AmAnDa’S fIrSt BlOg

American History X is all about racism.  A white guy goes into a prison rascist and hating african americans,but once he gets in there and bonds with a black man and sees what their race has to put up with he comes out a changed person.  He comes home and takes down his racist posters and teaches his brother to not be like he was.  This reminds me of the metaphor dont judge a book by its cover because you never really know how something is  until you experience it, or get to know it.

Amanda Eilefson

                                                                                                            Section 09

                                                                                                            4-30-07

                                                                                                            Intro Portfolio Essay

            This semester in comp one with Mr. Dalager was great.  I learned a lot about writing, and enjoyed it at the same time.  I have a favorite and least favorite piece of work, and I have made up my own process for writing these papers.

            My favorite piece to write was about my heartbreak because I put so much of my heart into it.  Everything I wrote I could feel as I was writing it.  I put my heart on paper, and it felt really good to do that and share it with people.  I think my two best essays were my heartbreak, and the birth of my brother.  My least favorite piece was the persuasion because it was difficult for me to try to persuade someone into something, I just didn’t really know how.  I think that either the movie essay or the comparing essay were my worst because it was difficult for me to write about both of them.

            As I started writing all these essays I kind came up with a way of writing them and that was to just sit and listen to the music on my computer and type what I felt.  It may not have made sense at the beginning of each one but eventually I would organize all my ideas into an essay.  I learned that revising could be difficult because sometimes I just didn’t know what to revise without a little help.  Before this class I hated sharing my works with other people so that they could correct my mistakes, but now I’m grateful because I used many ideas from the people in class to revise my essays.

            I feel like I have grown as a writer because I’m more confident in what I’m saying, and the points I’m trying to get across.  I’m also more comfortable with the essay format and learning how to organize my thoughts into a paper.  I’m really glad I took this class, I really learned a lot.

I think that marriage is a very important thing, but I think that people should just make their choice about who they want to spend their life with.  I have nothing against same sex marriages, although I will never be in one, but I am not against people who find themselves in that situation and I find it unfair that in some states people are denied their freedom of expressing themselves by who they marry.

Just like the guy from the example about grape nuts how he thought he must always eat grape nuts I have done that before myself.  If something good has happened I find something silly to blame it on.  Or ill try to meet personal goals like with running, if i dont finish running a mile within a certain number of songs I put something on it like my best friend or my boyfriend just so that it might help me run faster.

This essay is very realistic how women turn there lives upside down for physical obssession.  I know girls that are still like this and I was there once myself.  It’s so hard for women these days to meet up to the expectations of men and the public eye.  I think that the way Beck describes the difficulty for women through her own examples really shows the drastic measures women go to in order to please a guy and I think its sad how women are pressured into looking a sort of way and i definitly dont think its fair.

I think that the story “Just a Walk on By”, by Brent Staples is a very accurate outlook on the way that black men can be percieved.  I know at night walking alone I would feel the same, but with almost any guy, especially if i was walking in Chicago.  Even downtown Duluth can get pretty scary at night.  Although, its not exactly fair to only put all the fear on black men, there are good and bad people of all races and I think that Staples wishes more people could see that.

I think that there really are students that are like each kind of M & M.  I have friends that apply to all three of these candies.  Its interesting how an M & M can connect to people.  Like for instance I think im a plain.  And the majority of my friends are plains too!!  I dont really know what makes me a plain except for the fact that I know im not going to be lazy about it, but I also wont agonize over a paper.  Im usually pretty happy with what I write the first time because its my thoughts and nothing more.

I had a fantastic time during the blizzard and over break!!!  My boyfriend who has been living in Florida finally came back up here to stay.  Im so happy.  We went snowmobiling (and it was my first time ever) and I had a blast!!  I also got to go on a double date with my best friend, and it was the first time our boyfriends met and it was really exciting.  I love him so much and Im just so glad to have him back!!!! 

Your probably wondering what voonoo means, well voonoo is another name I have for  my best friend.  I gave her that name when we were around nine years old.  She has been my best friend since 2nd grade.

The reason why I am blogging about her is because we haven’t hung out in what seems like forever and we finally got together and it was awesomeness to the max!!!!  We even went hiking and got lost!  It was crazy fun, and I thought I would just say that my wednesday was a good one.

The main point of “The Ugly Truth About Beauty” is that a girl can spend all her money and take up all her time on fixing the way she looks, but it will never be good enough for herself.  The support is the Cindy Crawford example.  This whole essay is about girls trying to look as best as they can.  Beauty industries prey on women of any age just to make a dollar.  I can even take it from my own experience that at times girls really do spend all their money and waste all their time on meaningless primping.  I also find it very true that men are shallow about they way they want their women to look, and thats just not fair.  Lastly, I do agree with what Barry says about the differences between the way men and women judge the way they look and get ready, they are very different.