My personal writing for this class has really set me back because I have so much stuff I have to do this term and with all the things on my mind I never realized until just this week that this essay is different than the other essays I have done in the past. One of my class mates explained to me that this is a persuasive essay and not a research essay and now I’m having a hard time finding material to help me on my paper. This has just been a bad term for me, with me finding out that the career choice that I’m wanting to get into will be almost impossible for online students so now I have no clue what career I want to get into and wondering if I am wasting my time and money and that they raised my tuition fees an extra $120 and with me not working at the moment I don’t know how I can afford it. I just have so much on my mind that I’m not thinking clearly and I have two essays to do this term and I haven’t really started on either one.

In my personal writing process, I usually break it down by weeks and find all my material that I’m going to look over the first week, then I separate all the material in categories the second week. After everything is categorized I start on my first topic on the third week with my second and third topics on weeks four and five. Then I do my conclusion and reference page on week six. On week seven I do my thesis and my introduction and do all my editing on week eight before I turn it in to the writing center. I usually get my paper back on week nine where I do all the corrections the writing center found and turn it in to be graded.

My academic challenges will have to be to get caught up because I am so far behind. I need to stop thinking about my problems for now and just try to get through this term and worry about all those other things during our week off. I am doing ok in my comp class, however my other class is starting to get close to the point that I don’t make the grade I’m wanting. I am going to have to find some way to pull that grade up also.

The only way school is influencing my life at this moment is that I don’t think I can handle school and a job right now and because of that I am really hurting money wise. I would love to be able to do both but I’m afraid that will take away from my school time and cause me to start getting lower grades. I was told that a GPA is pretty much a personal accomplishment and that most employers never look at that but my GPA is my personal drive and as long as my grades stay where they are I’m going to keep working hard, it’s when they drop is when I will start giving up and I know this and that is why I have to focus on getting good grades.

It is not the fact that I would be upset if someone used something I created without giving me credit as much as if they were making money off of it. If someone copied something I said then I would not care at all, however if they used my ideas to cash in, then I would be upset. I understand the importance of plagiarism, I mean if someone used my words in a book that made money then I would want a piece of the action but that is just the greediness coming out of me, which I’m sure everybody has a little in them. I have seen on TV and the internet where people are suing others for using their ideas in movies and stealing their songs to make hits, but my thought in all of that is they should have been smart about it. If they didn’t get it copy written or have documents stating when they did something before passing their ideas on then it’s their loss. If I design something, then go telling people how I did it and they take the idea and run with it then whose fault is it that I didn’t get anything out of it? I have worked at many places where I had to sign a letter of privacy so I won’t tell anybody else what is going on behind those walls. And as far as the internet goes, if you don’t want anybody to know what you are doing then don’t post it. Unless someone actually steals your folders that have all your personal stuff in there, then I don’t feel bad at all for those people crying that someone stole their ideas. Whatever I write or whatever anybody takes from me that I have laying there for everybody to get their hands on is my own fault. So I feel as if somebody write stuff and has it copy written or published and someone uses their words to make money then actions should be taken, however if no money is made, then no harm no foul.

I don’t really care too much about blogging, never had any interest in doing it and after this class I’ll probably never get on it again. I am on Facebook all the time, however I never post anything on there either, I just leave it open to chat with my friends whenever there is nothing else to do. My whole thoughts about blogging and twitter and even the Facebook post is that it is personal and useless information that nobody else cares about reading. I don’t care that someone is about ready to eat or if they are just sitting there watching TV and I really don’t care that they bought a new item on their Farmville. It really makes me feel bad to write on this blog because I have always been against people following other people’s personal lives and I won’t even let my kid have an account. It makes me wonder how I can tell my kid that stuff like this is bad yet she sees me doing the same thing. It’s like telling your kid not to drink alcohol while having a beer in your hand. I know there are a lot of people that think I may be crazy but I know how kids get together on these things and one see’s that their friend might be doing something and that makes them want to go do it (especially with the peer pressure these days). I use this excuse because we are having an issue with a 14 year old that we know wanting to go get a tattoo to remember her aunt that just passed away. She posted it on her Facebook that she was thinking about it and even though my mom has commented to her about not getting one because her aunt has never approved of them, all her little friends on there are commenting to her about how she should and not to listen to anybody else and some of them even commented that if she gets one, they will get one too. Well enough about my feelings about being a part of the “blog-o-sphere”

The topic about me being an online student is completely the opposite. I love the online schooling, it allows me to work all my studies anytime I want, it allows me to take my notes or watch lectures at my own pace and it also allows people who have kids and jobs to be able to go to school without the hassles of quitting their jobs or finding someone to watch their kids. I love the E-books that some of the classes offer, it makes note taking so much faster. It usually takes me 2 full days to take notes from my anatomy book where if it was an E-book it would only take me a couple of hours. I’m not really sure how to create a closer class community because I have always offered anybody (who wants to look me up on Facebook) help in studying and so far I have a few people that I had in other classes accept my offer and we help each other study all the time. Whenever we find things on the web or videos or anything that could help us, we send the links to each other and it really helps.

Day 1

hello, my name is Craig Harrington. This is my first time blogging, I'm really not even sure if I'm doing this correctly but hopefully before to long I'll be a pro on it.