It's Not So Bad

Event #2
FYS

I had attended one of the last soccer games of the year. The Elmhurst soccer team faced off against Wesleyan University, at home. I knew a few kids on our team and my first cousin, who is my age, plays for Wesleyan, so I thought this would be a good game for me to watch. I never watch soccer, simply because I never liked the soccer players at my high school and I actually never like any soccer players, I never hung out with anyone who was a soccer player.
I like to watch the world cup. The people who play in the world cup are so amazing with that ball. I love to watch what the players can do with that soccer ball; I can not believe how far they can kick it. The soccer players that were playing in the game that I was watching were not any where close to the players in the world cup, but they are professionals so it is understandable. I still find it amazing how that ball just moves so smoothly and they can run while keeping the ball so close to them. After watching the game I went and tried to do some of the things they do with the soccer ball and I could not ever run with it. The players know exactly where the ball is without even looking at it. It does not even look like they hit the ball as they run with it, but they do and they make it so hard for someone to steal it from them.
The game was good, we won even though I think last time we faced them we had lost.
One thing that I thought was cool, was that I was watching a kid in one of my classes, John, go one on one with my cousin. John did not know that that was my cousin, but the two looked like they were pretty evenly matched. The coolest part about that was that both of them are freshmen that start on the varsity team. My aunt and uncle never shut up about it and brag so much about how good their little Scotty is. I know it is my cousin so I was cheering for him, but I want Elmhurst to run over Wesleyan so that next time I saw my aunt and uncle I would have something to rub back in their face. Like I said before I never really watched or liked soccer, but I kind of enjoyed this one, because it was a little personal.

Our Sixteenth President

Event #1
FYS
Schade Lecture

Lectures have never been my cup of tea. I really have to be interested in order to pay attention to a lecture. I picked a lecture that I thought would be the most interesting to me so that I can write this. Abraham Lincoln has always been one of my favorite presidents, I do not know why; maybe it is because I liked top hats when I was little. There are not too many presidents in which I know what number president they were, but almost everyone knows he is our sixteenth president.
The name of the lecture was “Abraham Lincoln and the permanent Campaign,” by Richard Norton Smith. I felt that this lecture was more a life story about Abraham Lincoln and I liked it, even though there may have been a few times I was not paying attention. Abraham Lincoln was a great man and many people liked him, but some people will tell you that he was not all that smart. Smith says how he was a man that learned a lot from his mistakes and was still building up to his presidency. This tells me that Lincoln may not have been ready to be president and if that was the case than he could possibly survived a lot longer. Even though Lincoln did not serve as president for very long he still had a great impact on everyone. This could just be me, but Lincoln seems to be one of the most popular presidents and if you were to ask someone to name some presidents Abraham Lincoln would be one of the first ones. I think that Richard Smith was a very good talker and he really seemed to have everyone eager to hear more about the great Abraham Lincoln. He would keep the audience listening, especially with jokes. When people just stand there and talk, I can not focus, but I listen to almost everything Smith had to say. Smith seemed like an extremely intelligent person with a lot of knowledge that I do not know. I liked this talk about

Wikipedia vs. Britannica

Ben Salabura
December 3, 2007
FYS

I have looked up coal on both Wikipedia and Britannica. In Wikipedia there are whys people can contact the authors and editors of the information that is on this site. There is ways to communicate with them online such as email and on Britannica there is no real way to contact the authors. On this web site they show some authors and they tell a little something about the authors; what’s their profession, where they went to collage.
The information on Wikipedia seem to update several times a day, the earliest one was only a few hours ago and it was extremely easy to find. Britannica on the other hand did not have any source that I could find that would show when it was last updated.
Wikipedia has references and a bibliography and it has a lot of them, but Britannica has none. There are references that are clickable on the website, but they all just seem to lead straight to another website that was used to get the information from, but Wikipedia also has books, magazines, and things of that nature that are used too. Wikipedia has about forty of these different website that can be reach through this site. All of the websites that I clicked into were good, none of them did not come up, where as Britannica they just tell you how to site their work when we use it and none of this stuff is on the site. Britannica seems to just think because they are an encyclopedia they do what they want and they do not have any sort of a bibliography any where on the website.
The two websites have basically the same information in them and they are both what I would say to explain coal. Britannica’s information was better, I thought, because it was to the point and exact. Wikipedia had the same stuff, but their information was too much than they need everything they said. I did like the chart that Wikipedia had though; it was a little something that Britannica did not have.
I found that Wikipedia has a thing called talk and there are like group discussion people can have about any of the subject in Wikipidia. In discussion, which is a little tab at the top of the site, they have one long page of just little side notes that people wrote that could be added to the definition of coal and things that could be changed. These discussions are not all real accurate though. They are not cited and they are just people’s opinions. There is nothing of this talk on Britannica, I do not know why, I like it and I think it should be added in.
I like Wikipedia more than I like Britannica. People do not like Wikipedia because people can put what ever they want on there. This is true, but the definitions are current, they have their work cited and they were all legitimate websites. Britannica had all them same stuff even though it is an encyclopedia and they are all facts. I like how people can put things on the website that they want, not only because it gives us our right to freedom of speech, but it is fun to see want other people have to say. Wikipedia has a lot of information and can be extremely helpful teachers should not band students from using it.

Choose to Live a Longer Life!

Sustainable living was something I never knew anything about, but not any more. I learned how make more responsible ways to live. Recycling was one thing that I always tried to do, but often I found my self not being so responsible. Reusing things and making choices to live better not only helps us, but it is cheaper and it is saving the environment, too much is wasted every year. When I would walk into a grocery my interests never went to the organic foods. It was more expensive and it was not any better, so I thought. Now I want the organic foods because it can add years to my life without having all the different medicines and antibacterial spray they use on foods. I do not want to consume the same steroids and other things that cows are given, that can not be healthy at all. Organic foods are all natural and they taste just as good as any other genetically engineered foods.
Ever since I found out that the only meat in our cafeteria that is organic is the chicken, I really won’t eat any of the other meats. I also noticed that I will tell people “through that away,” or “don’t get that, do you know how bad that is for you?” Never would I say that before we did this project. Sustainable living was just another pointless subject people like to talk about for me, but not after I actually found out that it affects our health and the way we live our lives. Often times when we choose to live more responsible it cost us more money, but there is no price on our lives.
There is always things we can do with our left overs instead of throwing them in the garbage. Lettuce, watermelon rinds, and things like that can be used to fertilize plants. Choosing to explore ways to not waste food and other wastes is what sustainable living is all about. Sustainable living is something I believe everyone should know, especially college students. About half of college students do not know what sustainable living is and I feel most college students do not choose all that wisely when it comes to sustainable living. The cheapest thing is usually what I get, but the cheapest thing is the worst for our health. People are just not that informed on the subject of sustainable living.
It is hard for me to remember all the names of our audience, but I can name a few big ones. Dr. Eileen Sullivan is the dean of students, Karen Jurcazek is the executive to the dean of students, Nadeem Zafar is the head of dinning services, Bruce Mathers who is the head of grounds, and Dr. Alzada Tipton the Vice President for Academic Affairs & Dean of the Faculty.

Can Soap Make You Dirty?

Ingredients for Old Spice can lead to cancer, birth defect's, weaken immune system, and many other concerns such as Neurotoxicity, Irritation (skin, eyes, or lungs), and Enhanced skin absorption. When I was researching this on www.ewg.org there were eighty eight different products made from this brand that all had hazards ingredients in them. I happen to use Old Spice body wash all the time and on a scale from one to ten, one being the least hazards, it is a seven. At level seven the risk of cancer getting in your system is more prominent and may also lead to allergic reactions and incapability to fight decease and repair damaged body tissue. This soap is just use to clean me and make me smell good, witch it does, but i am at risk for doing it. Normally we think organic means it is all natural. Old Spice is all organic and plant-based ingredients, but think about poison oak, this is plant-based. So, natural plants are not always the best and normal, everyday soap can be making us ill.

A Chicken in Every Pot

A promise was made by president Hoover in the 1920's that there would be "a chicken in every pot". Eighty years later Americans are eating 67 pounds of poultry per year, 50 pounds being chicken. Having poultry products in pans every day can have a lot a health issues, it would be better to eat more fat-rich red meats. There is an estimated 76 to 80 million cases of foodbourn deceases every year and some five thousand of them end up dieing. Then the costs come in to play, it cost the U.S. poultry products 4.5 to 7.5 million dollars every year and chicken contributes a good majority to this problem. I am amazed that these foods we eat every day are this bad for us and nobody really cares or knows about. Organic food is not as common in most house holds as other foods, such as poultry products and a switch in these foods would help bring this numbers of foodbourn illnesses down or even get rid of them. The food we eat instead of organic food is from farm animals that are dosed daily with antibiotics, chicken receive four different ones. Seventy present of all American antibiotics are used on farm animals and there are twenty five million pounds of antibiotics are given to these animals. Just because organic food is more expensive people do not want to buy it, this is real smart, putting your own life at risk.

My Thoughts on Plagiarism

The best way to succeed in life is to do things yourself and lean off your mistakes. When a person cheats or plagiarizes they are only hurting themselves. there are different levels of cheating,for some people. Sometimes a teacher does not really hep stop all the cheating when they give the students so much work that they lose hours of sleep. Plagiarizing is still not a good decision and sooner or later it will ketch up to you.

Cheating is when you use someone else work for yourself, just so the person can get a better grade. Even though it sounds so bad, and it is, people are doing it all the time. People might get away with it, but that does not mean it is okay to do, it just says that you are incapable to do it yourself, and you are lazy. Cheating is taking the easy way out, and people that take the easy way out, tend to work harder when they get to be older. Also, it is always a good feeling when you get a good grade for something that you worked so hard on. There is no feeling of accomplishment in cheating.

No matter what way you put it cheating and plagiarizing is wrong, however in some degrees sometimes it is worse than other times. cheating on homework is not as bad as cheating on the exams. Sometimes people have so much stuff to do in one day, they can find time to do all their homework. In this case, you wanted to get it done and you wanted to get the grade, so you ask someone for the homework. You read and write down the information and you know it, it does not seem like that is not really bad. Reusing an essay is wrong, but you have already wrote it in a class before and you know it well. this is not as bad, as long as you read over it and make some revisions. Taking an essay that is not yours and using it is real bad, that is plagiarizing and it should be grounds for an automatic zero.

Teachers have to realize and understand what tier students can and can not do and how much work is too much work. In some classes more people cheat than in other classes. Everybody has had that teacher that no one liked, because they gave way to much work and did not even know how to explain it. Now here is this student trying to do all this work while teaching him or herself how to do it, they are going to want to go to someone for assistance. Then, sometime there are two or more people that slip the work up, so that you not doing all the work, or even some people pay others to do it. Students feel so pressured that they have to cheat in order to satisfy the teacher. This is wrong for the teacher, teachers need to know how much is too much.

Plagiarism is wrong no matter how it is portrayed, even though sometimes it is not as bad. When someone has to cheat all the time, they are no better than a common thief. Even if the pressure is too much, keep on trying, the teacher will notice how hard you try and will grade you well. There is always better options then cheating or plagiarizing, it only hurts in the long run. The penalty's for cheating or plagiarizing are normally pretty harsh and it is not worth it. Doing your own work and not having to cheat will build character and make you a better person.