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                                                “Akuna Matata” What a Wonderful Blog           

        For this course working with a blog was a completely new experience for me. I only heard about blogs once in a computer course, but it was beyond my imagination that thousands of people blog everyday. A blog is like an open diary where people share their ideas, personal thoughts, and experiences which makes a wonderful learning tool. I can surely agree that I have learned many things from reading people’s blogs, and understanding that we might all have the same topic but end up with different types of responses. It is fascinating the way internet technologies introduce interesting ideas where people can speak freely and dwell in different encounters.

        Some of the things that I loved about having a class blog are the sharing of information with my peers. When I find myself lost I can easily checkout my classmates’ blogs to see if I understand the teacher’s instructions as they are, and it’s a great way to share my ideas with my classmates without any personal discussion. (Grammar Goal, Proper point of view shift) I enjoy sharing information with others and it was surprising when Tim Wu actually read a part of my blog and left me a comment saying “interesting comments”. I was very excited and it made me realize that there are many more people who find my blog interesting enough to read, which makes me proud. Therefore before publishing a blog I would make sure I prepare first and make sure my entries appeal to different audience.

        Blog entries contribute to my learning because certain humans can only think one sided, or have the same train of thought. So reading others entries challenges that notion, providing another human with excess information to obtain. For example, the Ashley X issue that we discussed in class, it was very informative and challenging because I haven’t heard about such treatment previously. As a result, I can only acquire information even if I don’t agree with it. (Grammar Goal, avoid wordiness) Looking back at all the entries that I wrote, some of them I had no previous knowledge for, so I enjoyed researching about the many topics to help construct my entries.

        Blogging is fun but the only aspect that made me nervous was knowing that once you publish a blog the whole world can read it. I was sometimes holding back because I didn’t want to offend or make anyone angry in my writings. As I learned in this course you have to always consider your audience and that’s what I tried to do. On the other hand, being a free spirit and expressing myself in words is a wonderful feeling to have. It would also be nice to have other students comment on my blog without being forced to do or graded for. That will definitely give me an insight on how they perceive my entries which could be the same as others perceptions. Throughout the year I got the pleasure to savor in the world of blogging, and honestly there are not a lot of things that I would change in our blogs. I would like to add things like I mention above; more student comments, and maybe spice up the topics which can only make it better.           

        In summary, I can only hope that I can find an instructor that encourages academic blogging, because it is a great learning experience. At first I didn’t like the idea of class blogging but the blog entries that I have written are short and very opinionated, and show my personality which makes me enjoy writing them. I can speak freely and be able to get a grade for it too, that too good to be true. Since we are in a technological century it is wonderful that teachers incorporate learning through blogging. I can proudly say that discovering blogging can only lead to positive experiences which I would love to pursue. So Akuna Matata it means no worries for the rest of my future blogging days.

1)      In using verbs like; Analyze, Apply, Argue, Compare, Critique, Define, Discuss, Evaluate etc…Do you want us to explain each one in our essay exam to make our point?

2)      Will our exam question include anything we have studied this semester, or will it be something totally new for us?

3)      On page 714 it says “Your audience for an essay exam is your instructor,” so do you want us to direct our essay to you, and only YOU?

4)      If a student needs more time to finish their essay exam are you going to be able to provide excess time?

5)      Is there anything you can do/say to help us minimize our test anxiety?

This reading has given me an insight in the world of essay exams; it made me feel more comfortable that so I won’t have to be afraid of essay exams anymore. I learned that when writing an essay exam your number one audience is your teacher so I have to make sure I translate some of the things they said clearly in my paper. Taking information storing them in, then analyzing them is the quickest way to have a great paper without wasting too much time and without getting extra anxiety over it. The three skills to essay exam writing are perfect examples that will lead you there, it includes:

1) The ability to store, access, and translate appropriate knowledge into and organized essay.

2) The ability to analyze quickly the specific requirements of and exam question and formulate a response to them.

3) The ability to deal with time pressure, text anxiety, and other logical constraints of the exam situation.

One of the most important thing that we have to do when preparing for an exam is “learning and remembering subject matter” (Allyn & Bacon 715) You don’t have to memorize everything you just have to make sure you find efficient ways to organize, recall, and construct. You also have to learn throughout the year how to remember main ideas, summaries, subtitles, highlighted terms, and listen for thesis statement. With all that in mind and being able to organize your own ideas with the facts, you will have prepared the right type of glue to hold your paper together.

The reason why I would say i hate essay exams, is because of the so much work that you have to put in it. I am not saying I hate working and making an effort in getting a good great, but too much essays makes my mind panic. First is the never ending research that a person has to endure, and that includes last minute ideas that you forgot and it is sometimes frustrating. Second is the aganizing feeling of putting those research puzzles together to construct the best body of essay that you could possibly construct. Third MLA, MLA is not hard but you have to be very meticulous in every single thing you do about it. Making sure that everything is correct then missing it later does not feel very rewarding as I can expect from every successful student I know. And finally is having the anxiety  of writting what you think is the perfect paper but end up with a suprisingly bad grade that you never expected.

So in brief, learning to write a quick essay will help me get used to it, i am willing to learn but not excited while doing it.

            Many peacemakers might agree with the statement that it is about time the world does something about the Sudan. Tribalism and division drove the country in extreme poverty and the many civil wars in each part has killed over 300,000 people, let alone displaced more than 2 million people. True testimonies from some of the displaced Sudanese citizens in Egypt prove that life in Sudan was indeed better than the struggles they are facing outside their country after the war. The government alone is not doing its best leaving a war since the 1950’s continue damaging the Sudanese people. Immediate help is needed from others in big amounts or else the country will really be in big trouble. 

On the other hand, there are many people that believe that leaving Sudan to fend for its self is indeed better for its people. Underestimating the country’s abilities is something no one wants to admit and the Sudanese people are capable of doing anything to help them. The presidents of Sudan Omar El Bashir thinks that the negative stats is being exaggerated and instigated by the western world, and that the South Sudan should be able to help recover from the civil war by itself without anyone’s help. Bashir mentioned South Sudan specifically because of the recent peace agreement signed in 2004, but that does not include the everyday deaths of the people in North West Sudan, specifically Darfur.

1) My specific audiance will probably be politicians, and humanitarians, people who have the power to instigate changes. People who are interested in World Affairs and have the ability to go out and make some difference according to their sources and connections.

2) I chose them because it is my understanding that we should all help each other to make this world a better place. So that particular group has an extra edge in makeing those changes that I anticipate quickly.

3)My audiance will first of all be affected by my argument that is what I intend to do, and maybe they will take it upon themselves to actually put it in action.

4) I will try to focus on staying away from two main fallacies:

a) The Either-or-Reasoning: Since I have taken the pro side I will try not to make it take over the argument, I would pay careful attention to include the cons side as well so that they also can be understood.

b)Overreliance on Authority: I will try not to ignore the evidence to the contrary, since my topic includes many difference feelings and opinions, I will try not to prove whats right or wrong but only present the idea with good reasoning.

What comments have I received that emphasize the strengths in my essay? How can I maintain this type of writing in the future?I received a comment the said “great title” which is very nice proving that I put much thought in the overall naming of my essay. I like summarizing and for my future paper I will probably summarize the paper and then pick out the main point then think of an elaborative title to represent it.What did I consider the strongest part of my essay? Do the comments reflect this belief? If so, how? If not, what can I do in a revision to make this my strongest point?The strongest part of my essay was probably the introduction; I knew exactly the points that I wanted to present that will help lead on the essay. I got one good comment that said “Thesis statement” which is good because you actually found the thesis, sometimes I get confused on what a thesis statement actually is. I got another comment the said “don’t use source material in your introduction. It appears that you are relying too much on your sources to make your argument.” This was my mistake I didn’t realize that we couldn’t use a source material in our introduction, so I will look out for that in my future paper.What comments have I received that point out weaknesses in my essay? What do I need to do to begin improving on these essays?There were 2 main comments that pointed out my weaknesses and they are “You need to give more specific examples of how he uses the rhetorical triangle in his article.” And that “I didn’t have a conclusion” First I need to make sure that I have a clear and specific conclusion that summarizes and outlines what important points that I included in the whole essay. Secondly, I will make sure that I have specific examples if I decided to add any in all the future essays that I write.Could the Write Site help me with these improvements? Why or why not?Most definitely if I would have went to the Write Site maybe someone could have pointed out to me that I was missing a conclusion, which would have helped big time. They could have also pointed out which points I needed to expand on and which once I needed to narrow on.Do you feel that you could adequately revise this essay and receive a better grade now that you are able to see where the weaknesses in your essay?Yes, if I could revise it I would fix many things in it that will help present my point in a more specific and clear way.

• Two Doctors have given a 6-year-old disabled child a treatment which included hysterectomy to stop her growth, the treatment was requested by the child’s parents so that they can continue to take care for her at home.
• The parents may find it hard to cope with a disabled child so they make that decision, but I can’t believe the medical ‘profession’ would actually agree to do this treatment.
• Dr. Gunther and Dr. Diekma explain that as a child with severe neurological and cognitive impairment grows up the tasks for the caregivers become more difficult.
• Stopping the child’s growth is more manageable according to size for the child to be cared for at home.
• The six-year-old responds to her loved once by smiling and vocalizing just like an infant would.
• The doctors assure that there have not been any complications yet, the writer wonder if they have considered osteoporosis because of such an early hysterectomy.
• The writer expressed how appalled he is over this treatment and wonders if the doctors are experimenting over a disabled child because she cannot complain, and how are they sure that this won’t affect her cognitive growth.
• Doctors who did similar treatments were sentenced to death after WWII, but now it seems that if the parents say ‘yes’ then that is the last word.
• If they continue to treat disabled children like laboratory rats, the writer asks what’s next, compulsory euthanasia for disabled children whose parents can’t cope?

The Ashley X issue is similar to this issue only because the parents are making the decisions for these children. On the other hand Ashley X’s parents are not stopping her growth they are just using a different treatments to reduce the discomfort that she will face as she grows to become a woman. The 6-year-old parents on the other hand are risking more in my opinion, because growth comes natural and if you mess with that it might back fire and that child might have to face more issues in the future. I think this issue will be excellent to include as a research topic because a lot of people have different opinions because of the different beliefs and values we acquire, also it will be astonishing to research and discover what more some doctors are doing to young children out there (disabled and non-disabled).  

The main controversies that are associated with the country ofSudan that I would like to address in my topic are the controversy of

• AIDS
• Genocide
• Religion
• Civil War

I want to start by telling a brief history on how each started and then I would be able to at least mention some of the things that I think should have been done many years ago but backs were turned upon. My main goal is to raise awareness on why some of these things are still happening, and whose responsibility is it to take on the burden of fixing all the chaos and misunderstandings that is loaded in this topic.

I don’t want to point fingers but I want to be able to do enough research to get to the bottom of some truth, newspapers and the news hold some of the most important ideas that I can use to narrow down my topic. I would also like to fill my audience in with information on what is being done now to help the country, a lot of people are taking part on the fight against AIDS, and Khartoum – Sudan is seeking to take the lead and drag Darfur war crimes suspects in front of its own courts, despite divisions at home and world pressure to hand them over to an international court. I know I have to do a lot of reading but for a Sudanese person to be writing a paper about their country I am so excited about this controversy paper “what more can I ask for” J 

The issue of Sudan has been on the news a lot lately especially since about 2005 and the genocide in Darfur, also the death of John Garang the famous Southern Sudanese leader who was helping in the awareness of Sudan to other countries last year and was pronounce dead “after a so called plane accident”. My initial argument will be about the Sudanese government and the World as a whole in letting something like this happen with no immediate aid. In both ways this topic can be narrowed and/or expanded, it has been going on for so many years that it is very hard to include each and every detail especially when you talk about each city alone in the country. So I guess it will be an issue of choosing what I think is important enough to address and what I isn’t.