Journal #38

My job shadowing experience was horrible.  I will be blunt about it because that is the truth.  I hated it so much.  I will give you a run through of what I did.  First off, I job shadowed at Illinois State Police because forensics interests me.  We were told to arrive at 10:00 in the morning and enter through the South entrance.  There were five of us total that were job shadowing.  We were led into a conference room and we sat down.  Yes we were at a police station and we were in a conference room, which is where we would be for the next hour.  Sergeant Natasha was the woman giving us the presentation.  She gave us a presentation on how to become a state trooper. The presentation was boring and she didn't even make it.  She got it from their ISP website online.  Once the presentation was over, she asked if we had any questions.  Sergeant Natasha made us each ask a question because no one wanted to ask a question.  It is really sad that the young adults job shadowing a potential career did not want to ask questions because they were so bored.  I HATED IT SO MUCH.  I DISLIKED IT VERY MUCH. VERY VERY MUCH.  This career is an option for me but I still do not know anything about it at all because I DID NOT LEARN ANYTHING.  The only free thing I got from job shadowing was a business card and a packet on doing an internship with ISP.  The internship is only for people in their third year of college or older.  Very helpful thank you.  NO.  It is not helpful at all.  The only good thing that came out of my job shadowing experience was that on my way home, I stopped at Headwest and got my dad and I a sandwich.  I also got a Jones soda, which was delicious.  I wish that I could have gone somewhere else because so many other people had fun and actually did things.  

Journal #37

Right now I am listening to a song.  There is no singing and I find it quite soothing.  It is jazz and blues mixed together in one.  The song is called "Blue Monk" and it is by the Thelonious Monk Quartet.  Right away I think of a monk, which makes sense because it is in the title of the song.  The monk is bald and he is wearing a brown robe with sandals.  In his hands, he has a saxophone that is silver and gold with shiny buttons.  The strap on the saxophone was made out of rainbow strings braided together.  The strings were really tough because it had to be able to carry the weight of the saxophone.  The monk is not alone.  There is a whole group of them and they are playing jazz music together.  some of them are playing the drums, while others are playing the keyboard.  There is no singing though because where they are singing is not allowed.  Usually monks are not allowed to make any noise because they are there to find their inner peace and get away from the noisy and busy world.  But these monks that I am talking about are different.  They can play music in their free time when they are not learning or being peaceful.  One of the monks is wearing a pink bracelet.  It represents his love for pigs.  Yes I am really thinking that.  I do not know why but for some reason that popped into my mind.  I almost put pooped instead of popped.  That could have been bad.  Anyways, the monk really likes pigs and he wears it because back at home he has a farm.  His best friend is a pig named Chuck.  They gave each other friendship bracelets so they would not forget about each other while they were separated.  All of the monks were thoroughly enjoying their time together as they made music with their instruments!

Journal #36

When growing up, you are always told to be yourself and to not let anyone change who you are.  That is one of the most difficult things teenagers have to go through.  During high school it is especially bad.  All you want to do is be liked and to fit in but to do that you have to be somebody you are not.  The girls in high school have a specific image that people want you to have.  The girls like to be skinny and tan.  I am not saying that all girls strive to be like this but a lot of people do.  A lot of girls risk getting skin cancer just so they can look tan.   I do not understand that at all.  Why would you risk getting skin cancer just to be someone you are not.  You should always be yourself because that is who you are most comfortable with and you do not want to change yourself just so you can be "cool." I have given up on trying to fit in and try to be somebody else because all it does is backfire and never works out.  Being myself also makes me happier than if I was trying to act like someone else.  My freshman year all I wanted to do was be popular and to fit in.  After that year of striving to be someone I was not, I told myself that I was perfect just being myself and I found some awesome friends who deal with my weirdness and true self.  If you are yourself, more people will like you because you are not afraid to be yourself and to stay away from conforming to society.  You will find friends who will accept you for you and you might find out that they are a lot like you.  As you go through life, keep in mind that no one is more perfect than yourself, so you should always be that person.

Journal #35

In this journal blog, I have to compare my writing in a previous blog about the Declaration of Independence and how it exhibited propaganda and errors of faulty logic to my most recent Discussion Post over Walt Whitman's search for the Self.  The biggest change I saw between the two posts are the citations.  In my Declaration of Independence blog, I had citations but they were used incorrectly and I left out some where I summarized.  Since September, I have learned a lot more about citations and when it is the right time to use them.  I used to not put them when I summarized a literary criticism or a passage that we read.  I now know that it is necessary to include the citations when I do that.  going along with citations is the fact that I use more citations now than I did back in September.  I used to only use a one or two but now I have like six or seven.  In my Whitman Search for Self, I had around seven different citations to aid me in my writing.  Another thing that caught my eye were my transitions at the beginning of each of my paragraphs.  They are very similar to the ones I use know and the flowiness of the words into each paragraph.  Yes I know, I just made that word up but it was necessary just like citations are.  I am positive that I have grow in my writing.  I know this because I use synonyms and make sure I have support. I find myself putting all of my ideas down and being able to connect them all without making it choppy.  In past writings, I was a boring writer and I got bored coming up with ideas.  When I would put my ideas down in my blog, they were all mixed together and would leave things hanging.  I am glad that my writing has evolved and I hope it keeps on evolving.