MY BLOG AND THE BLOGOSPHERE

Ok so at first I didn't know what to expect when we had to start writing on a blog on a weekly basis. So I figured since the presidential inauguration was on the horizon I would talk about it starting off. This also gave me my name for my blog, Obama Mama, I chose this name because I believed that since it was a little weird, yet funny that it would attract people to read it, rather than just naming it Curtis' English Blog. My posts usually follow a theme in that most of them were either book reviews or about a certain part of the world that was having a crisis or something going on in current events. Most of the time it wasn't written as stream of consciousness but a few posts were me ranting about some problem I came across during the day.

I think my best blog posts were about some of my book reviews. They didn't necessarily receive a lot of comments, but to me they are the ones I put the most amount of time into because I wanted to express my views about the most current book that I read. It gave me a way of letting out my feelings on what happened in the book. The most popular posts however were my ranting about problems I faced in my day. I think it is because most people had either ran across that problem either during the day or at some point in their life, or even that they found it comical because the way I told it was told with a somewhat sarcastic tone. Overall my favorite blog posts were definitely the ones that pertained to either current events/issues or about book reviews.

I believe that the blog was an excellent tool for this English class. I'm being totally honest in saying that because I hate writing about boring short excerpts that you have no idea where they came from. Now on the other hand when you can write on a blog about whatever you want as long as there is some thought behind, it makes writing more interesting and enjoyable. I think it depends on how it is done however, but if you have the freedom to write about whatever you want and not something like what I stated above. I think this can be one of the most effective tools for writing. It seems it makes students get more involved with writing when they can write about whatever they want with no restrictions.

Overall, I enjoyed writing on the blog because it allowed me to express my feelings about current events and to tell everyone about what I have read and what I have enjoyed in my history classes. I definitely hope this is a growing trend in English classes because it is an innovative way to practice writing, as well as express your feelings, and it is enjoyable and painless. Eventually I plan on starting my own blog for history because I want to inform people about history and what I have had the privilege to learn.

Somali Pirates...Strike again and again

Ok so we all know all the publicity the US got when Richard Phillips the commander of a freightliner heading through the passage handed himself over to the Somali pirates to prevent harm to his crew. After a daring effort by the US Navy approved by President Barack Obama Phillips was saved and the pirates were subdued. This I would hope would lead to an increase in security against the actions of piracy since we use the passage to India often.

In case you didn't know, today, Tuesday April 14, 2009 the Somali pirates struck again and captured another ship crew and a 35,000 ton Greek carrier. The crew was thought to be unharmed, but once again an effort to save them must be done because negotiating with the pirates is a dangerous option and most countries do not like to deal with terrorists or in this case pirates. As if this wasn't enough to deal with...

Later today, yes the same day another ship was captured, this time a vessel from Lebanon. Its crew and a 5000 ton Togo ship was captured. This is beginning to become a trend as though it looks. The country of Somalia has been a harbor for terrorism and piracy for years since they have no government. The public has not heard much about these acts until now, but it has been going on for years and millions of dollars have been stolen.

As of now NATO has anti piracy mission called Operation Allied Protector where US ships are planning to patrol the coastline, but little is known about this. Regardless of that, it seems that something needs to be done about this. By no means am I suggesting a war or even a conflict, no no no that would be ludicrous. To me it seems that a simple tightening in security policy would make matters difficult for the pirates.

I know as I'm saying this someone is going to come along and immediately critcize this idea, but if we just had some Navy seals on these ships sailing through these harsh areas, then maybe it would deter these acts of piracy. I know this will not stop it by any means, but it would slow it down and increase the chance of the crew defending themselves against the pirates.

This issue is similar to terrorism, but we cannot take military action against them, in my opinion a simple deterrance would slow the rate of occurence of these actions. It seems all to simple but these will continue to happen until some country shows they are tired of this shit and put an end to it, otherwise it won't stop because it is far too easy for them to make millions at our expense.

BSU E-mails from students regarding missed notes

Ok so i'm sure all of us have gotten atleast one email from someone that is in a class with you that needs notes from a day they either were "sick" or they were just off dicking around. I know it seems a little harsh, but it is so frustrating to me because I want to help the ones I can out but i've got enough to do as is. It's really frustrating to me also because most of the time it is emails from the same people, which makes me think they don't care or want to learn anyways. It is aggravating because i'm a social studies education major, which I guess account for me getting mad with all the emails from students not attending.
This probably seems like a useless rant to everybody, but it is just ridiculous when you pay for college you better go to the classes. No one cares if you don't show up because it is your responsibilty to make up for it. It is a deterrence for skipping class. Don't get me wrong I have missed a class before, but I don't send emails out begging people to help me when I just skipped a class for no reason. I understand that is my decision and I am accountable for it.
One last thing, when people need help with homework of any subject I try to lend a helping hand because if I was in that situation I would want help from a student as well. It does become a bothersome nuisance when the person you help doesn't show initiative to even try to learn it. I am by no means a teacher yet. I still say to everyone if you have a problem, question or query take it up with the professor and don't send a forward email to the class because more than likely it will be selected with other BSU spam and deleted!

Sorry for the Rant, by no means am I specifically targetting anyone in this rant.

Verizon Store Continued:Online Edition:Dare or Voyager

Ok, so my dad lost his phone a week ago and he has no idea where it went. So we decided to go to the Verizon store and get him a new one. Our plan was ending in two months so we decided that all of us were going to get new phones.

Im still debating whether to get a dare or a voyager. Anyways we were going to do it on the internet because for some odd reason the store doesn't have the same deals as the internet. This doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me, so after we decided that later that night me and my mom sat down to work on it. We tried and tried to order them, but we weren't getting the discounts we were told we were supposed to get, not to mention we were getting charged an extra 80 dollars in activation fees that were not suppose to be there. Needless to say we gave up frustrated. After trying everything customer support phone line, chat online, etc. 

This morning I tried again and still to this moment have no idea what I'm suppose to do, hopefully my mom can figure it out when she gets home. My point however is that, these stores make it so difficult to make an order its ridiculous. Not to mention even in person you can easily spend hours in the store. It doesn't seem to be a very good business tactic when most of your customers are leaving pissed off. Regardless if anyone has opinions on which phone I should get the Dare or the Voyager...I'd appreciate it, i'm not sure what i want.

The Stock Market: Bear or Bull

Ok, so this week I decided since the stock market seems to be going on the uptrend, (knock on wood) I felt obligated to talk about it.

Recently I just started a Roth IRA, an individual retirement account, yeah super early I know. Since the market has been at all time lows in the past month, I decided it was time because in my opinion the market is so low how could it get any worse. I know as soon as I say that someone is going to get on here and say of course it can get worse. Well anyways you know what I mean. I'm being optimistic in that I hope by the end of this year or the beginning of 2010 the stock market will be going strong again, and after yesterday's 500 point raise in the DOW, things are looking good.

Anyways, I was listening to the radio this morning and heard that some are arg

uing that the bull market is in and could encourage the market to rise even more day by day. The difference between bear and bull markets are the bull is good that means that the buyers are optimistic and buying, the bear on the other hand is pessimistic and thats what some same we are still in and could be in with the current "recession".

Regardless of what people are saying in my opinion, things can't be any worse now than they were in the depression. I'm a firm believer in the fact that the depression was a one time slip up and we could stop another one from happening after FDR enacted that the market will close before it crashes. Ok I'm done ranting on. No malicious comments please haha.

MARCH MADNESS!!!

Ok so it's that time of the year again, time for the big NCAA basketball tourney. As we all know anything can happen. I wanted to bring to light that in the past 5 years the overall number one see has only won once and that was UNC. This goes to show that even the so called best team in the tourney can be upset. Me personally I hoping my team the Wisconsin Badgers can win atleast one game. They play a tough 5th ranked Florida State. For my bracket though I have to be realistic. I Had Wisconsin beat Florida St, but that was all. One can't be too risky when money is on the line. Regardless of that I'm always willing to root for the underdog and not afraid to put faith in a team that has little to no chance of making it. 

One thing I find truly interesting about this year's tourney is that there are 7 Big Ten teams in the tournament. Michigan, Michigan St, Illinois, Purdue, Minnesota, Ohio St, and of course the Wisconsin Badgers. In my bracket personally I put a lot of faith in this conference whether it will work out or not remains to be seen, but I only have one of the 7 teams dropping out in the first round and that is Minnesota, sorry nothing personal, but their chances against Texas are slim. As of right now my view on this is holding true.

I know this seems like ranting about how everyone should put faith in the underdog, but it pains me to see the same freaking UNC in the tournament every year as a #1 seed. That is ok, but I love to see them get beat because someone else deserves a chance. No off

ense to any UNC fans.

Verizon Wireless Store Mini-Review

A Critical Analysis of the Verizon Wireless Store in Muncie Indiana

On a cold windy morning in Matthews, Indiana I woke up for an exciting day in the metropolis of Muncie. I woke up and rolled out of bed and had no idea that the impending doom of the Verizon store was in the future. I went to my advisor appointment at nine while my mom did a few errands. She picked me up and we then went to Lucina Hall to do a get some information about financial aid. I then figured out that my mom had not yet gone to the Verizon store yet. I let out a sigh of agony because I knew the way the Verizon store worked. A disastrous method of waiting in line for long periods of time and then while your waiting in line you can look at all our latest models. What a marketing method.

After a short drive we arrive at the dreaded Verizon store. Before we get into the store my mom and I were nearly mowed down by an older woman in her big silver Chrysler van, I cursed to myself and we entered the store. My mom tells the lady at the check in desk that she came in a week early and told the girl to put the pictures on her cell phone on to her new picture card which is in her phone. Needless to say the girl didn’t do that the first time so she had to return to do this. I knew that we were going to have to wait forever even if it was a simple fix. The fact that they have a check in desk and a high definition TV with the waiting list on it meant a long wait. My mom said let’s look at phones.

So we begin scanning and touching all the new models of phones. After looking at every model they have we decided to see where we were on the list on the TV. To our amazement we weren’t even on the list! We stormed back up to the front counter and told the woman at the checkout desk. She responded I’m glad you brought that to my attention because sometimes that happens. I’ll get you in after Latoya; apparently that was the person at the top of the list. So after waiting a couple of minutes we finally got to the front desk. My mom ran into the same girl that took care of her last time. She stated that the last time my mom didn’t tell her to do that, but anyways she begun transferring the pictures to the card. My mom had 82 pictures on the phone and the women at the counter stated it would take around an hour to do because she had to do one at a time. So she asked us if we could wait. Meanwhile next to us we could hear an argument ensuing between the clerk and an older lady. They were arguing about her pre-paid payment she was making. I found it hilarious, but ignored the engagement. We told our clerk we would go to lunch, so we went to Buffalo Wild Wings down the road.

After a delicious helping of spicy garlic wings, we returned to the dreaded Verizon store. We bypassed the check in desk. There was no one there anyways to our amazement. We waited by the front desk for a few minutes until we finally told someone we were here to pick up my mom’s phone. The girl that had helped us before came out from the back and handed my mom her phone and told her that the picture card now had all 82 pictures on it. We both let out a sigh of relief. My mom got a discount because she works at the hospital and got a small refund. We both darted out of the store and more or less complained about it the whole way home. This whole trip to the Verizon store sucked because their whole system sucks period. Everything is wait, wait, and look at our new products. To me this is no way to conduct business and has a high rate of disaster due to people being pissed about waiting forever and having difficulties with their expensive phones.