english 1B

Facebook Interview

2009-05-18T07:11:00.000-07:00

i decided to do my interview with my friend Eric because he uses social networks all the time, especially Facebook.
Adam: Do you have a Facebook?
Eric: Yes, I do.

Adam: Do you poke people?
Eric: Yes, I use it all the time

Adam: Do you ever add people because you think they are cool or attractive?
Eric: Sure, all the time

Adam: Have you ever added your girlfriend as a friend on Facebook or changed your relationship status?
Eric: Yes, my (ex) girlfriend and I always go back and forth deleting each other as friends and changing our status’.

Adam: Have you ever met with a girl because you talked to her on Facebook?
Eric: No, that is what aim was for.

Budget Cuts Interview

2009-05-17T19:04:00.000-07:00

I interviewed my dad because he has strong feelings toward politics and our government.

Adam Ferreira: What are your thoughts and feelings about the new California state budget?

Russell Ferreira: The budget has its faults like any other economic plan, but for the most part it seems to set California at least back on the right track to recovery. Its massive cuts in education and transportation are scary to think about but I think if we can just tough it out for a year or maybe a few years, things will get better.

Adam Ferreira: When the budget is passed into law, do you see it impacting you in anyway? Or has it impacted you already?

Russell Ferreira: Well, I have a son in school who will suffer the education cuts and the public transportation cuts. I personally will suffer because of the rise in tuition from the school since I pay for some of his schooling. I constantly hear about how this crisis we are in is the worst people have ever seen. It's a little scary.

Adam Ferreira: If you were Governor of California what would you include in this budget? What would you cut?

Russell Ferreira: I would try to follow the example of the stimulus plan that was just passed. In my opinion, Obama's idea about rebuilding roads, buildings, schools seems to be a good one. Get as many people back to work as possible. Tax cuts for the lower and middle class and tax increases in the higher class would seem to be a good idea as well. The "trickle down" theory of the Bush years hasn't seemed to work so something new like that would be nice to see. Investing in education and encouraging more people to become teachers is also a plan I would take. I would cut funds for unemployment benefits and welfare.

Assessing Assessments

2009-04-23T15:56:00.000-07:00

The sources I still need to get are:

I need to finish my interview with my Fraternity brother
I need to find and skim through another book from the library
I need to post all my sources to the blog

Have you assessed your resources effectively?
Besides the fact of needing to post them, I need to change my topic and go at it a different way. In other words, my topic is to broad and needs to be more focused.

Resources Reflection

2009-04-23T15:06:00.000-07:00

How did you find your sources?
I found my sources using the internet, newspaper, the library, and through my interview. On the internet I used Wikipedia and Google. I used the newspaper i get at home since I go home every weekend. I went to the King Library, pulled a few books and read certain parts in each of the books. And in my interview, I interviewed one of my Fraternity brothers and he pretty much had the same opinion as me before I did my research.

How has research altered your original idea?
Research has changed my thoughts and opinion about Facebook because I never realized that a person can be different in person than on their Facebook page. On Facebook, a person can become almost whoever they want to be because your friends, who only contact you through Facebook, do not know the real you.

Research Questions

2009-04-09T15:56:00.000-07:00

Why did i pick Facebook as my social networking service to research?

What does Facebook have that other social networks do not have? vice versa?

What makes Facebook unique?

Why would someone join Facebook rather than another social networking service?

Facebook Thesis Statement

2009-04-08T22:15:00.001-07:00

Thesis Statement:
Facebook is a cite where people get together and form groups about their workplace, area, and/or school; and update profiles to notify their friends about them

Sources:

Facebook Wikipedia Entry

2009-04-08T22:01:00.000-07:00

According to Wikipedia, facebook is a social networking service that people go on to join networks with people around there area; such as, school, city, workplace, etc... Users can add friends to their profiles, update their profiles so friends know what is going on in there lifes, and send messages to their friends. A man named Mark Zuckerberg, a student at Harvard University, created facebook with a few computer science majors, along with his roommates Chris Hughes and Dustin Moskovitz. The site expanded from a few universities, to all the universites, to high schools, and now it is expanded to anyopne over the age of 13 years and older.

Assessment of Facebook

2009-04-06T15:53:00.000-07:00

Facebook is a good tool to meet new people around someone's area or school. It gives status updates of your friends to see how they are doing or feeling. For example, people put "Billy is tired" or "Larry had fun last nite," on their status' for everyone to read, and friends can leave comments on their status if they want to. On the right side, there is a section called People You May Know which is there for people to see if their other friends have facebooks and they do not know about it. However, if you want to become their friend you send in a "friend request" and the person receiving it decides if they want to become friends with you or not. It also shows you which of your friends are online and you can talk to them, just like aim!

People use facebook for different reasons: the majority of people use it to talk to friends and meet new people; but others use it for advertisement. For example, on my facebook there is always a club being promoted that promoters are trying to get me and others to go out to. They send me and others messages about the club that is going to occur that weekend.

Most of the people who use it are in high school and college. It started out being for college students only; however, high school students started to develope this facebook trend. I also know a lot of people out of college who have facebooks, also to keep in touch with their friends.

Facebook represents a place where people go to see what their friends are up to. People leave comments on other peoples walls, check out pictures and post comments on them.

Facebook is very useful because whenever someone is bored they can go on facebook and talk to their friends, look at their pictures, check out status', or leave comments on their walls.

When you create a facebook, it asks you if you want people who are not your friends to be able to view your profile or if you only want your friends to view your profile. In other words, if you do not want someone to view your profile, go into facebook and change the setting.

Assessing Technology Articles

2009-04-02T15:45:00.000-07:00

Letters from the Past
by Laurie Schutza

This article is saying how people tend to text or e-mail now-a-days with quick conversations, such as: How are you? How is life? But, when you talk on the phone or write a letter, there is more meaning. In a letter, people usually get across everything they need to and want to say to their loved one, family member, or friend. A phone call is even better when talking to someone because their is emotion in the conversation.

essay 3 notes

2009-04-02T15:19:00.000-07:00

Include:
1. Asssessingand Evaluating
2. Opinion
3. Critical Voice
4. Using powerful language
5. Details

Do not include:
Summary
Emotion
I believe/think...

Brainstorming Technology

2009-03-17T15:54:00.000-07:00

technology is something that helps the species of the animal kingdom to adapt to its environment

i pods
computers
laptops
touch screen devices

consumers control technology
it is also self-regulated by the people

when i lose control of my personal information then it is out in the open and anyone who wants to look at/view my peersonal things can access it.

Outline

2009-03-02T23:45:00.000-08:00

Introduction:

Thesis: The California budget cuts are mainly affecting those who are college students in the state because their tuition is increasing to extreme amounts and students who had trouble paying for tuition before; the cuts just made it harder to pay for there education.

Body Paragraph I:

Students are being denied from schools even though their grades are excellent
If a student cannot pay for the college they want to attend without the help from scholarships or grants, then it is a minute chance that they will be attending

Body Paragraph II:

The amount of money California State Universities, Universities of California, and community colleges are losing
And the amount students have to pay in order to attend these schools

Body Paragraph III:

Construction projects are put on hold at the moment from these cuts
Tax rebates were being delayed as well

Conclusion:

All in all, tuition for students is sky rocketing and the California college systems are having to lose money
Students are unable to attend colleges because of their money problems; not because of their grades

Article

2009-03-02T22:25:00.000-08:00

A Bad Budget That Could Have Been Worse
February 20, 2009
It's all about perspective. When you've been staring down the barrel of a potential loss of hundreds of millions of dollars in operating funds, tens of thousands of need-based student grants, and more, even cuts that would look deep in a normal year suddenly don't look quite so disastrous.
That was the view around much of California higher education Thursday, as administrators, faculty leaders and student groups absorbed the news of a statewide budget deal that, after months of bitter negotiations and threats of even greater calamity, would raise taxes and significantly cut spending on many state services, including higher education.

The compromise, which was designed to eliminate a nearly $42 billion shortfall in the state's budget for the 2008-9 and 2009-10 fiscal years, inflicts significant pain on the three massive higher education systems: the University of California, California State University, and the California Community Colleges.
It would cut $115 million in state operating support through 2010 from the University of California and slash a planned contribution on UC's behalf to the state retirement system, to the disappointment of university officials. Cal State would lose about $165 million in state funds for 2008-9 and 2009-10 and, for the second straight year, forgo new money (promised in a "compact" between the university systems and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger) to fund enrollment growth and finance the state's higher education compact. And the California Community Colleges would lose $40 million for cost of living adjustments and defer hundreds of millions of dollars in formula funds to the future.
The budget compromise would also impose 10 percent increases in tuition (which Californians insist on calling "fees") on students at UC and Cal State and, by not funding enrollment increases at the two university systems, effectively lock out more than 12,000 students next fall.
But the final deal also avoided some of the direst outcomes envisioned during the weeks of impasse between legislative leaders and Schwarzenegger over how best to close the gap, with Democrats and the Republican governor insisting that tax increases were necessary and many Republican legislators pressing for deeper spending cuts. Most significantly, perhaps, the compromise restored $87.5 million that Schwarzegger's original budget had proposed slashing from the Cal Grants need-based financial aid program, and it includes $185 million in new funds to allow for 3 percent enrollment growth at the California Community Colleges.
So even as they bemoaned the cuts and expressed concern about the longterm viability of California's ability to fund higher education at its traditionally high level, college leaders in the state acknowledged that it could have been worse. "I am compelled to note that the proposed cuts to the university, while serious, do not appear to be disproportionate," Mark G. Yudof, president of the University of California, wrote in a letter to its regents on Tuesday. "Indeed, I believe the Governor and the Legislature have helped to protect the university's base budget from potentially even deeper cuts."
Community college officials went so far as to describe the resolution as a "good one under the circumstances," as Erik Skinner, vice chancellor for fiscal policy at the California Community Colleges, put it to colleagues in a memo Thursday. "It is clear that the state leaders who negotiated this budget deal placed a very high priority on protecting the capacity of the community colleges to meet surging enrollment demand. The relatively modest cuts to the community colleges and the provision of $185 million in growth funds for the budget year are proof that state leaders value the indispensable role that the colleges are playing during these difficult times."
Perhaps no statement in Skinner's memo is more true than this one: that the combination of tax increases, spending cuts, and hefty borrowing in the budget package affects every sector of California's economy and society and gives "every constituency something to hate." The three higher education systems, which together educate about 3.3 million students -- almost 20 percent of all U.S. college students -- have not been spared.
The state's two university systems had already imposed significant reductions in their budgets and, in the case of Cal State, frozen all construction projects because of the deterioration of the state's economy and midyear budget cuts imposed for the current, 2008-9 academic year. Both Cal State and UC have noted that they are already serving thousands more students than the state is paying them to educate, at a cost of $122 million at the University of California alone.
As the state's political leaders dickered in recent weeks over a solution to the escalating financial mess, California had to stop construction projects and delay tax rebates, and it risked far worse. The stalemate escalated worries among college leaders that significantly deeper cuts would be required, and that Republican legislators would go to the mat to oppose tax increases that would require state spending to be decimated.
Some of the eventual cuts will cause pain, especially if they are not remedied in the long term. The University of California had sought funds to allow it to restart making employer contributions to the state's retirement fund, but $20 million for that purpose was cut from the budget compromise. Because of the downturn in the financial markets, the retirement fund is now underfunded, which could hurt current and future employees if that does not change.
“We are very disappointed that the state is not recognizing its responsibility to support employer contributions to the UC Retirement Plan, as it does for contributions to CalPERS on behalf of CSU and the community college system," said Paul Schwartz, a UC spokesman.
Olgalilia Ramirez, director of legislative affairs for the California State Student Association, which represents students at Cal State, said her members appreciated state leaders' agreement to abandon proposed cuts in Cal Grants that would have reduced aid for thousands of low and middle income students. But the combination of the increase in tuition -- which will be the eighth straight year of such increases, totaling as much as 135 percent since 2002 -- and the failure to provide money to support more enrollments are combining to threaten the state's traditional promise of accessible higher education, she said.
"There's been a promise here that any person who was qualified to go to CSU would be given a spot," said Ramirez. "For the first time we're seeing that not occur. It's a sad thing to admit."

rhetorical strategies

2009-02-19T15:50:00.000-08:00

The tone of these images are

The assumptions are that if anyone was in this building they would not have made it out alive...

politics summary

2009-02-19T15:43:00.000-08:00

In our inventing arguments book, the before and after cleanup pictures of Pass Christian Middle School that were caused by Hurricane Katrina tell us a lot about how terrible this hurricane was. The top picture is an image of broken pieces of wood, bricks, and rooftops; and the bottom is a picture of what the area looks like after it was cleaned up. All in all, the hurricane was an awful experience for the people in New Orleans and destroyed their town...

Barack Obama's Inaugural Address

2009-02-17T13:45:00.000-08:00

Obama persuades the people to believe in and follow him by keeping the speech interesting and full of information that the people want to hear. The speech is set up like an essay where the writer makes his points and then later on goes into greater detail for each topic. At the beginning of his speech he mentions the wars that are going on, how bad our economy is, and how the Earth is being destroyed; and the people know that later on in the speech he will go back to those points and discuss them more in depth. He talks about ways we can avoid and help these issues that the United States is going through. Another big point he made was when he mentioned schools and how students are not doing as well in classes and that this issue needs to be fixed.

Reflection 2/12/09

2009-02-12T15:58:00.000-08:00

The whole class changing seems like it is a good idea. It is going to be unlike any other class I have been in; however, it will be a great experience. I am a little unsure about this blogging thing because I have never done it before, but it is good to try new things.

Journal 2/12/09

2009-02-12T15:25:00.000-08:00

sports

obesity throughout the world

alcohol intake by college students

car fatalities caused by alcohol consumption