As a comic book I thought that Maus was a very creative idea. I am not one to read comic books and this is the first I have really read all the way through, and I was surprised at how easy it was for me to follow. There were advantages to Mausbeing written as a comic book, in that I could see what Art Spiegelman was trying to convey through his words, and I could picture certain aspects of the story better than I could have if I had not had pictures to see throughout. Overall I really liked the idea of the book and thought that it being in comic style really helped for me to be able to see the story as it played out. The only thing I did not like about the book being a comic was that it also made it harder for me to connect to the characters. I just think that the story did not flow as well for me because the conversations were so broken up and I had to keep stopping to look at the pictures. I have never really been a big fan of comic books for this reason, so it did not surprise me that I still prefer to read the story as a novel written out rather than with pictures. I do not want to take away from the fact, however, that I do think that the story that Art Spiegelman had to tell and the way he chose to tell it were very creative, and I do think he did a great job.  Overall for me there were both plus and minuses to the fact that Maus was written as a comic strip.  I am glad I got the chance to read something in a different way than I had before.

There were a few instances in the comic that I would have had trouble seeing in my mind’s eye if it had not been already drawn out for me.  For example, I think Spiegelman really helped the reader to see what he was trying to explain on page 110 the his father is explaining to him about the bunker that he had built  under the kitchen floor. I think the author knows that it is hard to picture what he is trying to say, so he drew a small 0sketch of the bunker the way his father had described it. This really helped me to understand what his father was saying, and it would not have been as easy to do if I had only text to go off of. Another good example of when it really helped me to have the story drawn out is when Spiegelman starts talking about the comic he drew of his mother after her death. He says that his father had been hurt by what it said and if he had just left it at that I think the reader would have been confused and curious about what his father had actually seen in the comic. It was great that Spiegelman added the comic in the middle of the book to give us a chance to see what he had drawn out, and why this comic had upset his father so much. If he had not been able to show us through the comic, I think it would have been very hard to fully get across why his father had been so hurt by his son’s comic.

My entire life I have always been seen as one of the more respsonsible girls in my school and by my friends. I played sports, made good grades, came from a great family, and almost always did what I was supposed to. As a sophomore in college I am well on my way to getting an education to have a great career and becoming a wife and mom. I have the stereotypical dreams for my life, and am looking forward to seeing how it will work out for me. I have always been comfortable going through life this way and never really had a problem with it, but if  I was going to run away I would only do it to escape this type of life for a few years. I would want to transform myself into something completely different than what I am today, just to see what it would be like to not care about school, or a nice place to stay, or what my future is going to be like. I would want to just take everything one day at a time just to see where life was going to take me. The first thing I would do would be to find a way to get myself out of the United States so I could start traveling the world. I would love to see places like Vince or Greece, the Eiffel Tower, Great Wall of China. I would make a list of all the wonderful sights and cities in the world and would not stop traveling until I had reached each one of my destinations. Someday I would love to see Egypt, Japan, Australia, and all of Europe.  It would be so cool to just travel through these places carefree and get to see them all for myself. Of course it would take me forever to see these places because I would not be able to afford to just hop on a plane and travel from place to place, but I would take my time everywhere I went, to stop and enjoy the place that I was in and meet people along the way. At each new place I could be a new person with a new name and gain new outlooks on life. I would be by myself and able to enjoy whatever I wanted and see whatever I wanted to see. I would be sure to keep a diary of everywhere I traveled full of pictures and stories that I could later show my kids and grandchildren the places that I had been and the awesome sights I had seen. I would plan on returning home someday and back to the life that I now have planned for myself, but I could return with so many stories of what I had done and the people I had met. I would have seen everything I had ever wanted to see and would have a chance to just be carefree and enjoy life instead of just being stuck to a typical plan with the typical American dream. I would just take those few years to really live life to the fullest and make it as exciting as possible.

Into the Wild:

When I first started reading Into the Wild, I really thought that I was going to really like Chris McCandless. The author seemed to think so highly of him, that I figured I would feel the same way. Now that I am farther into the book, however, I am starting to have mixed feelings toward Chris. I like him in the way that it is very obvious through all of the friendships he had made throughout his travels, that he was a very charasmatic person and people seemed to be drawn to him. He had to be very likeable in order for so many people to come to really care about him as much as they did, even though he was passing in and out of their lives and never really was a permentant part. It angers me a little that Chris would hurt his family so much. Granted I do not know exactly how they were with him, but they seemed to genuinly care about him and I think it was really bad of him to hurt them so much. From the text all we know is that Chris’s family pushed him to be successful and conform to society. I agree that they were in the wrong to try to change the way he wanted to live, but they were concerned for his future and wanted what they thought was best for him.

 As far as Chris and his travels go I also have mixed feelings. I think it is great that he had the courage to persue what he wanted out of life and he worked to find happiness. Many times throughout the book Chris expressed his love for the lifestyle that he chose and his love for the challenge it brought him. Not many people would have the courage to leave everything behind like he did to persue that type of lifestyle. What I do not like is the fact that Chris seemed to think he was invincible. He was living in a fantasy world from all of his reading, but he did not know everything he needed to know about his travels into the wilderness from those books. He should have been smarter about his choices and thought of better ways to survive. He needed to educate himself better on how to be a survivalist. It was not smart of him to just go places and just hope for the best outcome. He would just wonder about and hoped everything would work out for him. Just like when he went to Mexico. He was very lucky to have survived the trip. If he had not met people along the way to help him, he probably would have died there instead of in Alaska. Instead of learning from this experience though, he gained confidence from surviving the trip and did nothing to change how he planned future adventures. He took a huge risk going into Alaska without anything to help him, and it cost him his life in the end.

I have alot of respect for what Chris’s overall goal was and how he did everything he could to persue his dream. I just wish he would have accepted his limits and then maybe he would still be here today.

Zine:

I have thought on a few ideas for my Zine Project and have decided on the one I am going to do. I was trying to think of something kind of fun and interesting to read about. I wanted anyone that read it to be a little entertained in what I had to tell them. I am thinking about doing the Top worst names for cities. All over the world there are cities that just have the worst names, such as Hell, Michigan or Hookersville, West Virgina.  I thought it would be fun to have a picture of the Welcome sign from each town on each page. Then I could give a little history of the town and how it got its name. I thought that this would be a good idea because it is something that I would enjoy reading if someone else had decided to do it. I also might include maps to show where the cities are or other pictures here and there. It might also be fun to include other top ten list here and there for people to see. Like the worst babynames or restaraunt names etc. I think it should be easy to find the information on each of the towns and have already found several that I know I want to do.

I found the articles I read from Walter Day on the Twin Galaxies website very interesting. In the first  and second statements, The Significance of TimSczerby’s Score and Steve Wiebe was Champion for almost 3 years,  I found many interesting facts that make me view some of the information potrayed on the documentory a little differently. It was interesting to know that even before coming to funspot Steve Weibe did actually hold the high score in Donkey Kong already, and that he held the tile for a few years. The way the documentory made it out to be, Steve had completly gotten his title stripped from him, but according to Twin Galaxies this was not the case. Also one of the parts in the movie that had upset me the most was that Walter Day had accepted Billy Mitchells video score at Funspot even after the controversy with Steve Weibe’s score. I had no idea that the record only lasted for 48 hours. Something I find interesting to think about though is that according to the Documentary, Billy’s score from the video was the one recorded in the Guiness Book of World Record’s, and if what Walter Day claims to be true in his statement about not accepting Billy’s score really is true, then Steve Weibe should have been the one that was holding the record when the book was published. It makes me as a reader question the truthfulness of what Walter Day is claiming. Also the claims that Walter Day made about Billy never trying to win his title back cleary are not completely true because he obviously had been trying when he submitted the 1M point score at Funspot.

In the Issue #4 statement Walter is very apologetic about what had happened to Steve at Funspot. This is not a huge suprise to me because in the Documentary I think the filmakers express that and even express how Walter Day have sent that email to Steve. I did find it interesting that Walter Day claims the email was sent way earlier than the documentary makes it come across.

The last statement was the one I have a hard time with. It just seems so contraidictory to anything that was said in the film. Walter Day makes it seem as if the incident of having the referees look at Steve Weibe’s Donkey Kong Machine was really not as huge a deal as was expressed in the film. I just really had a hard time with it because it just seems so far off as to what the people in the film had claimed had happened. I remember in the movie the head referee and others admitting that Twin Galaxies had sent them to go look at Steve Wiebe’s machine, and they were working for Twin Galaxies. I just could not help but to think that maybe Walter Day was trying to cover his own back with this statement and it makes me wonder witch story is the truth. I know Walter Day is claiming the filmmakers misrepresented the situation but he can’t deny what came out of the people in the films own mouths.

In conclusion, I think that Walter Day does a good job trying to bring to life his side of the story through these statemtents, but I just have a hard time completely believing everything he claims. It is just hard to believe something out of hearsay when I saw the other side of the story with my own eyes.

I am the youngest of 5 girls in my family and I am close to all of my sisters. My oldest sister, Erin, is a huge movie buff, and when I was younger we would always watch movies together. It was something fun that we would always do when she was babysitting me or we wanted to hang out. She had a huge collection of movies, and me being a hopeless romantic, I always loved to watch the romantic movies. When thinking about the movies I love to watch the most, as a typical girl, I am going to  have to go with my top 5 romantic movies. There are tons of great romantic movies out there, but these would be the ones for me that I still love to watch, even after seeing them tons of times. One of my favorite movies of all time would have to be Dirty Dancing, I must have watched it hundreds of times when I was growing up. My twin sister, Ashley, and I used to spend rainy days watching it, and then immediately rewinding and watching it again as soon as it was over. I can pretty much quote every scene in the entire movie. I am not really sure what I loved so much about the movie, but I still love to watch the main characters, Baby and Johnny, in that movie. Another romantic movie that I loved growing up was the musical staring John Travolta, Greece, to me it is a classic movie that every musical lover must see. I can sing along to almost all the songs, and it is just a fun movie to watch. Another classic romantic movie for me would have to be Titanic.  A lot of people have a hard time admitting that they love the movie so much because of all the hype it got when it first came out, but I secretly still love it. I remember I moped around for about a week after I’d seen it because I was so upset by the ending. It still can make me cry, and I think that if a movie can make you interested in the story enough to make you cry, then it has to be good.  Another great movie for me is The Notebook. I am a huge Nicholas Sparks fan, and when I heard his book was being made into a movie I was really excited. Most people say that when a book is made into a movie, the movie is never as good as the book. The Notebook is one of those movies that readers were not disappointed with. It followed the book really well, and the actors they chose for the characters matched perfectly to how I pictured them in my mind. This movie was one of the best I had ever seen. The next more recent romantic movie that I have seen that really tugs at your heartstrings was P.S. I Love You.This was one of those movies that just is an emotional rollarcoaster throughout. Although it is so sad, it still leaves you with a somewhat happy and hopeful feeling. I cried through the whole movie, which like I said before, tells me that it must be pretty good. I really do love all types of movies. I can watch a good horror or action film any day, but the romance has always been my favorite.

I really can’t say that I have ever given much thought as to what tattoo I would get if I had one. I have never really been a fan of tattoos myself, so I have never really considered ever having one. If, however, I did decide to get one, it would have to be someplace descrete, like my lower back or near my hipbone. This way it could be there for me to enjoy for myself, but I would easily be able to hide it if I did not want it seen. I had a friend from high school that got a small star tattoo on one of her toes that I thought was really cute, or I would even considered a small one on the back of my neck. I just do not think I could one that covered my enitre back or my arm, its just not my personality. I know that alot of peopel get tattoos that represent something that is important in their lives, or that means alot to them. I think though that I would probably take the same approach that I think alot of girls take, and would go more for getting something I thought was just pretty. I would more than likely search websites, magazines, and books trying to find a classy looking tattoo that would fit my personality. It would more than likely end up being a really pretty flower. My favorite kind of flower has always been a daisy and I would do my best to find a picture of a daisy that was unique and very eligant looking and that would more than likely be that type of tattoo that I would get. I would really want the tattoo to have a lot of detail put into it so that I could be sure that it did not come out looking cheap or unprofessional. I would want bright colors and for the flower to look very realistic. I think that this could be just a fun tattoo that wouldn’t be flashy or too noticible in a situation where I would want it to be hidden. I could just see it for myself and have it be seen by others if  I wanted them to.

This is not the only type of tattoo that I would consider. I have heard of tattoos for women that are like permenant makeup. I could get a tattoo that makes me look like I am wearing lipstick or even eyeliner, so that I would never have to put it on or touch it up again. I think that this is a pretty cool idea, and is something that I would consider as long as I could make sure that I had the right colors and shades. This is a more subtle kind of tattoo and may not be as fun as getting a picture on my body, but I think it would make getting ready in the morning a little more convienient. These few choices would be about the only tattoos I could see fitting my personality and myself getting. It may not be too exciting for someone who is really into tattoos, but it would be something fun and small that I could enjoy having.

Summary: In this passage Roger Sipher agrues in favor of abolishing compulsory-attendence laws in high school. He agrues that these laws are the main reason that the American school systems are failing to reach their standards and test scores are beginning to fall. He believes that by abolishing these laws American Schools can start to be taken as serious places of education and students that do work hard in class would have a better learning enviroment and their grades would improve. According to Sipher students would be motivated to work harder at a younger age and junor high and high schools would not be seen as places to simply leave children for the day, but sophistacted educational facilities. Sipher believes that if children do not want to be put into school they should not be there because they are only hindering other children’s education.

Paraphrase: Roger Sipher begins his essay by stating that American School Systems are having trouble meeting standards because many students are forced to be there. He insists that if only students that were motivated to be in school went, then it would be a better educational enviroment for everyone.

Quotation: According Roger Sipher, one of the major problems with mandatory attendance laws in our school systmens today is, “Such children have little desire to learn and are so antagonistic to school that neither they nor more highly motivated students receive the quality education that is the birthright of every American” (page #1).

I am a sophmore, but this is my first semester here at Purdue. I transfered here at the begining of the year and  when I first got here I really wanted to find a place that I could meet people that had the same interest as me.  I had a lot of friends from high school up here, but I really wanted to branch out to meet new people and gain new experiences. After the first few weeks, however,  I realized that in order to find people outside the group of my high school friends, I was going to have to  put myself out there a little more. I began looking for clubs and organizations here at Purdue and came across a business fraternity offered through Krannert. Being an accounting major, I thought this was a good place to start and I went to the call outs. Delta Sigma Pi (DSP) is a professional fraternity and is different from most fraternity and soroities in that it is coed and its basis is centered around preparing business students for the professional world, while giving them a chance to interact and have fun with each other. There are only two professional fraternities here at Purdue, and DSP is the only one that only allows students from Krannert to join. I knew it would be a very beneficial organization for  me so I decided to pledge for the organization last fall and it was a great experience. Just going through the pledge process I learned important tips for how to act in professional settings, how to give great interviews, organize events, raise money, speak in front of people, and manage my time. DSP is a small organization with only about 40 members and I only had 8 other pledges in my pledge class with me. It is like a small community within Purdue and even Krannert itself. We were all pretty much taking the same classes and became friends. We work together on homework and study for classes together, but we also became good friends and would have fun hanging out and going out together outside of DSP. Now that I am a member of DSP I have so many other business students to help me with classes and to give me advice on what professors to take and what classes to take when. We have weekly meetings where we plan both professional and social events. Immediatly after being initiated I was given the chance to run for an officer position within DSP and was voted to be the secretary. It is not a big responisblity, I simply take minutes during all the meetings and email them out to all the members at the end of the week, but it gives me the chance to work with and watch some of the upperclassmen. I am excited to see how DSP will help me grow into a more professional person and prepare me for the business world. Just by being a memeber I have so many opportunities opened up to me and I hope to take advantage of everything it has to offer.I have had the chance to network myself and the friendships I make may turn into an opportunity for a job or an internship someday. When I tell people I am in a business fraternity, I usually get a strange look. Most people don’t understand what it is or how it could be fun. I think that people have ideas about what fraternities and soroities should be like and don’t realize that there is more than just one kind greek organization out there to join. I really think that joining DSP was a great decision for me to make to put me ahead of alot of my peers.