I would say youneed to talk more about the plot to clearup some points. also, you should try and include more evidence and concrete details into your writing.- troy

I would say that you should clear up, and make the TAGS part for better. Also, include the questions at the beginning, and you should make your writing alittle more formal- kathy


hey. i think you did a really good job here. one thing i thought you could improve on is that the language is a little informal. also, i think you can change up the sentence varieties. they seem all kind of shortish... it seemed a little awkward to me. otherwise, a great post! -luis

Response To Vignettes

Over the past few days, I’ve skimmed a few blogs.  I especially liked Victor’s blog because it was funny and cute, Melissa’s blog because it was serious and emotional, and Alex’s blog because it was straight forward and had strong morals.   Though they were each different, I saw that all of them commented heavily on family.  They knew how important family was and how they couldn’t live with out their family.  I feel the same way.  My family backs me up on everything, and I know I would be lost with out time. Victor explains a situation where he got lost during a trip to the Sydney Opera House.  He explained how worried he was about losing his family. I would be too:

My eyes started to water as I felt the need to collapse. I thought that my whole life would end right then and there. I picked myself up from the ground, and started yelling out to my parents. I cried and cried while I started to lose hope. Not one adult bothered to help me. They just glanced at me in a sorry way, and just walked by. A few more seconds of me weeping went by until I finally saw my worried parents running towards me. The second I wiped my eyes to see them, my whole body relaxed. It felt like I was finally at peace after being tortured

This was amazing.  I loved the vivid details of how sad and scared he was without his family right beside him.  And on the contrary, he explained flawlessly how overcome with joy he was to find them.  He even compared it to being relieved from torture.  I think this is how family should be.  Family should be so close and interconnected that when they are separated, they feel physical pain. This is what makes a strong, united, loving family. 

Melissa also stated that family is forgiving.  She never held a grudge against her mom for leaving because she was her mom.  She would always love her mom no matter what and couldn’t stay mad at her: “I love my mother and I understand why she had to leave. I have no hate towards her because in the end I know she is my mother.”  I thought it was a very strong sign of family.  One should always forgive and forget in family, no matter what because without a family, who do you have to lean on? No one ever, no friend, no one, will ever have the same relationship with you like a family member.  Never.

She also showed that family had jobs and obligations that tops everything else.  He sister had to take care of her when she was young and that interfered with her sister’s social time.  Her sister deep down inside, didn’t enjoy taking care of Melissa because it made her sacrifice so much of her time.  Though she truly felt this way, she barely complained and never made Melissa feel bad about it because she loves her time, no matter what circumstances, they should love each other and never let anything, anything at all come in the way of that..  She knows that as an older sister, it is her responsibility to take care of her and this takes priority over anything else.  This is how family should be.  Family should be supportive and loving all the 

Super Power

I found this quote on Victor’s Blog that I found fascinating

If I had a super power it would be the ability to create an item by visualizing it in your mind. Others might want to fly or have super speed, but if you could make things with your mind, you could just visualize a jet pack to fly or a race car for speed. You could make up anything you want from guns to fight crime to food to fight poverty. Visualizing items is the best super power since you could do whatever you wanted since you controlled matter.

I have never thought of this power, and I think it maybe better than the one I thought of:

  As a child, I always wanted to fly, and I dreamt about flying with super powers.  I thought that I could just lead a normal life, except just concealing my secret, which would be easy if I followed just one rule: don’t fly in front of other people.  I could just fly from place to place by flying at super sonic speed up above the clouds, then slowing down and taking my time(which would still be 100 miles an hour).  I wouldn’t be expected to save anyone’s life or get into fights.  This way I would never be late for anything.  Sometimes, I dream about becoming a pilot, but I think against it because I don’t want to hold the future of all the people in the plane in my hands and fail them because I tend to make a lot of mistakes.  Also, flying a plane has restrictions because I can’t go anywhere I want, I have a top speed, and I cant do tricks.  I thought about joining the air force, but that is dangerous, and I don’t want to put my life in danger.  I also don’t want to be involved in any killing or bombing. 

With victor’s idea of visualizing things, I could just make a hover skate board or a jet back or flying shoes that go as fast and I want.  I could also give food to people who need it.  But if I had any super powers, I would keep it to myself because I don’t want people to expect me to do good,a nd have me fail them. Also, I don’t want to become a human test experiment for scientists.  I would do good, but in my own secret way.

“I just want to fly” is what I used to think. But now when I think about it, I now know that flying is a sign of freedom, going as fast as you want where ever you want and whenever you want.  That is what I want, not just flying.

Response To Jesse on Pizza

I was scrolling through reader, and found this post by Jesse, and decided to write a very descriptive paragraph on it.  

I think one of the best pizza places I’ve ever been to is Amici’s so if you see it, immediately plan a time to go there, cause their pizza is awesome! The pepperoni they put on the pizza kind of resembles a cup, and you can sprinkle Parmesan cheese or pepper and it tastes so good. So go there.

            Regular pizza, steaming hot with creamy cheese and greasy meats, is a comfort food.  However, as one takes each bite, one feels guilt running through their mind.  With each slice comes much fat and grease oozing out from the layers of cheeses, and the fatty meat toppings piled high.  If one wants a healthy choice of pizza, one should go to The Flat Bread Pizza Company in Paia, Hawaii which serves only the freshest, organic produce from local farmers, and cooks their specialty pizzas in a clay oven with a fire, fueled by wood.  By supporting local farms, they keep the toppings tasting fresh, and keeping the pizza healthier than other choices.  The clay oven provides a unique smoky taste to the crust that only comes from a wood burning fire.  It also contributes to keeping it healthy by lifting off the grease from the pizza.  When I went there last summer, I was amazed by the many delicious flavors bursting in my mouth at one.  I could barely believe that all the ingredients are natural and the pizza as a whole was healthy.  I was used to eating pizza that when brought out, I could see the grease and fat liquidizing on top if it.  There was both a positive difference in taste and health.  After many generations of evolving from its origins in Italy, pizza has been perfected.

If you ever find yourself in Hawaii, make it one of your goals to visit this place, because I think it is going to blow your mind, especially because it is all organic, local grown food, and the clay oven puts such a great spin on it.  It is just amazing, so amazing that it was really difficult to write about it, using words.  I had to really think because, before, I would just explain the pizza as fhjdalkjdagsdal. Here is a link to reviews of the resturaunt, in case you want more detail: http://www.tripadvisor.com/Restaurant_Review-g60636-d729848-Reviews-Flatbread_Company-Paia_Maui_Hawaii.html. or http://www.yelp.com/biz/flatbread-company-paia

Burning houses 2

This is a response to Bianca's blog post about fire fighters who refused to help a man in need just because he did not pay his yearly fee:

"Firefighters are trained and paid to put out fires for the safety of everybody, not stand there senselessly watch a house burn down. The firefighters in this town sure know how to follow the orders of "only help those who paid the fee". Foster states that even though the firefighters are already in front of the burning house and have what it takes to stop the fire, they chose not to because they expected to be compensated for their labor. Saving a house is fine, because everything inside are material things, but what if the owner of the house was inside and passed out, unable to escape? Would the firefighters still not save the man? Surely there must be certain extent where money drives a profession of saving lives."

I completely disagree with the thoughts of this town.  What happened to the firefighters who are the heroes, who want to sae lives to be good, not for money?   Even if the man was not inside of the house, all the stuff in his house was deystroyed.  There is no way of replacing the sentemence of the items inside the house, it losing that is pretty  much as bad as losing his life because what was in his house may be ireplaceable.  Also, could you imagine what it felt like to just watch his hous burn down, with the firefighters right next to him?  That could practically kill him on the inside. 

the firefighters shouldnt decide wheather or not to save someone's life (or house) based on weather or not he paid his yearly fee. It is inhumane to just stand by and watch a house get burned down if you can stop it, even if you are on orders. I believe that it is mainly the town rules that caused this conflict because of their orders to refuse saving a house if they didn't pay there payment. Because none of the firefighters knew what would happen if they helped put out the fire, they expected the worst. Maybe they would lose their job and not be able to feed their children or something. They couldn't risk their own life so they were afraid to help the person in need. Even though I understand their point of view, I would never actually just stand by and let the house burn down, if I could do something about it. I would just help the guy out, and let him pay the man pay the city back later. I couldn't live with myself if I let s house burn down, without trying to save it. Also, I can't imagine the look on the face of the man. Seeing his house burn down with firefighters just standing by and looking must have devastated him. I cannot imagine how the firefighters slept that night. And I wonder what they must have been thinking while they watch this man's life get deystroyed. They must have felt bad,q and the city was at fault for all of these harmful feelings to both the victim and the firefighters.

Response to sutherland...

I was reading this post about twitter use in class on Mr. Sutherland’s blog and decided to respond:

I believe that since the children of this world are drawn to attention by technology, schools should adapt to their likings in order to teach them better. If schools taught by using technology and such, the students have more of a motive to actually stay focused.  The younger generation enjoys being involved in using computers, cell phones, or any other electrical technology because it is a shield between them and the actual world, and they are able to hide behind their computers or phones.  This allows them to be more confident in the boundaries of cyber space than they would be in the real life.

In this class, the teacher has the students text or twitter their ideas in instead of raising their hands and actually stating their ideas out loud.  This method is good in a larg class.  Many people are left unspoken to during class because there are too many ideas floating around.  Twitter or texting it would organize all of these and make it be able to share the ideas. Also, this is important because in a class, there may be many students who feel unsafe or uncomfortable speaking to an audience in fear of being made fun of for their idea or the way they speak.  Texting in their ideas instead of talking it out acts a sufficient “crutch” to the person, and helps guide them to feel more confident.  This crutch allows people to feel safer in sharing their ideas in class.

I do not believe that this method would work well in out class because some people do not have a cell phone.  Also, since our class is small, people will be able to share their ideas.  Although I believe that this would work for a larger class such as a college because it is difficult to address every one in the class, it is impractical to use it in such a small class.  Plus, ASTI’s community ensures that everyone feels safe and no one is ever made fun of for sharing their thoughts. This method is a great idea, but I think it should only be use for larger groups of people.

LOL-Response to Tiffany Cao's Question

I found this question that Tiffany brought up.  It amused me a little, so I decided to write about it:

    During lunch, a question randomly popped up and I asked if everyone actually LOLs(Laugh out loud) when they are chatting?

   Honestly, I usually use LOL incorrectly. I do not laugh out loud. I just smile or have an content face as my expression. Why must we use LOL? Is it because it's shorter than "haha" Why must we use LOL?

I believe that the acronym LOL appeared because a person who easily laughed actually laughed out loud when chatting or text and got tired of typing “laugh out loud” and made LOL up, then people talking to him didn’t realized at that he/she was actually laughing out loud and that he just meant “hey that’s funny” or something in that content.  They then started saying it and passed it on, and so on.  Since the “l” and the “o” are right on top of each other, it is easy to type LOL quickly.  It’s much faster than typing LQTM (“laugh quietly to myself”) or simply haha.  It soon becomes a habit, and then now everyone is doing it.

            Another reason may be that someone might actually laugh out loud if the person talked to them in real life and said the thing he/she typed.  In the effort to make the conversation more realistic, they say “LOL” because they would actually laugh out loud in real life.  It gives a visual of what the person does, making it feel more real.  If people were talking from different sides of the country so something, that visualization makes them feel closer.

            Also, it’s a good indication for when people are happy or not.  For example, since it becomes a habit to say “LOL” and it is so easy to type it, they could say it a lot, absent mindedly, when they are happy.  If they don’t say it often, you can see that they are not in a good mood without having to see their face.  Inc conclusion, I think people say LOL out of a habit, its quick, to make the conversation feel more real, and it is a good indication of the other’s mood.