School and Everything

Greetings:

You know, I haven’t been updating as much as I like. It used to be one week, then it became every other week, now it’s just every so often.

I haven’t completely abandoned this blog, not yet. I just haven’t figured out how to balance my school, church and personal life evenly.

Balance is important. It’s something that I’ve been struggling with, in ways that I haven’t truly expressed to anybody. I wish sometimes I could just write it out...

Sincerely,

Me

Clarion Evaluation

Greetings:

I have a school assignment. I have until Tuesday to finish this, so I'm still going to work on it a bit.

Sincerely,


Me

Type a one page, double-space critical thinking assessment of the Clarion newspaper of Wednesday, February 23, 2011. On a grading scale of 0-10 (ten being the highest) what score would you give it and why? Please give specific examples to justify your rating. Give page numbers. Cite headlines and by-lines to identify the good, the bad, the beautiful and the ugly in this first edition. Please keep in mind that the paper is produced by students like you who are learning about journalism. What stories would you like to read in your student newspaper this semester?

The February 23, 2011 edition of the Clarion Newspaper comes across as mostly average. If I had to give it only one criticism, it would be the fact that, for every really good article, there seems to be another written very poorly.

For example, “Up the Per Unit Fee, Save the State,” an editorial by Jennifer Young on Page 23, is written exceptionally well. The article argued that we should favorably accept “Gov. Jerry Brown’s budget proposal for a $10 hike in the per unit fee for California public community college.”

Young does a good job explaining that community college students in California pay a lot less for units than those in surrounding states and that the money would help the state budget in the long run. The point is driven home by the illustration of the state unit fees accompanying the article.

On the other hand, Israel Mejia gave a lackluster job when it came to the Page 9 entertainment article, “Grammys Bring New Era with Old Friends.” Grammatically incorrect phrases such as, “A tribute to Aretha Franklin was very nice done by Christina Aguilera” and sentence fragments like, “The outfits’ message being that of equality” give the impression that no proof checking was done.

There were also many instances where a little more creativity could have gone a long way. For example, on page 13, the three-part “Best of Instant Movie Rentals” compared Redbox, Netflix and Video On Demand. Rather than merely showing the companies’ logos, a chart could have been made to summarize the information in the article.

I particularly enjoyed the articles on the revolution in the Middle East and North Africa. Perhaps more world news could be covered by the Clarion in the future.

That being said, I give the newspaper a seven out of ten. It was alright, although there was plenty of room for improvement.

Los Angeles Job Corps

Greetings:

In 2008, I was having trouble raising money for my upcoming trip to Japan. During that time, I was searching all around for a job.

While harvesting job applications at the local City Hall, I was surprised to have accidently picked up an informational brochure for an organization called Job Corps. To quote their website, they described themselves as “a free education and training program that helps young people learn a career, earn a high school diploma or GED, and find and keep a good job.”

It sounded too good to be true. I was extremely surprised to find out that not only was it free, but that the students actually get paid to attend.

Unfortunately, nobody warned me that the free education came at a price; namely, it was cheap and, at times, poorly executed.

You see, Job Corps is wonderful in concept. It’s just that it feels like the majority of the staff, especially those in charge, is more concerned with appearing good than actually being good at what it’s supposed to do.

For example, at one point, Job Corps decided to show that they needed to be more green. One of my classes required that all of the students should write essays on ways to show how we would reduce our carbon footprint.

In my personal experience, I was told to edit and reprint off my essay maybe three or four times. Assuming that my peers (around 40 in number) went through that same process and that each essay was two pages long, that would be at least 240 pieces of paper printed off.

I don’t think the paper, ink, and electricity used on that essay was ever counted toward our grade or schooling progress. If I remember correctly, it was forgotten for good the next week.

As well, there was an environmental appreciation day at the end of the month. It was pretty fun and I personally enjoyed the popcorn. Despite this, I couldn’t help but laugh at the fact that they used so many Styrofoam cups and plates and didn’t even have one recycle bin available to toss our napkins in.

To quote one movie I’ve been meaning to watch one of these days, “The appearance of law must be upheld, especially when it's being broken.” (Gangs of New York, 2002)

Mind you, I’m not meaning to sound like a whiner. I was a good student and learned quite the bit of from their tutoring. Most notably, I now know how to actually write a resume.

However, I would only suggest the program to those who are on their last leg and can take a lot of bureaucracy crap.

Sincerely,

Me

Movie Title

Compost Happens

Greetings:

Due to forces beyond my control, I will be unable to blog for the rest of the month. I apologize for this in advanced.

That being said, I already have the next couple of blogs planned out:

• Humor found in the Bible
• Kirby's Epic Yarn Vs the rest of the franchise (an analysis, not a review)
• What did I do for NaNoWriMo?

Sincerely,

Me.

Teachers Good and Bad: Part 1/2

Happy Halloween:

Before I get started on the real post, I’d like to briefly warn you of the dangers of FireSheep. Rather, I’ll have someone else do it for me. Click anywhere on this paragraph for more information.

Also, next Sunday is the end of Daylights Savings Time. Time falls back an hour. Congrats on getting the extra hour of sleep, everybody.

Finally, tomorrow is the first day of NaNoWriMo. I… don’t know if I’m going to do it or not. I’ll give you more details this November if I do this. Again, click on this paragraph if you don’t know what I’m talking about.

Anyway, I had to drop a class a few days ago. It was a late-start online class history class. I was looking forward to it, too, since I feel I don’t know as much about the topic as I should.

There were a number of factors that worked into why I dropped the class, but the biggest thing was how poorly the first assignment was written.

I don’t want to get too much into complaining about it, especially since I only had the class for a half-week before I opted out. It just felt like the teacher didn’t prepare his lesson on time. There were multiple versions of the same lesson and some contradictions between the first assignment and the syllabus. It was very confusing.

That being said, it gave me the idea to write about teachers this time around. Specifically, I want to go on a little bit about things that they do that I find notable—both good and bad.

Seeing that I want to finish this before the night is out, I’m going to divide this post in half. Today will be about the bad; next week will be the good.

Humiliating Students.

There is a time and place for everything. Sometimes, I’ll admit, it’s actually appropriate to point out a specific student is nodding off during class and whatnot.

However, there’s a fine line where it goes from being a reasonable punishment to being needlessly nasty. 

For example, I once saw a student being called out of the lunch line because she wasn’t conforming to the proper dress code. That was reasonable, I guess, but then the supervisor started derailing her in front of everyone. 

By the time I was called out of line right to stand right next to her to be shown as an example of someone who was dressed properly... Well, let’s just say that I felt the point was already made long before.

Mind you, this was a school official, not a teacher. However, I’ve seen similar things done in the classroom, too.

Teachers: You can punish us, but just don’t take revenge on us. It's unprofessional and petty.

Lying to Students.

Oy vey, this is a big one. Why do some teachers feel that lying to their students is the only way to keep them motivated?

During my first week at Job Corps, my class was told by a teacher that we’d get in “serious trouble” if we didn’t complete two essays by the end of the week.

I was busy at that time and was only able to finish one of the two. It was a month later when I realized that I hadn't received any punishment outside of a harsh look from the teacher.

It makes me wonder how many former grade school students are unable to find work nowadays because pulling Susana’s hair went on their “Permanent Record.”

Not Researching.

This is similar to the last one except it’s caused by laziness. As my dad sometimes says, “If it ain't on the page, it ain't on the stage.” Don't teach us students things that you aren't sure are true.

Say what you will about Wikipedia, but I like the website's policy when it comes to citations. Every word is supposed to be linked to a refutable source and phrases such as, “many scientists think…” are typically banned as ‘weasel words.’

I was very young at the time, but I remember a Sunday School teacher who claimed that it was a sin to get angry. One student mentioned reasonable instances where he would get angry; someone beating him up, someone shooting his dad, or some jerk busting down a bathroom door while he was on the toilet. “Nope,” the teacher said, “Jesus was never angry so we should never be angry.”

The following passage rang through my mind:

"12 And Jesus went into the temple of God, and cast out all them that sold and bought in the temple, and overthrew the tables of the moneychangers, and the seats of them that sold doves,  

13 And said unto them, It is written, My house shall be called the house of prayer; but ye have made it a den of thieves." 

Matthew 21:12-13

Even as young as I was, I knew never to go to that church again. 

Sincerely,

Me.

Belated Follow Up

Greetings:


I forgot that I had this blog until recently. I hope to post regularly, but that will involve me generating ideas quick enough to not forget this blog's existence.

I'm in college, now. I want to find someone to carpool with next month and beyond.

Salutations,

Me