My main goal for this course was just to be there. My anxiety was so bad the past year an a half that I lost all hope thinking i can ever return to school or get a job. It was so sever that i couldn't leave my house for days which that would turn in to weeks. I would just sit in my house all day and all night watching netflix. I just started to feel better this year so to test out this new and strange feeling of being happy and motivated i took a summer course. Even though i went to every class my anxiety would act up during class but I stayed for the full class time. I am very proud of myself and this course gave me a positive out look on my anxiety. If i can stay in class for two and a half hours than maybe i can take a couple one hour classes in the fall and become a full student again. And that will hopefully make me feel great to get a 9 to 5 job. If i pass this class that would just be the icing on the cake. Like i said my main goal was just to show up every class for the full class time and do the work. I have been isolated from my peers because of my anxiety and i met new people in this class and now i feel more comfortable going out with my friends now and them knowing im back in school. Hopefully i wont be the butt of the joke anymore to my friends, them saying to me everyday that im wasting my life (which was true). I am glad i took this course in the summer, it gave me hope for the future.
This I Wonder Essay
Problem sentence #1:During this time I would always joke with my mother saying “can’t wait to get a tattoo tonight” then she would respond very angrily with some hurtful words and threats. (Started a sentence with -ing word) Fixed sentence #1 : At this time I would always joke with my mother saying “can’t wait to get a tattoo tonight” then she would respond very angrily with some hurtful words and threats. (took out the first word that started with an -ing) Problem Sentence #2 : There I was in the middle of North Philadelphia sitting on a couch sweating even though it was the middle of winter and the house had no heat and shaking because I was so nervous. (Passive sentence) Fixed Sentence #2 : I'm in the middle of North Philadelphia sitting on a couch sweating in the middle of winter with a house that doesn't have heat, shaking because I'm so nervous. (Active sentence) Problem Sentence #3 : I passed the point where if I didn’t go through with this I would probably regret it more not finishing it instead of just having half of it done. (Passive sentence) Fixed Sentence #3 : I'm now at the point thinking if i don't go through with this i will regret it more not finishing the tattoo instead of having it half done. (Active sentence) This I Argue Problem Sentence #1 : With this much money going towards the farmers you would think fruit and vegetables would be cheaper at food stores, but it’s not. (I personally didn't like this sentence and I'm pretty sure its passive) Fixed Sentence #1 : When America is giving out 20 billion dollars to farmers to help grow their crops, the food they sell at the market should be affordable to everyone. Problem Sentence #2 : We need a change in the SNAP program, only 130 dollars a month just for food is not nearly enough for people that have food stamps to live by. (Passive sentence) Fixed Sentence #2 : We need to change the SNAP program, only 130 dollars a month just for food is not nearly enough for people that are in the SNAP. (Active sentence) Problem Sentence #3 : You could you live off of 130 dollars a month just for food? (Sentence doesn't make sense) Fixed Sentence #3 : Could you live off of 130 dollars a month just for food? (Fixed) Kevin Gallagher
6/19/14 English 100 Oh SNAP America has about 50 million people that are starving every day (A Place at The Table). The government seems like it’s doing a great job if you are outside the program, but when the numbers are this high you would think that the government isn’t doing enough and you would be right. The government made a program called Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) which is basically food stamps. Food stamps are only available to low-income Americans, over 47 million Americans are in the food stamp program. On average each household that is in SNAP gets about 130 dollars a month for food (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supplemental_Nutrition_Assistance_Program). That just isn’t enough money to buy decent food so most people buy the cheapest things which is junk food. Some people think of starving people as skinny but a lot of them are overweight because all they can afford is chips and ramen noodles which is very unhealthy, so they gain weight ( A Place at The Table). The government should be providing more funding towards SNAP because many Americans are in food insecurity, most of Americans live in food deserts, and they also need to subsidize farming productions. Most Americans define food insecurity by not knowing when or where their next meal is going to come from. Only having 130 dollars a month just for food, no wonder people don’t know when the next time they are going to eat. How can you survive with only that little help from the government? Now these people also have jobs but they also need bills to pay and children to support and they make very little money from their jobs ( A Place at The Table). So they need help from the government, which the government should be able to help out more because every American citizen with a job has to pay taxes. I think we should tax the wealthy people just a couple dollars more, maybe even less than that so we can provide more funding for SNAP. This would provide more funding for SNAP and greatly reduce the amount of food insecurity in America. Another thing America should be doing while funding more for SNAP is preventing food deserts in the country. A food desert is a geographic area where affordable and nutritious food is difficult to obtain, particularly for those without access to an automobile (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Food_desert). Americans need to eat healthy or else they will end up major health problems like obesity, high blood pressure, or diabetes (A Place at The Table). If we provide more food stores in low income neighborhoods we can reduce food deserts in America and this will prevent people from taking busses or trains an hour away just to buy healthy food. The last thing America should do to help fund SNAP is to subsidize farming productions. America gives about 20 billion dollars to farmers each year to help grow crops (http://usliberals.about.com/od/FoodFarmingIssues/a/What-Are-Farm-Subsidies.htm). When America is giving out 20 billion dollars to farmers to help grow their crops, the food they sell at the market should be affordable to everyone. If this isn’t enough money, America should give more money to the farmers so they could give them a chance to sell their food cheaper to the food stores. Which will make the food stores a chance to sell their fruits cheaper than before. If we do this most Americans will get healthier and the people in SNAP would get the nutritious food they deserve, instead of just living off of junk food. We live in the greatest country in the world but we somehow can’t even afford to feed our citizens. We need to change the SNAP program, only 130 dollars a month just for food is not nearly enough for people that are in the SNAP. If we provide more funding for SNAP by reducing food insecurity, reducing food deserts, and to subsidize farming productions we could be respectable again to other countries. It’s just horrible that people don’t know when the next time they are going to eat. Could you live off of 130 dollars a month just for food? It’s basically impossible, so why should other people live like that? Kevin Gallagher
6/17/14 English 100 My First Major Decision I’m in the middle of North Philadelphia sitting on a couch sweating in the middle of winter with a house that doesn't have heat, shaking because I'm so nervous. Thoughts were running through my mind, should I do it? How badly will it hurt? What is my mom going to do to me? Then all of a sudden it just stop as soon as my friend put the needle in my skin, I knew I was making the right decision. When I was an early teenager I always knew I was going to get a tattoo, even though my mother strongly disapproved. She said if I ever came home with a tattoo I would get kicked out of the house and she would basically dis owned me. Even with that thought in my head I still wanted one. When I turned seventeen that’s when the ideas started to flow, I would think of a new tattoo design every night but none really stood out to me or thought any ideas were good enough to be on my body for the rest of my life. This is also the age where I was sober. At this time I would always joke with my mother saying “can’t wait to get a tattoo tonight” then she would respond very angrily with some hurtful words and threats. The reason my mom is extremely against tattoos is because her two brothers have many tattoos and she just thinks they are very “trashy”. Even growing up with her telling me all this stuff from her experience I still wanted one. Maybe I wanted to stand out in my family or maybe I just wanted to rebel but I honestly just wanted one just so I can it experience it in my own way. When I was in my last year of high school I started to go to my cousin’s house in Philadelphia to hang out with his friends. I always hung out with older people, like two to three years older than me. I just liked that age group. When they graduated high school I still had two years left so after that I started to hang out with people my own age. I wanted to stand out as much as I could because I stood out of my friends as being the youngest of the group. So I was thinking to myself how could I stand out to kids my own age? One night I went to my cousin’s house in Philadelphia where everyone was drinking and having a good time, I didn’t drink but I was still having fun, hanging out with people that I haven’t seen since I moved from that area in third grade. Well one of my cousin’s friend had a tattoo gun and would give out tattoos sometimes, they weren’t the best tattoos but they were sterile and they were decent. When I went over there one night I decided that I wanted one, I made sure he cleaned the needle and knew what he could draw so I just said “okay let’s do this!” When my cousin’s friend was doing the tattoo I was very shaky and unstable, I was bitching and moaning about the pain even though it really wasn’t that bad. I had so much anxiety just by thinking about the pain that it really wasn’t that bad at all, kind of like a thousand bee stings all at once and it all in the same spot. They had a lot of fun with the tattoo when they were coloring it in. About halfway through I was nervous and scared. I asked myself if I really wanted this but it was too late to back out now. I'm now at the point thinking if i don't go through with this i will regret it more not finishing the tattoo instead of having it half done. They also were having a lot of fun coloring the tattoo in, they drew a “666” in the tattoo and a pentagram and a lot of other dumb stuff. My cousin also took a turn coloring it in. Even to this day you can see all the inappropriate stuff they drew in the tattoo even though it’s all colored in. Now this was my first tattoo and I am only seventeen so I got it on my thigh so I could hide it from my mother easier. I didn’t want to get kicked out of the house because I knew she would be that drastic. She found out later when I was eighteen because I felt so comfortable and one day I got out of the shower and put my shorts on and she just noticed it. She didn’t freak out but she seemed very disappointed in me which is way worse than her being mad at me. She got used to it through and learned to live with it when I got more tattoos. My third tattoo I decided to do something special for her, I wanted a tattoo that she would like. So I surprised her with a mom tattoo on my chest, she loves that one. So the mission was complete, I was one of the first one in my class to get a tattoo and later on I got one that my mother really enjoyed. If you are wondering what my first tattoo was, it was the Wu-Tang symbol and many tattoos later it’s still my favorite one. Maybe because it was my first and I got it with my friends all around me and it was one of the most memorable nights from high school. Thesis: The government should be providing more funding towards SNAP because many Americans are in food insecurity, most of Americans live in food deserts, and they also need to subsidize farming productions.
Topic Sentences: Most Americans define food insecurity by not knowing when or where their next meal is going to come from Another thing America should be doing while funding more for SNAP is preventing food deserts in the country. A food desert is a geographic area where affordable and nutritious food is difficult to obtain, particularly for those without access to an automobile (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Food_desert). The last thing America should do to help fund SNAP is to subsidize farming productions. America gives about 20 billion dollars to farmers each year to help grow crops (http://usliberals.about.com/od/FoodFarmingIssues/a/What-Are-Farm-Subsidies.htm). Source Material: http://usliberals.about.com/od/FoodFarmingIssues/a/What-Are-Farm-Subsidies.htm http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Food_deser A Place at The Table http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supplemental_Nutrition_Assistance_Program). Summary: America has about 50 million people that are starving every day (A Place at The Table). The government isn't doing enough for these people. The government made a program called Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) which is basically food stamps. Food stamps are only available to low-income Americans, over 47 million Americans are in the food stamp program. On average each household that is in SNAP gets about 130 dollars a month for food (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supplemental_Nutrition_Assistance_Program). That just isn’t enough money to buy decent food so most people buy the cheapest things which is junk food. Some people think of starving people as skinny but a lot of them are overweight because all they can afford is chips and ramen noodles which is very unhealthy, so they gain weight. The government should be providing more funding towards SNAP because many Americans are in food insecurity, most of Americans live in food deserts, and they also need to subsidize farming productions. America has about 50 million people that are starving every day (A Place at The Table). The government seems like it’s doing a great job if you are outside the program, but when the numbers are this high you would think that the government isn’t doing enough and you would be right. The government made a program called Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) which is basically food stamps. Food stamps are only available to low-income Americans, over 47 million Americans are in the food stamp program. On average each household that is in SNAP gets about 130 dollars a month for food (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supplemental_Nutrition_Assistance_Program). That just isn’t enough money to buy decent food so most people buy the cheapest things which is junk food. Some people think of starving people as skinny but a lot of them are overweight because all they can afford is chips and ramen noodles which is very unhealthy, so they gain weight. The government should be providing more funding towards SNAP because many Americans are in food insecurity, most of Americans live in food deserts, and they also need to subsidize farming productions.
Most Americans define food insecurity by not knowing when or where their next meal is going to come from. Only having 130 dollars a month just for food, no wonder people don’t know when the next time they are going to eat. How can you survive with only that little help from the government? Now these people also have jobs but they also need bills to pay and children to support and they make very little money from their jobs. So they need help from the government, which the government should be able to help out more because every American citizen with a job has to pay taxes. I think we should tax the people that make well over 100 thousand dollars a year more so we can provide more funding for SNAP. This would provide more funding for SNAP and greatly reduce the amount of food insecurity in America. Another thing America should be doing while funding more for SNAP is preventing food deserts in the country. A food desert is a geographic area where affordable and nutritious food is difficult to obtain, particularly for those without access to an automobile (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Food_desert). Americans need to eat healthy or else they will end up major health problems like obesity, high blood pressure, or diabetes. If we provide more food stores in most neighborhoods we can reduce food deserts in America and this will prevent people from taking busses or the train an hour away just to buy healthy food. The last thing America should do to help fund SNAP is to subsidize farming productions. America gives about 20 billion dollars to farmers each year to help grow crops (http://usliberals.about.com/od/FoodFarmingIssues/a/What-Are-Farm-Subsidies.htm). With this much money going towards the farmers you would think fruit and vegetables would be cheaper at food stores, but it’s not. America should give more money to farmers so they could give them a chance to sell their food cheaper to the food stores. Which will make the food stores a chance to sell their fruits cheaper than before. If we do this most Americans will get healthier and the people in SNAP would get the nutritious food they deserve, instead of just living off of junk food. We live in the greatest country in the world but we somehow can’t even afford to feed our citizens. We need a change in the SNAP program, only 130 dollars a month just for food is not nearly enough for people that have food stamps to live by. If we provide more funding for SNAP by reducing food insecurity, reducing food deserts, and to subsidize farming productions we could be respectable again to other countries. It’s just horrible that people don’t know when the next time they are going to eat. You could you live off of 130 dollars a month just for food? It’s basically impossible, so why should other people live like that?. Should America provide more funding for SNAP? If so, how much of an increase? If not, how does the current funding seem appropriate?
I think they should provide a lot more funding for SNAP because nobody in America should be wondering when they are going to get their next meal and from where. We live in the greatest country in the world and the movie “A Place at The Table” made me realize that many Americans can’t afford decent food and that is just heart breaking.We could tax the people that are labeled as rich so we can fund more to SNAP. How should Americans define “food insecurity?” How should Americans define “starving? What solutions can Americans use to overcome food insecurity and starving in America? Americans should define “food insecurity” as were Americans literally don’t know when the next time they are going to eat, and what they are going to eat. Americans should define “starving” as when you haven’t eating anything for while that you feel like you are about to throw up. That’s how Rosie in “A Place at The Table” felt after she hasn’t have any food for a while and I think that’s how most people feel when they are “starving” The solutions that Americans can use to overcome food insecurity and starving in America by increasing the minimum wage and big companies paying their employers more money. The food stores could also find a way to sell fruits and other healthy foods cheaper instead of having it where the person on food stamps can’t even buy them. Do you live in a food desert? How can America feed people who live in food deserts? I don’t believe I live in a food desert because my mom brings home plenty of fruits and vegetables from the local food store and still has enough for “junk food”. America can help feed people who live in food deserts by lowering the price on their healthy foods instead of just discounting junk food. Should America rely on charities to feed the hungry? How much of a reliance? I think Americans should only rely on charities when they need it the most. If you can’t afford to go to the GAP, go to the Salvation Army and get clothes there. But this is America you get what you put in to society, like if you worked hard in school than you probably have better opportunities to go to a great college. Same thing with the work force, if you put in a lot of effort most likely you will get a raise or a promotion. In what ways can America better subsidize the farming industry and its crop production? America can give more money to farmers which could give them a chance to sell their food cheaper to the food stores. Which will make the food stores a chance to sell their fruits cheaper than before. What are the most common myths and misconceptions about those who depend on food banks and other food assistance programs? I think the most common misconception for people that need food assistance programs are that they have no jobs, which isn’t true. Barbie from “A Place at The Table” had a job but still couldn’t afford decent food. Another misconception is that people that need food assistance is that they are skinny which also isn’t true. People don’t realize that junk food is cheaper than healthy food, so people that don’t have a lot of money they just stock up on the cheapest food which so happens to be junk food. When I was an early teenager I always knew I was going to get a tattoo, even though my mother strongly disapproved. She said if I ever came home with a tattoo I would get kicked out of the house and she would basically dis owned me. Even with that thought in my head I still wanted one. When I turned seventeen that’s when the ideas started to flow, I would think of a new tattoo design every night but none really stood out to me or thought any ideas were good enough to be on my body for the rest of my life. This is also the age where I didn’t drink at all. During this time I would always joke with my mother saying “can’t wait to get a tattoo tonight” then she would respond very angrily with some hurtful words and threats. The reason my mom is extremely against tattoos is because her two brothers have many tattoos and she just thinks they are very “trashy”. Even growing up with her and her telling me all this stuff from her experience I still wanted one. Maybe I wanted to stand out in my family or maybe I just wanted to rebel but I honestly just wanted one just so I can it experience it in my own way.
When I was in my last year of high school I started to go to my cousin’s house in Philadelphia to hang out with his friends. I always hung out with older people, like two to three years older than me. I just liked that age group. It started when I use to skate alone at the skate park because none of my friends in my grade skated. Literally right after school I would go to the skate park alone, The skate park was probably the worst park in and around the Philadelphia area. The park was filled with “lurkers” ( that’s what we called people that would just sit there all day and smoke cigarettes and literally do nothing else). I would come home from the skate park and my parents thought I would smoke because there was so much second hand smoke that would get on me I would smell like I smoked a pack a day. There was also very little do to in the park, I mean I think there was one ledge there that you could grind and maybe some launch ramps but they were made of wood so pieces of the ramp would be all over the place because they were so old and beaten up. I would still be there for hours every day just skating around hitting the same ramps over and over again in till I was physically not able to skate. So then the older kids noticed me and took me in, they never pressured me in to drugs or drinking but I wanted to do that because they were doing it and I looked up to them. I only smoked weed a handful of times but when I did, I did it with them. I wanted to stand out and not be known for the youngest kid in the group, so I thought if I did what they did they wouldn’t look at me like that. When they graduated high school I still had two years left so after that I started to hang out with people my own age. Even at that time I still wanted to stand out from the rest so I guess that’s the time I really started to think of getting a tattoo, because I would be the few in my class with a tattoo or maybe even the first one. Back when I was seventeen I was still trying to figure out who I was, was I just going to be just one of the crowd or I’m I going to stand out? When I was going to my cousin’s house in Philadelphia everyone was drinking and having a good time, I didn’t drink but I was still having fun, hanging out with people that I haven’t seen since I moved from that area in third grade. Well one of my cousin’s friend had a tattoo gun and would give out tattoos sometimes, they weren’t the best tattoos but they were sterile and they were decent. So when I went over there one night I decided that I wanted one, I made sure he cleaned the needle and knew what he could draw so I just said “okay let’s do this!” When my cousin’s friend was doing the tattoo I was very shaky and unstable, I was bitching and moaning about the pain even though it really wasn’t that bad. They had a lot of fun with the tattoo when they were coloring it in. They drew a “666” in the tattoo and a lot of other dumb stuff when they were coloring it, my cousin also took a turn to color in the tattoo. I was just nervous and scared if I really wanted this but it was too late to back out now. I passed the point where if I didn’t go through with this I would probably regret it more not finishing it instead of just having half of it done. Even to this day you can see all the inappropriate stuff they drew in the tattoo before they colored it in. Now this was my first tattoo and I am only seventeen so I got it on my thigh so I could hide it from my mother easier. I didn’t want to get kicked out of the house because I knew she would be that drastic. She found out later when I was eighteen and felt so comfortable and one day I got out of the shower and put my shorts on and she just noticed it. She didn’t freak out but she seemed very disappointed in me which is way worse than her being mad at me. She got used to it through or learned to live with it when I got more tattoos. My third tattoo I decided to do something special for her, I wanted a tattoo that she would like. So I surprised her with a mom tattoo on my chest, she loves that one. So the mission was complete, I was one of the first one in my class to get a tattoo and later on I got one that my mother really enjoyed. If you are wondering what my first tattoo was, it was the Wu-Tang symbol and many tattoos later it’s still my favorite one. Maybe because it was my first and I got it with my friends all around me and it was one of the most memorable nights in high school. Comments: Thanks jared! i did shorten it up yesterday, i had to much detail for other things than actually putting details in to the main point of the story. This documentary is about food insecurity and how many Americans have to live with it. Food insecurity means that you don't know when your next meal is going to be or where its coming from, about 50 million Americans have to deal with this daily. The majority of the movie follows 2 people, Barbie who is from Philadelphia and has 2 kids who she needs to support. Barbie was denied food stamps because she was a couple of dollars over the limit, so she wasn't eligible for food stamps. Her and her family lived off of noodles and chips for years because that's all she could afford. She then got a full time job and after a year of that she was right back where she started, barely having anything in her fridge for her and her family to eat. Next is a 5th grader named Rosie, she lives in Colorado. She had about 7 people in her house so food was very limited for her. She was so hungry that it effected her school work. Her teacher noticed this so she started to help out her family by giving them food, but again the majority of the food she gave them was noodles and chips. Rosie's dream was to become an honor roll student in school. The rest of the movie really just explains how so many Americans need food stamps to be able to survive on a weekly basis. Many of them have decent jobs but that still isn't enough to cover food costs so they need help from the government by going to a food bank and getting the care they need/ deserve.
Henrietta Lacks was born Loretta Pleasant in Roanoke, Virginia, on August 1, 1920. No one knows how she became Henrietta. A midwife named Fannie delivered her in a small shack on a dead-end road overlooking a train depot, where hundreds of freight cars came and went each day. Henrietta shared that house with her parents and eight older siblings until 1924, when her mother, Eliza Lacks Pleasant, died giving birth to her tenth child.
I feel this is a great showing scene. It really gets you thinking of how she lived and what it was like, how it must have been crowed living in a "small shack" with 8 other brother and sisters. It also shows how there must have never gotten a good night sleep because of the trains passing by every day. Henrietta lay back on the table, feet pressed hard in stirrups as she stared at the ceiling. And sure enough, Jones found a lump exactly where she'd said he would. If her cervix was a clock's face, the lump was at 4 o'clock. He'd seen easily a thousand cervical cancer lesions, but never anything like this: shiny and purple (like "grape Jello," he wrote later), and so delicate it bled at the slightest touch. Jones cut a small sample and sent it to the pathology lab down the hall for a diagnosis. This is a perfect example of a telling scene because its very informative about what is wrong with her. In this part they describe where the lump is, how unique it is, and what color. Henrietta's decision to not go to the doctors earlier effect her because the cancer grew rapidly, which made her life shorten. If she went to the hospital earlier maybe they could of caught it and removed it. But it also helped future patients because her cancer was so different, it helped them perform experiments any time possible because her cancer cells never died. They transported the cells all over the world so other doctors could perform their own experiments. They could also find a way to make her cancer easier to live with and maybe make a longer life spam. Her family was confused when the doctors finally told them what they were doing with their mothers cells. They thought that her mother had clones walking around the world. They also thought that maybe they could have saved their mother when she was alive. I think the family should have been at least compensated for the experiments that they were doing with their mother's cells. They probably made a lot of money doing those experiments. |