nuclear weapons

Since Barack Obama has been President of the United States, he has constantly pushed for a world without nuclear weapons, with the United States leading the charge. While I would agree with most people that the amount of nuclear weapons the U.S. possesses (enough to destroy the entire face of the earth 5 times)is a bit extreme, I believe it would detrimental and down right absurd to completely scrap all of our nuclear weapons, even if the rest of the world followed suit.

First of all, I can almost guarantee you that every other county that has possession of nuclear weapons would not follow our lead. Take North Korea for example. They are lead by a short little man who seems to be obsessed with showing that he is not afraid of anyone and refuses to cooperate with anyone. And now he has control of nuclear weapons and seems intent on using them whenever necessary, so it’s safe to say that he won’t be giving them up anytime soon. With North Korea being only an ocean away, why would we want to give our nuclear weapons up? Even if we don’t actually use them, which we probably won’t, at least they play into the decisions made by the Koreans. They aren’t just a physical weapon, but a mental weapon as well.

Even if you could somehow get every single country in the entire world to agree to scrap nuclear weapons altogether, I still would be against the U.S. getting rid of theirs. Having nuclear weapons are one of the things that make our country a so called super power. They show that our technological, chemical, and other related skills play a key role in defending our country. And most importantly, I feel safe knowing that if some country tries to threaten my safety or the safety of any other American that our government can use just about any extreme to defend us.

Just let me write

Growing up, I have written a good amount of papers for school or other functions. Many of those papers had specific guidelines on exactly what needed to be included. Now writing is not my favorite activity in the world, but when I do write I think it should be in a personal manner that allows the author to express his/her opinions in his/her own way. I remember practically all throughout grade school and even through part of junior high, my teachers would make us create an outline before we could even write a word of our paper. Some teachers would make us draw bubbles and boxes to make try and make us believe it could be fun, but I didn’t buy that. I hated that. I wasn’t sure of everything that I was going to put in my paper yet, so I would always just make something up and then loosely tie it in with my paper or just leave it out altogether. I understand that teachers probably wanted to make sure students were organized and thinking about their papers before writing them, but that doesn’t work for everyone. I have found that I write the best when I can improvise halfway through a paper and don’t have to stick with an idea that is set in stone. This doesn’t mean that I don’t plan ahead before writing a paper. I’ll still think about what I’m going to talk about, but I am open to change to make the paper better.

Cultural Experience #1

A few days ago, my brother and I went out to eat at Khana Khazanah, a little Pakistani restaurant on Knoxville in Peoria. At first I had my doubts about the place because it did not offer the best first impression. Right by the door there were smoking wires coming out of the wall which I though must have been in violation with some safety code. Even though this had nothing to do with the food, I worried about the quality of what I was about to put in my body. However, I soon discovered that I could not have been more wrong about my opinions of Pakistani food.

As I looked at the menu, I realized I had absolutely no idea what anything on the menu was. The one thing that looked remotely familiar was something with chicken, so that’s what I ordered. When we got our food, it came with the main course (whatever that was), a type of bread, and rice with a spicy sauce. If you like spicy food, then this is your type of place. The food was absolutely delicious. The chicken that I had ordered came in its own special sauce that burned the inside of your throat, but in a good way. It also came with these little balls that had absolutely no taste for like 5 seconds, but made your eyes water from the spiciness. I’m not quite sure what my brother had but by his facial expressions I could tell his was just as spicy as mine. All in all it was one of the best things I have ever eaten.

Obama's speech to schools

Last week, President Obama gave a speech to schools all across our country. In response to this, many parents reacted by threatening not to let their children go to school that day, apparently to keep their sons and daughters away from democratic propaganda. Personally, I thought this was absolutely absurd. I don’t care if you are a Democrat, Republican, independent (like myself), or part of any other political standpoint, Obama is the President of the United States and he is owed a certain level of respect from all people of this country. To be honest, I am not a big fan of Obama, but if he wants to make a speech, then far be it from me to say he can’t.

The thing that really got me about this was not that parent’s didn’t want their kids to listen to the speech. They are not my kids so I have no right to say how they should be raised and what they should be subjected to. What really got me was the message this would send to students. Speaking from experience, kids looked for any excuse to miss classes and stay home from school. All of a sudden, their parents are saying since they don’t believe what the president is doing is right, they don’t have to go to school. So does that mean if I believe that science is going against my religion, I can just skip it and blow that class off? Before anyone gets on me, I do believe science is important. But anyways, parents letting their kids stay away from school because the person elected to be the leader of this country wants to talk to students does not benefit student. Let’s be honest, when you were in grade school, when you got to watch a movie or T.V., you were pumped. My guess is a good amount of kids didn’t pay attention to what Obama had to say, they were just glad they weren’t taking a spelling test.

myself as a writer

I write in some way, shape, or form practically every day. Whether it be writing papers for English class, talking to people on instant messaging programs, or even texting “lol” on my cell phone. However, each situation has its own approach to its writing style. When writing a paper for school, I make sure to be as careful as I can and to follow all the grammar rules as best as I can. Though this is not my favorite way to write, it gives me clear guidelines as to how to accomplish the task. I am the type of person who prefers to be taught a clear right way to do things rather than figuring it out for yourself, so have a clear prompt to follow is fine by me.

I also write quite a bit at my job. I work at the public library in my town and writing is of key importance. My handwriting is not exactly the easiest thing to read and many of my letters can sometimes be mistaken for other letters, for example my “e” tends to look like a “c”. No doubt this is because I tend to write fast. Working in an environment where everyone has to be able to read your writing has started to make me slow down when writing so it appears legible. This isn’t easy for me because the only time someone really needed to read my writing, I usually typed in on a computer anyway. I guess you could say my sloppiness is what makes my writing personal to me.

Letter of Introduction

August 26, 2009

Dear Stephanie Scott:

For the first assignment of the year, you have instructed us to write you a letter that provides you with important or interesting information about ourselves. In the next few paragraphs, I will try my best to inform you of any facts that will make for a more exciting and fun semester in English 110. If I fail, well then I guess it will just be a surprise for you to figure out as the semester goes along.

I was born in the state of Texas on the first of November in 1990. Though I only lived there for three years, I like to consider myself as a Texan at heart. I’m not entirely sure why though. The 100 degree weather would not suit me well. I am much fonder of weather between 60-80 degrees, so the weather right now is perfect in my opinion. But other than my brief stint in Texas, I’ve lived in a small town called Tremont the rest of my life. Tremont is a nice little town of 2,100 people that reminds me of the little bar in Boston called Cheers. Everybody seems to know your name.

I’m not exactly what you would call an athletic person, but I do love to watch sports on television so that has to count for something. I do golf a little but that is about the extent of my athletic abilities. One of my favorite activities to do is watch St. Louis Cardinal games either on TV or actually going to games. I’m glad that this class is in the morning because the playoffs are coming up soon and I might have to skip class if there was a big game on.

Throughout this semester, I hope to be able to improve my overall writing skills. I know that sounds very bland and not particular at all, but I do want to strengthen my writings in all areas. English has never been my best subject so sometimes it can come as a struggle. Hopefully I can pick up on a couple of key concepts that will stick with me as my life goes on because I know that I won’t get away from writing.

Another goal of mine is to improve on my peer response abilities. If I am responsible for making another student’s paper better, then I feel I should understand where he/she needs help and how best I can offer my help. I know I would want someone to check my papers who knew how to grammatically improve the overall flow of my paper.

Well hopefully this paper has given you a little better understanding of who I am and what I am kind of about. I’m sure as the year goes on you will discover more about me and hopefully I will learn more about you. Being that I am more of a math kind of guy, which to me is like the opposite of English, I am actually rather excited about this year in English 110

Sincerely,

Jack Stout