Group Project Blog

Group Project Blog

My individual study which I plan to contribute to the overall group project will be on the poet William B. Yeats or Emily Bronte. This is because even though both poets may be different from each other, I see both of them to have similar qualities in writing their poems. They show a lot of symbolism in their poems through the narration of fiction.

I plan to make a presentation analysis about the poetry works of my chosen author and how the poetry reflects in their life and how I also can relate to the poetry. I will add my own hand graphic drawing to also interpret my own understanding of the poems. I also intend to provide some pictures of the studied author.

Author to be studied: William Yeats or Emily Bronte

Study: Symbolic Fictional Poems

Analysis: Pictures, Drawings, Blog analysis

Details: How the poem quality relates to the nature of the author.

SHE WALKS IN BEAUTY

BY GEORGE BYRON

• He had a reputation of being extravagant, melancholic, courageous, flamboyant, and controversial.
• He enjoyed adventure, especially relating it to the sea.
• He believed his depression was inherited
• He was noted for the extreme loyalty he inspired in his friends.
• His traveling companions thought he was mentally ill.

1. Identify images, motifs, tone, and feeling, figurative language, allusions to other poets, texts, historical figures, cultural figures, and any unfamiliar words.

Unfamiliar words:

Clime

Serenely

Figurative language:

Personification- “of cloudless climes and starry skies”

Hyperbole - “she walks in beauty, like the night, of cloudless climes and starry skies”

Motif:

“And all that’s best of dark and bright”

(Repeated idea) - “One shade the more, one ray the less”

2. “So soft, so calm, yet eloquent”

Eloquent- denotation: vividly and movingly expressive.

Connotation: To be influential.

Serenely- denotation: unaffected by disturbance, calm and unruffled.

Connotation- address for certain members of royalty.

3. The speaker of the poem is George Byron. In this poem, he adopts a fictional persona of a woman.

4. The poet actually speaks about another character fictionally and then makes a description of the character to the audience.

5. The poem tells a descriptive story of a character in a time- lined stage form.

6. My perception of the poem is that, the poem seems to be talking about a certain lady character and describes some certain qualities that enhances her beauty both inside and out. The poem is also described in a way that the lady is moving both in space and in time. As in the first line which states that “She walks in beauty, like the night”, the word “walk” is a very important element to indicate the idea of advancing. At the same time, it expresses the beauty of the lady’s image in dual situations or conditions. The character of the lady is expressed in a dual way whereby in the third line; “and all that’s best of dark and bright” shows that the lady can show or express her beauties whether in an evil or good character. This shoes that she is a mixture of both images. Which also means that the lady uses her beauty attributes to get away with doing evil and at the same time adds a plus to her good side. This could be a typical example of a hypocrite.

Formal Blog

In our everyday life, people use things that are normally not regarded as important as objects of advice. In chapter seven, page 145 of Zadie Smith’s “White Teeth”, the old man named J.P. Hamilton was advising a couple of young people named Millat, Irie, Magid, who were sent to his place for a charity work in Honor of a Harvest festival. As Millat, Irie, Magid were with him, Mr. Hamilton used the opportunity to advise them about the importance of the human white teeth in the life of people when it comes to race, ethnicity and what not. Wisdom teeth are a metaphor for wisdom and something you inherit. This can be seen by the statement J.P. Hamilton made: “Because they are your father’s teeth, you see, wisdom teeth, are passed down by the father, I’m certain of it so you must be big enough for them.”(Smith, 145) this statement is very interesting to me because even though it may seem like to the young people that he is just talking about the wisdom teeth, I look a the whole phrase in a different way.

Because Millat, Magid and Irie were young people, they wouldn’t take what elderly folks say to them seriously. Because elderly people are more experienced in life, they talk in parables that the young people find it hard to decode in order to advise themselves. Analyzing the phrase, I take the word “wisdom teeth” as wisdom itself. So in my own understanding, Mr. Hamilton can also be saying that wisdom is always passed down from the father to the child. For instance, where I come from in Africa, wisdom is mostly associated with the father because he is the head of the family. And since he is the family head, God passes his vision through the Father, and then he shares the vision with the Mother and the rest of the family and therefore leads the family into the direction of that vision. Since the wisdom is mostly used to refer to the father, wisdom can be passed down from the father to the child, because the children are representation of the parents and as a matter of fact they would be also a representation of the wisdom of the father. But at the end of the statement he says that “so you must be big enough for them.” This statement in my own understanding means that when a person is young, they do not have life experiences unless they grow and become mature with the experiences that life brings in order to acquire wisdom. Even though the fathers wisdom can be passed to the younger ones, but the wisdom has to develop as they grow and mature by learning life experiences.

Another context that I can relate to this statement is inheritance. Where I am from in Africa, in a nuclear home, the son can inherit valuables from the father when he is of a matured age. Valuable properties of the father can be passed down to the son, but even if the father dies during the young age of the child, the child has to become of age or an adult before he can actually take over the valuables of the father. And also, in Africa it is not only the materialistic valuables that are inherited from the father but also the cultural values and ethics are also passed to the son or the rest of the children from the father. Because the father is simply the head of the household. And therefore as the children mature later in life, there should be a replica of the fathers’ cultural and ethic values in them that will make people identify them

And looking at the context of the story, I think Irie, Millat, and Magid should have listened to his advice. It is based for the fact that Mr. J.P. Hamilton is an elderly person and been through all walks and challenges in life and not forgetting the fact that he was also once a young person like them. After he made the statement about the wisdom teeth being passed down from the father, he also added to the fact that he actually knows it is a fact and therefore has experienced it. The statement he made saying “ I’m certain of it so you must be big enough for them” shows that he has lived and matured to know it is true and also tell them that a child must be matured enough to see what its father sees.

Blog 3:

In chapter seven of Zadie Smith's White Teeth novel titled "Molars", it talks about of the significance of teeth to humans in my point of view. Mr. J.P. hamilton, an old man whom Magid, Millat and Irie were assigned for charity work in honor of the Harvest Festival, was a senile person and advice the young ones on the importance of dental hygiene. There is a statement that Mr. Hamilton made that actually caught my attention to the text. In this chapter, he made a statement saying that "One sometimes forgets the significance of one's teeth. We're not like the lower animals-teeth replaced regularly and all that-we are of the mammals, you see." (Smith, 144). This statement stands out to me because he was trying to point out to the children how important the teeth is in human communication. The teeth is a vital tool in human communication because it is one of the main non verbal communication tools to help begin effective communication between people from all backgrounds. There are so many different races, ethinicities, cultures, and backgrounds of humans around the world. Among all these different race and ethnicities, every group of people have their own ways of understanding each other with their own languages. For example, Chinese people understand their own people when they are communicating in their own language. But when a Chinese person meets an African person, communication will be difficult to begin because they do not spak the same language. But when either one of them smiles first, it will send a positive message to the other that they are pleased to meet them, and therefore, the other person will also return a positive response with a smile. this means that smiling, in which the teeth is responsible for, even builds positive bridges between people of different races even though they might not speak the same language. So this context to me, is why Mr. Hamilton was serious to Millat, Magid and Irie about the care of ones teeth. I also believe that, the brighter your smile, the more positive message you send to people.

Blog 2

In the Root canals of Hortense Bowden, Alsana and Clara had the idea in their that a little education of English can be dangerous. Clara also went on to say that the English people are the kind of people who would teach and steal from people at the same time. I basically think the reason why they thought about English people that way is that, they remember their grandparents going through the same at the hands of the English people. for example, Clara's grandmother was impregnated by Captain Carlie Durham when he was renting a room for her mother. At the same time, he was educating her. so in this context, the English people can educate the colored women and at the same time use them sexually.

White Teeth Chapter

In between chapters 12 to chapter 15 of White Teeth novel by Zadie Smith, which starts with "The Ripping Teeth", talks about two couples in the characters of Marcus and Joyce Chalfen. these married couple began their relationship when they met in the university. they married and had very intelligent sons. Two youngsters named Millat and Irie were sent in to spend some time in the household of the Chalfens as a form of their own punishment. But contrary to the punishment, they were warmly welcomed by the Chalfens into their household. openly talked to them about race and sexual issues. Joyce was fascinated in Millat and even thought he was beautiful and that she sees him as a charity case. She also opens to both youngsters about how the reason of their problems are the fact that they dont have a good father figure in their lives. but as time went on, on of their sons named Josh, becomes annoyed by Millat because of certain behaviors he showed towards Joyce.The more she shows generosity and kindness to Millat, the more he uses her generosity to continue to show deviant behaviors like smokng, swearing, drinking and destroying. The weird issue to me was that, the more he shows those behaviors, the more Joyce gets more connected to him. And on the other hand, Irie's improvement makes Joyce lose interest in her as she also begins to get closer to Joyces' Husband, Marcus. This picture drawn here makes it very strange because how can Joyce get attached more to Millat, who is not learning anything good for himself but still maintaining a deviant character and lose interest in Irie, who was ready to improve herself and evening learning fron Marcus about the study of genetics of mouse embryos. Meanwhile, Alsana and Clara were getting disturbed about Millat and Irie spending a lot of time at the Chalfens' house and they got worried that the children being adopted into the English language and becoming a part of it. To me, even tho the relationship between the Chalfen couples and Irie and Millat were somehow disturbing Clara and Alsana, there was improvement at the end of the day. Irie and Millat improved very well on their grades and therefore it led to both families having a barbecue together. But again Alsana refused to thank Joyce at the barbecue but Clara went on to thank her. i personally liked what clara did at that point and that was also definitely unappreciative of Alsana to not show some appreciation. I like the Chalfen couple because they took their precious time that they could use to do something else to improve the academic skills of someone elses children and make them better. But the statement that Joyce made about the children being intelligent in their genes but not raised well was a true point but i personally think she could have said it in a nicer way to Clara.

blog 1: Literature Relationship

Literature has indeed made a lot of change about my mindset about the English language. Ever since i started studying literature, it has opened my mind and enabled me to be more grammatically skillful in my English writing. It has exposed me to know more elements of writing like the use of idiomatic expressions and other figures of speech. Most literature books that i have read are mostly made of fiction but at the same time provide interesting aspects of life that we as human beings can mostly relate to. one example of literaure stories is Romeo and Juliet by William Shakepeare. the Romeo and Juliet story is about two different young people from two diferent families which enemies of each other. But the love between Romeo and Juliet brought the two different families together even though the story ended on a sad note. Even though it is a fictional story, we can still see a lot of these situations happening in our lives or in the lives of others. Another literature story known as Taming of the Shrew, which was also written by William Shakespeare, was a comedy type of story which depicted a very young beautiful and arrogant, stubborn woman named Katherine, who was viewed by the society as an uncontrollable woman and therefore everyone thought no man can humble her character. but along came a man named Petruchio, who took the bold step to marry Katherineand gradually changed the disrespectful woman into a presentable and humble wife. This is also another aspect that is seen in people's lives everyday. Some people reviewed the Taming of the Shrew as "battle of the sexes" under one roof as Petruchio went through the struggles of training and shaping Katherine into the woman that he wanted her to be. At the first stage of the marriage she was rebelling. But as time went on, he found his own strategies and patiently transformed the lady into a calm and respectful wife.

Blogfolio Three

MONDAY, MARCH 15, 2010

My first Tomato Stew

Cooking is one activity that I used to find to be very challenging to me as a young man. I never even dreamt of being able to cook for myself until it came to the time that I had to move into my own school apartment on my university campus. I never thought it will ever come to this. When I was young, I had my older sisters always around to cook for me and of course my mom even if my sisters leave the house and get married to their future husbands. So because I keep that in my mind that I would always have them around to cook good meals for me, I didn’t see the need for me to learn how to cook for myself. At some point they tried to get me to learn cooking but I got angry and I always expressed my self to them that I am a man and so therefore I do not need to worry about cooking at all in my life. They told me that I will never know when I will be alone away from them and will have to depend o myself and not on them and they stated “cooking” as one of these factors. They continued to remind me time after time but I still did not listen to their advice. Their advice didn’t get to me until I started college and ended up living in the school apartment complex. At the very beginning of staying in school I signed up for the school meal plan the first semester and then bought some extra groceries and snacks to keep in my room. Everything was smooth during the beginning until I started getting tired of the school food first of all because we are basically fed almost the same food every day. And second of all, I realized that I was also paying a lot extra for the school due to the addition of the meal plan. So I asked one of my friends who always coked foe himself. He told me that he always saved a lot since he cooked f himself and he can always cook something different ad don’t have to worry about eating the same stuff the school gives. So I quickly cancelled the meal plan and then called my mom that I want to get a recipe from her to make tomato stew. She laughed at me and she said to me that “that’s what happens if you listen to good advice. So she gave me the ingredients and directions of the stew. I followed carefully. It took me about 3 hrs to finish since I was nervous. I finally arrived at my first tomato stew and I was proud of myself. From then I saved a lot of money since I could make my own food which lasts me for more than two weeks at a time.

BLOG REVIEW: one thing the Where I’m From” blog reveals about me as a writer is that it has helped me to show the audience about who I am in general and also what I believe in and what I don believe in as an individual. This also helps most audience to also relate to what I explain about and they can also compare it to their own lives. The blog At the Soccer Field” also talks about what I am interested in as a individual when it comes to sports and my passion for it. On the blog “My First Tomato Stew” I reveal to the audience how situations can change you to become a different person. Because if it wasn’t for being in school, I wouldn’t have learned to be a good cook for myself. All these three blogs are related to one another because they all give to the audience about who I am as a unique individual.

Blogfolio Two

MONDAY, FEBRUARY 1, 2010

AT THE SOCCER FIELD

Everyone in this world at least have a memory of one special day in their lives that they spent at a special place or took part of a special event. It could be an enjoyable memory. It can also be sorrowful, adventurous or hectic memory depending on the experience of the person. For me one of my most memorable days of my live ever as one whole day I spent at the soccer field. The day at the soccer field was the first day I was about to play an actual soccer match for my school team which I was selected to play for by the school coach. It had always been my dream and wish for that day and it did come to past. Before that day, I had been practicing for the draft into the soccer team both at school and at home. There had three or four occasions that I tried the draft and I was rejected just because I was slim, they saw me not to be fit enough to play soccer. Even though I was developing my skills at soccer and getting better, they did not give me the chance to even display my skills. They just directly judged me by my appearance. So after the fourth time of rejection into the soccer team I just decided to give up looking forward to be drafted but still practiced the soccer at my backyard. This was happening at the time of my freshman level in high school. When I reached the end of my sophomore year, my the assistant coach of the school saw me practicing at a half soccer field that I always practice behind my house and was so surprised at the way I was playing. He had a long talk with me till the sky darkened for us to head back home. He assured me that he will inform the head school coach about me no matter what, and he is going to make sure that I make it to the team. So for the fifth time that I went for the draft in my junior year, everybody was amazed at my performance at the draft. This time I was drafted into the team. This was the happiest day of my life at school. Our first soccer match between other schools went on sunny Saturday in the year 2003. On that same first day I scored two goals out of four goals that we scored against the other school. It was indeed one of the most memorable days of my life. It as all perseverance by continues to do what I love to do no matter what people tell me.

BLOG REVIEW: one thing the Where I’m From” blog reveals about me as a writer is that it has helped me to show the audience about who I am in general and also what I believe in and what I don believe in as an individual. This also helps most audience to also relate to what I explain about and they can also compare it to their own lives. The blog At the Soccer Field” also talks about what I am interested in as a individual when it comes to sports and my passion for it. On the blog “My First Tomato Stew” I reveal to the audience how situations can change you to become a different person. Because if it wasn’t for being in school, I wouldn’t have learned to be a good cook for myself. All these three blogs are related to one another because they all give to the audience about who I am as a unique individual

Blogfolio One

THURSDAY, JANUARY 21, 2010

WHERE I’M FROM

They have a saying that the place you are from makes you as an individual. I am a kind of person who has an interesting background. I was born in Louisville, Kentucky but raised in Ghana, West Africa which is the origination of my parents. I spent almost 17 years of my early life living in Ghana so at my age of 23, I have acquired so many values and norms that I have grown to believe and also Identifies me as a Ghanaian and a West African as well. Even though I was born here in the United States, my behavior and actions and speech depict more of a Ghanaian more than of a complete American. Where I come from in Ghana West Africa, we believe in a lot of norms and values. We value norms such as being respectful our elders no matter if they are our parents or even if they are not related to us. In the home, young ones have to leave the living room to their bedrooms when parents get visitors as a sign of respect. As a young person I was also taught never to greet an elderly person with my left hand. This is perceived as a sign of disrespect unless I am naturally left handed. Even when I find myself in the United States, where a value like this doesn’t matter, I still find myself applying United States where earrings for men are considered as a fashion, my background believes it as a nuisance. Even with other fashionable things like getting tattoo on your body is perceived negatively where I am from. And also where I am from, we believe a lot in the connection of families whether they are the nuclear family or the extended family. Extended family involves uncles, cousins, nephews, nieces and so on. We always try to keep in touch with one another especially when we find ourselves in the United States and even go out of the way to support each other financially or what ever kind of support needed. This is different from they way Americans see Family life. Americans, unlike us, just mostly focus on their nuclear family and mostly reunited with their extended families on special occasions. Basically, all these norms and values of where I am from adds up to my entre personality and also help people to identify me as a different and unique person in a multicultural society like the United States of America.

BLOG REVIEW: one thing the Where I’m From” blog reveals about me as a writer is that it has helped me to show the audience about who I am in general and also what I believe in and what I don believe in as an individual. This also helps most audience to also relate to what I explain about and they can also compare it to their own lives. The blog At the Soccer Field” also talks about what I am interested in as a individual when it comes to sports and my passion for it. On the blog “My First Tomato Stew” I reveal to the audience how situations can change you to become a different person. Because if it wasn’t for being in school, I wouldn’t have learned to be a good cook for myself. All these three blogs are related to one another because they all give to the audience about who I am as a unique individual

Jeffery Osei-Yaw

Eng 1102

Rebecca Giddens

First Draft

The Greenhouse Effect

There are several activities of human beings seen that clearly leads to the pollution of our natural environment. These pollutions that are easily seen are land pollution, which involves littering and other toxic substances that are put onto the surface. Water pollution is also another seen environmental pollution where water bodies become poisoned by chemicals and kills natural habitats like fishes. These types of pollution are easily seen and therefore people are aware of it causes. One typical kind of pollution that gets the least attention and awareness from the general society is known as the greenhouse effect. This is because the greenhouse effect is part of air pollution and there are so many causes of air pollution that people are not ware of. The greenhouse effect is known as the heating of the Earth by the emission of Greenhouse gases. The name “Greenhouse” is derived from the idea of glass planes that covers and make up an actual greenhouse where plants are kept (Hopwood, Cohen). There is a protective layer over the earth’s atmosphere known as the ozone Layer. Once these gases are released into the ozone layer, they cause a hole through it which allows the sun’s ultraviolet heat to heat the surface of the earth causing global warming. This is part of the main reason why we do not pay much attention to the greenhouse effect because this pollution involves gases which we cannot see with our eyes. There are four of these main greenhouse gases. These gases include the water vapor which has the percentage of between 30 to 70 percent. The second gas is carbon oxide which has the percentage of 20 percent. The rest of the four gases are methane and ozone which have a percentage between 3 to 9 percent. Other contributions to the greenhouse effect are clouds but clouds are considered as non gas contributors.

And another question is what are the activities that us humans engage in that lead to the increase of the greenhouse. Numerous human activities contribute to the greenhouse effect. It could be domestic, commercial, or industrial. For example, cooking, heating of water, creates water vapor which goes on to form clouds in the atmosphere and clouds are very good contributors to the greenhouse effect. Commercial and industrial activities such as burning of fuels, oil, exhaust fumes from vehicles, gas cooking stoves and even smoking, all emit carbon dioxide into the air, which is the second highest cause of the green house effect. A lot of Electrical appliances such as refrigerators, air conditioners in buildings and cars, contain these chemicals known as the Chlorofluorocarbons (CFC) which they emit into the atmosphere. These CFC chemicals contain amount of carbon dioxide (Hopwood, Cohen). Human respiration is also a great factor since humans exhale carbon dioxide as a by-product into the atmosphere. Another human activity is deforestation. Deforestation is the cutting down of trees, plants at a natural environment for the purpose of commercial use. When the trees are burnt, more carbon dioxide is released into the air. The use of nitrous Oxide has been also on the rise during the years. In hospitals, this gas chemical (nitrous oxide) is used as an anesthetic for hospital patients because it is a good chemical to kill pain during hospital surgical operations and for this it is known popularly as the laughing gas. It is stated that between 7 to 13 million tons of nitrous oxide is released into the atmosphere every year as a result of the use of fertilizers in farms, human and animal waste, sewages, and exhaust fumes from automobiles as well as burning of fossil fuels in oil companies (Hopwood, Cohen). And if we don’t reduce the amount of nitrous oxide released in the air, the atmosphere will become saturated with it caused dangerous warming in many years to come. Animals also contribute to the greenhouse effect. For example, farm animals such as cows, goats, sheep, and camels produce the methane gas mainly through their digestive waste. The methane gas is a colorless and odorless gas that is formed from natural waste such as decomposed plants or animals under an environment with little or no air. This gives us the knowledge of how much effects that lead to the greenhouse effect. At the same time, it is a kind of pollution that people do not think about very much the causes are mostly involuntary.

But one main issue we have to know is that the more these greenhouse gases are released into he atmosphere, the more the earth begins to heat up more than how it is supposed to due to the depletion of the ozone layer. This is known as the global warming. There are many negative effects that we are experiencing in our natural environment from this greenhouse effect. In the past years during the early 1990, there were reports from meteorologists that water vapor is increasing, and ices around the polar regions of the earth were melting (Rubin, ABC News, 1990). Other effects of the greenhouse effect are the global warming which also causes a lot of flooding around the world. When global warming happens, ice in the north pole begins to melt and then this causes a rise in the sea level and it is stated that if this continues, we might get about 2 feet rise of sea level for the coming years (ABC news).It’s the most reason why we experience a lot of water disasters such as the tsunami. Earthquakes are also a result since they depend on heat inside the earth. Global warming also causes excessive heat waves during the summer seasons in countries such as the United States which leads to a lot of health hazards such as breathing problems for many people. There are more people who suffer heatstroke, heart attacks just from the heat waves alone. It was stated that global warming which is caused by the greenhouse effect, “is likely to have wide ranging and mostly adverse impacts on human health with significant loss of life” (IPCC). As global warming occurs as a result of the greenhouse effect, warming of many parts of the earth may attract insects and other pests to invade. Most of these pests carry with them diseases such as malaria. For example mosquitoes are excellent examples of insects that carry diseases like malaria which is a deadly disease. A tropic continent like Africa is much dangerous because more insects carry diseases like cholera and yellow fever which lead to death of many people at a time.

So what can we do to reduce the greenhouse effect which leads to global warming or the solutions to suppress the activities of humans that produce agents of the greenhouse effect into the atmosphere? This means that there should be alternative ways to reduce greenhouses gases into the atmosphere instead of increasing them. The use of Hydropower is on the use these modern days in a lot of countries. Hydropower or water power is power that is obtained from the energy of large water bodies in order to produce electricity power the community which is known as hydro-electricity. It is also used for other activities such as irrigations for agricultural activities. Water is a compound of Hydrogen and oxygen, which are environmental friendly gases and anti- greenhouse gases. Wind power is another solution to reduce the greenhouse effect in the atmosphere. It is the use of the energy from the natural blowing wind in order to produce electricity. Examples of countries known for using wind power are Denmark and also the Netherlands (ABC News). Most large scale farm areas also need wind turbines to provide power and at the same time as an atmosphere clearance. These wind turbines do not emit green house gases.

Solar power is another solution or alternative solution to many activities that release greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. It is the use of the energy from direct sunlight to produce electricity, and other equipments that may release carbon materials as exhaust fumes. There are vehicles are being powered by solar energy in order to reduce carbon monoxide in the air. Other form of environmental friendly activities is the use of nuclear energy. Nuclear energy is the use of nuclear reactions to produce power for communities to use. It is becoming one of the biggest uses of energy in the world and it is an anti-greenhouse effect activity.

All these activities are helping out with the reduction of the greenhouse effect as well as the global warming. We hope there will be more solutions to other activities to help the world we live in become a better place.

Works Cited

www.abcnews.com/sections/us/global106.html

"Global Warming." United States Environmental Protection Agency. http://www.epa.gov/globalwarming/ (March 8, 1998)

“Greenhouse Gases” Nick Hopwood and Jordan Cohen

www.umich.edu/~gs265/society/greenhouse.htm

www.aloha.net~jhanson/page70.htm

The Greenhouse Effect

There are several activities of human beings seen that clearly leads to the pollution of our natural environment. These pollutions that are easily seen are land pollution, which involves littering and other toxic substances that are put onto the surface. Water pollution is also another seen environmental pollution where water bodies become poisoned by chemicals and kills natural habitats like fishes. These types of pollution are easily seen and therefore people are aware of it causes. One typical kind of pollution that gets the least attention and awareness from the general society is known as the greenhouse effect. This is because the greenhouse effect is part of air pollution and there are so many causes of air pollution that people are not ware of. The greenhouse effect is known as the heating of the Earth by the emission of Greenhouse gases. The name “Greenhouse” is derived from the idea of glass planes that covers and make up an actual greenhouse where plants are kept (Hopwood, Cohen). There is a protective layer over the earth’s atmosphere known as the ozone Layer. Once these gases are released into the ozone layer, they cause a hole through it which allows the sun’s ultraviolet heat to heat the surface of the earth causing global warming. This is part of the main reason why we do not pay much attention to the greenhouse effect because this pollution involves gases which we cannot see with our eyes. There are four of these main greenhouse gases. These gases include the water vapor which has the percentage of between 30 to 70 percent. The second gas is carbon oxide which has the percentage of 20 percent. The rest of the four gases are methane and ozone which have a percentage between 3 to 9 percent. Other contributions to the greenhouse effect are clouds but clouds are considered as non gas contributors.
And another question is what are the activities that us humans engage in that lead to the increase of the greenhouse. Numerous human activities contribute to the greenhouse effect. It could be domestic, commercial, or industrial. For example, cooking, heating of water, creates water vapor which goes on to form clouds in the atmosphere and clouds are very good contributors to the greenhouse effect. Commercial and industrial activities such as burning of fuels, oil, exhaust fumes from vehicles, gas cooking stoves and even smoking, all emit carbon dioxide into the air, which is the second highest cause of the green house effect. A lot of Electrical appliances such as refrigerators, air conditioners in buildings and cars, contain these chemicals known as the Chlorofluorocarbons (CFC) which they emit into the atmosphere. These CFC chemicals contain amount of carbon dioxide (Hopwood, Cohen). Human respiration is also a great factor since humans exhale carbon dioxide as a by-product into the atmosphere. Another human activity is deforestation. Deforestation is the cutting down of trees, plants at a natural environment for the purpose of commercial use. When the trees are burnt, more carbon dioxide is released into the air. The use of nitrous Oxide has been also on the rise during the years. In hospitals, this gas chemical (nitrous oxide) is used as an anesthetic for hospital patients because it is a good chemical to kill pain during hospital surgical operations and for this it is known popularly as the laughing gas. It is stated that between 7 to 13 million tons of nitrous oxide is released into the atmosphere every year as a result of the use of fertilizers in farms, human and animal waste, sewages, and exhaust fumes from automobiles as well as burning of fossil fuels in oil companies (Hopwood, Cohen). And if we don’t reduce the amount of nitrous oxide released in the air, the atmosphere will become saturated with it caused dangerous warming in many years to come. Animals also contribute to the greenhouse effect. For example, farm animals such as cows, goats, sheep, and camels produce the methane gas mainly through their digestive waste. The methane gas is a colorless and odorless gas that is formed from natural waste such as decomposed plants or animals under an environment with little or no air. This gives us the knowledge of how much effects that lead to the greenhouse effect. At the same time, it is a kind of pollution that people do not think about very much the causes are mostly involuntary.
But one main issue we have to know is that the more these greenhouse gases are released into he atmosphere, the more the earth begins to heat up more than how it is supposed to due to the depletion of the ozone layer. This is known as the global warming. There are many negative effects that we are experiencing in our natural environment from this greenhouse effect. In the past years during the early 1990, there were reports from meteorologists that water vapor is increasing, and ices around the polar regions of the earth were melting (Rubin, ABC News, 1990). Other effects of the greenhouse effect are the global warming which also causes a lot of flooding around the world. When global warming happens, ice in the north pole begins to melt and then this causes a rise in the sea level and it is stated that if this continues, we might get about 2 feet rise of sea level for the coming years (ABC news).It’s the most reason why we experience a lot of water disasters such as the tsunami. Earthquakes are also a result since they depend on heat inside the earth. Global warming also causes excessive heat waves during the summer seasons in countries such as the United States which leads to a lot of health hazards such as breathing problems for many people. There are more people who suffer heatstroke, heart attacks just from the heat waves alone. It was stated that global warming which is caused by the greenhouse effect, “is likely to have wide ranging and mostly adverse impacts on human health with significant loss of life” (IPCC). As global warming occurs as a result of the greenhouse effect, warming of many parts of the earth may attract insects and other pests to invade. Most of these pests carry with them diseases such as malaria. For example mosquitoes are excellent examples of insects that carry diseases like malaria which is a deadly disease. A tropic continent like Africa is much dangerous because more insects carry diseases like cholera and yellow fever which lead to death of many people at a time.
So what can we do to reduce the greenhouse effect which leads to global warming or the solutions to suppress the activities of humans that produce agents of the greenhouse effect into the atmosphere? This means that there should be alternative ways to reduce greenhouses gases into the atmosphere instead of increasing them. The use of Hydropower is on the use these modern days in a lot of countries. Hydropower or water power is power that is obtained from the energy of large water bodies in order to produce electricity power the community which is known as hydro-electricity. It is also used for other activities such as irrigations for agricultural activities. Water is a compound of Hydrogen and oxygen, which are environmental friendly gases and anti- greenhouse gases. Wind power is another solution to reduce the greenhouse effect in the atmosphere. It is the use of the energy from the natural blowing wind in order to produce electricity. Examples of countries known for using wind power are Denmark and also the Netherlands (ABC News). Most large scale farm areas also need wind turbines to provide power and at the same time as an atmosphere clearance. These wind turbines do not emit green house gases.
Solar power is another solution or alternative solution to many activities that release greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. It is the use of the energy from direct sunlight to produce electricity, and other equipments that may release carbon materials as exhaust fumes. There are vehicles are being powered by solar energy in order to reduce carbon monoxide in the air. Other form of environmental friendly activities is the use of nuclear energy. Nuclear energy is the use of nuclear reactions to produce power for communities to use. It is becoming one of the biggest uses of energy in the world and it is an anti-greenhouse effect activity.
All these activities are helping out with the reduction of the greenhouse effect as well as the global warming. We hope there will be more solutions to other activities to help the world we live in become a better place.









Works Cited



www.abcnews.com/sections/us/global106.html



"Global Warming." United States Environmental Protection Agency. http://www.epa.gov/globalwarming/ (March 8, 1998)



“Greenhouse Gases” Nick Hopwood and Jordan Cohen
www.umich.edu/~gs265/society/greenhouse.htm

www.aloha.net~jhanson/page70.htm

My thoughts About Drugs and Alcohol in the culinary industry

Drugs and alcohol are among the most addictive activities of people today In almost every career field especially in the culinary art world because even in the cooking business, alcohol is one of the most required ingredients in a lot of dishes today which is added to the recipe in order to enhance excitement in the taste of the food. Drugs and alcohol is general known to be mostly responsible for automobile accident especially among young people between the ages of 15 to 24 years which also lead to premature deaths. Focusing on alcohol, even though alcohol is a required ingredient in the work of the culinary world, it is not good for the culinary artist to involve him or herself into alcohol because there are a lot of problems alcohol can cause to an individual and lead to ineffectiveness in the cooking business and can even cause termination of employment. When a person consumes alcohol, the drug acts on nerve cells deep in the brain. In this situation, the alcohol acts as a stimulant, and then it induces the feelings of relaxation and reduced anxiety. This also makes his blood level raise by0.10 percent high enough to be considered legally intoxicated in every state in America. When this happens there are some symptoms that are observed. A person in the culinary world intoxicated with alcohol will cause some distraction at the workplace with some alcohol smelling breath, loss of balance, slowed thinking which will cause him not to complete tasks as fast as he should. There are also some slurred and incoherent speeches as he talks and might be inappropriate for people to hear. In severe cases there can be blackouts where the individual might collapse in the middle of cooking.
Apart from alcohol, there are other drugs like heroin, marijuana, cocaine, and even minor drugs found in beverages like caffeine and nicotine from cigarettes also have a great negative effect o the human body. They mainly have effects on the nervous system which causes a lot of dysfunction on the brain. This leads to unacceptable behavior and this cannot be tolerated in the culinary field since every field stands on discipline. I absolutely think that alcohol and drugs are not good for the human body and any influence to these drugs should definitely not be tolerated in the cooking business in order to enhance discipline and produce good, healthy and hard working culinary artists to serve the community.

Broad beans: An information About My Favorite Bean

beans are one of my favorite legume plants in the world. They are grown In most parts of the world including the Americas, and mostly Africa and many parts of Asia. Beans are most purposely used as human food or animal feed especially farm animals. They are also used by farmers for the purpose of providing nutrients to the soil to help other plants and they are an excellent source of protein. Beans can be eaten raw or cooked. They are known to be one of the longest cultivated plants. There are many types of beans grown around the world. They are the broad bean, azuki bean, moth bean, mung bean, cowpea, urad bean, rice bean, which all belong to a group known as the Vigna. There are other groups like the Cicer group which consist of the chick pea. Another group also known as Pisum, pea, Indian pea, Tuberous pea and many more. This research is going to focus much on the broad bean, which is going to be studied much further.
The broad bean which is scientifically known as vicia faba, and also known as the field bean or bell bean, is one of the most common species of beans in the bean legume family.it is my favorite bean of the bean family because it was what i grew up eating and i can use it to prepare a lot of African dishes. It is widely grown in the Northern parts of Africa in which it is also a native to. It is also common in the southwest parts of Asia too. Like all other legumes and beans, broad beans have been a valuable source of protein for the past thousand years. Broad beans were found during the Iron Age and the Bronze Age. The ancient Rome armies were fed a mixture of broad beans with other leguminous meals in order to give them strength for battle.
Like all other beans and legumes, broad beans are a good source of protein, vitamin A and vitamin C, iron and folate. They can be grown in any temperate climate. They grow well in cool weather while other is relatively dormant but they do not tolerate heat very well. Broad beans can be grown on a wide range of soils, from loams to clay soils, and under a variety of drainage conditions.

The Asantehene

In Africa, apart from the civilized world of having a president as a leader, there is also the traditional world where the society is ruled by monarchs or royals. In the country of Ghana in West Africa, there is the popularly known Ashanti Kingdom, and this kingdom covers the whole of the Ashanti Region and another region known as the Brong Ahafo region out of the ten regions or states in Ghana. The Ashanti region is the largest region in Ghana. It has subdivided cities that are ruled by sub chiefs or kings. But the whole region is overall ruled by the greatest king known as the Asantehene. The Asantehene is considered the ruler of the Ashanti people. While this modern day the Asantehene is regarded as a ceremonial role, the role was viewed as a power leader of the Ashanti Empire in the olden days of the history of the Ashantis. Every Asantehene is crowned on a golden stool (also known in the Ashanti Language as sika dwa. The golden stool is regarded by the Ashanti people the container of all the souls of the Ashanti people. It is the golden stool that determines who should be the ruler of its kingdom. There are roles of the Asantehene as a leader of the Ashanti kingdom. One of the roles of the Asantehene is to be a caretaker of the kingdom and everything in it. He takes care of the royal land properties; he owns the Gold mines which are located in the Ashanti region as a source of business profit for the kingdom. He is also the caretaker of the properties of the royal family, the ancestors and the palace. The Asantehene also is seen as the voice of his kingdom. He delivers messages to his people about, information, alerts, and health issues, problems that affect the kingdom and every society in it and what needs to be done to solve the problems. He also helps to settle disputes or conflicts between leaders among the kingdom and makes sure that there is peace since the Ashantis believe that united they stand and divided they fall. He also acts as a communicating vessel between the Ashanti people and the ancestral world. He gets vision and revelations from the ancestors and then passes on the vision to the Ashanti people. In times of war, the Asantehene is responsible to lead his people in times of war.

Why love is stronger than hate?

The two main forces that control the affairs of the universe are love and hate. These forces are the main elements that drive human being to follow the path of good or evil. They both deal with the heart of humans which gives every individual to have the passion of doing the right or wrong mostly unto others. The reason why love is stronger than hate is that love is everything. With love you can cross all impossible boundaries while hate can limit a person at only one place. Love brings unity among people while hate divides people and as it is always said that “united we stand, divided we fall”. Even though love is known to be stronger than hate, these days, a lot of people around the world are living in hate because of selfishness, jealousy, envy and other sorts of evil. It is because of hate that there are a lot of wars going on around the world between different countries. Because of hate there are terrorist attacks, racism everywhere we find ourselves. Hate is easily developed while love is a gradual process from time to time to build up but once it establishes itself, it becomes strong enough to conquer hate. Love is stronger than hate because love is accepted in all kinds of cultures around the world. Love is also accepted in all kinds of religion around the world such as Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, and so on. Hate is despised in all these religion also and views it as a sin against God or the religion norms and doctrines. In Christianity, Christians believe that it is through love that God sent his son Jesus Christ to die and cleanse them from all unrighteousness. People were living in hate and sin before Jesus came. Jesus came to show the world about the true meaning of love and the power of love over sin and hate. True genuine love makes people even forgive their enemies and then live in peace. When we live in love, we are at peace with ourselves and others. Love also has a good impact on relationships. When there is true love, the relationship is stronger but hate cannot build relationships. Love covers every aspect of our lives and therefore embracing it not only helps us to love, but also helps us to be at peace with our own selves.

Sympathetic magic

It was my first day in my General knowledge in art class in my visual art studio at my second year of high school. Our Art teacher, Mr. Justice, walked the class into an introduction of what Art is and how art came about and who did Art begin with. This class actually opened my mind about art from just being a common drawing of pencil lead on a surface of paper. After taking this class I looked at art from a different perspective and then my interest and love began to grow more for it. For the introduction of Art, we learnt that Art evolved from the age of the prehistoric or the cave man. The cave men used stones, animal blood, and other natural materials to make phenomenal art forms against their cave walls. But those art forms that are still seen on these walls today were not made by the cave men for beauty but were used for the purpose of a ritual known as the Sympathetic magic which is also known as the imitative magic. This kind of ritual which is based on the metaphysical belief that like affects like. It is normally known to be an offensive ritual. It also the basis forms of divination and can be compared to the ritual which is known today as voodoo. For instance, a line can be drawn to represent the life of a particular person that the ritual is aimed at. It could be drawn on any surface together with an image representation of the person or the victim. The line is drawn to show how long the person will live. The longer the line, the longer the person lives. Of the line is short, then the persons life is cut short also. We learned that the cave men used this same kind of ritual to help them hunt animals for food and shelter and also protect themselves from predators. They perform this magic by drawing the image of the animal and then omit some features of the animal. The animal could be sketched without eyes, which affects the actual animal’s eyesight and therefore wouldn’t be able to se it’s attackers. In other cases, some animals are drawn with a hole through their body, a missing leg, nose, ear, or any part of the animal’s defensive system to make the animal defenseless. After this class, I then saw that Art can also be magic.

My first Tomato Stew

Cooking is one activity that I used to find to be very challenging to me as a young man. I never even dreamt of being able to cook for myself until it came to the time that I had to move into my own school apartment on my university campus. I never thought it will ever come to this. When I was young, I had my older sisters always around to cook for me and of course my mom even if my sisters leave the house and get married to their future husbands. So because I keep that in my mind that I would always have them around to cook good meals for me, I didn’t see the need for me to learn how to cook for myself. At some point they tried to get me to learn cooking but I got angry and I always expressed my self to them that I am a man and so therefore I do not need to worry about cooking at all in my life. They told me that I will never know when I will be alone away from them and will have to depend o myself and not on them and they stated “cooking” as one of these factors. They continued to remind me time after time but I still did not listen to their advice. Their advice didn’t get to me until I started college and ended up living in the school apartment complex. At the very beginning of staying in school I signed up for the school meal plan the first semester and then bought some extra groceries and snacks to keep in my room. Everything was smooth during the beginning until I started getting tired of the school food first of all because we are basically fed almost the same food every day. And second of all, I realized that I was also paying a lot extra for the school due to the addition of the meal plan. So I asked one of my friends who always coked foe himself. He told me that he always saved a lot since he cooked f himself and he can always cook something different ad don’t have to worry about eating the same stuff the school gives. So I quickly cancelled the meal plan and then called my mom that I want to get a recipe from her to make tomato stew. She laughed at me and she said to me that “that’s what happens if you listen to good advice. So she gave me the ingredients and directions of the stew. I followed carefully. It took me about 3 hrs to finish since I was nervous. I finally arrived at my first tomato stew and I was proud of myself. From then I saved a lot of money since I could make my own food which lasts me for more than two weeks at a time.

My Imagination

I strongly believe that in life every individual has the power of imagination where they can be in their own world outside of the real world that we are in. imagination is the power of the mind to create or reproduce something which was previously perceived. I mainly think of imagination as using the mind to make the impossible become a reality in your own mental world. Everyone has what they always like to imagine about during a free time at home or anytime they find themselves taking some sort of relaxation. I always find my self in my imagination world even when I am in a class, but not mean to say that I do not pay attention but I only find myself imagining when the teacher is boring. I also imagine a lot when I am at home or sometimes even sleep, it may seem like a dream but I consider it also as imagination. I usually like to imagine about my surroundings most of the time. When I daydream of taking an expensive vacation as I relax on the rocking chair at the back of my house, I end up imagining about relaxing at an exotic beach in the island of Hawaii, Cancun, or the Bahamas. Such delightful imaginations makes me forget about what is going on in my real life and always ends up when I hear my mother screaming out my name to come inside to help her with the dishes. My power of imagination helps me a lot in my love for art. Out of my imaginations, I get new ideas in my head which I reproduce on paper. For instance, as an architect student, when I see existing buildings as I walk in town or anywhere else, I picture those buildings to be something else in my own design and I transform them into something else new in my mind. Some times houses can transform to be a car or even humans through my abstract imagination. But sometimes my imaginations cause me to be inattentive. Most of the time, people complain about my attention. My families even complain that it is becoming a problem for me. This imagination behavior has one advantage for me in my architecture field and a disadvantage which is how people blame it for being the cause of my attention problems. With the attention part, I will do my best to work it out but that doesn’t mean that I am going to thrash it away.

Krispy Krème Doughnuts Comment

Dear Krispy Kreme,
My name is Jeffery Osei-Yaw and I am a regular costumer and also big fan Krispy Kreme Doughnuts. The purpose of my letter to you is to show my appreciation as a regular costumer for such a wonderful work your company does for me as an individual and my family. My friends can even testify about my love for your service and food as well as their own satisfaction. I want you to know that your doughnuts are by far the best I have ever had comparing to doughnuts made by other companies like Dunkin Doughnuts. I love how your doughnuts are made to be soft and moist when served. It gives me the good sensation of freshness. One aspect that makes Krispy Kreme stand out from other doughnuts is the how the doughnuts are filled with different kinds of cream from vanilla to chocolate. Also, the filling of different fruits including cherry, strawberry, pineapple and others gives me more to choose for myself. Unlike Krispy Kreme, other doughnuts served by other stores are always stale, have a hard feeling when being eaten and not fresh. Although they also have different kinds of flavoring to their doughnuts, even the cream used on their doughnuts is not as fresh as of Krispy Kreme. Before I got to know about Krispy Kreme, I used to be a big fan of Dunkin doughnuts. A friend had to get into a heated argument with me to try Krispy Kreme because at the time I never heard about Krispy Kreme since I came to the United States in the year of 2004. In Africa, Dunkin doughnuts is also widely known there. From the day I was introduced to Krispy Kreme and had a taste of the Doughnuts, I must say I instantly forgot about Dunkin doughnuts. My life was never the same and from that very day, it’s nothing but Krispy Kreme.
Buy the way I would like to comment on the serving of your doughnuts since I am a regular customer and I feel it is my concern. Sometimes the served doughnuts on the front cashier’s desk have a cold feel to it even though they are guaranteed fresh. It will be very much appreciated if there is a way to keep the fresh baked doughnuts heated at the front desk. There are some numerous times I have experienced this and I thought it will be necessary to notify the company. All the same, I am still in love with Krispy Kreme and sure know that I will be enjoying it for a lifetime. Thank you very much for your time and looking forward to your positive consideration of this letter.


On this blog on the comment about Krispy Kreme Doughnuts, I actually looked not only into complimenting the Doughnut company about their good food and service. I also gave my opinion about some certain aspects of their service and how they can make their service much better since I consider myself a regular customer.

Visualizing and Narrating

The image that is being focused on the Time magazine is about the picture of a woman carrying apples and cookies plus some newspapers for sale on a street in the downtown city of Port-au-Prince in Haiti. She stands under the sunlight in the mist of others during an afternoon on the day of February 5th 2010 few weeks after the disastrous earthquake that struck Haiti. There are some messages and some languages that this image is communicating to us the audience or readers. First of all the expression of the image. The posture of the woman in the picture. There is also the language of facial expression. The manner in which she is selling her products. The environment that surrounds her also tells something. First if all the expression on her face shows more of sorrow, distress, and unhappiness as she does her business. It might be as a result of losing her whole marketing business due to the earthquake and all that she has left is the few that she carries on her head. It could also be possible that she lost her home and belongings to the earthquake and therefore selling the food that she has in order to get some more to take care of herself and family. Due to the disaster, people are mourning the loss of their families, looking for their families or seeking refuge. People may not pay much attention to her items because there is so much going on. The background which is filled with crowded people shows that people are roaming around homeless, without their families or also trying to sell items like the woman in the main focus. Also, the surroundings appear to be polluted, destroyed, and show an image of confusion which depicts that a disaster has indeed taken place. Even with the people in the background, some are seen walking barefooted and some are seen walking shirtless all showing that they are all in an uncomfortable situation. In the background, a random person could also be seen holding some bottles in his arm. The bottles look somehow like medicine bottles or some bottles that he is seeking to fill with some drinking water. Also there are some white bags in the background that looks like food supply bags made for the people buy the first aid people. Every image whether the main focus or the background has a significant message to tell that it is showing the event of a natural disaster.

AT THE SOCCER FIELD

Everyone in this world at least have a memory of one special day in their lives that they spent at a special place or took part of a special event. It could be an enjoyable memory. It can also be sorrowful, adventurous or hectic memory depending on the experience of the person. For me one of my most memorable days of my live ever as one whole day I spent at the soccer field. The day at the soccer field was the first day I was about to play an actual soccer match for my school team which I was selected to play for by the school coach. It had always been my dream and wish for that day and it did come to past. Before that day, I had been practicing for the draft into the soccer team both at school and at home. There had three or four occasions that I tried the draft and I was rejected just because I was slim, they saw me not to be fit enough to play soccer. Even though I was developing my skills at soccer and getting better, they did not give me the chance to even display my skills. They just directly judged me by my appearance. So after the fourth time of rejection into the soccer team I just decided to give up looking forward to be drafted but still practiced the soccer at my backyard. This was happening at the time of my freshman level in high school. When I reached the end of my sophomore year, my the assistant coach of the school saw me practicing at a half soccer field that I always practice behind my house and was so surprised at the way I was playing. He had a long talk with me till the sky darkened for us to head back home. He assured me that he will inform the head school coach about me no matter what, and he is going to make sure that I make it to the team. So for the fifth time that I went for the draft in my junior year, everybody was amazed at my performance at the draft. This time I was drafted into the team. This was the happiest day of my life at school. Our first soccer match between other schools went on sunny Saturday in the year 2003. On that same first day I scored two goals out of four goals that we scored against the other school. It was indeed one of the most memorable days of my life. It as all perseverance by continues to do what I love to do no matter what people tell me.

THE LITTLE STORE

The little store written by Eudora Welty is a very interesting story of a special little store that she has a lot of love and fascination for and how she enjoys taking a trip to the store always whenever she was sent by the mother to buy groceries. It was through her mother’s request that she got to know the store since the mother requests for groceries. She found the place as a centre of amusement and adventurous. It was a good time for her to play games as she makes her way o the store. On page 155 of the story, she quotes, “I’d skipped my jumping rope up and down it, hopped its length through mazes of hopscotch, played jacks in its islands of shade, serpentined along it on my Princess bicycle, skated it backward and forward.” This shows how much fun she has on the way to the little store. Because of the fun that she has on the way, she does not hesitate whenever the mother wants someone to go to the store to get groceries. As shown on page 155 again, the mother asks, “Quick! Who’d like to run to the Little Store for me”? Then she would immediately respond “I would.” With pure joy because she knows what she was about to enjoy.
As the narration goes on, the author also gives insight on the things she likes about the store itself the things that go on in there. She also gives out what she experiences when she finds herself at the little store. In this part there are more descriptions mad on here. She describes how the building of the little store first looks from the outside as she says “It was a plain frame building covered over with brick.” On page 156 of the story she explains about the perception of smells she experiences while she enters the store. She quotes, “There were almost tangible smells- licorice recently sucked in a child’s cheek, dill-pickle brine that had leaked through a paper sack in a fresh trail across the wooden floor.” She explains it in that way to give a clear idea that these smells al around depicts an old store.
The author’s story about the little store was narrated in a form of a story of a child or how it would be seen from a child’s point of view. On page 156 she even came out with a funny poem that her parents didn’t even understood her but she understood it from the perception she had about the little store. In the poem it quotes “there was a little boy and his name was Lindsey. He went to heaven with the influinzy.” It may sound weird to others but to her it meant a lot and she enjoyed it since it related to the little store where she finds a lot of fun for herself.

WHERE I’M FROM

They have a saying that the place you are from makes you as an individual. I am a kind of person who has an interesting background. I was born in Louisville, Kentucky but raised in Ghana, West Africa which is the origination of my parents. I spent almost 17 years of my early life living in Ghana so at my age of 23, I have acquired so many values and norms that I have grown to believe and also Identifies me as a Ghanaian and a West African as well. Even though I was born here in the United States, my behavior and actions and speech depict more of a Ghanaian more than of a complete American. Where I come from in Ghana West Africa, we believe in a lot of norms and values. We value norms such as being respectful our elders no matter if they are our parents or even if they are not related to us. In the home, young ones have to leave the living room to their bedrooms when parents get visitors as a sign of respect. As a young person I was also taught never to greet an elderly person with my left hand. This is perceived as a sign of disrespect unless I am naturally left handed. Even when I find myself in the United States, where a value like this doesn’t matter, I still find myself applying United States where earrings for men are considered as a fashion, my background believes it as a nuisance. Even with other fashionable things like getting tattoo on your body is perceived negatively where I am from. And also where I am from, we believe a lot in the connection of families whether they are the nuclear family or the extended family. Extended family involves uncles, cousins, nephews, nieces and so on. We always try to keep in touch with one another especially when we find ourselves in the United States and even go out of the way to support each other financially or what ever kind of support needed. This is different from they way Americans see Family life. Americans, unlike us, just mostly focus on their nuclear family and mostly reunited with their extended families on special occasions. Basically, all these norms and values of where I am from adds up to my entre personality and also help people to identify me as a different and unique person in a multicultural society like the United States of America.

Annie Dillard's "Seeing" Response

For my project study work in architecture, I was supposed to study the movement of the sun for a day. I attended my site as early as 6am in the morning. I had some food and snacks with me plus a camera for taking pictures of sun positions. This experience actually reminded me of the concept of “Seeing” written by Annie Dillard. I relate this experience to the concept because 100% of the work involved is all about seeing or visualizing. The site of my observation was at the rear of the architecture building on campus facing the woods and the baseball field. My vision was towards the tall trees at the side of the baseball field. Because of the darkness of dawn, the trees along with the rest of the woods formed a dense dark cloud as they blended with the dark sky. They always say that it’s hard to study how the sky changes but “it’s all a matter of keeping my eyes open.” Around almost five minutes to 7am, the darkness in the sky started to fade into light blue as the sun began to rise up. I kept my eyes and camera at the same position as I saw the outline of the tall trees in the woods beginning to show and the dark cloud which was formed the entire woods started becoming semi opaque as the rays of the sun began to run through the branches and leaves. I began to hear sounds of the early birds. As I continue to focus my eye at the sun rise from behind the woods, about more than hundreds of leaves flew out of the branches of the tall trees, which in a second or two, I realized that they were birds instead of leaves. How amazing and interesting. At fifteen minutes after seven, the sun appears almost fully. And as the sun appears, everything that seems like they had a monochrome color began to acquire their unique and individual colors like the leaves, tree branches flowers and even the concrete ground. And animals like squirrels could be seen playing and leaping from tree to tree as the sun continues to rise. The only thing I could see was the small stream down the bushy area next to the field shielded by the tall plants and trees that overshadowed them, however, “still a great deal of light falls on everything.” By twenty minutes to eight, I could see shadows of objects facing the sunlight begin to form solidly including mine own shadow as compared to how blare they were at their outlines during 30 minutes earlier. In this I can say that, “I see what I expect.” After I got all the recording on my camera for the morning, I took a break to review the progress of what I got so far. On the recording, I fast forwarded it to find the motion and change in color of the environment. During the fast forwarding, the color of the environment smoothly turned for a monochrome of dark bluish gray color to a beautiful multicolored environment. The outline of trees slowly appeared and the leaves flew and smoothly turned into birds flying away. The concrete ground went from being visually smooth to having detailed rough textures as the sunlight hit the ground. These amazing changes are good signs which show that “we miss a great deal because we perceive only things in our own scale” instead of seeing and concentrating on the amazing things that makes the environment.