Thursdays readings

Both of the stories we had to read for class today really interested me. The Most Dangerous Game was a story we had already done in my high school class. I still find it interesting how you can't trust everyone out there in this world. My favorite though to read was An Occurence at Owl Creek Bridge. When the guy was dazing off about escaping and being with his family, he really had me fooled. I thought forsure that was what was happening. I was interested in that story the whole time and it made me want to read more. It gave me vivid pictures of what was going on and I followed it well, minus the part where he drifted off.

Omelay

To me, this story was quite confusing. In my opinion, what I took from it, was that we all try to portray ourselves to be happy people. But really, if we are being honest, there are many things that aren't perfect in our life and are happening. Most times, we tend to keep everything in until we just explode with emotions. I feel like the writer was trying to show us that if we keep everything in, no only will we never be happy, but those problems will never go away and we will always have "a kid in the basement." Our way of solving our problems is to forget about them, but not all things can just be forgotten. This was my opinion on the story, but I am interested to see how others interpreted it.

Research Paper

In all honesty, my research paper is not going so well. I have a real hard time finding information on my topic. I tried to find books about South Dakota's driving age, driving age, development of teens brains, and numerous of topics and I couldn't seem to find any, not even on the research places. I finally found two journals, one book, and three other informational works. I tried to ask for the librarians help to find more information but even she couldn't find anything. Most of my information is repetative and so it makes it really hard for me to get 1800 words. I also am not so sure if I am citing correctly. In high school, we lacked a lot of information on citing so I am not very good at it. Hopefully I can figure it all out and get a decent paper.

English 101

As for me, I really enjoy the semester so far. I hate doing some of the homework sometimes, but it all makes me a better writer in the end. I feel that I have improved tremendously since the end of my senior year. I don't feel I have improved on writing as much as I have in my confidence. I have always been very afraid to write because I am not confident and don't want people to judge my paper or think I can't write well. So, at the begining of the year, you noticed I wasn't confident in my writing but I feel I have improved over the time. I really like when we sit in a circle in class and then make up ideas and discuss them together. For instance, the other day we did small free-writes and then talked about them in class. I found it was very beneficial for me not only to help me open up, but I also obtained ideas from others. It really is my favorite thing! I enjoy coming to class everyday and I really hope my writing keeps improving.

Driving age being raised

In class, I decided this is my for sure research topic. There are so many things I can do with this paper. First of all, I know that in South Dakota the driving age is 14, but I have no idea why. So, I can learn while I write the paper which I feel will be very beneficial. Some questions I have to answer in my paper are: who put it so low, what are the rules with driving age at 14, why did they put it at age 14, how do we change it, how much does it cost to change, # of deaths in other states compared to ours, how much education before a license is given, causes, and statistics. I am going to try to prove that at age 14, kids's brains aren't developed and are still very immature which is never good when being behind the wheel. Going through 2 months of a driving class and taking a driving and written test just doesn't seem to prepare a child enough in my opinion. I will give the statistics about how many deaths have been caused by young teens compared to other states. The rate at which a female and males brain are developed. How could we change this law. There are many things for me to think about, but right now I have my topic, questions, and can start trying to find information for my paper.

Research Paper

I very much enjoyed class today. I felt very confident and able to be open with the class for once. I very much liked the activity that we did to figure out what we should do our research paper over. Some of the topics I had to choose from were: racism, driving age raised, healthcare, cancer, divorce rate, smoking, and countries debt. The two I came down to were racism and the driving age being raised. I really wanted to do racism because my boyfriend is Korean and I see many steriotypes and labels that he gets. Today, no one sees who a person is anymore and just judges them. I also really like the driving age being raised as a topic because I have a lot of experience with that. I worked as a volunteer in the ER for a year and I saw so many young kids die, being brain dead, and critically injured all because they aren't mature enough to be behind the wheel. I decided on the driving age because I have more personal experience with it and I really would like to learn more about it. The class gave me some solid questions: why is the driving age so low in South Dakota, how many deaths have been caused by the young driving age, who put the driving age to 14, and how much would it cost to raise it. I believe I have a good solid background on this topic and will be able to write a great research paper.