Volunteering (They Say I Say Activity)

              Volunteering is one of the best activities to get into during your spare time. By volunteering, you are able to devote time and effort to a cause that is much larger than your own, and you have the ability to touch the lives of tens, hundreds, and even thousands of people. That is a big deal. That is what makes the spirit of volunteering so appealing to many people from all walks of life. The spirit of volunteering is alive in everyone, rich, poor, white, or black, we are all human beings sand we all have the capacity to care for one another through the act of volunteering. The three articles written by the editors of StarTribune.com, The Christian Science Monitor, and author Dave Eggers, all emphasize the importance of volunteering.

                  In the articles, the three authors all make a common argument, that is volunteering is beneficial to the learning experiences for students. In the article concerning volunteering by the Christian Science Monitor, they make the argument that volunteering is an effective way to decrease the student dropout rate in schools. In Dave Eggers article, Serve or Fail, Eggers explains why he would like to see colleges and universities impose a “serve or fail” graduation requirement, making students volunteer their time to serve their communities in order to receive their degree. In the StarTribune’s article, they claim that volunteering is an excellent way for students to learn valuable experiences outside the classroom as well as allowing students to see the importance of community and helping others.

            These three articles do a good job at highlighting the importance of volunteering. For the most part, I agree with most of the authors, that volunteering is an important experience that every person should go through at least one time in their life. However, there are some points in the articles I do not agree with; starting with the Christian Science Monitor’s argument that volunteering can reduce dropout rates. In the article, the editorial board gave anecdotal evidence about the effectiveness of volunteering in terms of the dropout rate. In the fourth to last paragraph on the first page of the article, the editorial board also gave a statistic about Fowler Unified School district achieving a 97 percent attendance rate after the institution of the service learning programs in the district, to reinforce their argument. The problem with this article is that it only covers one school district. To test the true effectiveness of volunteer service on a school’s dropout rate, other schools across the nation need to be tested as well. In addition, another possible cause for the high attendance rate is the lack of delinquents in the class. Second, Dave Eggers article, Serve or Fail, Eggers would like to make volunteering a mandatory college graduation requirement for all students. I think in the ideal world, where time isn’t an issue, and motivation among the student populace is in abundance, this requirement would make logical sense; help the community in exchange for a degree. But this is the real world, and in the real world, there are deadlines to meet and a host of classes to attend. The average college student’s schedule is usually jammed packed with school work, studying, readings, class attendance, and on top of that, a good deal of students, including myself, have a paying job and a boss to answer to after class is finished. There is simply not enough time for students to volunteer their services. Finally, in regards to the StarTribune article, I wholeheartedly agree with all the points that the author or authors are trying to make. I simply do not have any criticism for this article.

             Volunteering is a good way to spend your free time, if you have it, and I can recommend to anyone who hasn’t yet, that volunteering will teach you things about your community that you haven’t seen before. This is coming from a former Henry Ford Health Systems volunteer, who spent nine months working alongside an expert hospital staff. These three authors make excellent points for why volunteering is important, be it by helping the community, decreasing dropout rates, or making college more useful by making volunteering part of the curriculum. Though I have some disagreements with some of the points made by the authors of the articles, I think that these articles overall make good points for volunteering. Once again, to those who havent’ volunteered yet, get out there and help your community. 

Message from my Past Self

October 12, 2006

Dear Christian,

This letter is from your past. Remember that car accident you got into months ago? Well, I was thinking about it, and I replayed the events that led up to that incident, and I came to the realization that this whole thing could have been averted. So I have prepared this list so that stuff like this doesn't happen again.

The most important way to prevent yourself from getting into a car accident is by simply paying attention. Inattention and a wandering mind is the surest way to an automobile accident. A couple of seconds of distraction can be a couple of seconds to getting your car wrecked. So I cannot stress this tip enough. Always pay attention whenever you are out on the road.

The next most important tip to safe driving is to always exercise caution. Your failure to exercise caution is one of the main contributing factors of your accident. Before you make a move in the drivers seat, always scrutinize your action and think twice.

Another important tip, but for the most part common sense, is to always turn on your signal light when you turn. Again, another contributing factor in your accident. If you don’t turn on your signal light, then how will other drivers yield?

The last and final tip on how to avoid a car accident is by always checking your blind spots. Many times there will be another driver along side you and you won't realize them until its too late. So check your Car's blind spots often, and that should avoid a collision.

Take these tips on drivers safety seriously. They may be common sense lessons from driver's training, but it is very important to remember and abide by them at all times. I will see you in the future!

Sincerely,

My past self

Mini Pop Culture Analysis

Yu-Gi-Oh: The Cultural Fad

              Many years ago in a place called Schuchard Elementary, there was a craze. A craze so huge, that pretty much the entire world was obsessed with it. That craze was Yu-Gi-Oh. Yu-Gi-Oh was everything when I was a student at Schuchard. Everyone, boys and girls, absolutely had to have a deck of Yu-Gi-Oh cards. People traded them and “dueled” with them. They were always the topic of conversation at my school. I also remembered fellow classmates going crazy for a piece of Exodia, a group of cards that were rare, and anyone who possessed all five of those cards, automatically wins the Yu-Gi-Oh card duel. This fad pretty soon thereafter, seem to have the entire world enthralled. Every where I looked, stores were selling Yu-Gi-Oh cards, Yu-Gi-Oh themed books, clothing, and toys, just flew off the shelf, and malls were hosting tournaments catering to the huge crowd of Yu-Gi-Oh “duelists”. This card game even spawned a TV show on WB 20 (now My TV 20). It took years for this fad to die down. By the time I reached Junior High, everyone seemed to have lost interest in their prized Yu-Gi-Oh cards, and forgot the franchise altogether. It seemed to me that the Yu-Gi-Oh craze gained an immense amount of popularity overnight, and then gradually, it dies. The things that make something like Yu-Gi-Oh, an obscure card game into a world phenomenon, raises a huge amount of curiosity and intrigue.

            The beginnings of Yu-Gi-Oh's popularity is somewhat of a mystery. From what I can recall from my childhood memories, a fellow classmate brought in a deck of Yu-Gi-Oh cards, and soon enough, it spread through the school, and everyone had them. What forced me to conform to this fad was that my friends, who had their decks before I did, convinced me through peer pressure to buy a starter deck form the local store. So, not wanting to be left out, I persuaded my mom to buy me a pack. From there on out, I was hooked on Yu-Gi-Oh cards. The most obvious and logical reason for the start of the phenomenon that is Yu-Gi-Oh, is of course peer pressure. The trading card game and the television show were both targeted at young elementary school kids. So when one kid had them, the others had to follow suit, all wanting to become a part of the “in crowd” and essentially conform to the society of the classroom.

          The next culprit to blame for the rise of this fad, is the mass media. Back when Yu-Gi-Oh was poplular say, in the early 2000s, Yu-Gi-Oh advertisements and product tie-ins were everywhere. First came the TV show that told a story to it's young viewers about the boy who is the descendant of an Egyptian Pharaoh, and is entered into a dueling tournament in which he plays for a cash prize, but then through a series of plot twists, is now in a card battle to save the lives of his friends and family. Then following the cartoon came the numerous advertisements for Fruit by the Foot fruit snacks, with its Yu-Gi-Oh shaped pieces, and not to mention the adertisements for the Yu-Gi-Oh toy line, and the Mcdonalds commercials that promised kids that if they were to buy a kids meal, they would get an exclusive Yu-Gi-Oh trading card, which I could never get my hands on as a kid, as no matter which McDonalds I went to, they were always sold out.

           The rise of Yu-Gi-Oh would be best described as quick and unexpected. A relatively unknown Japanese trading card game, gained worldwide popularity overnight. The effects of peer pressure on the part of it's intended target audience, little kids, and it's aggressive media campaign both helped to launch the Yu-Gi-Oh brand into the social spotlight. Though, its cultural impact is nonexistent today, years ago, it had a significant impact on our social lives.

My Literacy Timeline

Age: 2 yrs old

- I used to go through a coloring book a week, and I always admired the pictures, not so much the text.

Age: 4 yrs old

- Got a "How to tie your Shoe" book from my aunt one day, and all of a sudden, I wanted to learn how to make a knot. In the book itself, it had step by step instructions about how to tie a shoe lace, illustrated with brightly colored cartoon characters. In the very back of the book, was a simulated shoe with a lace attached to it. So, weeks passed, and reread after reread, and with help from my parents, I finally learned how to tie my shoes. I was so happy afterwards.

Age: 6 yrs old

- Received my first encyclopedia entitled " How things Work". Turned out to be one of my favorite books I read as a child, and sparked my interest in aviation, which I still have to this day.

Age: 8 yrs old

- It was third grade, and my entire class was addicted to the first Harry Potter. Decided to give into the fad, Read "Harry Potter and the Sorcerers Stone". Was the first novel I actually finished by myself.

Age: 9 yrs old

- For my birthday I got a book called " My pet gorilla". Used to read it with my grandma all the time.

Age: 10 yrs old

- First encounter with the internet. Was digitally illiterate.

Age: 13 yrs old

- First time hearing about the website "Wikipedia" at school. Went to it at home and became hooked. Was the beginning of my digital literacy.

Age: 15 yrs old

- Got my very first cell phone and became acquainted with the texting lingo. Ex: LOL

Age: 17 yrs old

- Took an AP english class during my senior year during High school at the recommendation of my 11th grade English teacher. Was the hardest English class i've ever had. We had to write 2 page essays every week in addition to a 10 page thesis paper at the end of the year. It expanded my vocabulary, taught me how to look for meaning in stories and overall, taught me how to become a better writer.

Age: 18 yrs old

- Now digitally literate, now that most things are now on the internet, like job applications and school information.

Digital Literacy Questions and Answers

1. Q:  How do you think we read print and digital texts differently?
    A: I think we read print and digital texts differently by reading the print text as we normally would, and we read digital texts by reading the abbreviations like "LOL" (Laugh Out Loud) and understanding the emotion behind it by interpreting the emotocons .  :)

2. Q: Do you think there is a difference between acting as a participant of the digital realm versus being an active, critical and digitally literate? If so, what is the difference? If not, how are they linked?
     A: No, I do not think that there is a difference between acting as a participant in the digital relam and being an active, critical, and digitally literate because they are exactly the same thing, as both categories of people described both participate in the creation of web content.

3. Q: Anderson uses Facebook to explain what he means by “contribution, distribution and consumption.” Think about the way in which you use Facebook. Do you think your everyday happenings on the website allow you to do these three things? How does thinking about this aspect of Facebook change your perception of social networking?


   A: Yes, I think Facebook allows us to contribute, distribute, and consume. Contribute by making a post. Distribute by putting that post on your wall for friends, family, and the public to see. Finally consume by reading the  other  people's messages on their wall. Thinking about these three concepts changes my view of social networking, as something that's useless, to something that is an outlet for artistic expression and ideas.


4. Q: How does Anderson’s definition of digital literacy connect to the definitions of literacy we discussed on Monday?


 A: Anderson defines "digital literacy" as basically the ability to read and compose by electronic means. On Monday, the class discussed how literacy was the ability to read and write. So in retrospect, literacy and digital literacy are the same thing. The only difference is the types of mediums used to read and or write on.

Why Writing is Important?

  The importance of writing cannot be stressed enough. Writing is a very important and integral part of how we communicate our ideas to each other in society. People write on a daily basis, be it writing your thoughts down in a journal, writing a letter to someone, or even just scribbling a sentence or two on a scrap piece of paper. In fact, the act of just picking up a pen and writing down our ideas is one of the outstanding differences that differentiates the human species as a whole compared to the other species of animals that live on this Earth.

Where would human civilization be without writing? The simple answer would be nowhere. Without the ability to write, where would all our William Shakespeares, Albert Einsteins, or George Washingtons be? Without this essential skill, ideas, entertainment, and advances in technology would all be lost to the wind, and human civilization will remain primitive as it did when our caveman ancestors first walked the Earth. Writing provides us with a medium in which we can put our thoughts and ideas down on physical material, that has the ability to be preserved for thousands of years. Thus, as one generation of humans pass on, future generations of people can look back at the ideas of the past and learn and improve upon those ideas.

In today's current economy, having a job is essential to surviving in this modern, civilized society. For the ordinary person who wishes to know how important writing is for his or hers career, it is still a necessary skill to possess in the workplace. I cannot think of a single job in the world that doesn't require you to at the very least pick up a pen and write something down on a piece of paper.

For my future career, I am currently aspiring to become a police officer. To be successful in this job, not only do you have to be physically fit and possess a moral attitude, most importantly you must have superior communication skills as well. Everyone knows that police officers must talk to people on a daily basis, but few are aware that there is also writing involved in this job as well. Police officers must write up incident reports detailing every aspect of a car accident, shootings, homicides, traffic stops, and etc.. Each report is like an essay that is usually one to two pages in length, in which the officer must use their communication skills and vocabulary to detail specifically what happened in each incident. There is also the writing of the infamous traffic ticket that every motorist dreads, and is something which an officer must become accustomed to writing.

Personally, in order to become a police officer, I must improve both my speaking skills and most importantly, my writing skills. I hope to accomplish these tasks by taking English classes to expand my vocabulary, sharpen my written speech, and to vocally communicate in a clear and concise manner.

Writing is a very important aspect of being human. It lets other human beings know what you are thinking and it sets us apart from the other animal species on this planet. Not only is writing important in society, it is also equally important in the workplace. A person who can better write out their thoughts and feelings on paper, stands a better chance in society than a person who doesn't.