Narrowing Down Informative Topics

What Intrests me:
Professional and college basketball and football
food
design
art
fast-food
exotic/rare animals
spelunking
new-age/electrical vehicles
radiation from cell phones/lab tops
global warming
UFC
steroids in animals
partying

I'm knowledgeable about:
art and design
animals as a whole
health and working out
football and basketball on all levels
cars
relationships
Minnesota

I want to learn about:
the environment
graphical design
music
singing
how businesses run efficiently
australia
how to cook/make new foods

Narrowed down topic:
Steroids in animals-

• What are the main facts of this idea and where did it come from.
• How do meat companies today use drugs to produce larger animals and what affect does that have on us.
• What are farmers feeding their animals that is different than 20 years ago and how it affects us.

"The Fourth State of Matter" Reflection

1. The biggest event in my opinion is obviously the shooting. Several people die and and it is just such an impacting event that it makes me a little sick when I read it. It is written very stately and detailed so it is very cold and serious. Shootings like this happen quite abit in today's twisted society and in most cases like in the story the killer kills himself.
2. At the beginning of the essay her state of mind is more depressed and willing to put up with the dog who is not going to be around much longer. For example she changes the dogs blankets several times a day and tries to comfort it when it is irritated by the squrrels upstairs. By the end, after hearing about the shooting and going through the dog's hardhships, she is somber and almost accepting of the fact she has to let go. She knows its inevitable that the dog will die and her husband will leave for good.
3. The dog is important because it represents death and ending but also her own life. She is clinging onto this dog because she's scared of its death. It relates to her own life and her tendiness to hold onto things like her husband for instance.

A Bad Job

Two summers ago at the age of 17 I got a part-time job as an outdoor maitenence guy at a fairly large town-house property. In other words I was a weed puller. Now I don't mind pulling weeds but I was unprepared for the amount of weeds that were waiting to be pulled at the townhouse site. I spent on average 10 hours a week that summer pulling a variety of weeds from cracks in concrete, the bark under the trees, in the rock by the sidewalks, and of course in the large flowering areas. Soon my back became sore and my shoulders became burnt by the sun. However I did not complain. It was only weed pulling afterall. Then one day my boss told me to focus on getting rid of the weeds on the back road behind the complex which wasn't even on the property. Imagine trying to pull a small tree out of the ground. Now do it over and over again; I had to do it. Even the Round-Up spray didn;t even faze these 4 foot plus tall weeds. Eventually after failing a few times, I just took a large weed whacker to the back road and then had to pick up a quarter mile of weeds scattered on the road. I completed that job very pissed off to say the least because i shouldn't of even been doing it in the first place.
             That job also required me to have not just hands that can pull, but also a brain. I had to do some maintenence around and on the outside of the biuldings. One job was to unscrew the 200 air ducts that were on the ceiling of each porch overhang, spray paint them and screw them back on. I thought it would be easy but it turns out it wasn't, mainly because I didnt think it through first. I climbed up and and down that ladder countless times unscrewing those damn air ducts which were 12 feet high on the ceiling. After two weeks of dealing with mismatching screws and flaking paint and angry people pissed at you for taking off their ducts, I finally finished.

Elements of craft - "Setting"

In the short story “Black Hair,” by Gary Soto there are many detailed descriptions in the plot that describe what the setting is like. The setting in the beginning of the story is an old dirty tire factory in Glendale California. The main character had run away from home and was in search of any type of job possible. He spent his first day of work being told of the places he can’t go: the ovens where the ovens were recapped and the greasy customer service room. He then spent that night wandering the streets homeless. He spent a few hours sleeping under a tree at an abandoned house where he stayed the night before. As it got darker he wandered the residential streets and eventually decided to stay in the backseat of an unlocked car. When he was awoken by the screaming car owner at 4 a.m. he slept the rest of morning under a piece of cardboard on a cold church balcony.

                The rest of the story’s plot is consistently at the old tire factory. The Buffer where he buffed old tires, at the truck where he unloaded hundreds of heavy tires, and anywhere else they needed him at the old and insanely dirty factory. Eventually he saved up enough money to get off the streets and rent his own room. Mr. and Mrs. Van Deusen allowed him to rent their daughters old room. It had lace curtains, scenic wallpaper, canopied bed, and stuffed animals in the corner.

                The author also looks at the setting of some of the main characters coworker’s homes. Rafael, a Mexican national who had worked at Valley for five years, returned to a beaten house of kids who were dressed in mismatched clothes and playing kickthe-can. Sugar Daddy returned home to a stuffy room where he would read and reread old magazines. He ate potato chips, drank beer, and watched TV. The depressing setting of the old dirty disgusting tire factory full of despaired and tired workers adds to the depressing tone of the story.

Embarrassment

There have been quite a few embarrassing moments in my life. Luckily i don't get embarrassed very easily so every time I do something stupid I usually don't get embarrassed. However, i can remember only a few instances where i really embarrassed myself. My sophomore year of bball I started my first game. I had gone through all my pregame rituals and had studied my playbook. I was nervous because it was my first time starting in a varsity basketball game. When they announced starting line-ups i took my warm up pants and shirt off and sat on the bench ready to run out. They said my name and I ran out through the tunnel of my teammates and I was pumped and ready to play. However I couldn't help but notice all the laughing and quiet giggling going on in the entire gym. My fellow teammate convinced me to come back to the bench where he turned me around and took out the 10 inch piece of toilet paper from my shorts.. Apparently when i had torn and laid down the toilet paper over the seat cover (because i wasn't about to put my ass on a nasty away team locker room toilet seat) when i went to the bathroom about an hour before that, some of it got stuck in my shorts. It was clean toilet paper, but let's just say it was embarrassing.

Elements of Craft - "Dialog"

             In the passage from the book "Me Talk Pretty One Day," written by David Sedaris there are many examples of dialog that show how the characters interact and their different personalities. The dialog in this story is unique because most of it is in French. Most of the conversations between certain characters take place in a French teaching classroom which is actually in the country of France. Because of the fact the story takes place in France, it is implied that most of the dialog is in French even though in the story it is written in English.

            The main base of dialog in the story comes from the French teacher. As the story plays out she becomes more and more cruel and unruly to her students. On the first day of class her first words to her students were “If you have not meimslsxp or lgpdmurct by this time, then you should not be in this room. Has everyone apzkiubjxow? Everyone? Good, we shall begin.” As the the first day continues she shows her odd teaching style of downgrading her students. “Oh, really,” the teacher said. “How very interesting. I thought that everyone loved the mosquito, but here, in front of all the world, you claim to detest him. How is it that we’ve been blessed with someone as unique and original as you? Tell us, please.” It was these types of sarcastic and crude comments throughout the rest of the text that proved to the reader that this French teacher had a purpose in being mean to her students. Some of her dialog is just so degrading that it could count as harassment.

            There are also many examples of dialog from the author that allow readers to get a feel of the experience he is going through. When asked to present something he liked and disliked in French he replied he detested blood sausage, intestinal tates, and brain pudding. He listed his love for IBM typewriters, the French word for bruise, and his electric floor waxer.  Such an odd assortment of items leads the reader to guess he is not very fluent at all in French. Of course the teacher came back with an insult referring to the word for typewriter is feminine. As days go by the students are completely downgraded by the teacher. The author’s dialog is even limited by the teacher. For example he is scared to say anything French in public or even answer the phone. The only social dialog he had was conversing in fear with his fellow classmates. “Sometimes me cry alone at night.” Clearly the teacher had ruined everybody’s social life.

            When she says to the author, “Every day spent with you is like having a cesarean section,” he realizes that he understands everything she is saying. It turned out that the teacher’s repetition of cruel and degrading dialog she spoke to her students allowed the author to understand the French language.