Last Blog-Self Evaluation

This class definitely prepared me for the future. I believe I will do well in my Humanities classes because I chose to take ENC 1101 and ENC 1102 with Tasha. I think I wrote some of my best work in this class. This class really forced me to think outside of the box and I really felt that I did that, especially with the "In Cuba I was a German Shepherd" essay. I used to really hate analyzing anything until that book. You could pull out so much from just one story. Just one word or color could mean something that you would have never thought of. I really enojoyed the book and writing the essay. My other favorite part of this year was our final project. I have always had a passion and sympathy for the homeless yet I never acted upon it. If it were nor for this project, I would have never gone to downtown and delivered bags to the homeless. I am really excited that we will be starting a club next semester. This semester of english has really prepared me for the future and I feel like I have learned so much. I am so glad to have had you, Tasha as a teacher twice! What you do is difficult but keep doing it because you are helping to make a difference and an impact in this world. Please teach a humanities class!!! :o)

MySpace Impact

MySpace Impact is an awesome idea. So many people are already on MySpace already, so I think it is a great way to reach people, especially our youth. To Write Love on Her Arms, was the one that caught my eyes the most. It really made me want to read more about it. Also, they even showed popular musicians wearing the shirts.Cutting is a subject that is not talked about as often and I think it's great they devoted a site for it. However, I think if they would have included some statistics and studies, it would have been even more appealing and attention getting. I had a friend in middle school that used to cut herself and I kind of wish MySpace was big back then because this website may have helped her. RAINN also made me interested. The video that basically told what RAINN is really appealed to me. It used ethos, logos, and pathos. They even used a song by a band that is well known. It's called "You're not Alone" by Saosin. So that definitely got my attention. I really think that RAINN is great because even though you are not actually talking to someone face to face it's still personal and probably even a little bit comfortable. Rape really is never something that people feel comfortable talking about and people who have been rape feel embarrased or ashamed and I think that talking to someone online may be easier for a lot of people. The Loans page was interesting but they presentation was not. The concept is great but I kind of forced myself to read it. If they would have had videos about the subjects and real life accounts, it would have made the site more appealing.

I checked out some of the other impact sites. There are a few political ones which I think is great because it seems like more of our youth is getting into politics and it will definitely be crucial during this years' elections. There are quite a variety of sites, even one dedicated to saving a river. What surprised em he most about some of the groups is that you can tell that young people started them which gives our projects more meaning. If they can do it, we are definitely capable of make an impact as well.

Human Trafficking

Okay so this blog is pretty much a week late because I pretty much forgot :o( I think Spring Break got to my head. But anyway, I still wanted to do the blog because I like doing the blog assignments and I like the issues that have been assigned and last week's issue, Human Trafficking is such an important one.

I remember the first time I had ever heard about human trafficking. It was actually on the Oprah Winfrey show a couple of years ago. I think I was a freshman in high school. It was more about human trafficking in Asian countries but they did touch upon trafficking in America. I remember telling my mother about it and even she had not heard too much about it and she is always up to date with current events. Then maybe my sophomore year of highschool, the niece of one of the teachers at my school who is an ambassador for the U.S spoke about human trafficking but mainly in Thailand. She actually deals with cases of human trafficking. Quite a few of my classmates had never heard of it. Then maybe a year and a half later I read a true life account about a teenage girl from an Asian country who was subjected to human trafficking. I learned that many of the girls think that they are going to be taken to a better place and more suitable living conditions but instead they are tricked and sold to brothels. In the video clip, it seems like many of the girls are from Latin American countries. Maybe they were told that they were going to be given a better life in America.

I think that Human Trafficking may be very difficult to cease in America because it seems more secretive but if the word is spread more than I think a difference can be made. If there are more documentaries made and educationals there might be a decrease. My mother and I love watching movies and we frequent our Brighthouse Networks indemand movie channel. Guess what documentary was there? Skid Row!!! I told my mother all about it. I told my father as well and neither had heard a word about it and both were shocked when I told them the average age of a homeless person was 9 years old. Word of mouth might be the best way to go about these issues. And from what I have learned so far from writing the exploratory essay is the issue, Why should we help? So why should we help these people and children who are being sold? I've come up with a few answers.
Sex with minors is illegal.
Sex without consent is illegal.
It's basically like slavery which is also illegal.
For many of the people, it really is not their fault. They were tricked.
Our children could be stolen and sold.
We ourselves could be stolen and sold.
If you have a heart, you know that it is wrong.
And this is probably the least important answer and is the last thing on my mind but for people who are very much into economy and taxes: you know that the traffickers certainly do not report the money they are making on their taxes...they probably don't even file taxes...that is cheating our government and economy, no? So techinically they can be charged with some kind of tax fraud I guess. I know, this is not the best and most important answer but I was simply brainstorming but it is somewhat true.

The important thing to remember about Human Trafficking is that it is NOT prostitution!!! Prostitutes made a choice but someone else made a choice for the victims of human trafficking. The people of the United States have worked together during tragic times such as the World Wars and after September 11th. I believe the people of the United States can come together to fight issues such as this one and become a voice for people who have none.

Wiki Contest

So I must say section U1F had some pretty creative wikis! It came down to about seven and it was pretty difficult to choose from those seven! No lie, this was pretty tough but here are my choices:
1st Place: Mike P
2nd Place: Jason
3rd Place: Elizabeth

All three had creative homepages and also their descriptions of themselves were creative as well. The way they described themselves make them seem relaxed,approachable,credible and believable.

Mike P's wiki has various images of his favorite things or subjects that appeal to him. Also his descriptions of himself and what he likes are straightforward with a little bit of humor. His homepage is pretty appealing because it is not very overwhelming with a lot of information. He divided different topics about himself with pictures so his page is easy on the eyes and keeps your attention.

Jason's wiki is pretty welcoming as well. He has a comedic picture and his tone throughout his about me section is pretty relaxed, comedic and real. He does not overwhelm the reader with too much information because he says key points about himself. His overall tone and wording keeps the reader interested.

Elizabeth's wiki was probably the most different of everyone's. She described herself with the least amount of words possible but she did it very well. The way she worded her paragraph was different so it catches the reader's attention and she seems very sincere about the things she says about herself and what she believes in. Also, the images she chose were different but still appealing to the reader.

Analysis of Michelle's Song Analysis

I chose to analyze Michelle's song analysis because I had never heard the song that she chose so I was very interested in hearing it. I think Michelle did pretty good job analyzing the song. She also chose good words of importance. I agree that the audience is Christian mothers, Christians, and even people who do not believe in God. Michelle also said what the singer's claim was and I agree with her as well. She also explained what each stanza meant and what the chorus meant. Michelle's analysis of the song "Held" is also unbiased which makes her analysis strong.

Just one thing I would add is that the gentle music and comforting lyrics/text alson influences who the audience would be, which is Christian mothers.

I believe Michelle made a strong, in depth and unbiased analysis. I would give her an A!

"Underwear"

"Underwear" is supposed to be just that, clothing that you wear under your clothes! I absolutely hate seeing guys that have their boxers exposed. It is a complete turn off because it even affects the way that they walk. They have to hold up their pants and many times they hold up their pants around the crotch. I really do not care to see guys grabbing their crotch area! However, I think this law can also go for girls as well. Some girls actually let their thongs and g-strings show on purpose. I think it's pretty disgusting and just not respectful. I've even seen girls who wear their pants so low that you can almost see their "area". I think it's just unecessary. There's a time and place for everything and if you are going to wear revealing clothing, then wear it to clubs and not such public areas such as school, malls, grocery stores etc...
As for the law that is trying to get passed, I am personally almost for it. However, I'm not so sure it will work out. First of all our government is a democratic and capitalist. It's not a dictatorship and a law like that would lead people to argue about it. Also since this is America, everyone is all about the word "freedom," especially when it pertains to ourselves. We also have the right of the "pursuit of happiness" in which many people will argue for. And it will be interesting to see how this will be enforced. I can see how it will be enforced at schools because it is a more closed enviornment but what about general public areas? If a police officer sees someone with saggy or revealing pants, are they going to stop them and give them a fine? Honestly, even though this whole pants issue bothers me, I would much rather have a police officer fightning crime than taking their time to fine someone and missing an opportunity to arrest a criminal. Plus, I don't think anyone would really learn their lesson unless the fine was extremely expensive because the odds of them being caught everyday are slim. Once again, that would mean having more police officers around when they could be trying to catch a crime.
So, in conclusion, I think the concept of the no sagging pants law is a good one but I just do not think it would work very well because when it comes to a stupid issue like this, Americans like to take our law and the constitution seriously and literally.

No Child Left Behind

I completely agree that the No Child Left Behind Act needs to be either revised over abolished. The fact that if your school fails their standardized test they get funds taken away defeats the whole purpose. That's maybe when the school should get more funding so that they can help their students succeed. And it's ridiculous that they have to take it in March. They might as well stop going to school after that, if they are already supposed to have been taught all that they needed to know that year. Two weeks for testing? That's absolutely crazy. And I'm sure that teachers have to spend way more than two weeks before the actually testing to review with their students. I also do not agree with how they evaluate. They should be evaluating how much the child has learned since their last school year and not comparing their scores with the scores of children from the previous year and the same school grade. It does not make sense. I would have liked to hear about what the teacher was going to say about private schools. I myself went to private school my whole life except for now. First of all, I feel lucky that I had the priveledge of going to private Catholic schools. My mother worked very hard so that she could send my brother and I to Catholic school and I appreciate it. We did have to take testing every year as well but it did not count against our funding. It was called the ITBS test. It tested us on english math science and probably reading and geography. We were tested on it for a week. But I do agree that it is not fair to the students because the test also decides if they can go on to the next grade or not. That really is not fair because there are students who will always just not do their best on testing.
I also saw the clip of what some of the democratic candidate hopefuls thought about the No Child Left Behind Act. I completely agreed with one of the candidate's thoughts about making a teacher's minimum wage 40,000 a year. Teachers definitely need to get paid more! Sure there are a lot of great kids but there are some pretty crazy ones. They don't get paid enough for what they have to deal with and what they are doing for the future of America. The same candidate also said that he wanted the fine arts program to be better in schools which I am 100% for! Not everyone can be star athletes! Yes we do need to promote being active but we needs to promote fine arts because there are so many kids out there with artistic,musical,and theatrical abilities but they can't show their abilities and get scholarships for them because their school's fine arts program is either horrible or non-existant.
So all in all, I think the No Child Left Behind Act needs to be completely revised!

Media Education and the Government

After watching the Zeitgeist clip, I felt quite disturbed. However, I have to say that I have had some of the same thoughts but I just don't like to think about them. One of the first topics that the movie clip touched upon was U.S education. The clip showed a comparison of percentiles of Physics of a few countries and the U.S was the lowest percentile. I can definitely believe this. I always hear about how in many Europen countries, students are taught highschool level mathematics in middle school. Even some South American countries have better education as well. One of my roommates is from Venezuela and she pretty much aced her first college algebra test. She said she's been seeing all the material covered on the test for years. The clip mentioned that the government may have something to do it with it. Apparently, the government does not want us to be thinkers so it lowers our education standards and bombards us with the media. I am not completely in agreeance with this but it could be possible. Who really knows what goes on in the government? It really is a scary thought that we really goes on behind closed doors. I believe that there is a lot that the government is hiding or possibly has "forgotten" to tell everyone.
The media is another topic that the clip spoke about. I think the media definitely goes overboard with celebrities and products and clothing. I can admit that many of the things I own are probably influences from the media. You just get them absentmindedly. I don't think the media is completely wrong though. And they even mentioned that amusement parks were wrong as well. I think that's a little overboard because people need to relieve stress and have fun somehow. The media that I do think is wrong is magazines solely about celebrities. First of all, just leave them alone already. That's why half of Hollywood is so messed up. And second of all, people need to be reading more books! Or even TIME magazine! People are just not reading enough!
The Government was the huge topic in the movie clip. The North American mersion ammendment was pretty disturbing. I think I had heard about it because it sounded so familiar. That is just crazy. That would have been the worst decision ever. As for the one world government topic, if that really would happen, kiss the world as we know it goodbye. I think that would be the end of the world. There would be assasinations and total anarchy, the complete opposite of government. What, would there be one leader or would all the leaders just agree on everything? I find it impossible.
The clip was extremely eye-opening. I may not agree with everything completely but I do agree with the fact that we do not know that much about our government and that there are people in this world such as the Rockefellers who would go to great lengths to gain even more power.

First Blog of a new Semester!

This will be my second time using a blog for class! I used a blog last semester for ENC 1101 and now I'm using it again for ENC 1102 because I have the same teacher! I actually really enjoyed having a blog and always looked forward to new blog prompts. The blog prompts were all different and made me think about topics that I had given thought to before but did not want to keep thinking about. It forced me to make my own opinions about certain issues. Honestly I can't really remember what i had put my security setting on but I think that it was open to everyone because once I received an anonymous comment on one of my blogs about education...it was not a bad comment but it was a little strange. So this semester I'm just choosing my readers. I think that having the blog helped my writing a little. Well, I think that any type of extra writing helps. However, I think I may have only thought outside of the box for only a few entries. I usually just answered the blog prompt as best as I could with my own opinions. This semester I hope to change my writing style a little bit and be more creative. Maybe I'll try writing a poem or two of it will work with the blog prompt. I'm not really the best poem writer but it will be different and a change.