Friday, December 9th
The advice I would give to students taking this course in the future is to take it seriously and try your best. I believe that my writing skills did improve over the course of the semester and I feel more confident writing papers for other classes now. I talked to a friend who has a different teacher, who is very hard in grading. He didn't give out one A the whole semester. The highest grade anyone got was a B+. The worst part was that he told the class from the start that it would be basically impossible to get an A. They would only be getting an A- if their paper was absolutely perfect. I wouldn't want to work really hard on a paper knowing I couldn't get an A. I really don't think this is fair, and I'm glad I had a teacher who was fair in grading. I feel like the class should only be twice a week, though. All we need to do is learn about the assignment and then learn what we did wrong after it was graded. We seemed to have too much time without really important stuff to do. I also feel that the comic book stuff was really no help to me at all.

Wednesday, December 7th
Something happened yesterday that made me so mad! I was eating lunch and overheard the guys at the table next to me. One was bragging about how he used to make fun of a kid with autism in his high school class. He went on and on about ways he teased him and made fun of him. He thought it was hilarious and seemed so proud. How can some people be so cruel? I just don't understand it; I could never ever do anything like that. In fact, I'm going to school to become a special education teacher so I can help children with special needs. At home, I love babysitting my 4-year-old neighbor who has Down syndrome. He is the cutest thing. He is one of the happiest, most energetic kids I have ever seen. He has so much love for everyone and gives out hugs all the time. Since he's not the greatest at speaking, he knows a lot of sign language. It blows my mind that a Down syndrome child at the age of 4 could be so smart. When I heard the guy at lunch talking, it made me so mad, not only because it waas cruel, but because I pictured my little neighbor growing up and getting teased by kids like this guy. I hope that never happens.
That is horrible. I used to work with an autistic kid last year and I loved him. He was an amazing artist too. I don't understand how some kids can be so cruel. StarrySkies

Thursday, December 1st
Today the most amazing thing happened. I had a presentation to do in my seminar (Women Authors of Children Books). I absolutely hate public speaking; I get so nervous. I feel so uncomfortable standing up in front of the class talking. During my presentation today, for some reason I felt calm and at ease. I don't know what caused it- maybe because it was only a class of 12 people and they were all girls I had gotten to know a bit, but I was able to read off my note cards with no problem. This presentation was worth 10% of my grade but for some reason I wasn't nervous or scared when I was up there. Beforehand I was quite nervous, but once I got up there and started talking it seemed like no big deal. Kind of strange for someone who dreads public speaking.

Wednesday, November 30th
Christmas day is kind of sad. It means the end of the holiday season... no more music, decorations, or holiday specials on tv. We open presents in the morning and once that is over, it's kind of sad. I love the excitement that builds up to Christmas but once it's over it's depressing. Christmas Eve is the best. It's the peak of the excitement. Of course once Christmas is over you still have New Years to look forward to but that's just not as exciting. It's more of a party holiday than a family one.

Tuesday, November 29th
Are we still supposed to be writing 5 blogs a week? It doesn't seem like everyone is. I have been so busy with final projects and papers, most of the time I forget to. Then I end up having to write a ton of them in one day and I can never think of a good topic to write about. The end of the semester is a stressful time. I have two finals and two final papers to write. I was talking to someone who had 5 finals. I'm so glad I don't have that many; I really think I would have a breakdown. Then another person I was talking to has none! Talk about some luck.

Monday, November 28th

Source:
“The Dove Self-Esteem Fund.” Dove.com. 2004. 10 November 2005
In-Text Citation
"We've created the Dove Self-Esteem Fund as an agent of change to educate and inspire girls on a wider definition of beauty and to make them feel more confident about themselves" (Dove Self-Esteem).

Friday, November 18th
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire is finally out and I'm so excited. I read the book a little over a year ago, so I don't remember everything that happened. This one is actually rated pg-13 so I'm guessing it's going to be scarier than the past ones. I read that the cast is already filming the 5th movie. I'm definitely excited to see that one; the book was one of my favorites. It seems like as each book comes out they get better and better.

Thursday, November 17th
I love classes that don't have finals. I especially love classes that don't have finals or final projects. I only have two finals, one of which isn't comprehensive. I have two final papers to write. For my HDFS class, I don't have a final or final paper. Over Thanksgiving break, I'll have a lot of work to do. I have to write my final for my seminar, which has to be 7 pages long. I also need to start on my final paper for this class. I don't think that one will be hard though because I already have a causal paper written and a lot of research done. I can't wait until Christmas break when I won't have any classes or work to worry about!

Wednesday, November 16th

http://dts.ystoretools.com/1165/images/250x1000/mabebadomoof.jpg∞

This is a picture of Malibu Beach Barbie. It is relevant to my project because I believe that the wrong ideas about beauty are driven into girls head a very young ages. Little girls are given these dolls to play with that have "the perfect bodies". The image they portray is completely unrealistic though. If Barbie were an actually person, she would be 7’2” with measurements of 40-22-36(bust, waist, hips). Her waist would have to be the size of her head. The average woman's measurements are 37-29-40. This is just one example of how society forces girls to believe that they have to be skinny to be beautiful.

Tuesday, November 15th
I hate scheduling! It seems like most people have already scheduled their classes. I don't get to schedule until tonight. So many of the classes that I want are taken already. Something isn't right with the school's system of scheduling. I'm undecided and I have two possible majors in mind. If the intro classes to those majors are full then I'll end up taking a bunch of gen. ed.'s just to fill up certain categories. How is this going to help me decide what major I want?

Monday, November 14th
My roommate and I bought 800 lights to put on our ceiling. We have one of those waffle-type ceilings so we lined each individual square. It looks awesome. It's nice because we don't have those ugly bright lights on that they have in the rooms. I seem to be much happier when I'm in my room now. Even though it isn't even Thanksgiving yet, I've been listening to Christmas music and getting in the spirit. I can't wait. The holidays will be here before we know it.

Friday, November 11th
I hate public speaking. I know that most people do, but it doesn't bother some people as much as it bothers me. Some people are so good at coming up with ideas off the top of their heads and looking comfortable. I'm not one of those people. I guess I'm kind of a shy person- I don't even like to talk at all in class. I worry and fret about it up until it's time for the speech. I love the intense feeling of relief when it's over (Although, that feeling may not come so easily if the speech ends up being horrible).

Thursday, November 10th
Today during my HDFS test a guy dressed up as a cow ran into the lecture hall saying, "Mooo...Mooo!" and left. Needless to day, everyone forgot about their tests for a second to laugh at the cow kid and wonder why in the world he was there. I'm guessing he was a pledge for a frat and this was some task he had to complete. Personally, that is the reason why I would never join the Greek life. What ridiculous things people to do become part of it. I really don't like the whole alcohol hazing. Pledges have to drink extremely large amounts of alcohol to the point where they are not only really messed up but sick. That can be so dangerous, leading to alcohol poisoning or even death. It's not something that I would ever want to participate in. (though the cow stunt was pretty funny)

Wednesday, November 9th
I have some friends who have teachers who don't seem to care about the students' grades. They claim that their class about gaining knowledge and life experience, not grades. They come out and tell the students that the majority of the class will do very poorly ("Oh but don't worry, it's all about the experience."). Don't these teachers realize that grades are actually quite important in college and determining our futures?! How can these kinds of teachers be allowed to teach? I really hope that I don't ever run into one.

Tuesday, November 8th
I love seeing all of the tour groups of prospective students that come here. I'm so glad I'm not at that point any more. The time where you visit schools, apply to them, and anxiously wait to see if you got into the one(s) you wanted. I remember most of my friends found out what schools they got into before me. I was so nervous. The day I got my acceptance letter to Penn State was one of my happiest. I'm very glad out of that stressful stage and actually be here now.

Monday, November 7th
I have to schedule classes on the 15th and I have no idea what to take. Luckily, I was able to get an appointment with my advisor for the 14th. I am undecided. I know I want to be able to work with special needs children, but I'm not sure exactly what I want to do. I'm going to look into special education, an obvious choice. I also heard that speech communications and disorders is a good major. Speech pathologists get to work with special needs kids. I'm not sure what other choices I have, but hopefully my advisor will be able to give me some.

Friday, November 4th
Today is my brother's 12th birthday. In his gym class he collided with another kid and got this huge gash on his forehead. My dad sent me pictures(only my family would take pictures of something like this) and it is so gross. It was so wide and deep he had to get internal and external stitches. He was smiling in all the pictures, though. After getting over the initial pain he seemed to think it was cool. Some birthday present, huh?

Thursday, November 3rd
For psychology, we have to participate in 6 hours of research experiments. I don't mind doing it, but some of the things they have us do are weird. Last time I had to rank how much I liked each letter of the alphabet on a scale of 1-10. I also had to rank how much I like different foods and how much I think each one would make me smarter or perform better academically. I have no idea what they were trying to test and they didn't really explain it in the debriefing sheet.

Wednesday, November 2nd
I can't believe how fast this semester is going by. Finals are going to be here before we know it! It's crazy that I'm almost done with my first semester in college. Soon it will be Thanksgiving and about two weeks after that we go back home for Christmas. I can't wait for the Christmas season. I love the feeling at that time of the year. It will also be nice to be back home with the family for a while.

Tuesday, November 1st
I'm getting quite tired of blogging. Sometimes I just have nothing to write about and end up writing about pointless, stupid topics. I think it would be better if we had to write only 3 blogs per week. When we have a good topic we will write about it, rather than feeling pressured to fulfill our daily blog requirements with silly entries that nobody cares about. We should have taken the opportunity to write less at the beginning of the course when it was offered to us.

Monday, October 31st
Happy Halloween everybody! I loved seeing everybody's costumes this weekend. I was a devil and my boyfriend was a whoopie cushion. I have to say, his definitely attracted the most attention. He even had a fart machine inside his costume. My friend came to my place right before we were about to go out without a costume. We made him a last minute ghost costume out of garbage bags! Not everyone knew what he was, but it was hilarious to see him walking around in garbage bags with eyeholes cut out.

Friday, October 28th
The Simpsons Halloween episodes definitely aren't scary, and I don't think they are meant to be. The writers are just making fun of the things that really scare people. A parody is a literary or artistic work that imitates the characteristic style of an author or a work for comic effect or ridicule. In this case, I don't think they were trying to ridicule the movies they portrayed, such as The Shining, considering that movie was one that really did scare the crap out of people. I think they were just doing it for the classic comic effect that you see in every episode.

Thursday, October 29th
I was in the mood to watch a scary movie and get into the spirit of Halloween tonight, so I watched Dream Catcher. I really had no idea what it was about, except that it was a Stephen King movie. I really liked it until all the stuff about the aliens came in. The ESP and stuff with Dud-its was interesting and all the events that were happening made me wonder and try to figure out what was going on (I love when movies make you do that). I definitely wasn't expecting aliens to come into play. I visualized more of a ghost Indian-Burial ground type of theme because of the title "Dream Catcher". I'm not a big fan of alien movies, but this one was ok because of the interesting storyline. The main reason I liked it though, was because of Dud-its and the boys' characters. The boys were the kind of people that you like to see in the world- the ones that have strong morals and will go very far to help others. They helped and befriended a special-needs child (Dud-its). I loved his character because he was so upbeat and happy and valued something so small, like the boys' friendship, so much. (Sorry that I'm talking about this as if everyone has seen the movie, but it would be too hard to explain the plot.)

Wednesday, October 26th
Yesterday, I found out that my roommate has mono. Well, she only found out for herself yesterday. She's been sick for about two weeks and finally went to the doctor's yesterday, thinking she had strep. They did a blood test and discovered she had mono. I guess she contracted it over a month ago, and it just showed up two weeks ago. It seems to cause your liver and spleen to be inflamed so, she can't exercise, dance, or drink for six weeks!!! She's very tired a lot so she sleeps most of the time. She doesn't have an appetite, so she can't even look forward to meals. I don't know what I would do for six weeks... doing nothing but sleeping would be so boring! (and when she sleeps she gets night sweats so even that is not very relaxing). I live for the weekends... they would be no fun if I was exhausted the whole time and couldn't go out and have fun. I hope I don't get it.

Tuesday, October 25th
Wow... snow before Halloween. How crazy is that? When I woke up this morning, I couldn't believe I saw snow when I looked out the window. Personally, I love the snow. It's so beautiful, especially when it's the fresh powdery kind (not this slushy kind). I especially like going out in the snow at night. It reminds me of sledding down our steep street at night when I was a kid. I figure if it has to be freezing out, it might as well be snowing. Hopefully, two months from today we will also get some more snow (Christmas!!).

Monday, October 24th
I had absolutely no idea what this poem meant, but that is why I think it is considered a poem. You aren't supposed to understand the complete meaning reading it the first time through. True, I could read this as many times as I want and still not understand it, but maybe some poems just aren't meant to be easily understood. The only type of pattern I could decipher (since most poems have some types of patterns whether it is rhyme scheme or beat/stress patterns) is that each odd line has 3 words and each even line has 1. Each even line word also has 2 syllables. Sometimes I think poems are a joke though. People can write down three words and consider it a poem. I'm sure you could have a 3rd grader write down a couple words, have somebody "analyze" it and come up with all these meanings and symbolisms, and call it a masterpiece. This one, for example, seemed to require absolutely no skill or talent to write (after reading it through a few times). I'm sure after discussing it with people who analyze and understand it though, there are plenty of hidden meanings and all that to it. I just don't seem to have the gift for comprehending them.

Thursday, October 20th
Last weekend I went home to visit my family. On the way home my mom told me my 11-year old brother had a surprise for me. As soon as I walked in the door, he grabbed me and took me to the living room. He brought out a new electric guitar and started playing Smoke on the Water and Iron Man. It was so funny...I guess he has a music class right now in school and his teacher taught him the songs on the guitars at school. It sparked an interest and since his birthday is Nov. 4th my parents decided to get him an electric guitar and lessons. I was never very good at music in any way, but he seems to be doing very well. When I go home for Thanksgiving, I expect to hear more than just the same part of the songs over and over (that's all I heard all weekend).

Wednesday, October 19th
I'm looking forward to Halloween. I know it's not a major holiday or anything, but it's one of my favorites. I used to love trick-or-treating when I was a kid (I have a big sweet tooth). I would always dress up as something pretty- a fairy or a princess. I was a bit of a girly girl. This year I'm going to be a devil. I don't like having to go out and spend money on costumes, so I'm going to use part of a dance costume I wore last year. I have so many dance costumes that sit in my closet; Halloween is the one time I get to use them again.

Tuesday, October 18th
I must have missed the day when clubs try to get new members. I thought it would be like a big thing where there are representatives from all the clubs giving you info. about it. Maybe there was, but I just didn't hear about it. Anyway, I think it's too late to sign up for any clubs this semester, and I'm a little disappointed. I really want to join the ballet club (I miss dance so much) but I guess I will have to wait until next semester.

Monday, October 17th
It's almost time to schedule classes for next semester and I still don't know what I want to do. I'm in DUS right now and trying to figure out what I want my major to be. The DUS department keeps sending me these "DUS Navigators" that I'm supposed to be filling out about exploring my interests and stuff. I'm supposed to be on like Navigator 8 and I haven't done any. I know... I probably should be, but they seem so boring I've just been putting them off. A ton of my friends that are in DUS are declaring majors... I wish I was at that point. It's just that figuring out what you want to do for the rest of your life is an important decision. What if I declare a major and then find out it's not what I want to do after it's too late? All the majors I've looked at have positive and negative aspects to them. I guess I have a little while to think about it all though.

Wednesday, October 12th
I think that having the class correct and discuss examples from our own papers is a good teaching tactic. It's not too embarrassing because no one knows whose examples they are but they are easy to follow because we were all familiar with the assignment. A lot of the examples are common mistakes that many people are making. It not only helps the writer with how it should be done, but is useful to most of the class. A conclusion was used as an example from one of my papers and it really helped me because I learned that what I knew previously about writing conclusions was wrong. I was taught that conclusions were just basic summaries of papers and that it was absolutely wrong to bring a new idea up. It was helpful to learn that conclusions should answer, "So What?" and not just restate the main points from your paper. I think many people in the class were unaware of this and benefited from the example.

Thank you for the feedback. I'm really glad to know that you find that useful. - EschaTon

Tuesday, October 11th
I have to admit that yesterday's class really didn't help me at all. I am absolutely horrible with the subject of history. I know we were supposed to research Cambodia (which I did), but a lot of the information didn't stick with me and I understand the general gist of what happened but nothing more. We also connected it to many other historical events (Cold War and Vietnam and all that) that I don't know much about either. I know, it is horrible... I learned most of it in school but when it comes to history, I forget it as soon as I am done being tested on it. I just couldn't follow what was going on because I don't know a lot about the events we were discussing, let alone how they related to Cambodia. I guess it is really my fault for never retaining my history class info though, considering quite a few people in the class were very knowledgeable about the subject and must have benefited from the discussion. It seems as though this causal paper pretty much has to be written on a historical event so talking about one such as Cambodia makes sense. I just wish I knew more about history so I could understand what's going on in the conversation and it would be more valuable to me.


Monday, October 10th

http://www.ppu.org.uk/genocide/g_cambodia1.html∞

Before reading this article, I really had no idea about what went on in Cambodia with the genocide and bombing. I'm not a big history fan, so I'm pretty unknowldegable when it comes to that stuff. The genocide did interest me though. It seemed like something you would read in a book. The communists' goal was to turn the population into nothing more than laborers. They tried to kill all educated people...they shut down all schools, universities, and hospitals. The article said that they even killed people who knew a foreign language or wore glasses. It's absolutely insane that something like this could happen. It disgusts me how some people in this world can be so incredibly hostile towards others and have absolutely no human campassion or regret.

Friday, October 7th
My friend who goes to a small college in PA, Shippensburg, invited me to come up and visit her next weekend. I couldn't bring myself to say yes. Not that I don't want to see her, but I absolutely love Penn State. It just seems like no other college can compare and I don't want to miss a fun weekend here. It's crazy, but I didn't expect that I would love PSU so much. It was definitely one of the best choices I ever made... I just can't even imagine being anywhere else.

Thursday, October 6th
Rain sucks. Why is it that for our biggest game it decides to rain? We've had great weather for all of the other games. The weather is going to be miserable all weekend, friday included, too. That's going to make camping out for all the the kids terrible. Rain or shine though, the game will go on. It may put a damper on some of the pre-game activities but maybe it will actually make the game more memorable.

Wednesday, October 5th
I think that all of this stuff going on for the Ohio State game is so cool. It's great that we have such dedicated fans who are willing to camp out almost a whole week before the game to get good seats. If you haven't taken a trip to "Paternoville" you should check it out some time when you're bored. It's just like a sea of tents taking up the whole area with student-made signs for the football team hanging all over the place. Some of my friends who are camping out said that Damon's even brought food from their restaurant over for them. They even got to meet some of the football players. Having ESPN's College Game Day here on Saturday will add to the excitement. The game against Ohio State will surely be an awesome and unforgettable experience. It's especially exciting to be a Penn State student right now.

Tuesday, October 4th
There's something about posting our papers that bothers me. When we are writing papers on a topic we came up with, someone else could easily take it. If you are one of the firsts to post your paper some lazy person who doesn't want to take the time to come up with their own idea could steal your idea or points from your paper. I got mad when I read someone's paper who chose to compare Hurricane Katrina to the same thing I did. Even if this person had thought of the topic on his or her own, how do I know they didn't read my paper to get ideas? Some of the sentences are almost exact copies of ones in my paper! I understand it could be a completely innocent coincidence, but how do I know? It just presents a flaw in this computerized way of turning things in and giving everybody a chance to read them.


Monday, October 3rd
What a waste of time the campus writing center is. Maybe it was just the particular grad student that helped me, but I was very disappointed in it. After reading her my paper, she said it was very good and had absolutely no corrections or suggestions to make. I had waited 45 minutes and ended up making no changes to my paper, but I was pleased and assumed that my paper must be "A" work. I ended up getting a B+ on it, which I know isn't a bad grade, but a bit of a disappointment when expecting more. I understand that going to the writing center doesn't guarantee an A but based on the grad student's reaction, I was given the idea that my paper didn't need any more work, whatsoever. I believed her because I had spent many many hours working on it... basically an entire day. Maybe some of you had a better experience or a more helpful writing assistant, but my writing center trip wasn't worth the hour of my time it took up.

I'm really sorry to hear that your visit wasn't productive. When you say that you read her your paper, did she not actually look at it? I know, from personal experience, that listening to someone read a paper is incredibly worthless, as a tool for correcting grammar (especially in moving form the B+ to A range). If you go back, make sure the grad student reads the paper. If they aren't doing that, then, yes, I would have to say your analysis of the writing center may be correct. - EschaTon

I am so with you on this one! I went there too and while waiting my 45 minutes I was reading and correcting my paper and writting suggestions that I wanted to ask about. In the end I decided that mine was too long and didn't need a few of the things in it as I felt perhaps I started to go a bit off topic. So when I mentioned that, she said not to take out those parts as she felt they "made my paper unique and interesting" and also they helped my argument. She also told me to add this "genius" comment (or being the lack there of) which was also points taken off the paper. She said it was wonderful and sent me on my merry way! Forget the plus I only managed the B! LOL So I share in your disappointment on that one. SheElff

Wednesday, September 28th
Why do people have to act so stupid when they are drunk? Last Friday I woke up to find my dry erase board missing from my door. I looked around and found that someone ripped it off my door and threw it down the hall, losing the magnets and marker on it. Some of the cardboard actually was ripped off when it was yanked off the door so I now need to buy new sticky things to put it back up. I can't stand when people act more drunk than they really are and just try to do things to get people to laugh. We're not in high school any more; you'd think people would act a little more mature. Sure, almost everybody parties in college but that doesn't mean you have to be rude to others in the process. Another example of this is when guys try to look for fights. The other night, I was with my boyfriend and two guy friends. We passed a group of older guys that started walking right behind us and yelling insults to the guys I was with. They remained behind us for about 15 minutes trying get everyone worked up and pick a fight. Some people need to grow up.

Tuesday, September 27th

How To Make a Strawberry Peach Smoothie (non-dairy version)
1. Put 2 cups of ice in a blender
2. Add 1 1/2 cups of strawberries and 1 cup of peaches (fresh or frozen)
*for variations, add any kind of your favorite fruit
3. Add 1 1/2 cups of your favorite juice
4. Add 1 cup of ginger ale (for the dairy version, replace ginger ale with 1 cup icecream or yogurt)
5. Put top on and blend until smooth
6. Pour into glasses and serve


Monday, September 26th

http://img348.imageshack.us/my.php?image=english8eo.png∞

I chose to draw my own icon in order for it to represent me best. It is a big K, obviously for Katie, with three sections. The biggest middle section is a heart with stick people in it representing family and friends. My family and friends are extremely important to me. They are always there for me. The bottom part is a picture of a dancer because throughout gradeschool and high school, it was a huge part of my life. I believe it's important to have passions and dance is mine. Finally, at the top is PSU because Penn State is a huge part of my life now. Making the decision to go here was one of the best choices I ever made. I figured that these three aspects of my life define me as a person best.


It’s great that you took the time to make your own icon…
squad514


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