Blog #15

I think that this class has been way to much for for someone just taking it for basics. I almost feel that this was enough work to be going to college to be an English major. I spent more time on this class than the classes I need for my prerequisites to go into the nursing program. 

Blog #14

I am going to talk about how ready I am for this semester to be over with. I do believe this semester feels like the longest I have ever had. It has taken everything I have to not drop all of my classes. I really hope to get into the nursing program at BRTC or at ASUN starting in August. I know this is not going to be 250 words but with all the blogs and essays in this class plus all of the discussions boards in my other 3 classes I am for once lost for words. It seems like all teachers wait till the end of the semester to finally start giving work. I am always confused at that. If I was a teacher I would give all the assignments at the beginning of the semester. I feel that the people who make it through the first 6 weeks or so should be given a break for the rest of the semester. I guess it is a good thing I am not going to be a teacher even though having every summer, spring break, thanksgiving break, christmas break, plus all the extra day in between sounds really good.

Blog #12

I will be doing my essay over why I think that open adoption is better than a closed adoption. My husband and I had an extremely hard time deciding what we would do about this problem before we became foster parents. Even though I did my adoption through DHS (DHS only does closed adoption, from what I have been told) we were given the opportunity to allow our son to have a relationship with his siblings. My son and his siblings do not see their biological parents but in the future when they decide to straighten their lives up I would allow them to see him. I do keep up with them because I know that someday he will have questions and I want him to have them answered.

Open adoption can provide a child with a sense of connection and completeness. Openness may answer many of the questions that adopted children in closed adoptions often struggle to answer such as: Who am I? What are my birth parents like? Why was I placed for adoption?

The possible benefits of open adoption for a child include—

Having links to his or her birth mother, and possibly birth father, brothers, and sisters. The ability to be able to do away with the need to search for the birth family when the child is old enough to understand, and may have many questions that the adoptive parents are not able to answer. Being able to remove the feelings of secrecy and shame that can come up at different points in his or her life, although not all of the time. Increased self-worth, sense of identity, and security that comes from firsthand answers to identity questions. Having a sense of belonging which may lessen the child’s feelings of abandonment. Connection to the child’s cultural, ethnic background, and ancestry. Better access to important medical information, such as factors that can lead to disease, or medical conditions that exist in the birth families. Better understanding of the reasons for placement into the adopted family’s home. A sense of knowing that the child may look like someone else or has characteristics that comes from a blood connection.

Blog #11

When choosing topics to be used in an educational environment, it is good to avoid topics that are controversial or offensive. Using discretion during the topic selection process removes any chance of a topic being used that is not politically correct. In my opinion, this is why teachers have to ban or avoid certain topics when giving assignments to their students. Only having a few topics for the students to choose from, the teacher can easily grade the papers without having to check a large amount of information and resources. I think that as grown adults taking college classes we should be able to choose whatever topic we want. If a student can choose a topic based on personal interest, the student would be excited and eager to complete the assignment. I have a difficult time finding information and resources during the writing process when given a topic that I have no personal interest in. This also causes a lack of motivation to do the assignment and usually causes me to rush through the paper. A possible solution would be to broaden the variety of topics a student is allowed to choose from. By doing this, there will be a better chance that the students could choose a topic they find interesting. A larger variety of topics would also keep the unwanted and controversial subjects from being used in a student’s paper. Having a topic chosen for me also relieves me of the time and stress of having to find a topic on my own.

blog 10

I think it’s unfair to condemn schools for trying. Schools are severely underfunded and if the goal is to get more funding, where’s the evil? With better funding, schools can create a better learning environment. In the long run this will help more students. I think everyone agrees that these programs have the potential to help some students, obviously not all of them. That would be unrealistic but even if it helped a few, is it not worth it? For those who do it for the money, they will realize that money is not free rather worked for. And yes, sometimes in lousy ways. The point is schools can’t depend on the 'system' to help them so they have created funding for themselves. If, in the process, they can motivate students to do better, then go for it. Many kids can't participate in after-school programs or projects because they have to work to help support their families. Paying children for better grades may better the education system all together, especially for those whose parents can’t afford to provide any incentives for their children to do better in school. When children are offered an award from their parents if they get let’s say an A on a history paper, that child has more incentive to get an A then he did before, right? This sounds like a way to bridge the gap between earnings and school - to show kids that their education is valuable and important, and to keep them in school where they should be, rather than working an evening job at McDonalds. Whatever it takes for kids to improve their education would in turn help improve their self-esteem. It may give them just the encouragement they need to "make something of themselves".

Blog #9

Marijuana should be legal for medical purposes, because it has proven benefits. Marijuana has been proven effective for battling the pain that many people suffer due to illness. To deny these people this option in treating their pain is completely unreasonable. In reality, marijuana is far less dangerous than strong prescription pain killers anyway. Furthermore, not allowing marijuana to be legalized for medicinal purposes will have little to no effect on peoples' recreational use of the drug. Not only do I think Marijuana should be made legal for medical reasons, but for recreation. There is no rational explanation as for why marijuana is not illegal. Marijuana is not nearly as destructive or dangerous as psychotropic drugs dealt to us by the pharmaceutical industry. According to psychological studied Marijuana has a very low addiction rate, and statistics show that it is very rarely associated with injury or death other than the issue of its illegal distribution. Tobacco and Alcohol has been linked to many more deaths and these are both legal, the later because prohibition, what we are now doing with Marijuana, did not stop the sale and use of the product. Making this legal would decrease the number of illegal operations and associated violence and the taboo element which attracts youth to engage in the use of it.

Blog #8

Pop star, composer, songwriter, and recording artist. John Winston Lennon was born October 9, 1940, in Liverpool, Merseyside, NW England, UK, during a German air raid in World War II. When he was four years old, Lennon's parents separated and he ended up living with his Aunt Mimi. John's father was a merchant seaman. He was not present at his son's birth and did not see a lot of his son when he was small. Lennon's mother, Julia, remarried, but visited John and Mimi regularly. She taught John how to play the banjo and the piano and purchased his first guitar. John was devastated when Julia was fatally struck by a car driven by an off-duty police officer in July 1958. Her death was one of the most traumatic events in his life. As a child, John was a prankster and he enjoyed getting in trouble. As a boy and young adult, John enjoyed drawing grotesque figures and cripples. John's school master thought that he could go to an art school for college, since he did not get good grades in school, but had artistic talent.

Lennon met McCartney in 1957 and invited Paul to join his music group. They eventually formed the most successful songwriting partnership in musical history. Lennon left The Beatles in 1969 and later released albums with his wife Yoko Ono, and others. In 1980 he was killed by a crazed fan.

In 1980, Lennon returned to the music world with the album Double Fantasy, featuring the hit single Starting Over. Unfortunately, just a few weeks after its release, Lennon was shot by a deranged fan in front of his apartment complex in New York. Lennon died of the age of 40 at the Roosevelt Hospital on December 8, 1980, after receiving multiple gun shots in the back. His death affected millions of people, record sales soared, and he continues to be admired by new generations of fans.