Thursday, December 11, 2008

What I learned From English 111

Before I came to TCC's English 111 course I thought I understood how to write fairly well. My thoughts quickly went from "I know how to write" to "Yikes, I don't know how to write." The important thing is that my writing ability has improved since taking English 111. I have learned about the mechanics of grammar too. I have always been an avid reader and I believe that because I can read and comprehend so well that surely I should be able to write fairly well. Now I find myself critiquing (with what limited knowledge I have about grammar and sentence structure) what I am reading rather than just reading it for it's content. I am fascinated by mystery writer's ability to develop and make interesting an idea. My favorite mystery writer is Patricia Cornwell. I can't fully identify why I like her writing so much except to say that she keeps interest high during the length of the book. I also like that she has a strong female lead character in her books. Although I won't be using the lessons learned from English 111 too much in my career because it doesn't demand too much writing I will benefit from it in other ways. English 111 has helped me organize my thoughts and ideas better both on paper and in my head, and has enabled me to be clearer about what it is I am trying to express when writing. Since my grammar has improved I am better able to write a properly constructed sentence, placing commas and the like in their appropriate places. If I decide to take more academic courses I feel well prepared to meet the instructors demands and criteria regarding research and essay type papers.


Following are two annotated writings that I have chosen from all of the assignments given in English 111. The first is titled I am beacuse essay. It is a paper on a contrast of a personal experience.
The second annotated writing is entitled "A Transgendered Life". It is from an assignment in which we had to write a paper based on a conversation with someone. It is about a friend of mine who considers themselves transgendered and what transgendered means to them: What is male? What is female? Can one live somewhere in the middle? Can this middle ground, often referred to as trangendered be defined, or is it so subjective it will be impossible to assign a definition. The word hasn't landed in the dictionary yet. But from the word itself it is clear that it is about crossing the boundaries of gender. Zay a friend of mine who considers themselves trangendered, says it is hard to describe what exactly transgendered means. It has more do with what is inside one that what is reflected on the outside. Zay was born female but doesn't feel comfortable in her given body. She feels more male emotionally, physically and spiritually than she does female. She presents herself in more of a typical male fashion, both in dress and personal grooming. She may even go on to become a male through surgery and or hormones. Zay says she is not entirely sure what she will decide on. One gets the feeling that the words that Zay has used to describe herself are at best inadequate, as if using them limits her soul somehow. One thing Zay did make apparent is that living the word transgendered means transcending the boundaries that society has erected to separate the characteristics, behaviors, attitudes, dress, appearance and affectations of the male and female sexes. As Zay says, living a transgendered life widens the circle that limits our sexual and emotional selves

I have several bits of advise for future English 111 students. They are: go to the writing center often to get help with grammar, organizational methods, and the mechanics of english, prepare to devote at least 13 hours a week just to your english assignments, get familiar with the college's word processor programs and computers, be especially nice to the people in the computer lab, don't expect the instructor to cut you a break because you're in a blue collar technical job that doesn't require too many writing skills, pay attention, follow formats and guidelines, don't use pencil, go over with someone in the writing center or the instructor the errors in your paper after they have been graded to correct them and hopefully learn how not to repeat them, get the practice sheets (from the Writing Center) on areas of grammar or mechanics you are weak in before you take the English 111 course. Get on the Web to become familiar with how it works. Pay attention, have fun learning how to write, and don't be late to class. That's about it. Good luck.

Generation NeXT Comes to College.

It is clear that measurement and monitoring will be a key element in the management of future network infrastructures, both at the level of network equipment and also in the overall distributed control of the large scale Internet infrastructure. In the future, interoperability of monitoring and data collection capabilities can provide the support basis of seamless end-to-end network and service composition and operation across multiple operators and business domains. During the last five years important research initiatives emerged worldwide to tackle problems of Internet monitoring and data collection. In FP6 the EU ICT programme started several successful Internet measurement and monitoring efforts to boost European leadership within this emerging area. These projects already passed the proof of the concept stage and now key applications in future network management can be developed on their basis.
This project is aimed at integrating existing measurement and monitoring infrastructures towards a common and open pan European platform. This will be achieved through harmonisation of individual components, definition of common data format, development of unified interface, to provide the flexibility to the design of future Internet applications. On the other hand, the project will allow semantic representation and retrieval of measurement and monitoring information. Additionally the project will develop and demonstrate a set of tools and applications for next generation networks taking advantage from the integrated approach


Internet researchers face many daunting challenges, including keeping up with the conditions of ever changing operational environments, privacy concerns, legal complications, and resource access. One of the most fundamental problems remains access to current operational data on Internet infrastructure. For many projects the relevant datasets simply do not exist, and researchers must go through a laborious process of securing permission and deploying measurement infrastructure before they can begin to study a problem. For others, the necessary data may exist and even be available. Unfortunately, if word-of-mouth has insufficiently propagated the information about the data ownership and access procedures, researchers may waste time and effort creating a new dataset, use a dataset inappropriate for a given research problem, or possibly even abandon the research.
In addition, the dearth of centralized knowledge about the few datasets that are known to exist in the community leads researchers to use these datasets well past their window of representativeness. Correspondingly, lack of awareness of datasets limits longitudinal study of network conditions, since comparable datasets that span months or years are difficult to find. While the resource, legal, and privacy concerns limiting new Internet data collection efforts remain largely intractable, significant research could be promoted through more widespread use of existing data.

Washington DC.

I’ve never seen so many suits in one place, declared a friend visiting from Ohio, as we surveyed the packed metro train to Washington for empty seats several summers ago. Suited, booted and stiletto’d locals stood out from the casually dressed, fanny-pack-and-camera-toting tourists. It is the humble suit that gives the visitor to Washington a sense of the city’s enterprise the production, not of automobiles or food products or pharmaceuticals, but of laws, decisions, policies, and, not to forget, a scandal or ten. From a distance, the city is unimpressive. None of the usual landmarks that define large American cities demarcate Washington from its surroundings. There are no shiny skyscrapers signalling the start of its business district or massive steel bridges heralding the approach of its borders. You would have to look really hard to find the smokestacks on top of factories at the edge of town.

What is recognizable of the city from miles away, appropriately enough, is the dome of the US Capitol which houses Congress and the Washington Monument, the needle in local parlance, erected in memory of the nation’s first president. Up close, the city is compelling. Pierre Charles L’Enfant’s plan for the capital (of this vast empire), as he referred to the US two centuries ago, was nothing short of genius. The land he was allocated on the banks of the Potomac alternated between marshy bogs, heavily wooded wilderness and farmland, with a few hilly patches thrown in. What he envisioned was a neatly organized city with broad, tree-lined avenues, parks and grand buildings and monuments befitting the ideals of a new nation. Amid strife and delays—typical of the way Washington does business even now it took nearly a century for an approximation of his blueprint to come to life in stone, marble and concreteIn an election year such as this one, Washington and the way it does business are in sharper focus than usual.

Washington insider is bandied about as an insult as presidential candidates criss-cross the country, claiming the mantle of the outsider who will save the country from the clutches of the special interests that control Washington What transpires once the outsider gets in is anybody’s guess, but until the dust settles on fourth November and a victor emerges bloodied and bruised from the ever-lengthening campaign season voters are bombarded with missives, ads, debates, media interviews and stump speeches purporting to lay bare the machinations of Congress and the White House. These four-yearly rituals merely scratch the surface—or so it seems in the face of the number of scandals and leaks that erupt with alarming frequency in this city. The leaking of Central Intelligence Agency operative Valerie Plame’s identity to the press was one of the latest, but the big daddy of them all is still Watergate. Named after the Watergate Complex—a striking edifice that houses a hotel, shops, offices and luxury apartments—the fiasco brought down a president and has the unparalleled distinction of helping name successive scandals . Numerous paths lead into Washington from all directions, but my favourite is via the Arlington Memorial Bridge. With the majestic Lincoln Memorial and the Washington Monument at its top, the marble façade of the Kennedy Center and the spires of Georgetown University to its left and the entrance into Arlington Cemetery at its foot, the expansive bridge transports you into town in style. As you follow the winding road at the top of the bridge, the vast treasure trove of cultural and political history that is Constitution Avenue begs to be explored. The must-see list the National Gallery of Art, the National Museums of American History and Natural History, the National Archives, the Smithsonian Museums (home of the ever popular Air and Space Museum), not to mention the White House and the Capitol lis so long that days could blend into weeks in trying to do justice to all that is available in this small corner of Washington.
Washington DC is a very lovely place to visit. it s one of the best palces i have visited in my life.