Revision on Crumlish paper

As appointed in class last thursday, I decided to go over Tommy guns essay he is planning on revising. As I was reading it, I noticed a couple pros and cons to his paper. I liked how he did the essay on a lady by the name of Josephine Bakhita. Majority of people don’t even know who this woman is. I did not even have a clue. Bakhita was a maid or slave that was passed around from owner to owner. She was abused and treated horribly but the only thing that got her through the hard times was God. I loved the story and background about Josephine herself. But there were some cons that I did notice about the paper. Little issues like grammer and format mistakes. The first thing I noticed was that the paper was not in MLA or APA format. Some other basic mistakes I saw were numbers that should have been spelled out. Furthermore, I noticed simple grammer mistakes like not using a comma in certain areas and I believe there was a semicolon that had to be inserted. The last thing I noticed was that the letters were spaced out alittle bit differently but that could have been the computer where the paper was typed up. The set up was different but we got that straightened out. Besides the basic grammer errors, I enjoyed reading and revising Tommy guns paper.

Argumentive Essay (5)

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John Gorgone

Professor Womack

English 15

5 December 2013

Bullying: Debatable Topic

Disaster struck at a high school in Colorado. On the morning of April 20, 1999, Columbine High School was attacked by two of its very own students. Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold were the shooters in the school. Word through the school was that the jocks, known as the “White Hats”, were the student athletes that would bully everyone else in the school. But both Dylan and Eric were not after the white hats. They were after the common student, as well as the school itself (Hymowitz). They felt as if they did not fit into the school and wanted some kind of revenge. The plot of the attack was blue printed about a year before the actual attack. For that year, both Dylan and Eric made hundreds of pipe bombs and collected multiple kinds of guns like sawed-off shot guns, small machine guns, and larger machine guns. Then the shooting began. Both shooters entered the school on a shooting spree. But most of the deaths came from the library, Dylan and Eric entered the library executing and wounded tons of students. They also shot back at the police officers. But the police did not enter for another two hours. As the

 

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shooting came to a halt; thirteen students were dead including a teacher and let twenty two wounded before both the shooters took their own lives. Some stories say that both Dylan and Eric were bullied in their high school by the common student but another reason this devastating action happened was that Eric was on medications that gave him suicidal and mass murder thoughts. Dylan also had suicidal thoughts and actually tried to commit suicide before (Hymowitz). But in the end, this massacre comes to show that just being an outcast in the school, let alone being bullied can lead to a devastating ending resulting in hurt feelings and death.

In discussions of bullying in high school as well as cyber bullying, an ongoing point of controversy is the question of how it could be prevented. While some supporters argue to stop the bullying, others contend that bullying could never be prevented in the school environment. However, the most useful perspective on the issue on bullying is that school authorities should take more actions to let students know that there are solutions to the problems. It will also inform the bullies themselves that terrible punishments will be enforced to anyone attempting to bully another. Bullying starts at an early stage, from Elementary school to High school and even College. Bullying a person could lead to a lot of mental as well as physical issues. There are multiple types of bullying which I will mention later on in the paper. But in the end, it is not just the victims that get hurt by the effects on bullying, family and friends of the victim suffer also. “People need to hear from their local communities that bullying based or sexual orientation is a problem that really needs to be addressed” (Robinson).

 

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Bullying can be taken by different forms of bullying. So I am going to talk about the four types of bullying. There is physical bullying, verbal bullying, covert bullying and last but not least, cyber bullying (four kinds). Physical bullying is one of the more severe types of bullying. In the physical bullying stage, the bully has the upper hand on the victim. Usually in physical bullying, the bully is a lot bigger or stronger than the smaller victim. The bully feels he could over power the victim so that’s where the physical aspect comes into play. Physical bullying includes hitting, kicking, tripping, pinching, pushing, punching, hit with flying objects or even damaged property (Four kinds).

The second type of bullying is verbal abuse. Verbal bullying is about by far the worst type of bullying there is. It is also the most common of all the types. Every victim of bullying is verbally abused by their bully. Verbal bullying includes being insulted, teased, being called names, homophobic or racist remarks, or intimidation (Four kinds). The most used form of verbal bullying is used against the homophobic students. Words like queer, faggot, gay, lesbian, and dyke are commonly used. These words are used by the bully simply because the victim is gay or is just attracted to something and someone different than the rest of the crowd. In a survey of around three thousand four hundred gay and straight students, sixty five percent reported verbal abuses rooted in homophobia and prejudice within a year. The Harris Interactive Survey also indicates that eighty four percent of those surveyed reported that they had been called a derogatory remark such as being a “faggot” or “dyke”, and approximately seventy percent said they heard “gay” in a bad form (Robinson). Harassment is also a big deal in verbal abuse.

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Harassment is when one person talks down or screams at another person without stopping. Gay and lesbian students are being harassed every day just because of their way of life and how they want to live.

The third kind of bullying is known as covert bullying. Although covert bullying is not heard of much, everyone still knows what it is. “Covert bullying is often harder to recognize and can be carried out behind the bullied persons back. It is designed to harm someone’s social reputation and/or cause humiliation” (Four kinds). Some examples of covert bullying includes damaging someone’s reputation, socially excluding someone, mimicking in a bad manor, embarrassing jokes to humiliate one, or just lying and spreading rumors (Four kinds). These examples occur in the everyday life of a high school student whether they are the bully or the bullied.  Some people do not even notice that they are bullying another person. When they socially exclude a student or try to say or make up an embarrassing joke about another person. That bully saying the joke sometimes won’t even think about how the other person feels whether it’s a joke to hurt someone or just a friendly embarrassing joke. Covert bullying is a type of bullying that the bully doesn’t have to say it to the victims face to actually hurt them.

And the final type of bullying is a little newer to the category of bullying itself. It is known as cyber bullying. Cyber bullying is the behaviors used through digital technologies. Harassment through the phone as well as any social network is how cyber bullying was created (Four types). Cyber bullying is formed from rumors through a text message or internet site, or even an embarrassing picture or video of that person sent so everyone can see it. This type of

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bullying could happen to everyone, not just a targeted population of students like gays or lesbians. The worst bully in the school can also be cyber bullied. But most of all, cyber bullying is something a bully would do because either one, he/she is a coward, or two, that bully just wants attention and to put something embarrassing about another person in either a mass text message or the internet just for attention.

“High school is not just a walk in the park for some students. Acne, hygiene, and choice of fashion can reflect how the student is treated” (Salazer). This problem is so bad that there are multiple side effects to the cause of bullying. First off, stress with the victim is at high risk. Stress is very common in every bullied victim basically because that person has the fear that their bully is waiting for him/her at school. And we all know what stress is capable of. A student should not be stressed going to school because that where friends are and where a student should get the same equal education as other students so there is no reason why a bullied victim should be outlawed and an outcast from school. This leads into the next topic of low grades and dropouts. Like I said how stress is within almost every bullied victim, stress is the main factor to a drop in grades and possible dropouts. Being stressed out can affect the way one performs from homework to tests to even showing up to school. A victim could be so stressed out that he/she are either scared to even go to school, or they just decide to not care. Experiencing bullying can lead to poor academic performance and attachment to school, leading to truancy and bad test scores (Brank). And poor performance leads to a drop out. “Harassment and bullying leads to almost one third of LGBTQ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, questioning) students to drop out of high school, according to the research by the American Psychology Association”

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(Salazer). This leads to our final topic which is school shootings and suicides. Majority of school shootings come from the students themselves instead of an outsider. ”In another study that looked at school shootings, the agency reported that two thirds of the student shooters previously had been bullied” (Horswell). Examples like the Virginia Tech shooting and the columbine shooting where caused by either a bullied or stressed out student. Even the shooting at Sparks Middle School in Nevada was a target of school shooting. Just a middle school student was that stressed and bullied that much where just a twelve year old kid brought a weapon to school killing a teach and wounding two other class mates before committing suicide (Yan, Schoichet). School shootings usually result in a suicide by the shooter. Some people are bullied so much where that person feels they don’t have rights to live anymore than commits suicide. Bullied related suicides should not even exist because there are hundreds of alternatives to receiving help.

No matter how hard we try, there will always be bullying in this world. Why? Well there are multiple factors to how to counter act the bullying going on within the school area. The first factor can be the environment the bully lives in. the bully can be hanging around with the wrong group of kids influencing him to be mean or want to hurt someone else’s feelings physically or mentally. Another reason could be a lack of responsibility by the school officials in school. The school itself may not have groups or clubs where these bullied students can attend. Teachers might not care due to stress in their lives, cut in payments, or the teachers just don’t care at all. The final problem can be the parents not caring enough to help their own kids. For example, the school shooting at Sparks Middle School like I mentioned earlier had everything to do with the

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parents not trying to help. This student was harassed by multiple bullies. At a young age of just twelve, where did this student get the gun he used to kill these students and teacher? (Yan, Schoichet). It is the parent’s responsibility because it was their gun the student killed with. The parents also obviously did not seek help for their kid.  So in all, these counter arguments are why bullying is not put to an end.

How can this problem be solved? That is the main question. But there are many alternatives and solutions being enforced harder than ever to reduce the bullying factor. A great solution to the issue of bullying is to set up more clubs for these bullied victims whether it is from homophobic bullying or just any bully victim in general. The GLSEN and other programs are working hard to keep this problem in the eyes of the state and federal political agendas. Students are seeking to create a gay-straight alliance or other groups at the schools to support and help the victims (Robinson). Alliance groups could be great to take the fear of bullying out of the victims. Another solution could be harsher punishments. Stronger rules and regulations in a school can reduce bullying to a bare minimum. These punishments literally threaten the bullies to stop or you will be penalized. I believe this tactic would work great because it would obviously reduce the numbers of bullying significantly. Sixteen year old Tyler was a student in a public high school. Tyler says that being LGBT prevented the school from doing anything to help or prevent the bullying problems he was having. The bullying continued in the hallways for Tyler (Salazer). The school failed to address the problem, and soon later, Tyler began receiving threatening phone calls. He says he was scared to even go on campus anymore. But today, Tyler is not scared no more because of the “one n ten” program letting him work in facilities where he

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was actually safe. But it wasn’t enough. He started to attend Q High; it is an only schooling where it meets all requirements to receive a diploma. He could also go into Q High where all the students are just like him (Salazer). It is a perfect safe environment for LGBT students. “I prefer going to Q high, says Tyler. It’s a safe environment and I’m not bullied. Nobody is calling me names and I don’t need to be stressed where I am, says Tyler” (Salazer). This solution comes to show that there is a perfect solution to get away from the bullying, but continues to have a great education and meet all new people that are just like you.

In conclusion, it is not just the victims being hurt by the forms of bullying but it is also the loved ones of this individual. Something has to be done to reduce the problem. As you notice I did not say stop the problem. We cannot stop the problem because it is physically impossible. People will always be mean to others whether it’s in the work place to college to middle school. But what we can do is put majority of bullying to an end. Enforcing laws and regulations can reduce the bullying percentages to a bare minimum keeping those who are bullied safe and never have to worry about being bullied again.

 

 

 

 

 

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Work Cited

Brank,Eve Lori A. Hoetger Katherine P. Hazen. “Bullying.” Annual Review of Law and

Social Science 2012. 8:213–30. Web. 5 Nov. 2013

Feltes, Kimberly. “BULLYING HURTS.” Scholastic Action Mar 16 2009: 16-8. ProQuest. Web.

5 Nov. 2013 .

Salazer, Jorge.”LGBTQ Students Need a Safe Alternative to Thrive and Stay in School.” High  

            School Dropouts 2013: 1-6. Web. 7 Nov. 2013

Robinson, Matthew. “Gay Teens Are at Risk.” Teens at Risk 2009: 1-6. Web. 7 Nov. 2013

Yan, Holly.”Nevada school shooting: Teacher killed by “nice kid” who was bullied, girl says.”

CNN Wire Oct 22, 2013: 1-3. Web. 7 Nov 2013

Horswell, Cindy.”Bullying Is a Key Factor In Threats of Youth Violence.” Violence, 2008: 1-7.

Web. 7 Nov 2013

Hymowitz, Kay.”Blaming School Shootings on Bullying Can Cause More Harm Than Good”.

Juvenile Crime, 2012: 1-5. Web. 7 Nov 2013

“Four kinds of bullying” 2010: Web. 9 Dec 2013

opposing/counter argument

No matter how hard we try, there will always be bullying in this world. Why? Well there are multiple factors to how to counter act the bullying going on within the school area. The first factor can be the environment the bully lives in. the bully can be hanging around with the wrong group of kids influencing him to be mean or want to hurt someone else’s feelings physically or mentally. Another reason could be a lack of responsibility by the school officials in school. The school itself may not have groups or clubs where these bullied students can attend. Teachers might not care due to stress in their lives, cut in payments, or the teachers just don’t care at all. The final problem can be the parents not caring enough to help their own kids. For example, the school shooting at Sparks Middle School like I mentioned earlier had everything to do with the

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parents not trying to help. This student was harassed by multiple bullies. At a young age of just twelve, where did this student get the gun he used to kill these students and teacher? (Yan, Schoichet). It is the parent’s responsibility because it was their gun the student killed with. The parents also obviously did not seek help for their kid.  So in all, these counter arguments are why bullying is not put to an end.

Supporting paragraph

First off, stress with the victim is at high risk. Stress is very common in every bullied victim basically because that person has the fear that their bully is waiting for him/her at school. And we all know what stress is capable of. A student should not be stressed going to school because that where friends are and where a student should get the same equal education as other students so there is no reason why a bullied victim should be outlawed and an outcast from school. This leads into the next topic of low grades and dropouts. Like I said how stress is within almost every bullied victim, stress is the main factor to a drop in grades and possible dropouts. Being stressed out can affect the way one performs from homework to tests to even showing up to school. A victim could be so stressed out that he/she are either scared to even go to school, or they just decide to not care. Experiencing bullying can lead to poor academic performance and attachment to school, leading to truancy and bad test scores (Brank). And poor performance leads to a drop out. “Harassment and bullying leads to almost one third of LGBTQ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, questioning) students to drop out of high school, according to the research by the American Psychology Association”

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(Salazer). This leads to our final topic which is school shootings and suicides. Majority of school shootings come from the students themselves instead of an outsider. ”In another study that looked at school shootings, the agency reported that two thirds of the student shooters previously had been bullied” (Horswell). Examples like the Virginia Tech shooting and the columbine shooting where caused by either a bullied or stressed out student. Even the shooting at Sparks Middle School in Nevada was a target of school shooting. Just a middle school student was that stressed and bullied that much where just a twelve year old kid brought a weapon to school killing a teach and wounding two other class mates before committing suicide (Yan, Schoichet). School shootings usually result in a suicide by the shooter. Some people are bullied so much where that person feels they don’t have rights to live anymore than commits suicide. Bullied related suicides should not even exist because there are hundreds of alternatives to receiving help.

intro paragraph

In discussions of bullying in high school as
well as cyber bullying, an ongoing point of controversy is the question of how
it could be prevented. While some supporters argue to stop the
bullying, others contend that bullying could never be prevented in the school
environment. However, the most
useful perspective on the issue on bullying is that school authorities should
take more actions to let students know that there are solutions to the problems. It will also inform
the bullies themselves that terrible punishments will be enforced to anyone
attempting to bully another. Bullying starts at an early stage, from
Elementary school to High school and even College. Bullying a person could lead to a lot of mental
as well as physical issues. There are multiple types of bullying which I
will mention later on in the paper. But in the end, it is not just the victims that
get hurt by the effects on bullying, family and friends of the victim suffer
also. “People need to hear
from their local communities that bullying based or sexual orientation is a
problem that really needs to be addressed” (Robinson).

Argument/Counter-argument on Bullying

Bullying has been a debatable topic for many years. The percentages of bullying were a lot lower back in the 50’s, 60’s, 70’s, and 80’s than they are now. My argument is that high school bullying should have its end. It is time for the students, family members, and teachers to make more moves to prevent the terrible act from happening. Many kids take their lives every year basically because the kids around them either make fun of who they are or how they want to live their lives. Teasing and picking on someone to an extent to where that person kills themself is cruel and unhumane. Kind of sounds like second degree murder to me doesn’t it? Now on the other hand, there have been counter arguments on this topic but not much. The first counter argument i came across was that there will never be a cure to bullying, never. Everyone was raised and grown to be different people so in some terms, different people do not get along which causes problem. Some kids were also raised by irresponsible parents that sculped their kid to what they are now. A fibnal counter argument could be that the rules and regulations against bullying are not reinforced.

Gorgone’s Evaluation Essay

John Gorgone

Dr. Womack

English 15

6 October 2013

Evaluation Essay

So there have been debates and discussions on College Professors. This brings me to my topic concerning foreign Professors instructing the students here at Penn State Brandywine. I am currently taking five courses my first semester here at Brandywine and so happens, three of the five professors do not speak fluent English. This is a low blow in my point of view for various reasons. I am almost positive every student here at Brandywine is encountering the same problems that I am having. Foreign Professors should not be able to teach at a University where young adults are striving to make a career for themselves.

To start off, the first reason and argument as to why I feel foreign Professors should not be teaching at a college level is simply because it is very hard to understand and comprehend what they are trying to say. For example, my math Professor, Professor Smith, speaks with a very hard Greek accent. As a student, for me is very hard to comprehend what she is saying. Majority of the students in my class feel the same exact way. To try to solve the problem, I tried to move closer to where she teaches from so I could hear her better. But moving to the front of class gave no better understanding. With her accent, it seems that she is talking a million words a minute. It is way too fast to jot down notes, let alone understanding what is being said.

 

Various students in the class ask her to slow it down a notch, but it seems even when she does slow down, it is still a thousand words a minute. Coming out of Elementary, Junior High, and High School without ever having a Teacher with a foreign accent makes me highly unprepared. I have no experience learning from a foreign accent so I feel this could affect my grades effectively.

In math, my grades have been affected due to the lack for understanding of a hard accent. Math was my favorite subject through-out High School, and now it’s about the worst possible subject to be taken. I, not understanding what Professor Smith is saying, are taking a beating on my overall grade that will affect my GPA. If I would have known this would have been this big of a deal, I would have dropped the class within the first ten days for this semester. But for some odd reason, it is just the math Professor I am having the problems with. My Economics and Introductory to Jazz Professors are also foreign with accents. Their accents are more comprehensive than my math Professor’s is.  There could be solutions to this problem concerning my math Professor and I. I could go to the Stem Lab and join a tutoring class that will catch me up with my work and simply explain to me the math so I could understand it better. Another solution that could be made is to email your professor with any questions regarding the course. An email does not have an accent on it so you could understand the message one hundred times better. But in College levels, I feel that all Professors should speak very fluent English. Why? Because College is the real deal and each student should get the best possible education considering the cost to attend a College is outrageous in prices.

 

Another reason is looking into the future. Having a foreign Professor instructing me could turn out to be a good or bad thing heading into my future or career. I will start off with the bad. So these foreign Professors with hard to understand voices could affect my future in College because if I am not understanding what they are saying, how am I going to pass the courses or receive the full amounts of credits to graduate? This will be a big issue because if I don’t pass my General Education courses, I cannot pursue my major until all “Gen Ed” credits are obtained. Having to go retake your failed “Gen Ed” courses should not be an option if the student was having problems with the person teaching the course, not the actual course itself. There is one main solution which is that all General Education courses come with a text book. The text book is written in all English so if there is any trouble with the Professor and how he talks; it might just be the verbal aspect. With the text book as a solution, you could use it as the visual aid to get through the class. But looking at the good side of having a foreign Professor for the near future could help you highly in the work place. There will always be accents everywhere you go. In the work field, there could be employee’s that have a hard time speaking fluent English. Some jobs require you to talk on the phone a lot with costumers or even other companies. What I am trying to say is that working with foreign accented people could help you out in the long run when it comes to being in the working field.

On the flip side, I do have one counter argument concerning the accents of College Professors. Other than the example of life after College, my counter argument is based on foreign accented people teaching foreign language courses. I feel like this brings great life to the Professors themselves, as well as all the students on campus here at Brandywine. For example, I

 

feel that a Spanish Professor teaching Spanish or a Chinese Professor teaching Chinese would be suitable and beneficial to the students taking those courses. Why is this beneficial? This would be helpful because the students will learn the culture and language of that specific course from a person that has been around it since the day they were born. In my opinion, I would rather learn Spanish from a Spanish cultured Professor than learning Spanish from an American or French cultured Professor. I’m almost positive everyone could agree on that with me.

In the College level, considering education is at its highest, professors that do not speak clear English should not be teaching. All education in all grade levels is important, but College is more unique because it is the last step before a working career. After High School, you enter the so called “real world” where everything becomes more serious. In this so called real world, decisions and commitments are made. For example, students decide whether College is the right choice for them, or what College they want to attend. A big decision before College is what the student wants to major in. It is the real world, so why juggle with a student’s education?

 

 

Things I noticed in the comments

I am looking through some of these comments and i come to a person with the username “davric”. This person states that she is a current serving teacher and instructor. She agrees with the article for multiple reasons. Something that stood out to me was when she said “The first one I saw was that teaching is a skill which needs to be developed over a number of years and in a nurturing environment.” I find this significant because majority of ameture teachers have problems teaching kids with bad behaviors where more experienced teachers with ten or more years of experience do not have to deal with these problems due to experience in the class rooms for so long. You also need to develop professional skills over the years so your not being taken advantage by the students in the class. But i seen another comment from a guy named Eddie G. His point of view seemed to be very racist in a way when it came to different ethnicities in the classroom. He stated that middle-classed whites and asians were in more advanced classes than blacks and hispanics. He has no scientific facts to prove that so in my eyes, i feel that most of these comments i’ve been reading or more opinion than factual. It seemed that the comments coming from instructors, teachers, and former teachers seem to be more similar and realistic.

Profile Essay

John Gorgone

Dr. Womack

English 15

4 September 2013

Profile Essay

So what was the greatest time or activity of my life? Well there is a few moments and experiences that I have encountered over my eighteen years living on earth. The activity I will be talking about is winning the state championship back in 2009. It was the greatest moment of my life and I remember every second of it. The excitement and joy this event brought to the whole team, as well as the families was incredible. The experience was far greater than any holiday or even my birthday. Being able to be called state champions was one of the best feelings in the world. For all the hard work it took the team and I, it was well worth it in the end.

Baseball is one of the most popular sports today. It is America’s past time when it comes to sports. Basically every single American kid grew up at least tries to play the game once or so in their childhood. Some continue to play it through Elementary School, Middle School, High School, and even at the Collegian levels. In my opinion, baseball is the best sport ever invented. Most of it is just my opinion but there are also a few facts to support that. For example, in terms of money, baseball is the highest paid sport over hockey, football and basketball. The number one hardest thing to do in sports is to hit a fastball. I was always told, ninety percent mental, ten

 

percent skill. Baseball is also the hardest sport to succeed in. It’s something like two through four percent of baseball players in the United States actually make it into the big league. The road to the state championship game was a very long journey. It was a life time goal of mine to play in a game that means so much and that time eventually came.

So as a kid, I started off at five years old playing down the Leedom Little League right around the corner from my house. It turned out that my dad knew that I might be something in baseball later on in life, so he decided to work with me all the time at the younger ages. I moved up to the machine pitch from seven years old till I was ten. My dad coached the team I was on so he worked with me more than enough to be the best kid out there. All my friends from school were on that team also so I had a lot of fun playing the sport I loved with my good friends. My dad was sculpting me into a good ball player. He would bring me out into the field next to my house and hit me fly balls and ground balls for hours until I made perfection. He would also pitch dozens of balls to me to get me ready for the next level of the game. As I got older, around ten years old, I grew like crazy and was the tallest on the team. Back as a kid, it was always a little contest of who was taller which affected the way some people played. But the last year of pitching machine/kids pitch was over and it was time to face better, faster pitching.

As I grew up, I realized the league I have been playing in my whole life had the age limit of twelve. So it was time to start searching for another team to play with. I was in Middle school at the time and I heard that Swarthmore Wood had a good baseball program so at twelve, I decided to join two teams. It was the first time I ever played multiple teams. It was a challenge

 

to me because I never played with or against any of these kids before. So I started off doing good hitting two homeruns my first game against the best team in the Swarthmore Wood league. I had a breakout season for both teams and did really good. I was asked to join the Cal Ripken all-star team and without a hesitation, I immediately said yes. As a team, we practiced every morning through the summer heat until we became almost perfect. As a team, we made it to sections that year but lost to a strong Langhorn team. We decided that next year we will fight a little harder and go farther in the tournament.

The year was 2008 and I was thirteen. It was time to make the transition from little league field dimensions to major league. As the summer of 2008 progressed, playing for three teams was a bit of a struggle. But the only thing on my teammates and I’s mind was getting another shot at making it to the state tournament. We soon got out Ridley thirteen year old Babe Ruth team back into action. As a team, we continued to practice all summer in the hot morning and afternoon heats. The team and coaches approached practice in a little bit more serious way. We wanted that championship more than anything. Soon later, the district tournament started and hosted at our home field. We played Broomall Newtown, UDHL, Springfield and Haverford Township. I cannot remember if there were any other teams in it. My team came out on top winning every single game in the tournament. Districts were not much of a problem considering we were a very well prepared baseball squad. States were held two weeks later up in Gettysburg Pennsylvania. During the duration of the two weeks, we practiced harder than ever. Unfortunately, we ended up losing two games to Mifflin County and State College. State College ended up winning the championship just a few games later.

 

Since the loss in the state tournament back in 2008, my team went hard to work. We practiced all fall and winter for the next opportunity we could get. Playing for three teams once again in the spring and summer of 2009 was a bit of a routine. Everyone had gotten a little stronger and learned a lot more than the previous year. Soon again, the district tournament started up again. I was so excited to play. We lost our first game to Media but bounced back out of the loser’s bracket shortly after. We took down Broomall and UDHL with ease. A few games later, we were back in the championship against Media, the team that beat us in the first round. We came out in all force, pitching our best pitchers, and playing our best players. The bats came around and our team destroyed Media 16-5.

Two weeks later, I was on the road heading west to play in Franklin Township, in Lehigh Pennsylvania. Weather was a big factor in the tournament. The first two days were complete rain outs. But soon enough, we were back at it. We took down Springford, Franklin Township, Aston Valley and Middle town with no competition what so ever. The following day we played Mifflin County. They pitched the same kid that beat us last time. But we were ready. We steamrolled Mifflin 7-2 in the semi final game, taking us to the championship game with the former state champions. There was so much excitement on the field and the bystanders watching the game. The game proceeded. Our pitcher was doing a great job until he took a line drive off the chest in the sixth inning. The ambulance came and took him off the field, but he refused to leave the game even though he was on the verge of almost dying. The game was inch to inch. We would score a run, than they would score a run. It was like that through the whole game until our pitcher was struck with the ball. At that time I thought to myself “we are over,

 

there’s no possible way we can win.” We put in a nervous but very confident pitcher. He retired the side in the last inning. Our team was the home team so we had the last chance in the game. The top of the line-up was due. Our lead-off batter hit a double in the left field gap. The following batter hit another double but the runner on second held at third due to a close play. Our third batter was intentionally walked to load the bases to get to me. The nerves in my body shot from my head to toe in seconds. I looked over to see my whole family in the stands cheering me on. All the sudden, everything became quiet the second the first pitch was thrown. You could latterly hear a cricket chirping. First pitch I took a strike. My nerves shot up at an all time high. Second pitch I took a curve ball, ball one. The third pitch I took high for another ball. The count was now two balls, one strike. The pitcher wound up and threw a high fast ball just where I like it. I swung my oddly heavy bat and connected, hitting a laser line drive to left center field. Runner touched home and I touched first base and just like that, the game was over. I had hit the game winning hit to win the state championship. I was tackled by all my teammates with excitement. I actually got a black eye from being piled on. The cheers from the fans were amazing. I could not believe that the under dogs in this tournament beat one of the best teams in the state.

Putting in countless hours and effort, the team and I done what we dreamed of doing. Looking back at it now, I still remember every second of that day. It was the best day of my life and it always will be. I forget a lot of things over time but that moment will never be forgotten. The effort and time the team and I put into this goal was a huge amount. If I never picked up a

 

baseball as a kid, this moment would never be sealed into my head. I believe that this amazing moment made a big impact on my life. It is something my team and I will never forget.

“Consider the Lobster” response

Reading the profile “Consider the Lobster” by David Foster Wallace was very hard to follow in terms of what was going on through out the story line. The “MLF” or Maine Lobster Festival is held every year in july on the western side of Penobscot bay. Pretty much the point of the festival is to show the mass production of the lobsters out of Maine. Back in 1840’s, meat use to be the more expensive choice of food where lobster was basically a poor mans food because it was so cheap. In present days, lobster is always at the top of the menu in terms of price. There is many different types of ways to cook a lobster but the most famous way has to be boiled. Some people prefer their lobster cooked baked, boiled, steamed, grilled, or even microwaved. Some people say that it is cruel to kill animals and the way lobsters are killed is told as cruel and unusual. The live lobsters are thrown into a huge kettle of boiling hot water where it takes approximatly 35 to 45 seconds to kill. During that period of time, they try to escape out the top and bang claws against the sides of the kettle. Wallace than talks about the morals of eating an animal. If it comes to not suffering any longer than it should be ok to eat the animal of your choice in any circumstances.