Thursday, December 3, 2009

Reflection


Elizabeth Honeycutt
Reflections
English-111-45

Taking English 111 with Mr. Gaspero was a fun experience and for my first college English in college, I vastly enjoyed it. I’ve always been interested in English but for all my previous teachers trying to scare their students claiming college is nothing but work and made it seem a lot worse than it was. Mr. Gaspero made the transition from high school English to College simple, things we’re due on time and he was a fair critic. The class itself was enjoyable; I never had the chance to watch YouTube videos in class or did that much outside reading. I enjoyed the class and recommend the class to any new coming students who don’t mind heavy sarcasm for stupid questions.


Going into the class I thought there would be essays every day, reading assignments from huge text books just like my teachers in high school told us. There was a lot of reading online but mostly it was entertaining, and we had a lot of choice with essays. I didn’t care much for our argument paper just because I couldn’t be creative to pick an interesting topic, but it would’ve been enjoyable if I had. Most of our papers were easy to do if you took the time out and got them in on time. In my opinion the hardest thing we did all semester would have been the argument paper but the teacher would always take questions if he hadn’t already answered them then you would get a look and sarcastic reply. Mostly in the beginning there would be papers on black board we had to read and print out before the class so we could discuss them in class. Often the course calendar would be messed up so we would jump around a lot.


Most of other students wouldn’t read the assignments so the discussions would rarely have much input into them. For the days students did not bring materials to class there would be no point for them to come and on peer critique day the teacher would tell them to leave. It was a fair class with reasonable expectations; the teacher asked for paper at a reasonable time and would constantly remind students before they were due. Most of the papers were easy and didn’t require a lot just time and effort. I liked “What made you the person you are” essay the most, where were had to incorporate pathos, egos and logos into our paper. It made me think deeper than any of the other assignments and try to figure out what made me into the person I am today because before I had never even thought about it. The class is different but the same, the same essays and requirements but Mr. Gaspero incorporate You Tube videos and Bruce Springsteen into it to make it less dull.


I would recommend this class to anyone who enjoys English and likes to read material that they never thought they would. Mr. Gaspero is an awesome teacher, even though sometimes he does jump around a lot or forgets the reading assignments. He warns the students in the very beginning of the semester that if they ask dumb questions that they will receive sarcastic replies. I liked the fact that he used blogs for three of the assignments, I blog a lot so it made a first that teachers encourage it. We had a lot of discussions in his class and he always tried to get everyone to participate and even if something completely stupid was said he wouldn’t call it out. He was one of my teachers that was more entertaining and would keep people guessing. By guessing I mean we would try to see if we were actually doing things on the course calendar.


All in all the class was fun, I would recommend to anyone taking English 111 it’s a fair class with interesting topics. The class is a good transition into college because not a lot changes just more effort is required as well as time. There is a lot of freedom of choice on what you want to write about in the class with can begin to make students have a chance of creativity. I’m glad I took this class and I believe it has prepared me for English 112 as well as made me more creative in my writing. So thank you Mr. Gaspero, I’m sorry you had to read my horrible essays, hopefully they got better.

Diagnostic Essay Revised


Elizabeth Honeycutt
111-45
Diagnostic Essay

“With great power comes great responsibility,” words spoken by Spiderman, a great superhero of the Marvel comics, words which should kept in mind with having the superpower of mind reading. If I had to choose my superpower it would be mind reading, it’s not as world saving as if I could produce 6 course meals by sneezing, but I would want to be able to know what people were thinking just by standing or focusing on them. This power seems rather nosy and would invade a lot of people’s personal space but in the long run it could be very useful, to me. If I had the power to read peoples minds, I would be able to tear down censorship and avoid lying while still using it to help people.
A pet peeve of mine is censorship; Like when people won’t tell you what they’re thinking or avoiding questions, but mind reading can prevent all of that. If I did have the superpower, I defiantly would want to be around a lot of people, well not too many because I’m sure I would get a headache. But enough so I could read a lot of peoples thoughts and find out what I would need or like to. I want to be a psychiatrist when I graduate from a university, having the power to read peoples thoughts would make my job a lot easier than just waiting for them to tell me. I could tell them exactly what they were thinking when their life’s problems happened without them lying. But with all super powers there comes that one down fall, more than likely I would get annoyed with being able to read peoples mind especially if I walked past a group of hormonal high school boys. There are some thoughts or ideas that should be left unread or unspoken and with my luck I would stumble onto them.
I would appreciate the power and all the new found things I could do with it. I loathe being lied to or something being kept from me with a passion of a thousand burning suns. “The truth hurts”, but at least it would be good to know rather than hiding something. I remember when I was about 6 and I was talking to my mom about her divorce with my dad. I made the comment “but if you never met dad, you wouldn’t have had me”. I wish I did have the power to read minds then, because then I would have known that the silence that followed the comment, actually meant “sorry, you’re adopted, he’s not your dad”. But it always could be devastating having the power if you’re younger; if a four year old had the ability to read minds it would make the holiday season horrible for parents. The child finding out that once a year a fat man in red comes down the chimney is a lie and daddy’s money really bought the new Barbie under the tree. The truth has always been important in my eyes and that’s why I choose this superpower, everyone lies and I rather always know the truth. No matter what everyone deserves the truth no matter how horrible or little it is, like Santa Claus being a big sham that your parents tells you eventually people find out. Sadly I have no patience so the power of mind reading would hurry the truth process up quite a bit.
It could open so many job opportunities if the psychiatrist career doesn’t pan out now that the job recession is worst than ever. I could be a lawyer, a cop, or a psychic. I would be the best police interrogator and I could tell if a suspect is lying without the machine. I could be used to make technology ineffective when usually it’s the other way around in today’s world. I could be valuable to many corporations and people regardless if I’m using my superpower to get ahead in the career ladder. I would still find time to help other people with my superpowers not including that I still probably couldn’t be able to help an elderly women get her cat out of the tree like firemen.
I wouldn’t be as useful as Spiderman to people, but everyone needs a good psychiatrist now a days. I would be able to tell what everyone’s thinking even though most of the time I really wouldn’t care but it would help to know if I was being lied to. I never said that superpowers were made to help people but they would help me a great deal. I could be a lot less stress knowing the truth and avoiding censored thoughts, except from teenage boys, they should be censored.

Tuesday, September 22, 2009

Diagnostic Essay




“With great power comes great responsibility,” words spoken by Spiderman, a great superhero of the Marvel comics, words which should kept in mind with having the superpower of mind reading. If I had to choose my superpower it would be mind reading, it’s not as world saving as if I could produce 6 course meals by sneezing, but I would want to be able to read peoples thoughts. If I had the power to read peoples minds, I would be able to tear down censorship and avoid lying.



A pet peeve of mine is censorship; Like when people won’t tell you what they’re thinking or avoiding questions, but mind reading can prevent all of that. If I did have the superpower, I defiantly would want to be around a lot of people, well maybe not too many because I’m sure I would get a headache. But enough so I could read a lot of peoples thoughts, that I wanted to. With all super powers there comes that one down fall, more than likely I would get annoyed with being able to read peoples mind, like if I walked past a group of hormonal high school boys. There are some thoughts or ideas that should be left unread or unspoken and with my luck I would stumble onto them.



However having the power to read peoples’ thoughts would look great on a resume to be a lawyer. “Did you go to law school?” “No, but I can read peoples minds”. I would be able to get a lot of job opportunities, like crime investigator, lawyer or even go on jeopardy. I could read off the other people’s answers. I never said I would do extreme good with the super powers but at least I would benefit from them. I could be a talk show host, where women or men come and ask me questions about their significant other’s like “Cheaters Extreme Edition”. “Is my boyfriend cheating on me?” “Why yes he is, with your best friend!” So I believe that people can benefit from my power as well, maybe not in the best way but at least the truth will be out there.



I would enjoy this power a lot, or at least appreciate it. I loathe being lied to or something being kept from me with a passion of a thousand burning suns. “The truth hurts”, but at least it would be good to know rather than hiding something. I remember when I was about 6 and I was talking to my mom about her divorce with my dad. I made the comment “but if you never met dad, you wouldn’t have had me”. I wish I did have the power to read minds then, because then I would have known the silence that followed that comment, actually meant “sorry, you’re adopted, he’s not your dad”. But being able to read minds at that age would be devastating, being five years old and knowing that your parents are lying about a fat man in a red suit going down your chimney on Christmas.



I would really appreciate having the power to read minds and I would want that as my super power if I ever did have the choice. Maybe I wouldn’t use it like Spiderman used his power but at least I wouldn’t have to worry about censorship. I could actually find a job with the recession even if it was a talk show host that ruined the lives of couples. It would be a great superpower even if I’m using it for my own selfish reasons of avoiding lies or helping others with their lives own.