1. One issue that I am extremely interested in is the topic of overpopulation. This Earth can't handle an infinite amount of people, and at some point, the number of people on the planet needs to be capped. What needs to be done to stop this, and can we even stop it?

2. With the advancement of technology, there comes new hindrances. Another issue that is extremely downplayed but also an important controversial topic is the idea of cyber bullying. The internet is a scary place at times, and people are participating in activities that target a certain individual or group, sometimes anonymously. This has resulted in many cases of depression and suicides. What needs to be done to stop this? What laws are currently enforced?

edittt!

The merit-based pay system would be a rewards system, and there are many different ways of constructing such a system. In California, there is a “Mentor Teacher Program” that gives out an extra four thousand dollars per year to any teacher whospends forty percent of their time to further developing teaching strategies and helping other teachers. In Florida, a voluntary merit-based plan involves teachers holing master’s degrees, must also have at least four years of previous teaching experience. They must then pass an exam based on the subject they teach, and then must pass an evaluation given by another teacher, principal, and subject specialist.

Although there hasn't been any system that has been legitimately enacted, many states are experimenting with the idea of giving teachers some sort of bonus in order to create a rewards system. There are many different ways that school districts have been going about the construction of such a procedure. In California, there is a “Mentor Teacher Program” that delves out an extra four thousand dollars per year teachers. In order to be eligible for this bonus, teachers must commit at least forty percent of their time to assisting fellow teachers. This includes further developing curriculums and lesson plans. In Florida, a voluntary merit-based plan involves teachers who, aside from already holding master’s degrees, must also have at least four years of previous teaching experience in order to be considered for the program. They must then pass an exam based on the subject they teach and pass an evaluation given by three other observers: the principal, a fellow teacher, and a specialist in the subject. These school districts have been receiving extremely positive feedback from students, parents, and other community members.

The Cost of Teaching

1. A part of this article, the main part which I ocused on, covers the topic of experiments being conducted for teachers for merit-based pay. They say that "it is too early to tell if the merit pay plans enacted in the past will avoid the problems of the forerunners," but they're still trying to figure it out. Utah has passed a law which gives money to school districts, allowing them to set up their own merit pay system. A program in California gives mentor teachers $4,000 extra each year. In Florida, a "career ladder" plan was enacted. There would be a test on subject matter that teachers needed to pass, the teacher would need to receieve a superior performance evaluation by an observation team, hold a master's degree, and have four years of teahing experience.
2. The author's argument is constructed by using a lot of information from state legislatures. Many states have given school districts money in order to see what the outcome would be from merit-based pay. It is too early to determine the effects.
3. The author doesn't have a definitive argument in this section of the article. However, they include opinions from teacher's unions and school officials who have a positive outlook on merit-based pay, so it would seem that this article is in support of the movement. They just use the information provided from state legislatures to inform the audience so that they can make a decision on whether or not this will be a positive change.
4. I can use a lot of this information given, especially the information about all of the state legislatures and the laws being passed. Perhaps I can find another article that will discuss the outcome of these experiements. I will cite many of the statistcs on the money given to school districts and the teachers. One quote is from a member of the teacher's union: "School Superintendent Jay Robinson, who designed the program, called it “a significant risk,” but for a worthy purpose. He said it is intended to remove the possibility that a student will be assigned to a mediocre or poor teacher. “This plan, if properly implemented in the long run, will ensure that all teachers are outstanding,” said Robinson."

Four Loko, Marijuana, and Soda.

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2013261661_cwustudents27m.html

Four Loko is an extremely popular alcoholic drink that also constitutes as an energy drink. It has 12% alcohol and has been referred to as a "blackout in a can." The FDA is working hard in order to decide whether the drink is unsafe.
I personally believe that Four Loko should be taken off the shelves. The caffeine and sugar masks the alcohol so that the consumer drinks more and isn't aware of its effects.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/28/opinion/28kristof.html?_r=1&src=me&ref=general

People have been fighting for the legality of marijuana for decades. The cost to enforce the law on marijuana is more expensive than the money spent if it were legalized. Although a law's ineffectiveness is not enough reason to revoke a law, making marijuana illegal was a complete fail. People everywhere still use it.
Marijuana should be legalized nationwide.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/29/nyregion/29fat.html?bl

Last year, New York's Heal Department released a campaign about how drinking soda can make you ten pounds fatter every year. This ad was put together in the middle of the great debate over taxing sodas.
Taxing sodas is ridiculous. I hardly drink it, but I should have the freedom to drink whatever kind of unhealthy food I want. I know obesity is a huge problem in this country, but, even though it seems insensitive, it's their own fault. This issue can be compared to the court case where the two obese girls sued McDonald's for "making them fat." Obesity is an issue, and we do need to pay taxes, but there are other ways of fixing both of these problems.

The Metal Vs. the Plastic.

Plastic ID cards are something that we, as a society, have come to familiar terms with. However, what about the good old fashioned metal key?

The plastic cards that we use every day, (ID, credit, license), serve as modern representations of one's personal identity. Although easily breakable, they are also easily replaceable. All of us have little cracks and marks on our cards from the wear and tear we experience in our daily adventures. The simplicity of the thin plastic and the ease of taking it out of our wallets allow us to easily transport them to others. We pass them to cashiers, police officers, security personnel, every single day. We share them with people in order to gain access to different places and situations.

A metal key is a timeless symbol of a piece of property. For hundreds of years, it has represented the most prestigious kind of ownership-the ownership of a home. Everyone looks forward to the day that they pay off their home and when the house is finally theirs. A key is far more symbolic than a plastic ID card. Metal keys are incredibly strong in their inability to break. They don't scratch or snap in half, and we can all admit to enjoying the clinking sound we hear when we swing our key rings around. The intricate detail and cutouts of the blade distinguish one key from another.

Showers at Penn State: Abominable or Convenient?

For all of us living in East Halls at Penn State, we know the bathrooms all too well. We come from homes with tile floors, long countertops, and clean toilets in our bathrooms. When we think of the showers here, we are reminded how abominable they are, only because we are comparing them to our showers at home. However, when we consider them in the category of college showers, rather than any shower at all, we may have a newfound respect for them.

Back at home, how many times have I come close to falling and breaking my neck? At school, these showers are not slippery in the slightest. Granted, I wear flip-flops every time I use them, but I have yet to even slide on the floor. At home, the porcelain bathtub is not very forgiving when I’m not careful where I’m moving, but here, the rough floor guarantees that I’m not falling down anywhere.

I’ve heard complaints of water pressure, but I have never had a problem with it. All we need is to be able to rinse out our hair in a convenient amount of time, and the pressure here allows me to do it. Before I came here, I made up my mind that I wasn’t going to get much more pressure than a slow drip, so I’m pretty content with where it is now. I actually can't even tell a difference between home and school.

Even though I rarely use “scalding hot” water, I like having a wide range of options when it comes to the water temperature. When I arrived here, it was frustrating that I could not turn the knob all the way to the left, reach an intense heat, and then adjust to a cooler temperature. It took me a while to realize that I didn’t need an extremely hot shower in order to be comfortable, and I allowed myself to get used to it. I have heard so many horror stories of students taking freezing showers in the dead winter, and I consider us very lucky.

Ahhh, the most important part: cleanliness. I was used to sharing a bathroom with my sisters; two people that I have been living with my whole life. I knew that I was now going to have to share a bathroom with twenty-something other girls, but it never really hit me until I actually saw the bathroom. These buildings aren’t brand new, and they’ve been used by thousands of people-how clean were we really expecting them to be? There’s waterproof spackle on the walls, filling up holes which were there for some unknown reason. The floor is discolored and disgusting, but that’s understandable. We wear flip-flops and we don't need to touch any part of the shower except for the knob and the door. We're fine.

The showers make a persistent sound while they are in use. In the beginning, I was annoyed that a high-pitched squeaking would be present the whole time the faucet was turned, but I have since gotten used to it. Although it is a pest, it does help wake me up when I wasn’t that keen on getting out of bed in the morning.

The showers here obviously aren’t fantastic, and they need some work. However, we don’t need extremely hot temperatures and a completely sanitary shower. We just need to be able to get in and out in a practical amount of time. If anything, these showers motivate us to get out quickly. It’s college, and while we can complain, we should probably look at the facts and recognize that these showers are not nearly as bad as we make them out to be.

Britney Spears is on Glee and it's Quite Distracting

1. Opening Scene
-I will start with the scene I described in my last blog, with the kids outside East Halls smoking hookah together.
-Outside of East Halls, six people are smoking hookah that is laced with marijuana. There are seven guys and girls, all laughing together and enjoying the cool night. They pass around the four pipes, sharing with one another. I hear them talking about how it is laced with tobacco to cover up the smell of pot. From what I can hear, it sounds like the mixture tastes like tobacco but works at getting you high like marijuana. A girl complains about the smoke tasting like a cigarette instead of like weed. One guy starts up about having to clean out the hookah, and they all laugh. The group argues over what is better: smoking out of a hookah or smoking out of a bong. Apparently the weed burns too fast in a hookah for their liking. Someone else begins to groan about how they would rather have their money be used for smoking out of a pipe or a bong rather than out of a hookah.
2. Illustrative quote that will conclude your scene
-I may use the quote from my friend where she says, "We put a fan in each window and a towel at the bottom of the door and a plastic bag over the smoke detector." This could describe how easy smoking marijuana could potentially be and may be used to grab the audience's attention.
3. Nut Graph: This is where you have to tell me what you are writing about, why it's interesting, and why I should care.
-I am writing about usage of marijuana among students at Penn State. I personally find it extremely risky and nerve-racking, so I find it interesting how people can do it so easily and have such a carefree attitude about it.
4. Background: Give your issue/subject context. Let me know how this issue started.
-I will discuss, in a general way, marijuana's prevalence among first year college students by using some research statistics that I have found online.
-I will list several possible reasons for why pot use is popular among college students.
^Kim, a first year student who lives in my building, says “pot is used widely among first year students at Penn State. It’s surprising to me that it’s used not only on weekends, but also on weeknights to alleviate the stress associated with school.”
^Interview students and ask why they think people smoke so much while away at school (no parents, stress...). Did they smoke this much at home?
^Do online research about why students smoke while away from home.
5. Supporting Information 1: Seniors/friends of RAs
-"The most common place for students to smoke would be outside at night. But, usually they want to smoke inside, and the most common place to smoke inside would be the stairwells because the whole floor doesn't end up smelling like pot."
-"If an RA smells marijuana on the floor, they will knock on the door that they suspect and are trained to immediately look and see if the smoke detector is covered by a bowl. Students can get written up for tampering with the smoke detector since it is a fire hazard." (But what are the consequences of getting written up?)
-One particular RA says that this is her third semester as a Residence Assistant and she has never caught any freshmen smoking in their dorms.
*These quotes demonstrate how the university is aware that students smoke in their dorms and the ways they try and get around being caught.
6. Supporting Information 2:
-I have an interview with Penn State University Police and I am going to ask the following questions:
1. How prevalent is marijuana use at Penn State?
2. How many people have been caught smoking so far this semester? How often are students getting busted? Are younger students or are older students more prone to getting caught?
3. How do you catch these students? Where do you find them? How often do you get calls about students smoking marijuana in the dorms (rooms, stairwells...)?
4. What are the consequences if you find a student smoking marijuana?
7. Supporting Information 3: quotes? data? anecdote? what is your point and how does it relate to the issue?
-Examples of students smoking at school:
^My friend, Simon, age 18, told me that he saw a circle of guys outside East Halls, all smoking cigarettes. After passing them, he smelled marijuana and realized that as they were all holding their cigarettes, they passed a joint around. People do it out in the open.
^My observation of people smoking in their dorm room.
-What techniques are most convenient/safe to smoke at school.
8. Conclusion: Wrap-up your story. What would you like your audience to consider as a result of reading this piece? What relevant future issue could you point to?
-As a result of reading this piece, I would like my audience to be more observant about what they see on campus. Before I arrived on campus, I feel as though I was naive and didn't think that anyone would be outrageous enough to smoke. Maybe administration will read the report and think that they need to crack down on marijuana use among students, now that they know how people are getting around the rules. Maybe RAs will check in more with their students.

Pot at Penn State

How do students get around smoking marijuana at Penn State?
Outside of East Halls, six people are smoking hookah that is laced with marijuana. There are seven guys and girls, all laughing together and enjoying the cool night. They pass around the four pipes, sharing with one another. I hear them talking about how it is laced with tobacco to cover up the smell of pot. From what I can hear, it sounds like the mixture tastes like tobacco but works at getting you high like marijuana. A girl complains about the smoke tasting like a cigarette instead of like weed. One guy starts up about having to clean out the hookah, and they all laugh. The group argues over what is better: smoking out of a hookah or smoking out of a bong. Apparently the weed burns too fast in a hookah for their liking. Someone else begins to groan about how they would rather have their money be used for smoking out of a pipe or a bong rather than out of a hookah. On the seventh floor of my dorm, laughter is heard from a room down the hall, obviously filled with many people. Voices of both men and women are present, and one can see that towels are stuffed under the door. The reason? Marijuana.
My good friend Kaitlin, a freshman from West, says that when she smokes marijuana in her room she uses either a hookah or her friend’s bong. They are all engineers so they get together and do homework and then smoke weed at around 1am. She says, “We put a fan in each window and a towel at the bottom of the door and a plastic bag over the smoke detector.” Kim, a first year student who lives in my building, says “pot is used widely among first year students at Penn State. It’s surprising to me that it’s used not only on weekends, but also on weeknights to alleviate the stress associated with school.” Curtis, also a freshman, says that “I came from a high school where weed us is equal with alcohol use,
so here it's not as big of a deal. It's definitely there for those who want it, they just have to seek it out and do a bit of looking and they can have access or find other people to smoke with. I don't really think it's a huge problem as other places probably. Alcohol’s the main choice of this place, and probably will be. As far as it happening on my floor...a few rooms do and it has caused a smell that extends down the hall.”
After doing some research online, I have found that there have been many occurrences of reported marijuana use by Penn State students. It has led me to believe that I should investigate this further and I should travel to the State College Police Department and obtain some statistics regarding weed at Penn State. Kim’s quote gave me the idea of investigating why students at Penn State feel that it is necessary to smoke. Are they stressed out? Are they hoping to gain social approval by doing it? What harder majors more likely to use marijuana?
Through my research, I have discovered that Penn State has a Marijuana Intervention Program. Here, students who have been found in possession of marijuana are mandated to attend sessions with a staff member. Students who have not been convicted of marijuana use but who wish to get help may check themselves in for a self-referral at this program (http://studentaffairs.psu.edu/health/mip/). A friend, Simon, age 18, told me that he saw a circle of guys outside East Halls, all smoking cigarettes. After passing them, he smelled marijuana and realized that as they were all holding their cigarettes, they passed a joint around. People do it out in the open. A site dedicated to marijuana addiction states that “A yearly survey of students in grades 8 through 12 shows that 23 percent of 8th-graders have tried marijuana at least once. By 10th grade, 21 percent are "current" users (that is, used within the past month). Among 12th-graders, nearly 50 percent have tried marijuana/hash at least once and about 24 percent were current users. Other researchers have found that use of marijuana and other drugs usually peaks in the late teens and early twenties, then declines in later years.” (http://www.marijuana-addiction.info/Marijuana_Statistics.htm). This shows the onset of weed usage and how most college students are very experienced by the time they arrive for their first year away at school. As far as legalizing marijuana, some people say that the drug is of no harm to people. One website states that “the overwhelming majority of those charged with marijuana violations in 2000– 646,042 Americans (88 %) — were for simple possession. The remaining 12% (88,456 Americans) were for “sale/manufacture”, an FBI category which includes marijuana grown for personal use or purely medical purposes. These new FBI statistics indicate that one marijuana smoker is arrested every 45 seconds in America. Taken together, the total number of marijuana arrests for 2000 far exceeded the combined number of arrests for violent crimes, including murder, manslaughter, forcible rape, robbery and aggravated assault” (http://legalizationofmarijuana.com/). More research will help me to incorporate statistics into my investigative report.

"The Whole World Is Drinking"

I really enjoyed this radio show. I found it interesting when they were talking about drinking as a kind of culture at Penn State-I have never thought about it that way. Mark Johnson says, "It's just part of that tradition." It is a part of the school spirit, a part of bringing together 110,000 different people. It's interesting, to say the least. The host, Ira Glass, definitely makes sure that the audience will understand what the report is about. The radio show starts out describing a downtown college scene, then later mentions that the college is Penn State University. Glass gives a background on how the university was recently named Princeton Review's #1 party school, and includes comments by Graham Spanier, the president. Glass makes it obvious that he wants to figure out what makes a party school a true party school. Why Penn State? What is it like there? He provides interesting stories to capture the college social scene, grabbing in his audience with stories and quotes as he discusses it. An alumnus, Mark Johnson, mentions that if alcohol were banned from tailgates, many alumni would be up in arms. These people have donated millions of dollars to the school and should be able to drink at the football games. He says, “That’s why we sell 110,000 tickets to the football games.” It is kind of sad, drinking for twelve hours straight just to feel a sense of belonging with the school, but if not now, when? A senior in a frat points this out. Glass quotes freshmen, frat guys, parents, residents, storeowners, police officers, and the university’s president. One resident, Jones, has been forced to get motion sensors in his yard. Ray, the storeowner of McLanahan’s, says that if Penn State loses a football game, his sales go down 20% for a week. Most people have been directly quotes in this radio show. Roberta, the owner of the dry cleaners downtown, talks about how parties influence her business. Regardless of Penn State’s winning record, there will be always be parties; there will always be disgusting clothing. Alex, Canyon Pizza’s delivery guy, has such a sad story. Getting your jaw wired shut for two months because some drunken kid punched you? Unbelievable. His Saturn was brand new when he bought it, and has been though hell with all the drunken mobs he’s had to navigate through. Police officer, Hanes, states that one should avoid giving questionable handshakes. After the funny stories of public urination and public fights, Glass takes a more serious tone. The death of Joe Dado is mentioned, followed by the dangers of doing such a common activity, such as drinking. Graham Spanier comments on alcohol use, saying he feels “not optimistic, but we just have to keep working on it” and that “Joe Dado’s death will have no effect on incoming freshmen.” It’s sad, but true. Behaviors probably won’t change. At the very end of the show, seniors are interviewed during their last home game. Admitting that they’ll be coming to the games for the next fifty years, they demonstrate the famous Penn State pride.

Shitty First Drafts

In "Shitty First Drafts]"Lamott discusses how some people perceive writers as gods who are able to sit down and write a successful piece, word for word, in one sitting. She refers to this ability as "the fantasy of the uninitiated." People who have neither the knowledge nor the experience of writing usually believe that writers are powerful enough to write in this way. Authors go through phases where they think their work is inadequate-every time they write. Those who write understand this, but those who don't write could not possibly understand the hardship that writers encounter.

I just love this article because it puts all of my thoughts concerning writing into words. I love putting obnoxiously large run-on sentences in my draft with ridiculous expressions and dialogue, just because I know that I’m able to cut them out later. Sometimes, I even think writing that first draft is the hardest part. I sit down at my desk, stare at my blank Word Document, and think about what to type. I just need to get it down. Have some kind of organized structure and get all the ideas down. Sometimes I even put brackets in the middle of a sentence to remind myself to do something in a later draft. "[REMEMBER TO TALK ABOUT WHY YOU FELT THAT WAY AND GABRIELLE YOU BETTER COME UP WITH SOMETHING WHITTY]." I include everything I want. Sometimes the first draft ends up being more like an essay than an article or a narrative (like what I have been writing all this week), and that’s good. You print your essay out, take a red pen from your drawer, and rearrange everything. It is glorious. The beauty of that first draft is what actually makes me able to write something fairly coherent. What would we all do if we needed to come up with a brilliant piece in one sitting? No editing, no rearranging. Word for word. There would be no writers!! We ALL have those atrocious first drafts that are crumpled up in a landmine somewhere, and we have all prayed that no one ever read them. However, these first drafts guide our process to make our final product as great as it ends up being (we all have that horrible last draft as well…but that’s another blog). I even have a first draft for these blogs. I open Word, write everything down that I am feeling, and then revise and revise (I even went and edited this sentence 5 times). It would be an insult to everyone’s intelligence if I ever let my audience read my first drafts. Terrible first drafts are crucial to good writing. This process also relates to the recent events I went through with my narrative. Last Thursday, all of my friends were going out, but I had to write that shitty first draft (wait…“shitty” is in the dictionary?). I included very repetitive sentence structures, an entire scene that was completely unnecessary, and I didn’t have a single transition. Still, once I finished typing that first draft, I couldn’t help but sit back in my chair and metaphorically “sigh” at my work. It was all down! And that is the most important. I still had hours and hours of editing and revising left to do, but it would all come from that shitty first draft.

What a Beautiful Boy :(

Ahhh, Beautiful Boy. I went on vacation a few years ago (I believe it was spring break of my sophomore year in high school) and brought the novel along for a lazy day on the beach. Needless to say, my days on the beach consisted of puffy eyes hidden behind sunglasses and a constant supply of tissues. My mom had purchased the book at Costco a couple days before I left, and I stole it in a hurry to bring along some reading material. I was not expecting to read such a moving story. It is one of my favorite books. A year or so before reading [Beautiful Boy], I had discovered that my cousin was going through a drug addiction. Like Nick's parents, my aunt and uncle were limited in their influence, as both my cousin and Nick were over 18 and therefore not legally bound to listen to their parents. Beautiful Boy showed me the pain family members go through when they see the addiction of a loved one and how trapped families feel when realizing that they have no control over it. David Sheff opened up an extremely intimate part of his life, and in doing so taught others that when someone is addicted to a substance, they are not the only ones going through pain.

The subject of the story is David Sheff, the father of drug addict, Nick Sheff. He goes through the story of his son's addiction from his own perspective, including everything from applying to various drug rehabilitation programs to explaining to his younger children why their older brother stole their money. This particular story is relevant because it is not just offering the opinion of a drug addict, it offers the account of a family member who legitimately cares for the addict and who desperately wants everything to be okay. He demonstrates the perspective from someone observing an addiction from the outside looking in. The intended audience for Beautiful Boy is any person who has ever gone through a drug addiction, any family member who has ever watched a loved one go through an addiction, and any individual who will go through either of these two scenarios in the future. He wants to warn drug addicts of the pain they are causing both themselves and others. He wants to console family members and let them know that it is not their fault-that the only thing they can do is to be there for their loved one. David Sheff sometimes uses short, terse sentences to separate any opinion from his choice of words. An understanding is easier grasped by the audience when the author just writes simple facts, compared to long, detailed sentences. David Sheff also includes a note from Nick to his younger brother, Jasper. This is included so the audience can gain some perspective from Nick, who is the actual drug addict, not just his father. Nick explains his regret for his mistakes. I sometimes use these short sentences to grab hold of the audience’s attention. Quotes or dialogue are also useful in gaining insight from someone other than myself, the writer. David Sheff closes this abridged version of his novel, saying “I have learned to check my optimism” and I appreciate his reflection throughout Beautiful Boy.