Critical Thinking

Japanese fishing trawler sunk by giant jellyfish

The article I chose talks about a ship that was sunk due to a giant jellyfish attack. I think that the article is somewhat messy because it goes from one thing to another. From my point of view the author should have stuck to an organize pattern because if he did the essay would have sounded more formal. To me it sounded like if the author had no idea what he was writing about because his article was based of another article and it did not provide ore information about the ship that sunk. I read two different articles one was supposed to be the original and the other was based off the original one. The second article was ore like a summary and the writer was still all over the place with the details of the story. Seeing that both writers were all over the place made me think that they did it on a rush.

"The Men We Carry in Our minds"

1. Sanders immediately acknowledges about the physical conditions about the men he knew when he was a boy because he saw them work so hard that their bodies were damaged. "The bodies of the men were twisted and maimed...The nails of their hands were black and split, the hands tattooed with scars...Some had lost their fingers.(3)" Sanders also saw how the laborers worked so hard all year round with no breaks, later this leads to the laborers. "Their ankles and knees ached from years of standing on the concrete. Anyone who had worked for long around machines was hard of hearing.(3)" The men worked so hard that their health started to deteriorate.

2. Sanders characterizes the soldiers he knew when he was growing up as men "who did not sweat and break down like mules." From his point of view Sanders says that the soldiers hardly worked all day in comparison to the laborers, but they were all willing to risk their life and put it on the lines when the war came to them. "They were all waiting-like so many braves waiting for the hunt to begin." This shows that indeed they were just waiting for the moment of the fight. The moment that would test the skills they learned as soldiers.

3. As a young boy Sanders had only seen the laborers who worked all their life and the soldiers who waited for the moment of the fight. Seeing only this two types of men is what led him to not imagine that he could aspire to be an engineer, or any of the men he saw on television. Since he was grew up seeing laborers work their life off and the soldiers waiting to go to war he assumed that all he could aspire to be was a laborer, laborers' boss and a soldier.

4. Sanders' father seemed to have partially changed by going from the "tire factory,and from the assembly line to the front office." Regardless of the partial escape his father was still affected by the year he had worked at "red-dirt farm", his father escaped from working his whole life until he died. His health was still damaged from the years he worked at the farm and carried over till he worked at the office.

5. The specific contrast that he between college men and women that he later understands are that men assumed that they would be rich since the very moment they were born because their fathers had been "rich." The contrast of women is that they complained about men having things easy and having more advantages. In his opinion Sanders think that women have the better life although; they spend most of the time tending the kids and being locked at home doing chores they do not get to work as hard as men do.

6.What tbrings lower- class men and women together are the desires they all have to make their lives different and to become better people. The realities they have in common is that they have the future in their hands and can change the world world to make it better.

7. What the college women have in common with the author of this essay is that they are interested in the arts and becoming better people for the good of the world.

Summary Self evaluation

1. To me the most challenging part of writing the summary was coming up with the main ideas of each section and the sction function. I think that that was the most challenging part mostly because I had to get it right because if I did not then my entire summary was going to be all wrong. To me the least challenging part was coming up with transitions because I had the entire summary written down and I had done it before. The transition process I had used it before in my past English classes when I had to write an essay.

2. To be honest I did not expect the grade I got because I thought that my summary was somewhat obscure. Now that I look back at it I see why I got the grade I got. I think it is very straight forward and meets the rubric requirements. When I was looking at the draft of the outline I thougtht that I was not so sure about what I was supposed to do, and how I was supposed to do it. Later I just read through the outline that I had put together and just edited by making some corrections and rephrasing the author's ideas.

3. Based on the comments I received, I think that my strenghts are paraphrasing, making transitions and clauses to join the ideas because Ireceived the comments based on the rubric and they reflect the same ideas from the rubric.

4. What I think I will try to inprove for my next summary is that I will try to use less prepositons that can make my summary sound too wordy because at the beginning of the first sentence were crossed out. After I read through it, I realized that I chould have done it before submitting it and it would have been perfect.

The Most Valuable Technique form Ch. 8

The most valuable tecnique I learned from chapter 8 is practice because if people practice a lot then they become better at whatever they are doing. I chose this because I noticed that when we have a reading from Susie's class from the "Reader" and we re-read it in class I become better on the subject. When I read it on my own it is somewhat clear but the more I read it again and again the subject becomes clearer. When I typed "practice" I remembered about the the video we saw in class and how the guy repeated the word so many times that it became very annoying. I think that the act of practicing soemthing can become very annoying and that might prevent one from learning and staying focus in what we are doing.I experienced it myself when I had to attend cross country practice in high school. I had to attend it everyday and had to practice myself during the weekends, it became very annoying because I had to hear the coach say the same thing every day. He complained about other athletes not going to practice. I assume that they stopped going to practice because they got tired of practicing. In my case I did miss one or two practices but because of injuries from practicing too much and it affected me because it made me want to quit. I remained focused untill the injuries hit me, then they push me down and not wanting to go to practice any more and it made my performances go down.

Lit Blog Response- Discussing Main Point and Meaning

1) I do not think the author's survey results indicate that feminist is, by and large, dirty word for her fellow students because Lybby does not provide more information that says that people think it's a dirty word. She provides the same amount of information for both points, she spends time talking on how people are not concern about feminist. On paragraph 3 she says that people said that they knew about the word but they just did not cara about the subject.

2) The reasons Libby offers as to why there are not more self-identified femisnts are that people think that being a feminist is something bad, that people are confused about what it really means. Another reason is that some men think that as males they should not be involved in the situation being. Some people think that they cannot be feminist because they are not doing anything to make things better.

3. Libby thinks that more people should identify themselves as feminists because she does not think that feminist is a bad word or that it has anything wrong. She thinks that feminist are just people who fight for women equal rights. In fact she thinks that the negative connotation should be ignored because it disturbs the real meaning of the word.

Tranfer Motivational Conference

Despite all the talking during the presentations of the guest speaker I had an amazing time at the conference. I disliked the fact that a lot of people were talking while the guest speakers or the college representatives were presenting. It made me very upset because I wanted to hear what they had to say in order to learn new things. The biggest highlight was Cruz Reynoso because I enjoyed hearing the stories of his life and stories of his family. It was very inspirational hearing his words of wisdom and how he conveyed us to become together as a group and let the schools know that we want to go back to the old system in which college students did not have to pay for classes. Hearing how he had to work on the field picking fruits and working hard and still managed to become such an important figure in politics made think that if you ever want to be somebody, you have to work hard make sacrifices and not give up. For me this conference was serious although it seemed that it was the opposite for other people. I felt very dissapointed and ashamed to be part of the Foothill Puente program because some of my classmated kept being asked to be quiet. I felt very disspaointed because I thought that they were not representing our school. I do not mind whether my classmates get mad me for publishing this but it seemed for them that they were not taking the conference serious. It seemed so because when I went to my workshop half of the class was in the same worshop. I don't think that it was appropiate for them to not take advantage of this oppurtunity and learn something new. I know I should not be saying this because everyone is responsible for their own actions, everyone makes different choices and some peopke made them at the conference by talking and during the guest speakers presentation. From my point of view it prevented some people from learning.

Anzaldua Blog Response # 2

Anzaldua's essay structurure is different from that of an academic writing by having very small parts of poems or sayings in beween some of the paragraphs. Some of the sayings or quotes she presents in the essay are not by other authors but also by her mother. In a formal essay I have never seen someone quoting what their mom said and use it as a proof in an essay. She also writes a list of the different languages that Mexicans speak are, this is not part of an academic essay because it is not a paragraph that proves and makes an argument. What I think makes it an acadademic text is the point that she is trying make, also the sidenotes that show that ahe did a lot of research to get to the point that she wanted to make. She discusses each point she intoduces in her paragraphs also. What makes it different from a traditional essay is that it contains a lot of spanish sentences. This might make the text confusing to read for some people who do not speak spanish, even if she later trnaslates them it can become very distracting. I think that she writes her essay providing many spanish vocabulary to go along with the title of the essay which is "How to Tame a Wild Tongue." By writing some sentences and words in spanish she is showing that she speaks how she speaks and that no one was going to stop her. What she was trying to accomplish is that she wanted to show that there are many different languages that people speak within their same language.
Reason she gives for writing the essay in the way she did:
"Until I am free to write bilingually and to switch codes without having having always to translate, while I still have to speak English or Spanish when I would rather speak Spanglish..."(44)

Anzaldua Blog Response

When I was in seventh and eigth grades I was taking my ESL classes, I was learning English because I had recently moved to the United States. I was not judged by Americans who spoke English, but by people of my own etnicity. While in class I used to not talk to anyone because I knew that if I talked to them they would make fun of my Salvadoran spanish accent. All of my classmates were Mexicans one or two were Asian so I could not talk to the Asians because I did not speak English and I could not talk to the Mexicans because they made fun of me. They said mean and derogatory things about me. Due to this issue I grew a strong rage towards some Mexican teenagers. I had a Mexican girlfriend and she was very nice and sweet, she never said anything that could hurt me and she was the only person who I can speak to in school and she would understand and not make fun of my accent. She had a friend and she was Mexican also and one we were both sitting in the cafeteria having our lunch when her friend came to our table. It was the day that we had received our progress reports and my friend was happy about me having straight A's that she told her friend that I had a 4.00 GPA. The girl just gave me a look full of envy and madness and said "caras vemos mañas no sabemos." It was one of the things that I have never forgotten. The girl knew who I was and where from and whenever she saw me she would look the other direction. What she said made me very upset but I said nothing to her nor to anyone who said things like this to me excet one time. I was again in the school cafeteria waiting in line to get my food when someone said something in English that I did not understand and I said "no hablo Ingles." Someone behind me was so impatient that I did not move forward on the line that said "Go back to Mexico" I turned to him and said "no soy Mexicana." The guy was Mexican I could see it, and I felt it in his words. Later I realized that the guy was in my P.E class.

VARK Activity

What I learned about myself from reading chapter 3 is that I have many ways in which my learning can be more effective. By reading this chapter I leaned that I am responsible for making sure that I understand what is being taught to me. It is my responsibility to make myself engaged into the material that it is on my hands. I also learned that by just letting things sit around for a long time is not going to benefit, in fact that I have to learn how to manage my own time and use it wisely. It is my duty to make come up with strategies that will help and benefit my learning process. In some cases I might have to summarize in my own head and then I can write on paper as a second draft and then read it aloud and make sure is what I am thinking and make it the final draft.

Question: How is Juan Salvador’s fait...

Literature Circle Blog Response #3

Question: How is Juan Salvador’s faith changing?

Answer: As a young boy Juan Salvador’s faith in God was
stronger because he had his mother next to him and she had a big influence over
his beliefs. Unfortunately as Juan got older and his situation drew him away
from his family he became a stronger and smarter person; although his faith in
God was lost the day he had cross the border. His faith in God started to diminish
when he had to go through the sandstorm, and other tough situations that made
him believe that God did not exist. His mother had some control over him when
she was with him, but the moment he got away from her his faith started to
decrease because he did not see a good thing come from God and he did not help
him when he needed him the most. As Juan had to live the desperation of getting
out of jail and having to be far from his family he had to endure and become a
hard hearted person. When he escaped out of jail and lived with Duel and
Katherine Juan learned and was turned into a new different person. In some way
Juan forgot about his people, which I say because in chapter thirteen he says
that he felt weird speaking Spanish and on chapter fourteen Juan had forgotten
that Mexicans were nothing in the U.S. Indeed Juan learned how to speak good English
and Greek and other tricks that could save him later on in his life, but at the
“whorehouse” where he worked he was taught nothing but how to play poker. Juan
had forgotten about God and everything that was in his mind was how to get
money; although his face in God was lost, he still preserved a last bit of
faith in his family. He was close to lose it, but when his sister Luisa tells
him “Our family, our blood, our dreams-these are the reasons that we’ve been
struggling all this years; not money (pg 230).” This quote proves that indeed
Juan was giving the fight for money but his mother and sister opened his eyes
and made him see that he was wrong that instead of fighting for money he should
fight for his dreams and family. Luisa told him this because she wanted him to
stay by her side to help her with their mom and her kids, I think that it was
not so much the help she needed but it was the warmth of having her brother
next to her. He was the only man left in the family and so he was supposed to
be the head of the family. Juan was thinking about going back to Montana but
his sister’s word moved him so much that he thought to himself “For a man, a
real macho, to be on his own was to be rooted to the earth with his balls, his tanates, with the blood and flesh of his
familia (pg.230).” This shows that he
beliefs that he does want to be with his family because if he does not stay
with them then he will not be a real man. This also returns his faith in his
family because whatever he does now will be for his family’s benefit and not
just his.

Literature Circle Blog Repsonse #2

Question: What are the consequences of sacrificing your pride in order to overcome your struggles?

Response: Sometimes people have to sacrifice their pride which in my opinion is the same as dignity. In the text "Rain of Gold" one of Dona Guadalupe's daughters is forced to sacrifice her pride and is forced to beg her husband Don Tiburcio to help provide the food for her mom. Sophia Don Tiburcio’s wife tells this to her sister Lupe who thinks that Sophia has disappointed her family because she told her other sister Maria to tell Esabel to steal her. Sophia admits that she gave the advice to Maria because she knew that at that time they were all struggling for food. Sophia wanted Lupe to understand that they had to set their pride aside and do whatever it took them to obtain food. Sophia was not willing to lose her family from starvation; she had rather sacrificed her pride to save her family whom had been next to her since little. She had rather see her sister mad at her then seeing them dying from starvation. On page 186 Sophia says “Is it begging for me to ask Don Tiburcio to not charge Mama for the staples he brings you people?” and later she says “We’re all doing the best we can, querida.” This proves that Sophia is indeed doing it for “all you people” which means for her family. By saying “We’re all doing the best we can” Sophia shows that she is willing to sacrifice whatever she needs or has to. So the consequences about sacrificing her pride had to humiliate herself in front of her husband and also to having to disappoint her sister Lupe who thought highly of her. This all did not matter to Sophia since she did not care what others said or thought and she was determined to help her family in any way she could.

Question: How does sacrifice influence /impact the family?

Response: The way Don Tiburcio’s sacrifice to give his life for Lupe’s is that now his wife Sophia is depressed and it affects her entire family because they all do not want to see her cry. His sacrifice will not only affect the family but also the kids that he has left. With his departure to heaven he impacted Sophia’s family by making them feel unsafe and lonesome at the Canyon. This pushes them towards the decision of leaving the Canyon. This situation affected Lupe and the entire family because now Sophia did not feel safe and besides Don Tiburcio told her to go north with their children. This hurt Lupe’s family even more. Sophia sees her family before departure and says “I’ll be waiting for all of you across the border. Oh, how much I wish Mama would accept part of my treasure and you could all come with me now. (Pg.199)”This shows that Sophia is hopeful that she will someday see her family again and she wishes that she could come with her, but she is too attached to the Canyon and is too proud to accept the gift from her daughter. Sometimes people may think that if they sacrifice something it will only impact their life, but they forget that sometimes their choices also have an impact in other people’s life. Don Tiburcio only thought of saving Lupe’s life he did not think how his decision could later affect his family. He sacrificed himself for Lupe in Lupe’s eyes he was a brave man who saved her life, and her family did not really recognize his bravery or at least they forgot to.

College Success

Designs for a living

Preview and Pre- Read:
Does "Design For Living" mean the blueprint of peoples life to live their life by?

Make Predictions:
I think will use different examples of families or different individuals in order to
answer the question.

Defined Terms:
Anthropology:the study of human beings and their ancestors through time
and space
and in relation to physical character, environmental and social
relations, and culture

Cultural Determinism:term used to describe the concept that culture determines
economic and political arrangements

Biological Determinism:assumes that all or virtually all human behavior is
innate and cannot be changed or altered.

Innate:: existing in, belonging to, or determined by factors present in an
individual from birth; native, inborn

Abhorrent:strongly opposed, not agreeable

Reminiscent:having the quality of

Queries: a question

Clan: A division of a tribe tracing descent from a common ancestor

Poignant:Touching

Organic: derived from living organism

Heredity:the genetic transmission of characteristics from parent to offspring

Social: of or relating to human society and its modes of organization

Legacy: something handed down from an ancestor or a predecessor or from the past

Guided Reading
1) Cluckhohn begins his article with questions for two reasons, one is to
call the reader's attention. Second reason is that he introduces the type
of people he later talks about in the article. He does answer the questions, but
his answer is based on what anthropologists' opinions.

2) Cluckhohn defines culture as a blueprint because he says that culture
is based on a everyday and past event basis.

3) What he means is that he does not have to go through an individual's life history
in order to understand him because by just knowing their culture he is able to
understand the individual's situation.

4) The point he is trying to make with the examples is that sometimes people think
that because it is normal to their eyes to do something it is normal to everyone else.
In other words, people misunderstand others because they do not know the
individual's background or culture.

5) What Cluckhohn means is that culture is something made by the people who
surround us and not something that has been passed on by genetics. The example
provided on paragrah 5. It talks about how a blue eyed boy was thought to be American,
but he was raised in China. People who just saw him thought he was American
but he was more Chinese because he was raised in China and was taught their customs.

Post Reading:
Designs for a living means the blueprint of how we are going to live our own life, it is
the path thatour ancestors set for us. The path that our present parents
have followed and the path that we are supposed to follow

Pages Cited
http://library.thinkquest.org/C004367/ph6.shtml
http://psychology.wikia.com/wiki/Cultural_determinism

Literature Circle Blog Response

A)
The first scene I chose is in the middle of page 106. On the way to the North Dona Margarita says that is time for the prayers to her dear lord to thank him for giving them the chance to live another day of their life and for providing food. After a day of suspense after been stealing the corn from the fields and after making the shelter Dona Margarita makes them all bent down and pray.
B)
I think that this scene is important because it demonstrates, how humble and how much faith Dona Margarita's family has in God, also because it shows how much faith Dona Margarita herself, has in God. This scene demonstrates how much wisdom and how thankful Dona Margarita is. This also shows that Dona Margarita

kept her family together at all times. This scene reminded me of how my grandmother tried to make pray and thank God for what we had been given.Our food, money to buy it, and the good health that we had. This scene did not say much about the economy, but made me aware that the peoples economy.At that time, time was very harsh because women had lost their husbands at battles and so it was very hard for them to keep up with the food expenses.
C)FAITH

The second and last scene I chose is on

What Causes Segregation?

Segregation is also caused by ethnicity, poverty, culture, religion, and so on. I personally think that what causes segregation is peoples ignorance to not be able to see everyone equally. People who are ignorant think that they are superior and think that they have the right to own, mistreat, and intimidate others simply because they think that the world revolves just around them. Some people are segregated because they believe in something different than what others beliefs. Some people are poor, some rich. The rich think that because they have what they have they can mistreat others as if they were animals. The poor, they think that because they do not have a car, or own a house or have properties and or have low level of education can let others mistreat or take advantage of them. People who are ignorant think that they can be superior to others, people who are not, they are more open-minded and see everyone equally. Equally, no matter their skin color, religions, beliefs, culture or ethnicity. People who are ignorant refuse to admit that no one is more than the other. They refuse to share ideas with someone that has different wiews, or is from a different culture. Also jealousy could be a cause because some people envy others and cannot understand the concept of being equally human, and treated. The ones that do not understand will tend too have power over the weak ones and they will just bent their knees in front of them and will not fight back. Segregation is caused by racial actions such as hatred words or actions. This will eventually all lead to a separation, which is segregation.

Leave Your Cell Phone at the Classroo...

Leave Your Cell Phone at the Classroom Door

What is the difference between assimilating and giving in in to a new society?
I think that the difference is  that assimilating people try to understand the and adapt to the the new culture and in giving in to a new society people just pretend of change their original culture. People who assimilate understand the concept of the new society and they get use to the new idea. People who give in, they just make themselves fit into the new society they are the ones who could not get use tho the idea, the ones who were unable to assimilate the new society.

What is the Digital Culture?

I look at the question and I am still not sure what the answer should be, since I think I have no clue about what the digital culture really is. I admit that I am not a big fan of computers and the internet. Whenever I use any of them I do it because I have to do it, not because I feel like using them. The digital culture to me does not mean much; although I understand that to other people it has priority. The digital culture, meaning computers, iPods, cameras and all electronics have definitely have changed the world. Now if someone wants to take a picture and can just take it and print it as in seconds depending if who want to print it owns a printer. They no longer have to wait days or even hours to have them printed. boom boxes or stereos are now rarely seen because people have switched to iPods and nobody goes to the store to buy CDs they just buy them on the internet from the iTunes store. The internet and computers are what changed the world and made it become more internet depending. People now depend on comoputers at least a big portion of the world's population. Teachers and students depend on the internet and the coputers to get their job done. I personally dislike computers because I tend to feel tired of sitting on a chair with a screen in front of me, but I have to say they that the internet and computers make things easier.

My Motivation To Attend College

Many times people are bounded to make a choice that can strongly change their lives, for many teens like myself going to college is a "choice." For othets it is a "must do" because their parents make them attend college. In My case goin to college was a "choice" becaus I was the one who was supposed to make my into it. I was the first person in my family to ever graduate from high school as I am the first person from my family to attend college. My motivation to attend college is myself. There are many factors that push me to attend college such as: getting a better education, learning from others such as classmates and listening to their opinions. The biggest motivation is I have is myself. I love taking a challenge and exploring no matter whether I failure or triumph are present. I know that any decision I make is always going to affect myself before others. My family is very important to me, but the way I think is that I have to think and act for myself and not others, that it is a matter of choice whether I help them or not. With my family I have experienced many things that have made me realized that whatever I do I am never going to make others happy or they are never going to be satisfied. I understand all the love and time that they have dedicated to me but, I also think that if I make my mom happy or my brother I am not going to make my uncles happy. If I am not going to satisfy them or make them happy why would waste my time trying to? It would be like swimming against a strong curret, no matter how hard I swim I am just going to get tired and finally not reach anywhere. If I let myself be drag by the current I will get somewhere who knows where but it would be better than going against it.