reflective blog

I learned a lot this semester in College Writing 100. From reading the three articles on education, I learned to not fear them, and that they were readable, if I tore them apart. Also, I learned that it was effective when I wrote down notes to help me remember the important parts of the readings. Personally, I learned that if I set time aside to think about my writing, I can do better. The blog assignments were also helpful in putting my ideas together because they were not that formal. For thinking, I learned to think more about other people and how different lives can be.

At first, I did not like the writing assignments because they were so open on what I could write my essay on. Back in high school, my teachers all had a set question that we had to focus our essay on and so I was not comfortable with so many choices. For the last paper, I was still not sure what I wanted to write about. For the first two essays, I liked the variety and the essay even though I liked the topic on women in the media more. The blogs were cool but they were confusing at first. I liked how we were all linked to Professor Brumitt's main blog. All the articles and the book were worthwhile to read. They all made me think about different problems like losing a culture, and the many problems of education. Since this is my first semester of college, I knew that I should expect things to be different from high school. This class met my expectations because it wasn't too difficult, although I did not realize that we also had to buy God, Dr. Buzzard and the Bolito Man.

Miss Representation

Growing up in a rural community in Southeast China, I did not have much media presented to me. While everyone in America grew up with Disney influences and watching television, I had none of that. My grandparents raised me for five years in China while my parents worked for more money in America. Living with grandparents that only farmed, I only knew the life of playing in mud and running the streets barefoot. I did not have female role models besides my mother, who used to work in a garment factory. Later, as I returned to America, I would go with my mother to her work, and in my eyes, she was the hardest worker there; she would eat her lunch in a flash and head back to work. I had to run around like crazy getting her more fabric for her to use and make into clothing. She would tell me that she worked so hard because there was no other job for women like her and that she couldn't let go of the job because she had to support my sister and me. I would never see my father because he worked hard too. He worked in a busy restaurant and would come home late at night, when I would be already asleep. Even though my mother works, I was thrown in the direction that women and mothers were the ones that took care of the children and the house and the men would be making the bulk of the money. Years ago, when my mother and my aunt asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up, I told them that I didn't know. Then they would push me in the direction that I could be a teacher, or a nurse or something that they thought a general female would be. They would say that being a CEO or a president of a company was impossible because they were jobs for men. Even though I did not agree with them, I was still afraid to challenge that. I ended up choosing to become a nurse because I though it suited me best and not because it was a typical career for a female. I do agree with the idea that the lack of female role models lead to a lack of women leaders because it is so heavily portrayed in the media that we, as women should not be as powerful as men. However, there are many female role models out there but they are not as heavily shown in the media. I think this leads us to feel like it is impossible to accomplish, to be just as powerful as men.                                                            

Home

Whenever my parents would talk about where their home is, I truly wonder because they do not know and I barely know as well. Many Chinese people like my parents have moved away from our home country, China, to various other countries but still consider China as our main home. Even though my parents have lived in America for over 20 years, they still talk about going home, to their hometown and retire there. From my viewpoint, land used to be very important to my grandparents and my great-grandparents, because they farmed and have lived in the same place for about seven generations.
 
Land to the Sapelo island people however, is way more important. For them, land is a symbol of who they are as a people, and without it, they see their old way of life dying away. Their roots on that land dated all the way back to the slavery time period, a whole nine generations, so I see why they are so protective of it. Their land means a lot to them, all their stories and traditions come from the earth, so when the government took it away from them they have all the right to be extremely upset and angry. For my ancestors in China, land was never owned by them, so even though they lived there for many generations too, land was not that valuable. They viewed it more like a job and not something that defined who they were.

 For my family and all my relatives, it is not land that is important but rather family. Even though we own land in America, it is not where our heart is. Personally, I spent most of my time growing up in the coal regions of Pennsylvania, and even though I've lived there for ten years, I always feel that something is missing, and that it is truly not my home. For the Sapelo people, I feel that they are more connected with each other, and that even though they have moved away from Africa to America, both land and family are very important.

Prezi

Prezi Presentation
God, Dr. Buzzard, and the Bolito Man

Wri 100 book prezi on Prezi

Me and Education

High school and Middle school 

Teacher Unions

After watching Waiting for Superman, I had a firm opinion on teacher unions, mostly because I had little background information on it. The film really opened up my eyes when it showed the life of many people living in poverty and their education opportunities. Most of the characters lived in poverty and had little choice on where to send their children to school. The public schools that they went to mostly had teacher unions teachers that have the position for a very long guaranteed time. As the film showed, these schools were failing the public school system, making teacher unions look disgraceful. At first, I did not think too much into this because I thought the film was giving true information. After reading Grading "Waiting for Superman", however, I think that the film was overgeneralizing teacher unions in general. There are always pros and cons of something and teacher unions are no exception. They can be bad when teachers are performing poorly and do not make an effort to increase productivity. Other teachers could copy the ways because they know that they could do anything they want and still not get fired. I think this applies to the Chicago teacher union strike. They acted this way because they wanted a huge raise, all the while not caring about their own performance in teaching. The same can happen when something good happens. Other teachers could copy the good ways, and then there would be a huge increase in productivity and public schools would not fail. Also, if teacher unions wanted to address something to the government, their voice would be heard because of their numbers, as opposed to if a single teacher wanted change in the education system. Overall, I think that the film was powerful and moving but should not be applied to all teacher unions.

 

Blog 1
Interview
         Currently employed as a medical assistant to an anesthesia provider, Karla Fauver of Summit Hill, Pennsylvania is unsatisfied with her career and is looking forward to a new career in nursing. She loves her job as a medical assistant working from her home but says that the time spent with her family does not pay off her low wages. This is her last semester as a sophomore here at Cedar Crest College and she cannot wait to start classes next semester. She hopes that with a career in nursing she can receive better pay than a medical assistant with no background training, and be employed by the Lehigh Valley Hospital. At 37 years of age, she hopes that being married three times is enough for her. However, she loves a big family; she grew up with seven sisters and four brothers and currently has six children of her own, with a hope of another one. Commuting daily to classes and juggling work and children is stressful and as a method for relaxing, Karla enjoys crossword puzzles and word finds. As an outgoing and energetic lady, Karla hopes to move to Telfurd, Pennsylvania one day. Her personality reflects her food taste; she likes spicy food, Mexican and Jamaican preferably, but also likes to try new things.