Blog 4

I'm feeling pretty good right now, I just got a ton of chemistry homework done and I'm feeling much better since my weird illness on Tuesday. I had over 100 degree fever Tuesday night and felt horrible. I am really worried about how I did on the midterm because I was so out of it on Wednesday... Wednesday was just a strange day all around. It was sunny when I left to class at 7:45am and cloudy when we got out at 10am, then I went to my chem class and it was pouring, then I left chem and it was sunny, then I got lunch and it was sunny out, then I needed to go to pysch and it started HAILING, and when I was in class it got sunny again! The weather just kept luring me in to the false sense that I could make it through the day and still go to all my classes (I hate missing class even if I'm sick) but then as soon as I was ready to leave it became miserable weather. I just still haven't gotten a grasp on the whole Davis weather patterns, and who knows if I ever will. I think my best bet at this point is to always have a raincoat, tank-top, jeans, and flip-flops on. Well, I am off to the DC for dinner :)

Reading Response 4

I really like Eduardo Galeano's piece Mirrors. I loved the style he used that so concisely and eloquently asserted his feelings about racism, ethics and morals. I truly liked the word choice he used and his way of summarizing huge, momentous events in history.

The sample essays for our research paper made what is expected of us more clear and showed me different approaches to establishing ideas, using resources and personal stories to create a dynamic essay. Although there were some minor errors in the essays they both were interesting, unique and showed obvious understanding of the topic they were covering. This is my goal for my essays, I would like to see that my writing can transition smoothly and seem focused even with an increased word count (for some reason when I have more words to work with I notice that my essays get a little distracted or hard to follow). I don't know yet what I will want to use as my topic for this essay. I hope that our discussion and work on Wednesday in class will help me figure this out.

The chapter in the Everyday Writer about getting essays started was also really helpful for my outline for the midterm. I hope that my outline will help me in class for my essay.

Blog 3

It was amazingly beautiful out today! I had such a nice relaxing weekend. I went to get fro yo just a little while ago and now I am ordering Chinese food for dinner with some of my floor-mate, cant ask for anything better.
Ok so now for some venting, my roommate who has been so mean to me all day just ate my food and didn't even ask!! haha I actually don't care and am totally kidding.
I'm going to describe three items on my desk directly to my left!
1) My new room mascot, a squishy penguin wearing a firefighter hat named Mark. He is really cool looking and he watches over our room.
2)A bottle of aloe vera gel from the dead sea. I used it today after I spent the day outside in the sun doing my UWP reading.
3)A set of neon, pink plastic vampire teeth from Halloween. I secretly still like to wear them while hanging out in my room. I am actually wearing them right now....
i have about ten different colors of nail polish and i hardly ever paint my nails... this seems like a waste. i also have peach scented hand sanitizer. I have two problems with this; one, i hate using hand sanitizer, two, "scented" is a really weird word to me...

Reading Response 3

Wow. The Twilight readings were truly hard to believe. I knew very little about the Rodney King incident and I certainly had never heard about it from the perspective of individuals who were there. Not only were these excerpts incredible at illustrating different perspectives from that time but they also were very powerful and moving to read. Hearing all these individual's stories made me feel upset and frustrated. Like one of the women talks about, the way that the media struck fear into the white people of that area was unbelievable. People who normally would have trusted each other and lived peacefully together were now suddenly torn apart by rash, untrue stereotypes and generalizations. And the craziest part about this was that nothing had changed for black people or white people. They were all the same people. All anyone wanted at that time was for there to be justice for black people, Mexican people, Korean people. Everyone wanted to just be treated fairly. This happened in my lifetime. I think that is what upsets me the most. This happened 2 hours from where I grew up. How is it that a society as technologically advanced as ours is in so many ways morally and ethically stunted?

Blog 2

Today was so sunny and beautiful. Also, my mom came to visit so it was nice to spend the day catching up with her. I am currently listening to my iTunes and trying to unwind before I have to finish up the rest of my homework for this class and my others.

I was relatively productive today considering that my mom just got in today, but I was a little upset that when we biked over to the barn to check on Red Dee (my horsey) she was limping on her front left leg. I noticed she had what looked like a cut and a bruise so I am assuming she got kicked by another horse out in the pasture. I hate when she is limping, I feel so bad for her. And also, Tuesdays I have no classes so it's the best day for me to go down and exercise her so that was a bit of a bummer. I am just happy it was a beautiful day today and it is hard to be upset very long on nice days like this.

Anyway, this was a nice little blogging session I would say. I should probably get back to studying, after I have some thin mints with cold milk first :)

Reading Response 2

I loved the "Big Man on Campus" article. It truly summed up the most frustrating parts of the tuition increases for me. The way Yudoff idolizes himself and sees no fault with the way he operates his "business" and the way he feels no need to explain and defend his decisions are all just too much for me to sit and accept. It is easy to feel helpless within such a huge system and Yudoff knows this. He can say nearly anything with little repercussion.

The student essays I found extremely interesting as well. The first essay truly did shock me with his/her very effective examples of just exactly how much the tuition has gone up and its toll on families from all social classes. It used to be that any student who wanted an education could pursue one with very little dependency on their parents. At 200-300 hrs per year to cover tuition costs it truly is completely reasonable to expect a part time school year job and even a full time summer job could cover these costs easily. The third essay, however, also posed very significant points in my opinion as well. The author made some very strong points in their argument and I must say I agreed with their logic with much of what they were saying.

Reading Response 1

While reading the many articles about the transformation of our public universities it is difficult to not have a strong opinion about the exploitation of the students and the misleading facts about where our tuition money is going. Our universities are more importantly a profit gaining organization than an educational facility. The UC schools, under Mark Yudoff, have become primarily an “every-man-for-himself,” profit-focused system that does not allow for students the option to receive the best possible education at the most affordable cost. Instead, students are paying tuition more and more like private school but having fewer resources, small classes and financial aid assistance. My first instinct when hearing about the fee increases was to ask “where is this money going?” If myself and 20,000 other students are paying close to $4,000 a quarter why don’t our professors deserve to be paid competitive salaries to establish a better qualified teaching staff? Why shouldn’t every student be guaranteed that the classes they need will be available for them and not necessarily in 500 person lecture halls? And why shouldn’t there be less concern about turning a profit and more concern over turning out an enthusiastic, well-prepared and competitive work force? When I read about how much of our money is being gambled away in the risky market investments and unnecessary construction projects it is hard to not feel used. It should be the cost of tuition is at its bare minimum that would allow any potential qualified and interested student have the option of receiving a four-year degree.