rant

There are many things wrong with the youtube video of the UCLA college student's rant on asian people.  Many of the comments that were posted on the video are yelling at her calling her racist and ignorant.  I don't think the video is racist as much as she is just very close minded.  The reason the video seems to be racist to people is because of the way she goes about saying these things.  Although some of the things she talks about may be true, her attitude and the way she goes about it give off a bad connotation.  What makes the video seem racist is the fact that she sounds like she is making fun of asians, not just complaining.  She also makes general statements about them such as how their families don't teach them good manners.   She should not be getting as much ridicule as she is, so much so that she felt like she needed to drop out of UCLA.  Everyone stereotypes whether we know it and like it or not.  The only thing this girl did wrong was she went beyond thinking it in her head and she actually expressed her thoughts out loud on a video and posting it on youtube.  Everyone leaving comments on her video making fun of her are no better then her.  They are doing the same thing, stereotyping her as a dumb blonde or assuming that she is stupid because her boobs are fake.

Dove commercial

At first you see a girl come in that doesn't look like she would belong on the cover of a magazine or on a billboard.  She is wearing a white tank top and just has her hair lying flat to emphasize that she is a normal person.  Her posture is also very poor making her look like she has low self-esteem.  The first thing they do is put makeup on her cheeks and forehead to cover up her acne.  The next thing we see is them putting various hair styles on her until they find the one that looks the best.  Then we see little touch-ups such as thicker eyebrows, eyeliner, thicker lips and mascara.  After she has makeup and everything else done to her, her posture is much better making her look like more of a model.  The setting then switches from a dark room to a room with flashing lights indicating that pictures are being taken of her.  The company then edits the best photo to make her look perfect. The very last scene we see is two teenage girls walking down the street looking up at the billboard.  This message is coming from the Dove corporation.  As a company it benefits them to put out a campaign that says you don't have to be perfect.

Audio Essays

I liked doing the profile audio essay.  One thing I liked about my profile was that it wasn't on a famous person that everyone knows about, so it was a little different.  Another thing I liked was my music choice.  Even though we didn't get to hear it in class if you would have kept listening the music changes to the mood of the story.  Another reason I think my profile essay was successful was because it was written in the first person instead of third.  I was happy with my choice of subject.  Johnny Truant is my favorite character out of any book.  The most challenging part about my essay was that Johnny Truant is a fictional character.  I couldn't go online and look up information on WikiPedia about who I was writing about. 
The recording process wasn't very difficult for me.  The only thing I found annoying was putting the pieces of the story in order because it took forever.  I chose to put the song "Tubular Bells" into my essay because that song means a lot to me, it has a dark sound to it, and it fits Johnny's personality perfectly.  It was beneficial to hear other's essays in class because it showed how people did things different than me. 

Profile Essay

Right now I am only a math major, but next year I am going to declare physics as another major so I will be double-majoring.  I'm not majoring in math because I enjoy it.  The only reason I am still taking math is so I can do the complex math that is required when I get to the upper-level physics courses.  My dream job would be to work at NASA.  A lot of people think we know a lot about space, but we really don't know much of anything.  Space is full of surprises.  It is always changing and thinking of more ways to confuse us.  I just want to be the one to finally solve the mysteries.
Some people I would enjoy writing a profile essay about are Michio Kaku, Brian Greene, Stephen Hawking, and Albert Einstein.  All of these people had the same goal as me which was to finally figure out the way things really are out there.  Michio Kaku is a very well known physicist who wrote many books on string theory, parallel worlds and other controversial topics.  Brian Greene is a professor of physics who wrote the best-seller The Elegant Universe.  Stephen Hawking, whether crazy or just a genius, has inspired many people with his wild theories about space.  Albert Einstein forever changed the way we think about space.  His famous equation is still the most one of the greatest advancements of all time. 
Aside from the topic of space, I am also a big reader.  I would also like to do a profile essay on the writer Mark Danielewski, who wrote the book House of Leaves.  My friend had been telling me about this book for a long time, but I never had time to read it.  Recently though, I finished this book and was inspired by it.  House of Leaves was by far the best, most bizarre book I ahve ever read.  There is not a single sentence in that book that Danielewski did not pick carefully and that does not have a bigger meaning.  Just to give an idea of how weird this book is, it was published in 2000 and there are still active forums today that have thousands of postings talking about what specific parts of the book meant and in general what the book was about.

what I would like to learn

I think I am a fairly good writer.  I rarely ever have a problem grammatically and I am usually a good story teller.  The only thing I think I need help with is how to write a good conclusion.  I can write good introductions and good overall papers, but for some reason I just do not know how to write a good conclusion.

in class freewrite

1.) Sanders proposes the hike into the mountains with his son because it is very peaceful and calm in nature.  Sanders and his son fight a lot so he thought it would be a good idea to go for a hike to try to become closer.
2.) Sanders son tell his "you always ruin everything" because they were trying to get away from everything and get along a little better, but they always find the need to argue.
3.) In the hike in the mountains, Sanders learned that him and his son are not the same and he needs to try to be more understanding of him and see things from his point of view.
1.) When the author got dumped, he moves outside into his own backyard into a tent.
2.) The living conditions in the tent were not good.  It was raining the night he moved out, there was nothing but dark forest in front of the tent door and even when he was ready to move back in, he couldn't because his parents rented out his room.
3.) After talking about previous girls, he eventually finds contentment with a girl named Heidi.  He also gets contentment out of his job by traveling and writing.

Officer Schoolcraft

In my response on what defines a trouble-maker, I said that a trouble-maker is someone who goes against societies norms.  In this sense, it is plausible to classify Officer Schoolcraft as a trouble-maker.  Most police would just do what they are told without question because they do not want to lose their job.  However, in this case I would not label Officer Schoolcraft as a trouble-maker because of the circumstances surrounding his situation.  The reason Officer Schoolcraft did not follow orders to issue more tickets is because he did not have a family, so he did not worry about losing his job as much and he thought it was not only illegal, but immoral what the chief was trying to do.  For this reason I think that Officer Schoolcraft is much more of a truth-teller then a trouble-maker. 

I think that what Officer Schoolcraft did was very stupid and very brave at the same time.  I think it was stupid because he could have gotten into a lot of trouble.  He failed to realize that it was him against the whole New York City Police Department and a lot of things could have gone wrong by him letting out secrets.  He was stupid for trying to play superman, but I also think that takes a certain amount of bravery.  Surely Officer Schoolcraft was brave by standing up to the whole police department even when they entered his home and arrested him.  I think most people would agree with me that Officer Schoolcraft was doing his job correctly.  Even though the chief’s orders were to issue more tickets, he did not follow those orders because he knew that that was not the right thing to do.  Officer Schoolcraft was the only officer to remember that he was there to protect the rights of citizens, not to dismiss them.  Even if other officers were not comfortable with the new orders and they had a problem with them, they still carried them out, making Officer Schoolcraft the only “good cop.” 

If I were in the same situation as Officer Schoolcraft I would have handled it a little differently.  At first, I would have done the same thing as him by not listening to orders and continuing on with the correct way of enforcing the law.  The thing I would have done differently though is as soon as things started to get out of control and when he started fearing for his own life, I would have quit the job.  There are plenty of other cities in the country and plenty of other opportunities as a police officer.  I also would not have told anyone about the extortion that was going on inside the police department.  This is what led to all of the trouble he faced throughout the story and the police department trying to get rid of him.