Blog post #8 Responding to "The Art of Failure"

    Ten years ago I was Eighteen. I had just graduated high school and started college. The first semester I took five classes. Seventeen credits. By the end of the semester I was only enrolled in one class. That was golf. I had quit going to Math, English, Music, and Biology. I eventually dropped them. I don't really know why I gave up on the other classes, maybe because they were harder than high school classes, maybe because I didn't have the right mindset to do well and succeed. I tried to convinced myself that I could do it. The next semester I had another full schedule. Only this time I didn't make it more than a couple weeks. I didn't even bother to drop them, I just quit going. Halfway through the semester I had ran through all my money on booze and partying, and had to go back to work. Looking back from ten years later, I realize that the decision I made to quit, and to not even try in college was the biggest failure of my life.
    After reading this essay I'm still not sure if I "choked", or "panicked". Maybe both, maybe neither. The classes weren't overly difficult. I'm currently taking all those that I had previously dropped, and am doing fine. I think that it was probably more me getting out in the "real world" with no one to tell me what I could and couldn't do, nobody to wake me up and tell me to go to class. So I panicked, and did whatever, I followed the crowd, and forgot the things I was taught.

Blog post #7 responding to "Just Walk on By"

   I read somewhere that it takes three seconds for somebody to make a first impression. People do not even have to say anything before we decide weather or not we will like them. I am horribly guilty of this. I just look at someone and decide in an instant if I would like them or not. No offence to you Mr. B but the first time I saw you I thought to myself "look at this hippie". That first impression stuck with me for awhile, until I had enough interaction with you to think differently. I still think that you are a little hippie-ish. But it's no longer in a negative way. You are a good guy that cares about education, and your students.
   I have been working at a boys home for the last six months. When I first started I had no idea what to expect. I was forced to work with people who I though were just punk kids, hoodlems, who I wouldn't have given the time of day to. Not long after I started I realized that they were good kids, that just grew up in bad situations. Just kids. It blew me away when I realized that.
   First impressions are based on how someone looks. How I thought you were a hippie, and the boys that I work with were punk ass hoodlems. I have just recently learned not to trust my first impressions, they are very rarely correct. We should not judge on how someone looks.

Blog Post #5 "In Your Journal"

I do not think that the families should have sued the police officers that responded that day. They did exactly what they were trained to do.

I think that like most things police work and tactics change with time. I don't think that there is anyway to predict these horrible tragedies. Police officers cannot be prepared for every type of incident. No matter how much training they receive, they just can't know what every situation they encounter will be like. I think that they did the best they could do. Like it said in the article they "went by the book". Which is all you can ask for. The police officers didn't kill the victims. The shooters did.

Blog post # 4

Question #1
"The rejected waste of society."
   I think that Lazarus compared homeless people to waste because in a lot of ways that is how they are treated. Nobody really knows what to do with them, or where to put them. So they get treated like a tin can in the street kicked from place to place, but always showing up again.
   I agree with his assessment. Homeless people are bad for businesses, and a hassle to society.At first we feel bad for them but it then turns to anger. We can't sweep them under the rug, or throw them in the garbage.
 Question#2
  I think that dumb and lazy people are another group of "untouchables" in our society. Everyone now is so wrapped up in being politically correct. We are afraid to tell them that they are indeed dumb and lazy. I feel that this group of "untouchables" needs to be scorned more. I feel that society is not doing them any favors allowing them to skirt by with the least amount of effort possible.
 Question#4
   I feel that Kozol tried to make us have pity for the homeless people. He did a very good job of it at first. By the end of the essay I was feeling more anger than pity. I understand that people fall on hard times and are forced to make changes. But come on I work two jobs and go to school full time. I feel that homelessness is just laziness to the extreme.
 Question#5
I feel that the attitudes towards the poor, start off as pity then turns to anger. I think however there is a big difference between being poor and being homeless. I feel that our giving and charitable attitudes hurt the homeless more than help them. If we were less giving it would force them to try harder. All to often the homeless guy you give money to just goes and buys drugs or booze with it.

Blog #3 My "Big" Narrative Essay Will Be About...

My "big" narrative essay will be about my son, the events that led up to his birth, and how he has changed my life. I was using this as my descriptive narrative intro essay, but I got started and realized I had a lot more than 5 paragraphs to write about it. In fact I already have two and a half pages and I'm not even to the birth yet.

#2 Responding to Chapters 4&5

I found chapter 4 to be very helpful. Especially because like I said in my earlier post that I thought it would be hard to write about reading. The first heading in Chapter 4 is "Writing in Response to Reading." I found a lot of helpful information that will help me write about readings in the future.

I also thought there were some good points about quoting, paraphrasing, and summarizing.

In chapter 5 I liked how it said that if you try and use too many big words you may come off as "stiff, pretentious, and unnatural." It's best to just write with the words you already use and know.

#1 How I Feel About Reading and Writing

It's hard to read about reading. I also think it's hard to write about reading. There were a few things that I found interesting though. For example, every political speech that I have ever heard or read has had one or more of the Errors in Logic.