The Attack of The Sharks

My family and I were on vacation in Gulf Shores, Alabama. Some people also refer to it as the eighth wonder of the world. Being able to swim in the Gulf of Mexico is a once in a lifetime chance but I am going to tell you people around here don't know. The Gulf of Mexico at that time was known for some of the biggest sharks ever known to man. Witnesses say that some of these sharks were twenty feet long, weighed 900 pounds and had the mouth as wide as bulldozer. Of course me being the young arrogant kid I was I paid no attention to those "rumors". Who had ever heard of a creature that big? Little did I know that I would have an encounter with a few of them buggers and I was lucky to make it out alive.

The sun was just rising and I thought I'd go for a little swim before the mobs of people started crowding the beautiful beach. I was swimming for about an hour not really paying any attention to the direction I was going. I had no worries. I was young and clueless and not to mention the fact one of the best swimmers in my entire town. When I finally stopped, I turned to look back at the hotel but nothing was there. All I could see around was nothing but the beautiful blue ocean as the sun began to rise. I must have swum about a hundred miles and not even noticed it. Not quite sure which direction the hotel was located I pulled my handy dandy compass out of my pocket which I also kept on me on account of good luck. I began swimming back toward the hotel when I saw I first saw it.

Something dark about the size of a bus brushed my leg! As I looked down I almost emptied my bladder. This was the shark those people had spoke of only you couldn't really imagine the size of this thing unless you saw it in person. I turned around to see if it was circling back but to my displeasure I spotted two more of the monsters! I tried not to panic because I knew the sharks could sense fear as I quietly tried to make of run for it. Before I made two feet of progress the three sharks made a wall blocking me from returning to the hotel. I had no choice. These sharks wanted a fight, and boy was I going to give it to them.

I decided to throw the first punch at the biggest shark which was stationed in the middle in hopes to scare the other two off. I wound up and threw a punch that would have given Ali a run for his money back in the day. The shark whined and whimpered and swam off, what a coward. I wasn’t out of the woods yet though as I had two more gigantic sharks I had to deal with. These other two sharks were smart and they decided to attack me at the same time. I was able to connect a beautiful under water kick right under the chin of one of the sharks sending it away but I wasn’t able to avoid the shark coming from the other side that put about a seven inch gash directly to the right of my right eye. (Doctors later told me that one inch to left and I would’ve been blind for the rest of my life.) Now it was me mono a mono, me up against the blood thirsty shark who almost had rid me of my eyeball.

I was full of anger right now, blood covering my face. I was ready to go for the kill on this shark that almost took my life. I charged full head a steam, it doing the same in return. The scene reminded me of a jousting match held by the knights back in the middle ages. As I already told you I was one heck of a swimmer and I must been up to about 300 MPH when my shoulder connected with the shark sending it flying over two hundred feet in the air as I swam right under it heading back to shore. I never stopped to look back at the sight in which my life was almost taken. I breathed a sigh of relief as I reached shore. I finally made it back. Land never felt more like home.

The Invisible War

The Invisible War in Congo should be made international media everyday.

One reason why the Invisible War should be made national news is because it will put pressure on the U.N.to take stronger actions. With everyone in the world hearing and seeing the tragedy in Congo people will ask what the UN is doing to help. The U.N. will feel pressured to act. Imagine the quarterback of a football. His team is failing against the tough defense on the other side of the ball. Everyone on the offense is looking for the quarterback to do something that can put his team back in the game. The U.N. has to act cause the whole world expects them to do something.

A second reason that the Invisible War should be made international news is because it would be a great way to raise money to help the cause. If the horrific scenes going on in the Congo right were made visible to Americans just think of the money that could be made to donate to organizations like the Red Cross to help the injured. If the Invisible War was given the media attention that the earthquake in Haiti was given imagine the results. Here are some numbers from Haiti donations which could be very similar if the Invisible War was made national media according to the Huffington Post, "In addition to Americans sending more than $8 million via text message donations facilitated by cell phone companies." We need to make the Invisible War crisis international media.

Semester Reflection

This year one thing I have learned was how to prefect a two paragraph response paper. At the beginning of this year I struggled a lot with this concept. I had trouble breaking down two reasons of support and staying on topic. I struggled so much for about the first months getting back low grades on the responses. I kept working at it and finally one day I got it. I now know the concept of writing a paper, using support, transition, Ethos, and Pathos. One of my favorite pieces of work that I did this year was the Paul Letter I wrote. I was able to include all those above qualities in the paper along with a good thesis and I did really well on the paper. “Imagine a child going to school every day, and everyday he gets beat up by the school bully. No one says anything to the bully, no one tries to intervene, and everyone just looks the other way as the boy is beat. That is very similar to the situation we are in now. The people in my hotel are that schoolboy and the Interahamwe the bully, but in this case the bully won’t stop till death. Now you may ask who you are in this situation and right now you are the children standing by and doing nothing to help that poor boy who is enduring so much pain every day. So as the time draws nearer, I ask you do to what you can to help. Maybe it’s not my family you save but the other 1,263 people are just as valuable. Please stand up to the bully and send troops to protect and transport the refugees at my hotel.” As a writer I have come so far this year and I definitely think the two paragraph response papers played a big role in it.

Although I believe that everyone in our class including me thought that margin notes were a huge pain in the rear end, margin noting really helped me to understand things that I read a lot better. When I first started reading articles this year they seemed very complicated and almost impossible to understand. The article involving Dick Cheney or the article about how China will soon be the most dominant country in the world were just a few of the very difficult articles we were expected to understand. In past year I probably would have read it once and given up but that wasn’t an option this year. This year we all were forced to really think about what we were reading and work hard to understand it. Without margin noting I doubt I would have been able to understand any of the articles. With margin notes I was able to break the article down and put it into a prospective I could understand. As I continue reading more difficult pieces of writing I will definitely use margin notes as a way to better understand what I am reading.

One section this year that really had an influence on me was learning about the Rwandan Genocide. I have become so much more knowledgeable on what actually went on in Rwanda. Before I learned about the Rwandan Genocide if someone were to ask me what happened I would answer a bunch of people died. Now if someone were to ask I would be able to go in great detail. I know I can speak for most of us in the class that when we were given the group in which we were supposed to represent we all thought our group had done the right thing. It didn’t matter if you were representing the Red Cross or the Interahamwe the people representing their group felt like their group did the right thing. We all were almost like attorneys trying to prove that our group did nothing but good. My group represented the Rwandan Patriotic Front. Some called them a rebel group who only caused trouble but to this day I believe that without the RPF the genocide wouldn’t have ended till every last Tutsi and moderate Hutu was murdered. This project also opened to my eyes to how many different viewpoints could be drawn from this event and how putting the blame on one group of people would be too hard. In the end every single group played a part in the tragedy of the Rwandan Genocide whether they will admit it or not.

Another thing I learned was about a story having more than what it is just explaining on the surface. Learning that some stories have a deeper meaning that what is actually just written. We were given the analogy to the glacier when comparing it to this type of story. What you see of the glacier on the surface is maybe just the tip of it. Under the surface there is so much more of the glacier you can see. This was like the story The Man in the Well. At the surface it seemed as if we were just reading about the man in the well. About after hearing it and reading it numerous times I found a deeper meaning. I now am always trying to look for a deeper meaning in something. It has opened my eyes to the fact that a story can say something but it means something way more meaningful.

The Power of One was one of my favorite movies I watched this year. Not only the fact that one of my classmates starred in it as a great actor but the fact that it was so realistic to the things that went on in South Africa during apartheid. It chronicled the life of PK and how much struggle he went through being a British kid often surrounded by Afrikaners who showed hatred toward him. One scene that will forever be etched into my brain is the scene in which PK is actually being urinated on by the Afrikaner boys. It really paints the picture of how the Afrikaners thought of the British. Another group in which the Afrikaners discriminated against was the native South Africans. The movie clearly displays what was thought of the Afrikaners and how very little land they were actually given to live on. This movie really inspired me because PK was able to do so much and preserved even though it seemed like he lost everyone close to him. He continued on in life and made a difference. It was an amazing movie.

South African Natives

If I had to choose to be a native from one of the four countries we spoke about I would choose South Africa.

The main reason I would choose to be a native from South Africa is because the natives of South Africa still have a say in the government today. The natives help to make the ANC (African National Congress). Descendants of the native tribes have even accounted for the last four presidents of South Africa. Nelson Mandela a descendant of a native tribe went on to win the Nobel Peace Prize.

Another reason why I would choose to be a native of South Africa was the fact that they were innovative fighters and could hold there own in some ways against the European powers. When Shaka, who was arguably one of the greatest rulers of the Zulu Kingdom, realized that the Zulu's would not be able to hold there own against the European powers he worked to unite all the tribes. The united South African tribes were able to defend there land better than the natives of other countries did. One example of this is the Battle of Isandlwana when the the Zulus overwhelmed the British troop killing 1,300 of them.

In conclusion, although it would be unfortunate to be in the position of any of these native tribes, the best chance at living and succeeding would be with the South African Natives.

Brian Kelly

As the 2009 college football season came to end for the players of Notre Dame, the off season festivities had just begun. The Notre Dame Fighting Irish fired Coach Charlie Wise after the second straight five hundred season and third straight season without a winning record. Since the firing Notre Dame has been on a hunt for the right guy to finally put Notre Dame back on the map. Rumors swarmed of the possibility of hiring coaching names like Urban Meyer, Bob Stoops, John Gruden, or Tony Dungy. All these names swirled around but for the most part none of these coaches showed the least bit of interest. One name which interested Notre Dame was Brian Kelly who had taken an unranked Cincinnati Bear Cats team at the beginning of the year to an undefeated season, a number three national ranking, and a BCS bowl berth. As Brian Kelly found out that Notre Dame showed interest in him he also hinted at interest in taking the head coaching position at Notre Dame. So great pleasure was found when yesterday Notre Dame announced the hiring of Brian Kelly as their knew head football coach.
Brian Kelly has been successful wherever he has coached in college football previously. He coached at Grand Valley State University and put them on the map. He then went on to Central Michigan. At Central he recruited Dan LeFevour who has been named as one of the greatest college quarterbacks of all time. He also turned Central into a prestigious program. After turning Central into a top notch program he moved to Cincinnati. In his third year at Cincinnati he led his team to undefeated season and was a Texas field goal away from making it to the National Championship. Now he has the head coaching job at Notre Dame. Brian Kelly has proclaimed this job oprrertunity as his dream job. Notre Dame is looking to get back on the map. They need a coach who knows how to win football games and who else but the man who has previously put three programs on the map. Brian Kelly will have little room for error in his career here at Notre Dame. Not even in his first year will he be able to get away with losing to many games due to the fact that Notre Dame has a lot of talent on their roster. Now all we can do is wait and hope that Brian Kelly is the luck the Fighting Irish need to get back to the National Championship.

Rwandan Genocide

As I take a look back at the devastating effect of the Rwandan genocide it is hard to point the finger at one group. After studying and learning so much about my specific group, the RPF, I came to believe that the RPF was the only group doing things right. In all actually though this is true. The RPF was a Tutsi organization that formed in order to gain equal rights in the country they once resided. The RPF were forced to fight in order to protect their people. The group who were at most fault for the genocide, which by definition means systematic killing of a racial or cultural group, was the Interahamwe. The Interahamwe was the group that killed 8,000,000 Tutsi people, the death of innocent Tutsis including, women, children and babies. The Interahamwe butchered people viciously with machetes. There is nothing that can justify the actions that the Interahamwe performed. The Intwerahamwe can say things like it was either killed or be killed or that they were brainwashed but I do not care. Nothing can justify the vicious mass murdering of so many innocent human beings.

My opinion on the debate we had in class was that it was a phenomenal experience. It was a very interesting way to learn a bundle of information. Through the debate style format I learned so much about the Rwandan genocide. I not only learned a ton of information but I also enjoyed the whole atmosphere of the debate. It was a lot of fun arguing for the cause, which we had to represent. Through the whole experience I learned so much about my group of people, the RPF, that I agreed with what they did one hundred percent, even though the RPF may have caused some trouble throughout the genocide. The debate style of learning is such a unique and fun way to learn sometimes boring and confusing information. For this project I every one really had to work hard to learn information about the group or they wouldn’t be able to support themselves throughout the debate. This made everyone strive to understand what he or she was learning. It is a lot of fun to experience learning in other ways besides margin noting and reading sometimes. The debate style format gives us a taste of how official debates like a U.N. meeting is run. All in all this debate was a ton of fun.

The American Scholar

Emerson's argument in "The American Scholar" about America society still holds true today.

One reason Emerson's argument still holds true today is the fact that American's identify each other by the occupation they hold. Many times I seen people introducing themselves like,"Hello my name is John and I am doctor." The common American uses their occupation as a label. Instead of being a human, or a thinker, he is a farmer or a teacher. Emerson mentions,"Man is not a farmer, or a professor, or an engineer but he is all." Emerson speaks of how there are no thinking men in society in the 1800's and in the 2000's they still remain to be seen.

A second reason Emerson's argument still holds true today is the fact that people's goal in life is to get a sucessful job. Today people are always worried about doing good at work in hopes of not loosing their job in fear of loosing their identity. Many people in these harsh times are so worried about loosing their jobs and nothing else. All they care about is doing whatever they can to keep their job. People do not care about anything outside of their job.