Blog Entry #11: Final Entry

Hello and good-morning/evening/night whatever time it may be for you, welcome to the last and final entry blog of my first year in college. As a first timer let me explain how it all went and also how it evidently helped me out through the semester.

For the most part, I think that the whole concept of having a blog and actually using it every week, benefited me in some way. I feel that since we learned new things every week,  blogging was a good idea in order to keep ourselves a little more focused and it was a good way to strengthen our brains, I say this because aside from just the blogs, it was also the LSA assignments that would add additional information, the upside was that we could test what we learned on the LSA assignments and use it towards our blogs, therefore improving our grammatical skills.

There is a downside to this. though, blogging is fairly easy it's coming up with what to say that's complicated, you spend all day in school, and working in the afternoons until late night and then finally starting your homework that last thing you want to do is do homework, after a long day you tend to forget about what you learned in school and can't seem to put in words what you want to write.

Blogging also became really helpful when it came down to figuring out how to start an entry, by going to another classmates' blog, you can sort of get an idea about how to begin, your classmates will become great tools to getting started, and if you can, make as many friends as you can, this way you can contact each other in case of a blogging emergency.

This blog was a great way to learn new things about your computer that you otherwise wouldn't ever realize you could do.

Well that's it for this blog, Hope this helped influene you to go and create and actually use a blog. Until next year!

Best Wishes,
Marco.

Blog Entry #10: Tired

By now i'm sure you've all figured out that as soon as December comes, there will only be 3 weeks of school left! Some of us are excited others are more scared, why? One word. FINALS.

Yes, it's that time and to make things even more "fun" we are also stressing out about essays and whatnot, I really hope some of you have been a whole lot better at managing your time than I have. I completely forgot about homework from this week, even though I did manage to get it done, I never want to do it all in one setting again, so this week, I am asking for help from you guys, what did you guys do to finish your homework within a one week span while simultaneously handling school and work? I'm going to end this blog short today because there's still much to do, but please feel free to comment what you do to balance school and work.

Thanks!

Blog Entry #9: Pink Slime

For this week's video, Pink Slime, we saw something that looks like it came from a horror film.
In the video, we are shown while the news anchors or whatever they were explained what McDonald's had been using to make their burger and chicken nuggets. The pink slime that I keep mentioning looks like one of those worm-looking-animals from the movie King Kong. 

This is the worm

While this is a more extreme example of what was actually portrayed, the actual pink slime is very similar. 

Pink slime from McDonald's

There's really not much of a difference when you look at both of these images, I mean after all they do have one thing in common, they're both deadly. That's right, DEADLY!

The reason the pink slime is dangerous to your health is because of the cleansers they use the disinfect and kill the bacteria in the meat. According to the news-anchors, it was Ammonium Hydroxide that was used to clean the meat. 

In case what you were wondering just what Ammonium Hydroxide can do to you if digested click the link below and read about it.  http://www.naturalnews.com/035517_pink_slime_ammonium_hydroxide_burgers.html

Thankfully they have completely stopped using said chemical to disinfect the "meat" i'm not sure what they're using now, but luckily I stopped eating there years ago. Hopefully this changed your view on McDonalds.                  
                               
                                                      Thanks again for reading!

Blog Entry #8: Process

As we're approaching towards the end of the semester, I hadn't the slightest thought about how difficult it would be especially in this English course. This final paper has me all kinds of troubled, for a semi-easy topic, writing it became difficult, and if this somehow relates to you, then I figured some tips/techniques that have helped me stay a little more focused and become more creative in my writing. Here are my top 3 strategies that I think have helped me out the most with this process.

TV - As I went along with the essay i had realized that after sitting on my desk for 5 hours in a row i only had about a page of information, this is when I decided to take a break and watch TV I know its stupid to go from one screen for 5 hours and go stare at another for 5 more hours, but trust me, it's all about taking a break.

Relax- This one speaks for itself. Relaxing to me means going out to eat with my friends or family, or go and explore the nearby ice-cream shops, even watching Netflix, as long as I don't have any sign of essay in my mind then I am at peace, therefore I am relaxed.

This last one might be a little more difficult to do, but if you can do it then go for it. This one is called a break, but if you have to balance school and work, then you might not get to enjoy this fully. Taking a break is literally, taking a break. A day without worrying about the paper, instead just think of some ideas that could make your paper a slight more interesting and add it onto your paper the next day. (I ususally take breaks on my days off of work)

These are the top 3 strategies that I use in order for me to stay focused and help me write a better paper. I hope that at least one of these ideas can help some of you out!

Blog Entry #7: Fresh

Whats happens usually after watching a documentary about food, i get the sudden craving for something delicious, but after watching the movie Fresh, I really wanted no part of food for about a couple of hours. The movie actually left me speechless and disgusted after watching how most fast food companies make their food and how poorly they treat their animals.

Before watching this movie, i have not thought about the potential dangers that could be in my food, all i did was order and i would automatically assume that my food would be good to eat, now i'm not so sure. Now, i do think about my food, but i'm not looking at it to see if it's good, by good i don't mean healthy, but if it's good, now i don't eat at McDonalds anymore, i know how they make their food, and it's not the best thing to be reading while eating a burrito.

By making this movie, the director wanted to focus it on the audience with families, the young adults and teens. They wanted to give them an idea of how their "Good food" is actually made and how they make them good.

The film had it's moments in which what it said stood out as an alarm going on in my head saying to watch out for it. For example, the movie said that sometimes the meat that fast food companies use, can have traces of Salmonella or can be infected with mad cow disease. All these things make me a picky eater now.

I think this movie should be seen by everyone, at least once in their life, especially in America, where obesity runs everywhere.

The fact of the matter deciding whether we should care or not should be opinionated,  some people just don't care that their food could potentially be dangerous and kill them, others do care and avoid this fast food frenzy. I'm not saying that we should give up, i'm saying that if those that are still going to try and eat this greasy, artery-clogging food, then they should at least watch how much they consume it weekly.

Blog Entry #6: Rewrap

Hi and welcome back!

This week was a toughie, i didn't think there would be anytime to even begin this blog entry to be honest, but there was and here i am. 

This week is a re-wrap of the cell phone/technology module. Although i did enjoy myself talking about the love of my life (My cellphone) she's gonna have to be out of the spotlight for a while because after spending almost a month talking about a piece of technology it's really tiring having this type this with said piece of technology. Also it's ironic since i'm typing this with the exact same thing i spent a month talking about. Maybe  I have an addiction. This could be like an episode of 

True Life: I'm addicted to my phone.

After this week i'm taking a break. not from my phone, lord no i'm too emotionally attached. I'm taking a break from life, and responsibilities. (Not really, my mom would kill me first chance she can get) I'm not even taking a break, like i said this is a re-wrap. So let's wrap up this week. Cell phones are great. If you don't think so, then you can read my essay if you need some convincing. i'm not putting it up on here though, there's too many people that can plagiarize it.

Aside from all the nonsense, cellphones are great they have evolved since first being released in 1943

and since then they have taken over society. Not necessarily for the bad, but the good too. Like i said, if you want to read my essay, shoot me an email!

Hopefully our next module is even more fun and then i can talk to you all about it on here, until then have a great day/night.

Blog Entry #5: Wall-E

We'll begin with this scene. As represented by the Pixar movie Wall-E, this futuristic version of what look to be Facetime, is rather quite scary. As you see the technology in this movie is depicted as bad, in fact because these amazing hovering chairs, which is another form of technology, the human race has seem to become obese. With the little to none exercise that the people get, they seem to have gotten heavier. In fact when to guy on the right was telling Wall-E to get him another Buy-N-Large drink, he fell over and out of his chair, this caused him to become like a cockroach and struggle to fight his way back to his stomach; that was until Wall-E gave him a push, literally. (shown on bottom)

Another thing that we see depicted in this movie, is not being aware of our surroundings. In the movie it was the scene where Wall-E was hastily trying to find Eve. When he found her he came across a human, a woman named Mary. Mary was "factiming" her friend and Wall-e trying to get her attention accidently disconnected Mary from the screen, which by her facial expression seemed to be her first time ever realizing where she had been, the surprised look shows as if she had just realized where she's been.

Technology in the movie shows it as if it takes away from face-to-face human interaction, but most importantly it takes away from your surroundings, Mary had no idea where she was until Wall-E came and destroyed her little TV screen. This movie gave a good depiction of it.

The final analysis that i came up with this movie was a different kind of technology, and although we all wish it was real, sadly it's dealy for us. That's right i'm talking about the food. Wall-E shows us a different way to get our "hearty" meals. A self-automated company named Buy-N_Large (BNL) really speaks for itself. The human species eats as many times as they want in this movie, so that means the food must always be available, so you tell me, do you really think these people get up to go get food? The answer is no they do not. The BNL company have specialized cups, such as these

these cups are the ultimate hungry persons dream. When the people get hungry, they push little button either on their hover chair or on their screen, they select the food they want and presto! their food comes in a disgustingly convenient liquid where they slurp 'till they're hungry again.

The movie gave me a confused reaction, the reason being is that humans are actually becoming so lazy, they might actually invent this weird space blimp and live out their lives on hover chair.

For example, every time i go to wal-mart, i ALWAYS see the electric scooters being used, but not by the elderly or disabled. These Chairs are being used by people, fat people i should say, those that are morbidly obese. Even though i can clearly see them walking after check-out. 

So yes, i do happen to agree that the technology shown in this movie captures technology and human behavior in real life.

Blog Entry #4: A Positive Life

      Well we know for a fact that cellphones are not the cause of car crashes. Idiot people that decide to text while driving, instead of pulling over for a quick minute to reply, but if there's no way to pull over, then just wait. That message will still be there in 10 minutes. I'm tired of hearing stories like this and hearing people bash, claiming it's was the phone's fault. The phone cannot talk, let's get that out of the way, it doesn't control you, so no one forced you to touch the phone. The only reason you decided to touch it was because you thought you'd be quick to type back whatever and get back onto focusing on the road without trouble, but you didn't you crashed and now the world hates cellphones because you almost died.

     Although the statement above sounded pretty gruesome, i wanted to make it capture your attention, i wanted to share with you why we, the people find so many negatives about a piece of technology, why can't we ever find some good thing this piece of technology has done for us?

There are many reason to why a cellphone can be a great thing. When you have a cellphone you have a peace of mind, say you're driving down the road, it's late and dark, the only thing you picture is laying down into your nice soft bed,but something has triggered in your brain, you sense there's danger happening to one of your kids, you quickly pull over, and dial your son, when he answers, you ask if he's ok, he replies back that he's fine, just watching tv at home. With a great sigh, you exhale.

another reason is you get a stress free feeling, you're packing up getting ready for your big trip with your friends, they're in the way when you realize you completely forgot you were responsible for finding the quickest route to your destination. as your friends pull up into your driveway, you put your thing in the trunk and you say "I have Google maps ready to take us!"

Three may be many reasons to hate a cellphone, but there's also many reason to be thankful to have such a great piece of technology!

Blog Entry #3: Cellphone Drama

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZS9Wte1gX9g

If you click the link, it will open a new tab in which a video, describing life nowadays as humans beings, and how we are being corrupted everyday by something so addictive, that we keep it in our pockets.

Cellphones are changing the way people interact and how we share experiences.

During the video, there's a special scene in which there's two point of views, one being the woman is texting as she is walking, when a man approaches her to ask for directions, she says " I don't know" and the man walks away, while she continues texting.

 The second viewpoint is the same man and woman, she's texting only this time, when asked for directions, she says " That's on the way where i'm going" so she shows him directions, and it's that same moment that they fell in love, the scene goes on to share how they live their lives after, they dated, got married, and had children.

After the video, i started thinking,  I'm always on the phone either, texting or just checking my social apps, what if the love of my life walked right past me because I was too busy liking a status or picture.

Cell phones and social media are taking the fun out of everyday things, such as having fun spending time with some friends, that's been replaced with Group Chatting, or Facetime.

What if one day something were to happen, such as a zombie apocalypse? What if one day there's no more electricity and phones are no longer able to charge. What would we do?

I believe that if such catastrophe were to happen today, this generation would most likely lose it, we would also be the first to die because we never spend much time going outdoors, we don't have any clue what's out there. I'm certain that as a Generation the only reason we would even think of leaving the house is to go to a party or see a movie, but even after all that, what do we do? We go back to our phones.

Phones are great, don't get me wrong, but sometimes i feel like there's an empty part of me that only spending time with friends/family can fill and sadly, that's been replaced with my cellphone.

So if you were to ask me, "Marco, do you think phones are changing the way we do things nowadays?" i would reply with a simple "Yes, and it's truly disturbing"

Blog Entry#2: Ghost of time

 "Most people agree that dying while you're asleep is the best way to die. 

Peaceful, not signs of torture, nor pain. My Grandma used to say angels carry them, the ones who are dying while being asleep, to heaven. But sometimes angels can be clumsy and drop them by accident.

Remember that time you felt like you were falling and suddenly woke up?"

If you've never met someone who loves creepy stories like the one above, you do now. scary/creepy stories is something that i love doing! Either reading or actually going to haunted places in Arizona. 

I really find it interesting how i used to see these ghostly figures as a child. Children, as you may or may now know, are the only ones to physically see the apparitions, being 19 now, i can't see them now, but i will always remember when i used to. 

I was only about 8 years old, i used to sleep in a room in which there was windows all around, the sight of seeing everything, scared me back then. I remember always leaving the door open in order to let the lights from the hallway in, i always positioned myself in a way so that the light always hit my face, this soon became the worst thing I've ever done. 

July 19, 2003 around 12:37 a.m i was awaken by the thirst that i had, of course, being 8, i would never go into the dark kitchen by myself, so i went to the bathroom and drank from the faucet. i went back to bed with the feeling like someone was watching me do so. I decided to ignore it thinking it was some kind of hallucination from the faucet water. I was slowly falling asleep, light in my face facing the door, before i finally dozed off, i saw him,  a man, a shadowy man, standing at the foot of the door just staring at me, i thought i was dreaming so i woke myself up to try and catch him, i got out of bed but he was already gone. 

This is what spiked my love for Ghosts, they're not imaginary! I had a friend named Joseph, who was imaginary, he told me he died from a car accident, this happened in front of my elementary school, back in the 70's i was amazed that he was still around. 

Ghosts are real, if you believe hard enough you'll start seeing them, i mean, after all i'm 19 and i'm telling you about my ghostly experience that happened 11 years ago. Maybe i can see them, who knows.

Entry #1: Analyzing

I went through several blogs, some captured my attention, others i just completely ignored. i did have two blogs that i loved, and one that i didn't, i'll share with you guys what i think are the best two blogs.

This first blog speaks to me, although i'm really busy, i love finding ways to make my life simpler. I came across this blog, "Lifehacker," where you can use everyday household tools to either make cleaning easier, cure burns and other boo-boos, or make use of things you'd throw out. I don't really like cleaning, especially dusting, so i read that if you use a lint roller, dust would stay away for about an extra 2-3 weeks! that's not much, but it's enough so i don't have to do it every week.

http://lifehacker.com/

"The Gameological Society" really speaks for itself, a blog based only on video games really captures the attention of gamers so technically, this is heaven for some of us. The blogger has everything from newest games, to reviews to personal gaming opinions. I loved this blog personally, i did like the way it was easily setup to find everything. It's professional, yet fun so you don't lose interest.     http://gameological.com/author/johnteti/

 This last blog, was one i actually didn't find entertaining, nor interesting. In fact it was probably the worst I've seen by far. "Inky Fool," has nothing to say. His biased opinions on everything make it impossible to like him. His forced jokes caused me to lose interest fast. His blog was the worst.

http://blog.inkyfool.com/

After reading some blogs, they have helped me kind of understand some ground as to where and how to create a good blog based on me. It's all about interest and what kind of personality you have.  

Intro to me!

Hi, my name is Marco Zaragoza. I Born and raised in Phoenix,Arizona. Growing up was somewhat difficult for my family and I, my parents came to Arizona from Mexico, they thought that if they crossed the border, we'd have a better life. We did. My parents after years of waiting had finally gotten their residency and legally, were able to stay.

Like many parents, they were very strict. I really didn't do anything that was too much fun, because there was no fun in the household. The only memorable moments that never seem to leave my side is waking up early on a Saturday morning, running to the kitchen, pouring myself a huge bowl of Fruity Pebbles and quickly turning on the TV to watch the Best morning cartoons!

My parents were strict back then, and usually the one thing that was of the utmost importance was school. There was nothing wrong with school,really, it was just the feeling of me not wanting to be there voluntarily made it seem like prison. Eventually i just got accustomed to the school lifestyle that it wasn't so bad anymore. My parents were right about one thing, school is VERY important! When in the third grade, i was able to skip a grade, this was due to me knowing everything that was needed to be learned. 

Let's fast-forward to the present year. I recently graduated high school at Alhambra. the next most important step of my life was deciding whether or not to go to college.  Being accepted into ASU and NAU was nice but, due to financial problems, community college was my next step. Upon registering for GCC, i knew i wanted to become an NP (Nurse Practitioner) i realized this while in high school while in my Medical Magnet class. Being part of the medical field is something that has always interested me.

You might not know this, but The weeknd is all I ever listen to. Music is just as important to my life as coffee, I can't live without either one. 

So, now you know a little bit about me and how i kind of grew up, and my life goals. Although it was very brief, this will still tell you much about me.