Going Green

In May 2007, an EF 5 tornado tore through the small town of Greensburg, Kansas, destroying everything the town had. The tornado was 1.7 miles in width, ninety-five percent of the city was confirmed to be destroyed, with the other five percent being severely damaged. The National Weather Service estimated winds of the tornado to reach 205 mph (330 km/h).

After the tornado, the city council passed a resolution stating that all city buildings would be built to LEED- platinum standards, making it the first city in the nation to do so. Greensburg is rebuilding as a "green" town, with the help of Greensburg GreenTown, a non-profit organization created to help the residents learn about and implement the green living initiative.

I support the fact that this town is going green. The entire town is based off of natural energy to supply the town of its energy needs. I'm a big supporter in the idea of going green, I'm not outspoken about it but when I see people making a change to clean the areas around them, I appreciate it. Making the world greener is a huge task but it needs to be done.

Me and my writing

Choosing my topics is a feat in itself. I have trouble deciding on what I want to write more than the writing itself. I will spend days on just deciding what my topic should be, then I will start on my prewriting. The process of deciding a topic and then proceeding to write on it drags out over time and then I get behind. My problem is deciding the topic that I think I can write well on. The topic for me must be perfect. It can't just be a whatever topic, where I choose a topic that doesn't interest me and I write it and get the grade. The topic has to come to me and fit likings. This could come to me in an instant or it could be days before I even decide to choose my topic.
Talking with people is great help in deciding what topics to write about. It gets me thinking more critically than if I were to think about topics that interest me on my own.

After choosing my topic, then I will think to myself of what I can do with it. Topics I choose are usually something I have some sort of insight on. Not too much but some insight where I can get a start on it. After my thinking of what I can write on my paper, I then do my research. Research for me is also troubling because I don't know what's good information and what's not. But I will get more into this in another blog.

Where Should the World Cup 2010 Take Place

There are many places in the world where the World Cup for soccer can take place. There are actually too many places to count for where the World Cup could take place. Now out of all the places that bid for their country to get their time hosting the world cup, South Africa is hosting it for June-July 2010. I'm sceptical about South Africa after hearing all the problems associated with them trying to host the World Cup. Don't get me wrong, South Africa is a beautiful country, but there are more problems trying to host the event than good.

Crime is a huge reason that there will be trouble holding the World Cup. Law enforcement still stands as the principal area where South Africa is stumbling in its preparations for the 2010 World Cup. There are rumors asking the United States to bring in our military to police the one month event. Corruption is also huge problem trying to hold the event. Corruption circulating around the amounts of money being brought in is still under trial.

Another major problem that is being fixed and become a little less worrisome is the amount of stadiums needing to be built by this summer. The problem was that there needed to be 10 stadiums. Out of the 10, six needed to be built. Thats a huge undertaking to accomplish in 4 years.

As soccer fan and lover, I can't wait to watch the world's most popular sport but I'm not too sure that South Africa is the best place.

Feedback!!

During my writing, I'm always looking forward for the feedback responses I get. Most of the time it's good and sometimes it's not bad but not what I'm looking for. But the feedback that I get that I'm not wanting is the best kind of feedback to get. This feedback is there to help make your paper stronger for the reader to read. That kind of feedback is always good because it will help you with your writing skills. You read the feedback from one paper and then on the next you don't want to make that same mistake.

The good feedback that you want to see is always good, too. This feedback is just positive reinforcement. You want to see this kind of feedback so you keep doing what your doing. When you write a paper you want this kind of feedback because for your revision and future papers to come, it will give you a foothold on what to keep doing for your papers.

Good feedback is always good, but not as important as the feedback you don't want to see.

Where Does the Time Go

Why is it always when you are having a great time, the time just seems to fly by? Well that's how my spring break and Christmas break seemed like. I will always be doing something over break trying to keep my mind of the stresses of school and as soon as the break begins, it ends.

I will be hanging out with my friends and the next minute, I'm looking back trying to remember how that moment is so far away now. Even when you think, time will never pass, the next thing you know your looking back asking, how did that go by so fast?

But when you are not having fun, time could never go any slower. Why is this? During Spring Break, there was one day where I did absolutely nothing and the day seemed forever. Or when I'm at a lame party, time does not go by fast enough where I can leave.

I think, time goes by so fast because you're not really paying too much attention to the clock. YOur mind is occupied by eventful things. But when you're not enjoying yourself, you are too focused on when it's going to get over and not on other things like your surroundings.

Unfortunately we can't stop time but just live it to the fullest.

Ben and Jerry's Go Political

Now who doesn't love the ice cream called Ben and Jerry's. Ben and Jerry's incorporated is here not only to deliver fresh delicious ice cream to people all over the world, but they have other ideas in mind to benefit the economy. Their success in the ice cream BIZ is this the beginning.

I was watching a documentary on the Bio channel and it was showing a documentary on Ben and Jerry's. The documentary showed their struggles for success and their glory of becoming one the most popular food companies in the world. But it also showed their political viewpoints on how our economy is doing. Their mission is to promote social and environmental progress.

To ensure the environmental success, all products are made from recycled material. And all products are made with energy efficient machines. Their mission is to cut down on green house emissions. In the year 2002, over 22,000 tons were taken out from the air due to Ben and Jerry's environmental mission. What caught my attention the most was Ben's presentation he made to high ranking politicians.

For his argument he used a poster board and Oreo cookies. Each OOreo cookie represented 10 billion Dollars. His argument was for better funding for the things that are most important to society, such as education and health care. He set up his prop, Health care Education Living Military etc. Ben placed 42 cookies on our military, Our government is spending 420 billion dollars on military and homeland security. He compared our spendings with our worthy advisory Russia, they are only spending 7 cookies on their military. He then goes on to place half of an Oreo on Education and only a couple on Health care and around 15 on living. He then goes on and explains that Why does the Military need so much funding and why does something so important as Educationa and Health care receive so little. He does an experiment by taking 1 cookie from the military and placing it with education. Ben then explains that with this extra funding, it will pull every school out of economic issues and give them proper educational skills within the next 12 years. He then takes several off of military and on to health care, and explains that this extra funding could be used to help save lives and not take them. His argument was very interesting and powerful. Reading it from this blog says very little about it.

Why does America spend extreme amounts on Military and so few amounts on the most important things like health care and education?

What I Go Through

My writing, is not all that complex in the way I go about writing. Writing with me starts with putting my thoughts down on paper. Taking those thoughts, I start thinking about a story and trying to make that story make sense. My first ideas are put into the rough draft, where ideas are there and the paper is saying what I want to say but it's not 100% the way it should be. After revising the first draft, I look at what Stephanie put and I go from there correcting my mistakes. I take her comments and I build from there. The way I go about correcting her comments, I either take out stuff that may be not important, I may take stuff and re-word it, other times I will take the information and place it in a different part of my paper. Finally, after correcting my paper I go over it by reading it several times and when the paper makes sense to me, I turn it back in.

So far this semester, I haven't had the privilege of receiving peer response like we got back in 110. I know that there will be plenty of that soon when we begin to write our papers after spring break. I will use what the peers have written about my paper and also what Stephanie has to say about it and use it greatly when I go to write my paper again.

Just a Few Hours

I'm currently in my 2nd semester at this great place we call ICC and already I'm seeing the difficulty that this school can present. I was taking 15 credit hours last semester to accomodate with me playing soccer for the school. I was experienced with an easy semester but it did have its difficulties especially trying to do all the work while playing soccer.

Now I'm currently taking 17 credit hours and I'm swamped with school work. I never once in my mind ever think how much more work I would be facing this semester. I was blind sided at first and still kind of am with all this work. I tried making my schedule easier for my life style by having classes at 10 to 1 but I still seem to never have enough time throughout the rest of the day to complete my work. IT's an eye opener already and I'm only taking 2 more credit hours and one of those credit hours is an online class but still Im struggling to keep up. Every weekend so far I have been doing homework friday, saturday, and sundays, all day. SO I basically have no life this semester. Not saying that's a bad thing but I would like a break here and there. It's only been a month and I'm behind.

I'm starting to accept my work schedule and I am starting to to be able to catch and keep up with my work. I am still behind but I'm getting there.

Case Study Numero Dos

English 111 just started so there isn't much to write on about how my writing in the class has progressed. This weeks blog will be focusing on the physical part of my amazing writing skills. Writing for me, since I live at home, is still restricted mainly to my home computer. SOOO, all the writing that you read is done in the comfort of my home. I haven't been able to write anywhere else since I have yet to get a lap top but I'm saving up for when I go off to school away from my house. I can't really compare of what is better and what isn't but from my experiences of writing at my house has a mixed feeling of good and bad. It all depends on how I'm feeling for that particular writing. For example when we did the Travel Essays back in 110, I had a blast doing that and participating in the activities required but like now where we have to read 70 pages to write up a summary, is not all that engaging for me. I'm not much of a reader and on top of that we have to write a short summary on it. I know it's not all that bad but it's the whole getting into it and that flaw, getting engaged, is what is my problem when it comes to writing at my house. The whole writing speed depends on what materials I had for that writing assignment, like this blog, I thought about what I was going to write about and it's only taken me 3 minutes to get to this point. But when I just jump into a writing, that's when the mistakes start happening, I lose my spot, train of thought, and being able to finish in a timely manner. What I like writing on the computer best is that it's much more efficient than pen and paper. The whole writing with two hands instead of one, backspacing, which I do a lot, and what I like best word check. There is much more to making my writing at home on the computer much better but those were the thoughts that came to mind.

Poverty Causes Crime?

For the past couple class periods in sociology we have been discussing about positive and negative correlations between to things. Positive correlation is basically cause and effect; if one thing increases the other decreases or one increases the other increases and so on. Negative correlation is that one cause can not be related to the effect. The topic that came up was Poverty and Crime. We were discussing why crime is more rampant in areas with higher poverty. Areas that mainly consist of middle to upper class have very minimal crime rates. So is it the poverty that drives someone to committ a crime or is it just the person who happens to live in poverty.

There are many questions and arguements you can make about this correlation. Does poverty really cause people to committ crimes. I think the reason why crime is so high in poverty ridden areas is because people who grow up with very little will always feel like they can never get more than they had so in order to get more they must committ crimes of some sort in order to gain. I feel like that its just the person that commits the crime poverty or not, it was their choice to do. Poverty didnt force the person to do, it just happens to be their mindset on committing crimes.

There are many questions to be answered, why do you think people commit crimes, is it really because of poverty?

Back TO SCHOOL. . . .Again as a Writer

Well. . . School is back and it’s once again time for another wonderful semester of ENGLISH. Another semester to hone in my writing skills and hopefully to make me, myself the writer, better at what I write about. For this semester I hope to be able to make my papers have some flow and be able to read without having to backtrack to see if what I had wrote made sense.

Me as a writer, I don’t follow the norm by getting an idea, jotting down my ideas, putting those ideas into an outline, and then turning that outline into a masterpiece. I should. And that’s why for this semester I would like to start following that guideline to make my papers ten times better than that of when I was a writer in Engl 110.

I didn’t follow that kind of guideline for our first writing assignment of the year. For the letter we had to write, although it wasn’t bad but it wasn’t as good as I could have made it. That’s one reason that for this semester I should start making my papers by following the guideline of getting an idea, write them down, make an outline and turn the outline into a paper.