“We must remember that intelligence is not enough.  Intelligence plus character- that is the goal of true education.  The complete education gives one not only power of concentration, but worthy objectives upon which to concentrate.  The broad education will, therefore, transmit to one not only the accumulated knowledge of the race but also the accumulated experience of social living.”

I read this and was like…wait what?  I got so confused the first time that I read it because the ending was just confusing to me.  I reread it and then I got it.  I agree with the statement that it is making.  If you have intelligence but no character you are going to be  a pretty dull person, but if you have character and no intelligence then you are going to be a good person but not intelligent.  You wont get a good job if you dont have both of these two characteristics.

“There is an innocence to the assumption that one expects(even deserves) a better grade simply by begging for it.”

I thought this quote was really good because I have seen the people that do this at my school. I think it is so annoying how people just sit there and do absolutely nothing all the time and then they are wondering and complaining about the bad grade that they have. Or they get a good grade for doing nothing while you sat in the class and did all of your work to the best of your ability to get almost the same grade as them. I dont get it sometimes.

I think the author did a very good job on this. He wrote something that most everyone can relate to in some sort of way.  I like that.

I thought this story was going to be all about the old days.  I started to read it and got to like the second page and I was totally wrong.  It actually surprised me a little bit.  It started talking about his sons and his friends fighting the war in Iraq and Afghanistan.  I thought that this part was very interesting..

“I am now the father of a young man who has far more character than I ever had.  I joined the Marines because I had to; he signed up after college because he felt he ought to.  He volunteered for an elite unit and has served in both Afghanistan and Iraq.  When I see images of Americans in the war zones, I think of my son and his friends, many of whom I have come to know and deeply respect.  When I opened this newspaper yesterday and read the front-page headline ‘9 G.I.’s Killed,’ I didn’t think in abstractions.  I thought very personally.”

I liked this because he is telling us exactly what he is feeling. He has had a huge change since he has been in the war.  I didn’t expect him to come out and say that he was a father in this story.  I just didn’t see it coming.

Thesis- “My attitude was the same as Dick Cheney’s: I was special, I had ‘other priorities.” Let other people do it.

I think that is the thesis because later on in the story he comes back to it.  He gives it support.

“This was my first really big step toward self-degradation.  when I endured all of that pain, literally burning my flesh to have it look like a white man’s hair.  I had joined that multitude of Negro men and women in America who are brainwashed into believing that the black people are ‘inferior’ and white people ’superior’-that they will even violate and mutilate their God-created bodies to try to look ‘pretty’ by white standards.”

I chose this paragraph because in essay 3 this is what I wrote about.  It was Model Effect.  I explained my views on Anorexia and Bulimia.  I even used the term ‘brainwashed’ in my essay.  I just thought it was really cool how similar the essays were.

Thesis- Shorty soon decided that my hair was finally long enough to be conked.

This is exactly what the story was about.  Conking. So I figured that this must be the thesis, but it is hard to tell because his introduction isn’t very long.

I’m thinking that maybe this lady’s breaks went out.  I really think that she saw this huge boat in front of her because it is light outside.  There are stopper things by where the people are standing, that is another reason why I think her brakes went out.  The lady is holding a water, so I don’t think she was drunk.

I am really not sure how you can pull this stunt off. lol. She must be a crazy driver or something.  She had to have seen that there was a boat and body of water in front of her. I’m sure she didn’t do it on purpose either. Who would do that!