Charles Fisher-Cell phones

         Charles Fisher tells of his point of view when it comes to cell phones in his essay Cell Phones and Social Graces. There are good reasons to own a cell phone. For example, they provide a way to contact someone in an emergency. Cell phones enable a person to stay in constant contact. People depend on cell phones too much. We have created a cell phone that can do the same as a home phone line and a computer, so we can incorporate a cell phone in our lives even more. We overuse cell phones too much which gives power to the cell phone companies to do whatever they want to us. They have created secret fees to make us pay even more. Some companies even have fees because you have a certain phone with an application.

         People now tend to overuse cell phones. People now do things that annoy everybody. Fisher gives us a great examples of the over usage of cell phones. Like when he tells of us about the people in grocery stores that feel the need to talk louder than normal. He also tells us about he can no longer attend a movie without being disturbed by a cell phone, by either a ring or a text. He tells of a time when he was in Disney world when a woman on a stallion with her daughter was talking on the phone. The lady could not wait two minutes till the end of the ride to talk to whoever it was, she would rather talk instead of enjoying time with her daughter. The example that disturbs me the most that Fisher tells us is of the one when he was at a bible study. A phone rang and instead of the lady apologizing and turning it off she says “I’ve got to get this.”   

       I remember once I was in my English class taking a final. There were two people sitting with me at the desk I was at. We had just started taking the final I heard a vibrate come from the pocket from the person next to me. Every two minutes there was a vibrate that reminded the person of the text message. It looked like every second that passed drove him crazy. He kept looking to see when the teacher wouldn’t be looking to answer the text. The teacher stood up and walked outside the room and the person answered the text. That’s right when our teacher walked in and saw him, he took his final and gave him a zero. I asked him after class who texted him, and he said, “It was a stupid pointless chain letter.” We give cell phones too much importance to cell phones.

Darkness at Noon

I agree with Harold Krents, people with disabilities are not given the opportunity they deserve. People assume that since he can’t see he cannot hear. People would also assume his eyes don’t work, his ears don’t either. Some people knew that he can hear, but believed that he can’t talk. Once when he was in the hospital, he was being wheeled down to the X-ray room. A person was asking him questions and the person who was wheeling him down was repeating it to him and also repeated his responses too. He was turned down by over forty law firms because of his blindness, even though he studied at Harvard College. He wants one day for people not to know who is disabled and who is normal.
                People still sometimes underestimate people with a disability. And, people assume that because they have one disability they also have another. A thing people do not realize is because they have a disability there other senses are enhanced. These enhanced senses can substitute their missing senses. I remembered watching a movie called blindness. This movie is about a world in which an illness causes the world to go blind. As people went blind people were rejected and sent to an abandoned school. This movie shows how “regular” people who went blind. would suffer. But, there is one guy was born blind. There is a huge difference between him and the rest of the ill people, like there is a scene in which a girl sneaks into a room with the blind people and him, he (the born-blind guy) noticed her. This proves that people with a disability have enhanced other senses.

Journal Entry #3

 Anna Quindlen's purpose in writing "Stuff is not Salvation", is about why we buy products that we don't really need. A worker at a Wal-mart located in Valley, N.Y was trampled to death by a mob of selfish bargain hunters. This shows that americans will do anything to get a cheap price for electronics, aplliances, and other miscellaneous junk. This same junk that we buy are items that we don't even need in order to survive. In my opinion, I think it is better to have less because if we have less, then each item we do have will have more meaning. Even if you don't have money, people always find a way to buy useless junk one way or another. For example, people use credit cards to buy the junk, which then is added to the huge debt the U.S already has. It is better to have less because each item will have more meaning, and we wouldn't have to demand more.
I remember when the Xbox360 first came out, I wanted it so bad, I begged my mom to but one for me. My mom said no and told me I had to raise the money on my own. So I did everything I could to raise the money to but it. When I finally had the money to but it I went to Gamestop and bought it. I was so excited to buy it that I totally forgot that I needed to buy a game for it, luckily I also had enough money to but one. After about a month I realized that I didn't need the Xbox360 to be happy because this item will always need more games so that I can play it. One game costs me almost sixty dollars which means I need more money to please my useless item which only brings me joy for an hour before I get bored.
   

Journal entry 2

The proposal of Amy Tan when writing "Fish Cheeks" is never be ashamed that you are different. You can be different in many ways which some are through culture or your own customs. Amy learned this by looking back at a Christmas that her crush (and his family) came to celebrate with her family. Every time her family did something that they usually did like when they licked the ends of their chopsticks and reached across the table and dipped them into the plates of food, she was so ashamed. Even when her dad gave her, her favorite part of the fish she wanted to disappear. She wanted to be so Americanized that she was ashamed of a polite Chinese tradition which was belching loudly after a meal to show you are satisfied. That Christmas she even wanted a slim new American nose, which proofs that she did not like her culture. She was too busy focusing on all her family’s faults (according to her) that she did not notice that her mom made her all of her favorite food. Even though you might not have the same customs like everybody else never be ashamed of yourself, because of you are you will never be satisfied with anything, and the people you are trying to impress might be like you when they are at home.  

            I remember when I first invited my girlfriend to one of my family’s parties. I was so ashamed because my family drinks heavily. During the time she was there, I tried hard so that she would not notice my family drinking. It was working until my mom called me over to tell me to take drinks to everybody. She noticed all the empty cans of beer that were on the floor, but did not say anything. The empty cans were everywhere around the adults.  So the rest of the day I still tried to hide how much they drink from her. So at the end of the day when I took her home she asked me “Your family likes to drink beer a lot?”  I said “Yes, but I tried to hide it from you.” She responded “Ha, my family is the same but with tequila.” I thinking to myself “Are you serious, I was so ashamed of my family all day that I did not get to enjoy the day the most I could have.” After that she invited my family to one of her family’s parties and both our families got along and still get along to this very day. So don not to ashamed who you are or where you came from, because you the people you are trying to impress might end up being the same as you.
-Edwin Caztaneda posted 10/18/2010 at 11:24 pm

Bio

My name is Edwin Castaneda. I am 18 years old. I live in Stockton, CA and I graduated from Weber Institute of Applied Science and Technology. My favorite subject during high school was math and also drafting. I have a brother and a sister that are both younger than me. I have a Mexican background, but born here. I am from a traditional Mexican family. I am a passionate fan of soccer and the team Club America (Mexico). I came to the Art institute for my AA in Culinary Arts. After graduation I plan to get a job and work in a restaurant. One day I plan to open a restaurant.