Something to think about

"all hope abandon, ye who enter here"
said the sign i read that was hanging above her bed
and the sirens over wailing
but a man cant ignore the signs
you gotta keep a good eye
on the winding road ahead
and my first sin was a young american girl

and i spent time 'neath the tressels
with the punks and the dimestore saints
kept faith and a switchblade tucked beneath my coat
and i ran with dirty angels
slept out in the rain
we were scared and tired and barely 17
and my first sin was the fear that made me old

and i walked down by the shipyards
near the place where i was born
saying "ah maria, if you woulda known me when..."
but she just smiles by the light on the navesink banks
saying "listen baby i know you now"
and she steps into the river
and i just stand by the moon
thinkin' 'bout a ghost i hear at night
and she says your first sin was a lie you told yourself

Surviving College my way

The Real College Survival Guide

            College is quite possibly the most exciting and thrilling event in a young adults life, yet some college students fail to find the fun.  It is easy to drown in schoolwork and become so overloaded with classes and stress that the only thing that you can think about is the slow ticking of the clock leading towards another day, possibly as miserable as the one you are trapped in.  Don’t let this discourage you, there is definitely fun to be had at college, while still getting the better half of your work done, and I will help you out with this little college survival guide; also known as the “Satisfy your parents while still having more fun than them guide”.

            One of the first things that you have to remember while in college is the single undeniable fact that you simply do not have money.  You may think that you have money, but really that is your parents money and by spending it on those jeans at the mall you really aren’t satisfying them are you?  A smart thing to do is budget money, set aside a select amount per week, and then another amount for weekends.  A strong warning to you, do not overspend your week money, and end up dipping into you weekend money; weekend money is essential to your survival.  The amount of money that you can allow yourself to spend during the week may vary quite a bit depending on if you have a job on campus or whether you have a meal plan at the cafeteria.  Bringing us to our next point, cafeterias or meal halls.

            Cafeterias are the enemy; out to steal your meal points and leave you with no food at the end of the semester begging your parents for more points, thus upsetting them and straying away from the whole satisfy your family goal.  While being your enemy, they happen to be also a large part of your survival.  Without food as a college student, tests, stress, and homework becomes much more complicated as you find yourself distracted by a growling stomach.  A good way to conserve points while still eating every meal of a day is to have a stash of breakfast sort of foods in your dorm allowing you to eat in and save your points for one meal a day.

            Weekend money will be your best friend over the next four years, allowing you to go out with friends, entertain a member of the opposite sex of your choice, and even stay in and watch a few movies with some friends.  I have realized that as a college student the amount of movies that you watch will exponentially multiply compared to the amount you had watched in the past, whether or not you have a ton of friends or not.  Another fun thing to do on weekends is go to innocent party’s with a nice game of ping-pong, and sleepovers on the couch.  Remember that explanation for the future, it may come in handy when your parents come to visit and you have ping-pong balls in your dresser.  Finding the right party tends to be a complicated act, balancing your choice between the on campus party which risks your housing, and the off campus party which risks your legs, and also the walk back may risk more serious things.

            Coming into college you may be worried about a lot of things, the most worrying thing possibly being dorm life.  Who your roommate will be, will you even have a dorm to exist in, or will you live off campus and ride your bike onto campus everyday.  If you are a freshman I would definitely suggest the on campus dorms due to the amount of new friends that you will make.  You meet so many different types of people in the dorm and over time you learn to deal with all of these different kinds of people whether they become your friends, or the kid that you avoid.  As far as getting along with your roommate goes, you really don’t have any choice in the matter, the fact is that the two or three of you will get along frankly because you have no choice.  Some roommates become better friends that others, spending every moment together, while others only talk when they are both in the room at the same time.  Never the less, it is very hard to not be friends with your roommate without trying very hard.

            Move-in day is often the peak of excitement in the first couple of weeks of college for many students.  Some students pack like they are moving away for the rest of their lives and some only pack a couple of changes of clothes.  As far as clothes go, I brought all of mine, but it is not necessary, there are a lot of breaks and clothes for different seasons can be sent up at any time of the year.  Some important things to pack that a lot of students don’t think of are as follows: enough posters to cover your wall, a radio capable of annoying your neighbors, a mini- refrigerator if your room mate does not have one, hangers for clothes, tape, scissors, tools such as screwdrivers for taking apart your friends furniture.  This is obviously not everything that someone needs to pack but it is a good start.

            As a freshman straight out of high school one of the more tempting things to do is cut class a couple times a week, a feat much easier accomplished in college.  This is not necessarily a smart idea, once you start cutting as class it is very hard to stop.  The mindset that missing that class isn’t affecting your grade sets in and you end up not going to the class at all.  Contrary to popular belief, not going to a class does in fact hurt your grade quite significantly.  Also one of the largest differences between high school and college is that your paying for your classes, hence its your loss when you miss one. 

            One of the most important things in college is confidence; confidence is the key to making quick friends, being popular, and doing well in class.  The easiest way to make friends is to approach people in the first week of college because everybody is in the same situation as you are and everybody wants friends.  It is good to meet new people fast because as those people gain friends they will introduce you and your friend group will quickly grow.  It is always nice to be able to wave to dozens of friends on your way to every class.  Having confidence will also lead to success in your classes, you will not be scared to ask questions and get those questions answered.

            Overall college should be the most fun years of your life, allowing you to make life-long friends, learn lessons that will follow you for the rest of your life, and become an overall more mature person.  Taking yourself too seriously can be the downfall of you and can only lead to even more stressful situations.  Good luck, and I’ll see you on the other side.

                        

Chapter 30

Chapter 30 talks a lot about using the internet as a source for a paper, something that even at the college level many students struggle to do.  using the internet as a source for papers has become much more common over the years as libraries and books have become much less common throughout the learning society. 

A couple of things that someone should keep in mind when looking for a source online is the ending, where the website originated.  If the source that you are using has a ".com", a ".gov" or a ".edu" and so on.  Some endings can be trusted much more than others can.  A ".gov" website can be trusted fully seeing as it is a government website that is monitored and watched to make sure that the information is truth.  A ".com" website is usually trying to sell you something, seeing as ".com" websites are websites that usually do most of their business online and do require money to stay afloat.

Throughout my years as a student teachers have also mentioned the use of Wikipedia as something that should not be done.  Wikipedia is a website that can be edited by the general public, therefore some believe that it cannot be trusted and some teachers go as far as to not accept Wikiupedia as a valid source.

Quick Access

Chapter 28 dealt with organization for writing a research paper.  It offered a couple of good ideas on the matter I thought, but there are definitely alternate options for starting a paper that are not talked about in this chapter.  Two methods that  particularly liked are the Expert method and the Chaining method.  Both of these allow the writer to insert his or her own opinion into the paper and allows their ideas to flow and get deeper into the subject.  A research paper grows very boring if all it contains is the facts, without any emotion or backing up of the facts.  Another key of chapter 28 is the bit on primary and secondary sources.  As a journalism major, I have to read a lot of papers and it is quite obvious that a lot of writers even ion college don't know what a primary and a secondary source is.  Most writers only include secondary sources and totally forget about the very important primary sources.

Near the end of the chapter, Bias comes up as it should.  It is very hard to find a research paper that does not have a a bias, because papers without bias' are boring and almost pointless to read.  A problem a lot of people have with a bias is that they forget to include the opposite side of the argument and just overwhelm the reader with facts and ideologies supporting the side that they chose

Things that are true to me Monologue

I believe in real. Real people, real places, real things. Friends that care about your personality over the way you look. The beach.  Thoughts of the waves calming as apposed to crashing. I believe in blood, sweat, and tears. Completely putting a gun to somebody's head with 200 meters left of a mile. That's all real to me. The same is true for the opposite; losing, getting beat. That's life. Perfect doesn't exist, as it shouldn't.

 

Pain is real to me. Physical pain, mental pain. Losing a loved one, having to stay in on a Saturday night to work on a project for school, or branding yourself with a fork. None of those things are pleasant, at all. But sometimes getting told what you did wrong is better than a "nice try", pat on the back. Because if all you ever got were just pat's on the back, that wouldn't be life in its entirety.

 

Drugs are real. Getting high, real. Yet people who take drugs are seen as imperfections. And people continue to be judged by their imperfections. Imperfections, flaws, are what make us human. What make us….. us. Make us real.

                        

My real is different than your real. My real is different than the definition of real. The definition being something you can touch. Winning is real, but I've never touched it. The feeling of true satisfaction is real, yet I've never been able to reach out and grab it. Yet I know people, even friends, that I can, in fact, reach out and touch, yet they, to me, still seem superficial in their beliefs and the way they present themselves, fake.

  

Legendary actors, actresses, sports stars, seem perfect to us. The illusion of which they aim to create is simply that, an illusion. Fake, manufactured. Yet to their personal friends, those mythological beings to us, are just another person to go to the movies with for them.

Yes, things you can touch are still considered real to me. I can feel the hot sand. I can feel the cold salt water. But the feeling I get at the beach, with the sand beneath my toes, it's indescribable, more real to me than anything else in 

The first story, "Writing about General Apache" is pretty boring in my mind as far as reflective stories go.  It is hard to see many students, especially my age relating to this and caring enough to read it in the first place.  The author does do a very good job of putting mental pictures in the readers mind to help understand the story, but the events don't have much to do with the average life of a college students, making it hard to relate to.  

The author spends a lot of time explaining what seems like the middle part of the story to me and doesn't spend very much time telling us what happened before and after the teachers time with the student.  I could see the story being interesting if I were a teacher, because i could learn a lot about teaching styles through reading it, but as a freshman college student at Humboldt I think all i may have learned from this is how not to write a reflective piece aimed at teenagers.

In my mind the article "Simplicity" is a little bit funny in the way that it is al about telling us to simplify our writing and get to the point quickly, yet the essay is quite long.  According to what the article is trying to tell us to do, shouldn't the author be able to convey his point in a simple manner using a few paragraphs or even a few sentences?  As a journalism student I appreciate what the writer is trying to say, I just cant say that I agree with how that they choose to say it.  The idea of simplicity and the appearance of the essay contradict each other.

assignments

Mark Muzzini 8/27/09

                                                      Letter of Introduction                                   English 100

 

            My name is Mark Muzzini, and I am your ordinary college freshman, just moved away from home and living on my own for the first time in my young life.  I am hoping that the college experience is going to open a lot of doors for me and allow me to become a better student, as well as a better writer.  When I applied at Humboldt I decided not to declare my major, although all along I knew I wanted to be a writer.  I’m definitely not one of those kids that dreams of being a writer since the day they were born, but ever since I joined my band Inane Attraction, I have been writing songs and developing as a writer in that way.  When I began to write songs my vocabulary expanded immensely and my confidence shot through the roof as far as writing goes.  I began to test into tougher English classes and by senior year I was in the highest English class I could take.  Since applying I have declared as journalism major and am very satisfied with my choice, for now that is.  I’ve never been one to follow plans for my life, everything just happens and I believe it happens for a reason. 

            As a student in high school It would be fair to say that I was some what of a rebel, not caring what writing style I was assigned, but always doing the work on time.  I developed a free form writing style that is all my own that I have relied on all throughout high school.  Breaking away from styles that I am comfortable with and learning to write in different genres and for a broader audience is definitely something I need to work on as a more mature college student.  Another minor flaw I have as a student is the small section of English that is reading.  Whenever I read a book I am always disappointed with the way that the writer may have decided to tell the story that he did, or display the facts in such a peculiar manor.  I end up drifting off thinking about how I may have written that passage and how much better I would be able to understand it had I written it.  Then of coarse by the time I refocus my attention to the jumbled words on the page I am done with the chapter  and realize the only thing I remember is the title of the chapter.