Popular Culture

Well my free trial of netflix is over so my brother told me about this other site called HULU that is similar but you don't have to pay. The only thing is it is alot of older movies and you can only watch certain ones on HULU. Others you have to have HULU PLUS which costs you money. The other down fall is there are commercials which sucks. It is ok if you have absolutely nothing else i guess.

November 15

The point i'm trying to get across is that no matter how hard you try to ban tattooing in the prisons it will always happen one way or another. So we might as well find a safer alternative to the problem. My main text is an article about how even though there are repercusions to tattooing in prison it is still done. There is a high rate of HCV passed through dirty needles. If we tey to implement a program where they can get tattoos with clean and sterile needles and clean ink then that could possibly help with the spread. If you look at the cost of the program and then the cost to treat one inmate per year for the disease it all evens out. Hopefully my reader will look at both sides and not just what their already formed opinion is.

11/13

I don't necessarily have a specific way I organize my notes. I keep them all together and label what each one is and write a little about each one if i have to use more than one sheet. That way I can make sure to have all the right information when i need it and will be able to find things. Then when i'm ready to write my paper I can be on top of things and not scrambling around looking for things that are not labeled or lost.

Pop Culture

A week or so before the election it was very interesting to get on facebook and read all the posts about the candidates. I don't have cable so that was the only way I was really able to see adds and things like that. Alot of people put their opinions up and alot of pages that were suporting certain candidates were posting as well. One i saw was especially appalling (sp?). I guess it was from some girls twitter that made her sond especially dumb and ignorant. It was something to the effect of "When King Romney is elected she hopes he makes the black people become slaves for the whitl people because she hates having to do things herself." and the next one said "when Obama's kids go to public school she hopes they get bullied because they are ugly B******". WHO IN THE WORLD WOULD POST SOMETHING LIKE THIS?????? But i guess that just shows some people have no home training......

November 8

I will be using the research method. Since of course I will have to research my topic to get more information on it. After I get all the appropriate information I will have to argue my side using these sources I have found to back my arguement up.

Pop Culture

It's so funny to me how when you are looking for scholarships all the junk you have to go through. If you apply for one then you have to go through all these steps or "other offers" just to finish your application. Then on top of that they fill you inbox up with junk.

A Source

One of the sources I have is a study about why inmates in  correctional institutions get tattoos even though there are sanctions if caught. In some cases those sanctions can affect their parole, but yet they still get them. Alot of them get tattoos that show who they are affiliated with or get tattoos that mean something to them. I think it is a reliable source. I found it by using the MTSU database. It will help me in my aper when it comes to discussing the differences and similarities in prison tattoos and street tattoos and the reason for getting them.

Kids Castle

After my oldest got of school today I took them all to kids castle. Now it has changed alot since I was a kid. They have remodled the whole thing. When you go there you see mainly what you expect to see. You see the families and kids playing and having a good time. But if you go on Friday or Saturday night you will see teenagers. Now i'm not sure why its so cool to hang out at a kids park but i guess that's on them. What me and many others are wondering is why must these teenagers come to a family friendly environment and dress like they at the dang beach!!!!!! I personally don't get it and it's a little disturbing for teenagers to be hanging out around where my toddlers play. But yeah......

Citations

I don't really mind citations. The only format i have ever used is MLA. They are pretty easy i think. The only part that is a pain is the works cited page where toy have to put all that informatio in a certain order and with all the periods. I think that part is pointless. But hey that's just me.

Craigslist

Lately I have been on Craigslist alot looking for a friend a car. It is a pretty good site for the most part. The only thing that gets me is some of the things they out in certain categories. Like for instance I was "Cars and Trucks"..... Why was there ads on there for horses? And there were ads for like toy and model cars. Why would all those things be in the same category? If you are searching by price then alot of the "Dealer" ads are decieving. You could be searching for cars in the $1000 range but with the dealer ads you have to actually click on them and then you see that is $1000 down. So yeah.... 

Blog 10/11/12

One of my sources is titled Tattoos Point to Prison Background. It was published in the Virginia Gazette. It's talking about a man who was burned to death and his identity is unknown. The only clues thay have are tattoos that appear to be prison tattoos.There is a difference between tattoos you get on the street and one's you get in prison. You can tell alot about  person by their tattoos, especially tattoos that were gotten while incarcerated. I believe this is a reliable source because he uses a government source that has gathered information about this when giving information about what the tattoos mean that the man had.

Homecoming...

Ok I did not attend homecoming but as I was driving down Middle Tennessee I noticed something and i've actually noticed it before at the time of the other games..... for some reason it seems when all the tents are set up and people are cooking for the most part they are segregated. I saw mainly white people in a certain area and then mainly black people in another area. Now i'm not exactly sure why this is but I had noticed it at other games and wondered the saame things. I think we should all be mixed in there together. I'm sure they have different music choices and such things like that why seperate yourselves. What does that teach the children that see this? I sure wouldn't want to have to answer to my children as to why there are only whote people there and black people over there. My kids are mixed so they have a white side of the family and a black side. I'm sure it's nothing intentional but I still think it sends a message out......

October 4th

The Shadow Scholar had a point I think. He is not the reason people cheat. I mean yeah it's wrong for them to contact him to write papers and it's not right that these stuents can get aaway with it. But the simple fact is that even if he stopped doing it there will always be someone out there writing papers for other people. The skills I have learned I guess are to try to stay organized. Especially when you have more than one source, then you should make notes on each source and page numbers so all the info you need is readily accessable to you when you are putting the paper together. I have found that if you keep all your notes together just divided up and labeled well then it helps alot.

Dance Class

My oldest daughter started dance class two weeks ago. Unfortunantly it's during a class i have. Luckily though we got out of class early last week and i was able to go to her class. Now i know it's in the very beginning of the class but i was very happy to see that they weren't in there teaching my 4 year old how to shake her but and dance inappropriately like she see's on TV. My neice is 14 and she has been in a dance since she was about 4 and by the time she was 8 they had her dancing like she was in one of these skanky music videos. That is one thing i do NOT agree with. I think that is why we have so many of these kids in positions thay shouldnt be in is because society is making them older than they really are. And i know that spells trouble. Kids can have a good time and look nice without dancing and dressing like they do now thinking it's cute. It just shows they have no repect for themselves. My question is where are these parents and why are they ok with this?

Post 09/25

I guess the skill that i have learned is how to put a paper together better. The They Say\I Say templates are actually really helpful. They can help you get put what it is you are tryng to say or maybe get you on the right track. It will definantely help me with this next paper because now we have not only one article but another to look at and dig information out of. I think it will help me improve my writing.

Horror Films

Ok so while I have been watching these movies on netflix i have noticed something. All these horror movies have nudity in them. Now don't get me wrong i'm grown and i can handle that but my point is you can't really sit down and watch these movies as a family. I absolutely love horror films but all the ones i've watched in the past week have all had one if not several scenes of breasts. I for one would not feel comfortable sitting down with my family and watching a movie like that. Pirannah, Chain Letter, and The Devil's Rejects are just a few to name with this exact problem. They are generally pretty good the only problem is what is the point in the nudity? Why can't there  be a good quality horror film with no boob shots or naked girls? I just don't quite understand it. I know they do that for the men but i think its pointless.

Johnson VS Stevens

I would have to agree with Stevens on this. She did a pretty good job of proving Johnson wrong. When ever she talkedabout something she disagreed with she made it interesting to the reader by almost making a joke out of what he said.  She also made a new point  against ine of his major point when he said "Not only does Johnson fail to account for the 16 minutes' worth of commercails that interrupt any given episode of, say, 24 (a show he singles out s particularly "nutritional"), but he breezily dismisses recent controversies about the program's representation of Muslim terrorists or its implicit endorsement of torture, preferringto concentrate on how the show's formal structure teaches to "pay attention, make inferences, track shifting social relationships." That was  avalid point and one I myself had not yet thought of until I read this article. 

Netflix

Ok well some how ALL the dvd players in my house all stopped workin at the same time except the one in my son's room and for some strange reason it will only play The Little Mermaid. It is quite frustrating for 3 seperate dvd players to stop working when we don't have cable and we have seen all of the movies we have SEVERAL times (we haven't had cable in about 3 years). So this week I decided to sign up for the free month of netflix. My kids were super excited (I was as well). The first day we had it we sat down and just had a movie night. We watched two movies back to back before we decided to call it a night. It's really interesting to see all the old movies you can sit down and watch. I was amazed. Although it is going to suck when the month is over (because I will be canceling it before it starts charging me) its actually really nice to have.

Post for 09/11

I liked Anne Lamott's idea on the first draft. That way you can really get everything out there and not worry about it. You know it sucks but you also know that you are going to fix it. Personally I think it is a better way of doing it. I feel like most first drafts you're expected to have all your ideas down and pretty much how the paper is going to be. Then you just go back and fix the grammar and such. So I believe Lamott is onto something there. As for the sample paper they did a good job. The best thing i think is that they stated what the paper was about earky on so we knew what it was about.

Educational Shows

Ok well I don't have cable so my rabbit ears only pick up like 3 channels. On Saturdays and Sundays the morning time is always either educational shows or commercails trying to sell you something. I doubt many people watch these shows. The kids and I do. Some of these shows are pretty interesting. One of them is "Jack Hanna's Wild Countdown". The kids like it because he shows you animals from all around the world.

It's very interesting to be able to see the different animals that we never would have been able to see or might not have even known about them if we hadn't watched his show. Another show is "Jeff Corwin's Ocean Mysteries" where he does alot of footage at the Georgia Aquarium. He also dives in the ocean and shows you different species there. One that he showed was the largest Manta Ray. It was amazing to see how big it was.

I had no idea they could even get that large. And to think if we had cable then we never would have even known about these educational programs that are actually pretty interesting.   

Preparing for class?

When it comes to preparing for class all I do is read the assignment or do what was given. I generally don't participate in class discussions simply because i'm a shy laid back person and I HATE speaking in class. It's not that I don't know the material or that I don't have an opinion (although on somethings I might not) but for the most part  I just don't like speaking in front of the class. Listening to the class discussion and paying attention can occasionally help when it comes to homework. Someone could have asked a question I was thinking or had the same thought I had and so yeah it could help out.

Does Watching TV Make You Smarter?

Johnson argues that watching TV makes you smarter because the shows have evolved more over time and they make you think more about what is happening. If you don't think and pay attention you will be lost. I have mixed feelings about this. On the one hand, I agree that some shows do indeed make you pay closer attention. They make your brain work trying to stay with what is going on and also at the same time trying to figure out what is going to happen next. Alot of these shows if you don't put some work into staying with it then you truely will be lost and be missing some important information to the plot or to a particular scene.

On the other hand, I believe that just watching TV does not make you smarter. There are so many shows that do not challenge your thinking  at all and if that is all you are watching then how does that make you smarter? It simply doesn't. If you don't apply what you have learned or challenge your mind on a regular basis then it doesn't do anything for you. 

Music and Kids

I think it's interesting to see how kids react to different types of the music that comes on the radio now. I have 3 kids and am pregnant with my 4th. Anytime we get into the car there is always music playing (unless the kids want to watch a movie and even then all these disney movies have songs on them). My oldest is 3 and she will sit in the back and be singing these songs that play and its amazing that she knows the words. Then  my youngest loves music also.

 He will stand up and try to dance by bouncing up and down. When he is sleepy there are certain types of music that put him out. My kids can sense when there is an upbeat "happy" song on or when there is an "angry" song on. I think it's neat seeing how they act when certain things come on. And when a song comes on that they know has a bad word in it and they know I don't let them listen to it they make sure I change it. Music has changed alot since our parents generation.

My Skill

The skill I have aquired is cooking/baking. Now let's face it not everyone can cook. It takes practice and on some things trial and error. I started cooking when I was about 11. My parents used to work late sometimes so I was able to make dinner at night alot. That gave me lots of practice. As I got older I experimented with different recipies and made them unique to our family. Now I have kids and am very thankful that I have this skill. I'm quite sure my kids appreciate that as well. I think learning this skill can apply to my writing because in a way the process is the same. With cooking and writing alike you start out with your first product and through trial and error and revising you can always make it better. You can add something here or take something from there to end up with a better finished product. It all just takes a little thinking and in some cases patience. 

In-Class Assignment

My name is Rebecca Asbury. I don't have much time to read for fun but when I was able to I enjoyed reading mystery/crime novels. I like anything that keeps you wondering what is going to happen next. When i get to watch tv we are usually watching something funny, scary, or that keeps you on the edge of your seat. When im not in control of the tv my kids usually have a Disney movie in. I listen to pretty much anything as long as its not "Oldies" or anything weird. That music just doesn't interest me. The only experience i've had with research was in school when we were required to either research for a paper or a project. The time i've had to argue is with my siblings or in a disagreement with someone. So that's about it.