I write because...

I write because Ms James makes me.

I write because it’s fun writing about what I want to write about.

I write because I don’t like to write.

I write because the colors on the tree turn orange and red.

I write because the song whistles in the wind.

I write because the river flows.

I write because the feeling after is clear and steady.

I write because I get my feelings out.

I write because in order to survive you need good grammar.

I write because I would rather write a paper then give a speech.

I write because I’m told to.

I write because it’s easier.

Readers Response #7 - Article Response #3 - Dave Berry on College

Dave Berry seems like a hilariously funny guy to talk to, just based on his article he wrote on college. The sarcasm in the article such as: "College is consisted of two things that take about 2,000 hours: 1. Things you will need to know in later life (two hours). 2. Things you will not need to know in later life (1,998 hours)." Dave Berry seems to be the type of guy to make a joke out of everything. But to some circumstance I agree with Dave on his quote about not having to actually learn the things for later use in life because when I grow up I have a goal of being an anesthesiologists. Why do I need to learn how to plot a quadrilateral on a 3-dimensional plan and then transform it over the z axis? Dave states in his article that you should major in classes like English, philosophy, psychology, and sociology. Dave states that, "These are the subjects in which nobody really understands what anybody else is talking about, and which involve virtually no actual facts." When he says this it brings up the thought in my mind that he is actually right... Every other class like Chemistry or Algebra you have to learn steps and facts on how to do it. These subjects involves none of this. If I took anything from this article it would have to be that Dave Berry was a lazy guy in college and was looking for the easy way out. Dave Berry could possibly be my role model. :) 

Reading Response #6 - The Catcher in the Rye

In chapter five Stradlater leaves for his date with a woman named Jane Gallagher. A woman that Holden knows from the past and seems to very protective of Jane. Stradlater asks Holden to write his paper for him because he didn’t have time to write it with his date. Stradlater says simply that the paper had to be able a description of a room or house or something fairly simple. But of course Holden being his own kind of person wrote about a baseball glove that his brother used to write all sorts of quotes, moments, poems, all over it. When Stradlater comes back from his date he immediately reads the paper that he had Holden write for him. He was pissed to see that Holden refused to write what he said to write about and simply says “No wonder your being expelled you can’t even write a simple paper right.”  Stradlater is a mega hypocrite for saying this to Holden: for one Stradlater can’t even write his own paper. Stradlater throws a huge tantrum and rips his notebook up while insulting Holden. This fighting leads to Holden getting bullied to the ground and punched in the nose. Holden bleeding out from his nose leads Stradlater worried that he will get in trouble for hurting Holden; which is ironic because I figured he would have been worried that he actually hurt him not that he would get in trouble for it. I’m very excited to see what happens when Holden actually leaves after winter break.

Drafting Paper - Could video gaming cause people to become more violent?

In my essay I am going to debate if video games are making people more violent.  Most video games nowadays are massively bloody and gory and unfortunately a massive portion of young boys play these games. Could these games cause the young boys to develop a violent adulthood? Also I’m going to talk about the different kinds of video games like PC games, console games, portable electronic games, etc. In my paper I’m going to talk about American events such as Columbine, the incident at the movie theatre and other events and debate if video games were the purpose of these massacres. Talking about video games will be fairly easy for me because I am almost constantly playing something on my phone like angry birds or at home playing Call of Duty.

Reading Response #5 - The Catcher in the Rye

Holden lives in Ossenburg Hall at Pencey Prep and has a roommate named Stradlater; fairly handsome man who is said to be “Good with the ladies.” On the other hand an annoying, pimply fellow by the name of Ackley lives down the hall and bothers Holden as he loves to read alone. Ackley bothers the crap out of Holden the entire third chapter after Holden repeatedly tells him to shut up. For some awkward and weird reason Holden keeps talking about this red hat he has on that has a beak on it. I’m wondering what the hat has to do with any part of this book, or if it’s a metaphor for something else in his life? Close to the end of the third chapter, Stradlater comes into the apartment talking about this girl he met at the football game; her name was Jane Gallagher. Holden apparently knows her from the past as he is eager to go say hello but also scared almost as if he has some secret crush on her. Stradlater is a man with broad shoulders and good hygiene so he doesn’t seem to have trouble with the ladies, this makes Holden very nervous as he gives girls “the time” quite often. “Up home we wear a hat like that to shoot deer in, for Chrissake,” Ackley said. “That’s a deer shooting hat.” “Like hell it is.” I took it off and looked at it. I sort of closed one eye, like I was taking aim at it. “This is a people shooting hat,” I said. “I shoot people in this hat.” Holden says this about this red hat with a beak on it, like I said before, this makes me think like what does the hat actually mean to him? Could  it be a symbol for something in his life that he can’t let go of?

Article Response #1: Is google making us stupid?

Reading about this article really just put me to sleep. I kept finding myself off topic in my mind and having to reread the section due to boredom. The article had some key points in it like when it talks about the patholigists from University of Michigan Medical School and how he states that “I’ve lost the ability to do that. Even a blog post of more than three or four paragraphs is too much to absorb. I skim it.” I found this one of the most interesting parts of the article because I can really connect to this, just reading this article alone I found myself bored and off topic just within the first three or four paragraphs. Also from the article a study at George Mason Univerisity states that "Even the adult mind is very plastic, it  has the ability ro reprogram itself on the fly, altering the way it functions." This is very true in my opinion, the human brain is becoming more and more like a computerized machine and in the future I predict seeing more and more ways to make things easier, for example "Siri."

Mindblown.

Readers Response #4 - Catcher in the Rye

I have started a new book called The Catcher in the Rye. The main character is Holden who tells the story from in a mental institute, which I am really confused about... He goes to Pencey Prep, in the book he talks about how he is failing 4 of his 5 classes and the only one he is passing in is English. Why that matters? I have no clue but I guess he likes English. Holden doesn't apply himself to school at all. He states that he is the fencing teams manager and how he loses all the equipment on a train ride to their match. The headmaster at Pencey Prep later in chapter two asks Holden to drop by his house so they can talk. So when Holden arrives his teacher is laying there in his bed lecturing to Holden about how he needs to play by the rules and how he wont be allowed to come back to this school after the fall term. The teacher tells him "Life is a game, boy. Life is a game that one plays according to the rules." Holden is just basically tuning out everything the teacher is telling him and finally just gets fed up with it and walks out in the middle of the teachers lecture about school. Seems to me like this book I am really going to be able to relate to because we both are teenagers and the problems I foreshadow for him in the future are problems I could relate to.

This is a picture that I am imagining the teacher giving Holden a lecture looks like.