college habits...

The transition from high school to college has been pretty rough. Going from the slacker life of going to school late and leaving early, partying, being unresponsible. Going to the college life its a major change, having to study about three hours a day, having to show up on time and leave late now, doing homework everynight, on top of that having a job to.

Although its been a tough transition from high school to college, I've been getting through it just fine. My family supports me with my school and work..for the most part. My work has suprisingly been very supportive and let me put school before work and they let me work around my school schedule.

And all of my friends are in college as well so not only do they support me, but they can relate to it as well.

what ive learned so far...

In this class I have learned a lot about the new mla updates. With that I've also improved my writing skills a lot. Also I learned the meaning of digress, step wife, and a few others.

And the last time I've been to a museum would be the living desert if that would qualify as a musuem. If not it would have been about two years ago when I went to the air musuem in palm springs.

process essay

I did my process essay on donating blood, bone marrow, and semen. Its a quick and easy way to make money and quick!

The essay has been erased from my hard drive and I really don't feel like typing it all out again...I do have the paper copy if you would like to see it though.

grading!

I think that I deserve about a low to mid A. I have been showing up to class everyday on time, I have been doing all the assignments and turning them in on time. I have put in all sixteen hours fot the lab. On about all of the essays that we have done soo far I have gotten about a B+ or an A-.

So as far as classwork I deserve about an A-...the next deciding factor will be the final. I am confident that I will do good on the final, all in all my grade should end up being at a B+ or A-.

summary/opinion practice

Many californian residents are worried about the higher education system. The CSU schools habe cut many student slots this semester, and plan on cutting a lot more in the spring semester. Along with slots being cut, tuition fees per unit are being reasied as well. Residents are unwilling to pay more in taxes to offset this matter. The survey was taken by 2500 californian residents via telephone, with a plus/minus 2%.

In my opinion I completly disagree with all of the cuts being made. Education needs to be made more accesablefor the leaders of tomorrow. The government is worried about right now, but they should also plan ahead."A majority of respondents, 70%, saw state budget cuts as a big problem and 57%cited overall affordability as a key issue." This is how many others feel and exactly how I feel.

research paper...

...today im sitting here in the lab trying to kill time as usual. I havent yet revised my rough draft for the research paper. Probably tonight or at the latest tomorrow night ill revise my rough draft to get it looked at on wenesday. And then it is due on thursday morning. By then ill have the two tutor reviews and the peer reviews (which I think are pointless)..my rough drafts and sources with most importantly the final draft.
In class its pretty chill as most of the time...at first it didnt really seem like it, but I have actually learned alot in this class. In between Mr. Murphys long digresions I do pay attention and actually learn lol. Hopefully our last few weeks will go off without a hitch. It should in this class, but in some of my other classes im a little worried about that.
Last week I recieved a letter in the mail with my student id and everything to riverside cc. I was and still am pretty excited. Ill be taking some online classes during winter semester due to all the cuts here at cod. Ill be taking winter semester 2010, summer 2010, and winter 2011 there online. That will let me graduate with my associates after the winter 2011 semester. After that its off to the navy for me. Soooooooo staoked for that : )

-kyle

As time goes on...

into the semester I get a hang of things more and more. Getting used to the teaching styles of teachers and learning to some what "play the game." I am doing pretty good in all my classes. This week is a short week..only three days this week. Wednesday is veterans day so we have that day off then we go back on Thursday which is really stupid. I am here in the lab currently and its pretty boring as always. I'm just trying to kill some time by typing this blog entry really slow. I plan on being here for about another hour and a half at least. I need to get my research paper checked by one of the tutors. I need two of the tutor forms so ill need to come in here another time before thanksgiving comes. And ill be doing the exact same thing next Monday that I'm doing today. Its the never ending cycle of work and school...the story of my life for the next year and couple months of my life. Blah Blah Blah trying to waste time is alot harder than it seems.
One thing that I wanted to talk about is the data base that Mr. Murphy told us to check out. In my opinion it is a piece of garbage. I have a semi-common topic that I am researching and it gives me horrible sources. Mr. Murphy said if i dont like that database, to try another one. The only thing is that I dont know of any other data bases aside from wikipedia. And I dont know why but wikipedia is really frowned upon when using it has a source.
Ok so I just had the tutor look at my paper and I didnt have too many issues except for the citing in my paper. I just need to look that up in the hackers rules for writing handbook. Also he said that i need to have all the quotations in my paper in conjunction with my sentances. So tonight or tomorrow night I will make some changes to my paper and probably not until next monday will I get my paper checked again.

-kyle

Quotationsss : )

"Pain is only weakness leaving the body."

This is a quote that I used to live my life by back in my wrestling days. Would beat on each other in practice and we would be dead tired at the end of each practice. I would always be tired from cutting mass amounts of weight every week. My weight fluctuated from 155lb to 135lb every week. The highest I ever got in weight was about 160lb. And the lowest I ever got was about 134lb in my senior year. I lived by this quote all throughout wrestling season that was all throughout high school. I started wrestling in eighth grade. I wish I would have started earlier in my life. But ohhh well...
Now that I'm out of high school I haven't really thought about this quote anymore. I am no longer wrestling because there is no team here at cod. And with my current life plans I will probably never wrestle competitively again : ( But I really need a sport to do because I'm going crazy just sitting doing nothing. Ill probably do some mma before I leave to the navy. Mma consists of wrestling, boxing, kickboxing, ju jitsu in all the forms that these come in. Currently with my super busy schedule all I really have time for is to go running every now and then. All I wish for in my lifetime is to just stay fit and not get fat!
I was going to write about the quote " The early bird gets the worm." But someone else choose that and I wanted something that no one else had. So I choose this. But for the early bird I was going to talk about how you need to come early to school in order to get a parking spot. Also the first days of school you need to come early in order to get a seat. And then the program ACES from cod gives me priority one registration...as a freshman : b
This lab is really pretty boring...

-kyle

Progress on research paper..

Career research paper...

Its coming along, they call it a rough draft for a reason. Overall I think my paper is pretty decent. According to Mr. Murphy I need to "fix in text!" I don't really know what he means when he circled the source that I was quoting or using stats from. He gave me a 4% out of 5% and I think this is ridiculous. It was turned in on time and more than five pages long. There was hardly any grammar mistakes. Ohhh well, what can I do? One problem that I am having is getting my last name to appear at the top of the page in the right hand corner. My word program wont give me the option to put it there. I think if anything ill just have to type it in manually. And Ill probably end up getting another source or two. My sister as well as Mr. Murphy said that many teachers hate wikipedia. And of course that was one of my sources. Soo I guess ill check out the databases offered by the college. I think my sources are cited correctly...he didn't mark me down for that. Except that I spaced it too much.
Last Thursday we were presenting our blogs in class. Not that many people presented, only a handful. Mr. Murphy asked alot of people to present theirs but most of them didn't have one at all. That or they didn't have much and it would have been an embarrassment to present that. I was a little worried that I was not going to have alot or enough, but compared to everyone else I had the same amount or even more. So I'm not too worried about the blog anymore. I'm getting in a decent amount of hours into the lab. By the end of today I should have around a total of ten hours in. We are supposed to have around sixteen. Although I have not done any of the "all write" program exercises. But Mr. Murphy is not stressing to us about that at all so I'm not going to worry about it.
Last Thursday we also had our midterm, we had to give a summary and our opinion of an essay. It had to be two pages long, not double spaced. It took me a while to get it done but all the work that I put in will pay off for my grade. I got a good grade on a very similar assignment that we did the previous week. I was really stressing about this because I knew that it was a big day. Our midterm was that day as well as our essay was due that day. But I'm really glad that its over.


-kyle

descriptive essay

Kyle Grimes

J. Murphy

English 51

Lido

So many luscious memories came to mind when I visited the old house I grew up in. I grew up on a street called “Lido” in Indio, CA. All of my memories of playing outside with neighbors on our swing set or riding bikes to getting ice cream and Mexican candy from the ice cream truck. I looked forward to play wrestling with neighbors and when we heard the ice cream truck coming we would all run inside and get money from our parents. Then we would run back outside to flag her down and I would always get Mexican candy with a Looney Tunes themed ice cream. First the sour and salty Mexican candy, then the ice cream to follow. And the eyes of the candy were blue gumdrops so I would have gum for afterwards. I have so many memories to cherish from when I was a child.
The first time I went back to visit my old house it was great. The yard was still well manicured, dark green grass, luscious shrubbery, and our great tall tree that had my swing set was still standing. The smell of fresh cut grass was in the air. Visiting and catching up with old neighbors brought back so many good memories. And it was nice that we could still make memories while we were there. While we were with the neighbors I heard the ice cream truck coming so I got some money from my parents and got the usual Mexican candy and Looney tunes ice cream with the gum drops for eyes. It was nice and cold & sugary sweet just like I remembered it.
Not much had changed at all since I had left.
The last time that I went to visit my old house everything was dramatically different. Neighbors had moved, they cut down the tree that had my old swing set on it. The grass and shrubbery was dead and the ice cream truck didn’t even stop by. It was a saddening day, I didn’t stay long.
Although it is saddening to see where I grew up change so dramatically, I will always have memories that I can cherish for a lifetime. It’s nice to go back and visit every now & then just to see the new families creating their own memories there. What seems strange and foreign to me is what they cherish & call home, but I will always have my memories.

descriptive essay

Kyle Grimes
Joel Murphy
English 51
22 September, 2009

Awkward
Enrolling in to a new school is more than likely to put you into an outcast situation. The first day of high school was pretty bad, but I at least had my friends with me to make it better. But coming to College of the Desert was completely different; I was all on my own. I still have some friends that are attending this school, but I don’t have any classes with them and I never see them around campus. It is a big change for me, and it feels really awkward.
My first day of College of the Desert was summer semester ’09. I came here looking forward to a new experience. But the experience that I got was not what I expected at all. The first thing that went wrong was trying to find a parking spot. Then after that I had problems finding my classes. I got lost and it was morning classes so there was not really anyone around for me to ask. I finally found a security guard and asked him “Where is the LA building?” He responded by just pointing and not saying a word. Again I asked “Excuse me sir, where is the liberal arts building?” He just walked away. Without his help, I found a campus map and finally found my class being ten minutes late. The class was full when I went in so I had to stand in front of the whole class and the teacher let all the people not registered stay in the class until the end and he did not even end up adding any those people. And after that class I had the exact same problems for my next class. I could not find it and there was not that many people in the halls. The people that I asked either did not know, did not speak English, or just ignored me. I just had to rely on the campus guide that I had found on the floor. And the same thing happened in that class. I had to sit on the floor in front of the class. And it seemed like everyone knew each other but me. The class was loud from everyone talking. On top of that the teacher was fifteen minutes late making us stay fifteen minutes after. He proclaimed,” I just had to get my morning coffee before I came in today.” His coffee made me late for work.
This was one of the most awkward, horrible, bad experiences that I have had. I felt like I did not belong there. Everyone was bigger and older than me. There are many people who smoke on campus, I went home smelling like cigarettes. The only good experience that I had there on my first day was going to the student café, the food smells and tastes great and it is all at a reasonable price.
Since that first day of College of the Desert I have learned a lot of the different ins and outs of the campus. There are still things that I do not know or am unsure of. But at least now I do not feel really awkward as I did that first day of school. This semester I had nobody in any of my classes that I knew but just with the experience from that first semester I am more out going and not as shy at school. With that I have made knew friends and meet a lot of really interesting people and I no longer feel awkward or like an outcast.

Work survelance summary and opinion

Kyle Grimes
Murphy
English 51
6 October 2009
Summary and Opinion of Essay p.337
You should be careful when you are at work because almost all bigger companies are watching you. They will check up on your emails, internet usage, phone calls, and have you on video surveillance while you are at work. Some employers have video surveillance on you all the time, while some other employers check at random. The employers take some pre-cautions sometimes to prevent misuse of telecommunications at work such as putting up firewalls for internet use. They also may only permit you to call certain numbers that are work related and monitor your email for work use only. They also monitor the emails between employees to make sure that it is work related and work friendly. Most employers let their employees use their own discretion to decipher from what is right and what is wrong. But once the employees cross the line that is when the employer will intervene to prevent future incidents. Employees were either fired or disciplined when they were caught for misuse. Before telecommunications were as accessible as they are today, there were only a handful of employers that monitored their employees. Since then there has been nearly a ten percent increase in monitoring. “…monitoring telephone numbers called (43percent), logged computer time (19 percent), and video surveillance for security purposes (38 percent).” More and more employers are monitoring their employees with the growth and ease of accessibility of technology. “It is important to note, however, that 90 percent of the companies engaging in any of there practices inform their employees that they are doing so.”
In my opinion I think it is perfectly fine to be monitoring employees at work. All employees go through a background check before they are hired, but what if they just have not been caught yet. You can never fully trust anyone with anything. Many employees’ arguments are that it is an invasion of privacy. If you have nothing to hide then you should have no problem being monitored with what you are doing at work. Many may think that it is wrong morally, but legally employers have the right to monitor everything that you do at work. I think it is ridiculous on how much is spent on the monitoring. If employees were doing exactly what they were supposed to be doing, then the money spent on the monitoring services could be spent on higher hourly wages for the employees. Either way you can not trust anyone with anything and that is why many employers monitor employees.

Procrastinaton much?

Ok, I havent really gotten started on my research essay yet. BUT, I was ahead by having personal interviews before the assignment was given to us. So in a way im right where I should be? Today im getting started with the small stuff, an outline. I already have some interviews and I looked into my career online at BLS.org. So in a way I have about three sources already. So getting started with a general outline and maybe citing my sources in mla format will be a good start and ill take it from there.
Last thursday I had to get a progress report filled out via the academic club that I am in. I found out that I have a B in my english 051 class. I was not happy but not sad at the same time. Its a decent grade but for this class I know I can be getting an A. If I would get an A in this class I should end up with straight A's except for my math class. Which isnt my best subject as well as many others. If I just keep on doing what im doing then i should accomplish my goal. "Keep on keeping on."-In the words of Joe Dirt.
As for my actual english 051 course it is just fine. Mr. Murphy is super chill and easy to learn from. Although he does tend to digress alot. But I learned what digress means from him so it makes up for it. Our midterm is coming up at the end of this month I think. Hopefully we will get soime kind of study guide for whats on the final, or else I think im screwed!
Im in the lab right now and its pretty boring but it has to be done...

Ohhh well. Until next time.

Sincerely.

-kyle

Starting the longest paper ive ever done....

Last week we got a new assignment, we have to write a five page research essay. The topic is supposed to be on a career that we are interested in. We have to have five sources incliuding two interviews. This seems like a really big task but I think if I just manage my time well and do it in sectons that ill get it done on time.

The career that I have great interest in is being a peace officer. Prior to even knowing about this project I was doing my own research to make sure that its was really a career that I wanted to pursue. It was always a career that caught my eye and I thought it would be really interesting. Always watching the show COPS as a child with my dad and aways looking up to the cops when I would see them on the streets.

I have already done a "ride-a-long" with IPD and it was amazing. Just seeing what they do on an average night was an adrenaline rush. Just talking to the officer throughout the night about what its typically like and what he did before and how he got into the force was a good source. After that "ride-a-long" I pretty much fell in love with the job. I know its what I want to do now. I also had an interview with another associate from IPD, he is higher ranked and has like an office job. But he was telling me what they look for when they are highering people. They look for life experiance, mid twenties, mature, and possibly some military experiance.

Overall I have gotten alot of good sources soo far and I have some more interviews set up for the future with people from differents police departments that work in different fields. Ill just cross reference what they all say to see what would be best for me overall. This is a project that normally I would dread doing, but it is something of great interest to me and I look forward to doing it.

-kyle

So far it IS good.

Now in the midst of the semester things are starting to flow much better. An essay is due tomorrow, we had to write about a situation where you were new to something. I wrote about my first day attending to community college (COD). All the different issues that I had from finding a parking spot to finding my classes. I have seen the tutor in the lab, he said that I had some issues with my thesis statment. He said the intro paragraph is supposed to be like an outline to the rest of your paper. Each sentance in your intro paragraph is supposed to correspond to each paragraph subject. Taking his advice into consideration I have revised my paper to fix that and fix some other issues that I had. In my first essay that I got a C+ on, I didnt know about the MLA format and it was too short. As with this essay I have fixed those mistakes by reading the "Hackers rules for Writing" handbook. I looked up MLA format to get the essay right. As for the length I fixed that problem on my own. In my opion and also according to my peer reviews, my essay is in pretty good shape. The only problem that I have left is the last name at the top right hand corner of the paper that is supposed to be there. You are supposed to have your last name next to the number on every page, but my computer doesnt give me the option to do so. Hopefully Mr. Murphy wont mark me down at all or too much.

-kyle

So far so good?

At the end of our third week at school im starting to catch on to things. I have completed my essay, typed it up, and got it checked out by a tutor in the lab. Now i have to revise my second draft for the final draft that is due on tuesday. Today we went over chapter ten that was about narraration. comparing the essays in the book to the ones that we are doing really helps. Im really enjoying this class. The teacher seems really laid back, almost too laid back because soometimes i dont have a full understanding of something but im sure that ill get the hang of it just like i did with this and many other things in entering college. until next time.


-kyle

first blog

This is my first blog for my english course at cod. Im not quiet sure what to be writing about yet but I firgured why not just start a blog to show I made an effort if there is something that we need to be writing about but I just didnt hear or I wasnt paying attention. My teacher seems pretty chill and easy to get along with. I think I just need to pay attention a little more so I dont miss anything he has to say. I have no friends in the class yet, as in any of my other classes yet. But I look forward to making some new friends. Hopefully this is a good start.

-kyle