Letter to Stephanie

Dear Stephanie,

Well I thought since the first blog we put out on our page was a “letter to Stephanie” I thought very fitting to end with one. Except this time It won’t be me telling you about myself as hopefully over the last few months you have gotten to know me some. I can not believe the semester is coming to an end, and it is even crazier to believe all the work we have done. When I realized our last assignment was right around the corner I was in disbelief. As you know this class has been very challenging for me having a little one at home. I think to myself if I did not have a child to take care of I probably would have done A LOT better on my papers. I did not put all the time needed into my work as it shows through my writing.

I also wanted to mention how much I have enjoyed being in your class………..I’m not trying to be a brown noser. I just know from being an underappreciated mother and wife I like to let others know how much I appreciate the things they do for me. Your class was definitely not easy by any means but I believe you are very fair in the things you do. I would like to take you in the future but fortunately I do not need any more English for my degree, yes I said fortunately ha ha……….As I have mentioned through my writings I don’t care for writing, but if you were to teach something else I’d be there J.

I hope to see you around ICC in the future when I return after my daughter starts school in three years. I know to some it may seem weird that I am thanking you for “doing” your job, but I know a lot of teachers who do not do anything for students after school hours. You have been there whenever we needed you even when you are at home. Thanks again.


Sincerely,



Colleen E. Mathias

Slow Down!!!

Parking lot drivers, it seems people lose all sense of how to drive when they enter a parking lot. It does not matter where I go, people either drive way too fast for a parking lot or fail to yield to pedestrians. I especially notice this at Wal-Mart and the ICC parking lots.

I don’t know how many times I have walked within a crosswalk and drivers disregard the signs that say “it’s the law, yield to pedestrians within a crosswalk.” We are not in Europe; those signs are put there for a reason.

Or for people that fly out of their parking space, slow down!! I drive slowly when pulling out of my parking space and I am glad I do. One day when leaving Wal-Mart I was about to pull out but took my time, thank goodness, because a little boy dropped something in front of my car and bent over to pick it up. Since I was taking my time I thankfully did not hit him.

For the safety of people, please take your time when you are driving. It would be horrible to have known you killed someone because you were in a rush. Slow Down!!

My writing blog10

The ad analysis, this was probably the hardest paper for me so far. Probably because it makes you think critically, yeah I know that probably sounds lame. I am not saying I expect things to be easy, this was just a really hard paper. I think I choose a good ad, one that is very appealing to the eye. It is a busy ad and has fun imagery, from a man on stilts to a life size bottle of perfume.

After doing this paper I know for a fact I will never look at ads the same. I am going to pick them all apart and try to figure out how they are trying to draw in their reader’s. Hopefully this prepares me for our up-coming paper, the cultural analysis.

Writing is very challenging and I feel I am growing as I go. My sensory details are getting better and instead of just slopping stuff on paper, I try to think of how to describe things really well; I try and draw a picture for the reader in words. I do not always succeed but I am more aware of it as I write.

I definitely would not want to be a writer for a living or even an English teacher. I still feel like my writing is not like some I have seen by others that is almost poetic in a way. I wish I could write like that but I would really struggle trying to do so.

To spank or Not to spank?

Is it alright to spank your children? I have been going back and forth with whether or not I think my daughter should be spanked. In the beginning I was totally against it only because of the influence of an outside party. At times I find it hard to spank my daughter in public. I am afraid someone will call the cops on me for child abuse. Now and days it seems the whole spanking issue has gotten way out of hand. I in no way condone child abuse but there is a difference between disciplining your children and abusing them.

I think children need a spanking every now and again. I look at all the kids today and they have no respect. They walk all over their parents and threaten to call the cops if they even touch them. They need to realize the parents are in charge and they are the child and as much as they think they know “everything” their parents have been around the block a few times and actually know what’s best for them.

I am now realizing spanking is just fine as long you do it appropriately. You should never spank out of anger, come back to the punishment after you have cooled down. Spank for the more serious punishments, do not just spank for every little thing they do. Such as running into the road, or hurting an animal; things that can be harmful to themselves or others. I do not think spanking should be your only form of punishment. Another method should be used to go along with the spanking. All in all if used properly I think spanking is good and can help in disciplining children.

Blog Week 8

We are halfway through our semester; it is so hard to believe. I have grown some as a writer but still have some issues to work on. Every time I write a paper I always have “muscle” issues. I really need to look into help so that I may better that aspect of my papers.

I am actually feeling pretty good about my writing’s so far. I thought I was much worse at writing than I have shown to be. I really think it does help that Stephanie breaks things down. The way she has assignments that lead to our first draft, and then we can work on our paper some more verses just saying here is the topic, write your paper.

My imagery writing is definitely getting better as show in this sentence used in my Travel Essay: “The pure scenery is like a canvas which is re-painted as the seasons change.” I really have to think “outside” of the box to write good imagery. It is really hard but in the end when you have a beautiful piece of writing it makes it all worth the effort.

I need to spend more time writing on my papers. I have home issues that make it hard to find time to sit and write. If I had more time to work on my paper or even go to the studio this would help me out tremendously. All in all I feel I have done pretty well but having the time and help will be a great benefit to my writing.

Guns

An Illinois law has been passed that allows a hand gun to be carried in the console of a car. This came about from a case that had gone to Supreme Court, because of a man who was arrested for having his gun in the console of his car. He fought it stating that the console could be considered a case. There are stipulations to the law, you obviously have to have your FOID card and the gun can not be loaded.

I agree with being able to have a gun in the console, with all of the crime now and days having a gun close by for protection is nice. The State’s Attorney disagreed with this because he says now Police Officers have to worry about gun’s being at the fingertips of anyone they pull over. This does scare me a little being my Husband is a Police Officer but whether or not a law states you can have a gun in the console or not people will still have them where ever they please.

Crime needs to be stopped and I do not believe taking guns away from people is going to help. The “bad” people will have guns irregardless and then the “good” people are left unable to defend themselves.

Week 6

We are in week six of our writing class so far. I can not believe it!! Time sure flies. Now that we have done a few writings I am learning how to re-word certain things, like not to have the “be” verbs and to do more showing than telling. For instance here is a paragraph from my Autoethnography, “Sure you think it sounds easy right? Just give her a few toys and be on your way. Not in my house, my daughter loves to be chased, “Chase you mommy, Chase you mommy,” she says. Half out of breath I try to chase her around the house. As we continue to run my breath is unable to be caught due to lack of exercise and she is like Speedy Gonzalez and all you see is the smoke behind her as she runs. Once I catch her she giggles uncontrollably and as the giggles fade she runs out of my arms like a tornado only to begin the “chase” again.”

I don’t ever remember really “thinking” about what I wrote when I was in High School. Now when I write I try to put a lot of thought into it. I don’t know if it’s because I have matured since being in High School almost ten years ago and care more about what I do than “just” getting it done. When I was in High School I probably would have blown off the whole revision opportunity we are given and just turned my paper in as is. I really think we do learn more being able to revise our papers than turning them in once and the grade you get is what sticks.

It is very hard and frustrating to do the writings we do but it has definitely made me think of how I write everyday things from e-mails or even journal entries. I am definitely more excited about my writing’s today than I was back in High School.