Fin #30

My writing style, I would like to think, is unique and does show that I am an individual with a love for the English language and a passion for open and sometime frank discussions. My method for writing is controlled madness, with one eye on the clock and the other on the keyboard, I peck away with all the ferocity of a day before Thanksgiving turkey. For me, it would be hard to summarize my body of work that I have accomplished over this semester. All I can say is that, it does reflect me as a person and me as a writer. I am looking forward to my next English class. I think, that I am going to take a creative writing class, even though I do not know how creative the assignments are going to be. I just hope that I can become a better proofreader and a better splicer.The only time that I do any real brainstorming is on the weekend. That is when we get to do the “you pick” assignments. I usually spend all weekend trying to come up with a good solid idea for what my topic is going to be. That includes, but is not limited to talking over my ideas with my roommate and friends, even if their topics are a little out of the way and far removed from what I would think my style is. I do like to have an audience to talk with, it helps me gather my ideas and begin to work.Now that I am in my mid-twenties, I wish that I had taken my seventh grade typing class a little more to heart. I am in envy of people that when they type it sounds like a machine gun but when I type it sounds like some kids throwing rocks at a tank. I do feel that with my slower typing speed it does allow me to get better thoughts on paper, even if that paper has started to turn yellow with age by the time I finish.
Sometimes I do not know how well receipted my work is going to be? Can anyone over look my style to see my true intent? What do my reader think of me? Should I consider a career in writing? I do love to write and love to watch people read my writings. Who can tell me if I am good enough and if they do would they just be blowing smoke? Am I on par, under par, over par, or should I just ask for a mulligan. Could you answer this for me and email me a response, an honest response?I do feel that this is a good starting point for the whole college paper writing thing, I just do not know how my first ten page paper is going to go down. I do not know if I am going to sail right through it or if it is going to drive me under the keyboard. For me 750 words is not a problem, it is more like a walk in the park, granted that when I walk in the class or open the blogger page I do not know what park I am going to set foot in. I have more of a problem trying to downsize ideas into a nice neat little 750-word document then doing them.I do not know if you can look over the other student blog accounts or how to find them but I would like to see what kinds of writers I am up against, even if I can not match a name to a face. I do not think I know one persons name in this class. I have seen where you can block your blog from being seen by others on the web. I have blocked mine from showing up but it is only on the count that I have not picked any to become made public. After I finish my final portfolio and everything is crossed and doted I am going to put up all of them but except like five or six, the ones that you can really tell are assignments. Some of my family has asked, “Where is your English class blogger site?” and to that I say “ In due time I will let you witness the spectacle that I have made of my English class". In no way do I use the word spectacle to refer to my work as some sideshow attraction nor should the word spectacle take away from my true intent.

Classtration #29

Next semester will feel like a breath of fresh air. The sessions started with all the fury of the winter wrath. It seemed like months of being bundled up, shivering, trying to stay out of the wind, and most days I was frozen to the core. With the summer will come all the summer activities sitting outside all day with a glass of ice tea, people watching, mowing, and general summerieness.Now that I know all the goings on, I do feel more confident in the upcoming class load. I feel that the lessons I have learned this time around, will have a positive impact on my next semester and that from here on in I will become a model student, if there is such a thing. For now I know and now I have the knowledge to rise above the rest. When people come up to me and ask, “What are you going for” I have found the perfect response “two hour on Monday, three hour on Tuesday”. This to some, many seem snide or cynical but my intent is neither. I love coming up with great responses to good questions, it is said that a man that has all the answers has thought of all the questions and that man is me. People hardly ever trip me up on the street, I relish in the fact that I can have a conversation with anyone, at anytime, and hold my own weight. I have been flustered before, there was this one prank phone call where this girl was talking all dirty on the phone and I lost my composure, only to find out later that my friend were listening in on the other line. I do like the challenge homework, coming to class and being ready to work, ready to “do it”. I just wish I could have gotten more done this session. I am kind of bad with dates, I do not know what today’s is, and this has wrecked havoc on me. I continue to pray that I can just get by this time with out being put on some kind of double secret probation next semester. I seen where you have to get nine credits to be eligible for next year and since my math class is not worth a single credit I am left to wonder if my short coming this year are going to make me fail another class. I do not want to say which class but I feel that I am keeping up and showing that I do want to be here even if my attendance does not exactly concur. For some reason it is the same days that something happens with me getting to school on time. I am going to fail my math class with Mr. Hensley and I did dropped it after the midterm but continue to go to class every day and take notes and do my math lab just so that the next time around I will have a better chance, a chance.Next semester I am going to take another English class one that is more writing then anything because I feel that I an a good writer. I do not think I have ever been told that I am not at least a decent writer. I am proud of the body of writing that I have put out in this English class. I go by the old adage that if you are going to write give them something to read. Not just dribble but real page turning material. I would like to think that ninety percent of the time my papers have the effect on people that they can not put it down, that the reader want to read what I have written, and that at the end they do feel that they have been engaged by my work.I am going to be stuck in the core curriculum again but I do feel that it is need and some thing that we all should do. With that said, I think that kids straight out of high school should not have to take much of the core but people like me whom are older should be required to take what I conceder refresher courses. One thing that I do not see much of a need for personally is an art class being in the core, I can not remember the one that I singed up for but the options that I seen are limited and not every well rounded.

Process Essay Essie #26

The most difficult job I have ever had is when I built an Air Separator in New Johnsonville Tennessee for the Dupont Company. I was there from the summer of 2002 spring of 2002 till the fall of the same year. From then on when someone says, “Tennessee is in the south,” I whole-heartedly agree with him or her, for I have had personal experience with the Tennessee Valley heat epidemic.The town of New Johnsonville is nestled in a valley on The Tennessee River. The smoke stacks from the Titanium Dioxide enrichment plant loom over the city like some lost vestiges of the by-gone industrial era. For those that do not know Titanium Dioxide is the pure color white. It can be found on the ingredient list of everything from Dime Store candy, to paint, to concrete. I had to take a noxious gases training class, a class on planned exits and their procedures, and a contamination and decontamination seminar. Most people would think twice about accepting a job with risks like permanent lung damage, skin melting off, permanent loss of sight, and/or death. The only hope of survival was this little blue sticker that everyone had to have stuck in their hardhats, on the sticker was a list of whistles that let you know if there was a gas leak, a fire, an impending explosion, or the all clear whistle. Every time it would go off all you would see is people taking off their hardhat and referring to this twelve-cent sticker. The whole time I was there we were evacuated from the plant three times and this was no easy task, from our work site to the green zone it was a six or seven minute walk, long enough to smoke a whole cigarette and finish the car coffee. Even with the well paying job and security of the union; the town never grew past a blip on the map. There were more bars then gas stations, no chain restaurants, and a really bad breeding pool. There was this law on the books that bars could not sell hard booze, so and this was the cool part, you could bring an unopened bottle of what ever into the bar and pay one dollar and could drink at your own desecration but you had to buy chaser from the bar, if your into that sort if thing. I believe in flagrant nonsupport. I will not and have not ever tipped a stripper I will tip the bartender, the waitress, the door guy, and the disc jockey, but never a stripper. On a second note I would like to get poison ivy allover my self and show up Washington heavy. I have been in fifty strip club from the Mouse’s Ear in Knoxville to Cheetahs in Atlanta, to this one thirty or so miles from New Johnsonville. At this strip club they had the same policy about B.Y.O.B that the bar had the only difference is that they did not sell beer, so when you walk in with a case of the Lambic under your arm they charge you one dollar for every bottle, that is an extra twenty-four dollars on to of what you paid for the booze.
I would say that this was the worst job I have ever had, not because of the pay or the hours but because of the false-warnings all the time. When, all day long, you think that there is an impending explosion or gas leak it will start to wear on you, after a while. On most days I would daydream that I was anywhere else besides there and every chance that I got to get off the jobsite I would take it. Most people think that with only a half hour lunch break no one would want to spend that downtime just going to the store and back but with impending danger people would. When I look back on my time in New Johnsonville I am still filled with fear and sorrow for the people of that town. Some people will never know what it is like to live fifty miles out in some backwoods community but I do. I think it is worst on the children, I think that most of them just want to run away as much as I did.The propose of work is not to have fun nor is the day-to-day grind going to be enlightening. The challenges you face will be many no matter what section of the work force you will be applying yourself to. So just keep your head up and the ones out of your hand and all of us will be fine.

midst #24

My Semester coming to a close in the midst of the Arctic element is not as much of a nuisance as you would think, nor would my blog assignment seem as paper caught in the clippers commands. I feel like the body of my papers has reflected a positive temperament towards the arts and a nonobscure representation of the assignments. With a real knack for editorials I will continue to search for Grammatical truth and I will not cease to assault my way through my college paper writing days, until the day I can once again write just foe the pleasure of it. To me the wind will blow cold when cease to blow.I have failed my math class and will have to take it over. It is Algebra 97 with Mr. Henesy, Tuesday... Thursday... he has granted me asylum for next year. It is not that I could not do the math, it is that I had the fundamental down, so then I did not keep up with the first month of math class, so then I was lost and with destine I have mutter through it. I am just glad that I found a good math teacher the first time around and that I feel confident that I can pass his same class next year. I am here to stay no matter how many things I have to reapply my self to.With the next sixteen weeks will come my next humanity, my next English, and a science class with a lab, the same math and a block of P.E. and summer school, the first summer school session. For summer school I have found a fishing class that only meets four times over the five weeks and a golf class with the same schedule. Next to the classification there is a dollar sing and a T for travel, meaning that you have to have transportation and a fee for your class or admission.For travel plans I have a trip to Mont. Rushmore with my mother and her four sisters family. What I think I have missed the most is the stars, so over the summer I shall spend many moons under the almighty night sky. There happens to be nothing better than to just get away for a few days, just escape with the ones around you now, and live, no one needing nothing but a good time and lunch, something that if you were to step back and look at it would seem black and white.With all this said, I know that summer break is not going to feel long enough, with not enough loitering, not enough laziness, not no time to lounge. The heat of the day will drain my soul, the northern Michigan Delta mosquitoes will drain away my blood, and with the little red dot devils chiggers, I should feel assured that I will swat away the summer. All the swatters and zappers in the world save me now.

cashflow #23

The lifestyle of anyone will change upon entering a major university. With all the rules and rituals of entering and applying it often leaves people drained emotionally and financially. What may now seem like a sacrifice will turn into just another day, just another assignment. Even after the clouds break there is still one storm looming on the horizon and it is the silent assailant, an assailant that will follow you even after graduation, and it debt.I have been in a rough patch lately. The people that I have grow accustom to have all but disbanded leaving scattered bands of refuges trying to hang on to middleclassieness, trying to cling to a world that is listing. I admire the settled and always try to see the herd and not the stable. I some time think what my life would be like right now if I were married with children. I know that at the instant that I became " Mister and Miss and their Offspring" that I would go blindly in to some factory job just to be able to provide. This would led to having no other choice accept to by groceries off a credit card and pay some inflated rate on everyday purchase, knowing that there was no way to crawl out of debt any time soon.As humans need optimism, so do we need to see the world around us cloudily as we can. If people did not distance themselves from their worries ninety percent of the time, well would all be consumed with grief. I see it every day, if it is some old couple standing outside of the bank, her waving a statement and him standing there slumped, hands still at his side, look straight down at the asphalt. It is easy to spot the credit and debt people and the cash and carry people. One proving ground for this the local Wall-Mart just sit back and take it all in. I look at the world around me as one big sociological experiment. When I look at people I see intent not the person "some people say look at him his shoes are dirty and I would say look him he is carrying a copy of the New England Journal of medicine.I have just poured through the college money that I accepted. I am a smoker and for every day I decide to wake I smoke seven or eight dollars worth of cigarettes, so over the last twelve weeks I have spent at least six hundred and thirty dollars, which is seven times, seven time twelve. Another expense of mine is that I eat really well. I spent upwards of a hundred dollars every time I enter the groceries store and this never bothers me, what does is having a whole fridge full of food and having some one beg me to go out and spent money on some half decent meal, with half decent service. I am the type that would rather sit around and dirty my whole house entertaining then to go out and have to tip some Gaborone all night.All I can offer in the way of help is just to take a step back every once and a while and see what your situation is, where you stand, and if that thing there that you are standing in starts to smell a little bad find a new perspective and maybe the grass will be greener and not taste of waste. Every day we learn lessons and if we do not take them away with us we are sure to repeat them.

Numbers #22

If you ever take the time to pick up a reference book, the one I would choose would be the Time Almanac. The one that I have is a two thousand and three and was given to me for Christmas of two thousand and four. Notice that I said "Christmas" and not " holiday" I do not see how people take a word like Christmas and turn it in to a word that you do not have to capitalize. If you want to protest, protest around some thing that is not a grammatical error.In the Time almanac they have information pertaining to the last years events be them good or be them bad. They also have world information like the total rain fall for countries in Africa and the natural happenings around the world, to major news event. It always stands to be a good source of quotable information although it is old facts that compiled over the last year. Their Editorial office is in Boston Massachusetts on park plaza while their customer service is Attention: Time Almanac PO Box eleven thousand and sixteen Des Monies Iowa fifty-thousand three-hundred and thirty-six. On the First page with all the copyright information and where it says that they are a part of the Learning Network book publisher it goes on to say, " The Time Almanac welcomes comments and suggestion from readers. Although the editors carefully consider each suggestion, because of the volume of correspondence we receive we cannot correspond personally to each writer. The Time Almanac does not rule on bets or wagers. I wonder how many letters they got asking to settle an argument over a horse race of a football game before they added the clause that states that they do not settle wagers or bets.One section that has captivated me is the section on Law Enforcement and Crime. The actually have the breakdown for all the crime that the nation experiences through the year. All this information is broken up into different categories like violent, property, drug, and public-order offenses. The numbers for federal prison inmates are eleven point nine percent of inmates are in for violent crimes, eight point four percent and in for property crimes, nineteen point seven percent are in for public crimes these include immigration, income tax, escape, flight to avoid prosecution, and national security laws. Ninety three point seven percent of the people incarcerated in America are male leaving only six point three percent woman. While the numbers for different races are closer with thirty-three point three percent being white followed closely by blacks that make up forty-six point five percent, Hispanics only make up seventeen percent, while in the other category, that includes but not limited to Asian, Pacific Islanders, Native Americans, Alaska Natives, and other racial groups.The murder rate for America topped out in '99 with 12,658 people dieing from murder. There were more white people murdered that year than black the numbers were six-thousand three hundred and ten for whites and five thousand eight-hundred and fifty five, while the group for others was only three-hundred and sixty-nine that is only two point nine percent. The murder rates are broken down even more and are listed by the category weapons used. In nineteen-ninety-nine the total murder victims was 12,658 with sixty-five point two percent coming from firearms, that is 8,259 victims, knives and cutting instruments totaled 1,667 I am guessing that it includes chainsaws, axes, pruning sheers, swords, and maybe weed eaters. The numbers for blunt objects (clubs, hammers ect.) and Personal weapons ( hands, feet, fists, head butts, ect.) were close with 736 for blunt objects and 855 for personal weapons. The explosive section had lines through it so that means no one in America died from Explosions. The strangulation deaths were 190 followed closely by asphyxiation deaths was 103. Now some would say there is no difference between strangulation and asphyxiation but there is strangulation is that act of forcibly cutting off circulation and air supply by means of hands or some form of a grout. While asphyxiation can be someone holding a pillow over someone face or hold their head under water. Murder rates for deaths from fire was 125 that is right at one percent of the total. Narcotics deaths was only twenty three people that is not a reflection of overdose death but from forcibly making some one to consume a lethal amount of drugs. Last was Other Weapons the numbers for them was 689 and I cannot fathom what those weapons would be since we have touched on every type of weapon imaginable.I should say that because of rounding that the percentages may not equal 100.