Too Full To Think

Happy After Thanksgiving!! I hope you all had a good one. For this week's blog we were supposed to vent about our Research Project--how is it coming along? What do we need to do to complete it? How do we plan to accomplish this? What areas of difficulty are we encountering? How we might overcome these obstacles? Honestly I am pretty sure that it is coming along just as any other Research project is coming. This is definitely not my favorite assignment of the class. I also feel like I ate too much food on Thanksgiving to even start to think about how my project is going. My whole week has just been thrown off schedule and things have just been not going as planned. We did not even have turkey for thanksgiving. We had prime rib, which do not get me wrong it was delicious but it is throwing me off. You are always supposed to have turkey for thanksgiving. I had this whole week off at my one job, which was supposed to give me time to work on my research project. Do you think that I worked on it, no? I chose to relax and do other things. On top of that I also woke up at 2:30 am to go "Black Friday" shopping with my mom so my brain is not functioning, as it should. So yeah my research project is coming along I guess. I am almost done. I made the mistake of waiting until the last minute to start my project. I did not reread the section I chose until Monday. I think that this was the worst assignment to procrastinate on. I am not motivated to do this assignment and I have no interest in it. The essay on Bullshit and Doublespeak was easier for me to write on. Not because it was a shorter assignment but because I was interested in it. The topic intrigued me. The Rlit book does not catch my interest. I have tried to get into the book but I have found it to be extremely difficult. I think that my most difficult obstacle for this assignment is going to be creating five pages of information. I now have probably only two. That is a serious problem. All I have to do know is try to expand on my ideas and add more information to my research project. I at this time only have five sources so I am hoping to maybe find more sources to give me some more information. As you can tell I am running just a little behind. I need to do some catching up. As I type this blog all I am able to sit here and do is think about how behind I am on this research project and how I really need to get cracking down on it. I also am sitting here thinking about how I really do not want to work on it because I am tired because I decided to be a crazy person and went shopping at the wee hours of the morning. So my plan to overcome this obstacle is to go take maybe a two-hour nap, hopefully get some energy back and attempt to finish this project by tonight or early tomorrow.

idk

There is a major difference between the language in out conversations through email and our language in our ordinary conversations that we have face to face or through the phone anything where we actually speak words. I feel that it is a different scenario for every person. Some business people have very professional emails and they use correct and specific grammar and mechanics. Then when it comes to their ordinary conversations that they have face to face with others maybe they are not so professional. They may not use correct grammar and mechanics with their language. They often may even use slang. On the other hand some people use such correct grammar and mechanics in their ordinary conversation but if you were to see their emails they are not as well written. It is almost like they do not even know how to use grammar. But I truly believe that the situation varies between people individually. Some people use correct grammar and mechanics in both their emails and ordinary conversations. And there are some people who are not so correct in both ordinary conversation and emails, some to the point where they almost seem illiterate. I do not think that the problem is that we do not know how to speak but that we are lazy. For me I try to use correct grammar in my speech in ordinary conversations but when it comes to my emails I could care less. The problem that I find with that is when it is time to write an email to a teacher it is hard to remember "Oh yeah" I have to use correct grammar. It has also made it difficult to write papers. I find myself in a habit that has become extremely difficult to break. I have started to try to stop abbreviating everything and I have tried to touch up on my skills in grammar and mechanics. I also do not think that the problem is necessary in emails but in our generation it is all the stuff we type on facebook or myspace and other social networks. We get in such a habit of typing such things as LOL or JK that it becomes a part of our language. I have at times found myself saying LOL or JK in a conversation that I am having with someone face to face and I think to myself wow did I really just say that. I think that the real problem is that people just do not care anymore. I think that most people think, "Oh it is not affecting me". When really it is. We need to start using our skills in everything or we are going to look stupid I think. Look at the difference. You could say "...because I am going to go, do you want to go?" or "cuz Im gonna go, u wanna go?" I think we are all in the habit of the latter but it looks so much better the first way. It really was not that hard and I think that we should all try to practice our conversation skills not only through our ordinary conversations but also the ones that we have through email, facebook, or myspace.

editorial cartoons

When having to choose a topic for this week I was not motivated. I was not sure where to even start. I think that this affect is because I am at the beach and while at the beach I am sitting here doing homework. So I decided to open up the book and start. When I saw the topic of editorial cartoons also known as political cartoons, I was intrigued. The first thing that comes to my mind was year 2004 when I was in eighth grade. This was the year that all of us knew we were about to start American History. We all had heard stories from previous students and how they did not like the class. We all knew it was going to be a difficult class with a difficult teacher. So as I braved the class there was one thing that I did enjoy doing. Every week she would give us a magazine and at the end of each magazine there was always a political cartoon that we had to evaluate and answer questions on. I always liked that because it made me think and I found a chance to think critically on our world. They were typically on things that had happened in the past, but they were still enjoyable. As an eighth grade student I found that they were a great tool to help teach us stuff in regards to history. I think that they serve a great purpose as a tool for teachers to use in a class room.

                I chose to answer prompt number six on page 366 in the Exploring Language book. The editorial cartoon can also be known as political criticism. They support and criticize political views through satire means. It is a way to communicate visually instead of verbally. They always tend to leave a strong impression whether it is a humorous one or not. They use powerful symbols and metaphors. As a communication medium they are a way to get a message across but in a easy let down way. To me I relate this to when people will say something but then they add a just kidding at the end of their statement. They are trying to get a message across without getting people hurt too much. I think that the editorial cartoons can be looked at in the same way. It is like saying their message then adding a just kidding at the end, knowing that it eased up the tension but that the message was loud and clear. I also believe that they are bad. I think that this makes people look at our problems in our government less seriously. When you look at our government now and all of its issues, it is a serious problem. One that should not be taken lightly. When people look at the cartoons people think that our problems are not that serious and they think that it is funny. I do not know if editorial cartoons are the best idea but personally I like them. I do find them entertaining.

Is there an equation for that?

            In this class my writing has improved. I feel like it has improved through the blog assignments and Exploring Language assignments. The blog has helped me be very expressive in my writing. I think that my writings are not as boring as they use to be. I have been able to put more thought and details into my writings. The blog writing assignments have been the most beneficial. I am not only learning how to express myself better but also learning to respond to a prompt and being organized in doing it. The Exploring Language assignments have helped me with my critical thinking skills. I have found that the questions make me think more than I thought they were going to require me to. I thought they were going to be easy questions about the previous essay but they actually made me stop and think. I think this has become helpful because I can now use the skills that I am developing from these assignments when writing essays in this class or any class in the future. I have also find the Peer draft revising extremely beneficial. I do not know if it is just that I was very lucky and one of the students in my group is extremely helpful, organized and intelligent.  She takes the serious time to read my essay through and gives wonderful comments that are beneficial to me. I also try to take the time to revise other's essays but I do not feel that I am that much helps since I too need to still develop skills. Another thing that I have enjoyed in this class is responding to other student's blogs. I do not know if it is much help to improving my writing skills but I enjoy it so I guess you can consider it good practice. So I feel like any writing is actually beneficial to me since I could probably use any practice that I can get. As far as my essays go I do not feel like I am getting improvement from them. I feel like I am struggling with them and since We have only done two so far and are working on our third one I have not had much time from improvement. I understand that they are great tools for me to use but I feel overall I have not made any improvements yet. I am hoping to see a change in that after this third essay. I am aiming to make any improvements I can. I have always been a math person. I always was able to use critical thinking skills for solving problems in that manner but when asked to write an essay about it I would much rather write an equation for it. So though I feel I am improving I still feel that I have a great need for improvement. I am hoping that by the end of this class I have found an answer to my problem.....Hey maybe there is an equation for it.