Final Blog Post

Why I deserve an A

            I have always been in higher English classes, even though I do not consider myself a very good writer. I can answer a question in 2000 words if need be. In this class, I have done more than was necessary to achieve a proficient grade. I have been to all except one class, because of personal problems. I have turned in every assignment on or before the due date. I have also done those assignments to the best of my ability. I have participated in class projects, and helped out others in the class when they needed to be helped. I also have been an active participator in class discussion. During debates, I have provided my opinion and backed it up with evidence. When you have asked questions after a reading or a video, I have answered and contributed to the conversation. I have especially done this when people were too shy to talk. Sure, I am not the best writer or thinker. But, in this class I have performed to the best of my ability to not only help myself learn more, but also in order to help others in the class learn.

 It has been fun. 

Week 12 Blog

Food Inc. Is about how much food has turned into being able to get the most food in the cheapest way. Because of all of these people and companies are inhumanely breeding chickens and other animals, we get the food we eat, but at a horrible expense. There is almost literally nothing that is not controversial about this movie. It hits a very hard part of the food industry. It shows how horrible these animals are treated, and how bad it really is. In some chicken farms, they have genetically enhanced the chicken so that it grows to full size in a ridiculously fast amount of time. I think it is something like 2 weeks, but I can't exactly remember. They actually grow so fast that they can't support their own weight when they are full grown. It does not matter too much though, because they will be eaten anyways. That is the part I can't decide on. Yes, we are treating them poorly, but we are also going to end up killing them and eating them anyways. The worst part, I think, is how we use corn in almost everything we eat these days. Because corn is so easy to grow and have lots of, it is put into everything. I don't know too much about this topic though, so I won't go too into it. This is my response, though.

One more after this and I am done. Woot!

Week 11 Blog

My favorite word isn't a real word. It is scrumtrulescent. The comedian Will Ferrell made up the word in a skit he was in on the show Saturday Night Live. Ferrell was doing a skit for "Inside the Actors Studio" and was pretending to be James Lipton. The definition on the website Urban Dictionary is as follows: "adj: so great that any other word employed would be woefully insufficient, and would serve only to limit the sheer magnitude of the greatness intended as a descriptor."

This description is very comicly written and is even funnier when it comes out of the mouth of Will Ferrell. Will Ferrell is a mastermind when it comes to comedy, especially when he was on Saturday Night Live in the late 90's and early 2000's. Another one of his very famous impersonations was when he played Alex Trebek on a mock episode of Jeopardy. Scrumtrulescent is a perfect example of his comic genius and how he can think of these crazy off the wall things that no one else could ever think of. I will often use it as a joke when I am trying to describe something, but I can't. This leads to laughs and reminiscing about the times when he was still on Saturday Night Live. It is a perfect way to break the tension in a conversation.

Research Blog Week 5

So this is the final research paper blog. Our papers were originally supposed to be done today, but because of some complications, they were moved back to next Tuesday. We turned in our rough drafts Tuesday, and should get them back today. This means that I will be able to see what my peers as well as my teacher Ms. Chen have said that I need to change. Hopefully we will also get our annotated bibliographies back today. I'm curious to see what score I received on it. I finished up my rough draft on Sunday night. I ended up having just a little bit under 2.500 words. I think that is okay though, because my arguments were pretty well formed. I know that I forgot to include a picture in my paper. That will be added into my final draft along with all of my revisions.
This will probably be the last paper I have to do for an english class. That is good and bad. I'm not forced to take but one more english class, so I don't have to deal with too much more writing. But I know that if I had more writing classes, I would get better. I just don't have the drive to do any more. Who knows.

Research Paper Week 4

I finally started my rough draft for my research paper on NASA. Unfortunately it is proving to be harder than I thought it would be. This is pretty much the first research paper of this kind that I have ever done. It is hard for me to incorporate quotes from my sources. Because of this, I have to really stop and think when I'm writing my paper. I have to actually grab quotes and form them to what I'm talking about. But once I get used to using the quotes, I feel like it will get easier to write, because it will give me more things to talk about. Since my sources involve everything from the history of NASA, to what will be happening in the future, I will probably end up going in a linear path, so that I can show the progression of the program, and how it has evolved since its start up.

Research Blog Week 3

This is the third weekly update on my research paper. As of now, I have finished my annotated bibliography. With this, I found six sources, and summarized them as well as telling how they would be good for my research paper. I have not started my research paper yet, but I am certainly thinking about how I will go about it. Because I have finished my annotated bibliography, I have all of the sources I need in order to write my paper. My sources are all academic sources with long articles that I can pull many ideas and quotes from. My sources range from giving a historical background of the space program, to why it has declined in the past twenty years, to what the future is looking like. I believe that by explaining all of these things, I can give the argument that the shuttle program was retired at the right time. With a recession and lack of interest in the United States, it just was not desirable to continue. Also, there are a number of private companies that are very close to sending up commercial space ships which will provide astronauts with the ability to get into space and the international space station if needed. The company SpaceX is actually planning on launching a ship in December, and they were going to dock on the International Space Station, but Russia decided that it would not be appropriate. This is because the ship has never been into space, and they do not trust that it will be one hundred percent safe.

Research Paper Week 2

This is another weekly update about our research paper. Our annotated bibliography is actually due tomorrow, so I figured I would just write about that since it is on the same topic. For our annotated bibliography we had to find six sources and summarize them and tell how they would solidify our argument. My topic is about whether it was right for the government to make NASA retire the space shuttle program. At first, I whole heartedly thought that it was not right for them to retire the shuttle program. Their reasoning was that the costs were way too high, the technology was outdated, and there was a lack of interest in the program. I found myself being stubborn and not wanting them to stop the missions. Especially after I went down to Cape Cod for STS-135, the last space shuttle launch, that was in July. No matter how many launches I watched on YouTube, there was no feeling like seeing it with my own eyes. But once I saw the facts and read articles, I reluctantly find myself feeling that it was the right time to retire the program, but not necessarily for the money. Yes, it costs way too much money to do keep doing, but not enough to make a big dent in the budget deficit. I agree that the shuttles were starting to get somewhat outdated and risky. Plus, there are many private companies that are going to start sending commercial spacecraft into space within the next few years. That is all.