Wednesday, December 7, 2011

Final Blog

I am actually glad this essay thing is almost finished! I didn't mind the learning grammar and punctuation, it is actually something I will find useful in my future.  As for the essays they were a little to close together for me to enjoy.  I don't think I will ever have any need for a "proper essay with a thesis".  I worked really hard on my essays, fine tuning them.  I also worked very hard on the peer reviews, I wanted to help my classmates as much as possible.  I did enjoy the discussions and blogs because we were free to say what we felt instead of forced into like in the structured essays.   The essays did help me work sentences together better though. As for this semester, I only took this English course so it did all go well for me.  For my next semester I am choosing to do a math course and a Medical Administration for unlicensed personnel which I am very excited for.  I am ready to learn math again!  It's funny how I can feel more maturity in my school work more than I ever did in High School.  I am more willing and more anxious, and more concerned with my school work.  My grades are extremely important to me now because I care so much more than I did back in school and all the High School drama  isn't there to effect my work. :)

As for my future, I would like to continue going to school while working a full time job.  I am hoping to someday own my own home.  In the long future when I am done or close to done with school I would like to marry my long time boyfriend, Roy and start a family with him.  I have only one cat now but would like to eventually get him a friend and a dog someday.  One dream that I have always had is to get a farm house and rescue all the animals who don't have homes, or live in bad homes.  I am animal lover and would love to supply animals with love and proper care.  I am hoping to someday be well off financially so I am able to enjoy my family life without struggling.  I have no plans to move out of Minnesota.  I want to be close to my family and Roys family.  It was nice to meet all my fellow classmates and teacher. I wish you all the best :)

Thursday, December 1, 2011

Modest Proposal

Wow, I found myself going blah, blah blah and what is he talking about in the Modest Proposal!  Initially I thought Jonathon Swift, writer of Modest Proposal, started talking out about poor women selling themselves to get money with all the kids around them needing help because they were poor.  Then as I read down a little further with all the babbeling, he made it sound like he was going to fry up children and eat them. Swift than switches to talking about selling off the kids of these women.  By this time I was totally lost on what he was trying to propose to us, or have us even to focus on. I still don't understand what this entire article is even trying to focus on.  I didn't see anything in the begining of the article about what "Kingdom" he was talking about until you read down a few paragraphs then he mentions the "Kingdom of Ireland".  When you read more towards the bottom it sounds like you are reading a William Shakespeare novel!  Throughout the whole thing he uses commas in between complete sentences, there are spelling errors (publick), and there is so many larger words to make you really lose focus. 

I suppose one proposal would be the drug testing on welfare recipeants as in Amber Mehrkens topic for her essay.  Another one would be housing shortage for the homeless and rehabilitation programs for the homeless to get them back on track.  There is always the medical issues of people needing healthcare which our goverment deals with daily trying to propose solutions. 

It just seems to me that there is proposals to be made on just about everything, it just depends on how far out of reach some of the soultions would actually be. 

Sunday, November 27, 2011

I Am Thankful

Things I am thankful for,
 I barely question anymore.

 I am thankful for the trees,
 That blow in the breeze. 

I am thankful for good food,
That brings up my mood.

  I am thankful for my family and my car,
 I like to keep them just as they are.

 I am thankful for my boyfriend Roy,
 Sometimes he can be such a joy. 

And I am thankful for my cat,
And that is that. 

Such a corny poem,
As I am heading home.

At Thanksgiving I guess too much turkey,
Cause me to be a little quirky. 

Thursday, November 17, 2011

"The Value of College Degree" written by Katherine Porter

The ideas in the essay, "The Value of College Degree" written by Katherine Porter, make a lot of important points.  The one part where she says, "These statistics support the contention that, though the cost of hight education is sidnificant, given the earnings disparity that exist between those who earn a bachelor's degree and those who do not, the individual rate of return on investment in higher education is sufficiently high to warrent the cost," (Porter, 488) the problem is you end up paying years and years afterward just to pay off your collage degree, after you start earning any income.  The availability of jobs are causing a lot of students not being able to find a job in their field of interest, and end up taking lower paying jobs and struggling to pay of their collage bills, which results in taking it longer to finally get the income that they went to school for.  Where as if they start right out with a low paying job to begin with, and work straight through all those years, without going to collage, there income has increased through the years with raises, etc, and seniority in the working place.  More than likely they probably at this time built up a considerable amount of retirement savings.

  Also in the essay it says "there is a tendency for more highly educated women to spend more time with their children for the future," (Porter, 489) this can be the extreme opposite for quite a few.  These women can become so into their field and making money that their job becomes their number one priority.  It becomes all about making money.  It also becomes all about their kids being extremely educated, and having degrees, and other recreation becomes not as important as education and making money. The familes "value" gets lost.  I have seen this through personal experience, in my Aunt and her family.  She was so into making money, that she traveled out of town for years, while her children were basically on their own.  She would leave town for an entire week just to come home, do her laundry and get ready for her next trip out of town.  There was no one at her home to nuture her children, or be there for them when they were in need.  I remeber my cousin being so scared on her first day of school every year, that she would throw up, and there was no one there to tell her it would be alright.  When her sister, my other cousin, was in high school, she would roam the streets all hours of the night.  There was no one to ask where she was, until her dad came in late at night from doing farming.  I just always felt like there should have been someone there for them.    They all did turn out ok, but it could have been very bad without a parent to guide them.  

Thursday, November 10, 2011

Should Gay Marriages Be Legalized

Should gay marriages be legalized?  This should be an easy question to answer, right?  Two people in love should have the right to solidify their love by marriage vows.  But for some reasons some individuals are dead set against it due to the fact that it's not a man and a woman getting married, so it is just wrong. 

My standing is who are we to be the judges of what two people in love wish to do to solidify their life-long vows to each other?  Some say it's in the Bible that a man marries a woman...  My guess is that when the Bible was written, they didn't know they needed to be very specific on genders or expand to include two men or two women.  It was just left up to our interpretation (beliefs) of what WE as individuals think is wrong and right.  So if we think gay marriage is wrong, then "that's what the Bible meant by saying a man and a woman" and "it doesn't say a man and a man".  My definition of a marriage, two people in love that want to bind their vows and commitments to each other.  In the dictionary, "marriage" is "any close or intimate union".  In the dictionary "marry" is "to get married; take a husband or a wife."  Where does it state (other than in our OWN mind) that a husband can't unite with a husband, or a wife with another wife?

Further more, why would we not want two people to be committed to each other, instead of spreading whatever diseases come about because they are not happy in a relationship that is acceptable to society, and the one they want to be in is unacceptable to society.  What they want to do behind closed doors is none of our business - EVEN when it's a man and a woman, so why is it for us to say it's wrong just because we do not feel a committment to the same sex.

When gay couples get married, they aren't asking us to join in the relationship, only to celebrate their unity as a couple.  This is the same as a man and a woman getting married.  They aren't asking us to join in the relationship, only to celebrate their unity as a couple.  Many gay couples have better relationships and commitments than many married couples, and we don't ask them what goes on in their bedroom, so why does it matter if they are the same sex.

Sunday, November 6, 2011

Readers Choice

I saw on another blog that they chose “The Glass Castle” as their favorite book, which truly amazes me, because I honestly thought the book was so blah. The last few chapters were the only parts that kept my interest.  There are better stories out there. When I was at the book store getting this book for school, an older lady there told me how much she enjoyed the book, and how good of a book it was. Was I disappointed when I started reading it!  I just went online and looked at some movie trailers people have made. The National Review had a comment on one of the trailers that said some parts of the book were “exhausting”.  This is exactly how I felt right up until the last few chapters, when the kids started saving money to move to New York.  I thought “there…we’re finally getting somewhere.  An actual story is coming together.  There is a purpose to all the gibberish.”  She could have done without half of the boring stories, and still kept you up on what happened.  Jeanette described fights that happened in one of the towns for one and a half pages…who cared about THAT much detail…we got the gist of it in a couple of sentences!   


Honestly, I think “The Glass Castle” would make a good movie, just not a very entertaining book.  Some of the movie trailers were proof of that.  I will have to admit, I do not like reading books at all. I like reading magazines a lot, if to read anything.  If I were to choose an inspiration book, it would be “Little Girl Lost”.  This book is the younger years of Drew Barrymore’s life.  She was just a young child when she made her first movies “Firestarters” and “E.T.”. It tells about going to Hollywood “after production parties” with her parents.  She eventually grew bored, being the only child at these parties, and started drinking which lead to drugs.  Look at this girl’s life today!  Talk about inspirational!  Now THIS was a book I could not put down.  Even though some of things that happened to Drew were repetitious, the writer did not drag on and on and on about each episode. 

Wednesday, October 26, 2011

Caffeine Crazies

I was so unaware of possibility that bottled water could be taken straight from the tap.  How could this be!? What have I been paying for all these years when I could have been saving money and taking it straight from my facet at home, for free!  I say this now because I am shocked, but yet you will probably find me at Walmart next week or Kwik Trip, buying bottled water. I guess what I was paying for all this time was for that "cool bottle" that it comes in, and for the convenience of not having to bottle it myself.  How lazy have we become, we can't even bottle our own water!  And, now were hearing on the news that these "cool bottles" aren't even good for us, they contain all kinds of cancer causing agents.

In Mark Penn's essay, Caffeine Crazies, I was able to find out a lot of information that made me feel how ridiculous of a society we have become.  We don't want to fry up a burger at home, when we can head to a convenience store or fast food place, where it is already fried for us.  We don't want to brew our own cup of coffee when there is a coffee shop right up the street.  Want to be more alert?  Lets just drink a bunch of high caffeine beverages.  Not many families are able to sit down together, have quality time while eating a good home cooked meal.  Its go, go, go grab something quick, move on to the next activity, with a fast food and energy drink in our hands...this CAN'T be good for us!  Penn mentions that there are some (probably those with monetary investments) that defend "caffeine's impact on health".  "Lower Alzheimer's rates, less diabetes, fewer gallstones, lower rates of Parkinson's, and less colon cancer" where are these statistics coming from?  Penn says there have been studies done, but every time there is a study done, out comes a new and so called "better ingredients", you would think the study would have to start all over, which makes these studies not very "long term", I would think.   All I know is I am going to "try" to bottle my own water in a "BPA" free bottle.