Good Bye All!!!

I believe saying goodbye is unjust for this occasion. I think a better phrase would be CONGRATS to everyone for hanging in there. We made it, I look back at week one which seems like such an eternity ago and remember how many introductions I read. I look now and see only a small fraction of those people still around. I find it humorous as to how lazy some people are and at how easily they give up. I want to say thank you to everyone for their support and help through the semester. I believe we truly were a team and I couldn’t have gotten through the semester without each one of your help and advice. Regardless of our final grades we should all be proud of the effort an time we put forth because we stuck it out and did was so many couldnt do.Thank you all so much and with the upcoming holiday looming I wish all of you a very happy holiday! Thank You all…We Made IT!!!!

Research O' Lovely Research

I must say that this semester is taking forever to be done with. I am at that point where I am sooooo done and in such a need of a break it isnt even funny so the thought of this paper hurts my brain. With that being said I think my paper is coming alone well, I plan to really do a lot of it over the Thanksgiving holiday but it seems to be ok. I choose to read and compare The Great Gatsby. The Great Gatsby is a story I really enjoyed and while it was a tossup between reading it again or reading Lolita I ended up with the Great Gatsby now after my peer reviews come back that might change =) hahaha. I am a bit relieved I must share with you I thought our rough draft was due this Sunday when I just realized it isnt in fact due till the 29th which eases my mind a bit, I have been working furiously over nothing. Anyway it is coming along pretty well I still need to shape it a little more I have my thesis and general idea as to where I want to go and what I want to say but its pretty choppy right now. I plan to really tucker down and work hard on this paper I want it, no scratch that I need this paper to be good. I have really struggling with my lay out I want to take the great Gatsby and use it as my foundation and then compare the two. I want to pick out all the illusions in RLiT and apply them to the Great Gatsby imagination. I want to focus on all the ways the girls used their imagination to shape or change the world around them and how they saw things. I have so many ideas an I just don’t know what to do with them :) O well I am sure it will all turn out ok, it always does. My biggest fear is the formatting of the paper, I am horrible at MLA even with my pocket guide I still just seem to mess it up. GOOD LUCK ALL!!

Challenges

I began this class with much confidence I breezed through English 102 and I figured this class would be the same. Maybe not a breeze because it is 103 but I didn’t figure I would struggle nearly as much as I am. I find this course to me one of the most labor-intensive classes I have ever taken, and considering I only have three classes left before I’m finished with two AA and transfer that’s saying a lot. With this being said the amount of extra help that is offered is a God sent. The peer reviews have helped me so much, it’s just gives me that extra heads up to whether or not I get what the task is. It is really nice to have feedback from your peers, its way less intimidating then submitting it and instructor. I also really like the blog’s I find them to be a nice addition to the class. It’s a place where we get to be ourselves and our thoughts are not critiqued. Sense this is an online class it’s really hard to get to know anyone so reading the weekly blogs really give me a glimpse as to who my classmates really are. As far as the group work goes eh, I have mixed feelings about this. I for one have been a very bad group member the deadlines that are set forth and the communication it takes I am horrible with that. I took an online class so I didn’t have those types of deadlines and restrictions. I see the benefit of them but for me this semester has been hectic, and signing on to communicate with my groups and what not just didn’t work. Now if it were a text or if blackboard worked on my phone it would have been much easier. As far as the discussion boards go, I think they are cool, its pretty standard in an online class I think to have to post discussion threads, I think it would be cool if in addition to posting we had to respond to peoples post. I mean really read and respond to them not just respond to the new question that was posed. Now for the fun topic the essays! I think the first essay was a nice get your feet wet kind of essay. But it did in no way prepare me for essay two; I have never scored so low in my life on any essay. I think for me the directions to the prompt got lost in communication somewhere. It’s hard for me because I don’t “not get” things very often. And I just didn’t understand that assignment at all. Essay three I really enjoyed I don’t know how I did yet but I know I felt good about it I really like Animal Farm a lot and I think the choice in prompts was a very helpful idea. Essay four is a collaboration effort we have to kind of take everything and apply it, I think it seem very daunting and I was terrified upon first glance but I think it will be ok. The prompts seem to be fair and direct which I appreciate and I think it helps. All in all I think this class is really challenging me to step up and be a better writer. The additional help is much welcomed and appreciated as well.

Lessons Learned

Lessons Learned
I think, no change that I know for a fact we all take so much for granted. We complain at the waitress who messes up our order, we yell at the paper boy for throwing the paper on the lawn, we punish our children for speaking out, yet when do we every stop and realize that it is those things we complain about that set us apart from everyone else. We are so blessed and so lucky to be able to whine about those things, because some people will never have those chances. I came home the other night from work I had just worked fourteen hours I walked in the door and the first thing I hear is my brother in law complaining that the wind moved the dish on the roof and we don’t have cable tonight. Not oh how was your day, but his biggest concern was the television. He was ranting and complaining that the Direct TV guy messed everything up and did it wrong and yadda yadda ya. I just sat there in amazement, how lucky is he to be able to complain about that. I mean people aren’t bombing our home, we do not live in fear what-so-ever, we have a hot dinner every night and electricity. How lucky am I to be able to live in world where our biggest fear is not even a forethought in other places. I mean yes we worry occasionally about national security, terrorist attacks when we see a news blurb about it, but really if it isnt happen or didn’t just happen we hardly think about it. We take so much for granted, that it is crazy, I can at any time of day or night walk outside without fear. I can wear what I please without fear of danger, now ridicule maybe. My point is while I might not have learned per say anything new from this text everything was reiterated in a way that it stuck. It takes different things for different people, and for me this book really changed my perception on how we live, both individually and as a society. Not a day goes by sense I have read this book that I do not think at least once how lucky I am to be doing what I am. I think it is such a shame that we all do not take a better look at the lives that we live, and if nothing else just appreciate the fact that we are allowed to live this way. That yes we might have our moments, we might complain an be unhappy at times, but we have that right. We live in a very different world than most, and while I do not think people will stop complaining about these basic insignificant things I do hope that people will appreciate the fact that that’s all they have to complain about.

What Has Our World Come Too?

Dirty language has filled our film industry. Not only are adult movies jam packed full of fowl language but children’s movies are too. It is really ridiculous, not only is fowl language found in nearly every movie but now many sexual innuendos are also being found in movies as well. For example on Tuesday the movie Transformers Two came out. My god son is six and very much into transformers, knowing that I was going to have him this weekend I purchased the movie. I figured it would be nice, and he would enjoy it. When I got home with the movie my boy friend excitedly insisted we watch it, so I agreed. BOY AM I GLAD I DID!! That movie that is clearly geared toward children had more swear words then some adult movies I have seem. Not to mention the sexual jokes and comments made throughout the movie. I would not let my six year old god son watch that movie! It is really sad because movie makers advertise these movies towards children, and then they pack them full of this filth. I mean its indubitable that this movie is advertised for children, walk down the toy isle as your local store I guarantee you will see isles full of transformer everything. I think the standards in which we rate and advertise movies should be totally revamped I mean if a movie is not rated G it should not be made to look appealing to children and if it is a movie to be seen by children in a way that transformers is, watch the language that is being used. I mean transformers are seen as super heroes of sort and to have these figures act in these negative ways it reinforces to children that this behavior is ok. That those words are not only okay but cool to use. This isnt only found in movies it is found everywhere. TV shows are equally bad, maybe even worse at least movies have ratings that parents see before watching the movie. Most the time partents do not catch the rating of the show that their child is watching. While some of this could be neglect, other time is just bad timing. You are washing dishes or tending to something and bam the rating flashes on the screen for a while 3.2 seconds. An not only the shows the advertisements and movie previews that run during these shows is atrocious. Times have sure changes sense the days of Happy Days, and The Wonder Years. I remember when those shows used to be risky, now they don’t even get a second glance its truly sad. While I believe change in society is good and growth is crucial why must that growth be at the expense of our youths innocence.

What's Matters More...

Happiness comes and goes but your self-respect is something that last a life time. It’s usually the most trivial things that make us happy, I mean think of the last thing to make you happy. For me it was getting my niece to sleep so I could do this assignment, in the grand scheme of things that isnt really important. Will I still be happy tomorrow that I got her to sleep today? Probably not, because tomorrow I will have another assignment due, so while it makes me happy now it is just a temporary trivial kind of happy. What made you happy before that? Will that still make you happy tomorrow? What about the day after that, will it still make you just as happy? I would venture to guess the answer is no. My point is the things that make us happy are usually insignificant in the greater picture of one’s life. There are special occasions that are different don’t get me wrong there is an acceptation to every rule, but I would venture to say that the happiness one receives from their self-respect lasts a life time. Self-respect is in my opinion the most important thing a person can have without it we are nothing. Firstly I believe one cannot expect respect from others if they do not first respect themselves. Second I believe it is our self-respect that makes us credible to others. Think for a minute would you want to be friends with someone who had no self-respect? Hmmm what is self-respect you ask, well that is up for debate because I am sure we all have our own opinions as to what constitutes self-respect. For me to have self-respect means that you respect yourself, you do not conduct yourself in inappropriate ways, you make the right decision even if it’s not easy. Self-respect cannot be bought no amount of money can make someone respect themselves. This is different from happiness because happiness can be bought. Permeate happiness may not be able to be bought but temporary happiness does have a price. For example remember when we were little and our parents would bring us home a new toy, it made us happy, maybe it was the toy or the idea that our parents were thinking about us, either way it made us happy. Doing the right thing does not have a price; our self respect is ultimately the only thing we have. Think about what happened when we die, what is left, nothing but the memories the people who have come in contact with us have. So if you die what do you want people to remember, you were so happy, or you were a good person with self-respect. In case it isnt clear in my opinion ones self-respect is far more important than ones happiness, but I argue that if one has self-respect from that comes happiness.

What Our Words Dont Say, Our Bodys Do...

It is often those who remain silent that say the most, my father used to tell me that when I was a small child. I never really understood that, how can I say the most if I am silent? I figured it was just his way of telling me to be quiet, but as I have grown up I have learned that so much can be said when nothing has physically been said at all. How this work you ask, body language is a huge factor. When your talking with someone, best friend, teacher, boy/girl friend, family member ect and they have their arms crossed and are looking around a lot. What message does that send to you? Does that tell you that your entraining them and you should continue on? Or so it make you feel like your boring them and you should just stop talking? More than likely it would make you feel like a bother, like your thoughts, opinions and feelings didn’t matter, and you would stop talking. Well your family member didn’t say anything! They didn’t tell you to be quiet, they didn’t tell you that your story was about as entraining as watching oat meal thicken, but you heard them loud and clear. It is our nonverbal behavior that often times not only reinforces what were saying, but tells people that we are being active listeners and engaged in what they are saying. There are many factor that contribute to ones non verbal language such as culture, gender, and media. Different cultures show respect in a different way. Say your friend is of the Asian culture, you and him/her are having a conversation but they do not make eye contact with you and when you go to shake their hand or embrace they get nervous. Well their non verbal language gives off the impression that your boring them, or that you have upset them in some way when in fact it is just traditional Asian culture not to physically embraces with others and it is a sign of respect not to make eye contact. Each culture has their own set of rules and we should become more a wear of this so not to read their non verbal signs in a negative way. I personally like non verbal forms of communication. My friends think its funny how easy I am to read and while its nice at times, other times it’s a real pain. I am upset by what their saying they see it, which is cool but then sometimes its not because the things that are being said need to be said. Its ironic I read this topic on Monday and was kind of deciding which I was going to choose for the posting this week, and I noticed so many people’s non verbal language. I was at the mall with my god son and I saw this girl working at the sticker cart in the middle of the mall, and a guy walked up and started talking to her. He was leaning in towards her and kept touching her arm and hand, and she was leaning back in her chair, looking around kept moving her arm away. She was texting on her phone, not making eye contact and the guy was just still standing there trying to talk with her. Any outsider could clearly see from her non verbal quos that she was not feeling it. It really is amazing how much we say without actually saying a word. Another thing I really like about non verbal language is the excitement that can be conveyed. I mean when your talking to someone you can see what they think about what you just said, you can tell if their happy or excited, we can see so much if we just pay attention.