English 101 overview

My overview of our English class is very good.  In the first semester it is by far my favorite class and it is not because I like English.  Right away the environment was made comfortable for all of us and we got used to each other which made talking about topics and ideas a lot easier.  I also felt that I became way better at writing in general.  I improved on my writing skill and I also learned how to research topics and ways to go about selecting a topic.  I also have learned what a literary analysis is and how to go about writing that type of paper.  Over all I liked this class a lot and I think it has made me a better student already. Thanks for being an awesome teacher Ryan!

Random Blog

My blog is a random blog today.  The only thing that would be on my mind as of now is the holiday season!! We just got through Thanksgiving break and it was awesome to get to see my relatives that live further away.  Also, now that Thanksgiving is done we are all looking forward to Christmas and the end of semester.  On black friday we went out shopping and saw some of the fun things about that day.  It is always fun to see people flocking all the deals and all the people around shopping for their loved ones and it is always enjoyable and my favorite part of the year.  It has been a fun year so far and I hope it continues but I am getting very anxious for the end of the semester and taking a break and also then have my son born and him being with me and my fiance.  I hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving!

Literacy Analysis

I am analyzing "The Most Dangerous Game" and the question that we got brought to us was, to list details from the story that may recur or if certain objects have significant meanings and other things like that. In the story one of the major recurring themes is when the author frequently mentions how dark it is and the dark settings.  Also, the big thing that I am leaning toward for writing my paper is that often the General tried to act very sophisticated and he seems like her wants to prove he is a very normal and somewhat a person of high rank. Also, you can somewhat compare the two main characters and how Rainsford did not totally respect animals and the General did not treat humans as humans and more as animals.  Another thing I did not understand completely was why would the General, when hunting Rainsford, be right in place to get him but call out to him and go back to his palace.  My final observation would be if the ending instead of going back home why does Rainsford kill the General and sleep in his bed?

Young Goodman Brown

As I read this story you can tell that the author liked to use a lot of things in his story to symbolize things such as the ribbon, the snake cane, and the wife's name Faith.  It was somewhat slow but easy to read and the story did a good job of somewhat telling the story and I like how it goes back and tells about the puritan times and somewhat criticized how people act like they are amazing christians but deep down they may not be better then anybody else.

A Rose For Emily

"A Rose For Emily" was a very interesting story.  I like the way the author wrote it and how he made the story from the towns point of view.  Also, it was a very odd story but it caught your attention so you kept reading because you knew something was going on.  There are many parts of the story that you have to decipher to somewhat understand, such as weather Emily is crazy or if she knows what she is doing and why she keeps the dead body in her bed? In the end the story is interesting and I enjoyed it.

The Most Dangerous Game

The Most Dangerous Game is a short story about two hunters.  One is a big game hung named Rainsford.  The other was once a big game hunter but as the story goes we find out that he hunts humans for game and his name is General Zaroff.  I think that the author tied in the title with the book very well.  The Most Dangerous Game can easily be referring to man being the most dangerous game due to the fact that we are able to reason and think rationally in tough situations. I think not only was the author saying that but also giving you a hint to the story.  He is somewhat trying to say that for Zaroff, Rainsford is the most dangerous game because he has good survival skills and in the end kills Zaroff making Rainsford the most dangerous person or animal out there.

Buffy

On Thursday we watched Buffy the Vampire Slayer.  It was a pretty entertaining show and it actually kept me interested.  I enjoyed the theme of the show and how it was tied into halloween and how people can be whatever they want but it kinda of shows who you really are or want to be.  My favorite character change was the guy going from a wimpy kid to a soldier and really this is what he wants to be and the spell allows him to do that.  Over all I think it was fun and it was a good story.

Favorite Book

This is a tough choice because I have two books that I read in high school that I really enjoyed.  One was "The Grapes of Wrath" and second was "Once a Runner."  Just for memory wise i'm going to talk about "Once a Runner."  This book is about a college runner that has been a good mile runner and ends up getting his shot to run against the best.  His senior year of school though he pulls a prank which gets him kicked out and not allowed to run at the meet that he was been waiting for.  To get past this he has a long time friend that is an olympic runner that allows him to stat at a ranch type house and train for the next year or so.  There big philosophy was "trials of miles, miles of trials."  Finally he gets to his big meet and he has grown very long hair and beard and they enter a fake name.  As the race goes on soon people realize who this guy is that is coming out of no where to have a chance to beat one of the best milers in the world.  Throughout the race he explains how it is going and the feels and thoughts that he has during his race and in the end runners one of the fastest miles in the world.  It is a very attention grabbing book and I like it a lot because I am able to relate to this book with the running and you can also learn good lessons from it.

Knee

For this blog we got told me can write about anything! There for I am going to write about my knee.  The last week or so I have been getting bad pains in my outside knee so I went into a very good athletic trainer to have her look at it back home.  They think I am getting tendentious which isn't horrible because I am able to run with this but is a very annoying injury and if i don't cut back on milage it could get worse.  Thankfully they think we caught it early so we can fix it before it gets out of hand.  So after practice i have to ice and They gave me four stretches that I can do to loosen my I.T band and also strengthen it.  This is something that is important because if I do not allow this to heal up there is a possibility that I may not make the roster if I am not running fast enough times.  So hopefully I can get healed up and going at full speed again soon.

Research Essay review

My topic is about how smoking can affect young children and if it increases there chance to get cancer and if it increases the likely hood of them being a smoker themselves.

Logos for my paper could be that of course it has been proven that second hand smoke and smoking in general is bad for your health.

Pathos would be talking about how young kids have gotten very sick from parents second hand smoke.

Ethos could be citing stats from credible people and sources to show how bad it is.

Research Essay

Topic 1:  Children Exposed to smoking at young age will increase the chance of them being smokers.

Questions
1.  Has there been research done about this?
2.  When can I find informations about this topic?
3. Has anybody done good research on this topic?

Topic 2:  Children exposed to smoking at young age gives them an increased change of cancer.

Questions
1.  Can this be proven?
2.  Where can a find the best informations on this topic?
3.  At what age might smoking affect children the most?

Class Tuesday October 12

In class we had fellow students teach us about semi colons and colons.  It was a new way of teaching a lesson and wasn't to bad.  Also, Mr Adkins had us get in a circle and he would ask us a question and we were to write the first thing that came to our head.  This was an activity to help us start thinking about what we might want to write about.  I felt it was good for me cause you not only start thinking of ideas yourself but then you hear other peoples ideas and it brings up topics that you might not have thought about.

Overview of Composition 101

My overview of composition 101 with Mr. Adkins as a whole has been very good.  It has been a class that has been comfortable and there aren't a lot of people that you need to get to know.  We went through activities in the first few days that allowed you to get to know everybody and this made it a lot easier to talk to everybody else and not be afraid to say your opinions.

Also, Mr. Adkins I feel teaches the class very well.  He has a good relationship with me and I think the rest of the class but he has control over the class also.  He goes over the material and he also thinks of good ways to get information we need to know into our heads.  With our papers he helped a lot with process of thinking of ideas and putting it on paper.

literacy narrative review

Over the last few weeks we have written our literacy narrative and have had it revised.  The majority of my papers revisions were grammar errors but also it has helped me realize to break up my sentences more and to not make things so complex.  I also, learned that I need to let my paper just flow and not to choppy. The process of revising was first by fellow students and then by Mr. Adkins.  Its nice having students revise because they tend to find the small little things in your paper they you don't notice.  Mr. Adkins helped a lot with making the paper smoother and giving me ideas how to break up sentences and how to make it less choppy.

The way I went about writing my paper is by choosing something that helped me focus more and turned my life around in a while.  It is also easier to write about something that is close to your heart and thats why I wrote about getting engaged.  My process was to tell how everything happened.  I started with when we first started dating then when we started talking about getting engaged and whey and finally I told about when and How a proposed.  It was an easy topic to write about and tell what I have learned through it all.

Proposal for Issue Topic

My topic for my issue paper is going to be over use of credit cards.   People lately have been buying things off of credit and in the end they never have the money to pay it back and I feel this is something that needs to be fixed.

Issue Blog

On the Tv show The Colbert Report they us comedy do show their opinion on issues around the world.  One of the issues I discussed was about gays in the army and the policy about don't ask don't tell.  My thoughts about that are that it is ok if people know your gay but if you are don't flaunt it.  I think gays are like anybody else and why should it matter if people know if they are gay or not.  I think what Colbert was trying to joke about was the same thing, that these men are protecting us but they have to hide the truth from everybody because people aren't mature enough to accept it.  I think in the end it is a good thing to make fun of the stuff but it depends what kind of an audience is listening.  Some people hate sarcasm and defend themselves but some people might get kind of embarrassed and start thinking about how stupid it is what they are doing.

Opinions

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/22/opinion/22Sommers.html?ref=opinion

In this article I found in the New York Times it talks about wages and how congress is in progress to make a law about discriminating women and the difference in wages between males and females.  The writer argues several different points about how men often have better degrees and women are more likely to take lower salary but higher benefits.

In my eyes I have to agree with the article and say that what they are doing isn't right.  It seems that women often us there gender as an advantage and try to make everything seem like they aren't equally respected.  They argue that they don't have the same salary but in one of the studies they talk about in the article, women that are single in suburban areas often make more money.  I also agree with the article on how I believe that women often get paid less is due to the fact that they would choose benefits over money because they would rather watch over their family and them selfs and make sure they have what they need.   I don't have a ton of facts but in my eyes I don't think it is write to make a law that says they have to have an equal salary.  Not all men make the same as other men but it has several different factors that come into play.  If you have a better educations you could get paid more, even if you would have more experience and knowledge of the job you are more likely to get hired or paid a better salary.

In my opinion I think they should let the businesses decide their own salary for everybody like they have been and if women think they deserve more they can work harder at what they want to get.  If you put more effort into something your more likely to get a better pay check.

Proposal For Paper

I decided that my topic for my paper will be my engagement that has happened over the summer.   My main idea for the paper is that through everything that happens have start to feel and understand that you have a new responsibility to watch over the one you love.  You feel like if anything happens to them it happens to you too.  Also, for me its the start of being your own person and starting you life as a grown up with new responsibilities and following through something and not getting cold feet.  It starts out with buying you engagement and wedding rings.  You have that new responsibility of choosing out the rings and making sure you make payments on your rings and get them payed off.  Then you move on to having respect for you fiancés family.  I always new that the right thing to do was the be respectful the the family and ask for their blessing and if it was ok if you ask to marry their daughter.  It was nerve racking and you can always plan out what you want to say but in the end it never comes out the way you want but as long as they bless you to and are there to support you it doesn't matter they love you no matter what.  Finally come time to actually purpose.  Thinking of and idea was probably the hardest part for me.  I wanted it to me special of course and involve thing that she loves.  Luckily,  around the time I wanted to purpose, we were going on vacation to New Orleans.  This was perfect for me, due to the fact that Shelby loves beaches and ocean and we were planning one of your days to be on a beach at the Gulf of Mexico.  On the day that we planned we had to drive about two hours to where we wanted to go and by the time we ate and walked around town a little it was getting late so we decided just to walk on the beach for a little while.  This was when I grabbed the ring from my Sister-in-law, she was carrying it in her purse,  and i hide it as Shelby and I walked down the beach.  She started to get suspicious so we stopped and I told her how much I loved her and how we have gone through a lot together and I didn't want to be with anybody else. I knelt down and asked her to marry me, thank goodness she said yes.  The best part was as I stood up there were people on the beach and everybody started cheering and clapping for us and they had no clue who we are but they were happy for us.  I'm not sure how i'm going to write this paper but my ideas for it are that you learn responsibility, sense of love in a why, and strength and courage to do something.

Topic Ideas

For our paper that we have to write I could think of only a few big moments in my life that I could try writing about.  The first one that came to my mind was the most recent in my life and that was when I got engaged.  This is easily the biggest thing that has happened in my life and I am very excited but nervous.  Through this past summer I've learned how to deal with things that aren't expected but just to roll with it and you have to take the good with the bad.  You have some people that look at it and will instantly judge because we are young and they may not think its a good idea.  I've also have learned to be responsible. You have to start making payments on rings and you soon realize that its not just about yourself anymore its about you and your partner and you have to care for the both of you and be there for you significant other.  From brainstorming that is what my first idea came out as.  My next idea was moving to a new town.  I moved the beginning of my 8th grade year.  At first I thought it was going to be the worst thing ever to happen but soon realized that my parents knew way more then I did.  Through this I also learned that a parents love is like no other.  My parents could easily tell I was depressed and not happy but they stayed strong for me and did just about anything they could to make it easier on me.  In the end I now know it was the right and best decision my parents could of made for me.  Now i know, sometime you may not want to listen to your parents but you need to trust people who have been there before and understand their thought process cause in the end the people that love you only want to do the best for you and make it easier on you then it was on them.  My fine idea for our paper would be getting into a car wreck in the middle of winter on the way to Arizona and sleeping in the jail with my family and close family friends.  Theres not a lot to this but the one big thing that came out of it was cherish your memories cause in the end all you do is remember your memories and that what your life is based off of, the memories you make with the ones you love. 

What Defines you?

Hello,  my name is Jacob David Evenson but, everybody calls me Jake. I have gone through many things in my life but what first comes to my mind is family and friends and sports.  My parents are probably close to my best friends and I love them to death and they are the ones who have shaped my life.  They are the ones who have raised me to be a gentleman, respect people and do everything to my fullest.  Also, I have been involved in sports my entire life.  I am an athletic kid but i'm not as athletic as lot of people but I have been told i'm the one that is willing to work harder then anybody else which makes me seem better.  Through sports i've been taught not to give up and to finish anything you start.  For me its hard really to describe myself, i'm a fun joking kid once you get to know me but at first i'm very shy and also hesitant to talk to people or even talk during class. This seem very weird considering I want to teach elementary kids. Well, there are a few facts about myself and I am sure throughout the year in this class you will learn much more about me.  See you all in class!