Argument Paper (rough draft, to be continued)

            Living in America, being able to legally drink at the age of twenty-one seems to be a right of passage that many young adults can’t seem to wait for. Many argue that legalizing alcohol consumption below the age of twenty-one would be detrimental to the safety of our youth, because it is believed that they aren’t responsible enough to consume alcohol. Unfortunately, people under the age of twenty-one are finding ways to get alcohol and are often consuming it in dangerous amounts in uncontrolled environments. Is this epidemic happening because eighteen year-olds are irresponsible, or is it because they were never taught how to drink responsibly? While some may believe that the only way to battle this dangerous habit it to preach abstinence until the legal age of twenty-one, there are many that are seeing this law to be the actual problem causing this horrifying epidemic. Lowering the drinking age will allow for education on responsible consumption, and lower the mortality rates associated with underage drinking.

            It is believed that our national legal drinking age of twenty-one was reached because the government was concerned with underage drinking. Lets discuss why the federal drinking age is at twenty-one. In the early 1980s, President Reagan created a Presidential Commission Against Drunk Driving (PCDD) in an attempt to put an end to the drunk driving epidemic that was seen prominent in adult drivers, not teenagers. The commission created recommendations that states were expected to follow to diminish the number of high-way deaths related to citizens driving drunk; in return for following the recommendations, the states would not lose out on federal money to use on their state highways. One of these recommendations, was to raise the legal drinking age to twenty-one. With no questions asked from our state governments and consistent lobbying from the MADD (Mothers Against Drunk Driving) organization, President Reagan signed the National Minimal Drinking Age Act of 1984 which made the national drinking age twenty-one. The states were concerned with federal funding for their highways, not the drinking age.

Many supporters of the Minimum Legal Drinking Age (MLDA) being twenty-one belief that no one under the age of twenty-one in the United States is a loud to consume alcohol. Unfortunately, it is time to burst their bubble; this is not the case. According to the MLDA law, there are eight different exceptions allowing adults under the age of twenty-one to consume alcohol. Under one of the exceptions, According to the Alcohol Policy Information System (APIS),

some states allow an exception to possession, consumption, or internal possession   prohibitions when a family member consents and/or is present. APIS codes two types of family member exceptions.  The first is an exception for either the consent or presence of a parent or guardian.  The second is an exception for either the consent or presence of the spouse of a married minor.

As of 2010, thirty states allow for this exception, including New York. One can only argue that these exemptions exist simply because state governments understand that it is possible for adults to consume alcohol responsibly under the age of twenty-one.

            Some may argue that lowering the drinking age is a viewpoint that is simply shared among young adults that don’t want to wait until they are twenty-one to consume alcohol. The truth is, “over 100 college presidents –­ including the heads of Dartmouth, Virginia Tech and Duke – signed a declaration stating that the 21-year-old drinking age is not working” (CBS News, 2010). Many of these college presidents have looked at the statistics, and have realized that raising the drinking age has not stopped the death tolls associated with drinking, it has only added to it at an alarming rate.

Disney? Oh..that's a cute name..

Of all the things and people in the world that I could say I am thankful for, my dog Disney comes to mind. Yes, that's his name. After my childhood dog died a year and a half ago, my house was filled with an unbearing silence that no person could fill, no matter how hard we tried. People don't come running to the door when you come home, wagging their tail. So after a few months, my mother and I decided to start looking for a new dog. This time we decided to get a rescue; a dog that needed a second chance just as badly as we did. After looking around, we realized that not too many small dogs were in animal shelters, and our house and backyard simply wasn't big enough for a larger dog to live comfortably. We were beginning to lose hope. An animal shelter provided us with a list of other nearby shelters that we could visit, and we randomly picked one off the list. They said that they had two small dogs available, and as much as we wanted to be hopeful, we didn't want to get too excited. 

They brought us into a room filled with cats, which was quite puzzling at first. But then I saw him. Disney (who the shelter had originally named Webster) was sitting in a bottom cage, curled up on a dirty doggie bed. Being puzzled by his appearance, I asked in amazement, "What is he?" The volunteer worker explained that he was a Pitbull Daschund mix. He had an overbite on one side of his mouth. His body was too long for him to sit on his butt correctly. And his tail stuck straight up. Of course, I was in love. Right then we knew, we had to have him.

We found out some of his history. The animal shelter said that he had been abused, and to this day Disney still has an issue with men (we assume it was because a man abused him) but he is improving everyday. He was found on the street, and was still a little thin. When we brought him home, he didn't even know to eat the dog food we put in front of him; instead, he would go outside and eat sticks and leaves. But eventually, he realized he could trust us and now he is very healthy. 

We've had Disney for a little over a year now, and he has been the best thing ever for my family. I know some of you are probably wondering how a little shelter dog could change someone's life so much, but he really did. 

I really am thankful to be lucky enough to find a dog like him and give him a good home, because my life would not be the same without him.  

Practice What we Preach: a response to Danielle's blog

This is a response to Danielle's blog from 11/15/2011
http://1miletoheaven.blogspot.com/2011/11/if-you-see-something-say-something-and.html

I am honestly disgusted with the amount of students and people in general that are standing up for Joe Paterno. People are so concerned with the Penn State football image that they are willing to silence the voices of the young men that were being harmed. How are we advancing in so many other aspects of humanity, but when it comes to empathy we seem to be moving backward, not forward? I agree with Danielle that teaching young people to step in when they see injustice is extremely important. As an authority figure at a prestigious college, you would think Paterno would share the same views. It saddens me to see a grown man who has such a good reputation otherwise give a half assed attempt to say something about what he saw happen to those boys. What message are we sending to future generations? “Hey, bad stuff happens, and it’s okay to speak up… unless it’s your friend or colleague that’s doing something wrong. Then that’s bad… very, very bad. Look the other way kids; you’ll be better off that way.”

As future educators, we must practice what we preach.

First Thanksgiving, now Halloween? Santa, give it a break!

I'm sure everyone has noticed that over the last couple of years that Christmas seems to be getting thrown in our faces earlier and earlier each year, but this year was a little ridiculous. On Halloween, there were advertisements on the radio talking about Christmas shopping already. Some people already started counting down! Call me crazy, but on Halloween, the only thing I want to be concerned with is candy and Halloween-costume contests. Why must I see the jolly fat man on the television while I'm putting on my Black Swan costume?

I understand that stores want to remind people that Christmas is shopping to boost sales. Trust me, I worked in retail for over a year and we started talking about Christmas pretty early. But on Halloween? This whole obsession with Christmas shopping is really starting to rub me the wrong way, because it's completely ruining my other holiday experiences.

Don't get me wrong, I love Christmas as much as the next person. I love spending time with my family on Christmas. I love opening presents (yeah, I said it), but I don't really feel like concerning myself with all the shopping madness at least until Black Friday. Why must the media constantly be pushing such a special holiday down our throats? 

Last night, I was flipping through channels on the television and happened to catch How The Grinch Stole Christmas (the original because Jim Carrey as the Grinch gives me nightmares) . At first, I was so excited, because I love watching Christmas movies. Then I realized that it wasn't even the middle of November, and I needed to relax. 

I can only imagine how people feel that don't celebrate Christmas. 

Short story

       My brother and I were walking through the woods one Halloween day when we saw what appeared to be a short cut. "Let's go that way", my brother said. He grabbed my hand and we ran towards the hidden path. The leaves were extremely dry that day, so walking through the woods was a lot of fun. We were taking huge steps, trying to make as much noise as we could as we ran through the short cut. This short cut however, wasn't all that it was cracked up to be.
       "How come we've never seen this before? We go this way all the time and I've never seen this path", I said, slowing our run to a walk. I didn't feel safe at that moment. Everything looked different; the trees were hunched over, almost as if they were trying to grab us with their branches. It seemed to be darker now, almost like the sun wasn't strong enough to shine through these haunting trees. What scared me the most however, was how quiet it was. Completely silent. No birds. No wind. nothing. Ryan of course, didn't seem to notice.
       "We just never looked hard enough I guess. Come on, I'm sure we're almost there", he said, trying to reassure me. Ryan was always trying to make me feel better, even while bringing me places he knew I didn't want to go. Then all of a sudden, we took another step and before I knew it, we were falling. It seemed like we fell forever, but I'm sure it was only a few minutes.
       Ryan hit the ground first. The only reason I know this is because I landed on top of him. We were in shock, laying there among the leaves. Still, nothing made a sound. We were too scared to move, to speak. Eventually, I rolled off of Ryan, but our eyes never left each other. Too afraid to look at our surroundings, we kept stairing at each other's faces. Where did my brave brother go? He must still be up there, because the Ryan that I found at the bottom of that hole was just as afraid as I was; I was just better at hiding it.
       "What do we do? Meg, we need to get out of here. I want to go home. We need to get home", he whispered with great worry. His eyes were wide, and he was grabbing my shoulders, slighty shaking me with everything he said. What was I supposed to do? I was just his little sister.
       "Calm down, Ryan. You've got to calm down. We're smart, we can figure this out", I said outloud. "This path isn't that far away from the one we take home from school. Maybe if we yell, someone will hear us. Kids have to still be walking home, right?" And with that, we screamed for help. We screamed until our throats were hoarse, and then we screamed some more. Nothing. Not  a single soul heard us.

College: A contest to see who can write the longest paper ever!

Throughout my five years at Adelphi, I have noticed a few things. For one, the English building is falling apart. Seriously, how about we fix that place up before adding another dorm building? Second, college professors love to assign ridiculously long papers for absolutely no reason.

Why do professors feel the need to give a required page length when assigning a paper? I'm talking about your basic paper, not a Thesis. Why? Don't they realize that most of the times students will ramble about nothing for a few pages just to get to the desired page length? Why not allow a student to write an amount that they feel is appropriate and then grade them on the content of their writing, regardless of how short it is.

We are in college after all; I'm pretty sure we all are aware that we can't hand in a two page paper and call it a day. I know plenty of people that got points taken off simply because their papers weren't the "desired length", but the the professor then also commented on how well they proved their point. It just doesn't seem right to me.  Especially when the class is an elective. I'm not trying to say that these classes are inferior to the classes that students actually have to take, but the professors of these classes need to understand that a student is going to be a lot more concerned with the work they have to do for the classes that are a part of their major.

I for example, just had to work on a 12 page literature review tonight for an elective that I decided to take. The professor gave us less than a week to do it. If her goal was to completely stress out her students, she did a fabulous job. It's stressful enough to have to write big papers for my education classes, why would a teacher that knows they are teaching an elective feel the need to assign such a paper to a class of Master's students?

How do you guys feel about papers with "desired page lengths"? Do you think its fair?

Beginning of Short Story: Untitled, For Now.

            She didn’t want to be there in the first place. It was hard for her to accept the fact that the rest of her family was so willing to move on while she was still trying to hold onto the past. This isn’t right, she thought to herself. How am I supposed to walk into this place and find another Chloe`? But walk in, she did.

            At first, the place reminded her of a hospital. The kind of hospital where she watched Chloe` breathe her last breath. The kind of hospital where the doctor told her, “we’re sorry, there’s nothing else we could do.” It was the disease that did her in, not the doctor’s, but it always mad Jessica feel better to think that they had something to do with Chloe’s passing. She knew it was wrong of her to think this way, but she felt like someone should take the blame for the death of her best friend.

            That night was still fresh in Jessica’s mind. Getting into bed that night, she looked across the room to see Chloe` in her bed crying, whimpering. She was so old now; her hair was so thin. It resembled a light fog that seemed to engulf Chloe` wherever she went. This fog, which no matter how hard Jessica tried to brush and care for it, would never resemble the white, curly hair that used to grow in its place.

            This new place, with this old dreadful feeling, was not completely like the hospital that Chloe` had lost her fight to Cancer in. This place was filled with happy faces, and plenty of options. Jessica and her mother walked up the receptionist, telling them what they were looking for. The young woman with the dark green eyes smiled at them and told Jessica’s mother that they had come to the right place. Within a few minutes, another worker was there to help assist them in making their choice. They walked down the hallway into the first room.

            “These are the bigger ones. Most of them are older than what people are normally looking for, but they all have great personalities”, he said with a reassuring smile. Jessica walked in first with her mother close behind. The nose was deafening at first. She had to stand in place for a moment, to get used to the nose. Her mother walked passed her and starting going down the row to view the options. Jessica just stood there. The barking dogs may not have seemed so intimidating to her if she saw them one at a time, but with all of them in the same row of kennels, it was too much for her to bare. Labordors, Pitbulls, Shepards, and tons of dogs that seemed to be a mix. All of them barking at her, wagging their tails. She couldn’t tell if their barks were friendly or a warning. She became so overwhelmed with the noise.

She didn’t want to do this in the first place. How could she choose just one? It was impossible. They were all so big; was this really what her mother had in mind? After a few minutes, Jesscia’s mother walked back towards the beginning of the row towards Jessica.

“They’re a little too big for our house I think. My husband will have a fit if I come home with something this size.” What did she think she was adopting, furniture? Jessica couldn’t understand how the woman that brought her here to adopt a new dog could talk so emotionless about the animals in those kennels.

She was there, Jessica thought. She was the one that drove while I held Chloe` in my arms on the way to the emergency vet in the pouring rain. She’s the one that woke me up the next morning to sit with her because she couldn’t bare the silence of house after Chloe` passed. How could she simply rule out a dog simply because of its size. With that, the friendly man nodded and walked them back into the hallway.

The man explained that at this time, their shelter only had larger dogs that were suitable to be adopted. Jessica was relieved. She didn’t have to forget Chloe` just yet. They didn’t have to throw out her old toys, and get a new doggy bed for some replacement dog that her mother felt that she “needed.” He did however, hand Jessica’s mother a list of other shelters in the area that they could try. With that, Jessica’s mother thanked him, and they walked out of the shelter.

“We’ll find one soon Jess”, her mother said as they walked to the car. “We can try again tomorrow.”