The American House

The central point of the essay "The McMansion Next Door: Why the American House Needs a Makeover" is that the average American house is increasing in size each year, and is unnecessarily large for the family size, as well as the lot size. The writer uses a lot of evidence to support her claim. She uses the fact that average family sizes are becoming smaller, and along with it they are buying bigger and bigger houses as if necessary following the trend at the moment that the more garage space they have, the larger the bedrooms, or the taller the house is the better off that family is. It's all a matter of identity and how people want to be percieved as wealthy with bigger houses.
I agree with her claim because the new housing communities that are being built are a complete joke. Every house in the community looks the same by size and shape, and even color. The houses are so large, there's barely any room for a backyard, and if the backyard is so small what's the point in living in a house? The houses are also so close together there's no room for privacy. I think the new houses and communities just show conformity and how Americans strive to apparently be the same as everyone.

picture

On page 522 of Beyond Words, there's a picture of an old station wagon that is covered in bumper stickers on the back of the car. I love it because the stickers are so lame, but funny at the same time because they make clear points about how earth loving and hippie the person who put those stickers there is. One of the stickers says "Farms Not Arms," which I think is funny because it's as if they couldn't find anything else that is "green" I guess to rhyme with arms. And it's saying plant stuff, or have domesticated animals instead of owning a gun. It's just funny because basically the person is trying to get other people to agree through stickers to go green and love all.

Mood?

The sky as blue as the crayola crayon I use to color with as a child blinds me as I walk outside from how bright it is. The wind is picking up, blowing in the clouds that cover the mountains that strech across as far as I can see. Ripping through trees, creating a rustling sound that covers the voices of the smokers sitting along the wall of the school, the wind anounces it's presence and brings with it a warning of a storm. Hair being tossled, paper blowing everywhere, people start to head inside to get away. Away from the wind. Away from the storm. The clouds take over the sky, covering that beautiful blue and the sun with a fluffy white blanket, letting everyone know they are here now, and the beautiful day is hidden. The more clouds that move in, the darker it gets, saying to the world that they hold the power of rain, and will let it out when they please.

If I were president...

If I were president, I would like to think I would make my speech short and sweet. It's too hard to sit and watch a speech that drags on for an hour, and to add on like 90% of them are lame. I would hope to add a little humor into it too. I'm pretty sure I wouldn't get elected president however, because people would think I was a joke, but whatever. I would never actually want to be president anyway. So, here's my presidential speech:

Ladies and Gentlemen!

Thanks for taking time away from your children, work, even just life

to comeand listen to my speech, however I'm going to warn you it's

probably a waste of your time. I'm going to be compeletely

honest with you. All the things that anyone says they are going

to do isn't the truth. I can stand here and say I'm going to change

our economy, I'm going to bring our troops home, or I'm going to

lower gas prices, however I can't. How can I make a statement like

that when there's no way I can promise these changes because it's

not just up to me. It's up to congress, it's up to the people, and yes I

do have the final say in things, but I can't just make things happen.

What I can say is vote for me and I will try to change everything for

the better. I will try to help the homeless of our country. I will try to

lower the cost of healthcare. I will try to bring our troops home. I

will try. That's all I got. Goodnight and goodluck.

Ok, so I wasn't exactly funny, nor did I really persuade anyone to vote for me, but at least I was honest, unlike any other candidate that has ran for president. Anyway, VOTE FOR ME! And I'll try. That's my campain slogan, "I will try."

Body Art

Currently the only piercing I have is my ears. Just the basic piercing that my parents took me to get when I turned 8. I don't have any tattoos yet, but it's not because I don't want one, it's just because I haven't built up enough courage to actually go through with it. I already know what I want, and where I want it, it's just a matter of money and courage.
I have trouble following through with some things that are so permanant because I just freak out about having to live with the decision for the rest of my life. I'm not very good at making decisions, especially lasting ones. However, the plan is to get my tattoo on my birthday this year. I want it, not for other people, but for myself because what I want to get is such a defining characteristic about me, I just want it there. I also want to do it to prove to myself I can go through with something.

A routine doctors visit. You sit in the waiting room looking for something to keep your interest just long enough until that one person you've been hoping would come calls your name. Then more waiting. With nothing to do, you see posters on the walls to read, or magazines on the table. On the covers of these magazines, or the focal points of the posters, "beautiful" people. What society views as the perfect person takes over the covers, whether it's a "hot" celeb such as Lindsey Lohan, or Jessica Alba. Skinny models in the ads for our favorite pair of jeans, or some hot new fashion item on page 23. These images are everywhere. Even on the poster for diabetes, or some other disease, it's some skinny, pretty, model portraying the sickness, giving off the idea that even sick people are supposed to be beautiful.
These small images are put into peoples heads giving a distorted view on what people should look like according to society. It makes people think that if you aren't skinny, don't have the perfect smile, hairs in all the right places, or the right kind of make-up, that they themselves are ugly. Seeing these things in places like doctors or dentists offices, we sometimes don't notice that they effect us and change the way we see beauty, or ourselves. Sitting there reading about how the latest celeb lost all of her baby weight and got back down to a size 0 generally makes people want to do the same thing. Images everywhere change how we view not only other people, but also ourselves.

McCain's Speech

A waste of a perfectly good hour.
John McCain was so ridiculously boring during his speech. It seemed way over rehearsed as well, so it didn't even come across or as how he really felt; it seemed fake. I guess I would say his speech was directed to those who have no sense of humor, as well as enjoy being bored out of their minds. With the way his speech was, I would say he was mostly speaking to those who are already dead set on voting for him. As for the rest of the people, like those undecided voters, I feel almost as if he killed any chance of having them vote for him because they couldn't stay awake during his speech. I feel like he also used a lot from Obama's speech, trying to keep the crowd interested in the same way by talking about his mother, and family as well, but like I said before, it just didn't seem genuine at all.
Overall, I would say from my point of view, his speech was very ineffective. I was looking forward to hearing what he had to say about certain issues, and what kind of a person he is, yet now that I have heard it, I wish I wouldn't of had to waste my time on it.

Barak Obama's Acceptance Speech

Senator Obama's speech at the DNC Thursday night seemed to be a major success. As he talked, there were multiple times the crowd could not keep quiet and he had to calm them down. The point of his speech seemed to be to get people to understand that he too is a person, yet a person who has the ability to run our country. He addressed all of the hits he took from Senator McCain, and backed himself up with who he really is; not just a celebrity, but a human being who also went through struggles and continues to struggle. He obviously had the attention of the crowd at Invesco Field, and it was easy to hear that the majority, if not all, agreed with him by the way they screamed after he spoke. He was able to keep everyone interested and interested in his speech by tying his own family into it and saying he wants his own daughters to be equal with everyone else, as well as mentioning his mother and the struggles she faced with health insurance, bills, and just raising him.
Obama wasn't just speaking to all of America through his speech, but mostly the middle and lower class citizens who are currently struggling to pay their bills, get health insurance, or even save money to send their children to school. By the way he brought his mother into the speech, like I mentioned before, it humanized him and made these citizens able to equalize themselves with him. Obama was also talking to people who are looking toward the future. The people who are looking at what types of fuels we can use and how we can make gas prices go down. The people who are tired of war and are looking to set a plan to get our troops out of Iraq. The people who want a change in the government and our country to prosper. He spoke to all these people, and successfully I might add. He did a great job at mentioning all the problems our country is looking at right now, and saying how he would like to change them, capturing the audiences attention and making them feel as if he was just talking to them. Overall I'd say his speech was very successful.