#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.