Thursday, September 25, 2008

Splenda

Lots of people consume splenda as a supplement of sugar. I am a consumer myself. I try to replace sugar with splenda. I've been tell that this product can cause cancer. The research with the rats proved that can cause a bacteria in your organism but I question myself. There hasn't been any news that somebody has been taken to the hospital because of this bacteria. We don't know if in the future this will get worst or maybe they will create a better supplement for it. But for now I don't think people will stop consuming splenda because of this research. In the market there are companies that are selling their product using splenda instead of sugar.
One of the solutions of it should be using the right natural product which is sugar but in a limited amount.

Wednesday, September 24, 2008

"The Inheritance of Tools"

Questions for Active reading

1.- Sanders is extremely descriptive. He describes every step at some point that you loose the verb and the subject of the sentence. Maybe he wanted to describe clearly each step because he remembers everything about that day like it was yesterday because he felt this awful feeling, that he didn't know what to do, because of his father's death.

2.- He first started talking about the hammer. Saying all the history of the hammer and explaining it. After that he explained a little bit of his past of how he learned about construction. He starts talking about something and he jumps into another subject and after that he comes again to the subject he was talking at first. he really doesn't have an organized essay. It seems that he wanted to say so many things at the same time that he joint everything.

3.- A "down stone" is a unworked stone that people used to use in the past as a hammer. He said that it hasn't change that much since then.

Journal Entry #5

"Why I Want a Wife"

-This essay was written in 1971. What types of duties does Syfers describe as being performed by wives? To what degree do you believe these are still done primarily by women? Have these or other things about the husband/wife relationship changed in the last 37 years?
Syfers describes home duties which are called housewives, like cleaning the house and taking care of the kids, but at the same she needs to have a job. Years ago women were supposed to stay at home and take care of this needs and not work. Now these days women are more independent. They have jobs and take care of the duties at home. Before the husband didn't give a hand to their wife because they had to be this masculinity figure but now you see them helping their wives with the kids or the cooking. It is more common now and people don't see it wrong like they used to.

- How would you describe Syfers’ writing style? Does she do things you would typically avoid in your own writing?
Her writing style is descriptive. It looks like she is complaining of all the things she needs to get done as a wife. She tries to describe every single duty.
I don't know if I would avoid something that she did in my own writing because if you took the sense of her essay. It wouldn't make sense because all that she does is describe a wife's duties.

-Syfers was reacting to a social structure that she felt at the time was unfair. What types of injustice or unfairness do you see in the world nowadays that you think should be addressed? Syfers implies that men benefit from the servile position of women in the family. Who benefits from the injustices you see active in the world today?
Women are still seen as the housewives. The ones that have to stay at home and take care of the children. Or even worst, have a job and still have to do the house duties. Men are the stereotypes that they go to work and bring the money. Their wives are the ones that have to do everything else, and they expect them to wait for them with the food ready. All this has to change. It should be equal. Both should work and take care of the house and kids. Doing the house work is a hard as having a job. There are so many things to take care of like Syfers described that at the end of the day you feel more tired than having a regularly job. Men and women are both humanly equal and they have the same needs. Why do they have to have different tasks on life? It is unfair. Just because it was socioaly implanted that way years ago it doesn't mean we can't change it to make it better.

Tuesday, September 23, 2008

In the News #4

Yes, I do think that parents should test their children early. But I certainly do not agree with testing their children at the age of 4. They should be testated at certain age where their hormones and neurons start to develop. That is when they are teenagers. It is good to go to the doctor once a year and do a general check. Now this days cancer is something that can be cured if it is treated on time. So why not go and get checked onced a year just to prevent?

"The 6 Mythis of Creativity"

Questions for Active Readers page 108

- Describe the "6 Myths of Creativity"

1. Creativity comes from Creative Styles
It is not true that some people are creative and some aren't. Everybody is capable of being creative at some point. It also relies in a certain kind of things like experience, talent and the capacity to put through uncreative dry spells. You have to like what you are doing, your job in order to be creative.

2. Money is a Creativity Motivator
When people are more worried about their paid or their compensation they are less creative. They put their minds and effort in how much and when they are going to get paid then their creation. People are creative when they put all of their interest in their work. If the task is beyond their skill levels, they can get frustrated; if its below their skill level, they can get bored. It just has to be a balance.

3. Time Pressure Fuels Creativity
It has been shown that working under pressure cuts creativity. People need to focus on their work with time and tranquility. Creativity takes time, so they can organize all their ideas and put them all together. It's also been shown that when there is pressure involved their creativity not only goes away for a days but it takes the next two days to come again.

4. Fear Forces Breakthroughs
People tend to be more creative when they are happy about something or are in a good mood. Creativity is correlated with joy and love and it doesn't work with anger, fear, and anxiety. When you have a good day, the next day will be better. This is because your creativity mood has a better chance to be creative the next day. The environment also influences in your creativeness.

5. Competition beats Collaboration
When there is competition involved there is no collaboration. They stop sharing their ideas. This could be a problem because no one it is able to pull all the ideas together. It takes more than one person to do it.

6. A Streamlined Organization is a Creative Organization
Downsizing is a reason for creativity to suffer. It takes the stimulant for creativeness, even five months after it.

-How did Teresa Amabile, the Harvard Business School professor who studies creativity in the workplace, design her research? What kinds of information was she looking for? What seems especially surprising or interesting about her approach to research?
She design her research in a ways of contradicting all the myths that exist for creativity. She explain all the factors that could interfere with creativity. It was interest to know that there are some myths that are not true and she prove them with studies and souvenirs that she made to an audience

-Who is the audience?
For those that think that not everybody has creativity. I was one of those who thought that creativity was not on me. But now i can realize that it depend on your mood and environment and how you handle it.

Journal #4

- What does Bartholomae mean when he says that students must "invent the university" when they write in college?
He means that you have to think, speak, and learn in order to write in their language. In the way of how do they what you to write.

-What Bartolomae suggest is a way for students to become "insiders" within academic discourse?
To become "insiders" within academic discourse you have to write and speak with imagination but at a certain point were they use a conventional language.

-Summarize
The first example expresses a natural writing were the writer intended to write everything that it cross on his mind. It wasn't elegant like Bartholomae said. It was simple and he didn't use a conventional language.
The second example explained more what creativity means in a way that it gets the reader's attention. The style is more difficult, highly qualified like Bartholomae said. It doesn't only relies on creativity but he also defines it in other words like "imitation" or "original creation".

Thursday, September 18, 2008

Cloning

This cloning controversy can create positive things for the human beings. The technology is innovating different procedures they can update a new cure for diseases, like cancer for example. In my opinion, I see cloning like a proof that the technology is going forward and there will be a time were the scientists can discover thecure for different diseases. All this is new therefore the scientifics still have to improve this embryonic stem cells. This will take a few year so they can ameliorate it. We can't put barriers to new dicoveries, we have to be positive to it.

Monday, September 15, 2008

Project 1

The decision that would change my life

Everything happens for a reason. I must have heard this like a hundred times but never realize and thought the actual meaning of it. Now that I did, it is true. My parents got divorce when I was about two years old. I grew up in Venezuela with my mom. Sometime I would spend the weekends with my dad. He was still a little bit immature for his age. He wasn’t ready for all the responsibilities, but for me he was the best dad in the whole world, no matter if he told he was going to pick me up to go out and he didn’t or he didn’t go to my birthday parties. I loved the times we spend together, just the two of us. But all of the sudden he met this woman and got married. I didn’t like that woman at all. We didn’t get along well and we still don’t. 

When I was nine years old, my dad came to the United States only to visit my little cousin in the hospital because she was being treated for cancer. Days later he called and said he was going to stay and look for a job because he thought he was going to have more opportunities over there. For me, this was the worst thing he could have ever done to me. I thought it was the worst decision he would ever made.  I cried almost every night for about 6 years. I missed him so much. We have so much in common. Seeing my friends calling their dads or playing with them was so devastating and made me so sad.

My dad has had many jobs since he moved. He has been climbing to the top. Every new job he had  was better than the other one. He started lifting boxes at a company and now he is a loan officer at Bank of America. He has received several recognitions from the bank. He is good at was he does. Because he moved here and got a good job, now I have better opportunities. I am studying in a very good university and I will have an international degree.

I would have never thought that the decision that my dad made, which was moving to the U.S.A., was going to open me so many doors for my future. And I used to think that that was the worst decision of his life.

Now seeing my own experience I can say that everything happens for a reason. What you see that is bad now, will end up being good for you in the future. 

Thursday, September 11, 2008

In the news #2: The U-S American Border

The country, or actually the whole world, is going through a rough time with the economy. There are lot of things to be done and less money to spend. Seeing how the economy is they should limit they budget to what is really important and needed. I think that this fence that United States it's trying to build It something that they could have had waited and put it as a future plan when everything comes to normal. They are not going to stop the immigrants from entering the United States, they will find their way. They should have had worked out and organized better, so they wouldn't be going through this. It makes no sense now that they already started it and not finishing it. They have to finish what they started. But I think this was a really bad decision because now it's causing a lot of trouble.

Wednesday, September 10, 2008

Journal Entry #3

"The case Against Chores" by Jane Smiley (b. 1949)

Questions for Active Readers.

1.- The experience that Smiley had that changed her beliefs about chores was working at the stable. She described her experience almost at the end of the essay. If she would had put it in the beginning I would had thought different about her opinion about chores.

2.- She supported her opinion with a lot of examples. One of them was that making the children do the work teaches them the alienated labor: no to love the work but to get it over with. Another example she gave was her husband. He has work hard since a child, but he feels that he has to get the job done first before going to have fun. Although she is giving a lot of examples, I think she is generalizing. Some other people's experience might not be the same and they could say something different about chores. Another thing is that she is not supporting it with scientific proves. The audience she is trying to reach are the parents who are forcing their kids to the chores and the children who are being forced to do it.

3.- She used rhetorical questions to make the readers have thoughts about and make them feel related to it or reflect to it. For children, chores are annoying and at that point they don't see the advantages they could get about doing them. They are learning certain thing that maybe in the future will be helpful. I think that if you don't make your kids help you at home your are making them dependent. I can give my own example. When I was I kid I had everything done for me, like the food, laundry, cleaning and fixing my room, almost everything. But when I moved to college I had to do everything by myself and I didn't nothing about cooking or doing the laundry. My mom had to teach me over the phone. I thought in that moment that I wished that I could have done some of does stuff at home so I didn't have to be in this position. That's why I say it's good teach your children how to do the housework.

Monday, September 8, 2008

Journal Entry #2


- What makes the essays you chose compelling?
The first essay I read it's called A Life with no Exceptions, and it makes it compelling beacuse it is a pretty story with lots of truth in it because it makes you think that you don't know what you have until you loose it and makes you appreciate what you have in life. It was a big leason for her and we should learn from it too. The second essays i read it's called a New Work Ethic and it also makes it compellling because it has to do a lot with the first essays I read. Something had to happend to them so they could open their eyes and realize what they have in life.

- What kinds of stories do they use to showcase their belief?
They used their own personal story. A situation that they went thru and made them realize certain things that they didn't before.

- What is the tone of each essay and how is it achieved? (funny, serious, reflective, sarcastic, etc.)
Both essays are reflective. The writers achieved it because they actually tell in the stories that what happened to them was a changing in their lives.

- How are the essays similar? How do they differ?
They are both similar because as I said before it was a situation for both writers in which made them realize what it's life about and what they are missing. In the firts essay it was her brother who died and that made her realize a lot of things. For the second essay it was a guy who thought he knew everything in life and he thought he could give some people a lesson but they were the ones who gave him a lesson.

- Do they follow the writing guidelines provided by the This I Believe organization on their website at
http://www.thisibelieve.org/essaywritingtips.html?
Yes, they followed the writing guidelines. They said what they wanted to say in their own words. They were positive about their stories. They were brief and they named their belief.

- What beliefs might you want to write about for project 1? (looking at the categorized list of beliefs at
http://www.thisibelieve.org/dsp_Browse.php may help you)
I might write about immigrants but I'm not sure.



First Essay:
http://www.thisibelieve.org/dsp_ShowEssay.php?uid=8103&age=Under+18&yval=1&start=0
Second Essay:
http://www.thisibelieve.org/dsp_ShowEssay.php?uid=8637&age=Under+18&yval=1&start=10

Journal Entry #1

Once I had a multi-cultural English class where the teacher made us write about the culture of our country. I am from Venezuela therefore I had to write the culture of my country. The reason he made us write an essays was because English is not our main language so he wanted us to practice writing. I think the essay is consider documentary because it's based on a country's culture. The audience was the teacher and the other students because when the teacher graded it and hand it out to us again, he would give us another sheet with some of my own and others student's mistakes. For that reason the students get to know a little bit of what you wrote. When the teacher read my paper I wanted him to feel full knowledge about my country's culture and I didn't want to miss I thing about it so I wanted to cover everything. I feel I accomplish my purpose because I got an A on the essay and the teacher was actually interested about it and he later asked questions about my country. I wrote what I've lived and all my experiences I've had in my country. I wrote what I learned at school and what I've seen of the culture. Thinking about my writing is a respond to a "rhetorical situation" because I brought together all my ideas and knowledge about my country's culture and it makes it even special to me because it is from where I grew and what I saw all my life.

Questions for Active Reading






My American by Colin Powell

1.- What Powell wanted to let people know is that no matter how many barriers he had in life, he would always look up front and he would not let that interfere with achieving his goals and priorities in life. For example:
- "I began by identifying my priorities"
- "If I was to be confined to one end of the playing field, then I was going to be a star on that part of the field"
By this he meant that he was going to be the best at what he does, no matter what. And that's how he tries to achieve his purpose.

2.- I think not only for the black people who are nobody in life because they think that life is full of racism only, but for the ones that give up easily. The ones that have barriers and they don't do an effort to pass it, they remain stagnant and never move on. In my opinion, everybody should read this because it gives you knowledge of how black people used to be treated and how this person in specific responded to that.

3.- He always looked forward in order to achieved his goals. He had a disadvantage which was being black, but that didn't stop him from being part of the Army and succeed in his career.
I think he was a person with a lot of knowledge and the black people should see him as a stereotype.

"Writing Is Not a Mcdonald's Hamburger" by Natalie Goldberg

1.- Goldberg's purpose is to tell people that you should take writing as an adventure. We all start weak when we want to write and we always have this ideas in our head but when it comes to put in a paper we get held back. we start writing all the ideas at the same time but when we go back and read it, it doesn't meant sense at all. This is all OK because writing takes its time and in the way you'll have time to improve it.
"Let go of everything when you write, and try at a simple beginning with simple words to express what you have inside. It won't begin smoothly. Allow yourself to be awkward. You are stripping yourself"

2.- Probably her audience will be the people who have struggles in writing. Perhaps because she was a teacher her audience will be her students too. The audience that might benefit form reading this are the ones that think that are not good writers because they can't write all their ideas in a paper.

3.- Her subject is writing. The writing skills. She used her students as an example. She has a positive attitude, and she wants to motivate people to write.

Tuesday, September 2, 2008

1st Blog

I believe that technologies are an advantage for human beings because it makes us go forward and do better, but sometimes we use this advantages for bad. We turn everything around, like good to bad and light to dark because that's what people tend to do. With this I mean that with the technology people use it to create new innovations and sometimes are bad ones. I think that the drugs that the swimmers use are a bad innovation because creates something in your body that is not natural, that not comes with you. The people that go to the Olympics are because they have something different from the other people, they have something special. They are good at one specific sport and that's why it makes them special. Therefore I think it's not fair that they start taking this drugs because now everybody can drink it and do the same thing that they are doing and everybody can start going to the Olympics.