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.

Movie Title

Healthy Bits: Part 2/2

Greetings:

Here's my workout schedule. I try to focus on a couple body parts per day. Personally, I wake up at 5:00 AM in order to do the workout without distractions.

I don't have weights, so I instead use water bottles or coffee mugs as a substitute when needed.

I also stretch 15-20 minutes before each workout.

Finally, I feel the need to give a shout out to Scooby, a body builder who has a really good website about getting healthy. He's one of the only people I could find who promoted health without pushing a bunch of expensive equipment.

And no, he has no relation to the dog.

Sincerely,

Me.

Monday: Thighs/Abs

Cardio: 20 Minutes

Thighs:

                Ski Sits

                Squats

                Lunges

Abs: Scooby’s 3-Minute Ab Workout

Tuesday

Cardio: 30-45 Minutes

Wednesday: Chest/Triceps
Cardio: None

Triceps/Chest:

                Easy Push-Ups

                Regular Push-Ups

Biceps:

                Bicep Curl

                Hammer Curl

                Overhand Grip Curl

Thursday

Cardio: 30-45 Minutes

Friday: Back/Abs

Cardio: None

Back:

                Bird-Dog

                Front Plank

                Standing Triangle Straddle Bends

Abs: Scooby’s 3-Minute Ab Workout

Saturday: Take a break

Sunday: Shoulders/Calves

Cardio: 0-20 Minutes

Shoulders:

                Presses

                Flies

                Front Raises

Calves:

                Calf Raises

                Inner Calf Raises

                Outer Calf Raises

Healthy Bits: Part 1/2

Greetings:

I’ve been trying to have a healthier lifestyle lately. When this is bought up, people sometimes ask what I’m doing to try to get healthy.

One of the biggest part of getting healthy is nutrition. Here’s some ground rules:

• Research!
• Learn how to read nutrition labels
• The less ingredients the better
• Carbonated drinks, refined breads, mayonnaise and lunch-meat are evil
• Flour, sugar, and high fructose corn syrup are evil

What I found to be especially disturbing is when a product tries to claim that it’s “all natural” and “vitamin enriched” when, in reality, it’s just as unhealthy as a McDonald’s happy meal.

Take vitaminwater, for example. Coca-Cola, the company that created the beverage, is being sued for deceiving customers into thinking that it’s actually healthy. Despite the heavy advertising campaign to the contrary, Coca-Cola's defense was that, to quote, "no consumer could reasonably bemisled into thinking vitaminwater was a healthy beverage." [Citation]

Sure, we lied to you, but it’s not our fault if you actually believed us.

The other big important part of health is exercising. More rules:

• Research!
• Don’t cancel out your workout by eating bad food right after
• Vary your workout to keep it more interesting
• You don’t need a lot of equipment
• Appreciate the little things. Take the stares over the elevator; park at the far end of the parking lot

I’m the type of person who needs a directive to keep up the pace on certain things. Because of this, I developed my own workout plan to help me stay focused on my workout.

I'll upload my workout in my next post.

Sincerely,

Me.


PS: This is useful.

NaNoWriMo 2010

Seasons Greetings:

Yeah, no Kirby blog. Windows can be rather stupid.

Anyway, I wanted to tell you a little bit about about my writing adventure in November.

For those out of the loop, November is National Novel Writing Month, or NaNoWriMo for short. The goal is to write 50,000 words in 30 days. It's pretty intense to say the least.

Surprisingly enough, I wrote a fantasy this time around. In "Rift," earth had been given magic by otherworldly, benevolent beings. However, when these creatures got killed off by another race, earth started going bonkers.

Of course, having rushed it so much, it came out pretty bad. My current plan is to return to it sometime in the future and re-write it as a graphic novel. Not being an artist, I'd have to hire someone to do the art for me.

I didn't finish my novel but I got pretty close. I stopped a week early because I couldn't decide on an ending.

I want to learn from my mistakes before continuing "Rift." Maybe I'll sign up for a creative writing class next semester.

Merry Christmas,



Me.

Teachers Good and Bad: Part 2/2

Greetings:

It's National Novel Writing Month so I've been writing a lot lately. I'll probably tell you something about my story--and, more importantly, my plans for it--in a few weeks.

Speaking of writing, as you may recall, I wrote last week about some of the negative things I've seen teachers do. Here's my promised follow-up; today, I'll shed some light on some of the things that I believe good teachers do best.

 

Memorizing student’s names.

I’d like to thank the teachers that take the extra time to learn our names. It’s the icing on the cake that shows that they truly care.

A singing teacher of mine once got creative with this. Our class had somewhere between 80 to 100 students. He had to assign our seats so that we would be arranged by height and part during our musical performances. I noticed that he used this to his advantage and started calling us by name shortly thereafter.

Awarding Students with something tangible.

One thing that I liked about preschool was those boards where a teacher would put a sticker by our names for good conduct. I also remember Vacation Bible School where I would get candy or a soda for bringing a Bible to class or inviting a new visitor.

Man, those were the days.

Anyway, why did that go away over the years? I guess getting an “A” is good enough nowadays. I still miss the grade school award system.

Controlling the mood of a classroom.

Mr. Glenn, one of the best school teachers that I've met to this day, took a day off of our regular studies just to tell us about his life story. He wanted us to know exactly where he was coming from. From what he told us, it was apparent that he truly cared for us and honestly deserved our respect.

On the other hand, I’ve always liked the teachers that could make me laugh. It’s easy to pay attention to an educator who doesn’t take him or herself too seriously.

Any teacher who can control the mood of a classroom to his or her advantage gets the highest grade in my book.

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.

Movie Music

Greetings:

I was thinking of making a video for this. I don’t have time. Vlogs will have to come later.

Anyway, music is a movie’s best friend. It helps to control the emotion of a scene without being as annoying and forced as a live studio audience.

Because of this, many great movie franchises, such as Star Wars and Indiana Jones, are known just as much for their musical score as they are for their most famous scenes.

I’m in college. One of my classes is “Concert Choir.”

This November, we’re doing an even called “A Night of Music from Film.” We’re going to be celebrating a bunch of movies as well as the music that went along with them.

Unfortunately, I recently found out that my grade partially depends on how many tickets I sell.

Yeah. I don’t like it. It’s like having to pay for my grade.

Even so, it sounds like fun. I’m selling the tickets on eBay, although I won’t be making a personal profit from it.  

CLICK HERE for the eBay.

Sincerely,

Me