English 110

Dear Future English 110 Student,

It is definitely not difficult to be successful as an English 110 student. It is a very basic, yet helpful class. In order to be successful in these assignments, you must complete them. Follow the directions, complete them on time, and try your best. Above all, if you do nothing else, do not procrastinate. This is probably the most hypocritical piece of information I have ever given, but honestly, it pays off. Over the past couple of weeks, I have began completing assignments ahead of time. Honestly, I have not been stressed at all, my grades have significantly improved, and I get to sleep a decent amount. The most important of all these is that my grades are better of course. One cannot write an A paper when one is "bs"-ing it to get it done by the 11:59 PM deadline. I wish I would have started this trend a bit sooner, because I would not be paying for it now.

You will learn a lot in this class, not necessarily factually, but in a manner of acquiring skills. I really learned how to look at pieces of writing in an analytical way, which can be very helpful in the future. The class is also made more light-hearted and interesting because it is not always pieces of academia that are being analyzed. We watch Southpark episodes, often. Come to class prepared, always do the readings so you can participate in class discussions; you get a lot more out of it that way. All these new skills helped illuminate my process as a writer. I know this class looms as a pointless GEC, but get as much out of it as you can. It is definitely worth it.

Religious Debate to Friendship

During the first week of school, a friend and I were making some rounds around our floor, trying to meet everyone and make some new friends. I made a stop in one of the boys' rooms, and noticed a rosary on a desk. A simple question about what was the actual point of rosaries led to a three hours conversation about Catholicism and Orthodoxy.

Don't get me wrong, this was not an argument at all. It was honestly very refreshing to hear one person's side of the story and be able to tell my own without telling them they are wrong or being told that I am wrong. I told him about how the Catholic church has changed so much and seemingly made up so many things along they way, as well as how the Orthodox church is still the original Christian Church. It was an extremely productive discussion. We even got on the internet and research some of the things we disagreed on. He was definitely listening to everything I was saying and trying to see how it fit in with his beliefs. I also tried to see his points, most of the conversation was him talking about him Catholic beliefs and traditions. It really excited me to discover that there are people out there that can respectfully talk about religion.

The primary points of the conversation consisted of the ways of worship of Catholics, as well as the moral and political beliefs and opinions. He is very conservative. We literally disagree on every single point one could ever disagree on, whether it be the actual church service, what we believe certain religion symbols represents, abortion, gay marriage, basically everything. Yet, our conversation was completely civilized and enlightening.

I wanted him to walk away thinking twice that his religion is the right one, and that his traditions were actually just accumulated over time. I walked away with the knowledge that some Catholics will listen to another perspective.

After the conversation, I respect Catholic views a little more and perhaps understand why people believe them. It was interesting to listen to an educated person talk about how they feel. Not everyone can explain why they feel a certain way. His argument was backed up by a lot of historical information, so that was a large reason why I could listen to his argument. The way he presented his evidence was also very calm and matter-of-factly. He never put down my opinion or told me it was wrong.

I never thought I would start a friendship on a conversation about religion!

Evaluating Evidence

The inspiration for the article I chose to evaluate came from our last class that was spent watching Southpark. I was quite curious as to exactly how crazy this "Catholic League" is, so I did some searching. Periodically, the Catholic League publishes posts on their opinion about certain current events. First of all, the website title is "For Religious and Civil Rights", which automatically is a turn off to anybody that does not love the league. However, I still trudged on to read this article.

The article is criticizes President Obama's choice to make Kevin Jennings the Director of the Office of Safe and Drug Free Schools. The article refers to Jennings as a "former drug user and irresponsible teen counselor" as well as a "Christian basher".

The graphic design of the article is presented as short and concise. This presents the evidence in a snippy, cut-and-dry manner. This shows that the author is disinterested in elaborating on support and either assumes the reader agrees with the subject, or does not care if they do not.

The tone of the article is very angry and narrow. The diction is very harsh and insulting towards the subject. There are many adjectives used, negative ones, to emphasize the point of Obama's poor decision.

Also, according to the article, because Jennings is a member of ACT UP, which is referred to as a "homosexual urban terrorist group", it is completely absurd to put him in a position of being in charge of anything.

Honestly, I did not know that a group of people could physically be this biased in anything. It must take talent. I am pretty impressed that they feel they can call a person a "morally challenged anti-Catholic homosexual" solely based on the fact that he is a member of an activist group. . .

This source basically has no credibility. Very few people could vouch for this site's credibilty because of the absurd way its "evidence" is presented. It resorts to a lot of name-calling and bashing of the man's past. Just because he was a drug-user in his youth, completely makes him too incompetent to hold this position. Wouldn't it make even more sense for a former drug user to be in charge of "Safe and Drug Free Schools"? The man obviously has a lot of experience in the field, and can honestly says he's "been there".

Reading this article, it is almost as if the Catholic wants people to disagree with them, as if they are coaxing people to disagree with them. I am curious as to how they have any followers with how irrational their arguments are presented.

The new Thompson library

The eleventh floor of the William Oxley Thompson Memorial library is probably the most peaceful place to do homework, not to mention an easy place to get distracted by the beautiful scenery outside all the windows. One can really see everything from here. The dichotomy of the atmosphere also makes it an interesting place to be. The place is so standard: tables and chairs and a wood floor, and it is so quiet. At the same time, it's extremely busy and there is a lot going on, but everyone just stays isolated from one another. People are not interacting with each other at all.



The new library just looks incredible from all perspectives. It has the essence of an older building from the outside, but when one walks in, one is surrounded by the most modern, state-of-the-art technology. Even the way the books are organized looks modern.

The entire library is amazing, but the only place that lures me in is the top floor. The rest of the place is almost too big, too easy to get lost in. I thought my public library at home was really big with its two floors. I knew where everything was there and could totally find books on my own. Here, I could never check out a book cause I have no idea where anything is. It is actually pretty daunting.

The Thompson library closed in July 2006 to accommodate much needed renovations. Three years later in August of 2009, the library opened its doors to reveal its new transformation. The original library was built in 1910 by Allen and Collins, from Boston. There was an architecture competition to select who was to design the architecture of the building. After that, the building was renovated three times, including the most recent time.

The intended function of this space is obviously studying, or writing blogposts for English class. A secondary or "hidden" function for me is to zone out and gaze at the campus of this amazing university I am so lucky to attend. I'm sure I'm not the only one who seeks refuge here. I think a place really has to be something special to be able to give someone the feeling of isolation, without actually being alone.

First prompt

In high school, the writing load was very low and we moved at a painstakingly slow pace whenever we did the one research paper we did every year. The whole project generally was due about two months after it was assigned. It had to be an argumentative paper, dealing with our prospective careers or fields of study. As the years went on, we wrote more in depth about the career field, really specifying the exact job we wanted. It was pretty ineffective, seeing as we were high school students and changed what we thought we wanted to do about every two weeks. The papers ended up rarely corresponding with each other. For example, my sophomore research paper was on stem cell research, junior year was being a Spanish professor, and senior year was finally the advantages of being multilingual in international business. Nobody ever read my writing except for my teachers, unless they chose to use my paper as an example for next year's class. The projects were extremely tedious and time consuming for what seemed like absolutely no reason. We spent about two weeks coming up with our thesis statement, and we had a lot of time in class to do research. We had to turn in highlighted copies of our sources with the information we used, as well as turn in note cards with every piece of related information on them. We turned in many rough drafts. This two month process I generally began the night before the final copy was due, and ended up getting the highest grade every time. This is not a good thing, seeing as this is not going to happen in college. I am really looking forward to being challenged as a writer in college.