#16

Ooh goodness, where do I start on this crazy class we all have gotten through? This class has been hands down one of the hardest classes I have ever taken and hopefully I did well in it. I like to think I did well and I feel pretty good about getting a good grade. But anyways I do not know if this semester was just a very busy one but I feel drained and cannot wait till Friday is over with. Starting from the beginning of the semester I knew that this class was going to be difficult but I really had no idea how strenuous it was going to be. I think it was the heavy workload each week that really got to me; it never seemed to get any easier, just harder as the weeks went by. There was never a break in this class as I sometimes had in other classes. I suppose this is a good thing because I never had the chance to get lazy. I simply did not think of not doing English homework because there was always something due or due the next week. So in the end this nonstop stream of work always kept me working and productive. Not to repeat myself but I am so super happy that we are almost done and I just want to say that everyone should give themselves a pat on the back for making it this far and not giving up.

This class was really great for me because it made me appreciate writing again. I have always been all right with writing and research papers. Do not get me wrong they are not my favorite thing to do, but I do not hate them with a vengeance that a lot of students seem to do. So with all the writing we have done in this class my writing skills have improved throughout the weeks. My analytical skills have also improved and this is an essential skill for everyday use.

I really felt that even though this was a totally online class that we all made friends or at least connections with the other students in our class. The group projects and all the peer editing really gave us an opportunity to share and be open to other students. It is always nice to have friends in the classes we take and this human connection was not lost in this class even though it was all online. And that this connection was not lost is an amazing thing and we created an online community or sorts where we all learned together.

What killed me the most this semester was the research paper. I am still stressing over it and hopefully I can get most of it finished today. I have a solid draft but I still have some more ideas to put into it to flesh it out a bit more. But this paper has been my bane and I cannot wait till I hit submit and do not ever have to think about it again! 

#15

English has always been one of my strengths throughout high school and now in college. I have always been an avid reader throughout my life and this is why I think I have enjoyed all my English classes and done well in them. Do not get me wrong, this semester has been a toughie and I am still swamped with stress and worry about this class. But on the whole I think that this class has helped improve my writing skills. The blogs especially have helped me a lot. These blogs have forced me to write short essays every week and practice my writing every week. I think that this weekly writing has really helped me throughout the semester. Everyone knows that practice makes perfect and this is what I found the blogs to be: practice. So all this practice has made my writing to become better and better; and I find I am more comfortable writing to people and not just writing to merely fill the word requirement.

The group work and the responding to each other’s work has also helped me in reading others work and figuring out what can be worked on. This reviewing of other’s work has shown me the common mistakes that everyone’s work suffers from and to stay away from these common mistakes. Reading my peer’s work has also shown me different writing styles and this has helped to strengthen my own writing voice. In addition I have really enjoyed the feedback from most of my group; they really try to give the best constructive criticism and do not put your work down at all. There is only so much you can do to your own paper and it is so very helpful to have other students read your work with fresh eyes. They can usually see things that you miss and this peer review has really helped my work tremendously.

Another thing that has helped improve my writing has been all the papers we have done throughout the semester. Now I do know that this is an English class but it seems that the topics we have had to write on are much harder and thought-provoking than any other English class I have had. The issues we have had to take a stand on have made me really think, and I have had some trouble with writing on them. These papers have made me become a better writing and have pushed me out of my little comfortable writing shell. And this is what any good class is supposed to do, make you think outside of the box and question the things we take for granted.

And of course what has, in my opinion, helped the most have been the books. Everyone says that if you want to write better than read more, and I agree with this one hundred and eighty-nine percent. Good books are the key to learn how to write well and they introduce you to so many different literary styles and voices. To learn how to improve your own writing then just simply read others writing.     

“To learn to read is to light a fire; every syllable that is spelled out is a spark.”-Victor Hugo

#14

I think I am going to spontaneously combust this week, or if not this week then in the coming up two weeks. This research paper is going to cause my untimely death and I am so young too! I am talking five classes and working and these last weeks have been catching up with me. Not to  mention this paper that have been causing me so much stress, I have four other classes that all have final research papers and/or final tests that I have to worry about as well. I only have a few pages done of the actual paper and I am getting a bit stressed that it is due this Sunday. I do not know when I am actually going to find some time to sit down and really work on this paper. When I write papers it usually takes me a while to get into the mood to write and until I get into this rhythm of writing it is hard for me to write well, or at least to write something that I am okay with. With this paper though I am hitting so many walls and cannot for the life of me get into the mood I have to be to actually write something and progress with the topic. And this inability to write anything good is making me more stressed about it and more worried, and this causes me to push it off till later. This viscous cycle continues to today when I decided to write my blog instead of working on the paper. I am not happy with this decision of putting the research paper off, but until I am in the mood to write anything, the stuff I do try to write I will end up just deleting later.

I am just having a lot of difficulties trying to get my topic and focus together. This paper is giving me more problems than any other paper I have ever had to write before. I am planning to reread The Great Gatsby and Reading Lolita in Tehran this week, or at least skim through them to gather up my thoughts again. Maybe with the books fresh in my head I can sit down and really make some progress with my research paper. And maybe to help me with the problems I am having I will make an outline. I usually never do this unless I have to for an assignment or if a teacher asks for one. But maybe an outline will help me gather my thoughts together for this very important paper. It is just the overwhelming stress that just seems to be pouring over me, that is making me freak out right now. I have always been one to stress out about things but it seems this semester is the worst for me. Maybe I should meditate, do some yoga to help me relax, a massage would be heaven right now. Once I start feeling the paper and my topic a bit more I know I will relax about it a bit, but until then please do not get upset if I am a total jerk.        

#13

I think everyone in the whole wide world must have a Facebook now. Please do not mention MySpace anymore because it is dead and buried and no one is on it anymore. Now I am not crazy addicted to my Facebook account (though I will admit I was when I first made it) but I do go on often to see new posts and pictures that my friends publish to their walls. And most of the times I like to publish pictures from fun nights with my friends too. This is where things could get ugly. Some of the pictures that I post now without thinking could be very embarrassing in ten, fifteen, or twenty years. Now please do not think that I am out parting every night and dancing half naked on poles. This is far from the truth but there are nights where I will somehow magically get the day off from work and happen to want to go out and live a little. I just turned twenty-one for goodness sakes and I want to enjoy my youth! But these pictures that I post could come back to haunt me in later years.

I have pictures that I or one of my friends has posted where I am a little tipsy and acting crazy, or I am in the process of taking shots. This could eventually embarrass me when I am out of school and teaching. No one would want their child’s kindergarten teacher to be a party girl and to have pictures online of her taking Jell-O shots! This just could ruin my chances of getting a teaching position when I am out of school. And there is no way that I would allow a picture from my younger years lose me a job. But this is happening all the time now, and companies routinely have checks of their applicant’s online history. They check their Facebook, Twitter, and any other online social networking site they can find them on. And if they find anything that they do not like then there goes your chance of a job.

I think as we grow older we look back at our younger years and laugh at all the things and mistakes we made. But in today’s society those memories are usually online and we will have to deal with them resurfacing in our later years. People will be able to see all the posts that I have written in my whole history of online activity. People could see my old MySpace account that I could never quite figure out how to delete. And those pictures that I have on that MySpace account are from my high school years and they embarrass me now. So I cannot even imagine how red I will get if someone would show them to me in another twenty years. In our society today, with all these online social sites, we have to be so careful with the things we post and publish because they can always come back to bite us in the ass.  

This is the scene: George W. Bush Jr. gives the keys of an old beat up car with no engine in it to a little John McCain. Simple enough but in my opinion very funny, the two characters are ones that we instantly recognize and if anyone has a problem recognizing the McCain character then there is a strategically placed campaign button on his chest that reads McC. The clothes also struck me when I started analyzing this comic. Bush is dressed in a black suit with a white shirt. He looks very professional. McCain on the other hand is dressed like a cross between a small child and a computer nerd. He has a white collared shirt with his huge campaign button covering most of his chest making him look smaller. He has dark pants on with tennis shoes on his feet. McCain’s whole outfit makes him look like an inexperienced child being given the keys to a car that he can’t even see over the steering wheel! The dialogue between these two well known characters is very simple consisting of only three words “She’s all yours…” Their gestures are what add to the humor of the cartoon. Bush seems very pleased to hand over the keys of the completely destroyed automobile that he has been in charge of for the last few years, and of course this automobile has a license plate that reads GOP. McCain on the other hand does not happy at all to have to take the keys to that awful car. He grimaces and tries to smile but it just comes out very bad. The car itself is what makes the whole comic in my opinion. All the tires are missing and it is propped up on cement blocks. There is a jack holding up the back of the car as if someone had tried to fix the tires but even started it. The door is completely gone and the springs are coming out of the upholstery, and the windshield is totally cracked. The engine is gone from the car, and it is hanging from a tree in the background. There is even a squirrel sleeping in the top of the car. And as the license plate suggests this car stands for the Republican Party. It is a metaphor for how beat up the Republican Party has become. It is a party with no hope of running again (no pun intended) and poor McCain has to try to get it back on the road.

Of course to think this comic is funny you cannot be a Republican or be conservative. It is directed to Democrats and those who do not believe in the Republican Party. Since I am not a Republican I laughed when I saw this comic. It is just really funny to see how beat up the car is and to see McCain’s face. He just looks like a little kid being given the keys to a car that he is too young to drive.      

#11

  

William Shakespeare, William Yeats, Stephan King, Salvador Dali, Oscar Wilde, Isabel Allende, George Washington, Tomas Jefferson, Friedrich Nietzsche, and Snoop Dogg all have one thing in common. They have all been users of a plant native to Central Asia. This little, leafy plant has been in use from the third millennium B.C. for recreational, religious, medicinal, and spiritual purposes. And it has grown (no pun intended) to be one of the biggest debates in today’s American culture.  This plant is called cannabis, or simply known by marijuana.

Proposition 19 was a ballot initiative on November 2, 2010. This proposition would have legalized marijuana-related activities in California. The use of marijuana is allowed for medicinal purposes, but this bill would have allowed everyday people to posses and smoke marijuana in the privacy of their own home or a public establishment licensed for onsite marijuana consumption. If this proposition had passed then any California citizen could have legally up to an ounce of marijuana on them for personal use. The last thing that this bill would have allowed was for the actual growing of marijuana as well for personal use. This bill as everyone knows did not pass but is regardless still a major issue in today’s society.     

Those who were and still are in favor of legalizing marijuana say that this legalization would help lessen the drug trafficking we see from the Mexican drug cartels, because according to the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy sixty percent of the drug cartel’s profits come from the sale of illegal marijuana. With this profit gone it would cut more than half of the money the cartel makes. Another benefit would be a saving all the money spent on law enforcement for marijuana-related offenses. If it was made legal then the state could tax it creating millions of dollars in tax revenues. Another benefit that many do not think of is tourism and the sale of pipes and marijuana paraphernalia. If people go to Amsterdam for the legal marijuana, I am sure they would much rather go to California to have legal marijuana in a beachside smoke house.

Of course there are many opposed to this idea of legalizing marijuana. Those parties against it believe that it is a direct conflict with Federal Law that states that marijuana is not to be sold and is illegal. Another reason they have is that with the legalization of marijuana would come numerous complications with trafficking, arrests, and possession. To counter the money that many believe would be created with the legalization those opposed say that the increased government activity would use it all up, leaving the United States coming up even. Opponents also believe that it could create a huge public safety risk, creating more accidents while under the influence, and hospital visits. Another complaint is that it would out the growers of medical marijuana out of business if anybody could grow their own plants.

So we have opposition from both sides and at every different level of government. We shall have to see what happens in the coming years, who knows marijuana could become legal in the next ten years or it could stay illegal forever.   

#10

In 1960 the social norms were much stricter than they are today. In the 60s the rigid, social norms that had been in place for so long had started to finally break down. We had the rise of the counterculture and the Hippies with their motto of “Free Love”. But the conservative group still controlled what was deemed socially correct and the opposing social movement was labeled immoral and wrong. So we can see the beginning of the movement of the relaxation of certain social taboos, but it is not until our modern ear that we have seen the culmination of these social movements. And the biggest example of this changing social attitude can be seen in the language we use and the language we still do not use in the media. Many of the shows popular today would have been taboo in the 1960s. I believe that as society progresses we become more accepting of the taboos of the previous generations. So where does this acceptance stop, or does it only keep progressing until there are no taboos left in our society?

With this new acceptance of language taboos of the past our media has started to show topics and say words that have never been allowed before. On television today we can see women talking about having multiple sex partners, people cussing when they get mad, violence is seen running rampant, and we even have a show that stars competing Queens! We have progressed past the taboo social norms of the past and we actually have reality on television now. Before it was all white picket fences, perfect families, and there was no such thing as violence or cuss words on the television. Now we can see some of the issues and people present in our society. It is so great to turn on the television and see people talking about sex, talking about having children before marriage, to see homosexuals, people of ethnicities other than White, and pretty much real scenarios of modern life. We have progressed past the fake imaginary world that was allowed in the 1960s to showing real life events and characters on the television.

A great example of the acceptance of taboos of the past is that cuss words are now heard on television. It is a fact that everyone in this world has let slip a few cuss words or uses them on a regular basis. Now there is still some resistance to having obscene language allowed in the media but I think it is a useless battle. We have realized that this coarse language is essential to create a level of realness on our television shows because it is so much part of our society today. If a show is not merely using cuss words for shock value then I think that this showed be allowed in the media and not be censored. If someone does not approve of the language then they can simply change the channel, no one is forcing them to watch it!