The LAST and FINAL blog :(

I got excited with my typing and figured why not kill tow birds with one stone and just do both blogs today.
The time has come. All good things must come to an end.
And for this weeks blog, our last and final one, we are saying our good byes and talking about the class one last time.
Aw man I cant believe that class is already over, the semester is coming to a close and it feels like we just got started. I know as much as i was dreading this class at the beginning I am sad to see it go. this semester has really pushed me to do things i have never done before, with english and all the writing. This english class is probably the one class i have done the best in, ever. well english wise at least. I am very excited that school is over but at the same time this class has taught me a lot. I learned so much from and about everybody in this class from your blogs and papers and even group work. i am very glad that i met everyone in here, well sort of. its more of an online buddie-ship. but still it was fun. I know that i am going to miss reading and writing blogs. i will miss all the homework and essay, not really but its nice to pretend sometimes.
I remember the first day, or week of class and i was so worried that i was never going to be able to handle all the work and the schedule and just everything about this class was scary, in a way. but i decided to stick it out and eventually i found out that i could do anything and that this class was going to push me. i was ok with this and i am very glad that i stuck it out because i learned a lot more than i ever thought i could learn. about myself, my writing, my english class abilities, everything actually. I did not know i could do any of this stuff that we did this semester. and i will admit that there were many times i wanted to wuit but never did ecause i figured it would pay off in the end and it did. so i just wanted to thank you professor gross for giving all of the assignments that you did because they really helped.
and as for the classmates i have left in here, good luck with everything and i will miss having to read everybody's blogs and essays or anything in general. Peace, Love and the best of wishes!
-Valerie-

Reflection

for this weeeks blog we were asked to write about or reflect on what we have learned about our topic, the one from our research paper. and to tell you the truth i learned a ton of new things that i had no idea went on before i decided to write about women's rights in iran. i did not know that women did not have all their rights under the Shah. I sis learn that the Sharia Law was the law in Iran prior to 1979. This law, according to the research i did was the basis of family, marriage and women's rights in Iran. This law permitted men to have four permanent wives and as many temporary wives as they wanted. I really ahd no idea that it was to that extend and that the women didnt even have custody of thier kids. The custody of children was in the hands of the father and after his death, in the hands of the male relatives on the father's side. So if the couple were divorced, even after the death of the father, the mother would not get custody. I mean come on, how can people live like this. women are not made to be seperated from their children. i know if i was seperated from my child I do not think I would be able to live. I mean I was the one that went through all the pain and everything and I would not even be able to keep my child if the father would die. THAT IS LAME! And another thing I learned was that the woman had to have written permission from her husband to travel. I mean what are women over there animals, no I think the animals have more rights than women do. Since inside the country, one does not need to show an ID to travel, this permission was required for traveling outside the country. Citizenship was only through paternity. An Iranian man’s child from any woman would become an Iranian citizen automatically. An Iranian woman’s child from a non-Iranian would not be eligible for citizenship. So pretty much the women is just there to give the man children. these children do not in any way, shape or form get anything from their mother. Their dad gives them their citzenship, well he determines it, and the dad gets custody. the wife has to ask her husband if she is allowed to go places and cant go if he says no. I do not know about you guys but I know that I most definately could not deal with having to live by these rules.And these are just a couple things that i learned while writing this research paper.

research paper BOOOOO :)

When I think of this paper one thing comes to mind, and it goes a lil something likt this:

Dear research paper, I hate your stinking guts! You make me vomit. You are the skum between my toes!
Love Valerie!

PS. thank you alfalfa and the little rascals for such great words. you are truely wise beyond your years.

For this weeks blog we were required to write about the upcoming essay, well the one that is due soon. The first draft is due in a couple days and the final draft is due the week after that. We are being asked to write about how the essay is coming along. And we are asked to discuss what we have done, what needs to be done, how we can improve it and many other things. In other words we are being asked to vent about this headache of a paper. The first question I will be dealing with is how is the paper coming along? This is an interesting question in itself, I mean it is just a little hard to answer. The paper is coming along slowly but surely it is, but it is so hard. Writing essays is most definitely my weakness mainly because I do not like them. I wait for the last minute to begin, normally, and it is safe to say that I have been working on it but not very well. This weekend I will need to do a whole lot of work in order to do a good job then I will need to follow it up with another week of perfecting it before it is due next sunday. This is going to be a challenge and I am up for it. What do you need to do to complete it? The main thing I need to do to complete it is figure out where I am planning on going with my paper. I have decided to go with the women's rights issues in Iran. So I just have to decide how to put it all together. I have almost all of my paragraphs done I just need to figure out where to put them and how to connect them together. So order or organization and putting it all together. How do you plan to accomplish this? I plan on taking this weekend to concluded my first draft. Then I will be using next week to finish it up in its entirety. This will hopefully not take me too long to do. What areas of difficulty are you encountering? The biggest area I find difficult is the fact that I just do not know where to start my argument and what to or not to use. It is just so nerve racking trying to do this essay. The idea of writing this long huge essay is scary and I do not know how I will do. The biggest thing I do is worry about what I write and it not being good enough so I hold back. Or if I do not hold back I just write nonsense because I know I am going to fail anyways. How might you overcome these obstacles? I think I have a chance at overcoming the doubting by just doing the essay however it fits. And I figure that I am doing pretty well in the class so if I were to fail then I would hopefully still be okay. I mean some points are better than no points at all. At least there will be things going toward my grade no matter how few they may be.

communication styles

Individuals have various preferences for both communicating with others and interpreting the communications from others. Numerous models have been developed which describe how to recognize an individual's preferred style of communicating and what strategy to use in communicating most effectively with them. i feel that i have a unique sense of communication skills. there are four types of speaking, if you ask me. one is the EXPRESSER, they are the people that get excited during a conversation. then there is the DRIVER, this person like their own way; and has decisive & strong viewpoints. then there is the RELATER, this person likes positive attention, as well as they like to be helpful & to be regarded warmly. and finally there is the ANALYTICAL type of communicater. now this kind of person likes to seek a lot of data, ask many questions, behave methodically & systematically. based on these four ideas i would have to say i am a little bit of everything. i tend to get excited , very ofetn acutally, during a conversation. and at the same time i have my own way and ideas because i am a stubborn person. but i do like to relate to people because i like to know whats going on and see what things i can think of to help them out, if needed. then there are the passive, agressive and assertive type of poeple. i feel that i am very agressive with my language. which is the communication style in which you stand up for your rights while maintaining respect for the rights of others. i like to take chargeand have more control or te situation because i am a very goal-oriented person. i mean when you have to get something done you get it done. i most definately need Time. i like to be efficient and get things done now. not later but right now right now. but not rush into things and get caught doing the wrong or unneccessary thing. and then there are things i do not like such as: boring explanations and wasting time with too many facts. also someone that wastes my time trying to decide for me. one thing i really love is to get into a competitive situation all because i absolutely love to win.i do not like to make an error or mistakes, or even being unprepared, but spontaneity is kind of my thing. i have done a lot of my best work by being spontaneous. things like this just somehow work for me. i enjoy being Inspired. inspiring me to bigger & better accomplishments is my absolute favorite thing to have happen. but at the same time i need to be free. the freedom to do things my own way is the best thing because i do great things. i tend to be the silent genius because i have always had an issue with speaking out on my ideas, i just do things.

taboo :)

For this weeks blog we were given three different prompts and since I could only find two of them in the book I went with the one on page 424. For this prompt we had to discuss different reasons why we think taboo language should be UNcensored. First I decided that I was going to discuss what taboo language is. And taboo language can be described as a universal language that should not be used, especially not in polite company when an act is considered taboo, the words describing it often are, too close correlation between how taboo the concept and how taboo the word are used not to mention that taboos are culture-specific, even if two countries share the same language. And then there is non taboo language. And like non taboo language, arbitrary sound symbol pairings language is only dirty or clean when a community decides it is hearing a foreign curse word does not have much effect on you. You have to be brought up knowing a word is dirty for it to pack that punch taboo-ness of words can change over time. but there are benefits, or what can be seen as possible benefits, with linguistic taboos because they change with the development of society. and because linguistic taboos exists in almost every aspect of people’s life and is a universal social phenomenon it can help change things a lot quicker. There are also different kinds of linguistic taboos, like vocaulary and actual use of certain words, pronunciation with how these words are said and even grammatical taboo this has to do with saying the correct words in the proper order. Just by the way we speak and sound it says a lot about the person because the better the speak the more educated they sound. Like other parts of language, the origin of linguistic taboo is deeply rooted in the primitive social and cultural background and its change is greatly influenced by the development of human society in order to satisfy human beings’ needs for smooth communications. With the advancement of science and technology, many puzzles about the universe are solved, and with the increase of material wealth, human demands for spiritual civilization are also becoming higher. Evidently, linguistic taboos are a reflection of these social development and the value concepts and beliefs of the culture in which they are born. So without the uncensorship of taboo language we would never be where we are today. and if we want to continue to develop we need to allow these different taboos. taboos help us to notice our flaws and our mistakes so that we upgrade how we are. we take the bad out in kind of like a filter type thing. also there are different classifications of taboo language. there are taboo language referring to religion, gender, profanity, sex, drugs and many more. Back in the past there were not any real restrictions because people were not as fragile back then as they are today. but nonetheless taboo language should be uncensored so we can continue to develop much further than we are now.

Practice Makes Perfect :)

For this weeks blog we were required to analyze our writing and how far it has come since we started this class about 11 weeks ago. This blog actually took me a long time to think about how to write it and what to write about exactly. I finally just decided to just talk about the different ways I have improved. Oh yeah I think I have improved and I can actually say that I do not hate English anymore. I know starting this class I hated it because it was my worse subject, it has always been a challenge, because it has never really grabbed or kept my interest. I have always liked math and sciences over English. Looking back at the different samples of my writing from before this semester and even at the beginning of this semester it has definitely improved. It has gotten a whole lot better in many different ways.
The first way that my writing has improved is the grammar. i had a horrible sense of grammar before this semester started. It is still not perfect but it has changed a lot. I noticed this because of this blog assignment. I even went back and took some time to read some of the stuff i had written prior to this class. And you know what I noticed; I noticed that I was an even worse writer than I am now. I mean I am not a great or even a good writer but I have improved a whole lot. I think it may have something to do with just actually taking the time to write, proof read and actually think about what is going to be said. So just by taking the time to read the things I write before turning them in I have gotten better with the order of words and things.
Another thing that has improved with my writing is how long it takes me to actually write things. Before when I had a writing assignment it took me forever and a year to do it. I procrastinated so much because I do not like to write. And I never knew where to begin, so it took me four times as long as it does now. Now, and I think it is because I write so often, I can write a whole blog in around an hour and a paper in a shorter amount of time then before. As much as I dreaded this class from my first semester at AVC, which is why I waited so long to take my English classes, it really is not as bad as I thought it would be. I mean it is challenging but I was expecting to die. So now that I look back and realize that I have gotten a lot better than when I started this semester I know that it really is a true statement that can apply to everything, practice really does make perfect. Or pretty close to it at least.

jokes ha ha ha hahaha

For this weeks blog, week 10, I decided to write about "one of life's little frustrations." This little frustration has to do with jokes. I know a lot of the time when there are jokes going on I tend to not understasnd them. Inside jokes, long jokes, story involved jokes, punch lines or anything conplicated is confusing or can be confusing for me. And the worse part is when you have to ask for an explanationbecause by that time it is pointless and the joke is dead. It is never any fun when the joke is done and everybody else is laughing while you have a confused look on your face. The worse thing, well the thing I hate, is when you laugh just because everyone else is laughing.
Have you ever had a moment like that? I know I sre have, I actually have a lot of them. It is not like I am slow or anything I just tend to not pay attention. I don't do it on purpose it just happens. I have the tendency to blank on or during the important parts of jokes and stories. Even if they explain it to me again I still will not understand.
These are some examples of things or jokes that took some time for me to understand:
*this is a taco and burrito conversation, nachos. As not yours. Jokes that involve food just don't make any sense to me. I just don't find it funny to include food into jokes. Oh man and then there are "knock, knock" jokes. These are never entertaining in my book. There is an interesting knock, knock joke that annoys me every single time, actually there are two. The first one is: one person says 'knock knock'. The second person says 'who's there'. The first person responds with 'banana'. The second person says 'banana who'. And the first person says 'banana'. Once again the second person responds 'banana who'. And this cycle continues on for a few more reps. And then finally the first person says 'orange' and the second person responds 'orange who'. The joke finally ends with the great line of 'orange you glad I didn't say banana'. Once again with this joke we see the use of food in an annoying and repetative way. The second joke is another rediculous knock, knock joke. It starts with 'knock, knock' and the person responds with a 'who's there?' And then there is a long pause and you ask who's there again but still no answer. Whenever I hear this joke it bugs me soo much because I reslly want to know who's there. And every time I hear it it bugs me soo much that I literally say fine then don't tell me who's there geeze. And then walk away. another kind of joke that are very interesting are the ones that are used to see if people really think things are funny or if they just laugh to laugh. One like: there are two ducks in a bath tub. And one duck turns and looks at the other duck and asks who brought the bread? Ha ha. I don't get it but I know I have used it on occassion and people really laugh at it. I don't know why but they do.
There are many, many jokes I do not understand but if I continued I would be writing forever. And I don't really have that kind of time or paper. :) I feel that a joke should be a funny, simple and straight to the point kind of thing. I mean jokes are made to be funny and laughed at like almost instantly not made to be thought about and processed before laughing. Seriously people if you take more than a minute or two to tell the joke don't bother. And if you need to explain it, just don't, ot if it doesn't make sense don't bother either.