I'm almost there...

We did peer editing yesterday and I feel like I got some really good comments on my paper. It gave me a more ideas for making my paper better and changing it to make more sense. I have to really put a lot of work into my final copy of the final paper!

Tomorrow is our last day of class. It seems like this semester flew by. I'm glad that we can finally be done with our blogging! It is so hard to remember to do it every week.

Second Draft

Our second draft is due tomorrow and I just finished reworking it for the peer editing. I'm really glad that class time is set aside for our peers to edit our papers because it gives me good ideas and they really put a lot into editing my papers! Yay. Even though I just finished my second draft, I know that I still have a lot of work to do on this paper to make it a wonderful FINAL PAPER! Like I said before.. this paper is going to push me to get a better grade if I do good on it!! I like my topic and I have a vested interest in it, so hopefully I can show that throughout my paper!

The Last Week!

This is my last week of my first year of college. :] It sure has been a journey. I am hoping that I can finish out this semester in a good way. I have a lot of studying and paper writing to do still & I'm hoping that everything turns out in a positive way. I have to work on my second draft of our final paper still. I have my sociology final next Monday and my math final due next Tuesday, along with our final paper being due on that day. This week and next weekend, I am dedicating to school & ONLY school. I just can't wait for next Tuesday to be over!! :]

FINALLY!

I finally presented my photo essay today and received my self reflection back. I thought that I would never get a chance to present since class is over in a week. I did though, and I did well on it too! Thank goodness! I'm glad that I've improved as the semester has gone on. Not once have I gotten a worse grade than the paper before. It makes me feel accomplished when I improve on every paper. I really like writing and I would really like to be a journalist but I know that I'm not THAT good. Oh well, I'll just stick with marketing or something like that!

Peer Editing

Even though I thought that my first rough draft was good, I realized that I still have a lot of work to do on it. After reading of it and reading the comments left by my peers I thought about a lot of new things that I should do to rework the paper. I need to put more of my opinion into the paper and put more feeling into it. I know that I can make my paper much better. Our second rough draft is due a week from today so I should get working on that so I can make it much better than this copy.

First Draft

Our first draft of our final paper is due tomorrow. I have completed it and I feel that I have a good thesis and that it is going in the right direction. Of course I have a ton of work to put into it still, but I hope that it will eventually turn out really good. This paper is kind of a make or break for my grade so I need to push myself to continue to edit and rework it to make it GREAT! :]

Greek Week

Greek week starts on Monday. No matter what happens, I know that my sisters will always be there for me! I'm pretty excited though. It should be really fun. I've heard how close it brings everyone together. I haven't been that close with everyone, so this should be good for us. I'm competing in a few events so hopefully I will do good for my sorority! :]

EEK!

I feel like I'm never home anymore. It is really hard to get everything done that I need to when I am barely home. Although I'm not home much, I am still doing okay in my classes. I am pushing myself to do the best I can do because I know how important it is to do good in my classes right now. I am hoping that the semester still turns out alright. I know I have a couple weeks still, but I'm starting to freak out about finals. I should probably start organizing everything and start studying so that I don't have to cram at the last minute!

*Second Blog Draft*

For this paper, I am writing about the Northville School district and the problems with the boundaries. I am hoping to make my thesis... The Northville School district has many problems with the way they distribute students to the different elementary and middle schools. I have to work on that and put it into my paper better but hopefully it will all come together good.

As for my sources.. I plan to interview a few different parents around the area on their opinions on the change in boundaries. I was thinking about possibly interviewing some of the middle school kids that the boundary change affects. Then I plan on using the school district websites. Hopefully if I can get to someone, I would like to interview someone at the school board office, although they are probably dealing with a lot of questions right now. I have to figure out what kind of books I am going to be able to use & some more credible on-line sources!

Real Estate

On occasion that I have driven through neighborhoods other than my own, I have found that many of the older neighborhoods have many homes for sale. Since I live in a brand new subdivision, I see the number of lots being sold and homes being built on the land. It seems that many older homes stay for sale for long periods of time while the new homes are being built like crazy. As I drove through the older subdivision I found numerous houses for sale within a couple blocks of each other.

Not only did this house have a for sale sign, the owners decided to rent the home as well.

The house that this for sale sign is located at has been for sale for about a year.

Two houses next to each other were both for sale.

An indoor pool at this house has not helped with selling the actual home.

Although hard to see, there are three for sale signs on one block at which none of the homes have been sold yet.

The beautiful model home leads people to want to purchase a home in this subdivision.

Five houses are currently under construction on this street.

Even some of the newer homes are for sale. Makes me wonder if the owners are moving on to even bigger and better homes.

As the sign says, new home sites continue to be released since so many people are so interested in building new homes.

Final Paper times 2!

While we were sitting in class today I was listening to what everyone had to say about their final paper. I got to thinking about what my topic and if it was really good. Then I remembered something big that has actually been going on in my city lately (Northville). My parents and the people that I babysit for have been talking about the re-zoning of the elementary and middle schools. I guess new boundaries have been drawn up and children have been switched to different schools, in some cases schools farther away from their homes.

This change affects me in a few ways. Although I did not attend Northville Schools and I am no longer in the K-12 grades, I have sisters and kids I babysit who are. The kids I babysit for have to change schools while all of their friends they have only known are staying at the same school. On the other hand, my sisters are all going to a school about fifteen minutes away from our house, while there is an elementary school one minute from our house. It seems like the re-zoning did not work out how it should have. Rather, the boundaries are a little messed up!

This topic seems to be very interesting. I know there are a lot of people bothered by this change and it would be worthwhile to put their thoughts into this paper. I feel a lot more strongly about this topic rather than the first one I picked. Hopefully my intuition was right and will help me to succeed on this paper! I have a lot of research and background to find about this topic and why the change had to occur in the first place. I have a feeling that the change occurred due to my first topic, because there are so many new homes being built in Northville. Maybe I could put the two topics together, or just stick with the Northville School zoning.

Final Paper

For our final paper in Composition 106 I have decided to write about the housing market in Michigan. About a year ago, my family put our house up for sale and all I heard about every day was how hard it was to sell homes at that time. Little did I know that the problems are still occurring. The housing market in Michigan may be a problem to those people who desperately need the money from selling their home.

It seems that part of the problem with selling homes has to do with the fact that many new subdivisions have gone up recently. It seems that although people are selling their homes they are not buying other people's homes, instead they are building their own home. My family decided to build a new home and in the time we have lived in our subdivision, many new families have decided to do the same thing.

It seems that the housing market is a problem for many different people throughout Michigan. This problem seems to cause people many problems. It would be interesting to find the source of these problems. Finding out more about this topic may be exciting and interesting. I plan to interview a real estate agent and I am sure that I will be able to find plenty of information online and hopefully in books!

Schooooool

School has been pretty stressful lately. Since the end of the semester is coming to a close soon, teachers sure are making the most of it. Being in apart of an organization at school has put the toll on me as well, since there is always something to do for it. I enjoy being busy, it helps to make sure things get accomplished but at the same time, it feels like there is not time to sit down and relax, I am always on the run! Soon enough though, it will be summer and it'll be time for more classes! Haha! Oh well, the more classes I get accomplished now, the less amount of school I have to go through! I just have to buckle down and get everything done as early as possible so I am not stressed out at the last minute!

Fixing My Photo Essay

I think I might but a little bit of a different spin on my photo essay. I will be keeping some of the pictures that I have already taken but add to them. I think it would be interesting to show the number of new homes being built compared to the number of older homes for sale, which are not selling right now. I think this is a problem and if it continues it seems like all of the older homes would need to be torn down to accommodate for land to build newer homes. I could use this topic for my final paper as well. I think that I will have an easier time & have my photo essay turn out better while taking these pictures and putting it together!

I also got some great suggestions from my classmates. I need to take into account what they had to say about my blog and make it much better. I hope that this will help me out in the end with the final copy of it.

Hopefully everything will work out great with this photo essay!!

Photo Essay Rough Draft

New construction causes many trees to be torn down and leaves open areas for months at a time.







Looking into my backyard, a large area of trees can be seen which were before part of a larger forest.











Numerous homes are being sold which causes more trees to be torn down due to the desire of new homes.











Perfect lines were made to make the property lines when the trees were cut down.

















Small sections of trees were left inbetween neighborhoods.












A small section of trees was left inbetween a house and an empty lot.














Large lots sit for months at a time without trees on them.














More open spaces sit in developing neighborhoods.

Graffiti Throughout Detroit

Graffiti takes all different forms. It can be about an issue someone is concerned with or about a person they disagree with or even just someone's tag. People like to put their feeling into the things they do but it might not always be the best idea. Sometimes graffiti is inappropriate for everyone to see and it might not be necessary for everyone either.

This picture clearly written "METH" is talking about a drug.
I don't think that it is necessary for someone to write about a drug on a wall of a building. What is the point of that? What good is it doing the community? It isn't doing the community any good, it is just letting people see this and read the word. For people that do not know about drugs, they may become aware of it through this. They could go home and look this up on the internet and gain information that they didn't necessarily need to know.



In this picture, it looks as though this might have once been or could possibly still be a train station or just the tracks for the train. When the train goes by this wall the people aboard see all of this graffiti all over the walls which may turn them off about the area they are entering. They may think that there are people who don't like the neighborhood enough to keep it nice. The trash all over the ground kind of adds to the bad look of the area.

Picture Essay

I recently moved to a new neighborhood. New houses are still being built in our neighborhood all around my house. There are other neighborhoods around me as well that are growing larger. A strip mall is being built close to my house as well. Pretty much, my area is growing and the new additions of buildings are helping with this change. I was thinking that I would use this as my topic for the paper. I thought it would be interesting to take pictures of the construction throughout my neighborhood and possibly other neighborhoods as well. It seems like it would be interesting. I hope it is would be good enough!!

Graffiti

In the article, Graffiti, the author describes a tunnel in which he or she enjoyed running through as a child. This tunnel had all different kinds of graffiti inside it, ranging from so & so loves so & so, to hateful things. Graffiti can be found all over big cities & little cities. Driving through the big cities, graffiti can be found on buildings or in alleys. When driving on the freeway I have often seen graffiti on bridges. Most of this graffiti is about so & so loving each other.

I find graffiti intriguing. It must take a lot of skill to be able to create such original pieces of work. Although graffiti is illegal, I think that the people who have made the art needs to be encouraged to find other ways to display their talent. It may be better for them to have a designated area, such as a building created for inside graffiti, and that way they are not defacing the buildings around the area.

As stated in the article, some people may use graffiti as a way to express how they feel about a subject. There are often pieces of graffiti pointing one someones hatred toward a specific topic, such as Jews in the article. The author of the graffiti wanted to let people know how he or she feels about the topic of Jews.

Yes, graffiti exists, and I don't think that it will ever go away. People use it as a way to express themselves and it may help some people with pain they are suffering from. Detroit has graffiti, as do mostly every big city in the country and possibly the world.

Xochimilco

In writing my final copy of the restaurant review, I feel that I have made some very good progress from the beginning when I started with my rough draft. I like the topic of this paper and it was very exciting to go to the restaurant and "review" it. I had been to Xochimilco about two years ago and it was fun to go back because I knew that it was the restaurant I wanted to write about. It has a good atmosphere and very good food. I will be going back to the restaurant sometime in the future to enjoy the food. I should get back to finishing my paper now. =] !!

too much publicity?

I am not sure if the attention that murder cases is good or not. It kind of seems like there is so much drama with everything, especially this Tara Grant case. It is important for people to know about the things happening in their area, but to know every detail? Is it really that important? I am not sure, I am not the one writing the article and usually not the one reading the articles either. I know that people find it interesting and look forward to reading the newest drama happening in their area, but to invade someones privacy and gossip about what has happened, it hurts people. Those members of the families involved in the cases may turn their computer on and see an article about that person and it may not be the most appropriate thing for them to read while grieving. I think that news writers need to watch how they portray the information they have received. I don't think it is necessary to have every single detail put on the Internet and broad casted to the entire world. It may be important to tell some facts of the case but things need to be held back.