Critical Thinking, News item

Recently a week ago I was sitting down eating breakfast when a breaking story came on t.v. A high school girl had gone to her homecoming dance and that night changed her life forever. Apparently she was in her dance and her friend suggested they would go outside and hang out with some guys. They started drinking and ended up getting really drunk. They said in the news that she was raped by about ten teenagers while she was unconscious. While the girl was being raped (identity withheld) the other men where taking pictures and recording video of the whole incident. The cops arrived too late and she was put in the hospital in emergency. She is stable but she was furiously beat and raped by several men. At the time she might have that it was cool to go outside and start drinking with a bunch of boys. The reality was that its dangerous to drink period and more so with a crowd of ten men who will most likely not take care of a young girl intoxicated. I'm sure the girl had no idea that leaving her dance and drinking would create this amount of chaos in her life. The sad reality though is that young teens are at risk of many things and we should never put ourselves in a dangerous position.

Self Evaluation

I wasn't very satisfied with the grade that I recieved. I feel that I work hard in everything that I do so I expect to get a good grade. I do know that I need more help in my writting, and thats probably what got me the grade that I recieved.From the responses that I recieved I feel that I paraphrase well but I don't organize my thoughts well in the summary. I still have the problem of writting the way that I speak and I need to change that. For the next assignment I'm going to meet with Susie so that she explains in greater depth the areas that I'm having trouble in. I want her to help me and break down my writting. The comments were really good and and I see where I'm messing up.

Most Valuable Technique Ch. 8

Chapter eight talks about the three different R's that can help a student retain information. I think if we apply those three R's to our studying habits, no matter what the subject is in school, it can help a lot. A method that helps me a lot to remember information I'm learning would be talking about it with another person or relating it to myself. Talking about it with another person helps me retain information better because I put it in a format of a conversation or little story. Words I might say later remind me of what the conversation was all about. When I relate information to me, its easier to keep it in my brain because its natural for me to remember because it has to do with me. Everyone is interested in themselves one way or another so its easy to remember. I also have a tendency of cramming a lot of information into one day because I have "homework days" where I get all my work done. In those days I get a lot done so its only natural for me to cram a lot of information at once. That's is a tendency I have to try and stop, and hopefully find another method that is more helpful and convenient for my learning.

Discussing Main Point and Meaning Blog

1. The survey that Libby conducted with college students didn't necessarily reveal that the word "Feminist" was a dirty bad word, but it did reveal that most people had a negative outlook on the word. Others didn't really care about the subject or the meaning. I know this because in her essay she tells us what the results of her survey came up as.

2. Libby says that most people don't identify themselves as feminists because "feminists" are viewed as "man haters" in most movies and the media. That definitely is viewed as negative to a lot of the public.

3. Libby thinks most people should identify themselves as feminists because feminists means simply the right to a choice, for both men and women.

Puente Conference

My thoughts weren't all that exciting going to the Puente Conference this Saturday. When we finally went inside the room and I saw so many Puente classes and everyone seemed to have a lot of energy and pride in their school. I started getting pumped up as well as all my friends did. We had a good breakfast and I enjoyed meeting new people and recieving tips on college information thats very valuable right now. I would say that the workshops were also informative and the people were really nice. During the tour we got familiar with the campus in general. I learned that psychology was one of the top majors in Sacramento State, it was really interesting to me considering that I want to major n psychology. Everyone was really nice and accomadating. I also felt that during this field trip I bonded way more with my Puente class. I talked to more of my classmates and we all shared the same experience that afternoon. I wish we could of stayed for the performances but I did understand that it would of cost a lot more to stay an extra hour. I was just happy with the simple fact that we all got to bond more, even though we all had to show up so early. Videotaping the afternoon too was very smart of you Voltaire because those are the memories we can see and share later. Thank you Voltaire and Susie for taking us to the conference I had a lot of fun and I hope we do a lot more trips like these so that we bond a lot more.

Anzaldua Blog Response #2

Anzaldua's article is very different from any other essay I've read because She makes one point but pretty much goes off into other points and examples as if she was in a conversation. She makes one point that leads to another and another and then some more; that's why it doesn't make the essay seem traditional or formal. This essay is academic because she she states what she is saying very clearly and she uses really good examples of her personal life and how she grew up. On the other hand it seems anti academic because she wrote her essay very differently. Its very "flowy" rather than "standard this and this" her examples are a little over everywhere so it makes the essay seem messy. I think Anzaldua writes this way because just like most Latinas we like to make everything interesting and add flavor to whatever were doing. She could of wrote it the persuasive way just like any other essay but that's not how she grew up. I think she wanted to evoke her roots and language and style to this essay and make it hers not correct English. I also think that shes trying to accomplish letting the reader see who she is and where she comes from, and if the reader is Latino then he/she can clearly relate to what shes talking about. "So, if you want to really hurt me, talk badly about my language" throughout her text she speaks about language and how much it means to her, so what i think her essay really comes down to is that nothing will hurt her more than some one talking about her language. Language is who she is.

Anzaldua Blog Response

Dear Anzaldua,

After reading "How to Tame a Wild Tongue" I realized that a lot of the Chicana, Latina, and Mexican language is very different from each other. There is this little secret competition just to see who's more of what. I see it all over the school but its one of those things where people know it but wont say anything official of it. The slang that you added in this article also brought a lot of memories of me growing up. I started to smile and even laugh when you mentioned that Spanish speakers often leave out certain consonants when they appear between vowels.The worst word for me would definitely be "puchando" I'm not sure where I even developed that word but I used to say it as if that was the correct word to tell someone to stop pushing me. Until one day my friend corrected me and said its "empujando" not puchando; I was a bit embarrassed. Another word that I grew up hearing and saying was "tennis" for my shoes. My mother would always say "alsa tus tennis" to us, most Mexicans think of shoes, but that's just a lingo that Mexicans invented. Its not the actual word for shoes; zapatos. My shoes weren't tennis shoes so I don't know how that word came about. Another famous one I can think of is "chocomil" for hot chocolate. My family says that, but when you really think about it whats chocomil? This article took me back to memory lane when I spoke different Spanish growing back. It took me back to my roots and my family. Thank you Anzaldua for writing an article that relates to so many of us.