Finals

Finals are a stressful part of every college student's life. They study and toil so that they can understand the material as well as they possibly can. Finals are generally an accumulation of all of the material that was covered throughout the year, so it can be very difficult to remember things that were discussed in the beginning of the class. That's why is is important to review and pay much attention to the things that were learned at the beginning of the semester as opposed to the end, because the material covered at the end is probably still fresh in your mind. Many people study weeks in advance of finals so that they can review all of the material that was covered, but many others only review a few nights in advance. Whichever study habits are best for you are what you should use to study for finals so that you can receive the best grade possible.

Attending Class

Going to class is something that is necessary. If you hope to do well in a particular class, it is recommended that you attend the class so that you can get the information that you are going to be tested on. In addition, many classes give you grades based on your attendance and participation. You go to class to learn, and if you don't go to class, you aren't going to learn anything and you will most likely do poorly on the examinations. If you find yourself in a situation where you can't attend class, it is acceptable to miss one so as to get yourself prepared for the next one. No one enjoys attending class, but it is something that is necessary if you are attending school so that you can recieve good grades, graduate, and get a good job in the future.

Swimming

Swimming is a very fun activity. I am only able to swim during one season due to the fact that it is too cold to swim during the winter, spring, and fall. I live close to Lake Michigan so going to the beach and swimming is a fun activity that I do frequently throughout the summer. Not only is it fun and very refreshing, but it is also great exercise! Swimming, depending on the distance, can be a vigorous workout for you and increases your heartrate therefore giving you a great workout. Many pepole, such as Micheal Phelps, swim for a living and serious competition like the olympics, and win awards for their performances. Swimming is something that nearly everyone can do and is a fun way to pass the time and spend an afternoon.

Group Projects

Doing group projects is easier than doing projects by yourself. You are able to collaborate with other members of your team in order to create the best piece that you can. Instead of requiring peer review in order to get someone elses opinion on your project, you have several different peers in your group and they can all have a say in how the project is going and what needs to be changed. Different opinions on a particular piece are always a good thing because different people have separate viewpoints on what could and could not be necessary. Also, if you are unsure about how to do a certain thing in your project, such as collect research, you can always ask your group to help you out and they will generally help you so that you can do the work that you were assigned. Group projects are easier to do than individual projects.

Christmas

Christmas is a happy time of year. It is when people give and recieve gifts, come home to see their families whom they may not have seen for a long time, and eat delicious food. People take breaks from the arduous toils of everyday life to spend quality time with loved ones. People put up Christmas trees and decorations to display their holiday spirit. Special songs were created to celebrate this great holiday season. Happy jingles ring throughout the halls of homes and businesses. Nearly everyone is excited for the christmas season to arrive, because along with it comes happy feelings. Snow generally comes down from the sky, which is a very pretty sight, especially if you enjoy having fun in the snow. Children especially are very excited for Christmas to arrive each year.

Projects

Projects are aspects of class that have always been around. They offer us a chance to learn a new skill by applying it in a hands-on manner. They also give us a chance to assess ourselves by showing us where we stand with using a specific skill-set. For example, doing a research paper in English 1050 shows me how well I can go out and gather credible information. Not only that, but it shows me how well I can cite it and use it in the text, thereby writing a coherent essay with a large amount of research to back up my claims. This is but a small example of how doing projects allows us to apply new skills and rate ourselves at how we have developed in using those skills.

Spanish

For the last couple of years I have been attempting to learn Spanish. I took spanish classes all throughout high school and now am continuing to do so. It is a very difficult thing to learn a different language, especially when you are living in a predominantly English-speaking area. I feel that it is necessary for me to travel to a different place where Spanish is the native language, immerse myself in their culture, and really dial in to their language in order to truly learn Spanish. That way, I would always be hearing it and would be forced to respond in that language in order to get my point across. Attempting to learn Spanish while only speaking or hearing it a few times a week is not the best way to figure out how to speak it fluently.

Pearl Harbor

The attack on Pearl Harbor was a famous surprise attack by the Japanese on a naval fleet that was stationed there. The attack killed many people, harmed the U.S's naval defenses, and sunk many ships, but the United States and its people were able to respond accordingly. The day after the attack occurred, President Roosevelt gave a speech to the people calling for war. He described the Japanese as a menace that needed to be dealt with, and he reacted accordingly to their attacks. Congress nearly unanimously approved the call to war and the next day we had declared war on the country of Japan. A few days after that, Germany and Italy both declared war on the United States. It was at this point that we realized that we had become fully involved in World War 2.

Texting

Cell phones weren't always around. They were developed relatively recently and have made life very much easier. Before the 1990's, no one had a cell phone and people contacted others by using landlines. Now, everyone has a cell phone. People are constantly texting wherever they are. Texting has become a part of our society and is being used all over the world. It is much faster than making a phone call, and you can say whatever you want to whoever you want in a message without anyone else seeing it. Cell phones are abundant in our culture and people texting on them is even more common. People began texting too much, however, and that has caused laws to be made banning texting in certain situations such as while driving or even while walking in some places. Texting has made our lives very convenient and, for some, even more dangerous.

Procrastination

Procrastination is something that we all do. It is also something that most of us should try to avoid. Noticing that we have a large amount of work to do by a certain time should be a hint that we should get started on the work instead of put it off until later. Many people would have the initiative to jump right to it and get it done then and there so they have nothing to do later and can relax. I, on the other hand, embrace procrastination and push my work until the very last moment that I can finally do it. That way, I don't have to think about it until the moment it's due. This is probably not a good form of study habits, because if complications arise I don't have any time to get it done and my grade gets lowered. This is how I have always done it, though, and will probably always continue to do it because it's much easier for me than doing all of my work right there on the spot. It may not work for everyone, but it usually works for me.

Vampire Love Stories

In class, we have been discussing vampire love stories. We are looking into who the audience would be, what the purpose of the story is, what the appeal is, and what elements are used to appeal to the purpose of the story. After thinking it through, I decided for myself that the audience would be teenage girls and romantics, due to the love stories involved in nearly all vampire love stories now-a-days such as "Twilight" and "The Vampire Diaries". I then thought about the purpose, and I decided that it was to tell a story about "true love" and show romance to teenage kids looking for a romantic situation. The appeal is the beautiful people that they put in the story to attract the audience to the show, because people would rather see attractive people fall in love than ugly ones. Elements that were used include suspense to keep the audience interested. Suspense is used during the stories when the directors leave us hanging mid-plot when something is about to happen between episodes or movies. This is something that drives many audiences crazy and keeps them coming back for more, which is a very good marketing technique. Vampire love stories that are made today are made to entertain teenage kids and introduce a romantic story that will be suspenseful and keep the audience coming back for more.

Fairy Tales

In english 1050 recently, we had to write our own fairy tale for homework. This fairy tale had to include a few different elements in it, such as a villain and a hero that triumphs over that villain, magic, and some sort of creature that sets the story away from reality. That is what makes a good fairy tale. I struggled with something to come up with, but I thought back to all of the fairy tales that I was ever read as a young child for ideas. Eventually, I was able to come up with the story of a young gnome that triumphs over a specific problem/villain and teaches the audience a lesson at the same time. It took a lot of thought and changing of ideas along the way, but eventually I was able to come up with a fairy tale that could possibly intrigue a small child and teach them a lesson as well.

Running

I have never been a big fan of running. When I was younger, I weighed a lot for my age, so running was a difficult task. As I grew older, I began to jog around the block in order to get in shape for the upcoming soccer season. I had a specific time that I had to run my mile in so that I could reserve myself a spot on the team. This was no easy task, but eventually I was able to decrease my time and say that I was a decent runner. Throughout my years of high school sports, I ran a substantial amount every day with my team. Coaches would have us running all the time in order to get in better shape to beat out the other team. I worked as hard as I could through the majority of my high school career with running and other sports goals, and it felt good. Now that I have graduated high school, I don't run as often because I am busy doing other things. I still exercise, but running is something that I have always found tedious and now i don't do is at often as I used to. It is my goal to start running a little bit every day and hopefully I will eventually get back into it for my health.

Thesis Statement for "Gangsta's Paradise"

The attraction to money and power is what draws kids into the fake "paradise" of the life of a gangster, making it nearly impossible to escape.

Time Management in College

In the world of attending college, time management is key. You need to be able to set aside time to go to class, to study, maybe to exercise, eat, and socialize! There are a large amount of things that everybody has to juggle while being in college, and even the real world. Some things are more important than others, and therefore require more time to complete and make sure you do them right. Studying is one such thing. Going to class is not sufficient enough to procure good grades, you need to do a substantial amount of studying along with it in order to prepare yourself for quizzes and exams. If you don't study, then going to class will not be worth while either, and you could end up failing out of classes. That is why you need to devote a large amount of time to studying and going to class, whereas eating, exercising, and socializing can be cut down and shortened a bit to make room for more important things. Eating, exercising, and socializing are also very important to do in college, but the main purpose of college is not to get fit or make friends, it is to excel in class and end up doing what you want to do with your life, so that is where the majority of your time should be spent.

Analyzing

In high school, whenever a teacher brought up a specific movie, play, song, or picture, they always tried to get the entire class to see the deeper meaning behind what they saw or heard. I was always skeptical, assuming that the creator of the piece was simply trying to create a work of art for entertainment purposes. As it turns out, most pieces of literature, music, or movies have a deeper meaning that the audience was meant to pick up by digging deeper into the back round of the author or creator. Many people who create works of art have interesting back rounds, and they include a large portion of it in the piece. Through analyzing individual pieces that perhaps don't make sense, one can possibly find a large variety of knowledge hidden underneath the surface. These hidden meanings don't always have to be about the back round of the creator, either. They can relate to world events that are occurring today, or problems with society, or any number of hidden meanings. It is important to understand, however, that many pieces are created for symbolic purposes where there are specific meanings of things that are said or occur in that piece.

Writing

Throughout my life, I had always considered myself to be a decent writer. I was able to tell a story and usually do it with a "flavorful" vocabulary. My teachers always rewarded my efforts with good grades, and this always boosted my confidence in myself as a writer. All of this was the case, until I reached my senior year of high school. I took a few different courses that required me to write in substantial amounts throughout the course of the trimester. The first course was AP History, the most difficult class that I had ever taken. This course required me to take all of my writing and cut it down to the bare minimum. Pieces that I wrote were written in response to a prompted question, and so I had to keep my explanations brief and to the point in order to thoroughly answer that question. My teacher, Mr. Haverdink, took my pages and marked them up all over with red ink, and gave me less than exceptional grades. I was displeased, but throughout the entire process, I learned how to write differently and in a better format suited for what I will be doing for the rest of my life. This is an important skill and I am glad that I struggled throughout the year in order to become the better writer that I am now.

Carrie

Last Thursday in English 1050 we watched a movie titled "Carrie". This is an older film about a young girl with special "abilities". She is able to move objects with her mind. Carrie is picked on in school for being different, and the reason that she is different is because her mother is overly religious and won't allow Carrie to grow up as a normal teenager. She keeps her from doing things that other children do, and this forces Carrie to grow up as an outcast. Finally, after her forcing her mother to let her go to the prom through her telekinetic abilities, she seems to be fitting in and having a wonderful time. Just then, a girl who sought revenge on Carrie, along with her boyfriend, dumped a bucket of pig blood on her head in front of everybody wen she won prom queen. In a fury, she burns down the school and kills everybody inside of it. This horror film is a relatively sad story about this poor girl who just couldn't fit in. I found it to be very different from any type of film that I've ever seen before, not only because of the time period in which it was created in, but due to the fact that the antagonist of the story is not completely black and white. Many would say Carrie is the antagonist of the story, but I would say that her mother and the cruel children who picked on her were actually the antagonists while Carrie is the poor victim of their crimes. This movie is certainly one that could be discussed much further in depth.

Track and Field

All throughout middle and high school, I was involved in the Hamilton Track and Field program. In the sport track and field, you are placed into events that you can excel at and made to practice with other students that have been placed in similar events. I was a mid-distance runner, meaning that I mainly focused on the 400 and 800 meter dashes. I was never very good at these events, mainly because you have to maintain a very fast-paced run for a substantial distance. It's almost a sprint for an entire half-mile! This became very difficult and the 800 meter dash quickly became my least favorite race. That's why, as I grew older, I began to focus less on the 800 meter dash and more on the 400. Along with these events, I also took part in a field event. This particular field event that I was involved in throughout the majority of my high school career was pole vault. I enjoyed pole vault very much, but in order to succeed in such an event, you need to have nearly perfect form. This is something that takes an incredible amount of practice to achieve, and something that I never quite figured out how to do, but I tried my best. Needless to say, track and field was not my best sport, but I always had fun and enjoyed competing amongst my friends and other athletes.

Class Discussion

In class we always have a significant amount of discussion about books or excerpts that we read such as The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks or The Mercury Reader. I always enjoy getting feedback from other people's points of view due to the fact that it is usually different from my own. I like to know how other people understood things as opposed to how I understood it, such as in Henrietta Lacks when the hospital took her cells without asking her and sold it for profit, sparing none for her. I thought this was incredibly unfair of them but I heard from others who felt that it was the right of the hospital to take those cells because she was on a free medical program. I found this interesting and it gave me a whole new insight to the situation. Other people's opinion on topics are important to hear because they could be completely different from your own, and in many cases could be correct as well. I was very pleased today to have the chance to discuss this book and other pieces of writing as a group because not only did it give me a better understanding of what I was reading, but of what other people thought about the reading as well.

Studying

Studying has never been an easy task for me. Throughout middle and high school, I never had too much difficulty and so studying was never something that was very high on my to-do list. I'd always put it off or procrastinate until the very last minute and then study for a couple of minutes and be done with it. Usually with this amount of studying, I would do perfectly fine on a test. Now that I'm in college, things are different. The tests are much more difficult, and I need to study for anything that I intend to do well on. When I first got here and started taking tests, I needed to make a very quick transition from being lazy with my studies to being diligent. Now I take at least an hour to study before every test, and even with that amount of studying, which is substantial for me, I still don't always do very well on tests. College is something that I am going to need to work very hard at if I have any plans to succeed. I would love for it to get easier, but in the end it is only going to benefit me in the long run with displaying good work ethic in the real world. Studying for tests is something that I am going to have to learn how to do even better as I progress through college.

Writing in English 1050

In English 1050, we have begun the process of writing our personal narratives. These are supposed to be a recollection of something in our past that relates to English and how it changed our view on the English language. It took a lot of consideration, due to the fact that I have never had much change in my views on English in my reading or writing. I have always been relatively comfortable with my abilities as a writer and reading has never been very difficult for me either, so coming up with a conflict in my English history was relatively difficult. Finally I decided to write about how my writing style had to change in order to fit the desires of my AP History teacher, Mr. Haverdink. He wanted our essays to stay on topic without rambling or saying anything that didn't completely have a point, so this was something that I had to change from my previous writing style. In the past, I would write things in order to take up space and meet the word limit for my classes. This was something that I could no longer do in AP History and I had to change it. I also chose to write about an essay that I enjoyed writing due to the fact that I was able to choose a topic that I cared and wanted to write about which was child obesity. This was something that I enjoyed writing and presenting to my class and something that was different in my history of English writing.

Soccer

Soccer is something that I've always enjoyed. I started playing as young as I could in my early elementary school years. I always had a blast. Once I graduated to middle school, soccer started getting a little bit more competitive. I wasn't the most athletic child and so I was never picked first to be out on the field. This is something that pushed me until eventually I was starting in the eighth grade. Then high school came around, and people even more athletic than I took over. It took a lot of effort until I was finally promoted to the varsity team junior year and a significant part of the Hamilton High School Soccer Team. Even though I was never the best, I loved being a part of the team and giving my very best on the field every game. I was always pleased after the game whether we won or lost, because I knew that I had given everything I had out on that field. Now that I have graduated high school, I can no longer play competitive soccer due to the fact that I do not have enough skill to join Western's soccer team. I still play when I get the chance with a few friends around campus, but the chance to play competitively is long gone. I will always remember fondly the memories on the soccer field, and I wish that I could go back. For now, however, I will just have to stick to playing for fun when I get the chance.

Reading in English 1050

There is always a large amount of reading to be done in English 1050. We read about things such as cultural differences and how people cope with these differences. It is important to understand that the things we say to people could be taken differently because of where they come from. In the excerpt "My Ill Narrative: Growing Up Black, Po, and a Girl, in the Hood" in "The Mercury Reader", the author, Elaine Richardson, comes from a less than pleasant neighborhood and doesn't understand a lot of things about what happened to her there. When she starts to get older, and boys pay attention to her more, she doesn't understand that they don't want her for her personality, and that fact starts to become apparent as you read on. Regardless of how tedious reading all of Elaine's long descriptions may be, the story she tells is a sad one and has an important lesson to learn in the end. As a male, you need to be more careful of what you say to who because it could be taken the wrong way and cause problems for them or you later on. This is only one of the many different readings and lessons that we are currently learning about in English 1050.

About Me

My name is Andrew Hulsman. I come from a small farming town called Hamilton. It's the kind of place where you know nearly everyone that you see walking down the street, which is somewhere that I was very pleased to grow up in. I played soccer and track throughout my years in Hamilton, and was fairly successful at both. Along with that, I am also an Eagle Scout, which is something that I toiled with for many years growing up with the eventual dream of achieving. That is an award that I am very proud of. I have now moved out of Hamilton and am currently living and studying at Western Michigan University and am majoring in Athletic Training with the hopes of eventually obtaining a career in such a field. Athletics have always interested me, which is why I have the great desire to follow a career in which I am placed among athletes for the rest of my life. It sounds very appealing to me. This is just a little bit of information about me and my life.