Marquise Nurse-Williams
11.29.10
English
Dawn Blunk
Paragraph #2

                                                          Work and Education
            
               In Andrew Braaksma’s essay “Some Lessons from the Assembly Line,” he gives a view of his life

as a student during his summer months out of school. He shows how grateful he is to be back in school when

the long grueling hours as a temp at the factory are over. He learns the value of education and now knows

how hard life could be for him if he only worked dead end jobs instead of getting educated and earning a

degree. I have had a similar situation as Braaksma working in a Pepsi factory and have been inspired by that

experience to go for a degree myself.
              
           When I was younger, about 22, I had a job working with the machinery in a Pepsi Factory. A job I

didn’t mind at first being a huge Pepsi consumer. Yet those were the longest and most tedious working days

I’ve seen so far . I worked a machine that I placed trey after trey onto a conveyor. Every five minutes it

seemed it would get jammed up and I would have to figure out how to fix it in a different way every time,

slowing down production. I’d try the stop button, then the go button. Then I’d try a combination of the

different buttons hoping it loosened before I kicked the thing. My boss was a slave driver and wouldn’t let up

for a second howling “go faster!” at a bewildering rate. I got sick of this job and realized I need to get a

degree or I’m just not going to make it like this.
               
                 As a result, I moved on to not only working at a college but also going to college with a serious

intention to succeed. I do not want to have to go back to a crummy dead end job like the ones I’ve had in

the past. Like Braaksma, I felt a relief when separating from that job and coming back to school. Pressure

lifted and I see a better way of making money in my future rather than working long hours, doing something I

really don’t enjoy.

Journal 7 "Salvation" response essay , The Invisible Pressure

Marquise Nurse-Williams
Dawn Blunk
HU090 Section A2
11.18.10
                                                             The Invisible Pressure
                     
                      In “Salvation” Langston Hughes wrote of a time he fell to the peer pressure of his family and the members of his church. They told him he would see Jesus, physically, he thought. Toward the end of this essay he feels pressured to conform to his families wishes that he would see the lord and come to be saved at the alter as the preacher sang a hymn. Misinterpreting his family he finds he did not receive a visit from the lord and feels guilty for confessing and saying he had seen Jesus when he did not and he now does not believe Jesus Christ really exists anymore. If he learned anything from this situation it’s that he has to stay true to himself and tell everyone what he really feels, otherwise he’ll only feel the guilt inside if he doesn’t speak what he feels is the truth. There has only been one person in my life who has ever had the power to really pressure or tempt me to do anything I wouldn’t normally do. I’ll refer to her as Mai.
                         First time I was ever pressured to do drugs was when I started dating Mai. She was a wild party girl and a lot of fun to hang out with. The problem was that she was really into experimenting with drugs and drinking heavily due to her problems in the past. She says “It helps me to stop thinking about my problems.” Sometimes she would push me to try a drug, knowing she could make me do almost anything at the time because she knew I was practically in love with her. I’m proud to say I didn’t try the drugs realizing the consequences they would have on me and my life. Actually, I tried to help her out of her addictions and bring her back to Christ like she use to when she was younger before she began to lack in faith. I think I kind of got through.
                  Along with this, Mai also attempted to get me involved in her drug dealing game. She thought of herself as a king pin of the streets. She and a couple of her family members stole illegal drugs from a neighborhood dealer. She wanted me to go back and pick up her family members with the drugs in my car and drop them off safely at home. At the time, I thought I would have done anything for this girl but I took a moment to myself and remembered if I ever got caught , I’d lose everything I worked for. I’d lose my job at the police department and the military and I wouldn’t have such a bright future to look forward to anymore. In that moment I made the conscious decision to decline her proposition.
                       Also, in a brighter light, Mai pressured me to be more outgoing while I was with her. She and I went to all sorts of different parties around town. We went to bars, clubs, played pool, and drank all around the city. That’s not me, I’m normally the fly on the wall watching everybody else have fun. Although, that’s not the case when we kick it, we had more good times together than I’d ever had coming up.
                        I find that having had an emotional attachment with Mai made me so much more susceptible to peer pressure and any temptation she sent my way, may it be a good idea or not. More so than anyone else before her anyway. I never had a problem saying no in those situations until she came along. Caring for someone can make the most logical thinking person make some of the most illogical moves if your not careful. Luckily I was wise enough to think things through rather than be so impulsive. Mai ended up getting caught by the police in one of her drug lord escapades. That probably would’ve been me next to her in that cop car if I hadn’t resisted the pressure and realized in time she didn‘t really care about my well being. My parents taught me growing up this chapter, “Therefore take up the full armor of God, that you may be able to resist the evil day, and having done everything, to stand firm. Ephesians 6:13.” It came in handy for me when the time came. In the back of my mind I hope Mai found a better life.

Journal 6: "Cell Phones and Social Graces" response essay On a Cellular Level

Marquise Nurse-Williams
Dawn Blunk
HU090, Section A211.11.10
                                                             On a Cellular Level
                          In the essay “Cell Phones and Social Graces” Charles Fisher speaks of the many cases he witnessed a continuing cycle of rudeness from cell phone users and the “slavish” dependency, as he put it, human beings today have to stay accessible at all times. He begins comparing his traditional phone to the new cell phones pointing out the cons of cell‘s, like the roaming charges, or how people are charged when others call them, and how cell phones are often gargled or unclear when the user is in a certain area. Fisher then goes on to remember another moment of bad manners as a woman walking quickly, talking on her cell, walks past him ignoring him entirely. Fisher doesn’t bother to share salutations as she doesn‘t pay him any mind or acknowledgment that he is present. He goes on to talk about his own family’s trespasses as they have had a cell go off in the middle of a funeral eulogy . Along with this, Fisher spoke of a time a young man gave absolutely no recognition to the dean whom handed the young person his diploma on stage in front of hundreds of people as he graduated because he was too immersed in the conversation with his friend as he walked the stage. Cell phones can be a pain sometimes especially when they go off during formal settings, but personally an individual answering their phone in front of me isn’t discourteous, it may be important. In fact, cell phones keep me in touch with people more often than without one.
                             For one, with a cell phone it’s much easier to get in touch with friends than without one. In retrospective, when I was a child I had a companion named Shannon I lost contact with years ago when my immediate family and I left Germany for America. Seventeen years later Shannon contacted me on my cell phone. I found out she and her family moved to Ohio a few years after mine did. She looked my name up on the internet one day and found some of my fan art displayed on a comic book web site. She obtained my contact information from the site owners and called me out of the blue, I would have never imagined that happening to me in a million years. To this day we stay in contact on our cell phones as well as Facebook.
                     Next, cell phones keep me in contact with family and in the loop for family functions. Every holiday my family has a get together at either my aunt Linda’s house or at the Murry household. Me, I don’t remember any of these dates for family functions, and forget nearly every year. To remedy this my sister gives me a call as she has always been into “family togetherness” and staying in a close knit. Without her and her cell updates I would probably have been yet another stranger to my family by now.
                   Lastly, my cell keeps me in touch with my colleagues, and classmates keeping me in the loop and informed at all times. For instance, when my co-workers and I need each others help, input, or to relay information, we use our cell phones as we are normally separated through out the day. A simple phone call on the fly can remedy the most important moments of the day, like letting the people I am responsible for know what time the next meeting is, or where to meet at as information changes without warning most of the time.
                  As mentioned before, cell phones are a pain when they interrupt an important moment in the day , although, they are very convenient on multiple levels. People are very busy and I understand Fisher see’s cells as a nuisance, but for me, I would have missed out on some great opportunities without one. Like family events, or long lost friendships. I would never want to trade those moments just to sit at home alone starring at the ceiling, wondering where Mya went.

Journal 5 "Darkness at Noon" response essay Never Assume Anything

Marquise Nurse-Williams
English
Darkness at Noon Response                                Never Assume Anything
　
In Harold Krents’ essay “Darkness at Noon,” Krents reflects on the ways people treat him as a blind, handicapped member of society. He shares an example of how people assume he is not only blind but deaf as well. Krents also remembers a time when people assumed he needed an interpreter to translate what he is saying, which in fact annoyed him deeply insulting his intelligence as it was obvious he never needed one in the first place. I myself, haven’t the privilege to work with the physically or mentally challenged often in my time and lack the experiences to truly convey an understanding of their trials and tribulations. Nevertheless, on a serious note, I find the movies like The Eye, Forrest Gump, and also Rain Man open a window to their view of life with disabilities and the way people treat them in contrast to the treatment of a person without their quality.
                  One way the average human being may treat others with disabilities is assuming they are not intelligent people. For example, in the movie Forrest Gump, Forrest’s teacher insisted he could not attend school with the other children because his scores weren’t reaching the minimum of an average student. People assumed he would never amount to much of anything as a person with learning deficiencies. He proved the world he lived in wrong as he graduated from college, became a decorated war hero, met three different presidents for three different occasions and started his own company selling shrimp becoming a billionaire in the process . This story was fictional but a lot of fiction could be based on exaggerated events from the lives of real people. There are people with challenges who accomplish great things that many think could never happen for a person such as this.
                    Along with this, In Forrest Gump, he was treated differently because of his speech. Forrest spoke slowly and awkwardly. People around asked him “Are you stupid or something?” On multiple occasions. It’s an assumption people make off first impressions that made people treat him poorly and or disrespectfully.
                  Also, people treat the handicap differently by judging them by their looks, especially if the physical handicap is highly noticeable. For example, in the same movie Forrest was considered an outcast by his peers because of his legs and the awkward metal used to align his posture. The children wouldn’t give him a seat on the bus knowing absolutely nothing about him. Along with this, they would chase him on their bikes launching rocks at his backside as he ran down the dirt roads of Alabama. As it is well known, children as well as adults can be distastefully cruel toward others for frivolous reasons such as these.
              The handicap are normally perceived by folks as dependant or incompetent by their peers just as Forrest was seen in his life time in the movie. Remarkably, he overcame his shortcomings just as many people do in real life. A lot of people assume the handicapped can’t take care of themselves, but they can be very independent of help. Jessica Alba shows just how independent the blind can be in the movie The Eye. She had a job as a violinist and maintained her own apartment. She got around with only a walking stick and her other senses. These are movies based on fictional characters but they reflect the perseverance of those with problems much greater than the norm.