color was so loud, you could hear it coming from a mile away. It was traffic cone-orange. It was bad spray tan-orange. It was electric. This orange shirt + camera = not a happy mother.

We fought for what seemed like hours over this stupid shirt. I simply didn't understand why it mattered what shirt I wore and therefore refused to change; Mommy didn't understand why it was such a big deal to just suck it up and change shirts, so she refused to let me open presents until I changed. Eventually I played the well-you-married-some-guy-from-Virginia-and-it's-messing-up-my-whole-Christmas-so-I-should-be-able-to-wear-whatever-shirt-I-want card (I do not at all feel this way now, and I probably didn't then either. Mark is awesome, and he has not messed up a single Christmas for me, but only made them better) and my mom gave in and let me wear the hideous orange shirt. After all, the guilt card pretty much trumps all.

Thing is, though, you can only beat Mom in an argument once. The next year we received a new set of pajamas on Christmas Eve to wear the next morning when opening presents. I therefore did not wear the awful orange shirt. Well done, Mommy. You win this round.

Although really, I win, too. What's not to love about new pajamas!?

My First Pinterest Adventure

I didn't really get the point of Pinterest until I had a lazy Sunday with nothing to do. In pinning and repinning, I found a coat hanger jewelry holder, and I had to make my own.

I bent wire coat hangers and made a bouquet of them to make the top. Then I wrapped it in jute and added more, larger hooks to the bottom. 

I stapled it to a wooden picture frame, hung it on the wall, and filled it up with necklaces.

Too bad I can't dedicate every day to a Pinterest craft...