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This years election was definitely a huge shock to the world. The popular vote has failed, the republicans have full control over the house and the senate, and donald trump was elected the president of the united states. Fear and paranoia surround half the population of Americans and our country has been divided. My fears for this election have come true in every regard of the manner. The fear was not so much as Republican or Democrats, but more so the fact that the two running were extreme opposites. They have separate views on abortion which will affect womens rights, different views on how to deal with immigration, and different views on taxing the upper class. These are extreme views in our society and because their are so many extreme views everyone is tore over results. And with the republicans in full power there is nothing there to stop them from pushing laws at a vicious rate. What will happen to a womens right to abortion? Will she be punished for making a decision about her own body? Will the practice be outlawed by officials? Will the people revolt for their rights? How will child care and women’s work be factored into this equation?
This situation is quite frightening, and has left most of the world shocked that trump has been elected. And more so that republicans have full control. No one is certain of what laws will come, because no one is sure of what mr trumps plans are for the future. Can we trust our country in the hands of a billionaire who thinks taking advantage of others is “good business” and that the rich shouldn’t pay business taxes which support the poor. How much will the people be able to take? Will there be out lash from the extreme change? Only time will tell what will happen to our country, but with the divide and fears we can only expect disaster.
When most people think of writing we imagine the freedom to express your ideas, and share your opinions with the world. I once believed that notion as well, but my mind has changed in recent times. In the field of study all those beliefs are destroyed and you are confined in a bubble. And dont even think about freeing yourself as it might affect your grade as a student, because papers must follow a strict guideline. Research papers in particular are extremely taxing, and lack creative freedom in all respects of the ideal. When doing a research paper you are required to use someone elses words to express your thoughts about a topic. I find that unnerving and ridiculous to be honest. Why would someone educated and capable of expressing personal opinion want to borrow words from another writer? What makes their opinion more qualified than my own? Academic research is nothing more than copy and paste without any power to follow my own path in regards to writing. If writing were as free as many believed then why must we search for academic scholars that agree with our ideas to confirm whether they are correct or not? How are we expected to be excited about assignments, that by definition, will limit our creative freedom? You would probably suggest that this is a necessity to keep structure among the different writers. Yes, we require structure to function as a society but when do we determine when too much power has been taken away from the writer in expressing personal belief in their papers. When will writers find the freedom we have dreamed of? If we continue limiting writers we will define their views and prevent them from breaking free in the future! After all a bird trapped within its cage will never want to leave once it is forced to stay within its confined. Now a days, It feels as if blogs are the only resource to express a writers true ideals and give actual freedom through your words.
Freedom within a cage? Is it possible?
With that being said, blogs are wonderful assets when it comes to expressing your ideals. They allow you to speak about any topic you desire, and give honest opinions without worry of backlash. There is no defining structure that will limit your ability to speak with your reader. Only in freedom can we truly have a voice, and that cannot be found in academic journals. Only with an open mind can we find solutions to this writers block, and encourage others to write with passion. But until that solution is found using blogs to mend a writers broken spirit will have to suffice. Let us dream fellow writers, dream of freedom.
Over the course of the semester I had the opportunity to take an english course, and practice developing my writing skills. The morning “daily grades” were a form of writing in which we either wrote about a topic or a free write about our current status in the class. I think the assignment was interesting and provided us a great opportunity to write at our pace and self improve.
In terms of free-writing I think my skills have improved quite a bit. When given a topic I write quickly about what comes to my head without worry of grammar mistakes. This allows me to get my ideas down on the paper while im still thinking of them! Without the worry of being harshly graded I am much more creative and faster at getting my word count up. And in this format I was able to express my personal opinions about the topics, which was in my opinion, a very fun exercise that got me started in the morning. This very concept was wonderful for developing ideas and as a basis for a personal paper, because you only have to worry about getting the words down and correcting grammar later on.
In regards to my style of writing, I feel that I improved a decent amount. Before taking this course writing a MLA formatted paper was quite a difficult task. I had trouble putting everything together properly, citing authors, and the overall format was hard for me to implement. Over time I got better at crafting my papers and understanding what this format required of me. Unfortunately I still dont feel confident in my ability to write a great paper, and wish I had the opportunity to work 1 on 1 with the instructor. I would have preferred to write at least 1 paper using the MLA format while in the classroom setting, so that I could get immediate feedback on a assignment and understand where I am struggling. Sometimes it’s hard for me to figure out why I am struggling on my assignment and maybe knowing what the problem is might have helped with what feels like writers block. But overall I learned a lot in this course and would recommend it to everyone. I was taught how to work on my paper in a productive manner, how to write a blog, and where to find sources for my academic research. And the opportunity to ask an instructor for information is a valuable resource.
As a writer I feel much more accomplished, because I learned a lot about the structure of a MLA paper and can write papers without much guidance. I love the ability to write about whatever your heart desires, and share your ideas with others. I want to improve my overall writing ability and grammar so that these tasks are even easier to accomplish. And I want to be able to write a MLA formatted paper with ease, and feel confident about my papers. Thankfully this class provided me with the necessary foundation for improvement when past classes did not. In the future I hope that these goals are reached, and I will be able to help others as a result.
Our class will be writing a digital blog about Enrique’s Journey and the different topics that emerge from it. We plan to give our readers insight on enriques journey and shine a light on the topics we find most interesting. My plans for the blog will be a nice color scheme, around 30 pictures, and references to immigration. And we will incorporate the ideas of my class as well to make the perfect package of information, at least in our classes opinion.
Regarding the actual website we have a lot to work on. We will have to find a way to keep the website simple, elegant, and informational. Our goal is to make information easy to obtain and easy to understand. And we must consider the time of a day someone might view the website to determine the best color scheme for the eyes. Spelling and Grammar should be checked frequently to ensure that the information is correct, and looks professional. Links will have to be accessible from every page we have available, and images must be aligned in size. If we can manage to accomplish all these feats, then our blog will look wonderful for our readers. We will accomplish our goal in sharing information and topics we thought were worth mentioning, and hopefully, grab the readers attention to such matters.
Overall, the ideas we have set forth are simple enough to accomplish. The hardest part of this project would be checking the actual information we have created and making sure that it is value. Although our website is supposed to be an independent blog to share our opinions about these topics, we can all agree that its best, to provide as many facts as possible to support our ideals.
Enriques Journey has given our class the opportunity to think about immigrants in a new light. We get to listen to enriques story of trying to reunite with his mother, while he leaves behind the rest of his family. His journey is long and dangerous, and he risks deportation. But to enrique, the journey is worth the risk so that he can find the mother who left him many years ago to support the family.
Many topics come to mind when we talk about immigrants. There is the matter of how will they get to America, where will they find jobs, and how do they keep in contact with each other. But for my topic, I chose to discuss education in relation to immigrants. This decision was easy for me to make because I think education is a big part of why the story even took place. If all the people involved were more educated then things might have been different, and they would have communicated with each other better. Nothing is written in stone, however, and being educated isn’t enough to fill enriques empty heart. So my plans are to view the pros and cons of education and how it can affect the decisions one would make. And this will hopefully correlate to the events that took place in the story.
Recently, our two candidates Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton had another presidential debate. In this debate, we had the opportunity to listen to each candidate’s beliefs regarding the rights of a woman. In particular the right a woman has to have an abortion. It is interesting that they went in totally different directions with this and both had a somewhat dramatic response to the situation. Trump’s stance is that abortion should be outlawed and that it is wrong in every aspect of its nature. That woman shouldn’t have that option to abort a child because it would be the equivalent of killing another person. While Clinton’s stance is that woman have a right to decide what’s best for their bodies and should be allowed to have an abortion if they choose. This prompted Trump to make the claim that abortion is an awful thing to do and claimed that Hillary would support ripping a 7month+ infant out of the womb if the mother decided otherwise on being a parent.
My opinion is that trump took things a little too far. It was clearly a shock tactic, but was it effective? I don’t think so. It felt out of place and seemed very exaggerated because most doctors wouldn’t allow a woman to abort a baby that is close to being birthed. I personally feel that woman deserve the right to have an abortion if they choose. After all, forcing them to give birth to a baby they don’t want will make the child miserable. Who’s going to raise the child? Who will pay for their education? If a parent is willing to prevent their birth then how can we trust them to love the child unconditionally? Forcing them to make that choice will only hurt both the mother and child, and will foster a terrible relationship.
The only other option is to place the child for adoption, but who then would adopt? Sure, right now you can probably suggest that there a people out in the world who wish to adopt. Those people who can’t give birth to their own child. Yes, that sounds good until we consider millions of people giving birth to children (which would have formerly been aborted by many of these individuals). We would have a surplus of children that we would have no homes to supply these children with. And where will the other children go? How will oversized family survive in our terrible economy? And how are rape victims being considered in this “remove abortion” plan? Are they also going to be forced to keep the child they did not wish to have? Obviously, there needs to be a balance between what is acceptable. We need to approach these decisions with research, emotional appeal for those involved, and find a realistic solution. Who are we to force someone to have an abortion or to conceive a child? The right to decide should belong to the people giving birth. Removing abortion entirely is nothing more than a dark fable that ends horribly for all involved.
So the answer you have probably been waiting on. My stance on abortion? Well, it has its time and place. I personally would never have an abortion because I actually love children. I think I would find a way to raise my child even if my finances were low. I would ask my family for support and information about my circumstance. Maybe even put the child up for adoption if I had to. I really think life is precious and I want to protect my child’s life If I ever have the choice. But No, I would never take away a woman’s right to her choice. My opinion / morals are just that, mine! Let people decide what is best for them, and explain to them the benefits of childbirth along with the struggles. Go ahead and inform them of their decision before they make it, but the ultimate choice belongs to them. What’s best for me may not be best for you, after all. And life is far too short to control someone else’s life. Live your own to the fullest and learn how to mind your business. If it’s not dangerous or hurting others then maybe you shouldn’t interfere? Afterall can a fetus even feel pain at 8 weeks? I dont think so. Just my little opinion though of course.
Regarding Immigration Policies, I have read that they are very hard to understand. The system is very complicated and even I don’t understand all the processes necessary to enter a foreign country as a citizen. The depth of information I would have to learn is far too great for a topic I am not interested in, and it almost feels as though they don’t want you to fully understand the process in depth so they can define what it means at that particular moment. It almost gives me the feeling of the constitution where it is interpreted by judges and is very vague to where the common individual cannot decide if their belief is correct on its meaning.
As it currently stands I have no personal relationships with immigration. My family has been in the US forever dating back as far as my family can remember. My great grandparents were here during the times of slavery and never left the country. So for me to reflect on the topic of immigration is difficult because I do not have the emotional obligations to anyone. I have never personally met anyone that has immigrated to my knowledge, but I never really seek this information.
Immigration, in general, seems like a difficult process. As it stands most immigrants could wait a lifetime trying to enter the US, and it has been so difficult some people actually believe its easier to jump the border. I do not think it’s wise to hop the border in any case, but as I said Iv never been in such a situation where maybe you feel it’s worth the risk? Someone that desperate should be given a chance, but I think an extensive examination should be done on immigrants to ensure the safety of the citizens already residing in the country.
Should countries be obligated to accept immigrants? Now that is quite a difficult question. For America, we were built from immigrants and should be more accepting of them. Our ancestors have followed the path these people take today, and I imagine they are experiencing a lot of difficulties entering as it stands. But I wouldn’t say they are obligated to take the immigrants either with all the threat of terrorism nowadays. Its too often that terrorist enters our country with the sole intent to kill innocent people. I would love to say “let in all the good individuals”, but how will we really know? I’m sure a terrorist doesn’t approach the office of registration and say he’s going to blow everyone up. He would likely pretend to be a refugee trying to take shelter here from some crisis, and then attack us from the inside. If we weren’t in war with so many people so often then maybe immigration policies should be loosened, but since that isn’t the case I think its fine where it is and maybe should be increased. I hate to seem like I don’t appreciate immigrants because they have just as much right as anyone else, but how will we protect our current people? They have a right to safety, and I stand behind that belief so long as the immigration policies are fair.
Should anything be changed? I feel for those immigrants that have lived in America for many years should be allowed to stay if their records are clean even if they have ventured in illegally. The reason I feel this way is because they have posed no threat to the American people and might have started family’s that we don’t want to separate. A child on American soil is considered an American correct? What will we do then? Separate a mother back to her home country and prevent her child from leaving with her because they are an American citizen? We need better systems in order to protect families of good people that pay their bills, support American stores, have jobs, and support the American way of life. These to me are our people and they feel as though they themselves are already American. My only problem with immigrants are the ones breaking the laws, starting gangs, and committing acts of terrorism. Regarding the rest of the immigrants, I feel like they have proven they are American enough to stay here and live out their life like the rest of us. In our country built from immigrants of all around the world.
- All Images used are from GOOGLE.COM and are not owned by me.
In Enrique’s Journey, we read about the American Dream. But what is the American Dream exactly? Let us take a further look into just what makes it so great, how immigrants view this dream, and why the American dream is perpetuated as everyone’s perfect world.
My idea of the American Dream is a world where everyone has equal opportunities, a great job, a wonderful home, delicious food on the table, and some vacation time throughout the year. I imagine that everyone will be able to find employment with equal pay regardless of your skin color or gender and that all employees can provide for their families. A world where your salary is based on your job description and the amount of labor the job requires. And after work, you return home to your family and spend quality time together before dinner. Your work schedule is consistent and has daycare provided for working families. And you receive vacations of 1-2 weeks a few times a year. Less homeless individuals, more jobs, minimal wage can actually pay for a small apartment and things like managing the basic quality of life. That to me is the American Dream, a time when everyone has the opportunity to live a quality life even on “minimal wage” and those who work harder receive more luxury.
Immigrants usually view the American Dream as a world full of opportunity. They feel once they enter America they will be employed, have health benefits, and enjoy a life of luxury. That they can provide for their whole family, and send money back to those who could not journey with them. Sometimes they feel like their home country is a terrible place where they don’t care about the people, and feel in America that people generally love being here. After all, most Americans do love their country, as they should of course! So I am not too surprised that the love we preach loud and clear would reach those from other countries. Although there are still a lot of things in America that need to be fixed like racism, not enough jobs, homeless individuals, no healthcare for all, and etc. But American is generally a nice place to stay and lots of Americans feel problems will eventually be fixed one day.
Back view of a happy family on tropical beach; Shutterstock ID 152536469; PO: today-daivd
Immigrants are probably encouraged to believe the American Dream is real because in media that leaves the country we are depicted of having a wonderful life. You see a mother and father taking care of their children, in a nice house and have a cute little dog. People wake up and drink coffee, then head off to work, get paid, and provide for their families. That whole idea is appealing to anyone that ever lived. Who wouldn’t want to provide for their family? Who wouldn’t want to have a nice house? It’s easy to see how these ideas can captivate those watching these types of Movies, Media, and listening to Patrons of America. Overall I would preach about how lovely America is, because even though we have terrible elements, as all other countries do, I believe that we can overcome these difficulties. No one country is amazing with equality all around for everyone and that needs to change. And I feel America with its diversity can be that place if we keep pushing the movement of peace & equality forward.
This is a recap of my progress on Essay 2, which will feature a short story and possibly a poem. Right now I am in love with the story about “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening”. I love the dark tone of the story but the hope he has for reaching home to greet his loved ones. It is a sweet story about a man trying his best to head home even through all the dangers he must face in the forest. I also plan to write about “Two Kinds”. That is a story about a mother and daughter who move to America to find their dreams. And through many trials, they eventually find their place in society. My Topic will be about overcoming difficult trials and believing in yourself. I think both stories are great examples of trying to overcome a trial in your life. We see the horseman have the venture through the forest to head home even though the path was very dangerous, and in the other story, we see a young girl trying her best to impress her mother with skills she does not possess.
I would like my essay to prove that with the effort, you can overcome a lot of trials in your life. And that no effort given is wasted because it will eventually prosper into something great. Although we do not get a full ending on “Stopping by Woods” I would like to believe our fearless horseman made his journey home. And in our story about “Two Kinds” the daughter never truly gave up on learning the piano and eventually succeed. With my essay, I hope to prove these points.
I will also talk a lot of about the imagery used in the scene to show how difficult the trials our characters had to endure. And that overcoming such trials was not an easy feat. I want to shine a light on this concept in all its glory and hopefully convince the readers that my points are valid.
The poem “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening“ is an interesting piece. I feel it is about a man on his way home from a very long journey. While on his way he sees a forest that is a shortcut to his home. He knows that this particular path is very dangerous and that he should not enter the forest. It is well known to the people in this area that the one who claims that forest is a dangerous being and could very well kill them if he is a caught. But he thinks about if its the best decision to venture through this forest to see his family off to bed before they rest.
The man decides he will take the risk so that he can get home sooner. As he turns into the forest even his horse reacts with fear. This to me, makes me feel like its an unearthly entity of evil to have even the animals scared to the bone. Animals in a way can sense evil intent / emotion and are very afraid of such things. I think that is a huge indicator of just how evil this person truly is and does a great job of explaining the level of threat this unknown person is. This causes me to wonder, just what was the entity that controlled the forest? How cruel could he have been to scare, even the horse? How did the forest come to belong to this entity? It is quite an interesting poem, but sadly it is very short. There is not much to say other than speculation about our opinions on this scenario.
In another poem “The Daffodils” we have a lot of imagery going on. If I were to close my eyes while this poem is read to me I think I could envision the scenery where this poem takes place. It is about a man walking along a path until he sees a field full of daffodils as far as the eye can see. He is amazed by the beautiful of these flowers and compares the quantity of them to the stars in the sky. Behind this wonderful scene is a lake with moonlight reflecting on the water and a cool breeze. It gives off the vibes of a very relaxing environment where you can take your mind off terrible times and forget the whole day. He waits for the wind to blow to make the flowers appear as though they are dancing. This image he treasures deeply and whenever he is frustrated he thinks of his more peaceful times in the meadow and he is once again with peace.
I think it is absolutely beautiful that he could find such a scene in nature and had the opportunity to enjoy it. And now he writes about this to tell his viewers to find something in their own life that gives them this feeling of peace and think of it when they have frustrating situations. I almost feel as though the author is trying to teach the reader methods of tranquility and peace. Definitely an interesting poem, with lots of imagery with the detail to recreating the scene.
