Puff the Bearded Dragon....

As you already know, I have a bearded dragon. I am very proud of him. I always love showing pictures or telling people or even showing him off. I picked him as my topic because I figured it would be somewhat original and I wanted to do it just because I like to share some knowledge I do have.

I got Puff in June of last year and it has been fun every minute of it. just in this past year he has grown so much. When I got him he was only a few inches long. Now he is about 16 inches long. It is crazy to think how much he as grown in such a small amount of time. And to think when I first got him he would only eat about 3 or 4 crickets at a time. Now he eats about 40. I chose him as my topic to show how much I enjoy my pet.

I'll never forget the time I...

I'll never forget the time I went to the dentist to get my wisdom teeth pulled. I had them pulled this summer. My wisdom teeth were already fully grown in. For some reason, ever since I was little, I've always feared the dentist.
I even cancelled my first appointment and rescheduled because I was so scared to go in and get it done. I figured I would be put to sleep throughout the whole ordeal so I got the courage to go. When I was in the chair at the dentist I asked him if he was putting me to sleep. He said that I would be awake but wouldn't feel anything.
It was the worst dentist experience of my life. If you ever need to get your wisdom teeth pulled make sure you asleep because being awake is the most dreadful thing ever! Hopefully I won't be seeing the dentist anytime soon.

My biggest failure...

My biggest failure was not taking college seriously after graduating high school in 2003. The summer after graduating from high school I moved to Fargo. I got really caught up in the social aspect of my life. I was enrolled in the spring of 2003 at MSUM. Once school started I went for the first couple of weeks.
Not to soon into the first semester I was so worried about my social life that I stopped going to school. It is something I really regret. I just took my education for granted. Having a child depend on me and look up to me made me realize that I had to better myself. The only way to do that is through education.
If I would have taken college seriously I would have already graduated with a degree in nursing. It's better late then never.

Life With My Daughter

Life with my daughter is the best but not the easiest thing. Being able to be there for my daughter as she grows is the most powerful thing I have ever experienced. Even though its not the easiest job in the world, it has its benefits.
My daughter, Isabella, is two years old going on three in May. When she came into this world everything changed for me. Taking care and raising a child isn't something you can take a break from or quit. Starting school again has been the biggest challenge. It's hard trying to balance out my work load at school and home. The main reason that I went back to school is to better my life as well as Isabella's life.
Having a daughter has its ups and downs but all in all I love being a mom and wouldn't change it for anything in the world.

Bryson Essays

Bryson's essays were not directional process analysis. They were more of a informational process analysis. A directional process analysis gives the steps in a process that the reader can perform if he or she wants to and informational process analysis is more for informational purposes that are more than likely not going to be performed by the reader as stated in Ch. 9 pages 251-252.
In the essay "A Visit To The Barbershop" Bryson takes us through each step of his visit to the barbershop. Also in "Deck The Halls," he is giving his step-by-step process that he goes through every year in preparation for Christmas.
The main purpose for using process analysis in his essays is to entertain and to express his feelings and relate his experience to the reader.

My process paper!

I've been thinking about doing a certain topic for my process paper and have been freewriting a bit. I've decided to go with how to choose and setup a fish tank. The thing that blew my mind is how many times a day at my job, Petco, i tell someone how to choose a tank, all the items, set it up, choose the fish and i can ramble everything out in one minute. No problem. Now that i sit down to write an essay about it, it's hard to put it in sentences that would make a good essay. I'm gonna try and do an outline and write some more things down before i actually start writing the rough draft.

Another thing i want to bring up is while i was writing this blog, i had a news show on in the background about the Natalee Holloway case and how the one suspect basically told the whole story under a secret camera. It's very disturbing and is really sad that justice won't happen in that case due to the laws of Aruba. Makes me sick.

I get so angry when...

I usually don't get angry about little things or for that matter, even big things. But a couple weeks ago i was watching a democratic debate between Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, and John Edwards and got perturbed. I wouldn't say i'm a political nut or care that much about how the government runs things. I pretty much think they all lie anyways, so it never pays to listen to them(in my opinion). Which gets me to the point i was trying to make. I just happened to flip by the beginning of the debate and started to watch with an open mind. The first couple minutes were fine with each candidate talking about the economy and what has to happen to change the way it is now. All of a sudden it turned from a debate of three people to a verbal fight between two, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. At first i thought it was very humorous and started laughing because they were making themselves look non-professional. Then as the debaters kept going at eachother for another 10 minutes without even letting the third debater speak i got to thinking.
I don't know about anyone else that watched that, but i got angry when all they were doing was attacking eachother with their past's. The main reason why they put the debates on tv is so viewers and the voter's of this country can understand what the candidates stand for and for what they believe in. In order for me to vote for someone i would like to hear what they think of abortion, capital punishment, or the war. Not listening to them rant about how their pasts will affect them while they are in office or all the things they have done wrong. That only makes me think that they don't even care about the country and only care about the negatives about everything and that is definitely not what i look for in a candidate.
I am a strong believer in having a government that actually gets something done even if they don't like eachother. I know everyone can't get along and that is fine if we have people that get something done even if they hate eachother than everyone getting along and nothing get done to help this struggling country. This country has to do a lot of things to help the economy, save lives, and run productively but worrying about what someone hasn't done is not going to get it anywhere!

Life with a pacemaker is...

I know i tend to sometimes talk about my heart troubles and my pacemaker if you haven't noticed. And if you don't think so, just ask my girlfriend that hears about it all the time. Haha. But it was pretty recent and a really big shock to me and the people around me. Maybe in a couple months i'll stop talking about it. But life with a pacemaker can be eventful. Not to much of my daily life has changed. I do activities that i would normally do with ease and no hesitation, though there are some things i have to watch out for.
I used to work around car engines and trucks a lot for my previous job and one thing i can't do anymore is lean over a car engine. The spark plugs will cause my pacemaker to stop working. Another thing that i use on a daily basis is my cell phone, which can also cause it to stop working. So instead of using it on my left ear, no matter what i have to use it on my right ear. It can get quite tricky driving, shifting and trying to talk with my cell phone now! But don't worry, i don't do it often cause i know it is dangerous.
I recently just started to work out and try to gain some of the weight i lost from the surgery and i have to watch how hard i work my heart! I recently took a stress test to see how my heart handles at streneous levels. My heart passed with flying colors but my legs and my lungs were not doing so good after running hard on a treadmill for 15 minutes. I guess life has been back to normal for the most part.

The Bryson Essays

The Bryson essays for unit 2 are not directional process but they still contain process-based writing. The difference is informative writing, which is a process based writing rather than directional. The target audience for informative is learning a specific task but is not asked or expected to perform the steps like a directional essay. Informative essays tell the audience/reader how to do something that is being done by other people. In "A Visit to the Barber Shop," Bryson talks us through each task the barber does from the beginning to the end of the hair cut. Another example is in the reading "Deck the Halls," each procedure that Bryson does, he lets the reader know every little thing he does. Such as climbing into the attic which terrifies him and then rembers that the Christmas decorations are not up there. Bryson talks us through every step he goes through when trying finding the decorations and while hanging them up. Though it was a painful task to perform, Bryson puts on a smile and puts up decorations despite the bumps on the way, he does it because it is a ritual. It's Christmas!

I personally think Bryson's purpose is to show the audience a different type of process writing in his own way. A lot of people know more about and see more directional process, and this way, Bryson allos us to see a different version of a process.

Bryson essays (Extra Post)

The difference between directional and informational process writing is that the directional process involves giving an audience specific directions on how to do or make something, while the informational process explains how something is made or done and the author does not expect the reader to perform the process.

In the Student writer textbook in chapter 9, page 263, the author is using a directional process to show how feng shui can help you sleep better and work more productively.
This is written so that a reader could actually do the process if they wanted to.

In Bryson’s essays, specifically in chapters 9 and 37, he is using the informational process to describe his experiences in decorating for Christmas and getting a haircut. In chapter 56 he is using both the informational and directional process in that he lists the steps to hook up your new computer how he perceives it, but the steps are so exaggerated and far-fetched that he really wouldn’t expect anyone to follow those directions. In chapter 43, he is using both as well. He is explaining how to understand a tax form but the confusion of the directions is so overwhelming that no one could actually complete a tax form using those directions.

His purpose is to entertain us. His audiences are people who can relate to his experiences and how we share some of the same feelings he gets from trying to fill out an actual tax form and setting up a new computer. Those processes can be exhausting and frustrating and he is exaggerating them in a very amusing manner.

I'll nver forget the time...(Graded)

I’ll never forget the time I saw mountains for the first time. My husbands work often takes him on the road and in the early winter of 2006, he had to work out in Yakima, WA. I thought this would be a perfect opportunity to take a vacation and go see some sights that I had always longed to see. I have seen the mountains in pictures and movies, but I wanted to see them without the limits of a photo lens.

We left on an early Saturday afternoon and drove all the way to Miles City, MT where we stopped for the night. It was about an 8 hour drive from Fargo & there was not much to see. Even so, I was thrilled to be traveling through parts that I had never seen. There were areas with scattered buttes and rolling hills and the painted canyon in the badlands of western North Dakota was quite a sight to see. But soon we would be back on the road and just a few more hours down the road we would be approaching Billings, MT where the foothills of the Rocky Mountains can be seen.

The anticipation was killing me. As we were driving further into Montana, it seemed that we were always driving uphill, never down. I suppose that is because we were climbing in elevation. When we finally approached Billings, there was an explosion of excitement in me. We crested a hill on the East side of the city and there it was! My first glimpse of a beautiful majestic mountain! I saw it in the distance beyond the city. It was far away and didn’t look very big at first but it rose above the flat terrain with jagged snowy capped peaks. It seemed to take forever to get close to that mountain range and when we finally did, I was absolutely speechless. I couldn’t take my eyes off of it. The mountains were huge in comparison to anything I had ever seen. I couldn’t stop smiling. The mountains were everything and more than I had ever imagined.

My husband, having spent a lot of time out west, just smiled and shook his head and said “you haven’t seen anything yet!” He was right. As we got further into Montana the mountains got bigger and even more beautiful and they continued to impress me the entire trip. It was an unforgettable experience and I will go back out there every chance I get!

After.....I was never the same again (Graded)

After having my first child, I was never the same again. Before my daughter was born, I considered myself quite selfish. I didn’t care much about how my actions affected others. Sure, I was young, and young people are generally a little more selfish than their elders, but I was the epitome of selfish.

Regrettably, I had little time for my family. Being the youngest of seven, there was always an opportunity to engage in a wide variety of family activities, but the way I was, I would rather have spent my time with my friends doing things that I should not have been doing, which, consequently, is the biggest reason my daughter came into this world.

When she was born, my whole outlook on life changed. Family became the center of my life. My daughter helped me to see that the world does not revolve around just one person and that without family, life would be empty and very lonely.

Life would be easier if only.....(Graded)

Life would be easier if only I had gone to college before having a family. Homework and studying takes us the little spare time I have after working a 40 hour week. It is a struggle balancing work, school and family.

I am lucky that I have a husband and kids who support my decision to go back to school, but I have a certain amount of guilt associated with the obvious lack of attention they get from me. Since this is only my first semester of school, I hope that I can find a way to develop good study skills that will still allow me to spend quality time with my family.

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