The final post.

For this quarter my English class has been blogging to each other and to other outside sources. I feel that blogging is a way to reach out to people that aren’t just friends of yours but all around the world that have the same questions and problems that you have. When you get to a blog it may answer questions that you want to know or just pointless information that you most likely wont remember the next day and anyone can go to a blog.

You don’t have to have special permission, if you want to look something up you just type it in to Google or another search engine and find a blog that pertains to what you are looking up and read away. I feel that people blog because they need to get what they are blogging about off their chest and have nowhere else to go to vent about what they are saying without being embarrassed or get into trouble. People read blogs because they have questions that they are too scared to ask other people face to face. Which is why blogs tend to bring people together because they find something they have in common with each other and continue a conversation from there.

When you blog you don’t have to give out any personal information, which makes things easy for people to do because then they don’t have to worry about someone finding out what they are writing about. Like how I vented about my girlfriend that is now my ex. I would’ve gotten my ass chewed out if she would’ve seen that and figured out it was me venting about her.

Like when Dougas Rushkoff said “the internet is social currency”. The Internet brings all type of people together. One of the newest things that proves his point is all of the new Internet dating sites that are everywhere. The Internet brings people that would never of talked to each other something to talk about, like what they posted about or asks questions on their profile.

“Blogging is changing the media world and could, I think, foment a revolution in how journalism functions in our culture.”

—Andrew Sullivan “The Blogging Revolution: Weblogs Are To Words What Napster Was To Music”

Responding to Students

After reading the post “You Piss Me Off; or, Honesty is the Best Policy” from the blog The Devils in the Details by Andreas Viklund, I felt a need to respond. As a student I can understand that teachers have to read a lot of bullshit that students type just to get a good grade in the class.

The blog that I read about was a teacher who was venting about how he is reading his students papers and how they are offensive in many ways. There are a few ways that I would respond to this blog, like how I have bullshitted many papers, how I have probably written offensive things in a paper before, and how I would hate to have to read that it.

The post that I read was about a teacher, named Andreas Viklund, who was reading papers that not only made the teacher laugh but also offended Viklund. Some of the papers that the teacher was reading about had to do with homosexuality and how it is just an irrational thought. Viklund gets very pissed over just one essay that he read. He vents over the paper he just read out loud to get it off his chest. Then Viklund tries to take himself out of the grading and just ignore the entire offensive and morally wrong things that the kids were writing in their papers and grade them just to get them done.

Viklund was asking questions on what he/she should do about it. Do you speak what you feel and possibly cause problems between you and your work or just hold back and keep it to yourself? Viklund asks the same questions, “How do you address work that offends you? Do you avoid it? Brush it off? Try to correct the person? Do you tell the person you are offended? There’s a lot of debate about this in academia.”

Bullshitting Papers

In all my years of schooling I would have to admit that I have bullshitted a lot of papers! Its either that I don’t understand the assignment or I wait until the very last minute to look at the assignment and realize its going to take awhile to complete right but if I bullshit it good enough I can get at least a passing grade. I bet teachers can figure out if a student did that on a paper and I can imagine that it makes them angry. Bullshitting a paper comes into this blog because if a student bullshits a paper they don’t care what the paper contains as long as it meets the word count and has something to do with the subject of the assignment.

In the many papers I have written in 18 years I bet there is at least one paper that has offended someone or the teacher writing it. A teacher asks you to write about something that you believe in and you put down what you think and feel. When doing an assignment you don’t think about how the teacher/student is going to feel about what you write. You’re just trying to get the paper done and move onto your other homework. Which in turn, what you write can offend someone in the class, if you have to present the paper, or offend the teacher reading the paper. But the teacher can’t give you a bad grade because you did what they asked you to do but they can speak their mind; unless the teacher was like Viklund.

If I was in the shoes of Andreas Viklund, I wouldn’t be able to grade papers without speaking my mind. I couldn’t be like the teacher I read about. He said that they would just bite their tongue and not correct the person. I would be completely different, I would have corrected the person and told him if he continues to write offensive stuff then I would fail him or turn him in to the dean. I feel that Viklund should speak his mind to his students so that they don’t continue to offend the people reading their papers. And Viklund could at least say something small because the next teacher may not be so shy.

As a student I can understand that teachers go threw a lot and read a lot of things that they don’t want to even think about. But as part of their job and the assignments that they hand out they have to understand that they are going to get some weird and offensive essays. Like in the blog I read, he had those things happen that day and decided to blog about them. Have you ever thought that something you wrote about in a paper could offend someone?

Having a Shitty and Messy Roommate

While there are times when people have moments that they get upset or pissed off there are also things that make people smile. For this story you will read about how one of my best friends who is also my roommate pisses me off. The main thing that bugs me is that I am a clean freak and hate clutter, but he is always leaving things lay around.

These habits were at their peak when we decided to have a new years party at our house. He never cleans up the next morning; he lets everyone wear their shoes, and is always letting people smoke in our house.

First, ever since I was a little kid I was taught to always keep things clean, whether it is dishes, your room, or your clothes. When I get bored, I tend to clean things, which can be a really bad thing because when I do that I usually clean up his stuff too. So he just takes advantage of it which is why I think he doesn’t clean up after himself as much.

When we have parties at the house he tends to keep himself locked in his room the next morning until he has to go to class or work and then I end up having to clean everything. Which is exactly what he did the day after new years. It wouldn’t bother me to clean my own mess but I have to clean up his and our friends’ messes, which is just annoying. Even when he is the one that wanted to throw the party I tend to still clean it up after because I wake up earlier then he does.

When we have people over at our house and I’m home I make everyone take their shoes off at the door so that the carpet doesn’t get all dirty and gross. But when my roommate throws a party and I get home to late and people are already there he doesn’t have them take their shoes off so the carpet will be all wet and nasty. Which is what happened on new years. Its like he has to impress everyone by letting them do whatever they want when they come to our place and it’s just dumb.

So then the next morning when everyone is gone it looked like a herd of buffalo swam in the mud then ran all around our house. Then it comes to me mostly cleaning it and my roommate will come towards the end and finish. But he usually does a shitty job so I have to go back and clean it.

One of the last things that piss me off is how he let other people at the party is smokes in the apartment. When he has friends over he lets them all smoke when I’m not home so when I get home the place smells gross and I get extremely pissed. I think the only reason he does it because he wants people to think he’s cool and doesn’t care. But when I find a bunch of cigarette butts all in the front lawn or burn marks in the couch or on the floor I get really pissed.

The Gross Cigarette Butts

We both grew up around people that didn’t smoke so I don’t understand where this is coming from. He has also picked up a habit of chewing tobacco, which is extremely gross and smells terrible when he opens the cans up. He will just leave bottles of chew spit all over the place and I find it extremely gross and I will find tobacco guts on our floor. Which also goes along with how he doesn’t pick up after himself. But I wouldn’t care about the spitting thing as long as he didn’t leave his spit bottles lay everywhere.

My best friend, which is also my roommate, tends to do things around the apartment that really pisses me off. He is a really great friend and we usually always get along but there are times when we just butt heads and argue about things like I explained and things go down hill but they usually get better the next day. Like when he doesn’t clean up the next morning, lets people keep their shoes on inside, and smokes and spits in the house. The things he does wouldn’t bother me as much as they do if he would just do his share of the work and just make smarter choices.

Being Sick

So as all of you know i have been having problems with my eyes. But to add on top of that i now have a sinus infection and an ear infection. Which sucks because it seems like every time i get a little sick someone drops a bomb on me and i get even worse. Its kind of like the saying when it rains it pours, when i get a little sick it all goes to hell and i hate it!

If you were to walk into my room you would think im a druggie because of all the pill bottles i have. I have pain killers, drops, and a cream type thing JUST for my eyes! then i have to take accutane twice a day and then i have two other pills for my ear and sinus infection.

I feel like an old person that has those plastic bins full of pills for each day of the week. And i mean i know there is going to be a time when your going to be sick but i feel like every time i get better i get something else wrong with me and it starts all over again. Which personally just really pisses me off especially since the weather is getting nicer and i cant enjoy it because i feel like complete shit.

Doctors

So the other weekend i went to visit my buddies up at kent state and we did our usual things that we do best. I left two thursdays ago so that i could be up there for thirsty thursday. Thursday went off with a bang and i got up there met up with my friends and then went out with no problems. The same went for friday night, but on saturday night things went downhill. when we go out i wear my contacts and before passing out around 3 am i forgot to take out my contacts.

So the next morning i wake up and my eye hurt like a mother and are gunked shut. I figured i just had another eye infection like i get when i wear my contacts too long. so i didn't think anything of it. But the next day it wasn't any better it was actually worse! So i have my roommate drive me to the urgent care since i can barley keep my eyes open. When i get there the nurse asks me questions that i answer. then the doctor comes in and asks me the same questions, so i answer them again. then they tell me i need to get to a eye specialist ASAP! but there wasn't any open at the time so my parents wanted me to go to OSU Medical Center.

My mom rushed to Newark to pick me up and took me. When we get there you have to sign in and do all the stupid paperwork. Finally i get called and they ask me pretty much the same dam things that the urgent care did. And not just once, like three times. After being there for around three hours and meeting a girl that has the same thing wrong with her eyes we have to schedule an appointment with another specialist for the next day. After that we were giving our prescriptions and able to leave.

The next day my dad drives me to the other specialist and guess what?? I had to repeat the whole process for the third time! Filling out all the paperwork and answering all the same questions. You would think that all the stuff that they right down the next person would read it and not ask the same questions.