My biggest fear

well, if you had asked about 6 years ago, i would said thunder storms.  yeah i know, twelve years old and still not able to sleep when it’s thundering outside.  now i think my main fear is bugs. i loathe bugs.  they are gross and creepies and just……gross!

Uncle Bill Tells All (D-Day History Brought to Life)

(yes i know that it isn’t done)

            One of the coolest moments in my life has to be when Uncle Bill came to my 11^th grade history class to tell about his experiences on D-Day.  Looking back I didn’t really think that it would turn out as cool as it did.  I mean, really, nowadays teens (myself included) don’t really like sitting around listening to  ‘old people’  tell strange stories and stuff like that.  But it turned into this big thing for the Bob Jones history dept.  and I was very proud.

            The whole thing started when my history teacher got a student teacher from UNA.  His name was Mr. Seely and he was a retired US Army cartographer (or something along that line anyway).         Mr. Seely   had always wanted to be a teacher, so as soon as he retired from his other job, he immediately went back to college to get his teaching degree so that he could teach history to annoying high schoolers. He knew a lot of things about history that wasn’t in the history books. Mrs. Drummond eventually just let him teach the class about the wars, since that was his special area of interest.  So our class, as the only one that he was teaching, motored right along and got a lot of extra knowledge that the other classes didn’t get. 

But I digress. 

The day before the discussion of D-Day, Mr. Seely had just finished teaching our class the long version of the German word for tank (and its literal translation: schutzingrabbenvonpanzervagon (not sure if that’s spelled right but that’s how its pronounced) meaning “in-the-trench-is-dangerous-to-us-panther-wagon”) and had started in on his lecture on the planning of D-Day and some of the brilliant schemes that General Eisenhower came up with.  The bell rang, and as usual, I stopped to talk to Mr. Seely before heading off to my math class.  I mentioned that my Uncle Bill had actually been at D-Day and knew all about it, and Mr. Seely thought that it would be interesting to have him come and tell my history class all about the training and preparations that went into that day. He asked if maybe Uncle Bill would be willing to come and talk to the class about his experiences. I said I would ask.  Mrs. Drummond overheard us and said that she thought that it would be great if Uncle Bill could come and speak to the class. She even suggested letting the newspaper report on it in the Education section.

That night I went home and got dad to call Uncle Bill. After chatting with him for awhile, he gave the phone to me and let me ask him.  Uncle Bill said yes, but that he couldn’t come for a while, as he had a doctors appointment that he couldn’t miss.  I went back to class the next day and talked to Mrs. Drummond and with Mr. Seely and asked them what would be a good day for Uncle Bill to come and we set up a date for him. Mrs. Drummond set up the date with the reporters from the Times.

That day, I went to school like nothing had happened. Oh, I knew that he was coming, and I was really looking forward to it, but I just didn’t know when he would arrive.  I had told Dad to have the office call me when they arrived so that I could guide them to the classroom, but of course he didn’t ask.  Finally, my first class ended, and I rushed over to my history class.  When I got there, after the bell rang, I waited patiently for about 2 minutes and then I asked Mrs. Drummond if I could go up to the office and watch for everyone to arrive. The reporters had gotten there early so I didn’t have to worry about them.

            About 5 minutes after I arrived at the front office (armed with my hall pass explaining why I was up there), everyone arrived: Aunt Amelia and Uncle Bill and their daughter, Ardith (who doubles as the chronicler of the Majors family), and my parents.  The first thing that happened we got back to the classroom was that Mr. Seely introduced Uncle Bill to the class and explained why he was there.  Then Uncle Bill went up to the front of the room and began to tell his story.  Halfway through his intro, he noticed where I was sitting and immediately came over and gave me a big hug saying “You always have to remember to get the important things done first.” Then he returned to the front of the room and began to tell us about his experiences in WWII.

            He started out with tell us how he joined the ????? (get that answer later but for now assume it is the Navy ). He said that the first thing that they did to him after joining was send him off to be trained as a ?mechanic? and that once he got out of training, he was shipped off to England to be shipped out with a rumored ‘invasion force’ that Eisenhower was planning.

My Friend Stays Over at Fall Break

For Fall Break I had a friend from Spainish class over to stay the night.  The reason why this is so significant is that ‘Sarah’ is blind. (please excuse me not giving her real name, but as i don’t know who will be reading this outside my English class, I feel that it is prudent to protect her identity. )h, she can see some things, like the color of stuff, but if she wants to read anything she has to use a magnifyer or somebody has to type it up and email it to her so that she can look at it on the computer.  But having her over was a real treat.  Sarah is from Oregon, which is around two thousand miles away from our present location.I can only imagine the courage that it took for her to make the trip over to the college.  But she is never alone: she has a guide dog, a big, spoiled German shepard named Prada.  There is probably no other guide dog in the universe that is as spoiled as that one.  So this is how the sleep over worked.  Since she can’t drive, I picked her up from the dorms where she lives around 3 o’clock and we went back to my house.  I took Roxie (my dog) with Sarah and Prada, so that they could get introduced to one another. Then we went back to my house and hung out and she and my mom got introduced to one another. 

Other than the glaring fact that Sarah is blind, there was no real difference in her stay over at my house than when my other friends do so. Sure I had to over the house with a fine tooth comb to make sure that nothing was on the floor in my little brother’s bedroom (since he and my dad were out of town, Sarah slept with Prada in his room) and i had to walk her around the house and make sure that she knew where everything was, so that if Prada wasn’t with her, she wouldn’t trip and fall. But don’t you clean madly before you have company over at your house, and if its that person’s first time there, don’t you give them the ‘grand tour’? All in all, it waas one of the coolest event of my Fall Break. 

Sarah can’t go home for Thanksgiving either and I’m hoping that I can convice her to come over for the ‘feast’ that occurs at my house, so that she won’t spend it all alone at the dorms.

Parking

Parking is a major issue at UAH. But nobody really seems to be taking it seriously in my opinion. Oh, I hear things about how the administrators are doing every thing that they can to fix the situation, but i really don’t see any proof. 

Yes, the parking garage is a marvelous thing, but it isn’t really conveniently placed.  The areas that could really use that garage, is next to the UC and Frank Frunz. In my opinion, those are the two areas that are the worst off when it comes to parking.  I really don’t have a big problem…I park one time and maybe move my car once, and since i get to school at 730 -745 in the morning, the parking lot is practically empty.  however, when it comes time to move my car, and go over to shelby…i have like 3 or 4 ‘vultures’ circling my vehicle and my parking space.

to make matters worse, there are now rumors that the school administrators are going to make all the freshmen live on campus within the next 2 years.  that will cause even more problems as they will more that likely bring their designated vehicular device with them.  those cars will be taking up valuable parking spaces, parking spaces that we don’t have to spare. this will also equal more congestion on campus as we all try to get to our classes. yes, this strategy would bring in more revenue, as the freshmen would be inclined to pay for their room and food-stuffs, but it isn’t the wisest idea for those of us who are living at home and driving to shcool. we would have to fight even harder for those precious empty parking spaces, and most of us would probably end up late.

before our administrators think about new facilities, and other ways to make UAHuntsville look nice, they need to think about ways to fix the traffic situation.

Unbounded Misinterpretation

1. this tacks onto what i said in my last post… some journalists are limited in what they say because they have to make sure that the boss isn’t looking. if they write the wrong thing they could get fired.
2. a blogger is someone who goes out and researches stuff to make sure that it is accurate, or at least tries to. they aren’t bound by what thier boss wants them to say or by what they think the world wants them to hear.
3. they also don’t suffer from editors who are the ones who go through and make sure that there is nothing inappropriate in there that might get them in trouble as well. however for all their work, for the most part they don’t look at peoples facts. they just look to make sure that nothing will anger the boss

The Values of Journalism

1. Okay i agree on some levels with this…..people like to read opinions. wikipedia isn’t totally about the facts. its also about the people who wrote it. most of the posts on there aren’t written like a professor would write it. they are written in everday language so that regular people can read and understand what they are saying.
2. Journalists at some level are bound by their emplyors to edit what they are saying. ‘mustn’t offend the boss or i could lose my job,’ and all that. most local newspapers are owned at some level by a syndicate and they usually monitor what they smaller businesses are doing.
3. people enjoy reading blogs and looking at news-shows that are posted on the net because they know that for the most part, the people posting them are just like them.  journalists usually don’t tell you anything about their sources, or give you the entirity of an interview, because their boss sometimes thinks that something in said interview or source goes aagianst what he wants the publice to hear. small time reportors usually post everything so that you can see it all.

Freshman Comp

all right here we go…..

i have finnally chosen a book to do my banned books essay on To Kill a Mockingbird.  in the end, the choice was really simple:  i already have a copy of that book and i am short on cash, this way i won’t have to really go out and get a copy. (i know what your going to say professor and i realize that we probably aren’t required to read it but i can’t do a project like this without actually reading the book) 

This book was banned from a 10th grade class because of the negative racial comments and probably the language as well. the source of the complaint was from a single parent who was distressed because he/she didn’t want her child learning said word/phrase, when in essence it was highly unlikely that her child did not already know said phrase/word.

For each book that gets banned the process is for the most part different. Sometimes it takes multiple complaints for the book to9 be successfully banned, other times as in the case of the book that i named earlier , only a single complaint was made about the content of the book. (which in my opinion is complete and utter stupidity) if you are talking about a school banning, usually a meeting of the school board is called to discuss the book and make a descion about the book, although in some cases the principal or head of the department will ban the book.  But for most public librarys the book is queitly removed from the shelves during the check-in/check-out procedure.

Personnally, I think the banning of To Kill a Mockingbird  was the wrong thing to do. I had to read it for my 9th grade English class and I must say that it has the esteemed honor of being on of the few assigned reading books that i actually enjoyed.  I found it well written and very factual concerning the culture and atmosphere of the town that was written about.  The parent who complained clearly did not have a very good idea about what the purpose of getting some books banned is about.  For Pete’s sake, if your going to complain about a book that your child has to read for school….please make a big deal about a book that actually has problems that are more than a couple of words that people rarely use anymore anyway!

my thoughts

well i always thought that getting my first blog would be hard but apparently i was wrong.  well then lets get started then……*crikets chirping* ummm…..i really don’t know what to write.    oooo i know i’ll write about some of the books i’ve been reading….no wait if i tried to do that it would be never ending……hmmmmmmm. oh i know!  i’ll write about my new research project!

my teacher is having our class do a paper on banned books. the book i’ve chosen is huckleberry finn.  (i know i should be doing puctuation and things but i doubt anyone but my teacher will see this so whats the point.)

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