Self Evaluation

               Throughout the semester I fell as if I improved a great deal in my writing. In high school you could get away with a mediocre essay, however when you in college there are higher expectations to meet therefore you have to step up your game a little which is what I did. When it came to writing essays I always took hours to write mine because it was hard for me to start an introduction and then put the rest together. Still I always put a lot of effort in my writings and honestly I thought that English class would be one of the courses I would be having more trouble in but apparently this is one of two other courses in which I’m doing pretty good in. My way of thinking also changed. I tend to come up with ideas faster than before and now since the introduction is still a little difficult for me I sometimes write the rest of an essay and do the intro last and then make some necessary changes. I think I deserve a grade in the B range because I did all most of the blogs and came to class everyday but one. I also received good grades on my projects. I could have improved in this class more by posting some of my blogs on time or writing them with the five hundred words that was being asked for.

Response to Food Inc, and Tough Guise Video

              I found that the videos Tough guise and Food inc. were very informative. In the Tough Guise video, males explained why they acted tough sometimes. They did to avoid being called insults that made them look weak and not manly. Some started acting tough because they lived in a dangerous neighborhood. Muscular bodies are also a sign of manliness. Those that didn’t have a big muscular body just talked tough to be able to gain some respect. In movies they showed that the heroes are usually muscular guys with a big gun and that throughout the years the size of the gun also changed. The video Food Inc. also showed the truth about what goes on in the food processing business. First of all the food is made in factories which is contrary to what the labels on packages claim about the product being made in a farm. The animals such as chickens have to grown pretty big to be able to sell them. These animals are mistreated as well as the workers who don’t get paid much. Two facts that really surprised me was that the majority of food products were made from rearrangements of corn. This makes it easier for companies to make more money. The other fact was that the number of inspections at factories dropped from 50,000 to about 9,164 per year. It’s not right how food companies care more about the money they make than the health of their customers.

Response To Media Addiction Article

              To me if parents prefer to take care of a virtual child than their own then there is something going on in the world. If they didn’t want the kid in the first place than the mother could have had an abortion or gave it up for adoption to a family that will actually feed and care for the baby. The article says that the Korean couple lost their will to live after losing their jobs and it got me thinking, why go waste your life on a game instead of doing something to get back on track? The couple couldn’t have been feeling that bad if they were able to raise a virtual child online. Clearly the internet is used today by many as an escape from their problems in the real world. The mother who was killed by her son for telling him that he played too many games is another example of how the internet is starting to take over the lives of people. The Korean man just killed her and went back to his gaming in an internet café as if nothing happened. The man who died from cardiac arrest for playing almost 50 hours non-stop was also in an internet café. He probably ate little to nothing as to not waste any game play time. There should be some kind of regulation on the amount of hours you could stay in a café or else many others take advantage of the free internet. This internet addiction should be taken seriously and should probably receive the same attention as a drug addiction. The fact that people today are getting addicted to certain media is a depressing thought. I have never understood how people could get so distracted and addicted by a video game. Mostly everything is run by computers and you could find anything on the internet so as technology advances more the rate of this addiction will eventually increase and should start being dealt with as of now. As with any addiction, being online 24-7 can not only cause health problems but also problems with the family and friends. According to the article many internet addicts are more likely to get depressed than non addicts. This correlation is proof that the amount of technology used today should be decrease and more self control should be by us.

Self Society Portraits

          Everyone has hopes and dreams and its important to never give up in what you plan to accomplish. I was born and raised in New York and I enjoy living here. I have my own vision of my future. Currently I want to major in as a Physician Assistance however I always also wanted to be in the music business. I plan to go to some music school to learn about music production and how to use some of the equipment needed. Anybody who knows how to work the equipment and has a good ear for music can become a producer so I don’t even mind if I become a small-time producer. It takes a lot of luck and talent to make it to the top so I just want it as a side job from a Physician Assistant, kind of like a hobby. If I get a big break and start working for a famous record company then lucky me, if not it’s okay at least I’ll be doing what I enjoy.

                More than once have I heard that the PA program is very competitive so currently I’m wondering just how hard the work could get. I’m a very determined person but at the same time I’m a little impatient. I do everything that I say I’m going to do and its hard for me to get something out of my mind if its unfinished so I know that I’ll always try my best to do all my work. I learn quickly in math and science courses however I’ve always had a little trouble writing especially about myself.  I’ve always had a passion for Latin music and medicine which is why I decided to do what I said. Money is hard to come by these days so its good to pick a career that you enjoy and at the same time has decent pay. My family isn’t the wealthiest in the world and financial problems are common so I consider it a miracle to have made it in such an expensive yet good university. My parents who have worked hard most of their life always tell me to work hard first and then enjoy the rest of your life and that’s what I plan to do.

                I believe that keeping you grades up is a bigger challenge than getting them up. You can’t get too overconfident once your grades are high which is something that happened to me often in high school so I’m trying to stop that.  I made a promise to myself that one day I’ll be successful and help them financially as my thanks for all the love and support that they have given all my life. If I complete this then I’ll be one of the few in my family that went to college and got a career.  This promise is the thing that motivates me when I get I stuck in some kind of problem and helps me move on. I try to find solutions to all my problems quickly because I don’t like being stressed and worried about things that aren’t  a big obstacle in one’s life so I I’m usually a calm, relaxed guy.

Narrative--What is the author really saying?

         On one hand the narrative describes a man packing up and about to leave home because the relationship between this couple is ending and now both parents are fighting over who gets to keep their baby. On the other hand the narrative is telling us how in the midst of all the angry emotions and the fighting somebody innocent can get hurt. In this case it was the baby who had to suffer.

Free Write: Take stock of your physical, emotional, intellectual state after going media free three days

           These past three days I wasn’t completely media free. I did use my laptop for assignments that required an excel graph and Power Point presentation. I also used my I-pod while I was working out on Sunday. That is something that would be hard to stop as I use the music to help me concentrate. Besides those things I didn’t use any other form of media. Stopping myself from watching television, playing video games and texting wasn’t that difficult a task. I enjoy doing those however I’m not addicted on those and I been busy with school work this semester that I barely even have time to do those. Throughout the weekend I did feel tired. Probably from the boredom of having nothing to do. My emotional state wasn’t really affecting but I did feel smarter as I now had a lot of free time to study for the classes I’ve been having trouble in. Anyways being completely media free is harder than I thought it would be seeing as this generation has been raised with various forms of technology.

Free Write: what does the propaganda have to do with production of food in the U.S.?

          Propaganda influences the foods that are marketed. Whether they are healthy for you or not people still eat them. Some forms of propaganda try to get people to stop eating at fast food restaurants in an effort to control the growing rate of obesity in the United States. Other forms of propaganda try to make you eat these foods despite the large amounts of fat in the food. Propaganda also affects the processing of foods. It has been used to make people aware of diseases that are found in some foods such E-Coli and how animals and workers get mistreated. This is the reason why foods such as meats are wrapped in plastic and put in cold areas to keep it from decomposing and getting bacteria.

Free Write: How does media/advt./propaganda create reality?

           Media, advertisements and propaganda are all methods used to get someone to either believe something or to buy something. Propaganda for example tries to get the public to understand and follow a certain point they are trying to make. Advertisements can try to get people to buy the product on the ad or they can also be used to advertise the bad side of a certain product. All of these ideas stay in one’s mind and it just starts being part of their everyday lives. This is how popular brands of clothes or phones come about. The more advertisements of a product the greater the chance of it being sold. An old example of propaganda was when World War II was occurring. The military needed more people so they made it look as if the army was the best thing ever and that fighting for your country was the best honor. The benefits of being in the army were also frequently spoken of. This still goes on today and not just with the military but with big business companies and other areas of the government.

Response to Teenage Suicide

                  Anything can be seen on the internet once it is posted. This was wrong how Tyler Clementi’s privacy was violated. He had a right to be with his gay partner and the placed camera in his room that filmed his intimate moment was illegal. This act by the two students could be taken as a hate crime. The students could’ve only done it to humiliate Tyler because of his sexual preference or to cause him pain however this is difficult to prove because they could just lie. This dilemma is the reason why the students might not even go to jail. It isn’t right how a student who never hurt anyone and who is very talented kills himself because two students decide to film a sex video of him and show it to the world. There have been other cases where the internet has been used to share private pictures and videos of other people especially celebrities. The World Wide Web can both be used for good and bad and unfortunately many illegal things are done online and sometimes nobody knows about until somebody says something. There should be bigger punishments and/or stricter laws for violating a person’s privacy. If an issue such as this isn’t taken seriously than obviously it will continue to happen

Frida Kahlo Painting Description

                     In the painting of Frida Kahlo titled “roots”, she is lying on the dry, cracked ground of what appears to be a desert. She has a dress that’s a dark orange around the top of the torso area and fades into a fiery yellow as it goes lower to her legs and then white ruffles at the end. She has a tired expression on her face as if she hasn’t slept in a long time.  Her right arm is resting on a pillow as half of her dark black hair covers part of it and the other half covers his neck. That same arm is holding her body while the other is lying on her side as she stares at the viewer. A distorted rectangular shaped portion is missing from the middle of her torso and green vines are going through that area from both the back and the front. This painting probably reflects the sadness and loneliness she feels which is why she is in the desert. The roots going through her symbolizes that just as a tree grows roots so is she which could mean that she isn’t going anywhere in her life because she is stuck on some form of obstacle.

Mustard Tiger & Cheeseburger Locker

Mustard tiger and cheeseburger locker are both unusual terms. Both of these could have more than one meaning and therefore interpreted differently from person to person since there is no definite meaning. For me the first thing that comes to mind when I hear mustard tiger is a tiger with stripes the color of mustard. That could be what it means or it could be used to describe an aggressive and bitter person. The aggressive trait is from the tiger which is an animal that hunts and can be aggressive when necessary, while the bitter trait comes from the taste of mustard.

              When I first heard the words cheeseburger locker I thought of a cheeseburger from McDonalds and a school locker. I wasn’t sure how those two things could relate so I my thinking a step further. Cheeseburgers from fast food places normally contain a lot of fat so I thought of the parts of the body in which are common areas for fat to be stored such as the stomach and thighs. So this term could be used to describe an overweight person. While both of these names sound funny they still could be used as insults to make fun of others appearance and personality.

Special Gift

                    When I was around four or five my grandmother came to the United States from Peru and brought with her many gifts for the family. I received clothes from her and a lot of chocolates and other candies from Peru as I was the youngest of her grandchildren. My grandma brought my father the wooden toy car he used to play with when he was a kid. When my father was a kid he grew up in a poor neighborhood and that was one of his favorite toys if not his only toy. Anyway she gave it to my father and he ended up giving it to me. He told me that while I have all of these modern day toys, the wooden car entertained him and his other brothers a lot.

           The toy was about half the size of a standard sheet of printing paper and really old with some of the areas of the wooden car chipped off.  It was basically four round pieces of wood connected to a block of wood that was a little curved to make it more realistic. Markings surrounded the block portion of the car that obviously looked like it was made by young kid with ink. Car doors and stick figures were drawn on the sides and it was also colored. Each of the wheels also had its own design and the two wheels on the left didn’t roll too well and it even appeared loose. Upon asking my father if he drew the designs he replied by saying that it he drew the wheels but couldn’t remember if he or one of his sisters and brothers, he didn’t remember.

          At the time the car was worthless to me. It looked like a piece of junk compared to my colorful remote controlled car and yet I still played with it. I now realize that this gift was an act of kindness from my father who is sometimes a serious person. I never admitted what I thought about the toy when I was young because I thought it would make my father feel bad but now I still have it and value it like gold. From this gift I learned that it is possible to be happy with or without money and that in life you shouldn’t take anything for granted. Trying to enjoy everything you have is the way to live happily or else go nowhere in life and live with anger and greed. In fact I sometimes feel bad when I receive something that appears to have cost a lot of money especially when it’s from a relative.

            The person who gives you the gift is more important sometimes than what the gift itself actually is. It could be an item that seems worthless through the eyes of another however to the receiver it is a gift given to them by their favorite person. That gift could also be an item that reminds them of happy times that they shared with another person. It doesn’t necessarily have to be an expensive gift for it to mean something to you. It’s the thought that counts.