This Semester

My first semester of college has gone by so fast. I never expected for it to go this well! College has been one of the best experiences of my life so far. But out of all of my classes, this one has been the best! I could actually be myself in class, and I felt comfortable with all of my classmates! This class has also taught me to be a better writer, and an analytical thinker and writer. I want to say thanks to the best teacher evee, WENDY! I have to say, this was the first class that my teacher ever brought her baby to! haha....wow...I really did love this class!

Tragedy

Losing a loved-one is always a hard thing to get over, especially when the death was unexpecting! Last week my uncle passed. It was such a shock to our family. The day before he died, we all went to the hospital to see him, but we didn't expect him to die the next day. We went into the emergency room, and he smiled as we walked through the door. We spoke and he gave each of us a firm hand shake. He was breathing 96% on his own, and the other 4% with the help of an oxygen tank. My other uncle prayed for him, and he began to cry. We left the hospital and went back home in high spirits. The next morning, the doctor called us saying that he had passed. This was such a shock. I guess the moral of this story would be to cherish life. You never know how long you are going to be here, so make the most of it while you are here!

Monticello

So, I just got back in town from Monticello, Arkansas! I have never been so tired in my life! I have only had 35 minutes of sleep, and it is really catching up to me! I had a show to do down there, and it didnt end until about 3 a.m. We made it back to the hotel room at 4 somthing, and had an after-party! This was a horrible idea! I told them that, but no one would listen to me! Every one left our hotel room at about 7 a.m. We had to wake up at 7:30 because I had to go to church and the rental car had to be back by 12:00. My friend was tired also, so I stayed up the whole ride home to assure that he was awake. On the way home we got lost for a little while and got a ticket! Wow...this was pne hell of a trip!

First Memory

The first childhood memory I can recall took place when I was four. The event was the building of my new house. I remember going out to this lot of just grass two times a week. I never understand why my mom and I would go to this spot so often. I guess I never paid attention to the for sale sign in the front of my old house either. One day I woke up to find a couple of men taking the furniture out of my house. I thought that maybe we were just getting new furniture. Peice by peice, they took all of the furniture out except for the kitchen stuff and my mom's bedroom furniture. As the days went by I came to the same empty house after headstart, and my mom and I went to the same spot which now had a foundation. About two months later my mommy told me that we were going to live with my grandmother for a little while. I remember thinking, "are we poor now?" But gettin a brand new house never came to mind. I remember sleeping at my grandmother's every night in a significantly smaller bed. I was accustomed to lying in my full sized bed, but now I had to sleep in a twin bed.
The air outside had gotten cold, so my mom and I went to a big shed that had all of our furniture and clothes. We returned to my grandma's, and I thought nothing else of it. By now it was the beginning of December. I remember my mom receiving the big JC Penny Christmas catalog and her telling me to pick out some things that I wanted. Of course, I picked out at least a million things knowing i wouldn't get all of it. As the days passed by my mom was there less and less. I didn't understand why, so one day I asked my grandma about it. She replied, "she gettin a big surprise for you ready."
When Christmas Eve came, my mom picked me up, and once again we went to the same place. This time there was actually a big completed house there. She opened the garage, we get out of the car and went inside. She replied, "this your new house baby." It was much bigger than the other one. I felt like I had just walked into a candy store and was able to get all the candy i wanted. I happily exclaimed, "where my room at mama?" She took me to it, and I felt right at home.
That night, I put out some milk and cookies for Santa Clause and went to my new room. It was so hard for me to sleep. My mother kept coming in my room telling me to go to sleep or Santa Clause would skip our house. The next morning, I woke up and ran to the den and just stopped. There were presents all around the fireplace and the couch. That was the first time we ever had a chimney for Santa to come down. I ran into my mother's room and yelled, "Mama, Santa been here, he been here!" What a great first memory to have!! hahaha

Family Rituals

Every family has at least one family ritual. My family has a couple of rituals which are always practice. The one that is most important and emphasized is the fourth of July. My late grandfather was born on the fourth of July. Every year we meet on this day at my uncle’s house to remember him as well as celebrate the fourth. Every year, the same thing is done in the exact same way.
First of all, it is always scheduled for 2:30, but black people are always on “C P” (colored people) time. Everyone always arrive around 4, moping around like they are on time. As soon as most of the guys get there, we always get a 3-on-3 or a 4-on-4 basketball game going while the women either go inside, to the back, or watch us play. The game always ends at the sound of my uncle saying, “Come on boys, it’s time to pray and eat.”
After the prayer, my great-grandma, my grandfather’s wife, eats first followed by the million children. The kids always waste food and drink and get yelled at by the adults. There’s also always restless adults asking, ”Why da kids gotta go first?” The children get their food and go to the “children’s table.” I remember when I was a kid (a rather big one if I might add) and had to sit and the table with twenty other nagging children. The adults pile their plates up a mile high and go their respective tables also. The adults either sit at the dining room table, in the den, or outside to get away from the “Bebe Kids.”
When the children finish eating, they always raid the pool table while the adults yell at them. The men always eat fast as hell so they can get back to the basketball game. Halfway through the game, my uncle ALWAYS comes outside with some little shorts, tight Nike air max, and a Witt shirt saying, “I got down.” Then he exclaims, “Yall gon havta take it eazae on dis ole tima! Yall know my knees aint like dey use ta be.”
During the course of everything that is taking place, there is always one aunt or cousin that has too much to drink! There is nothing worse than a drunk person stuttering and stumbling over you. The long day closes with everybody coming outside to watch others pop fire crackers. By this time, I am always exhausted and ready to go but can’t because of my mother. But what can I say? After all, this is MY FAMILY!

Childhood Memory

My childhood consisted of many memories, some better than others. Although most of them are totally inappropriate to talk about, there is one that I have been consistently reminded of. This memory took place during my “terrible twos” period. As a child, I was very protective of my mommy. I could not stand for anyone to even touch her, especially men. My mother had a boyfriend named Calvin Williams. He would always irritate me by putting me on the floor and putting his arms around my mother. One day I was finally fed up with his nonsense! (LOL) Once again he sat me on the floor and put his arms around my mom. I yelled, “Get away from my mama!” He did not obey me, so I had to retaliate. So I looked around to find something to throw at him. (Can you imagine a two year old working on his master plan to destroy his opponent?) I could not find anything at all to throw at him. Then right beside the television was one of my mom’s high heels. I crawled over to the t v, picked up my weapon of mass destruction, aimed, and fired! *Poooooowwwwwwwwwwww,* the shoe nailed him right in the face! Bullseye!!!! He quickly felt for the spot in which I had bruised him in and got up from the couch. I let out a quick giggle as the lump rose on his forehead. As he was walking towards me, my mother quickly jumped up and grabbed me yelling, “You bet not hit my baby!” I was saved! Well at least for the moment…

My feelings on our looooonnnnnnngggggg writing procedure!!

So, we have a paper due tomorrow, and it seems as if we had to do 1,000 drafts! (lol) I put a lot of time into my first draft, but I knew it could use a little improvising! Little did I know that it would take A LOT of improvising. After i brought my paper to class, I was expecting for my fellow classmates to pure edit it, and they did. So I took my group's advise and fixed the things that they said I should. I went home and retyped what I thought would be my near perfect FINAL draft. Feeling good about my overall work, I walked to class (in the cold rain) expecting to hand my paper in and receive a good grade. I sat down, took out my paper, and waited for Mrs. Sumner Winter to say okay class bring your papers to me. But, those words never came. She told us to take out the copy that we were supposed to print out in landscape style. We were assigned to devour our own papers line by line. I had a couple problems with this, and I was happy to find out that I wasnt alone. Since so many people had troubles she said okay, I want everybody to give me your first sentence and we're going to break it down phrase by phrase. So the first person called out their first sentence to her. The class started tearing down the sentence word by word! I was thinking OH LAWD I HOPE MY SENTENCE GOES BETTER THAN THAT. I begin to count the people in front of me in my mind. One, Two...then me. We finished up on the first person, and as I reached down in my backpack....... "Mauricus read us your first sentence," came out of her mouth. My heart skipped a beat! I took a deep breath and read my sentence aloud silently trying to convince myself that it was a good one. So the long, dreadful devourING of my sentence begin! Not one time did it cross my mind that I would have to change so much in one sentence! Taking the constructive criticism, I wrote down my new sentence and put my essay away. This little event helped me a lot. Although I was tired of doing new drafts, I knew this would only make me a better writer. So tomorrow we finally turn in our real FINAL COPY! WISH ME LUCK!

My Father Drank

The image that sticks in my mind is the gas station. The gas station represents the transformation from dad to drunk. The children knew why their dad was going inside. They always begged to go in with their dad, but the answer was always NO! He would go in as a normal person, but would always come out as a red-eyed, red-faced beast. I think this also symbolizes his constant struggle with staying sober. He would go a long period of time without drinking, but would always resort back into becoming that beast once again. It also symbolizes the struggle between life and death. The ouside of the gas station was equal to life, but the children always knew was was awaiting on the inside of the dark, cold gas station! DEATH........

The Rake: A Few Scenes from My Childhood

When I first read the title of this story, I was thought "I have to read a story about doing yard work?" As I read the story I did not understand how the title related to the story. By the time I read the part about the incident with the rake, I realized that this title was brilliant! The rake incident pretty much summarized every symbol in this story. This scene was most important to me because I can relate to it.
When I was younger, I had a similar situation to this with my little brother. He kept bothering me by jumping up and down on my bed as well as me. I constantly asked him to stop, but he wouldn't. So i got so upset with him that I power bombed (wrestling move..ha) him on the bed, and I knocked his two front teeth back about an inch. He quickly ran into the kitchen with blood dripping everywhere to my dad who was sitting at the round kitchen table. My dad got very upset and angrily asked what happened. Soon after, he took my brother to the hospital to get the problem solved.
The rake scene in this story symbolizes hurt most of all. The sister was always hurt by her step-father whenever her brother was away. It also symbolizes pain. This is not just physically but mentally as well. The children were abused almost everyday of the their lives while living there. Their mother, who was abused by her father was no help to them at all. This probably hurt them more than the fact that they were abused by their stepfather.

Taylor Bradford

So, since we have to do a blog every week, I thought I would use this one for something more meaningful. As we all know, one of our own, Taylor Bradford was tragically gunned down a little over a week ago. Well I turned on the news today and was happy to see that they have found three of his alleged killers, and they are still looking for the fourth and final suspect. This was a great relief to me! This whole situation has made me think twice about a lot of things. We should never take life for grantage, because we never know when we're going to die. It has also encouraged me to have a closer bond with my loved ones. Even though this was a tragic event, I am glad to say that I pulled some good from it. I think everyone should try to do the same thing. I guess that's all I have to say. Peace Everyone!

Anaylsis Essay

Mauricus Webb
Wendy Sumner Winter
September 25, 2007
Analysis Essay
“Prime Directive”
Prime Directive is the ideal story for analysis. There are a couple of themes that work together to make one overall theme. The author, David Griffith, does not support the war in Iraq. Although his actions make you think twice about his standpoints, they are essential to the overall theme.
The story begins the Saturday before Halloween, outside of his nearly empty apartment. His wife has accepted a new job in another state, and he cannot move until the end of the year because of school. This simple setting relates to the war in many aspects. The loneliness and the concept of being separated from family are just a couple of similarities. Griffith proceeds on to talk about the different parties that he attended and his costume of choice. He is dressed as Captain James Kirk of Starship Enterprise. This character plays an important role in the plot of the story. Dave begins to describe the conversations about Star Trek with the other party-goers.
He tells his readers how they relate it to the war in Iraq. “It’s like the United Nations! The Klingons are the Soviet Union! Someone else breaks in, ‘It’s like trying to introduce democracy to Iraq!’ Bush is a war criminal! Iraq is another Vietnam (Griffith, p. 128)!” He brings up the fact that no one seems to mention Abu Ghraib. Abu Ghraib was where soldiers held Iraq detainees and killed them. They threw their naked bodies on top of each other and left them in the open. The next party again verbally relates something to Abu Ghraib. He uses the rap music and how Outkast has given way to Chingy to help connect to the war. He describes the music video where there are half naked women. “I weigh the blurred faces and genitalia of Abu Ghraib detainees against the near-naked, big-breasted, big-assed women gyrating on the subway (Griffith, p. 130).”
The final party Griffith describes brings everything to a head. He encounters one of his former classmates who is dressed as Charles Grainer, the leader of the massacres in Abu Ghraib. He happily greets his classmate and quickly notices that he has many photos of himself posing with “dead people” with bags over
their heads. Dave then takes a part in it and poses for a similar photo.
The next morning he awakes and recollects on the previous night’s events. He quickly remembers the picture and goes to retrieve it. Soon after, he calls his wife and tells her about the Graner costume. She is horrified and thinks that the man is sick. The next passage explains a lot to the readers. “I decide not to tell her about the picture. I’m too ashamed. I put it in a shoebox in the empty closet and try to forget about it. But I can’t. I lie back down in the army cot and analyze what I’ve done from every conceivable angle (Griffith, p. 134).” He is very disgusted by his actions and is upset with himself. It seems as if this was a humbling experience for him. Soon after, he begins to stereotype soldiers as a whole. “Those soldiers were hicks from the sticks; something in their environment made them this way. Have we come to expect nothing more from people like Graner and England, who we imagine to be from tacky trailer parks in dead-end hollers? Don’t we rest assured that these are the kinds of people who join the army because they are easily manipulated by promises of cars, money for college, patriotism and simply getting the hell out of Nowheresville USA? Educated, metropolitan people could never do such things; we are too
aware, too aware of the ways in which we must respect another’s differences (Griffith, p. 135). Right after he has this confrontation with himself, he soon ties this experience to a previous one. This put everything into perspective. His final analysis sums up all of his observations. “When we deny that we have anything in common with Graner and the others who are pictured in the photos, we allow all that is most despicable and ugly in our nature to thrive. If we are too proud to see ourselves in those photos, to realize that, as Sontag wrote in the New York Times, the photos are us, then we have no hope of finding any meaning whatsoever to them. They will simply haunt us, without any understanding of why (Griffith, p. 136).”
David Griffith takes you through many events over a short period time. His unique way of relating his message to the readers allows him to use metaphors as an essential to making his overall point.

Prime Directive

I will start by saying that some of the photos are very disturbing. The author uses these photos so that we can have a first-hand view of what went on. These photos help us to comprehend and interpret the aim of this story. From reading the article it seems as if he does not support the various horrible actions that took place in Abu Ghraib. It seems as if it took the whole night to realize that the actions as well as his actions and costume were wrong. Dave Griffith says, "Those soldiers were hicks from th sticks; something in their environment made them this way."(134) This passage is not all about what is written though, it goes much deeper. I love the way he uses random subjects to compare Captain Kirk's harshness. If you did not pick that up, that would be a great example of this passage taking deep thought! I think that he really got his point across, and I think the delivery was absolutely great.

Theme: MUSIC - Group Essay

Group Members: Jonathan, Mauricus, Jannica

For centuries, music has played a role in society. As a group, we have discovered that music has affected each of our lives through our relationships with family and friends, school, and controversial lyrical themes. To further explain music’s effect on our lives, we give you our personal encounters:

Jonathan-

Ever since I was a child, there has always been music in the background of my surroundings. There was always something either playing on the radio or a track spinning in the background. My brothers and I were always practicing our instruments. I played the drums, two of my brothers played the saxophone, and the other played the bass guitar and cello. I had many cousins who played instruments as well. Also, one of my uncles is a professional drummer. If you ever listen to the Shaft soundtrack, you might hear him playing the drums, or you could possibly see him at a concert on stage with Patti Labelle, Ronald Isley, R. Kelly, Isaac Hayes, and many more artists. Music followed me throughout middle school and high school and allowed me to meet many friends along the way. In middle school, I was a member of the seventh and eighth grade band-- the marching band and symphonic band. I also participated in All-West Band which allowed me to meet many of the friends who I still communicate with to this day. We still get together and reminisce on our old performances, talk about music in general, life, and our pursuits in music.
In high school, I was a member of the concert band and marching band. I met so many people from across the country in marching band. We would travel every weekend to different states for competitions. Everyone I met, we all shared a common interest, and I still talk to some of the people I met while in marching band as well.
After my freshmen year, I grew out of the whole marching band concept and wanted to pursue my own musical interest. A friend I met while I was in marching had a makeshift type studio at his house. A group of my friends and I made up a name for a sort of record producing project. We would just go there after school and come up with songs and go in the studio (my friend’s closet) and just record the songs. We even sold our recordings at school for five dollars. That was one of the best periods of my life so far.As of today, music is somewhat the root of my relationship with my family and friends. If there is nothing to talk about we always seem to find a subject in music. I even wrote this blog while listening to music.

Jannica-

“One good thing about music, when it hits you, you feel no pain.” A Jamaican reggae singer and musician, better known as Bob Marley, once spoke these very words.Music is something to which everyone can relate. I have yet to meet a person who has a burning hatred for such a universal theme. It has the power to do anything from inducing an insane amount of adrenaline for a football game to easing a person's frustration after a hard day's work. And unless an electric guitar gets smashed on your head or your fingers get caught between some symbols, music definitely isn't painful. There's such a wide variety of music on this earth that it's impossible not to enjoy something. A person might also change their mind about their musical preferences. For example, I used to dislike Bob Marley, or reggae for that matter. Then one day I sat down with my Jamaican friend and really listened to what this influential, Rastafarian man had to say. His lyrics made me rethink my perception of life at the time. I had constantly being given home suspensions for ridiculous reasons. Particularly this was due to the recently recruited and not to mention crooked school administration in charge."Don't worry about a thing cause every little thing is gonna be all right," he proclaimed. Hearing this made my presently hectic, unrighteous world far more manageable. I felt as though I had always longed to hear these words from somebody throughout the course of my life. I was overcome with a sense of calmness though still engulfed in the upbeat reggae rhythms.I continued on for the remainder of my high school career inspired (only enduring a few more unjust issues) and received my diploma on that momentous day. Now here I stand-- a college freshman ready to take on life.

Mauricus-

Has music lost its content? This issue has been bought up many times in the last decade. Most of the answers are very opinionated. I personally believe that in some cases it has, but in some ways its still the same or maybe even better. I have had many personal encounters and influences with music. Music has always been used to send out various messages such as love, hate, and problems. The same issues are still talked about today. There have been many controversial issues with today’s music. Themes such as sex and violence have really stirred up America. People fail to realize that this has always been talked about in music, the styles of discussion were just different. For example, Marques Houston’s hit song “Naked” was on the verge of being banned because of its title. On the other hand, some of the same people who had problems with this song loved the 1980’s hit “Let’s Get It On” by Marvin Gaye. These two songs have the exact same topic, but the one from today’s society was considered controversial. This is just one example of why I think music has some of the same content. On the other hand, topics such as robbing and killing do take away some content from music. Even with this, no matter what, you will always have a couple of bad apples in the bunch. Will we let this be the overall deciding factor of today’s music?

Although the three of our personal encounters don’t overlap perfectly, they share one major aspect: music tremendously influences all of us.

Has Music Lost Its Content?

Has music lost its content? This issue has been bought up many times in the last decade. Most of the answers are very opinionated. I personally believe that in some cases it has, but in some ways its still the same or maybe even better. I have had many personal encounters and influences with music. Music has always been used to send out various messages such as love, hate, problems, and many other issues. The same issues are still talked about today.
There has been many controversial issues with today’s music. Themes such as sex and violence has really stirred up America. People fail to realize that this has always been talked about in music, the styles of discussion were just different. For example, Marques Houston’s hit song “Naked” was on the verge of being banned because of its title. On the other hand, some of the same people who had problems with this song loved the 1980’s hit “Lets Get It On” by Marvin Gaye. These two songs have the exact same topic, but the one from today’s society was controversial. This is just one example of why I think music has some of the same content. On the other hand, topics such as robbing and killing does take away some content from music. Even with this, no matter what, you will always have a couple of bad apples in the bunch. Will we let this be the overall deciding factor of today’s music?

Music Free Write

Group Members: Mauricus, Jannica, Brandon
Topic: Music
Beef
Rap
hip hop
R & B
rhythm
dance
record labels
concerts
music videos
messages
instruments
history
do we need music?
Has music lost its content?
Pop
rock n roll
country
christian
gospel
contemporary
personal influences

Cardinals Rule but how about those Mets

The article that I chose to read is Cardinals Rule but how about those Mets. The title is just a little misleading. The writer opens up the article by talking about neither the Cardinals or the Mets. Instead, he opens it by talking about the Detroit Tigers. The cartoon of the Tiger's manager and Cardinal's manager Tony LaRussa is the only thing that makes the beginning relevant. The overall tone of the article was pretty straight-foward and down right BORING. The diction also needed great improvement. The choice of words through me for a loop in certain parts. I feel that sports articles do not need as many enormous words to get the point across. Although Roger Angell seemed a little A.D.D, the voice was right on target for the most part. He added many facts into this article. Some were not as relevant as others, but never the less, he did get the point across. The structure is one of the only high points for me. The transition from one element to the next was absolutely spectacular. Overall, it was a mediocre effort that could have used a little bit of improving.