Blog#9

Today I’m planning to write about how two articles are connected together. The first article is “Confessions of a Quit Addict” by Barbara Graham and the second article is “The epidemic of Worry” by David Brooks. The first article by Graham talks about how you can learn from quitting and failure in your life and how those experiences teach you to stay strong in your life. The second article by Brooks was about how the election affects the people and makes them worry. Also, he separates the people into two sections. The first people are educated class and the other people are less educated.  The connection between these two articles is that Brooks’ article says “Today, when you hear affluent people express worry, it’s usually related to the fear of missing out, and the dizziness of freedom.”  Also, Graham says “It had taken thousands of miles and one child for me to understand that the quitting I took for freedom was as much of a trap as the social conventions we were trying to escape.”  Both articles mention about freedom and how people are looking for it.  In Brooks’ article, he talked about how the anxiety of losing the freedom as a main problem and worry for their future. In Graham’s article she was using quitting for searching for freedom, but that was a trap for her. The interesting part in those two articles is that every person is looking for a freedom that connect in what does we wan in his or her life. Also, Brooks was talking about freedom in general, but Graham was talking about freedom for her personal life.

The discussion in class was helpful for me to clarify and understand how to search for connection between two different articles. Also, it helps me to understand exactly what the author trying to saying about it. The group working is a very great idea to share our knowledge about the article, and how to figure out the main point about different articles. I really like to work with group to better understand and share our knowledge. I hope to do this exercise again to help us deep understand the articles. Also, it is helping me connect two articles together.

In sum, this is the main connection I found between those two articles. I think there are many other connections I can find. I would like to know what other student found and wrote about. 

Blog#8

This is my first US presentational election here in the state. I came to the U.S.A three years ago. Also, I don’t have enough experience about how is it or how it is working. It is a little bit complicate for me.  I saw some of the debates and read some of articles. However, the David Brooks article is very interesting. I don’t know that a lot of people have anxiety because of the election. He said in his article “some mental health therapists are reporting that three-quarters of their patients are mentioning significant election-related anxiety. An American Psychological Association study found that more than half of all Americans are very or somewhat stressed by this race.” This is scary me very much because this is going to effect their lives. Also, this is going to effect the way that they are thinking, and effect to their family and children. The relationship between their families becomes more stress in a negative way.

On the other hand, David Brooks mentioned two types of people in this election. The first one is the educated class. He said “educated-class anxiety can often be characterized as a feeling overabundant of options without a core of convicting purpose.” The other type is less educated. He said, “Among the less educated, anxiety flows from and inflames a growing sense that the structures of society are built for the exploitation of people like themselves. Everything is rigged; the rulers are malevolent and corrupt.” I like the way that he separates those two groups. I believe this is exactly what is going on now. 

            Also, he said, “According to the World Health Organization, 18.2 percent of Americans report chronic anxiety while only 3.3 percent of Nigerians do.” I some agree with this. I think the rich people are more thinking about how to earn more money and not to lose it. They keep thinking a lot. This thinking is harmful for them and can cause anxiety. Poor people don’t have anything to loose. They don’t have money to loose it. They don’t think about what is going to happen if they loose their money. As you can see, they live their lives with less worry.

            Finally, I don’t like to watch or talk about politics. It makes me feel stress and worry. I prefer to live my life as a peaceful person. I believe that politics have a lot of lies. You can’t know which is true or wrong. Each candidate wants you to get your attention and vote for him. As the result, I kind have agree what the author said about how this election or even any election make people feel anxiety and worry about their future. I was thinking that I’m the only person who fell worry about the politics.

Blog#7

Today I am going to write about my experience with the Blog assignment. First of all, this is the first time I use blog for writing. This assignment in total is helping me to improve my writing skills and my reading. English is not my first language. I don’t write much in English. Also as a college student here in USA, I have to write a lot of paper and assignments. Professors in most classes are going not to care if my English is not my first language. They need the paper to be well written. That’s why I think this assignment is helping me a lot to improve my writing skills in English. To improve my reading skills, the Blog is helping me to improve it too. I have to read at least five students blogs so my reading in English is improving.

In addition, reading other people writing is a very good. They are my classmates. When I read their ideas, I will understand them better and better. This will have a good communication between us. Also, reading and writing comments to each other’s is very nice. We can interact with each other more. Sometime in the comments we write about what we really like or asking about something. I like when people comments to my blog. That means they care and they like my ideas. Moreover, we have to write a small summary about what we read. In this summary, we have to write the name of the student and short summary. I believe this is helping me a lot to summarize what I read. I have to improve my self in summarizing from a reading. In college, I need this skill. It is going to help me a lot in future.

There couple of people who I usually enjoy reading their blogs. Alondra is one of them. I like how she is writing. Also, I like the way that she is thinking. She writes what she thinks with an easy way to understand here. I really recommend each of you to read here blog. Rashael is one of the people who I really enjoy read her blogs. She is an easygoing person even with her writing. I like the way she writes. Also, I like to read Maggie blog. She writes with her heart. When you read here blog, you will understand her better.

Finally, I would like to thank Mr. Still to help me improve my writing skills.

Blog#6

This show is about meeting with the person who have a dirty jobs show. I did research about his show. I like some of it. I couldn’t exactly understand his view about the college. Sometimes he is with going to college but sometime he said no. He said that he is not anti-college He said there are about 3 millions jobs on the field and ready to hire people. This number is a lot. It means there are a lot of people can work. The problem is this work is a dirty job. Also, he said about the picture that he saw “work smart not hard. This picture changed his future. He now has a picture saying work smart and hard. In addition, he said that health and fitness is more important that education. I totally agree about this. Health is very important than anything. If you are unhealthy and you are in college this is not a good thing. He said that the way to create or develop a strong work ethnic is to be suspicious that anything is easy. Finally he stopped his show and now he is looking around.

For me, I’m not 100% agree with him. I agree about some of his points. One of them that to choose something that you are really enjoy doing it because if you are donning work you don’t like, you will not enjoy doing it. However, college is important. We need people with education. Education is very good for the people future. With education any country will go up and up. Things I don’t like when he said if you don’t have money don’t go to college. There are a lot of ways to have money. You can look and apply for finical aid such as grants or scholarship or your parents can help you go to college. College is not easy. It cost a lot of time and money but it has a lot of good benefits in the future. Also, I like when he said that the technology is not a problem. He is right technology should help us. He said people were afraid of TV will displace book but it is not displace. This is true. On the other hand, I like when Nick said that in Europe they do test for kids on 12 years old. If he or she not fit in college, they send him or her to special school like auto maintenance.

Finally, we have a very famous quote in Arabic said ” Education can raise a house without any base”.

Blog#5

The world is changing very quickly. Now I can see the world as one city. Technology also develops very quickly. Phones now are smartphones. It is not just for calling or texting. We can do many things with it. You can use it in a good way or bad way. It is deepened on you. For myself I like to use smartphones for many reasons. First thing is to communicate with my family with cheap way. My parents live in Saudi Arabia. It is very far away from here. I need to call them and check to them. I usually use facetime to call them and chat with them. Also, I use my phone to study. I use application on my iphone to study the vocabulary words in this course. It is very easy and nice way to study. However, some time phones can be bad for us. Sometime when I study and I receive a txt from my friend or a new photo she put in her Instegram I start to look in it and spend a lot of time in it so, phones can be used in both good and bad way. The good person has to use it for a good way.   

In the article he said about every 4.3 minutes we check our phones. It is very dangerous to use the phone like this. Actually sometime when I wake up the first thing I do is check my phone. I don’t like to do it. I think I have to not use the phone like that. Also, someday when I visit my friends. It is good to only talk without phones because some friends are busy with the phones. We meet to have fun together not to look for phone. Also, sometime in class some student use phone. This is not a good way to use the phone. Phone can get us busy and waste our time.

Also, my child has an ipad. My husband and I decided to buy the ipad to develop his thinking and to know how to deal with technology. We read a lot that ipad can be bad for children. We only give him the ipad in the weekend for only two or three hours. We think this is a good way for him and us.

 Finally, it is very good to use the phone is a good way. I hope this technology will us make our life easy.

Blog#4

Today I’m going to talk about my trip to San Antonio. San Antonio is one of the largest cities in Texas. It is located at the east side of Bryan and College Station area. It is about two and half our drive. San Antonio is the seventh-most populated city in the United States.

I went there with my family. It is not the first time I visited San Antonio but it is the first time with my parents. This was the first time for them to visit San Antonio.

 We arrived Friday afternoon. After checking in the hotel. We went to the river walk. It is the most beautiful place in San Antonio. It is located at the downtown. We walked around and enjoyed the view at the night there. Then, we eat at one of the restaurants there. After we finished eating we got a ride on the river by the boat. It was amazing especially how they explained the history of the town. At that time, the city was celebrating the Independence Day of Mexico. There were a lot of dancing and singing around the river. We really like it especially my son Omar. He was trying to dance with them. Most of the dances were hard for him. The most interesting thing in the dance was the dancers were from 4 years old to older adults. 

Next day, we went to the Sea World. It was a very sunny and hot day. We saw a lot of shows there. I really liked the Azul show. It was about dolphins. Also, we saw the penguins. They were so cute and with a lot of energy. They were moving a lot. After that, we went to our hotel and change our clothes. Then, we went to the river walk again and eat our dinner there.   

Finally on Sunday, we checked out from the hotel in the morning. We ate our breakfast at the ihop restaurant. I like they breakfast. We went back home.

My partners really liked San Antonio. My father said that the San Antonio has a lot of European design. My mom likes how San Antonio is quite and good place to live in. My son Omar likes the Sea World especially the penguins. My husband likes the river-walk. For me, I like the river walk because it makes me feel relax and when I walk there I really enjoy the view and food there.     

Today is my first major exam in READ 0304. My expectation was the exam include some multiple chooses and true and false questions. Also, I was thinking that we will have 6 to 10 vocabulary and definitions. I was expected to have a question from one of the articles that we had in class and one to three questions about the logical and illogical inferences. In addition, one long paragraph with questions about the fact and opinion and the figurative language. On the other hand, some questions from the exam meet my expectations specially the logical and illogical inference. Also, the exam meets my expectations in the fact and opinion question. I prepared for the exam by writing all the vocabulary with their definitions and study them every day. Then, I did a lot of practices about the logical and illogical inferences from the book. This helped me a lot. Also, I did go to Mr. Still office and speak him about the exam. My beneficial process was the study of the vocabulary and the practices. I was scary a little bit when I saw the full short answer in the moment, but when I started to read it again I felt not bad. The most difficult part in the exam was the last question in the exam. It took me a lot of time to find the three support answers.

For future exams I’m planning to study the vocabulary every day not only the day before the exam. In addition, I am going to read more articles and news from the internet to help me develop my reading skills. I know this is not easy but I will try hard to do it. Finally, I hope to have a good grad to pass this course specially we just only have three major exams before the final.

We usually use words every day. We use it as our way of communication between each other. I am now using my words to explain how the words are important in our lives. Everyone in this world is using words to explain what they need. For example, in college life especially in the class rooms the instructor uses words to teach his students. In the same time, the student can ask the instructor if he missunderstands and he can discuss to better understand his course by using words. As you can see without words the student cannot learn anything and the instructors cannot deliver the main point of his course. Another main way of using word to communicate is that the words can connect between friends. For instants, every weekends I am having fun with my friends especially after tough week. We usually meet in one of our friend’s apartment. We are using words to have fun and enjoy our day.

The communication is a great thing in our words, but beside that the words sometime become the most hurt thing for some people. It can be sometimes more painful then injury from knives. Some people are using words to destroy or stop you to achieve your goals. In the all over the world we have the positive and negative people. The positive person always encourages and support you to reach your dreams. On the other hand, the negative person always trying to break your good ideas and makes you feel you cannot understand or you cannot work or do anything. Both of them are only using words. For example, I met with some of those negative people and they are trying to destroy me from studying in the U.S. They always saying that I cannot even understand a new language or I’ll come back to my country without my goals or I’ll not stay in the U.S. more than two months or they were saying I’ll not finish anything because I have son, but I really thank those people because of what they did say to me I’m now here and into my dreams and my goals.  

One quotes on the Harvard library said that” The pain of study is temporary, the pain of not study is life-long”. This quotes are one of my favorite I always put it beside my eye when I really need to use it in my hard days. This also words, but always remember the positive words to keeps you move forward.

Sep.14, 2016

Hello everyone! My name is Sarah Alyousef. I’m from Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia is a country in Asia and in the heart of the Middle East. Jeddah is located at the west side of Saudi Arabia. I’m here with my small family my husband Anas and my son Omar. I have been married for almost five years. We get married in the same city that we live in. He is now a PHD student in Texas A&M University. My son Omar is a three years old. He is a sweetest little boy. I have four siblings 3 brothers and one sister. I am in the middle. I studied for one year in king Abdul-Aziz University in Jeddah then I have to drop that year because we decided to come to the U.S.A. to finish our high education here. This is my first semester here in Blinn College. It is not easy to be a college student especially if you have another responsibilities. Also, It might be difficult especially if you are an International student and this new style of education with a new language. My major for now is Chemistry. I am planning to finish my two years here in Blinn and get a good GPA. After that, I’ll transfer to Texas A&M University to study nutrition. I would like to get my master degree in this major too. My husband and me have a plan to graduate in the same day. I choose to study nutrition because I think this will help me to be healthy in my life and get a good job in the future. My hobbies it is depend on my mode. But, the most time I spent my free time by searching for a new technique and a new ways for learning make up.  Activities that I do it recently I trying to spent my free time to teach my son how to ride his bicycle.