Paper #1

Khody Golden

Professor Sonia Begert 

English 101

25 April 2014

                                            Positive Outcomes from Negative Choices

       There are many quotes that state the same basic meaning, and that is, you learn from all your mistakes. I did not know the truth in this statement until I made a big enough mistake to really open my eyes.

        This mistake was my freshman year in high school, when I was young and probably the most unintelligent I ever was. This took place at North Kitsap High School on a bright Monday afternoon. I remember the day very vividly, in fact I remember that this particular day I had a bad feeling in my stomach, but I didn’t think much of it. I was outside during our lunch break and my friends and I were playing hacky sack. My friends were Nick, Eli, and Jalen. They were, and still are, some pretty good acquaintances of mine. Jalen had mentioned going off campus for something during lunch, but I didn’t hear what exactly he said or where he said they were going.

        My friends look over at me and ask if I would like to come with them, and me being the dumb freshman kid I was, said yes. Without even questioning where we were going. We had walked across the school, and my friends were looking around at all the people and acting very suspicious. We finally arrive over at the side of the Tech building, and we all stop. At this point I still have no clue what is going on, I figured we just moved our hacky sack circle to over here.

         Jalen then proceeds to set down his bag, reach in, and pulled out a pipe and a bag of marijuana. It is not until this moment I realize what is going on, and now it is too late, I am guilty by association at this point. I recall being more nervous than I had ever been, my stomach got even more upset. He smokes on some of it and passes it the other way, but eventually it gets to me. I had never smoked before, and I figured it would be okay because that’s what my friends were doing. I took the hit, inhaled the smoke, and then blew it out. As soon as this cloud of smoke clears, I see a face in the distance.

         That face was that of our school security guard. Now this is much more than I had anticipated for my day. My first reaction is to attempt to get rid of the evidence and run. I then throw the pipe into the sticker bushes, glance at my friends, and get ready to run. As I turn to go, I see another security guard to block the other path out. I was trapped. I remember just thinking in my head “My mom is going to kill me”.

         We were then escorted into the office, where the police had already been called and were waiting for us to arrive at the office. This had to be the longest most miserable walk of my life. I didn’t know what was going to happen next and I recall at least 1,000 thoughts and worries that crossed my mind. We arrived at the office to the entire head school faculty along with some police officers. They asked us to each write statements, and I refused to talk or write anything until my mom had arrived. I remember trying to give no information to the police in order to try and save myself from any trouble I could. My mom shows up to the school, and I remember the disappointment in her face so vividly that it is stuck with me forever. After all the talking and paperwork was done at the school I was suspended from school for 20 days and was not arrested. My mother was so distraught; she wouldn’t even speak to me for 3 days after the fact. I knew I had messed up big time.

        When my mother finally decided to speak to me again, she let me know how disappointed and angry was, she couldn’t understand why I would be so dumb. I had no explanation for myself and felt like I had let my entire family down. I began to feel sorry for myself, like it was never going to get better since I have a criminal record now. I only felt this way for a short period of time. The next feeling I had about this situation was one that made me quit moping around and to fix things.

        From this point on I have always watched who I associated myself with. I also bettered myself as an individual. I realized that what I was doing and who I was hanging out with was not going to get me anywhere in life. I made many big changes in my life and during this process I happened to pick up a new hobby, lifting weights. Now I lift every single day, and use all my extra energy for something positive.

        I took this negative event from my life, learned from my mistake, and ended up with a positive outcome. It was all in the way I decided to handle it, I could have sat back and just let my life slowly but surely get more and more out of control. I chose to do something and use this mistake as an opportunity to fix things that I did. That is why this experience is so important and memorable to me. Even though it was a terrible and negative thing, it helped me shape who I am today. I managed to turn this into a good thing for my life. After all was said and done, my mother was very proud of the progress and changes I had made. I also will never forget that face she made when I had manned up and completed my community service to complete all of my court requirements. Seeing her face filled with ultimate joy and relief, made it one of the most memorable and important moments of my life.

group activity

a cell phone is a best friend, companion, and life saver. this piece of equipment has become one of the most used products on this earth. it is estimated that the average age for a person to get their first cell phone is 8 years old. i never had my first one until i was about 16! cell phones save us from ultimate boredom in dire situations. now a days you can buy and play whatever games you can think of on these things. the most popular is the iPhone. which also happens to be the type of phone i have. you can customize your cell however you would like, you can buy skins for them and cases with all sorts of things on them. you can really make it personal to you. i always have my Oakland raiders case on my phone. when you buy it, you also get to pick the color of the device. now they have came out with the iPhone 5c, where there are a range of colors to choose from. it used to be only between black and white. they are all rectangular with a slightly bigger screen each generation.

now take a step back to remember those annoying home phones where your sister's would tie up to phone lines, as well as those prank phone calls that some tween who got your number out of a phone book. Though cell phones have made it incredibly difficult to get someones attention, by way of all the apps on then such as but not limited to Facebook, Candy Crush, Flappy/Angry birds. A study publish by BBC has stated that cell phones are making people conversationally inept due to high volume texting which are seen are preplanned non time limited responses, also due to all the one letter words such as u and terms TTYL are slowly making there way into actual speech. It is true that there is no way to turn back the clock I just want to stress the need so seemingly spontaneous conversation not an extension of text type speech.

 They have the basic use as a communication devise, but with the development of the "smart phone", it's uses have greatly increased. Now the cell phone can be used for multiple forms of communication such as voice calls, video calls, text messaging, and e-mail. The uses of the new smart phone are near limitless, with ever-expanding selection of applications such as GPS, and internet connection. It can be expanded further with social media such as Facebook, and YouTube. Also a business aspect with stock tracking, conference calls, and data trackers. The limits of a cell phone have greatly changed from the simple mobile communication devise.       

Now we ask ourselves how something so small, so thin, so breakable, be something we live for and something we rely on to have. In the world we live in today we no longer have house phones we have cell phones. Your cell phone is expected to be on you at ALL times. Its mobile meaning if you're out and about or having family time it is expected to be on you or by you. Your work is supposed to be able to get ahold of you at all times. Your cell phone although so important and handy to have is an obsession.
I do believe having a cell phone at a certain age is so important its what we rely on to get ahold of someone if there is an emergency or if you need something. I call my parents so many times in one day just to say hi or check in. But its when you see children that are constantly playing on their parents phones while in the shopping cart at the store because its the only thing to keep them from throwing a fit. Why not give your child a toy to keep them occupied? There are so many car accidents from texting and driving alone people cant even get from one destination to another without picking up there cell. How much time do you spend on your phone in one day? How many hours in one year do you think your on your phone? I don't even mean actually speaking to someone I mean browsing using Face Book on it and all your other apps such as texting. Now think about what you could have been doing or what you were missing out on because you were to occupied with your phone.

Define it

a cell phone is a best friend, companion, and life saver. this piece of equipment has become one of the most used products on this earth. it is estimated that the average age for a person to get their first cell phone is 8 years old. i never had my first one until i was about 16! cell phones save us from ultimate boredom in dire situations. now a days you can buy and play whatever games you can think of on these things. the most popular is the iPhone. which also happens to be the type of phone i have. you can customize your cell however you would like, you can buy skins for them and cases with all sorts of things on them. you can really make it personal to you. i always have my Oakland raiders case on my phone. when you buy it, you also get to pick the color of the device. now they have came out with the iPhone 5c, where there are a range of colors to choose from. it used to be only between black and white. they are all rectangular with a slightly bigger screen each generation.

how i learned to love to solo travel

this blog by Cate Huston was somewhat inspiring. she related to the audience very well, for sure one of her strong points. this relates to our first unit as well. it relates because she is writing from past experience, so she knows what her preferences are and can give educated advice. this is also a very interesting topic for us readers as well. the way she structures her blog makes it more clear and understandable for the reader. this example is going to help me write my ed narrative in many ways, now i have a better understanding of how much detail and expansion is desired for this assignment.

ideas

i really like using this blogger thing, because i can keep track of all my steps when i am writing, i can look back and see my older posts. another thing i like about this blogger stuff is that i can read my peers blogs. that is helpful because i can see how everyone else is putting their papers together and the progress they are making. i also enjoyed reading the other examples, because it makes it easier for me to compare my paper to them and see how mine is coming along. working with the examples and seeing how my peers are doing, makes it easier for me to complete the assignment because i can look at others, and find ways to better mine. in my eyes, looking at examples is the best way to aid me in getting through an assignment, if i know what it is supposed to look and sound like, than it is much easier for me to do.

Most important educational experience

There have been many educational experiences throughout my life. some of them very important, others not so much. so this is difficult for me to put my finger on one and say it was the most important. but i would have to say my most important educational experience was when i was suspended from school for 20 days. i had just got pulled into the office by security. i already knew what was going on and that i was screwed. you are probably thinking, "why was this his most important educational experience? he is getting in trouble" well the reason why this is the most important is because i was a bad kid. i was headed nowhere fast, and i also was hanging out with the wrong people and crowd. when the principal starting lecturing me i wasn't really listening. but when i did start to listen, he opened my eyes, this was my wake up call. i got suspended for 20 days, and over the course of those 20 days, i thought about things i could do differently, or ways to better my life so that i don't end up getting in trouble like i did before. this experience molded me to be the person i am today. had this not happened, i dont know where i would be or if i would still being doing the bad things i did when i was younger.                                                                    

google free/ program computers

i liked "How I learned to program computers" more because it had a lot of detail, which is a good thing for this assignment. I am having trouble finding a topic on which i can write my paper, but this selection is helping me choose because i realize that it needs to be something that has a little bit of detail to it. it also helped me for this assignment because now i know how to structure my paper and make it sound well put together and organized.

Paper one.

some of the things that we need to do to be successful on the first paper include, picking our experience and explaining it in vivid detail. it can be from formal education, but it does not have to be.  next we will explain why it is important to us, how we did it, what it was like, how did it change us. all that. next we will have to read some examples of other papers on our own. it needs to be 1,000 - 1,200 words in MLA format. after all these steps we can turn in the paper and expect to be successful!

First blog

This whole blogger thing is new to me. I am used to the canvas course I used with English 98. I think that once I use this enough, I will get the hang of it and it will be much easier to use. I am excited about this quarter, but also worried about all the work. This class has already been stressful because of the teacher change on the second day! Now I also have to return my old course book and buy the new one that is required for the new course.