Alex Hamm

ENG 111-05

April 1, 2008

Judy Miller

 Too Quick to Judge?

            I think that people these days are too quick to judge others. In the United States, people from the north call people from the south “rednecks”, without even giving them a chance to show that not every single person is that way, and people from the south call people from the north “yankees”. I have been to 16 different states in my lifetime, which are Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Tennessee, Kentucky, Illinois, Missouri, Kansas, Colorado, West Virginia, Maryland, Delaware, Pennsylvania, and Ohio. So I have met quite a few people from quite a few places, and I would have to say that there are a whole lot of “yankees” in the northern states that I have been in, but there were also some nicer people there too, and there were “yankees” in Georgia, so I don’t think it has anything to do with where you live, but more to do with how you were brought up, and things that you were around early in life. I think a little bit has to do with the town or city you live in. I believe that big cities tend to have more “yankees”, no matter what state they are in. Big cities that I have been to that I can think of are, Blacksburg, Martinsville, Charlotte, Raleigh, Columbia, Savannah, Atlanta, Jacksonville, Orlando, Daytona, Tampa, Knoxville, Nashville, Pittsburgh, Cleveland, Columbus, Louisville, St. Louis, Kansas City, Denver, and Charleston; they all had their fair share of “yankees”, but you could also find nice people too, so I think that people should get to know someone before they start judging them, and name-calling. Anywhere you go, you can find nice people, and of course “yankees” too.

Thinking of Somting to Write

One thing that burns me up is trying to think of something to write, like right now in this class. I can’t think of nothing and it’s pissing me off, so I’m writing about it. You know how it is , your trying to think of something to write about that the teacher asigned and you start thinking. Your minds blank, then you get some ideas and you think twise about them…..No that’s not going to work, that’s embarrising, people will think I’m stupid.

Yes, thinking of something to write about can be pretty anoying at times. You tell yourself, come on think, think. You finally think of something, you make your mind up. You start writing obut the topic you thought of and after you have wrote half of it. Your scared it’s not going to work, this was a bad idea. Just like I’m telling myself right now. I mean what the hell was I thinking. Oh well, I hope this works.

I know a lot of people agree with me right now because everybody has been through this. No body is perfect. It’s not easy to start a writing assignment, it’s a lot of thinking and who likes to think, I don’t. Anyway if you can’t think of nothing to write about, just do what I’m doing. I think it’s going to work. It took me a while to think of this to write about. Who else would write about that it’s anoying to try to think of something to write.      Jake Statzer

I have a strong feeling about immigrants not knowing how to speak English. Yea some of them get their green cards and then become citizens, but they still don’t know English. If we went to their country they would expect us to know some of their language, at least enough to tell them what we want or need. I work in a convenient store and Chinese and Japanese, especially, will buy up to 10 cartons of cigarettes at a time, then take them where ever and sell them to make money. They’ll come in asking for a certain cigarette and you can’t even tell what they’re asking for let alone the brand. It’s like playing charades with these people. We also have a deli where I work and for lunch most of the time we’ll get Mexicans that come in off of these construction sites. Some of them do have a buddy that speaks enough English to tell me what they ordered, but most of them don’t. They’ll step up to the register and I’ll ask what they have and they just shrug their shoulders because they don’t even know how to say “I don’t know.” So then we go through the process of pulling everything out of the bag to see what they got. I think if they are going to live over here then they need to speak our language this is the United States of America and we speak English not lets learn a little bit of everyone else’s language so it’ll make them feel welcome.

Lisa Hearl

I hate being right.

            Do you hate being right? Well I rarely am right about anything; I come up with the worst ideas, so when I am right about something or have a good idea no one wants to hear it. Just like the other night some of my friends wanted to go look at a plane crash that happened in Marion and I told them it’s a bad idea that we aren’t going to see anything, and they said we would. So I end up driving and we got directions from another friend of mine that has been up there to see the crash. So we are on our way and one of my friends says hey lets just use my directions there much better I hunt up here all the time and I said no lets use the ones that I got. So we didn’t use mine and got lost and had to back track out of the mountains. Then we started to use mine and the same friend said I know where we are let’s use my directions again. Well once again I was right and he was wrong. We ended up getting lost, so my two friends thought; they wanted to back track again but I said no lets just see where this road takes us.

It was getting late and I was running out of gas so I didn’t want to go back I just wanted to get back in town. We ended up going through Nebo Mountain, through Rich valley, and back into Chilhowie. On our long journey back I gave my friend who knows it all a hard time because I was right and he was wrong. When we finally got into Chilhowie my friend who knows it all was mad and got into his truck and left; he didn’t have anything to say, so I felt bad about giving him such a hard time, but it was worth it. 

chance sessor     

Ungrateful People!

Don’t you hate it when people are ungrateful? Almost everyone has had a time when they felt that someone was ungrateful towards them. For me it happens at least five times a week. I work at Subway were everyday I wait on people and make their food and yet they still want to complain about something. They complain about the prices, or the value of the food, or get mad and yell at me when the store is out of stock of a certain product, the list can go on and on. Everyday I have at least one customer complain or argue about something. I feel that theses people are really ungrateful. Here I am waiting on them trying to make their food as good as I possible can, and yet they find something to complain about. They have no idea what it is like to live in another country were maybe they get one meal a day or no meals at all. They take the food they are receiving for granted. Instead of criticizing the store, the prices and sometimes even their waiter, they should be happy they are getting to eat a full fresh warm meal. I get so annoyed listening to these people that take every thing for granted. I really do hate it when people are ungrateful.

Cody Gentry

It’s Such a Warm Day

            Waking up in the morning is one off the most important things for me. It is when I know how my day is going to go. I know that my day is going to go well when I wake up in the morning and the sun is shining so bright that you can feel the warm weather just by looking out the window. It is then when I realize what I great day it is going to be.

Now getting dressed is going to be easy because with the warm weather I can put on just jeans, t-shirt, and my flip flops (which are my all time favorite shoes) and be not just cute but ready to begin my day. As soon as I walk outside I realize that I have already decided that I know where I am going.

On these beautiful warm days I like to spend them somewhere walking through the mountains, along the creeks, and maybe even in the creek. The trees will block the sun from blinding you but it is still so warm and not hot. Getting in the water is always a lot of fun but getting out is much better if the sun is shining on you so it keeps you warm and also you dry quicker. When the sun goes down is when the temperature starts to slowly go down also. But it is okay because the day is almost over and it was such a warm day.

                                              Ashlan F.

The Gas Prices

This is something that I could go on and on about all day. Driving past a gas station has become a scarier experience than any horror flick that I have seen this year. Three dollars and 22 cents for a single gallon of gas? It’s just ridiculous. I think we should just all scream together. The gas prices are becoming like the weather: Everybody talks about the price of gas but nobody does anything about it. Since the current administration doesn’t seem to have any plans for solving the problem, I think that Americans should try to reduce their gas use by carpooling more and buy more fuel efficient cars and trucks, which would boost the economy and create more jobs. That’s about all we can do. Another topic that I think about is global warming. Every gallon of gas we use releases carbon into the atmosphere, presumably speeding global warming. It makes me sick to think about that. The economy is crashing and lower gas prices help boost the economy, curb inflation and ease the burden on lower-incomeAmericans. I think they are not, however, entirely a good thing.

 Whitney Gallimore

                                                A world unseen.            In this world, there is something that few people think about: microbiology.  What happens on the cellular scale?  How does it happen, and why?  What does it say about our visible, human world?  I will try to answer each of these questions in my essay.            First, what is really going on behind the scenes?  Inside every living creature, there are billions of micro-organisms.  These creatures are so small that they cannot be seen in detail without powerful microscopes.  In addition, their behavior is unusual.  Take this example: a single body cell is performing its normal functions. Along comes a virus. The virus infects the cell. A T-lymphocyte detects the anomaly, and rips the infected cell into shreds, stopping the infection before it can start.  Pretty simple, right? Wrong.  First, for the body cell to be doing its job properly, it had to pump in the right materials, and pump out the wrong ones. It had to decide which chemicals were hazardous, and eliminate them, without having a brain. It had to consume sugars without a mouth, and produce energy without an assembly line. The energy-producing portion of a cell, the mitochondria, is more effective than any generator known to man. Second, the virus infects the cell–how? It’s too big to just squeeze in through the cell wall. The virus has a “key” on it that allows it to open a hole in the cell, and fit inside. Once inside, the virus transforms the cell into a self-consuming factory, which will continue to make new viruses until it self-destructs. How did the virus do that? A virus isn’t even ALIVE, for crying out loud! Even creepier, a virus can “resurrect” dead cells, and transform them into virus-makers.Now for the third incident: The T-lymphocyte. T-cells, or destroyers, are special defensive cells within our bodies that have a unique property: they can detect infected cells. Usually, when a lymphocyte is making its rounds, it only attacks something that is totally alien, such as a virus or harmful bacterium. A destroyer, however, check a human’s own cells, scanning them closely, and if the cell even looks suspicious, they rip it to shreds. This is useful, but now for a question- How does the destroyer know that the cell is a “friend” and not an “enemy”? Why doesn’t it wipe out the entire body? Well, sometimes it does. In rare cases, the destroyers attack the bodies’ own cells, killing the body from the inside out, and nobody knows why this happens.            What does this tell us? Surely our own bodies are too complex to be random occurrence by evolution, and yet viruses slowly evolve into deadlier forms. The human body, and indeed, any living creature, is an amazing marvel, and should be appreciated for its true wonder and complexity.

Robert Kling

People not believing in God  

It really burdens my heart when people say they don’t believe in God. I mean how could someone not look at the sun rising and setting over the mountains day and night everyday and not believe. How about the seasons bringing all that have to offer, some bring new life and some prepare us for that new beginning each and every year. That is God at work. To think that he sent his only son to die for sinful human beings so that we May be free form the full pardon of sin and have eternal life in heaven.

Its an amazing love that God has for us sinners. A love that no matter how far away we stray from him he is always willing to take us back. I just hope and pray that someday people will start to believe in god because it makes life so much more appreciative. It still isn’t always easy but you have that love from God to lift you up like nobody else can. God loves you more than your mom, dad, grandparents, and even your friends! So how and why not believe in God?

Jared Vandergriff

Judy Miller

English 111

There are many things that I guess I could say I disagree with and feel strongly about. It really wasn’t that hard to come up with a few right away. Some of the things that first came to mind were things that I really felt strongly about but couldn’t go into big detail so therefore they wouldn’t have been good topics to write about.

One thing that I feel strongly about is teachers’ wages. I have been through pre-school, elementary school, middle school, high school and now I’m in my first year of college. If it weren’t for all of the teachers that I had all through those years then I wouldn’t be who I am today. They are what made me grow mentally and learn. I feel that if it weren’t for teachers then you wouldn’t want to pursue your own education. Just think if there weren’t teachers, then there would be so much high demand in so many jobs because no one would be capable of doing the job because they wouldn’t have went through school.

I just don’t understand why they don’t get paid more than what they do now. They work so hard with kids, teenagers and adults to help them get a good education and to provide them with the attention that they need so they can make something out of themselves one day just as they have done. I think that it is so awesome to go to school to study to be a teacher because that means that a part of you wants to help someone. The wages should be raised because if it weren’t for teachers then no one would be anyone.   Erica Meade