Updates from NikoVelazquez RSS Toggle Comment Threads | Keyboard Shortcuts

  • NikoVelazquez 9:12 pm on May 2, 2012 Permalink | Log in to leave a Comment  

    For my journal entry I decided to read an article that pertains to the death of an all pro football player. Junior Seau was an all pro NFL linebacker, played for the San Diego Chargers, Miami Dolphins, and New England Patriots. He was 43 when he passed away, he was found dead in his Oceanside, California home Wednesday Morning with a self inflicted gunshot wound in the chest. He sent a text message to his ex wife Gina and their three children ending with “I love you”.  I remembered him as being one of my all time favorite linebackers in the NFL, in the article it said his death could have been a possible suicide, but there was no suicide note around his body, alike the former Bears safety who shot himself in the chest and had a note next to him stating to donate his brain to Boston University School of Medicine. Junior Seau played four seasons with the New England Patriots after a four day retirement. Something like this breaks my heart, I pro football player dies because of suicide, some died because of murder while others died of age. He was an excellent pro linebacker in making it to as much as 12 consecutive pro bowls, which he attended and played in each of them. Its such a shame, especially when you see him on the NFL Network talking about the games and the draft, and etc. I’m sure this year they will honor him with having his number as a helmet decal sticker on every players helmet for the 2012 season.

    Perry, Tony. Farmer, Sam. “Former NFL star Seau dead in apparent suicide.” The Chicago Tribune (2012). The Chicago Tribune. Web. 2 May. 2012.
     

  • NikoVelazquez 11:10 am on April 18, 2012 Permalink | Log in to leave a Comment  

    For this weeks journal entry I read, “The Relationship Between Suicidal Thinking and Dating Violence in a Sample of Adolescent Abortion Patients.” From reading the first page and a paragraph into the second, the article states that women who are pregnant experience more suicidal thoughts due to the fact that they may be in an intimate relationship with their partners and it turns out to be an abusive violent relationship. Abortion patients have more have high rates of intimate partner violence. Psychological problems of depression such as personal stress, family relationship problems, and aggression increase suicidal thinking. Studies were made on patients from 14-21 on relationship problems. The article talks about the success of some studies on women in abusive relationships that are abortion patients. The article is about abortion patients who have gone through a lot in their relationships, and that it seems to be that these patients are in abusive and violent relationships. It also explains the studies that were done and the results that were given. In my opinion on this article, it was very informative and actually pretty good. It said Adolescent in the title, but I thought, while reading through it, I thought it was talking about adults. The article mentioned patients from ages fourteen to twenty-one, so it goes from adolescents to young adults. While looking back on the article and flipping through it, there have been some good information in this. I found it rather helpful and to be an article that can be talked about in high schools that deal with teens going through something like this. In the upcoming generations, it seems more people are getting involved in relationships and maybe this article can and will come in handy once they pass on through high school. From this article, I figured I can use some type of info or information tables as was used in the article in some of my future writings. This article was heavily informative about statistics on abortion patients in the adoloescents stages of growing up.

    Mholi Vimbba, et al. “The Relationship Between Suicidal Thinking and Dating Violence In a Sample of Adolescent Abortion Patients.” Crisis: The Journal Of Crisis Intervention And Suicide Prevention 32.5 (2011): 246-253. PsycARTICLES. Web. 17 Apr. 2012.
     

  • NikoVelazquez 11:21 am on April 16, 2012 Permalink | Log in to leave a Comment  


    For my service learning event I had to… 

    For my service learning event, I had to deal with a lot of stress in finding a place to do it at. Scheduling something for this was hard. I could not afford to miss a day of work because of my financial standings. I pay for a car and school, so the only free day I would ever get would fall under a Friday. It was hard to find a place to go to, because most of the places were filled up or fell under weekdays and weekends besides a Friday. My group and I tried finding places to go somewhere to do a service event but like I said most were filled and we were too late to join by that time. We wanted to do something food related, because food is a huge issue in todays problems, when it comes to food in other countries where kids are dying of starvation, and people who live on the streets who starve because they’re homeless. The Greater Chicago Food Depository was our main goal to get into, but the events being held on Fridays were fully and couldn’t fit more volunteers in sadly. We looked up on their website to see if there were any more going on before the week of April 30th so we can make it in time for the volunteer fair. One of my group members was able to get in a spot for the service event that the Greater Chicago Food Depository on a Wednesday, his schedule is more flexible and the Greater Chicago Food Depository was located near him. So thankfully one of our group members were able to squeeze into one.

    As for myself and one other group member we were able to go to the Together We Cope located in Orland Park. The place the Together We Cope food pantry is held at is at the Faith United Methodist Church located 15101 S 80th Ave. The person in charge of the event was Sandy Ward, when I went to attend the service, she was a very nice lady. She seemed very happy that I came to help with something along with my other group member. Sadly there was no food pantry event going on at the time. It is Orland Parks local food pantry, but the events were scheduled for days later beyond April 30th. What Sandy wanted me to do was a little bit of cleaning up around the church, not food related. My job was to stain the wood benches in the church, preparing for a wedding to be held in that room. A few benches were fine and didn’t need any wood staining. Although, a majority of them were in need of it. Sandy’s co-worker Jim was telling me what I had to do at the church, he told me by doing the staining of wood to give your best judgment on what needs to be stained. I never knew that staining wood was simple and easy, but the smell of the wood stainer gave me a headache so I sat down to read what the bottle said, and it said do not inhale vapors from this substance. I was breathing in the smell of it because I kept leaning over the wood I was staining and breathing in the smell. I had done nearly all of the benches that were sitting in the church. I never knew that this would be something I would be doing here at the food pantry. I was helping out the church, by giving the workers there a break from doing it and helping them out.

    I eventually met up with my other partner from my group was in the gym cleaning the wooden walls. Jim gave us two buckets of water and wood cleaner and asked us to go around the gym and wash down all the wooden walls. It wasn’t that bad but we had to go from one end of the place to the other and go up and down ladders to reach the top parts of the wooden walls. The walls had lunch tables in them that were able to be pulled out, reminded us of grammar school where they had the lunch tables pulled out from the walls since it was like a gym, so you were able to put them back into the walls. It wasn’t bad at all to do. The gym area where we had to clean the walls had carpet instead of hardwood floor, and had some kind of carpet tape on it to make the outlines to make it look like a basketball court since it was a gym and had basketball hoops. The gym had a small opening that lead from the kitchen to the gym. Dividing the gym in half was a huge gray curtain, the other side was being used for something else, because the chairs were already set up, but we didn’t know what. We also had to set up the chairs for the wedding that was being held that night at the church. The gym was being held for the wedding dinner/ ceremony thing. I don’t know how weddings work so I’m assuming the dinner. The chairs had to be set up with eight chairs per table and there were about nine tables not including the table for the bride, groom, best man, and maid of honor. We also had to vaccuum the church, but only certain spots of the gym and the hallways. There was a lot of dirt in some areas of the church.

    Although the service did not pertain to the idea of helping people with food and donating food or helping organize food. I felt as if we helped clean up the place that is the home of the food pantry itself. I am only glad I was able to give an amount of time that I don’t really need to the church in helping prepare for their event of the wedding that day. Although this wasn’t a service event dealing with food, I will find myself in the future maybe over the summer in helping in food pantries, and other service events. Volunteer work should be done a lot, it would make you feel good about yourself. Since summer is coming up, I will try to bring a few people to the food pantry and give them a helping hand with this.

     

    • Mike Gotsch 9:28 pm on April 23, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply

      First thing that I notice was the fact that it was about two hundred words short of what it had to be. I have been reading all of your papers and you usually are very on time with things. It is just a reminder that you need to get it done. Another thing that I noticed is the fact that you do not have a title on the top. Well I mean you do but it is really not a title, it is just the beginning of your sentence. Try to do something abstract with the title. The title is where you can be the most creative and this is the most important part of an essay. If you have a good title it will draw in the people that would be interested, but if it is not interesting, then no one is going to read it and it will be a mess. Reading the first part of the first paragraph brought me back to my group. We actually had another person join are group and it is so hard to get people together, because of the work situation and all of the other kinds of priorities that people had. I think that it would help to make your paper longer is to show how we got into the groups like the speed dating thing we did and explain how that all happen. I’m glad one of your members got to go but I feel that maybe you should of done something else rather than the Greater Chicago Food Depository. I kind of had that problem where we wanted to do the Salvation Army but we couldn’t get in because all of the volunteers were suppose to be court issued. We all acted fast and we got into the St Vincent of De Paul Thrift Store. I feel that your group should of done one thing rather than 2 different companies. It’s understandable that you guys did have your problems but I feel that you should only be able to do one. Another thing if you do two different kinds of places then you has to do another poster and things like that. Another thing you can do is describe the place where you went and give details on the look, emotion, and body language of Sandy Ward. Another thing you can do is personalize it more rather than just I did this then this then this and that is it. Try to get some insight on like staining wood. Were you nervous about messing up and things like that. You need to get the other tale of the paper. If you read the assignment, you will see that you need the other twin tale of your story. I think Sandy would have been a great person to interview and another person that you could of interviews was the guy that helped you with the wood staining. I believe his name was Jim. I’m not positive overall I think you paper is a good start. You have a lot more work to do with this paper, but overall it was a good start.

    • Michael Millasp 11:00 pm on April 23, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply

      I am with you on the whole stressing out thing. I got very stressed out with trying to figure out where and when to meet up with my group, and especially when one of my group members dropped the class, made it even more difficult on us. I believe I was supposed to be in your group, but since I left early in class, I was traded to another group! Just like your group, we wanted to do the Greater Chicago Food Depository, but it was filled up and I could not attend that food drive but did find a food pantry in Oak Lawn called the Pilgrim Faith Food Pantry. You did not need to call in ahead of time to help out, you just needed to show up either on Tuesday or Friday at 9 A.M and help out as best as you could to those who came in for their groceries. My group was going to attend the Orland Park too, but then again the times of the place did not fit our school schedule and our work schedules. That was the hard part about this assignment, was the fact that we had to work around our various schedules we had. Its funny that you went there and thinking you were going to be doing food pantry activities when in fact you had to stain benches and such labor. I have stained wood before and it is fairly easy, and I do agree with you that it gave me the worst headache from smelling the wood stainer. The service you did, had nothing to do with your topic you guys chose to do and I guess that could be a problem when being graded on the fair that is coming up April 30th, but I believe that you guys did a lot of labor in cleaning up the place and learned how to clean different things and learned a valuable lesson as well. And it is good that at least on of your group members got an opening at the Greater Chicago Food Depository since the work you did in Orland Park did not pertain the topic of service you guys chose, and that was hunger. Overall, you did a very good job in writing this paper, just like your other papers so this comes to no surprise. I usually like reading your papers because the previous ones were about bullying and I feel very strongly on that topic, but since this paper is boring to me just like the others, I wasn’t as interested in it. You did a good job in describing the type of labor you had to accomplish and giving a good description on the place you vacuumed and what the roomed looked like entirely. It might be hard for me to find time in the summer to donate my time at food pantries since I work a lot in the summer, but I hope you get to experience one since you were not able to this time.

    • Meghan Johnson 4:22 am on April 24, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply

      First off I always noticed that your paper seemed a little short for the amount he liked it be. I think since it was only a few words short, an interview from someone who works there could of probably filled in those empty spaces. Also another things that jumped out to me first was that you seemed quite rushed in your paper, especially during the beginning. I don’t know if you were on a time schedule or if you just were sure how to approach the paper. Either one it was I know you will be able and willing to fix it.

      I was right there with you guys when your group started to stress out about this particular project, but my group also became very antsy because our first two plans of where we wanted to volunteer were not working out. Although I think it would have been good for all of your group members to participate in the same service project just for the sake of the fair, but I like how you guys were at least able to find something that dealt with hunger and was able to fit with your schedules. I understand that your place of service did not directly work with feeding the people of that neighborhood with their food pantry but more of dealing with the actual place of the food pantry itself. Just like in my earlier service paper about Share Your Soles, I brought up how I felt that I wasn’t actually dealing with the shoeless people themselves obviously but after being there and realizing what that organization does, my volunteer work did make a difference. Maybe it was not directly with the kids and families of the far away countries but without the volunteer work of others, it would be hard for them to do the amazing job they do. So I think even though you weren’t involved with the actual food pantry I think doing all the hard work for them really paid off and for sure helped them take a load of their shoulders.

      A little more of the things I think you could of had that would have helped improve your paper would have been things like; talking about and interview with someone like Sandy Ward herself or at least someone who worked there, again maybe some descriptions from what it is like while a food pantry is going on, what kind of people came into the food pantry itself? An interview with one of the employees I’m sure could have helped you with some of these questions. But even if you weren’t able to get all of that kind of information; information about the wedding that was going to be held there could of helped or at least if it was common for a wedding to be there? Questions along those lines wouldn’t hurt the paper. Also another thing that I think could have helped this writing piece was you could have more to your reflection to it. You seem to have one small paragraph reflection about what you thought about it but I’m sure there was more you could elaborate on.

      Overall you for sure described the place you were at very well, with things you saw and how you connected to them. With the things I have mentioned above, I think you will be able to fix this paper no doubt! Good luck at the fair and with all your revisions.

  • NikoVelazquez 12:17 pm on April 11, 2012 Permalink | Log in to leave a Comment  

    For this weeks journal entry I read chapter 1 of “Why White Rice”, the name of the chapter was “Myth Busting: Overcoming Your Misconception of Writing,” by Eric De Villez. By looking at the title, I assumed that the chapter would be about complications of being a writer or complications that people say or talk about that isn’t true. On page 5 in the chapter I came across a paragraph that contained a lot of misspelled words and was confused about it. I did not bother in reading that paragraph because I read the first sentenced and it strained my eyes for some odd reason. Of course, I would not want to write something like this because of confusing the readers, or hurt their eyes and brains. The pictures of the room with the computer and the huge shelf looks “tidy” like how its been mentioned in the reading. In section 1.4 “Myth: Great Ideas Come In Five Paragraphs”, it shows an outline of how an essay looks, with the introduction and body paragraphs. I found this chapter to be talking about organization of the essays that are written. This chapter explains other myths about writing that I didn’t ever think of that would be considered myths when it comes to writings. The chapter makes me think of how I can use the myths and try to write them, myths are proven well some are.

    De Villez, Eric. “Myth Busting Overcoming Your Misconceptions of Writing” Why White Rice? Thinking Through Writing. Kendall Hunt Pub, 2010.1-24. Print.
     

  • NikoVelazquez 12:21 pm on April 4, 2012 Permalink | Log in to leave a Comment  

    For this weeks journal entry number ten, I read Why White Rice, Chapter 6, “Existential Angst, Orgasm(s), and Jazz, Recognizing that All Writing Is Creative Writing.” At first by looking at the title I thought this chapter would be talking about creative writing and creativity. I looked at the title and thought, wait it’s comparing all writings to creative writing, it wasn’t just about creative writing. In section 6.4 “Rules to the Ridiculous: The Responsibility of Ultimate Freedom,” he goes on to talk about his teachers over the years he’s been in school. I’m assuming he goes on talking about his college professors. He says that they influenced him. This could be something I could use in my writings, since it is mostly about service learning and what not, I can mention who influenced me to do the service learning events as well as he did in saying who influenced him in his writings. It could be effectively used in my writings, since there have been many figures who influenced me to wanting to do some type of service event now and in my future. I read all of the rules, but the introduction paragraph of 6.4, is what got me the most attention because he talks about his professors, and he mentions it again in one of the rules.

    McGuire, Michael. “Existential Angst, Orgasm(s), and Jazz Recognizing that All Writing Is Creative Writing.” Why White Rice? Thinking Through Writing. Kendall Hunt Pub, 2010.133-162. Print.
     

  • NikoVelazquez 11:45 am on March 28, 2012 Permalink | Log in to leave a Comment  

    For my reading journal for this week, I read Chapter 5 “Dry Your Hair and Don’t Lick the Frozen Flag Pole, Researching and Information Literacy” by Troy Swanson. By looking at the title I was a little confused about what this chapter would be about but then saw Researching  and Information Literacy. So I thought that this chapter would be about how to properly research everything for your future writing papers. Its true in 5.1 all information is transferred from one person to another. It’s hard to make sure who to listen to when it comes to our information because some of it might not be true. When it comes to future research of mine, I need to make sure that whatever information I get that it’s well researched and be sure that it’s not information found or used from the Wikipedia site, I know for sure that it could be false information that is given. I never used an encyclopedia ever in my life, I was fully open to them back in elementary school as a demonstration as to what it is and how it can be used. I just never used it. Maybe in future use of writing my papers, I could look into encyclopedias and try to find some of my information from that and use that as one of my sources. It sounds like a good idea. I understood how Google works, but sometimes the first site isn’t the best site or trusted site of information, so I’ve been told.

    Swanson, Troy. “Dry Your Hair and Don’t Lick the Frozen Flag Pole” Why White Rice? Thinking Through Writing. Kendall Hunt Pub, 2010. 101-132. Print.
     

  • NikoVelazquez 8:46 pm on March 20, 2012 Permalink | Log in to leave a Comment  

    After reading the small passage of Elie Wiesel’s “The Perils of Indifference” I became a little dumbfounded about the meaning behind it when I first read it. The whole thing is about indifferences. Then I realized what indifferent meant and didn’t think of it until the second time reading it. He makes examples of light and dark, dusk and dawn, and crime and punishment, etc. Indifference is being undecided on certain decisions. Almost like indecisiveness. I find it hard to think of what he talks about after his examples of indifferences. I do find it helpful that he asks questions in his own reading. Using that as something in my future papers could probably catch ones attention in the opening sentences. His questions made me want to know more about his view on indifference. I haven’t used a question as an opening sentence to grab the readers attention, only because some of my previous professors have told me to avoid using a question as an attention grabber, never knew why they didn’t want me to but I never did since then. The way he uses questions makes me feel if I used questions properly I will have a better understanding of how to use them in a paper of mine. The way he talks about indifference could be an example of something that I want to explain in a future paper of mine. Like a base of how to write my next paper or something aklong those lines.

    Wiesel, Elie. “The Perils of Indifference” 2012.
     

  • NikoVelazquez 10:50 pm on March 11, 2012 Permalink | Log in to leave a Comment  


    Being A Hero to Someone, Somewhere 

    Everyone thinks that doing community service is for people who have done crimes and have to do them as a form of punishment. A lot of people do it to help and care for people they do not know exist. Other people do it, because it makes them feel great about what they’re doing. I did community service for the first time in my life, just for my class to get it over with. After attending it, I was happy just to go home, but on the way home I thought about what I had done. I volunteered at Save Your Soles community service event in Alsip. I thought to myself, I did something great for someone I never knew or will never get to know. It made me feel great about myself and helping others to make a small impact on the world we know. Kids in other countries walk everywhere for food, water, and transportation. These people don’t have shoes or anything to protect their feet. These people get infections and are forced to have their feet amputated because of it. It’s a sad cruel world that we live in where people can’t afford anything and live in harsh conditions. By doing this service event it made me realize the person I really am. Someone who cares for others and wants to continue doing community service to help others in need of something important in their lives.

    When I first walked into this huge warehouse, I thought it was going to be full of garbage and machinery. That’s what I think of all warehouses. As I walked in, the room was long and crowded with stuff from what looks like to be examples of what its like in third world countries. We were to watch a short film, explaining why Save Your Soles does what they’ve been doing for so long. The founder visits different countries to help out a lot, and she is going to Uganda to help out there too. Crazy as it sounds, but a brave soul/ saint to be doing what she continues to do, which is helping others. The warehouse itself was large on the inside and empty, no machinery like I imagined. There were boxes and bags filled with shoes and clothes. Each box was labeled to what they concealed inside. The warehouse we were in was being occupied but there were doors that led to another part of the warehouse that was completely dark and empty and served no use for what we were doing there. What we had going on in the warehouse for this event was preparing to ship out the shoes for people in third world countries to wear. I had to move bags filled with shoes, I had to move boxes that were filled with clothes, pack tons of shoes in bags, sweep out giant crates that I believe hold the bags/ boxes of shoes in, and sort out all the different types of shoes that were donated by the communities. I’m not someone who judges right away but from doing all this stuff I pulled my tricep a bit pulling bags of shoes at the start of this event. My back became extremely sore when I had to hunch over piles of shoes to sort them out according to how they looked. It seemed like labor stuff for jobs, but it was understandable because this was a charity event to help people less fortunate in this world. My hands were dirty and reeked of shoes. I even caught scent of the shoes that were donated and boy were they bad. A lot of these shoes were dirty and I didn’t like the fact that my hands smelled of dirty shoes, but I did it because I put myself before others. This event was rather enjoyable too. I met new and friendly people, I did see some of my classmates there, and other people I think that just signed up to help out, not just for class. The people in charge of the Save Your Soles event were actually nice as well.

    The things I value most in my life are what makes us good people. My values are helping others, putting other people before myself, and just trying to get word out there that there are bigger issues than your boyfriend/ girlfriend problems. The person I am is a person who will go to the edge to help others who really need it. I’m not much of a talkative person and most people, from what I hear, think there is something wrong with me and that is why I never talk. I talk only when I need to or when I feel that I have something to say that is of some importance. For example, when I’m in class I’ll talk because it is required, when I work I have to talk to customers. Other than school and work, I’m only talkative to my friends. Thinking about what people say or think about me isn’t what I care for. What I truly care for is what people think and say about me after I do something that will someday make a huge difference on the world. I only care about what people say if they know the person I am after I do a great deed. I learned after doing the Save Your Soles event is that I also care a lot about other people, and by doing this event it made me feel more of a greater person than I already was. I think volunteering isn’t as bad as everyone says it out to be. It can actually make you feel good about yourself. The Save Your Soles event made me feel more empowered to try and help out as much as I can. It wasn’t all about just going there to get it done and over with it was about trying to give it your all to help others. I am now motivated to try and do all sorts of different community service stuff for anything. I believe now that I would give a whole lot to the world someday.

    My experience was actually really exciting. I emptied boxes of donated shoes and sorted them out by what they were such as high heels, boots, sandals, gym shoes, mens shoes, kids shoes, womans shoes, stuff like that. I swept out giant crates, I bagged gym shoes and boots and threw up against another huge assortment of bags that were already full of shoes. I basically just moved bags and boxes of shoes, organized the different types of shoes and cleaned up a bit. What I would do if I was in charge? Well, I think that I would try to advertise this organization as much as possible so many other people who are not familiar with this can learn about it and help donate and tell others about it. Maybe even ask others to help volunteer and work out this organization, it didn’t seem like there were a whole lot of people who actually worked for the Save Your Soles campaign. By going to this event I could tell that the people in charge of it are really into helping out others and that they are just like me, putting others before themselves. There was a lot of humor when I was participating in this event. There was no indecision, failure, frustration, or saddness, only success. I feel like my actions did in fact have some sort of impact. By doing this event, the people who helped out made it faster for people from all over the world to get a pair of shoes. I feel like doing these service events have nothing to do with school work or in fact writing. But I guess in a way my professor knows highly of what he’s doing by having us participate in these services. Well doing community service doesn’t teach me how to write better.

    By doing this service event, I learned that people in third world countries are hurting themselves faster than they are dying on their streets and in their villages. They get infections on their feet, which in the long run, can be harmful and destructive in their future. Help donating clothes and shoes will help the situation become better and positive. Donating will raise peoples spirits in believing that there is hope for them in this world. This will play an impact on my future a lot. Hopefully if all my plans for my future go accordingly, then I will help out as much as I can to donate and help out in these different service events. I would even have my future children participate with me in doing these service events. The organization is trying to raise awareness in what is going on in these countries that the people are living in harsh conditions. What can be done is help raise awareness among the organization ,who already are, and let everyone know by donating clothes and shoes will help people in third world countries and put a smile on their face.

    After all of this, I hope that this is something you would consider helping out in. Community service shouldn’t be used or said as a form of punishment because you blew a red light or got a ticket for speeding. You should want to help out others who don’t live the life you do here. When I did the Save Your Soles event, I know now that people around the country are helping out and others are trying to help out by donating their used belongings in order to create a more better world for other people. So, why is that more people do events like this? It’s because they don’t understand what goes on in other countries. By doing this event I understand fully, and now I am extremely aware of what is being done in our country to make things right in another.

     

    • Dawn Murry 8:38 am on March 20, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply

      As I was reading Niko’s reading I loved the way he tiled it “Bring a Hero Someone, Somewhere”, which was pretty cool. He went to the Share Your Sole event that with Mona Purdy and his classmates of course. If you bring someone with you how much more you can get things accomplished and how much nicer things will turn out. He is right once you do a service event that you do feel good about yourself. Me personally felt as if things was little bite exciting because you are given back to the less fortunate not by choice. This people would do better I’m pretty sure if they had the option to. Life now days are too short. If you do have an opportunity to give to the less fortunate then I think you should do so. It was great to hear that Niko found out more about his inner self after this experience because he truly sounds good to hear how great this project could be for him personally. When you find something that you enjoy or participating then you may have found a calling that you can do more often than usually. One thing I can say when you find something that you enjoy doing then it’s just that much easier to move forward to want and do more. He is right when someone tells you about a warehouse first thing that come to your mind is big open space that it is extremely cold place to be in. You basically never have a good thought in mind. Just as I’m typing this it’s making me think about the first comment of a fellow classmate that was trying to give us the heads up stated how cold it was in there. So, people never think positive it I may say about a warehouse. You are right to say that it wasn’t clean job to be done. So, if you put all the negative feelings and thought s to the side it would be a better place to be at. It’s just naturally to have those types of feelings and thoughts about something like getting dirty. That’s why think the service opportunity was a good example on why we need to give back more often than usually because it’s people out there that have to live in this dirty and unsanitary places that have no choice what so ever. They don’t even have the privilege to get a vaccine shot to prevent these diseases from spreading in their bodies. It does make you feel good about what you are given back to the community and our countries. Your words of encouragement were good. These give the bigger picture that you saw in order to help move forward with such a great service opportunity. Like you also stated now you are able to know and see what the world is doing to make this a better place to be part of.

    • Michael Millasp 3:36 am on March 26, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply

      First off, your title was great. I wish I had made a clever title like you did. “Being a Hero to Someone, Somewhere”, such a powerful title. You and I went to the same event but I am not sure if we went on the same day as each other (I went Saturday). My first thought on the way to Alsip was “this place is probably going to be a warehouse full of useless junk” and I was mistaken. The warehouse was huge with lots of shoes, clothes, medical supplies and etc. I did not want to attend this event nor did I want to attend any events because I did not want to make the drive all the way out to Alsip. When I got there, my attitude was “get in, get out, and get done” I did not want to be there. When I arrived at the warehouse it was very cold inside the building and since I did not bring a hoodie with me, I pretty much freezer for a good 2 in a half hours. While I was moving boxes and sorting shoes, I realized that this was actually better than what I thought it was going to be. I met new people and I joked around with them for the entire 3 hours we were there. I actually had fun being there, the total opposite of what I was expecting. When I was done with my service at this event I was just in awe on how quick that was. I had fun doing it so it made time go by so fast. It is not these people fault that they do not have the supplies that we have. Its so unfortunate to hear that people are walking around without shoes and decent clothing. Just like you, I found out a lot about myself after this event. I like to help people who are in more need than I am. It feels great knowing that you made an impact on an individual’s life that is in a dyer stage. I like how this gave you a positive outlook on life now and it makes you want to help more people out instead of keeping to yourself. Just like you, I am a very independent person when it comes to talking in class. I do not like talking to class unless I am called on or it is a requirement. I’m shy when it comes to strangers, but I am the talkative one when it comes to hanging out with friends. But for some reason at the event, I connected with the other people there like I knew them outside of the event. At the end of the event, I now want to get involved in this organization more when it comes back around to us. Your paper was very good and very straight forward when it came to how you actually felt before and after the event, and they were very similar to mine. Your grammar was good and I don’t see any revisions are necessary.

    • Mike Gotsch 2:22 pm on March 26, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply

      The opening could have been a little strong then I was anticipating. I feel that everyone did not want to go to any of these projects, and everyone just wanted to get it over with. I am glad you say that you were the same, but I am glad that it has affected you when you were on your way home. I just feel that the beginning could have been stronger then what it was. In the second paragraph I can see how you feel shocked that every warehouse is like machinery, but the place was not filled with any equipment. I also like that fact that you are very descriptive in what you see. Using your five senses help a lot with trying to get detail out on a page. I feel you did this very well in the paragraph. I feel bad that you had hurt yourself, but if you think about it. You hurt your arm trying to help out another that cannot do anything for them. Having a hurt arm with some of these third world countries is one of their least problems. I feel that food is more important than having your body sore after a hour. The part where you start talking about values really threw me off. You were talking about what you were doing and you kind of made the quick transition to values. You should put that either in the beginning of your essay, or you can also put it in the end which I feel would be more appropriate. It is great that you can come out of your “shell” and talk to people and decided to help them with things. I can relate you really well, because I’m also not a big talkative person with my friends or anything. Same goes for me in class too. I just talk because I have to otherwise I would not. The transition confused me again, because you went back to doing what you were doing in the warehouse. Is the value paragraph more like a thinking part while you were working? I just do not it seem different to me. If you think about it also with the advertising, most of there shipping things and even there place is all donated to them. I feel that there is not many actually workers because they do not get a lot of revenue from shoe sales and things like that so it was a good shot. I think the ending was a solid one, but I feel that you kind of rambled on in the last two paragraphs so you can just get enough words to finish this paper. Overall I think you did a great job. You were very descriptive, which was one of the things some people did not do in some of their papers. I am glad it was a life changing experience for you. I also hope that you do go back soon because I will probably end up going with some people for a afternoon.

    • Meghan Johnson 3:13 am on March 27, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply

      To agree with some of the comments below me, I really loved your title it was an eye-grabber that will really grab someones attention just as it grabbed mine. Another thing I want to say right off the back is that it is SHARE Your Soles, haha, I’m sure you just got a little confused but I wanted all your information for you paper to be right for your grades sake. I really liked how truthful you sounded throughout your entire paper. The beginning paragraph I especially liked because obvious as you read I felt the same exact way about doing the service. As I walked away that Saturday of the service at Share Your Soles, I had the some of the same thoughts you had. I thought today was different for myself, instead of sitting around, talking with friends, and doing nothing before work, I actually did something productive and helped make a difference to someone somewhere. So the rumor is true, doing service and helping others really does make you feel better about yourself and the world we live in. The stories I saw there and also heard were breath-taking of how sad they were, and to find out that there are people around our world that actually have to live like that. For me and probably most others don’t take as much time as we should to sit back and realize that is reality for people places, I don’t think enough of us know how blessed we are to live where we live and be able to have what we have.
      In the second paragraph something that may help get the reader more involved or have more of an imagination is really introduce who ‘founder’ is, Mona, act as if you know her well so the reader can feel the same way. I felt that for me if I told even the littlest bit about her, the reader might be able to put a picture of her in their own heads of what kind of a person she is. I thought it was great how you put your own experience in this paragraph and what things were going on with you while you were there, like I stated earlier I like how honest you were throughout your whole paper. “A lot of these shoes were dirty and I didn’t like the fact that my hands smelled of dirty shoes, but I did it because I put myself before others” – This sentence is part of your second paragraph, I think again you might of just go a little confused in your writing. I think, I may be wrong but what you meant to put is you put others before yourself… right? Just wanted to make you aware of that sentence.
      At first I thought it was a little strange how you added a paragraph thought about what you value about yourself but after reading it and thinking it over I came to the conclusion that it was a good addition. By you doing this service work it really does help someone realize what kind of person they are or can be (maybe they haven’t discovered that person yet). I like the ending of your paper and how strongly you now feel about service and helping others around the world or even around the nation. I think it’s great you have finally realized things wrong in our world and believe to make a change. I also have found things finally of real tough topics that our wrong in a lot of places and I hope one day to do something to help too. Oh, and also I meant to add that I like how in the beginning and the in the end you talk about how service shouldn’t be a forced thing or a form of punishment but people should find joy in the service they are doing.
      Overall, your writing was very well written again and nicely thought out. Although re-reading your work over again or a couple times never hurts, nothing that was wrong about it but just in general, myself included, everyone should always re-read their work.

  • NikoVelazquez 11:38 am on March 7, 2012 Permalink | Log in to leave a Comment  

    While reading Chapter 3 in Why White Rice, I liked how the narrator is going back in time to the point where he was in a classroom. I’m guessing the point of this chapter is to talk about focusing on your writing work, and how to successfully do it without being distracted from other things. That is the impression I’m getting from what the title is. Maybe this chapter is involving strategies about how to keep your focus when it comes to writing papers. I like how he mentions that he went through some stuff in order to find himself and to find out what exactly he is good at. He was more interested in reading than he was at putting things together, for example, how he said he doesn’t like putting patio chairs together. It shows how much he was struggling to find himself and what he could do for a career he could maybe be interested in. It took me a while to figure out what I wanted to major in for my career. I was changing my mind from being a police cop to an art teacher. Then I changed my mind to being an art teacher to a personal trainer, to a massage therapist. Now I switched again to being a physical therapy assistant. I know it has a lot of biology and I hate science but if it gets me a career job quicker then I’m going to take it. I guess going through a lot of experiences in your life will truly help you choose the career or influence you to do something with your life. Just like how he liked to read and help other people. Going out of the way to go to another college to teach must have been really hard, going from your home to a miles and miles away school to teach. I loved that he went through a lot to get to where he is now. Maybe this is what the chapter is really about, focusing on something you really want to do that will help you along the road of your future and that writing is considered to be the same thing. With the right amount of focus it takes to plan out your future is just the same amount of focus to write a paper correctly. That may not be the case but I think that that’s what this chapter is trying to tell us. I never would’ve thought he would use so many post it notes, well from looking at the picture on page 71, it looks like a whole lot of them. It must have been given a lot of dedication to write this chapter to actually get it right and finalize it. Lots of focus seems to be the main key in writing and in life.

    Dow, Thomas. “How I took on Beatrice and Won Finding Your Focus.” Why White Rice? Thinking Through Writing. Kendall Hunt Pub, 2010.61-75. Print.
     

  • NikoVelazquez 11:35 am on March 4, 2012 Permalink | Log in to leave a Comment  


    Letter to the Editor 

    Have you bullied anyone in your lifetime? Has anyone you know been bullied at one point in their lives? Bullying is a big issue in todays society, although, not too many people are worried about the subject. People may not find the subject to be worrisome but bullying could be happening to their children without them knowing. Bullying is the third leading cause to suicide. Young kids and teenagers experience bullying first hand having it happen to them or seeing it happen. Bullying can bring down another persons self esteem. Bullying is either physical or emotional. Physical is someone pushing and shoving someone around, and beating them around. Being bruised and cut up can make someone not want to go to school the next day and be worried that it will happen all over again and feel helpless. Emotional is someone bringing you down using words to describe the way you look, act, and dress. Emotional bullying will with out a doubt bring someones self esteem down the quickest. This type of bullying is the use of obscene and foul language/ words being said to someone on a daily basis, having this being done a person can look for easy way outs to get themselves out of the situation. The main exit strategy is suicide. I believe we should allow more teaching staffs to be full aware of anything pertaining to bullying in their schools. Teachers should be more knowledgeable on the subject of bullying, they should remember all signs of bullying/ being bullied. With that being done, teachers can be able to step into the situation and solve the problems. Peer training isn’t enough to stop bullying, drastic measures should be brought to the attention of schools. If more people were able to pin point all signs of bullying and recognize a student/ students being bullied they could be able to save a life. Counseling isn’t enough for a student to escape the torment of bullying, it will always trace back to them, and that’s what pushes them to the edge to commit suicide. In Time magazine there have been a few stories about parents talking about how fantastic their child was, and that they were going to do so much with their lives. Yet, they had no idea that their child was being bullied. Therefore, they each came home to see that their child committed suicide. A family shouldn’t have t see that happen. The issue at hand is teachers, friends, and families can’t recognize the signs of bullying and aren’t able to help out their friends before its too late. Maybe by allowing people to know exactly what the signs of bullying are, they and others can help out the student being bullied before they plan out their exit strategy.

     

    • Michael Millasp 1:19 pm on March 19, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply

      I have really liked your papers that deal with the growing epidemic of bullying. It really makes me angry to think that people would bully someone that is smaller or younger than them either because of their race, disorder, or anything else that is either physical or mental. I’ve been bullied before back in middle school, and I took it very personally because I was and still kind of am a sensitive kid. I do not like to be picked on, it really angers me, but back in the day I would just cry because I was too small to do anything but cry. It finally stopped when the principal got involved and talked to my bully and he finally stopped bullying and in fact actually apologized to me because he has been verbally abusing for a good two years. Of course I forgave him because I am one of those kids who don’t hold grudges over others, just as long they know what they did was wrong and will change. You’re very passionate about bullying and I like that a lot. Bullying is something that needs to come to a halt because kids these days commit suicide because of being bullied so rough. If I was a bully and the kid I bullied committed suicide, I would feel totally responsible for that death. It’s not right for that kid to kill him or herself and end their lives at such a young age. They have so much ahead of them, but I guess they just feel like they will be bullied for the rest of their lives and they can’t do anything about that. Sometimes I feel like my brother is being bullied at school these days because he hates going to school and is always “sick” so he can’t go to school. I asked him if he’s being bullied and he told me he wasn’t, so I am taking his word for it. But if I find out he is being bullied, I will be seeing that bully and I will kick his ass, I don’t care how old he is. He should just know who he’s messing with and if he likes the abuse that he gives out to other kids. People who bully kids, shows how weak they are and how demented they are that they have to take it out on a kid who did nothing wrong and has never even spoken to them before. Just because that bully was either bullied at a younger age, or he/she has had a rough childhood growing up in a bad household doesn’t mean that they have to take it out on someone who did nothing wrong to them. This was a real good letter because you addressed the fact that bullying is bad and needs to be stopped. Your bully papers always intrigue me because I can just kind of relate to them and we share the same passion about kids who are bullied or have been bullied in the past.

    • Mike Gotsch 11:44 pm on March 19, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply

      The first sentence is great in the letter, because after I have read that, I had thought about my life in middle school where all the kids in my class did not like me and it sucked. You say that people are not worried about this subject. I feel that every parent is worried about this situation. I feel that you should take this out, because even though people are not activist and not go out and do something about it, they worry about their kids going to school. This letter is very difficult to assess, because you kind of were not short and sweet. I understand that this is a big problem in our society now. I do see where you’re coming from where the students should say something and the teachers should be more a tentative to situations in schools. Honestly is it really enough and they do not pay teachers to stop kids fighting they pay to teach. I can also see where your coming from where kids do not tell people because they are scared and suicide is one way out. I think that a fact from a credible site would help here like how many kids kill themselves a year because of bullying. That would defiantly strengthen your letter. I think you have a lot of useless information about bullying. People do know what bullying is and parents do want their kids not to be bullied or be the bullies, but where does standing yourself come in to play. Just something to think about. Another thing you can do to improve it is to put your life experience in it. Just like you did you paper about your younger self. I did enjoy the fact that you put certain things in the letter the people can do. The other ones I did not see that or at least I did and it was only like one thing you can do. I also think that you can put other things rather than just suicide. I understand the suicide is the worst thing a kid can do, but I think other effect would help you get better letter.
      Overall it was a great letter I feel that it was a little long than the other ones that I have read but I think bullying is a big problem in school now a days. As I stated before I was bullied when I was younger. I had a tough middle school year and even harder junior high schooling. Once I had hit high school my friends have left me and I was moved in the band room. Yes, I was the band nerd in high school. I have realized that it had really hurt me when I was younger and it scared me to death also about having kids and having them bullied like I was in middle / junior high school. I guess you will never know until it actually happens and I’m glad that it is not for while.

    • Meghan Johnson 9:16 am on March 20, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply

      Your questions at the beginning are things that really catches a readers attention and that is a good thing to have when this is going to a new paper so they will be curious from the start. Since you have the first two questions, “Have you bullied anyone in your lifetime?” and “Has anyone you know been bullied at one point in their lives?” I really think that maybe you can add or replace and put a question asking like “Have you ever been bullied yourself?” because I believe that everyone at least once in their life have been bullied whether it be physically or mentally. By asking that question it could really be an extra eye opener for the reader and really bring their interest into the topic because they may start reflecting back on their time being bullied and actually realize and agree that this is a very touchy topic in todays society for kids.
      I like all the information you gave and I feel as if you gave a lot but I know it was hard trying to figure out what actual information you wanted to put into it, I had trouble with with mine for that reason. You also talked a lot about having teachers and schools deal with it and I agree to a point that they should help but I think that no matter how much the kid doesn’t want to he or she should tell someone maybe in their family or at least someone else other than a faculty at the school. Telling the school isn’t really something they actually have to deal with. Yes, bullying happens a lot in school or with kids at school but technically it is not their job to take total control of the bullying situation. So I think if you add something like that, of telling someone other than a school member, it could help too. I think this would be especially important because family knows best… always so they might recognize a different behavior and know something is up with the victim who is being bullied.
      I also agree with the other comments about how some where in this letter you should have some type of source or something that can back up some of these facts that you are giving. This will help the reader know that it is not just an issue that you are worried about but it is an actual issue that is going on today and that people are really worried about it. Because as you state in this letter, you believe that not many people are worried about this topic or take this topic seriously. I am about half and half with that statement, I believe that parents do worry about their children because what parent doesn’t? But also because no parent wants their child being put down by others because as you research shows that is a big self-esteem minimizer. Not only do parents not want their children being bullied but also no one wants the child TO BE the bully-er. I believe that is sometimes worse even though in your research you state that people are bullies because it is probably problems at home so therefore in some sad situations their parents probably don’t care what their kid is doing to others.
      Overall this was good work and really detailed to get the readers attention. As I have stated there are probably some things you can fix or add or take out but I understand that it was a little difficult on what you wanted to put in it.

  • NikoVelazquez 12:30 pm on February 29, 2012 Permalink | Log in to leave a Comment  

    While reading the introduction I was a bit confused about where this story was going towards. I read berretta car, then all of a sudden the story was leading to an airplane. It quickly sunk in that the narrator jumped out of an airplane skydiving. I thought that was pretty cool to be relating a past experience to how to teach. My father went skydiving I don’t know what age he was when he did, but I’m sure he went through the same thing, they made him jump out and he couldn’t try to let other people go before him so he can be the last one to jump. When it comes to writing things I want to write about, it can never be allowed. Trying to write something out from a topic or a style in which I don’t know how or what to write about can be difficult. I just want to write a book with a story that can continue through three books, but writing assignments like argumentative, persuasive, or informative papers is a difficult challenge compared to something you want to write. Yes, writing can be risk taking. You will never know how well you did until you receive the grade for the paper after it is read  by the instructor. I like that he said his niece does gymnastics and its mostly mental conditioning as it is the same with writing. Writing is just as the same because you do have to think long and hard about what subject you’re writing about.  I have revised and looked over my papers I had recently wrote to the degree that I am satisfied with. That degree being that I did a good job and I am free of any grammatical errors in my papers. Although, even after the appropriate revision and going over, there are always errors in every paper I do. No matter how hard I look into my paper to try and correct it all free of errors, there is always those errors that are silent and never found. Even among using the spell check on Microsoft Word, there is always errors of fragments that are just shown that are wrong and tells you to fix them. Even with that helping, I can never have a perfect paper written. I also have to end up cutting parts out of my papers because they either have no relevance to the subject or they just don’t fit in with the paper when I feel like it fits well in the paper. I have done the whole trying to add as much length to my papers as possible but I end up failing the paper. I don’t mess around with the font size, the different kind of font, or the margins. I just tried to add as much things as possible. Hopefully after reading this chapter I can learn from it and be able to write better papers than I normally do and get a better overall grade in the classes.

    McGuire, Michael. “Risky Business Indeed Writing Outside Your Comfort Zone.” Why White Rice? Thinking Through Writing. Kendall Hunt Pub, 2010. 25-59. Print.
     

  • NikoVelazquez 10:08 am on February 27, 2012 Permalink | Log in to leave a Comment  


    Bullying Speech Outline 

    Bullying

    • There are 3 types of bullying, physical, emotional, and cyber bullying.
    • Physical bullying is where a higher power (or bigger kid) pushes and beats another kid of smaller size. Physical bullying is more contact from one person to another. Physical bullying can really torment a child or teenager and keep them in fear of going to school to see the bully and wonder if he/ she will strike again.
    • Emotional bullying is where someone, who is either bigger or smaller, uses words to bring down someones self-esteem. Bringing someone down emotionally would be criticizing someones appearance, whether it would be teasing someone about their clothes they wear or their weight, or even the way they act. Emotional bullying can really hurt someone as much as physical bullying.
    • An example of Physical Bullying and Emotional Bullying would be the popular YouTube video of a larger kid in size picking up a smaller kid and whipping him to the ground headfirst. News anchors said the smaller kid was the bully and the larger kid was the victim. Both kids ended up being suspended from school but this is what bullying is about. One person teasing another person on their appearances.
    • Cyber Bullying is bullying but over a phone, through text messaging/ picture messaging, or over social networking websites. Inappropriate pictures could be taken of a victim and sent all around to people as a joke or as revenge. If a girlfriend sends a boyfriend nude pictures of herself and they end up breaking up, the boyfriend could just use them as blackmail to not leave him, or send them to all his friends and possibly around the school through text messaging or over social networking sites such as Facebook.
    • Bullying also leads to suicide.
    • Bullying is the third leading cause of death of suicide among teenagers from ages fifteen to twenty-four.

    Background

    • As someone who has seen bullying first hand, it is said that bullying is a way of coping.
    • A persons own household could be affect the child/ teenager and cause them stress or be influenced. For starters, if a child sees his father abusing his mother or their child, the child will be influenced to inflict bullying onto someone else. If a child is being tormented at home, his only way of getting revenge on bullying is by bullying someone else.
    • There have been major court cases where parents have taken their childs school to court because they didn’t prevent or acknowledged the bully tormenting their son. Their son committed suicide as a way of escaping the bully and all of the pain.

    Get involved

    • As someone who has seen bulliying as a child, a way to get involved is by knowing the signs that someone is getting bullied and find them help before its too late.
    • Let people know that bullying leads to kids committing suicide.
    • Help organizations help schools on being very knowledgeable on the subject of bullying, not many are or really look out for signs of bullying unless a student tells.
    • Hold conferences or town meetings, or at town fairs have a booth talking about bullying.
    • Let students know, that if they see signs of bullying with other students and their friends they should immediately go to higher authorities to help their friends and other students.
    • Get involved with programs or support groups that will let people know what is going on in schools that have strict rules about bullying.

     

     

     

     

     

  • NikoVelazquez 4:58 pm on February 23, 2012 Permalink | Log in to leave a Comment  

    What I read in the beginning of the book of Why White Rice in chapter 7 was the explanation of the use of internet sources. The beginning I could easily relate to. I have been a huge fan of getting tattoos (especially of ones that have strong meanings). I have three tattoos and one is unfinished from becoming a half sleeve on my arm. I have a tribal dragon skeleton on my upper back, and it was my very first tattoo and for every paycheck I receive from working I would have to put some of it in the bank, which this was a promise to my father. My second one is going to be a half-sleeve of dragons some being good and some being evil, symbolizing good versus evil in the world. My third most recent is a phoenix on my chest, and it symbolizes a rebirth and starting over fresh and the clouds behind it represents the hardships that I’m overcoming in my life. I had a few tattoo ideas that my friend, who has been telling others that his tattoos are original and the tattoos he wants are from his creative mind. The ideas he claims that are his, are actually mine. Stealing sources from websites and claiming them as yours and being original is the exact same thing as what my friend is doing with my tattoo ideas. At least my friend should give me credit for the ideas, and telling his friends that I gave him the ideas, then I would be less mad. In high school, I struggled to cite sources properly and by coming into college it became a little bit harder to cite sources. I told my teachers I didn’t plagarize, or claim that all the ideas in my paper aren’t really mine, but who would believe me without a works cited page right? No matter what you say about your papers and the information you used in it, teachers will think you plagarized it by not having a works cited page regardless if you’re telling the truth. The works cited page is proof that you didn’t take someones ideas. When you cite a source, you’re giving the reader a source to go off on for referencing in their future if needed. By also citing, you’re giving the author credit by informing your reader on what the author has said about the subject being talked about. Another example of citing as in “Why White Rice” when the book mentioned Quentin Tarantino and how he uses scenes from other movies, would be a recent movie that came out in 2008. Cloverfield, the first person camera view film that was filming a giant creature wrecking havoc in Manhattan, New York. In some scenes, random photos of monsters from other movies are cropped into the movie when you don’t expect it. Toward the end of the credits you would see the name of the monsters in the small clips and the movie they were in and the director and everything. That’s a form of citing a source, the director and filmakers of the movie Cloverfield gave credit to the directors who put their creatures in the movie for a quick small period of time. So, citing sources is a great way to give reference, credit to the authors, and showing the reader your’re not stealing someones idea.

    Swanson, Troy. “Mash It Up… Gracefully.” Why White Rice? Thinking Through Writing. Kendall Hunt Pub, 2010. 163-174. Print.
     

  • NikoVelazquez 9:56 pm on February 21, 2012 Permalink | Log in to leave a Comment  


    Guide to an Issue 

    Overview Of The Issue:

    The biggest issue in the world today would have to be bullying/ cyberbullying. Both are bullying but one is in physical bullying and the other over internet, or phones. Both are equally able to cause mental and physical harm to helpless people. This is a huge issue because more teenagers each day are affected by it. Boys get teased and talked about in bad way that will cause them to breakdown and possibly turn them to find that suicide is the only escape from the torment. When it comes to women, they are teased much more badly than boys. Other girls will call a girl fat, ugly and other horrible things and cause them to undergo so much stress in changing the their appearances. If a girl is teased about her weight, she can binge eat, or puke after every meal just to keep her weight the same or try to lose as much as possible. Very devastating to the persons health. Also, women and men can be pushed about their weight and lead them into working out excessively, eating less, and using diet supplements all at once to keep themselves looking thin and the way that others can see them or accept them as. It also affects men and women who are thin, because of their light weight they can be pushed around easier. Others will see them as someone who can’t defend themselves. Bullying is the third leading cause of death among teenagers from fifteen through twenty-two. Bullying leads a helpless person into killing themselves. They feel like they can’t turn to anyone for help because of the threats they receive during their time of being bullied.

    Background Research:

    Bullying is one of the main issues that leads young kids and teenagers to lean towards suicide as a way to get rid of the stress, and cruel environment. Suicide is the third leading cause of death after car accidents and homicide. Bullying is the constant abuse to another person and bringing them down physically and emotionally.It can be as much when it comes to cyber bullying, which is someone bring down someones emotions over the phone, through text, and over the internet. I’ve read magazine articles of parents and siblings telling their story of how such a bright son/daughter/ brother/ sister they were until the day they died. There are two understandable reasons to why kids are bullied and why kids do the bullying. Kids get bullied because of their image, or how they present themselves to others. For example, kids could be criticized for what they wear, their hair, their facial features, and if they see their parents being “prissy” with them. Kids do the bullying because they need a way to cope with what is going on in their lives. In other words, kids bully others because they’re experiencing child abuse at home, sexual abuse from their parents, or even being bullied by someone else. This will cause a child to bully another helpless child who isn’t involved with what goes on in their lives. What can we do to stop bullying, and prevent kids from committing suicide? Bullying has caused many teenagers and kids to grow up and want to end their lives, there should be an intervention on how to handle this issue and help prevent bullying. Bullying is as easy as one to three. It can be stopped but not within a matter of days, it would take time for all this to be over with. Violence is a cause to this, whether it is influential from movies, video games, graphic pictures or from what goes on in the environment around them. Actions speak louder than words in life.

    What’s Being Done:

    Schools are dealing with lawsuits taken against them for acts of violence in bullying if no actions are taken care of. In Cleburne, Texas, a family is going to court with the school that failed to take order over the bullying going on in their sons school that led him to committing suicide. $20 million lawsuit against Joshua Independent School District. What on earth led the faults of the faculty to let such acts be bestowed on a harmless thirteen year old which led to his suicide? Schools now are taking action to stop and prevent any acts of violence to others. Accounts of bullying that have led to victims committing suicide have been brought up to the courts, as a matter of ending this cruel lifestyle that kids and teenagers are going through.

    How Can You Get Involved? How Can You Help?

    Words are just as powerful as actions in this world. Bullying is a topic that spreads through each elementary, middle, and high schools. Schools are trying to crack down on school violence ever since the Columbine shootings in 1999. Most schools are providing a zero tolerance with bullying. Bullying can range from being as low as third grade to senior year in high school. I never mentioned this to anyone, but as I have grown up and moved past it I will say it. In third grade I moved to Oak Lawn and to a new school, starting over fresh with new friends and everything. First day of school a kid a couple years higher in a different grade singled me out and picked on me. I was a little chubby and wore clothes that he made fun of me for. It was something I came home from school and never talked about, I just lived with it. It brought me down emotionally and there were a few times where he threw me in mud, pushed, shoved and verbally abused me. It was hard to deal with it for so long. I still remember it clearly, but I could not tell who it is. I can imagine what other kids went through, but I was pushed to a point where I wanted to end it all. It ended up being that different sections of the school would have their own playgrounds so I never saw the kid again, after the fifth grade. It was going on for around three years straight where I had to deal with this for so long, but ended up surviving. If someone were able to hear me say this to them, I believe they would have made it through. None of them would take their own life to get away from it. People who have overcame bullying should speak out and make their voice heard in order to help and save other kids who are going through this. Getting a voice heard out to other is something we should enforce in order to avoid bullying. There’s only so far where a bully can go to inflict damage on someone physically. Kids who are being bullied are asked to seek peers to help resolve the issue at hand, but even that isn’t enough. Some kids can fear of letting others know what is happening because of hurtful threats from the bully himself. Teachers and other school faculties should take more notice of signs of bullying. Knowing all the signs could indeed help rescue someone from all the torment from an upperclassmen.  There are signs from disrespecting authority, is anti-social, and enjoys fighting. Teacher and other superiors should look out for these signs, but there is an even longer list of what identifies kids being bullied. Neighborhoods should hold a Anti-Bullying Town meeting and it should help explain all the the signs that show someones being bullied so parents and teachers can help kids out and understand more on how to handle the situation hands on. Not only should they focus on the victim being bullied but they should also focus on the bully himself/ herself and why they do the things they do to others. A meeting about this issue will alert everyone why actions must be taken in order to keep order in schools and not have all these helpless people eject themselves out of their lives. Even having seminars in elementary, middle, and high schools would help out greatly. A student commits suicide because he/ she is being bullied. That students friends probably didn’t know about it and before they could give them help or find someone to help it was already too late. Holding seminars to increase awareness could be a huge benefit to alert the signs of someone being bullied so that way someones friends and family can step in and take control of the wheel and prevent suicides. Some causes of death cant be stopped, but suicide can be. A few words with your child will help them escape the torment of bullies. Parents don’t know what goes on in the school unless something major happens and they’re notified by the principals and teachers, otherwise the parents cant take action to put a hault to it. Another way of help getting the word out there about the dangers of bullying is by making pamphlets or brochures. If you notice on busy streets there are  people who are trying to sell candy for a cause such as down syndrome or cancer, maybe by giving out pamphlets on the implications that bullies put on young teenagers and kids with candy people will become more aware of what problems that students are facing in school when it comes to being social with others. A tiny brochure can speak for itself just as well as a speaker explaining the issue at hand. Among bullying physically, there is also cyber bullying. Like pamphlets that can be distributed, we can make word documents, pictures and post them all over the web. Facebook and Twitter happen to be one of the biggest social networking sites that can be yet useful and cause destruction. Any social network can be used for bringing down a person emotionally and it is actually much faster and easier to get anything to everyone quicker than waiting for a school day to tell someone. We can create posters/ pictures on the internet and post them on peoples walls over Facebook, easy way of getting the issue of bullying out. Facebook makes groups or pages to “like” its possible to make one especially on the subject of bullying, which there most likely are groups on this subject matter. What else that can be done is monitoring your childs  internet use. I’m pretty sure that there is a way where no matter if an account is logged off the internet there is a way to go through the computers history and be able to log back in from that. Some people may not be educated enough to try and pull that off but I’m sure there are ways to get around it. Not necessarily hack into someones account but the password can be saved on the computer. Although, privacy is a major issue to teenagers because they’re growing up and apart from their parents, what goes on the internet should still be monitored. If your child has a texting on his phone plan, you would probably see one of those stupid chain letters saying if you don’t pass the message along to someone else you’ll have bad luck for sum amount of years, or if you do pass it on love will come your way within the next few days. This idea could be used to spread the awareness of bullying. Instead of having the message contain a message as saying if you don’t pass it on something bad or good will happen. In my opinion it should say something like this,”If you’re reading this you shouldn’t stop. Kids are bullied every year by older kids and leads them to be emotionally torn down, by passing on this message you’re getting the word of bullying and raising awareness by a small percentage. By sending this message, you’re saving a teenagers life from harming himself.” Something like that as a message could spread the word just as fast as a rumor starting up. Within those five seconds of forwarding a message to all your contacts in your cell phone could have them relay the message to all their contacts which would be a never ending chain to everyone and could possibly reach the west coast to the east coast in a small amount of time. I never saw a message or chain letter that said something about a real life issue in the world, just stupid little messages or awareness of a sex offender in the area or a missing child. If those could get out quickly why cant this message be just as fast?

    To Learn More:

    To learn more about bullying here are a few websites where it can tell you a little more on the subject of bullying more than I can. This website states facts about bullying on what it is, what it looks like, and how its different from girls doing the bullying and boys doing the bullying.

    http://bullyfree.com/free-resources/facts-about-bullying

    This website shows a little bit more on how to stop and identify bullying. It mentions the major signs of bullying and how to prevent it.

    http://www.eckerdacademy.org/family-resources/article-archive/how-to-identify-and-prevent-bullying/

    This website deals with a court case that involved three teens in a bullying-suicide.

    http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/09/23/national/main6894548.shtml

    This website here explains more of what cyberbullying is much more than what I had explained in the beginning of this paper.

    http://www.stopcyberbullying.org/what_is_cyberbullying_exactly.html

     

    Works Cited:

    Swearer, Susan M. “5 Myths About Bullying.” Washington Post. 02 Jan 2011: B.3. SIRS Issues Researcher. Web. 19 Feb 2012.

    Kuther, Tara L. “Understanding Bullying.” Our Children. Oct. 2003: 12-13. SIRS Issues Researcher. Web. 19 Feb 2012.

    DiBlasio, Natalie. “More Cases of Bullying Ending Up in Courts.” USA TODAY. 12 Sep 2011: A.3. SIRS Issues Researcher. Web. 19 Feb 2012.

    Catalanello, Rebecca. “School Bullying Widely Underreported.” St. Petersburg Times. 09 May 2011: A.1. SIRS Issues Researcher. Web. 19 Feb 2012.

    Ayenibiowo, Kehinde O., and Gabriel A. Akinbode. “Psychopathology Of Bullying And Emotional Abuse Among School Children.” IFE Psychologia 19.2 (2011): 127-141. Academic Search Complete. Web. 21 Feb. 2012.

     

    • Michael Millasp 9:44 pm on February 26, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply

      Your topic on bullying is a great one to use for this assignment. This is your second time writing about bullying so I can tell how strongly you feel about this topic. Bullying is just a terrible thing in our communities today and so little is done about it. Kids everyday commit suicide because of being severely bullied everyday and don’t tell anyone about it until their parents walk into their room and they committed suicide. Horrific site to see. I’ve seen lots of cyber bullying go on when I was in high school and middle on like Facebook and MySpace. I would see kids threatening others and people making fun of other people’s photos or posting an embarrassing photo of someone that doesn’t want that photo to be seen. That really goes against the right to privacy for most teenagers, but other teenagers don’t care because when you bully kids younger than you they really can’t stand up for themselves because most of the time the older kid could easily beat that kid up. I think the problem with kids these days that are being bullied, they think its going to stop someday, but really it won’t unless they do something about the situation and stand up for themselves, because the bullying will get it worse and worse as you get older.
      I was bullied in 7th grade by an 8th grader who I also went to elementary school with. He didn’t start bullying until I went to middle school and I remember him always pushing me into lockers and threatening me all the time say “I’m going to blow your house up and I’m going to kill you”. But unlike most kids that age, I did something about it and reported it to the school principle and after that he ended up being nice to me and apologizing to me.
      I just love your overall view on bullying because it’s exactly how I feel about this whole idea of kids committing suicide because of being bullied so much. It really is a big problem facing teenagers these days. It can really traumatize a kid for the rest of their life. For the kid bullying other kids, it’s not the other peoples fault that your life sucks so much that you have to impose your will on other innocent children. Its really unfair and it really makes me mad to see kids bully other kids. You did a great job on expressing your feelings in this paper, some grammar mistakes but I am sure you will access them in a later time period. I think this paper is good as it is, nothing more to add except maybe stronger words.

    • Mike Gotsch 11:46 am on February 29, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply

      With just reading the first sentence, I am already hooked. I believe that bulling is a terrible thing. I think now a days that cyber bullying is at its greatest with Facebook and all of the other social networks we use now a days. Also before I read this, I think that when you put it into sections and labeled each section was a great idea. With my paper, I just tried to make everything flow and it did not turn out the way I wanted. Great start to the essay. I feel that girls and boys do try to do other things to themselves so people accept them and society accepts them. In reality I feel that everyone should be accepting no matter what you look like. It scary to see that a girl has to puke after every meal and a boy has to take supplement everyday to make sure no one pushes him around. The supplements can also cause very dangerous disease. I did my paper on HGH and supplements so I know what these supplements can cause. I think that games, movies, and graphic pictures do play a role in kids being bullied. There are cases though that is not the fact. For example, I was a kid that loved guns and shooting things. I enjoyed playing that video games that you can blow a guy’s head off with a shotgun. When I went to school, my parents had taught me that I cannot do those things in school. I learned that treating people with respect is key. You can see that I am not going on a killing spree or anything of that sort, but I feel that games and movies only go to a certain degree of kids bullying other kids. It is nice to see that you also put your life experience in this paper also. I to was bullied when I was younger. There was only one kid that did it to me and I had to deal with it. I was the band nerd to that no one had liked. I now have not see that kid in years, but I did see him back when I was in high school. He had come up to me and talked to me like a normal person without making fun of me. I see that people grow out of it and I feel that people should apologize for it. Some kids also do not even though that they are doing it too.
      Overall I think this is a great paper. I would have done this subject also, but I felt that a lot of people would of done this, so I had changed my topic. It’s nice to see that people need to make a change with this because kids deserve to live happy lives rather than in their room crying themselves to sleep. I think there were no problems in this paper except a few grammar and spelling errors. I think you explained this subject very well and I hope that is does end.

    • Meghan Johnson 2:39 am on March 1, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply

      You are right, bullying is a big issue especially for those of the teenage years, just as your paper stated. To me bullying around that time is the worst because those years of your life are the “awkward” years. I say awkward because we are all discovering who are want to be and our bodies and personalities are changing very constantly. Bullying is a big issue today because it is leading kids to kill themselves just like you stated and also just not having confidence in themselves too. Being bullied makes them believe less of themselves and really double think what people think about them. I believe this because I wasn’t actually bullied but I was always the friend, through the later years of grammar school and high school, that would be the one getting made fun of. I guess some would call it bullying but it was just a normal thing I went through. It was always something different, my style, what I say or how I would say it, anything really. It used to really get to me and made me double think who I am and sometimes I even gave up doing things or wearing things I liked because I was scared of the remarks I would get. I talked to my mom about a lot of it and she help me to realize that I have to blow off what they say and just be me, and if no one was gonna like that then who cares, I wasn’t going to change for anyone. It was still a little tough though because it was always my good friends to say stuff, I think it was always because I never really fired back at them. I grew up from this a lot actually, it really helped me become who I am today because I care less about what others will think and I do things for me and no one else.

      Well enough about that, sorry this is supposed to be about your writing. Well like I said I think you picked a very strong topic of society that I feel is pushed to the side more than it should be. It truly is a big problem with today’s society because of all the new ways bullying can be brought on. Now we still have all the physical and verbal ways like pushing, hitting, name calling, etc. But besides from all the typical bullying, we now have the technology part of it which include things like, cell phones with messaging of any kind, internet chatting, facebook, and twitter. The things done through media is nuts, no wonder kids are so torn apart. I think you really tell about your topic well. I have to say I feel that there is a lot of repetition in it though. I understand that suicide is to much of a result of bullying but you really like to repeat it a lot, maybe have a section for it and there you can really elaborate on it. Also maybe some how really keep your reader interested, there were some times I was losing myself in my own thoughts but and there were points were I was actually confused by what you were saying, so take time and really re-read it over before the end of the semester. I’m sorry I’m kind of being critical but it’s nothing against it just trying to help. It will help too if you don’t make it look so much like a hand out you were going off of, try to make the paragraphs flow with each other so it looks like a paper. Just one more critic I think I have is that you should really have some of your research documented through out your paper, I think that’s what he will be looking for also.

      Other than all that, good work on getting the issue out there and the ways you said to get it more noticed I think are very smart ways. There can be room for a little more persuasive on the topic. Your are really concerned on this topic and that is a great thing because it is a big problem today. I hope I can try to stop bullying for someone someday, I hated seeing it being done and never wanted to get involved because to me it wasn’t funny like most girls view it, but now after reading this I wish I would of stood up for someone or something when I saw bullying being done. I went to an all girls high school so of course I saw it because girls are evil to each other now matter what!

  • NikoVelazquez 11:30 am on February 8, 2012 Permalink | Log in to leave a Comment  

    Jay-Z and Beyonce are one of the few celebrities in the music industry that are helping out with third world countries. It is a wonderful thing to hear that celebrities are helping out for good causes to help the unfortunate.  Being a part of the Peace Corps is a great thing, I always wanted to try and be apart of something that great, just to help other people and not worry about myself. Somtimes I feel that when presidents get involved with such things like the Peace Corps they don’t really go along with them. I don’t know a whole lot about politics or anything, but from what people tell me, I hear of bad things of Obama or when Bush was in office. So I can never really judge or tell what is wrong or what is right in the government. The way people who volunteer and remain a huge part of the Peace Corps are believed to be saints. A lot of dedication and hours they put into it. Hessler goes into a lot of detail about the Peace Corps, he even mentions the government in it, such as the Presidents and Congress. I never knew how many people actually volunteered and went to foreign countries to help out. It’s a crazy thing. I never really knew what the Peace Corps were either when I was in high school or jr high school, I thought it was like a little branch of the military and didn’t think it was people who were volunteering to help out in third world countries, giving food, building shelters, and just again helping out the less fortunate. When in high school I normally thought it was something like the Navy Seals, Peace Corps, almost sounds like the Marine Corps. So, I thought it would’ve been another branch of the military that would make peace (not necessarily make peace but fight for their country to make things right). Rajeev is all over the place with this peace corps thing, I would have to read it over and over again, only because I only know so little about this topic. Other than knowing these people volunteer and help others. I don’t necessarily know about the background history and who are the people who are in charge and process this whole thing.

    2012. pgs. 101-109. splatter.writing101.net Online Article. The New Yorker. 2010., Hessler, Peter. “A Reporter at Large, The Peace Corps’s Brightest Hope.” February 7, Village Voice
     

  • NikoVelazquez 7:13 pm on February 5, 2012 Permalink | Log in to leave a Comment  

    After completing the “Who Should Survive” activity, it made me think of myself of nearly being a bad person trying to sacrifice certain people because of their certain attributes. Like I had the choice of sacrificing an old man or sacrificing helpless kids. The scenario being, eleven survivors go into a bomb shelter and there is only enough food to be rationed for seven people, so you would be having to sacrifice three people. Some of the people have problems or could have problems with the other survivors. So it is like I have to make a wise choice of who to kick out of the bomb shelter and what is the most logical choice to make on sacrificing. I couldn’t sacrifice anyone of the children. I would sacrifice a parent of that child, I thought of sacrificing the father Dr. Lang, and said to myself he could sacrifice himself to make a heroic impact for his son. The son would think of his dad as a hero. I would have also sacrificed a mother of a three week old baby because the mother is a prostitute, so no need for that in a shelter. I was planning to get rid of a doctor who was old and had health issues, such as having a few heart attacks within a couple months. If I were to have kept him and sacrificed someone else, the old man could have another heart attack and possibly die, after I sacrifice someone else who could have lived a little bit longer than him. My choices of the certain people I would sacrifice was being based on their history, not necessarily viewing the future of a new generation, or in other words starting over for a new life for the world. I never thought about making it all based on who could survive to rebuild a population or a new world for a new world. I automatically thought of just doing it as people that mattered and made something of themselves in their lives or people who did stuff in their lives and could contribute to rebuilding a nation for new people. If I viewed it as rebuilding the world, I would have chosen many people differently, like not sacrificing the old man who was a doctor and he could train someone else because he has seen a lot in his life and could teach many people things he has learned in his lifetime before he could die. There was a guy who was training to be a doctor, the old man Dr. Garcia could mentor him and teach him the ways of being a professional doctor to help out the future people. The choices I made only reflect the bad things they’ve done in their past, and maybe I should’ve seen what they could do in the future that can be contributed to helping out the other survivors in a time of need as in rationing enough food for seven people and sacrifice all the right people that would be necessary.

     

  • NikoVelazquez 9:21 pm on January 31, 2012 Permalink | Log in to leave a Comment  

    I didn’t really know how to respond to the reading by Dave Eggers, “What It Means When A Crowd In A Faraway Nation Takes A Soldier Representing Your Own Nation, Shoots Him, Drags Him From His Vehicle, and Then Mutilates Him In The Dust.” It seemed a bit rather disturbing reading from the title itself. I’m also sure that I would be feeling the same way if I were to see a soldier representing our country. I know a few people who served in the military, 3 friends and 1 relative. If I were to see or hear about something like that had happened to any of my friends in the military, I would be extremely upset, depressed, and just moody all around. I cant imagine the guy the story is revolving around feels once he seen that picture. This story showed a lot of emotion that the main person in this story was going through, and how his everyday activities were after seeing the picture in the newspaper. The amount of damage done to the soldier in the picture sounds so brutal and awful. Anyone who sees a soldier on a newspaper couldn’t bare the sight of seeing a soldier being shown beaten and destroyed. It’s hard enough to see someone in a family photo who’s far away doing good for their country, but to see the picture to be of them completely dead and tortured. The other story by Dave Eggers, “Your Mother and I” seems a bit more about nature, from what I am reading so far into the story.  I didn’t realize it at first but, this story is a conversation between a father and his son. I didn’t realize it until mid story, up to when the father is about to explain the sexual activity he and his wife had to his son, which I thought was really awkward but rather funny. Something I’d imagine any kid to go through. I like how the father is telling parts of his life story with the mother and all the things they’ve been through together. It’s like telling his child about the different things they’ve done. I also feel like this story is leaning towards a bit of the government and a little bit of nature, mentioning the oil and the United Nations. The transition between him talking about llamas to talking about curing Parkinsons and handing out drugs for AIDS. It’s like a complete story of their entire relationship of how they met and what they’ve been doing and when they got married. They’ve gone through a whole lot of stuff together and sounds like they went through a lot together. From the way he was explaining to their child, they sounded very happy with one another. I thought of this story to be rather on the sensitive side in showing emotions between two people and how their history together went. This is something I never read before, or anything like it. No story has talked about someones relationship and everything they did together.

    citation
     

  • NikoVelazquez 10:13 pm on January 29, 2012 Permalink | Log in to leave a Comment  


    What I live, die, and kill for. 

    What I live for is my family and friends. Without them, I wouldn’t necessarily be living for something. I care for my family and friends more than anything. If I didn’t care for them, they wouldn’t be my family or friends. For my family, I wouldn’t allow someone to make rude inappropriate jokes about my family, especially sexual reference jokes to my mom or sisters, and I wouldn’t allow your momma jokes either. Making old people jokes towards my grandparents are not tolerated either, I would be highly offended to a point where I would pound on the person making a joke about my family. Everyone is quick to judge my dad, they see him as a tattooed gang member but when really he’s not. Just when he was younger he liked to get tattoos and he got as many as he could, and now he got a little bit more and now he’s almost fully tatted up. Like, I’m trying to be fully tattooed but I’m not going to be a gang member or anything. As I grown up I choose to live for in addition to my family and friends is trying to help people I don’t really know. As I’ve been maturing as an adult I realize I don’t want to be selfish and only give myself new things and just spoil myself, I always dreamed of being wealthy and with that money, I would give to charities and such and help kids and adults. If I were to ever achieve this dream my family and friends would be extremely proud of what I’m doing with my life, therefore, I live for them and others. As for my friends, I can consider them family. They have always been there for me whenever I needed someone to back me up or if I needed support in a sport. Ever since my sophmore year in Track and Field in high school, I remember them being on the field rooting for me as a ran past them. Through good times, and hardships, and small disagreements with one another, I can always call them my closest friends no matter what. I will always have their backs whenever they needed someone to be there for them.
    (More …)

     

    • Meghan Johnson 2:21 am on February 7, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply

      Parts of me really likes how you just jumped into answering the questions straight to a paragraph but then some parts of me maybe things you should have an opening paragraph, but like we were told we didn’t really need a type of way to write it, I guess it’s just me and my way of writing I always have to work off of an introduction.

      Besides that point I extremely respect this essay and what you believe in to live, to die and to kill for (well the kill you did give me a different mind opener for killing for something). As you read in my essay, my family and close friends are very important to me as well and to hear some of things you stated about why you live for them and/or what you would do for them no matter what was very inspirational. I like how they mean the world to you it seems to sound like. I also agree that comments or judgements made to ones family is very offensive because no one knows anything about them like a family member does. The person who would have the guts to make a rude remark towards someone of your family would not be right because the statement would be totally wrong and untrue or the rude remark person does not know anything about that person so therefore they would not know what that person may be going through. Every face has a story that no one will ever understand and sometimes family can’t even understand it, but obviously it’s like your belief is something was done or said to your family member you would without a doubt have their back to stick up for them. I agree things all goes along with my friends as well, but more for me I really can’t just leave it at friends. I don’t mean to sounds conceited but I am someone who believes I have a good amount of friends and I hope myself to be a good friend but I know myself well enough where I have a good hand full of close friends and those are the ones I would treat as if they were my family. Don’t get me wrong I think I’m a good person where I want to be the best friend to all my friends but when it really comes down to it, you got to think, would they do this for you in return? For me it’s like I stated, only a good hand full that would without question and for that THOSE are my CLOSE friends, the ones I would consider family. (I’m sorry if that got a little confusing)

      What I really enjoy about your essay is that you sound like the most caring, giving person and that is great. You really want to make the world for others a better place no only for your friends and family but for literally the whole world. I can relate with you for wanting to die for what you believe in, I think it’s very important to stand for something willing to fight for it. Yours sounds to be to keep others happy and that is amazing! Not saying don’t give up on that but always keep in mind yourself, always keep yourself happy too. I’m a strong believer if you’re happy, others around you will be happy, it’s just something that rubs off on everyone!

      Also I COMPLETELY agree with your bully paragraph and how it’s hard to understand why some people seem to have not a heart by some of the things they might say or do to someone. I hate the saying that people only say something bad to someone because it makes them feel better about themselves when putting someone else down. That just screams that they are insecure about themselves. One thing said to someone might stick with them the rest of their lives so I agree with you that everyone should just use their hearts all the time. NOthing is that bad in the world where one would be that negative.
      Like I stated earlier, your what you would kill for statement changed parts of my belief. I still am sticking to what I said that I would never be able to kill for someone or something, other than it be me being attacked. But with you saying you would kill for your goals and dreams in life, I understand that and it’s kind of just something you say like, “oh I’d kill for her legs”, so I get that your statement isn’t so serious but if it were to kill for you goals and dreams, I hope you really consider your options when it gets to that point. haha

      Overall I think you essay was really strong and in general, what you stand for is great, you really had the right reasons of what you would live, die and kill for. Oh, also I liked how you put a lot of yourself in there, personal things.

      • NikoVelazquez 6:23 pm on February 7, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply

        haha thanks, the whole killing part, which I forgot to mention, kind of goes along with the what I die for, I didn’t want to say I would kill for my friends and family because everyone pretty much would, without a doubt I would kill for my family or if someone harmed them in any way. I just wanted to show, personally, what I would kill for. It was more of a self kind of killing for. Thanks for responding to my essay, I appreciate it!

    • Michael Millasp 12:37 am on February 16, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply

      I like how you jumped right into the assignment, instead of beating around the bush. You got right to the point, not messing around! I love that you would do anything for a family member, which anyone and everyone should! They are you blood and have always been there for you when you’re down. When it comes to “yo momma” jokes, I really don’t take them as personally as you do because even though its about my precious mom who I love so much, I know they are just joking around and its all for shits and giggles. So I just cold-shoulder them. To be honest with you, I don’t understand why people get so many tattoos because when you get older; don’t they just stretch out and look weird? I’m in no place to judge you or your father. His tattoos can have meanings to them, which is great. I don’t understand either why people would come to the conclusion that your father is a gang-banger because he is all tatted up. That’s absurd. My friends always have my back as well. That’s what they are for. A true friend would never go behind your back or disrespect your choices. If they are indeed a friend they should understand and respect who you are (unless drugs). Friends are great part of life.
      What you would do for those who are in need is a great attribute to have that many don’t have. I love that you would go out of your way to help kids with Leukemia and other illnesses. Your right, the kids that mope and around and think their life sucks, isn’t that attitude they need. They need to stay positive and say “hey, I’m going to make it through this”. It’s very respectable that you want to be that guy to make those kids happy and cherish the life that they have. More people need to have the same belief about this topic as you do. I do volunteer work for charities as well. The one I do the most is for St. Judes, which is hospital for kids who have cancer. I do charity basketball games and ride my bike for hours at a time for cancer every year. It’s a great thing to do, to help those who need it most. I like your opinion on bullying. I have the same exact feeling. I hate hearing about kids committing suicide because of being bullied by people. Especially those kids who are bigger and older and picking on kids smaller and younger. Pick on someone your own size and see what happens to you. Bullies are nothing but low life scum bags that don’t like the life that they live in and take it out on innocent kids.
      That is a great thing to kill for, success. You want to be an NFL or AFL football player. I really hope the best for you in that field. You love playing football and I love watching football just as much as playing. That sucks that you didn’t make it to the top 5 to be on the Chicago Rush Football team, but maybe you can try out next year and make the cut if that opportunity comes your way again!
      This was a very well written essay. I agree with all of your choices to Live, Die, Kill for. Try to make this essay a little bit longer though, because I think it needs to be 1500 words long. So maybe try to expand on your ideas a little more and bring up stories from your past to help the reader understand why you chose that topic.

  • NikoVelazquez 9:50 pm on January 24, 2012 Permalink | Log in to leave a Comment  

    I think being ecologically literate means someones well-beings with their environment, like not causing destruction to nature. For example, not littering, cutting or burning down trees or leaves, harming the habitats of different animals, torturing or killing animals. I believe most people are somewhat ecologically literate. Most people don’t burn down trees, but then there are some who do, and there are some people who are known for harming animals and destroying their natural habitats such as poachers, they hunt down animals and claim them as prizes to hang on their walls or stuff them for life sized dolls and call it an accomplishment in their lives. Like friends and family are ecologically literate. My mom, loves planting flowers and what not, she shows a lot of caring for plant life, my sister wants to help dogs that are homeless, shows she appreciates animals. I don’t kill bugs, or spiders, they are technically food for larger animals to keep the circle of life going. I don’t think I have full knowledge of nature or no one really does, but they appreciate what is already there. After reading the article, it never occurred to me that when more fish are born, they eat algae at a speedy rate, and when the algae runs out, the fish die. Then the algae has time to grow back, it never occurred to me the great amount of fluctuation in the water that life and death go back and forth with each other. Also, I feel like I never fully understood nature and the ecosystems and how they worked. I don’t know a whole lot about taxes and how it works, so I don’t know what to really say about “eco tax”. I do believe people should start using public transportation or bikes to ride to work or to school, and use gas for traveling long distances, not just to your corner grocery store.

    Fritjof Capra, “From The Web of Life”
     

c
compose new post
j
next post/next comment
k
previous post/previous comment
r
reply
e
edit
o
show/hide comments
t
go to top
l
go to login
h
show/hide help
shift + esc
cancel