Music

I have to say, I am not a fan of many American musical artists. Everything that I listen to is usually foreign. I find that foreign performers are much more enriching in musical style. The last American rapper that I enjoyed was Dr. Dre in 2001 and of course before that Tupac and Biggie. I really don’t enjoy much rap these days. In terms of American ‘rock’ bands I find that they all sound the same. The last American ‘rock’ band that I truly enjoyed were the infamous Blink 182. These days I am a huge fan of European techno, French rap and Australian rock. My favorite Australian rock band at the moment would have to be Powderfinger. My favorite trance performer would be Armin Van Buuren and closely related, my favorite techno performer would have to be Benny Benassi who is from Milan. Over the summer I met this girl from Sweden and she keeps linking me these great beats from her home country. They are truly amazing even though I don’t understand a word of them. She has introduced me to Basshunter, Elefant & Ph, and finally DJ Tune who came out with the hottest single in Sweden right now called “Bag in da Box”. I really just love being multi-cultural with everything that I do in my life. Whether its what I eat, what I listen to or even what I watch. I love enjoying the cultural aspects from all over the world.

Maryland Sports

It was a great weekend for Maryland sports. First I went to the Maryland football game and I could tell by halftime that it was going to be a great weekend. Maryland was up by 3 scores by halftime and the lead kept getting bigger and bigger. By the end we demolished East Michigan and I was ready to see the Ravens the next day. The Ravens started off slow but were able to pick it up in the third quarter scoring 21 points and beating the Cleveland Browns 28-10. The Ravens are now number one in the division and I am pumped to see them next Monday night against the Steelers. Well at least I hope to ‘see ‘ them. For the last two games they have not been shown on regular TV here in College Park. The only ‘local’ game that is played is the Redskins who I am neither familiar with nor a fan of. Both weeks I have had to go to the bar across route one. Its kind of annoying that they don’t play the Baltimore games here in college park because I know many people are from Baltimore and love the Ravens. Instead of playing the Ravens on Sunday, CBS decided to play Pittsburgh vs. Philadelphia. Are we located in Pennsylvania? I don’t think so.

Foam Trays

I was thinking back on my post about recycling and trash on campus and realized that I must have thrown away at least 30 of those ‘to-go’ boxes already and its not even the end of September. The cafeteria really needs to do something about this because I (and im sure others) don’t want to eat in the cafeteria for every meal. The first solution that came to mind is I know the cafeteria puts a charge on using these ‘to-go’ boxes so what if they reduced the cost of your meal if you cleaned your previous box and came back to the cafeteria with it. But how would they know that the box that you are standing in line with is truly a ‘old’ box? This brought me to my next solution which was for the university to give every on campus student a metal container of their own at the beginning of the school year and let the student bring the metal container to the dining hall when he knows he is going to eat out. This way the people at the registers would actually know if you are using one of their foam boxes or your own box and could reduce the price of your meal accordingly. Of course this brings of the problem that not everyone wants to walk back to their dorm just to obtain their metal box to get reduced price. There really is not a good solution for this problem, and I sit here wondering how many foam boxes I will go through during the course of the year.

In Class Writing

The two stories that I will use for my first paper will be my first job working with immigrants and my second job working construction. Working with immigrants changed my opinions about illegal workers in America in a good way. I have never seen any group of people work as hard and as long as these immigrants do. I learned how to deal with the public and deal with complaining customers. I also learned a great deal of Spanish and also made good money working at this corporation. My second job was for a construction company where I learned some great life lessons. I learned how to use all of the power tools, build walls, and install appliances. I will take these skills with me for the rest of my life.

Getting from place to place

I think that scooters and mopeds are great, they get great gas mileage and go wonders for the environment. That being said, I don’t think its necessary to have one on a college campus. It actually has quite the opposite roll when used on a college campus. I think that anyone on a motorized vehicle is actually too lazy to walk the relatively short distance to class. Even if it’s a “long” walk it would be reachable on bike which is a healthy fast way to get around this campus. I think that everyone should either walk or ride a bike, seriously, why do you need a moped to get from one class to another. I also hate dodging and weaving people riding on the sidewalks with the mopeds. Sidewalks are for…walking and nothing else. I even have a problem with bikes being on them. The university should create separate bike lanes so that I don’t have to end up dodging bikes either. I have a bad feeling that one of these days I wont get so lucky with dodging either a bike or a moped and it will be lights out for me. So if it was up to me I would ban mopeds or any type of motorized vehicle on the sidewalks and create separate bike lanes for those that chose to bike around campus.

Recyling

It amazes me that this campus is supposedly ‘working for the environment’. What I mean is that I find it impossible to find a garbage can around south campus where I live and furthermore I find it even harder to recycle even that that’s one of the campuses main goals. To throw away trash I have to walk to around Annapolis Hall where there is one dumpster for trash and it is hardly accessible. It is sitting up on a platform so that you have to basically hurl your trash up and hope that it goes in. Yet there are like three dumpsters for recycles but you can’t even but all your recycling in one place. One dumpster says “cardboard products only” while the next says “glass (not plastic” materials only. The university could get many more people to actually throw away their trash and to actually recycle if there were recycling bins around ever corner where you could put any type of recycles and furthermore a trash can around every corner so that people don’t litter.

Traffic

I recently purchased a Garmin GPS system to navigate around traffic when I go home for weekends form College Park. Yet this past Friday I was in stop and go traffic the whole way back and the entire trip took around two and a half hours to get home. On a normal day with no traffic I can get home in forty minutes to Baltimore. I was disappointed that my plan of buying a GPS to navigate through traffic had failed. I guess I need to do more research about how to use this unit.
Furthermore I was mad that there was a single accident on the way back. It was stop and go traffic all because of a little rain. People see rain and flip out and for some reason forget how to drive. Its like coloring, you just stay in the lines and you are golden. I wish more people would understand this. Yet the most amazing thing to me was the backup for almost twenty miles was all due to people getting onto the Baltimore Beltway. I hate the Baltimore Beltway and if it was up to me I would get rid of it. In fact all beltways are bad.

Lunch Lines

It amazes me that every time I go into the south campus diner for lunch the line for the deli counter is outrageous. Yet once I have waited my through the line and gotten my sandwich, I turn around and the line has dissipated to two or three people. It doesn’t matter whether I go at 12 or at 1 o'clock, this always happens to me. The deli is defiantly the hot spot for lunch, which begs the question of why they don’t have more people working there. I don’t really want a greasy lunch from the burger or pizza place and I consider pasta to be more of a dinner food.
While standing in line (for what seems like an eternity) I have noticed that most people either go for the roast beef sandwich or the friend chicken wrap. So I raise this question…why don’t they have pre-made sandwiches that you can grab and then a separate condiments bar where you can put mayonnaise, tomato and lettuce on your sandwich. This would cut down on lines and save my precious time that I could spend doing other things. Just my two cents.

U.S Open

After following the men’s bracket in the U.S. Open for nearly 3 weeks I was extremely disappointed that I missed the final. The original final between Roger Federer and either Andy Murray or Rafael Nadal was supposed to occur last Sunday yet due to rain on Saturday everything was pushed back one day. I watched the women’s final on Sunday night and was told that the men’s final was the following day. I figured that the men’s final would be played during primetime just like the women’s final the night before. I was anxiously awaiting the match all day Monday and wanted to see an epic final.
Yet as I was sitting in the south campus-dining hall I saw a few people starring at the T.V. I turned to look at it and saw tennis; I was quite far from the T.V. so I figured it was highlights of another previous match. I didn’t make much of it after that until I got back to my dorm room. I turned on my T.V. to see the announcers talking about Pete Sampras and his 14 carrier wins, I immediately felt relieved for this must be the pre game show talking about what Roger Federer is up again. Yet I was stunned to find out that this was the post match show and that Roger Federer had just won. Three weeks of watching this tennis tournament to miss the finale, I was pissed.

My Roommate

I am not sure why, but for some reason my roommate chose to have class every morning at eight A.M. If he was quiet it would not be a big deal, but he isn’t. Starting at seven A.M. his extremely loud alarm goes off and the worst part about it is it takes him around 15 seconds to turn it off. Well not even ‘off’ he hits snooze so that ten minutes later it does the exact same thing. He repeats this from seven to around seven-forty. When he finally does get up, nothing he does is considered quiet in my book. Whether is the rustling of papers or the opening of his squeaky closet, it is almost impossible to fall back asleep.
I now ask myself why he picked eight A.M classes and furthermore why he is so loud in the morning. Maybe he can function on little to no sleep and lies to get his classes over with early. Or maybe he attended a late orientation and that was the only slot open. I am not totally sure. I think I can pinpoint why he is so loud though. In my opinion this stems from the fact that he is an only child. He has never had to truly share anything in his household with another sibling. Furthermore I shared a room with my brother for many years and learned to respect what my brother was doing at all times and he would do the same for me. I can respect my roommate’s need for sleep late and night, I hope he can do the same for me in the morning.

About Me

1. Introduce yourself briefly. Where are you from? Where have you gone to school? What educational plans brought you to the University of Maryland, and what fields of learning or potential majors interest you at this stage in your academic career?
I am from Baltimore Maryland and attended the Friends School of Baltimore for my entire life. I am currently enrolled in the Smith school of Business here at the university of Maryland and look to pursue in a field of finance.

2. What kinds of writing have you done in high school? At UMD? At another college? Outside of a school setting?
I took many high school english classes where you would write strictly on the books you read and how the pertain to the overall meaning of the course. For example last year i took a course on why the caged bird sings and i read a few books about characters who overcame their obstacles and broke free from their "cage" in order to be successful. English 101 is my first english class here at the University of Maryland.

3. What steps do you usually follow when you write a paper? Do you outline? Revise? Compose on a word processor? What part of the writing process do you find easiest? What part do you find hardest?
When i am writing a paper i usually try to outline what i am going to talk about in the opening paragraph, have 4 of 5 body paragraphs relaying to the thesis and what i have already outlined and then i finish with a closing paragraph that emphasizes the "so what". I find that the opening sentence is also the hardest part of the paper. I can never find the right words to open with and therefore i usually go straight for the body paragraphs before i finish the introduction.

4. What kind of writing has given you the most satisfaction?
I enjoy writing on subjects that i extensively know the subject matter. I hate running out of ideas half way through a paper, therefore leading me to repeat and overemphasize points.

5. What is the longest or most challenging paper you have ever had to write? How did you go about preparing and writing it? What did you learn about writing from that experience?
During my junior year of high school i had to write an eight page paper on nuclear weapons and whether or not the dropping of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima and then Nagasaki was actually plausible. It took emense amounts of research and i found it hard to come to a conclusion.

6. What do you remember learning about writing from other courses or other writing experiences that you found useful?
Never start or end your paper with a quote. Also try to end each body paragraph with a "so what" line, what makes your ideas important to your audience.

7. Assess your strengths and weaknesses as a writer. What are you good at? What aspects of your writing are you dissatisfied with?
My weaknesses are a writing are coming through with strong direct evidence. I have trouble finding quotes and ideas from outside sources and placing them in my paper at the right moment. I would say my strongest aspects of my writing are my closing paragraphs. I feel that i can bring papers to a close easily and strongly.

8. What part of the writing process do you think you will need the most support with?
Making my sentences flow smoothly, a lot of the time i end up having run on sentences that are hard to depict. Also as stated above i want to learn how to place strong evidence into my paper at the right time.

9. If you had your choice of subjects for a research project, what issues or topics would you like to write about?
My research paper would be on something that i have immense knowledge for. A topic that i would not run out of ideas half way through. Topics that interest me are cooking, baseball, computers and tennis. Anyone of these subjects i could write freely about.

10. What do you associate with the term argument? How do you feel about taking a course that focuses on argumentation?
The term argument to me in a paper refers to how well you can convince your audience that your side of the issue is correct. It will be interesting coming up with knew ways to make your audience truly believe that you are correct and when you can do that, you have written a unique paper.