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I realized while talking to my friends whose names start with Da and St and whose whole names will not be mentioned for security purposes, that everything in life happens for a reason. My friends asked me when the last time I went to the gym was. I explained that on November 8, 2008 our school, USF, was having the Fittest Bull Competition and I started training on the 1st. I tried to fit months of training in a week, because even though I did know about it for a while, I signed up on the last day because I was not sure if I was going to do it.
I trained hard that week. I was at the gym two or three times a day, every day. I worked out to the point where I could not feel my arms and legs and had to drag myself back home, shower, and go back to class.
About two days before the competition I pulled my hamstring and I had to drop out. That same Saturday my cousin felt ill and ended up going to the hospital and getting a blood transfusion. She desperately needed me to watch her children and I was available so I watched over my baby cousins.
Another prime example of this would be the KAPPA dorm at USF. It is the cheapest and one of the oldest dorms at USF. It is the bare minimum of living on campus at USF and that is where I stay. Most of the people of KAPPA are social because they are depressed when staying in their small uncomfortable rooms. KAPPA is known as the party dorm. I wouldn’t call it the party dorm, but I would call it the most social dorm at USF.
So next time you want to be angry about something that happened to you, remember that someone else in the world is having worse done to them and that it happened for a reason. Stop and appreciate the good and bad things in life, both are rare.
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I think that making fun of yourself is essential in life. For all those who don’t know me, but like to read my work, it’s my turn to make fun of myself in this “Dear Prudence” later.
Dear Prudence,
I am suffering from a mild case of hair loss. It has been hereditary for about 10 generations and I am hoping to be the first son in 10 generations to break the cycle. I am deathly afraid to use Rogaine for the simple fact that my father used it every morning to no avail and lost his hair at the age of 12.
I am a successful male model and I am afraid that if I lose my hair, my lucrative career will go done the drain. I have had many people say that what brings my whole look together is my hair. What makes my hair so unique is that my hair can be soft and bouncy and can also be very strong and nappy. Basically, think John Travolta AND Samuel L. Jackson in Pulp Fiction. If I lose my hair then I will lose my 32 bedroom mansion, my supermodel, exotic, Brazilian wife, and my beautiful 2.3 children.
Some of my hairstylists have said that I should shave my head and rock the bald look, but I do have a shameful secret. My head, just like my father’s, is very lumpy. In fact, my father’s head has been compared to that of a Martian’s.
I need your help Ms. Prudence. Should I try Rogaine, try getting surgery, or do you think lumpy is the new style.
Signed,
Bruised Coif
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I was given this website called http://postsecret.blogspot.com/. I advise everyone to visit the site and participate. What they do is take a postcard that is sent to them by their readers and attach an image. This website can fill you with every emotion imaginable; sometimes the topics are funny, other times the subjects discussed are disturbing, they can be cute, or they can make you thank God that you have a decent life.
When I first when on the website, the first image I saw was of a woman’s back. The woman had no bra on and just her panties on. My first thought was that the teacher messed up when placing the link for the website on her page. I thought it was pornography (YESSSSSS!!!! Just kidding, if you knew me that would be an average joke I would make, but again I’m just kidding =D) The caption in the image was “You find the pictures I sent your husband, after 8 years of being a mistress”. I said to myself “Ohhhhhh that’s messed up”. I chuckled and searched the page.
The next two images made me laugh. The closed captions were “I got Wi-Fi so I can search the internet while using the toilet…” and “I secretly love my work spouse”. The next one made me think; it said “if it had not been for my unplanned pregnancy, my next attempt at ending my life would have succeeded.” This image made me realize how thin the line between life and death is; life is precious.
I do not want to give away all of the images, so please go on this website and laugh and think like I did.
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I read the poem "Spring Comes to Ohio".
When reading a poem, I find the first line the most important. This is because the first line helps me to understand the writer’s style more clearly and serves as a guiding medium to if I will like the rest of the poem.
I was confused the first time I read the first line, but after I contemplated on it I realized that it was simple.
“The first gesture is despair
because the snowdrops
have fled and the cold
came back anyway”
The reoccurring theme was death and despair; at least I believe so because both death and despair were mentioned repeatedly. I interpreted this first line as, “problems, unlike seasons, do not fade away”. I completely relate to this line because I have left problems in my past alone, expecting the smell of them to fade away when I leave them. The problem is the problems just skew in their in the fluid till the smell becomes a stench so strong that it is inescapable. Now a days I try to solve my problems instead of just letting them “sink into the dirt where it will die”.
When I read the poem I got a good gist of it but on the internet page also had a button that played the audio of a man reading the poem. The man that read the poem had a groaning, monotone voice. He made the poem seem gloomier then I thought it was. He almost made the poem seem like a suicide note.
All in all, it was a good poem that when read, can be beautiful in a melancholy way.
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I'm in a state of pure euphoria right now. I just finished taking a long nap and I have my music on my laptop cranked to full volume in my headphones. I keep the tunes coming. I am listening to one of my favorite artists, Lil Wayne. The first song that I just listened to was called Ransom by Drake featuring Lil Wayne. Some may now Drake as a star from the show Degrassi. He now has a flourishing rap career under Lil Wayne’s label, Young Money. The song has a great beat and if you are reading this blog and decided to listen to it on Youtube.com, then I will tell you in advanced because it is pretty vulgar. I do not listen to Lil Wayne because his music is vulgar, but because I like to listen to his innuendos and the things he overshadows in his lyrics. I know that many people think that his lyrics are somewhat idiotic, but that is because people tend to judge before they listen. An example of Lil Wayne’s overshadowing in this song is towards the beginning when he says “I get paid for every letter; A, B, C etc.” Towards the end of his verse he starts to say the alphabet from A-Z. This implied that how popular and well paid he is because for saying these 26 letters that we have said plenty of times and have not been paid, he is receiving a large sum of money.
The next song that I am going to listen to, also has an example of Lil Wayne’s lyrical genius; Lollipop Remix. Though this song is also vulgar, he says one of my favorite lines of all time.
“Safe sex is great sex
Better wear a latex
Cause you don’t want that late text
that "I think I'm late" text”
If you don’t understand it, I guess you should go ask a friend or listen to Lil Wayne more often.
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I was asked today what my favorite song was. I had to stop and think because I had not thought about that in a long time. I love so many songs, but which one is my favorite. My favorite song would have to be “Church” by Big Boi from Outkast. Most of the lyrics in the song are things I think about every day. The song begins with no music in the background. Then you here a man say “Man, have you ever really wondered, like why we here; what the meaning of all this?” I think about that question frequently. The bible says that our purpose in life is to serve and I am not disagreeing, but sometimes I feel like there is more.
I also love this song because all of the versus flow together. The first verse is a list of hardships that Big Boi has, but many of his problems are problems that many people face can relate to. The chorus of the song then goes on to say that whatever hardships you go through, you can “get up and go to church.” The second verse speaks how life is good and is filled with many choices. It says to remember that not all those choices are good choices and to remember how every choice you make in life has a consequence. The third verse up to the end of the song is filled with soulful scatting and some sultry singing that makes you appreciate the song even more.
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I watched an advertisement on YouTube entitled “Mad
Men:
Carousel” that was created in 1960. It was an advertisement about the
best way to advertise a “new” product that Eastman Kodak created. The
original
name was “The Wheel” because it was a circular slide projector. The
marketer
decided to show some slides of his life after he spoke of a man who
explained
to him the best way to sell a product is to connect with the audience
on an
emotional level. Each moment of his slide show displayed some
sentimental
moment in his life. He was using a pathos approach as he explained his
presentation. He explained how when you create an emotional, almost
nostalgic
bond between the consumer and the product and not just the usual flash
and over
the top antics, then you can create a sentimental bond with the
consumer that
is extremely strong. He realized that a bond like that can trigger
memories
whenever that product is seen, that goes back to the pathos approach
that I
mentioned. By calling it a carousel, it allows those who here that name
to
revert back to their childhood; the days when you did not have a car in
the
world. The time when the simple things in life, like a cold ice cream
cone on a
summer day or riding a carousel at the state fair, were the things that
you
dreamed of. Pathos is all about making people feel what you are saying,
making connect
to your words and to find comfort, strength, anger, or whatever emotion
you
want. In this case it was nostalgia. His soft voice almost seemed to
crack when
he spoke of the past while looking at the pictures of his wife and
children. He even received a tear or too from his audience. It
was genius.
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I read an interesting piece entitled “To Write Love On Her Arms” and it was about a girl named Renee who is only 19, but seems to have suffered and gone through enough issues to last a lifetime. She was a cocaine addict who also cut herself with razor blades repeatedly. The rehab center would not admit her because she seemed to be too big of a risk. In the kindness of their heart, the main character decides to take her in and care for her. He decides to “treat her like a princess”, pray for her, and get others to pray for her in hopes of getting her on the right path. I believe that this is one of the hardest things to do. Accepting someone who has the worst possible track record in terms of being an antisocial person who is detrimental to herself and possibly those around her; a person like that into your home and treating her like royalty? That is a test of a person faith. If I was faced with that decision, my heart would have no problem accepting the flaws of a human being and helping them find a better life, but I learned to stop listening to my heart a long time ago because it only leads you to trouble. My head would tell me no because I would not want to expose my children to that kind of person. So far that’s one yes and one no for trying to change a stranger into a messenger of God. The deciding factor would be God himself. This story reminds of the parable of the good Samaritan. A man who was beat up on the road and left for dead. He was passed by two “men of God”; a priest and a levite (one who takes care or the temple), but it was the third man, a regular Samaritan, that made sure he was nursed to health. This story basically helps one to know that regular people helping people is hard to find, but is a blessing that is on its own plateau. I would do all I can to help Renee and whoever like her because it’s the right thing to do.
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I read an interesting article on salon.com entitled “Loaded” today. It spoke basically of how the network CW could easily stand for “Coveting Wealth” due to its full coverage of the lifestyles of the young and rich in shows like “Privileged”, “90210” and “Gossip Girl”. It goes on to the author, Heather Havrilesky, writing about the older shows like “Dallas”, “Dynasty”, and those shows who paved the way for these new shows, but were in totally different directions. It states that these shows, which were well before my time I might add, had “upper-middle-class heroes and heroines” that you could root for. Also, there were low moments in the upper-class lives in these shows that you could look at and pity.
Though I am of this new generation, I never got into the “escapist fantasy” craze. Television to me was created as a form of entertainment, but where do we draw the line between endlessly entertaining to downright immoral. Cartoons are fake and that is understood, but when you are depicting a lifestyle that seems tangible, but virtually unattainable to those in middle-class and lower-class families then somebody should be fired. I am tired of watching “painfully skinny” models, though nice to look at, showing “just how many things that money can buy”. I agree wholeheartedly with this author. I want to see a show with a character that has morals, who was not born with a silver spoon in his mouth, and one who wants to help protect people for nothing in return. That reminds me, when is the new season of “Smallville” starting?
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I read an article entitled "How to Debate a Girl and Win." The article basically discussed what Joe Biden had to do to win the upcoming vice-presidential debate. In order to win it states that “Joe Biden can beat Sarah Palin by pretending she’s a man and that he’s not Joe Biden.”
I believe that the author of this article, Dahlia Lithwick, is doing a great job of avoiding partisan in this article. She does state that Ms. Palin will “fight like a man” at the vice-presidential debate, which I believe is a statement without underlying tones. I believe that it is simply a form of compliment that was not well written. Lithwick means that she knows that Ms. Palin will give more than 100% in terms of preparation and delivery, and she is not hinting at a gender change.
I do believe that it was fair for Litwick to include sexism in the article because naturally this is one of the biggest issues for Biden to avoid. Biden has been known to say inappropriate things in the past, and in a world where staring at a woman for more than three seconds may be considered sexual harassment, depending on who is telling the story, precautions are necessary.
I believe that the presidential hopeful John McCain played a beautiful chess move when choosing his vice president. He was trying to target the female demographic, which has fallen into shadows since Hillary Clinton did not become the Democratic presidential candidate. To say that Biden and Obama could not use this article as advice would just be incorrect.
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My name is David Louis Doirin. I was born off the shores of Lake Eerie in Ireland. I then moved to Costa Rica where I not only learned Spanish, but became a two-time gold-medalist in the sexiest dance known to human kind, the Salsa. Once I turned 12 I moved to Miami, FL, USA, where I excelled in my studies and became a student at USF.
All of what I just typed was not true, but thats who I am. Not a liar, but more of a practical joker. I am funny to an extent, only because I know that every joke has a limitation. I choose to not push these limitations because the last thing that I want to do is to make fun of a human being in bad taste. It just is not me.
I am from Miami though and the city of Miami has greatly influenced my life. I do not want to be known as a jokester for the rest of my life, but a respectable member of a respectable community. Miami is full of hardworking and talented individuals who never seem to get their big break in life. It pains me to know that my father can speak four languages fluently and is forced to be a taxi-cab driver who works over 10 hours a day to pay the bills.
To be a respectable member in my community I have to be able to take responsibilities for my actions and not blame others for my mistakes. For example, the assignment you are currently reading may not be accepted by my professor because it was due by midnight and it is currently 12:45 am. I emailed my teacher on my HP Pavillion Notebook on Monday afternoon when the assignment was supposed to be online. I could not find the link and I preceded to send an email of complaint. That email was never responded and by the time I figured it out it happened to be around 12:45 on my roommates' Mac PC because my laptop broke down this morning.
This may all sound like one big excuse. Quite the contrary. It is all one big push to me becoming a better student. I should of been more prepared and I can read this blog a yeear or more from now and realized that irresponsibility had gotten the best of me this night (and a stroke of bad luck), but that is life! I want to be a responsible college student, and here is the first step.
Thank You in Advanced Professor Lee
David L. Doirin
User name: Blackpro007
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