Week Four Blog

This weeks blog is about our argumentative paper that we wrote over the past week. The topic i wrote my paper on was weather or not the internet has affected the America in a more positive or negative manner. I think i pciked a poor topic to write on, because it was very difficult. I always pick a bad topic when we have to pick our own, i almost wish they were assigned. In any case, i suppose the reasons why it was probably as difficult a topic to write about as it was because, even as large a topic as it is, its hard to narrow any topic about the internet down. Even though i feel like i picked a specific topic, there are just so many subtopics that fall underneat it. There were the obvious facts about the internet being a massive source of information and such, but then there's internet dependency, porn, whether or not its having an effect on growing children, if its an effective learning tool, and just on and on. To wrap that up, it felt like even though it seemed like i had picked a topic, it was impossible to narrow it down to a point of being able to write about it. Also the fact that our sources had to be very picky did not make it any simpler. This topic was impossible to find in a database or news related site like we were supposed to. I'm feeling like my topic is going to need some serious shaping up and editing before i can write whole thoughts about it. The things i found out about my topic are few and far. The obvious fact that the internet is a massive database probably carried my paper. But there are easily more negatives than positives as far as i could tell. Dependency, and such like i listed before.

Birmingham Jail response

A letter from Birmingham Jail by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was quite the read. Though it is 10 lengthy pages it has enough variety in its texts to keep one sitting to read the entire thing. I personally did not enjoy reading this, because I’m not a reading kind of person, though I cannot deny that it is a well written letter. Throughout the texts of this behemoth of a letter, Dry Martin Luther King Jar describes to his audience his reasoning for being in Birmingham Jail in the first place. Even though everybody already knows it’s for a noble cause, because MLK does. A direct quote from the texts "I am in Birmingham because injustice is here", which I feel like is the point this letter is centered around. However, Dry Martin Luther King obviously has a little bit of extra time on his hands so he does a little bit of extra explaining here and a little bit of extra writing there. This extra time is not wasted though, because Dry Martin Luther King jar gives some very good points and examples. My personal favorite was his reference to Adolf Hitler. "We should never forget that everything Adolf Hitler did in Germany was 'Legal' and everything the Hungarian freedom fighters did in Hungary was 'illegal'". I would, however, have to say that my favorite portion of the entire letter “Never before have I written so long a letter. I’m afraid it is much too long to take your precious time. I can assure you that it would have been much shorter if I had been writing from a comfortable desk, but what else can one do when he is alone in a narrow jail cell, other than write long letters, think long thoughts and pray long prayers?”

Assignment two: Our Argument paper

This week’s blog post is about the topics that we chose to write about in our argumentative paper. My topic that I have chosen is "are people today to dependent on technology". Upon bringing it up in class and thinking about it a little bit, it’s likely to change. although, now that I think about it, it’s more likely to be narrowed down a little bit, or broken down into categories a little bit. Maybe something more along the lines of "ways that modern technology affects students negatively" or something along those lines. I feel like that would probably be a little more down to earth and easier to write about. Then I could bring up laziness via Google, or lack of ability to spell because of spell check, or things along those lines. I mean, I guess I could almost just look to myself for some examples, I found this research paper topic through Google myself. And I could tell that quite a few people used Google too, because I saw the topics they wanted to use on Google while I was searching the day before. Maybe I could even get really ballsy and interview a student or two and maybe strengthen my paper a little or give it a little extra personality. No one really wants to read a 6 page long paper about boring blah stuff, I think an interview could really spice it up. Maybe even a statistic here and there would be nice. In any case, that’s my topic; it’s still not set in stone, like I said, ill more than likely narrow it down to something more down to earth.

English Assignment 1: Communities

This first weeks writing/assignment is supposed to be about us students writing about communities that we are a part of, which is a simple enough writing assignment. But obviously everybody is probably involved with too many communities to write about all of them. There are school communities, work communities, volunteer communities, music communities, and several others. I'll just pick a couple communities to write about that I am a part of. Probably the community that I have been the most involved with would be the MSGAO (Midsouth Greyhound Adoption Option), but others also include The University of Memphis and a local un-named band.

At the MSGAO our goal is to adopt out retired racing greyhounds. It’s an enjoyable thing to do, working with dogs and such. They're all so well trained and taken care of before you even begin working with them. But then comes the Dilemma of the fact that they are in fact full grown dogs, and everybody wants to start fresh with a puppy. So it’s difficult in some ways to get attached to dogs and then either have them adopted out or being sent somewhere else to try their luck at adoption.

At the University of Memphis, there are oh so many issues to talk about. All dealing with education of course or parking. There's financial aid, textbooks, inconvenient classes, and much more.

Lastly, and my own personal favorite, being a member of a local band. There's nothing to be gained from it whatsoever, but I enjoy the entire musical process. The only problem with working with music is when you get your hopes up or start to imagine things, and then you have to bring yourself back to reality, shrug it off, and just keep going.