Coming to a Close

I can not believe that it is finally here. The end of my freshman year at SMU. It seems like only last month, I was saying good bye to my parents out front of Moody Coliseum and heading off to corral. Now here I am getting ready to pack up and head back home. 

This year has been very life changing. I've lived on my own; no parents telling me when and where to be, what to do, etc. I have had to learn to organize my time between work and play. I am glad I took this experience leaving the comfort of my parent's nest and flying on my own, but I am ready to go home though. Not having to worry about what is due the next day and if I want to go out with friends with no academic repercussions.  It will be hard the first few days, getting back under my parents roof, going by their rules, doing things when they want.  It will become routine again and before I know it, I will be back in Dallas, getting ready to go off to corral. This time though I will be the leader, not the scared freshman. 

Kate and 8 minus Jon?

I love Jon and Kate Plus 8 on TLC. I have seen and can probably quote every episode ever shown. Of course I was shocked to see this article on my Yahoo home page when I logged onto the Internet last Tuesday. 

I was horrified! How could he even think about cheating? What about all of his kids? This lead of course to me googling divorce rates. I found that the media projects that 50% of marriages will end in divorce and there is a 61% chance that the couple has children under the age of 18. For these kids of divorced parents there is a 33% chance that they will drop out of high school.

 I know that seems pretty drastic. I have many friends who have divorced parents and they graduated at the top of the class. I think that divorce can be a tough time for anyone in the family just because everyone feels like it is their fault, that they didn't do something right. I hope for the Gosselins that they will work through their problems and that everything will be fine. I mean who could fight when you have such adorable children? 

Commenting on Twittering and Weight Loss

I just read Dvyrsity's blog about Twittering and Weight Loss. I think it is basically fad. How could you possibly loss weight when you are just sitting on your computer and watching what everyone is doing? I think that this is just a way to get people to join Twitter. 

Commenting on 15 year old Overdose

I just commented on Brittany Spears' post about drug overdose. It is hard to believe that some one so young in life has died because of something stupid like drugs. I hope that people will learn what things like Heroin does to you and how messed up it can/will make you. 

The Classics Vs. Twilight

Reading popular fiction like Twilight gives us the same amount of knowledge and benefits as reading the classics like Pride and Prejudice.

            Reading popular fiction like Harry Potter or Twilight helps increase the desire to read. As seen in Dr. Ruth Cox Clark’s piece “Older Teens Are Serious About Their Series: Forensic Mysteries, Graphic Novels, Horror, Supernatural, and Chick Lit Series” we see that book series, such as manga, are bring teens back into the literary world.  Manga is “a Japanese genre of cartoons, comic books, and animated films, typically having a science fiction or fantasy theme and sometimes including violent or sexually explicit material” (New Oxford American Dictionary).  Clark, associate professor at East Carolina University, finds that “the ready availability of graphically formatted, serial reading materials, such as the multitude of manga series now being published, has brought many teenage boys – and girls- back to reading, some of them resistant readers for years.” Even something as basic as comics can bring teens who haven’t been reading back into the good graces of reading. This is wonderful because it is helping these students do better in school.  

Commenting on Who Cares if Johnny Can't Read?

I commented on CEC's blog about MacFarquhar's piece. I believe that yes even though Americans are not reading the "classics," we should still be proud that we are reading even if it is popular culture books like Twilight and Harry Potter. Also I believe that books do help you visualize better than movies do just because it is part of you that one puts into their characters when they imagine the characters in a book, thus the reader can relate and enjoy the book more. 

Twittering to a Different Tune

As I was looking through the Yahoo Entertainment section, I found an interesting article that caught my eye. "Keira Knightley 'Hates' Twitter and Facebook." The article basically quotes her as saying she "hates the Internet." The article goes on to talk about what she is obsessed with, her new movie, etc. I was intrigued because of what we have been studying in class and because she is one of the first stars to speak out against sites like Twitter and Facebook. But Knightley makes a good point, why do we need to be connected all the time?

I know that when I go to South Carolina to visit family, it is very unlikely that I am able to check my email or look at my Facebook, or even when I go home, I barely look at my computer, let alone get on it. Why though at school do I need to be continually checking everything? I guess it is because it is the way I keep up with friends at different schools and my family and classes. 

Maybe we are becoming "dehumanized" as Knightley so sweetly put it. Maybe we do spend too much time on the Internet when we should be outside enjoying the sun on days like today. Does anyone else have any ideas?