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 :)

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. 

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. 

"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.  

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.

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. 

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.

"Dysfunctional" and "Functional" Families

I believe every family has some sort of dysfunction within their family.  The difference is that most families are willing to talk about it with others, and the "ideal" family keep their "dysfunctions" more private.  You can read the newspaper or watch the news daily and see how many of the tragedies involving families are quoted as saying "They were the ideal family, they lived normal lives from what we could see."  And the news report says "Father murders entire family.....".  "From what we could see....", that phrase right there shows you that obviously this little "ideal" family probably went on their daily lives as if nothing was amiss, yet the dysfunction was kept under wraps until the tragic event took place. 

The Walls family in The Glass Castle, on the other hand, had obvious dysfunctions that everyone was able to see, yet their dysfunctions were a daily living to them.  Sometimes the family members made it a point to blurt out their dysfunction with pride.  There are different degrees to how dysfunctional a family is, the Walls family to me seemed extremely dysfunctional, yet who are we to judge other family dysfunctions just because it's not what we consider "functional". 

Dreaded Winter

I was just sitting here thinking about what to write for this weeks blog when I looked out the window.  I thought, "what a beautiful day".  Instantly another thought came to mind, "Oh my gosh, there won't be many of these beautiful days left".  Winter is just around the corner so I am thinking bundling, shoveling snow, trying to get the car out of the driveway, and blah, blah, blah! The list can go on and on when it comes to winter. 

Last February I was in a scary situation.  I was driving to my job in Plainview when I hit some slush on the road.  My car shot sideways into the other lane, hit some dry tar, and rolled over.  My first big car accident and let me tell you....it's not something I EVER care to do again.  I was hanging upside down in my car, seat-belted in for over 30 minutes until the ambulance came. I was lucky to have many people stop to help including a nurse! The nurse checked me all over before she would even consider unsnapping the seatbelt.  I was scared to death, laying there in the emergency room in a neck brace.  They asked me how much I liked my coat, because they were considering in cutting it off. I said "I would rather you not because I just bought this coat."  The poor EMT's had to carefully take my coat off, while I was strapped on the stretchboard.

I did learn some valuable lessons last winter though, make sure your tires actually have a tread on them, don't carry a wad of cash on you, get a job closer to your home.  This winter my tires will HAVE a tread, I no longer carry a wad of cash, and my job is now very close to my home.  I still can't wait till NEXT SUMMER!  The only good thing I can see with winter is the arrival of my ugg boots in a couple of weeks! 

    

"The Fakebook Generation" - My response

I do not have any social network other than this "blogger" website. Therefore, I have not seen nor experienced any facebooking myself.  My blog will be focused on "The Fakebook Generation" and the experiences I have learned about from others.

The part of "The Fakebook Generation" that stuck out to me the most was how the "older" generation uses Facebook as a social network.  My Grandmother was recently connected to Facebook. Grandmother can't wait to have a new "friend" join her site.  However, Grandma fails to see that she spreads rumors and degrades people, and then allows those people in on her site!
Grandma uses it as a bragging site for all of the junk she invests in, also.  In her next breath, she tells her friends how she has no money to spend time with them.  If they confront her on it, she denies ever having written about spending money and buy all her worldly goods (junk). "Hello, Grandma! You typed it in there for all to see!"  Now Grandma wonders why she is deleted from so many "friends" sites. 

I have heard of other incidences like Grandmas and wonder if Facebook isn't actually causing tension and grudges in adult relationships, instead of "enriching" them as Alice Mathias describes in her essay.  It seems as though collage students and the elder generation have two entirely different views on Facebook. The younger generation seems to be using Facebook as a social outlet from the daily grind (more of a playful site). The older generation uses it as a way to write a letter to someone, paying no attention to the fact that all of his or her "friends" will be reading the "private" letter.  Where is the comedy to which Alice Mathias is referring to?

Life's "Imbalance"

Today my blog is going to be about my struggle with working a full time job, going to school and trying to have some kind of life.  I work a full time job as a nursing assistant at Samaritan Bethany Heights.  I work in the rehabilitation area.  In the rehabilitation area, we care for eldery residents who have been sent from the hospital with a previous injury. Each day we have to learn about new residents and there injury status and rehabilitation progress.  Then we proceed to take care of their daily needs as we see will help them in the best possible way.  This is a very physical job with alot of moving around, getting supplies as needed, and going from resident to resident.  This is a very critical thinking job, also. A nursing assistant, when entering a room, needs to keep in mind each type of injury and how it affects the patient.  We are expected to remember and chart the residents behaviors, and the type of care we gave them. After a long day of eight hours or more of work, I am physically and mentally exhausted.

On my drive home, I immediately begin to think of all the school work that is due for that day. I try to get right to any assignment as it is given, so I may leave room for any new assignments.  Most of the assignments require a long drawn out thought process, in addition to the critical thinking that I just finished with at my job. Sometimes these assignments can take hours to complete.  There are many nights when I am working on assignments until past midnight.  The alarm clock goes off way too early those mornings!

A full day of going to work and doing school assignments leaves me with no time for family and friends, and extra outside activities. I feel as though my entire young life is being spent making money to live, and going to school to be able to make more money to keep up with the cost of living. This leaves me with very little, or no time to actually have any sort of enjoyment in my life. I try to balance my school, my employment, and my outside life, but have yet to find enough time to fit all of it in. Then I look over at the laundry pile and the stack of dishes and realize I can't have an outside life!

My Mom~

The person I have the best memories with is my Mother. After all, my Mommy has been with me my whole life.  Even at my age of 21 years old, she is still there for me.  When I was young and getting into lots of trouble as an active child,  my mom use to laugh at some of my naughtiness.  She use to say "As long as she is not hurting herself or someone else, we might as well enjoy her silliness".  My mom took my sister and I everywhere with her.  When we were at a place with lots of people she would have my sister stick a finger in her back pocket so she could keep track of her.  She would put me on a leash because I liked to run away and get lost in the crowd.  Whenever there was something not right with me, my mom would sense this because she knew me so well.  Sometimes I would just cry, and she would say "Oh, you just need a nap, your just really tired".  I would look at her with teary eyes and say "Yes Mommy". 

When I got old enough to have my own room, I would all of a sudden stand in the middle of my room and scream that "something is not right".  Mom and my sister, Amber, would come running in my room and ask what was wrong.  I would tell them "I don't know but something is just not right".  My mom would look around my room, walk over to something in my room and move it just a bit and say "Well Ashley, is it this? This was turned the wrong way."  She got it right every time!  I know now that it wasn't the item she had right every time, but the sense of peace it gave me that she there to help me. 

Then I became a teenager.  My parents had no idea that this busy fun little girl would become their worst nightmare.  I got in to more trouble than you can imagine.  Each time my mom was right there to find me, to talk to me, and bring me back home.  She kept talking to me about what I was doing and where this would lead me, and that she understood this was something I needed to do.  Yet each time she was the one person who stood by me and dealt with it all.  She would still kiss me on the cheek, tuck me in, and tell me she loved me every night. 

I relied on my Mom to always be there and she was.  I did outgrow the teenage years and my naughtiness, and my Mom tells me everyday how proud she is of me.  When I go to my Mom's house, I still consider it my home even though I no longer live there. She welcomes me as always.  Her home cooked meals always remind me of my childhood and growing up in our home.  I am glad I have the mom I do because she always has been able to deal with me in a way I am not so sure anyone else would have been able to.  I Love My Mom and Cherish Our Memories!!

Quote~Life

"Life is half spent before we know what it is." This quote by George Herbert, I found to be very meaningful.  We go through life daily, doing what we need to do.  Sometimes taking those around us for granteed.  Than one day you realize half your life is over and you wish you could do it over again.

I would have made better choices. I would have noticed things more.  I would have spent more time with those I was "to busy" to see. I realized this quite some time ago when I was going from elementary school, to high school, to graduation, to moving out on my own.  Each step I took was ending one part of my life and beginning another. 

Before I knew it, my sister was having babies, I moved out and was living with my boyfriend, and my grandparents were too old to take long walks with the entire family like they use to. My oldest niece just started kindergarden. Soon I will be watching her go into high school, graduate, and move out on her own. Wow, life does pass you by quickly, and it's a scary thought.

Education

Wow, who knew, I now know how to blog! Learned something new, again!  It was so different in high school for me, because I was so caught up with the drama of girlfriends, boyfriends, where the next party was at, weekend plans, etc. that school and education were just the furthest thing from my mind. Funny how all the drama in school doesn't really matter, but at the time it seemed as if your whole world revolved around the drama. I remember many times in school thinking "Omg why do I have to sit here when I could be shopping or hanging out with my friends.  I don't even need to know this stuff.".

I realized real fast that in order to "go shopping" and "hang out with my friends" I needed to have access to money to get there. It sure makes things go alot easier. My car doesn't want to start without gas, and that shirt that I absolutely have to have is not free. Now that I am on my own looking towards the future, thinking about where I want to be and what I want to do, education now seems like one of the most important parts in reaching my goals.  I find myself wanting to do good and succeed with my education. Learning has a whole new attitude! :)

Passed My Final Exam :)))

I passed my final exam!! I did not recieve the grade i wanted but i still passed with a good enough grade.  I hope my final grade for the class will be a B..... No less!!!!!!! Hopefully :)))))

New Job!!!

I recieved a call today from the job i have been praying to get full time hours. They indeed offered me full time hours which i am so thankful for.  I put my two weeks notice into my job that i have been at for over 3 years.  I will miss my coworkers, the children and families but in the long run this is the career i want to be in.  I am excited to start a new journey in my life.  :)))))))

Final Exam Tomorrow!!!!

Final exam tommrow.... Nervouse but excited to be done with the course.  It has been intense for the 5 day course that it is.  I do not like cheaters and hope there will be none tommrrow, Thank you to my teacher.  I will study day in a day out until the test arrives to get the best grade I can achieve.

Busy Busy Busy

What a busy day i had, and i feel like i still didnt get everything done!