Poem 1

Water, wet, weeping these are the remnants of the storm.
The woman hangs onto the dresser as if
it were a stuffed childhood animal.  Off in
the distance a boat approaches.  The men
young and muscular lend aid to  the woman
in her flooded house.  A ladder is brought up from
the flooded garage and placed against the boat
wading ten feet above.  She slowly climbs from her
second story room up the ladder into the
waiting boat.  A man dives from the boat
into the murky deep.  As she struggles to
 pull herself into the boat a heave is felt from below.  Up and over she goes as she rolls into the waiting boat, finally safe at last.

Thoughts about "The Killing Fields"

I have to admit I originally thought that this movie would be boring.  I find it very enjoyable and am amazed at what harsh treatment military forces can give to civilians.  It was my belief that they had to treat them humanely, were in this movie the cambodians were treated very poorly.  I see now how history is a memory, all of these traumatic events are not something that can just be forgotten by someone.  They will always reside within a person's mind.  Those people will more often than not publicize their feelings and try and start a movement to help out in situations such as is presented in this movie.

Lake as a Pool of Memory

The lake or any lake can easily be compared to a national memory.  Memories are stored in the control center of our bodies.  This is otherwise known as our brain.  The brain contains everything we have been through and how we dealt with those issues.  It remembers every part of our past and though we are unable to obtain all of those memories they are always there.  The brain though only part and relatively small can store massive amounts of data.  

Lakes are the same way.  Though they can consist of hundreds of miles they are still small when being compared to the size of the entire country.  However though they are small, lakes are able to hold millions of things ranging from algae to big fish such as bass.  All of these things are living together even though you may be unable to see all of them.  The reason lakes can be compared to a national memory is because they are immensely big and can contain all of the memories that a nation has.  Lakes can be compared to the human brain of a nation.  Lakes are small but are still part of the nation and with the exception of erosion and minute changes they generally stay the same. 

Lakes are not like people.  They do not die off in eighty years.  They are there through all the good and the bad times and as such they are able to say that they were part of the nation during all the historical moments.    People also always add a sense of bias to their decisions and their thoughts.  Lakes do not have that ability and so the memories that they hold are not positioned to make one side look good and the other look bad.  They hold the memory of events as they happen with no outside decision to skew how it perceives the event.

My Lai pgs 250-260

Some of the barriers that I have found with this reading was the text itself.  While reading I found it difficult to fully understand the context because there were misspellings as well as some fictional statements.  The routine misspellings was a major distraction for me.  Another barrier included the use of using vocab. in different forms than I have usually seen it and words that were outside of my realm of understanding.  It took me several rereads  of paragraphs to be able to get through the reading.  I also feel that as I was reading the article I found myself wondering about the true main point of the article.  I possibly was reading too in depth, but it seemed to me that this article revolves more around the good and evil inside men rather than a cultural identity.  Though the topic is interesting I found it hard to focus on true topic at hand because of the continuous discussion in regards to polls and media comments.  Another barrier that I encountered was a lack of interest.  The first few pages really drew me in and I had genuine interest, but as the reading continued there were points in which it seemed like the author was just trying to add length to the article.

Gaps that I encountered with this article also included the lack of vocab knowledge and an absence of a firm understanding for the time in history.  Words such as culling and jeremiad left me puzzled.  As I did not have a clear understanding for the time period and representatives of the US during this time I was compelled to look up  Henry Kissenger so as to have a better understanding for him.  The article lists him as the national security advisor.  However, when I looked him up my results said that he was the US Secretary of State at the time.  With this discrepancy I found myself second guessing the article.  I originally began reading this with the assumption that I would be able to breeze through it and have a clear idea of what the text was about.  As I began reading the text became much more complex and required many rereads to be able to comprehend the material.

Extra Credit Blog

A way that I can continue my learning for my career is to ready the Wall Street Journal and also watch the stock market.  As a business major it is critical to stay up to date on recent news.  Everyday news could make or break the company I'm working for.  By reading the Wall Street Journal I can keep tabs on our competitors and see if there are any businesses that we need to be more aware of.  The WSJ can also provide insightful business tips and stories that relate to other industries.  The reason I mention this is because is Bus 101 we have learned that stakeholders are affected by business decisions and many times, our stakeholders will overlap with those of another company.  When I go to work at a Fortune 500 company they will more than likely be publicly traded.  The company will sell stocks in order to gain capital so that it can pursue different ventures.  By keeping an eye on the stocks I will be able to monitor how well the capital is doing.  When the stocks start to drop I will know that I need to work harder in order to help the company regain the lost stock value.  Normally it would be up to the executive officers of the business to improve the standings, however I will be working as an accountant and as such I may have the ability to help improve our stock value.

https://order.wsj.com/sub/f3
http://www.nyse.com/

Bad and Good Sentence

Bad Sentence:  I work at Community Development Professionals.
This sentence should be more developed.  It sounds to short and brief.


Good Sentence:  If I were not performing my job, payroll would go slower and IT would require a professional so that the other employees would be able to perform their tasks in a timely fashion. 
This sentence shows good use of rhetoric and is a good way to convince someone in regards to my point of view.

Inquiry 4 BRAINSTORM!!!

1.  Religion at Miami - Songs, tshirts, skit
2.  Underage Drinking - Documentary, skit, news cast
3.  Smoking at Miami - Shirts, Posters, skit

I would like to do my topic on religion.  I think it would be very interesting to investigate the religions that are present in the student body.  I believe that through the modes listed above my group would be able to really set a certain tone for each group so that we are able to understand some basics of that religion.