I'd like to take a week off from my sarcastic streak and temporarily break my strict vow of neutrality to address a critical issue in light of what happened at Northern Illinois University. This article will be printed in the Tuesday's edition of the Dakota Student. I mostly want to know if this makes my point that the proposed ban at UND is pointless if not outright stupid. Constructive criticism only please.( Read more... )

This is one of two Valentine's Day specials that I am publishing in my campus paper amongst other regional magazines. It is here for your viewing entertainment although constructive criticism is always welcome so long as it follows the keyword: constructive. Enjoy!( Read more... )

Just a little entry for my journal. Maybe it will be part of a short story someday. 
But for now, it is just a love letter that will most likey remain unsent. 

The crabs crawl in, the crabs call out, the crabs play pinochle on your stout! And no, I'm not referring to the yummy tasty treats caught on the Deadliest Catch although they might share the same name. These are the kind that hang on to your personal region and play Tarzan with your pubes (If they make Tarzan cries too loud, just hit them with the shampoo). While crabs are not life threatening they are among a long laundry list of sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) that plague UND and other college campuses across the nation (especially the University of Minnesota). STDs range from the burning kind, the itchy-scratchy kind, the dis-colorization kind that helps you blend into a rave party, the kind that makes certain body parts fall off, and the kind that kills you... slowly. ( Read more... )

The challenge for the Wednesday Muse Moment was Autobiography, write your biography in a way that interests people. I'm not entirely sure how well it worked or how interesting it is. Any of your impressions would help!

This recipe will take about sixteen years.

1988 was a good year for stupidity. Let’s add in two brothers, one divorce, mix slowly for six years. There are several moves in this recipe, but only add in one now but make it a big measure: from California to Texas. Let sit for a year or two. Pour in a second marriage with a step sister.

( A Recipe )

The year our Lord 2007 has officially come to close and the countdown to Bush's farewell has already begun. Starting anew in 2008 allows many contemplative and very bored college students, like myself, to ponder the significant events of the past year such as the Larry Craig scandal and learn how not to tap your foot in a public restroom. Other events include Adult Swim placing suspicious Lite-Brite boxes throughout the city of Boston not realizing an outline of Ignignokt looks similar to a bomb (“We are the Mooninites and we're waging Jihad as hard as we can!”). Looking back, 2007 will be known as the Year of the Stupid as nothing of significance on a positive scale occurred (aside from the Transformers movie), however, watching the news one would notice there was an abundance of stupidity going around. ( Read more... )

One of the best selling items this Christmas is the Nintendo Wii. With its unique controller interface, very affordable price of $250, and endless suggestive remarks referring to the name (“I love playing with Tim's Wii!”) it is a no brainer why retailers cannot keep enough in stock to satisfy demand. Just this morning my store received a record number of 16 Wiis. After setting up the boxes behind the counter I made a store-wide page announcing the treasure we'd been graced with by Nintendo and that if any parent wanted the best gift to hand over to their children they'd better make like a lackey and get the hell over there. We sold all 16 units in under 15 minutes. All but one were proud parents, ecstatic to have found the holy grail of presents, anxiously awaiting the smiles of their children that would no doubt be present Christmas morning. Seeing these happy parents really put a smile on my face as they were doing it out of love and not protocol or competition.( Read more... )

Tonight I wrapped up another shift at the good ol' Wally World (Wal-Mart); all the Grandmas are perusing the aisles with lists full of items they have no clue about but know their grandchildren want it, desperate housewives (the monogamous kind) are scrounging for the perfect big-screen TV to give to their man to say how large his component cable is, the college friends are trying to find the cheapest, most suggestive gift they could find beyond making a beer bong with automotive parts, and the secular-progressive Canadians are trying to find NAFTA-approved, gender-neutral toys like paintball guns and Bratz dolls to give to their children and short-change their own economy. Regardless of your political or religious affiliation, Christmas does offer something for everyone... HOWEVER, the holiday has united everyone under a different flag than the original one intended when the Catholics ripped off the Pagans. ( Read more... )

I have an essay (around 800 words) for my History of Economic Thought class due Monday and as it will be the first time ever I'll hand in schoolwork in English, it'd like to have it checked by native speakers. (This is allowed, right? I didn't see anything against it in the community rules...)

I need to know about any grammar and/or spelling mistakes and also just how awkward and confusing it is. As for the actual historical value of this, don't even bother... Also, as I'm in England, please slap me if I'm using any American phrases.

Was Adam Smith justified in using the term "mercantile system" to summarise the work of his predecessors?

( Read more... )

This is the first draft of an essay that is due later this week in my AP english class. The assignment was to write a reflective narrative and keep the essay it at one page, but then after we had all done that we're suppose to recraft our essay to make it 3 pages. This is the one page version of the essay, 936 words.
I hate recrafting writing once I have something I'm relatively happy with, because I'm afraid of destroying the point I'm trying to get accross in the writing, but I know that's an important aspect of writing. Anyway, I'm looking for suggestion onto what parts I can extend upon, where I need more real-seeing or more explaining and any general opinion or critique (good or bad) is welcomed.

Thanks in advance.


( First Draft )

So, I posted a link in an earlier entry to this post in my journal, but in an effort to help ease the tracking of critiques in the community, and to appease somerled (*wink*), I'm posting it in full here. Please disregard the earlier link-post. :-)

****

So, I wrote this as a response to brutal_critters's February challenge, which was to describe someone, physically or otherwise, as "faithfully, truthfully and interestingly as possible." I think I may have failed miserably, in that there's relatively little *real* description, but... this is what came of that prompt. Any thoughts?

Halloween

( When he was two, his parents dressed him up as Mickey Mouse. )

**********

( Visual! )</p>

So, I just now wrote a response to another community's writing prompt -- in a nutshell, describe someone (physically and otherwise) "as faithfully, truthfully and interestingly as possible" -- and I'm curious to see what everyone here thinks of it. I think I may have been a bit too faithful and true. But, rather than post it all over the place, I'm just offering a link to the post I made in my own personal journal. If this is somehow outlawed or forbidden in this community -- I've been chewed out in other communities for doing something similar -- let me know. I checked the rules on the profile page, and they don't specify, so... yeah.

Let me know what you think. It's short and it's really bizarre, coming from me, so... I'm curious to know. Yeah.

LINK--->      Halloween       <--- LINK

Thanks!

Update: thanks all for your advice. i hate to not use so much good advice but your comments make me realize i have much more coherent papers to choose from, so i won't be rewriting and submitting this one. i only selected it because it deals with an issue of public policy and i thought that would show my interest in these issues, but in retrospect, since this project turned out so incoherent (would you believe I got an A on this paper?), they're just asking for a writing sample. so maybe something with a solid thesis would be much better instead of me just bitching about DST. thanks for the feedback though because it kept me from making a huge mistake submitting this!



Hi everyone, I'm applying to urban planning grad schools and this is the writing sample I plan to include. I wrote it over a year ago for a writing class. I'd appreciate any feedback or criticism you could give me.

Are you left with any unanswered questions? Are there any "holes" in the story? Is the tone too "polemical"? The assignment was to write it in that tone but I think it might be good to clean that up a little bit.

( Taken Too Lightly )

Thanks. :)

I am a poet. I do not have the particular endurance to write much prose, especially not stories or novels. However, I volunteered myself to take a Creative Nonfiction course this semester in hopes to expand my horizons. This is one of the pieces I put in my final portfolio for the class.

say! who wants to do me a big favor, win my eternal gratitude (mayhap love, oh-la-la), and take a look at my personal statement which i'm too embarrassed to post here?

Here is the rewrite of some Prose i wrote on october 5 which was an itnernational Fast for Darfur. I don't believe I posted the original here but it is in my journal for those who are itnerested as is a poem on the same subject.  Please R/R!

---------------------------------

I was a beauty, before hunger bit me, before blood stained me. I was never a voluptuous women, but motherly offered what ever nutrition could be sucked from my small breast, an infant slowly strengthened. Somehow this civilization found a life flowing through my veins, rivers not seen by foreign eyes, thrived on my nonexistent banks.


For more information on this issue watch 60 minutes tonight

This is a small piece a wrote once to an old teacher and never actually gave it to him,but i thought the least I can do is share with those who actually might still give a damn:
Socrates once said: “I know nothing by the fact of my ignorance”. This coming from a man who aspired generations after him, a man whose philosophy reshaped the western world, a man who Plato’s Republic gave us an image of his vision, a vision of a city-state, built on conscious, education, excellence , and ethics. A man was condemned to death for teaching his philosophies. How can such a man who said “there is only one good thing, knowledge, and one bad thing ignorance.” Claim ignorance?. In my humble opinion because he never stopped educating himself, he never held back from perusing a higher level of knowledge. A man dedicated himself to man, to left him from the apathy he is sinking in. This man died more than 2000 years ago, his legacy was celebrated by many, and his philosophies were carried on by followers. But now, they too are dead. For what survives now are now found on bookstores shelves. We live in a time where “scholars of trivia” are celebrated as giants. Giants whose only triumph is reciting what they memorize. A time where a man will be given the title “teacher” just for standing in front of you in class. A teacher who just happened to read the same book you are reading right now few years earlier. A time where wisdom, ethics and integrity are granted with a college degree. A time where purchasing a newspaper and reading a couple of articles grants the right to claim knowledge. A time where we claims victory after graduation.I am ashamed to say, I am one of those giants, I am a preacher, I am scholar, I am the victorious warrior. My shame comes from failing to recognize my teachers, true giants who did care about me. Teachers who saw me as individual and not a pile of test-scores. Preachers who dedicated their days teaching, informing, and most of all, not giving up on me. I thank you for being there, I thank you for every single time you yelled at me, every time you made me redo my homework. I thank you for being a teacher. In a time like this, it’s so comforting to know that there are people like you out there. This world is built by you, don’t give up on us.

I wrote this a while a back,it all began with an argument with a co-worker,I ened up thinking it would be a nice piece to reasech and write about some day.But I came up with this below,which is basically just a traslation from thoughts into ink and paper,it could lead to a serious paper later on,or just a "meditation" as i like to call it here:

How do you evaluate your life? How do you count your blessings? How do you realize that you’re blessed? Do you have to wait until someone with less fortune to show up? When do you feel content? How do you feel content? Does it mean you just stop pursuing your dreams? Does it mean you don’t strive higher? When you’re content, does that mean you are happy? Settled? Or simply gave up ? How do you tell if an extra mile is waste or a plus? Yet how can you judge if you don’t walk that mile? When is it too late to back up? How do u back up? Is it a sign of wisdom or defeat? Who gets to answer these questions? Why? Under what authority?My name is useless here, my location is irrelevant, my age is 27. Do I have the right to even begin to think I can address these questions? Indeed not, but I can ask them in order to build a reasonable argument. I didn’t grew up between scholars, professors or even parents with college degrees. But I was fortunate to grew up in an educated family, who insisted on me getting the highest education possible. Regrettably I possess no degree to support any debate or argument. I have no outstanding life experiences or life altering incidents. What I have is the passion to seek higher knowledge, the eagerness to conquer my own limitations, and my convection that freedom of the mind is by far the greatest freedom of all.I don’t claim to have walked all the walks of life, or have tasted all its spices. I barely had my first course, and I am starving. I was fortunate to have lived in more than a couple of lands, with all there diversities ,cultures, communities and most of all believes. 27 years and here I, more thirsty to keep on learning , more anxious to explore, more starved for life. I have accompanied the poor and rich, liberal and conservative, the radical and main stream. Every conversation, every dinner, every drink, every fight, was a mile I walked to reach this point in my life. I really fancy debating people, for I have tons of questions that will not never find an answers in books or colleges, but rather right there in corners of life. I am blessed to be healthy, smart enough to distinguish some or the rights from wrongs. Of that I can say I am blessed indeed, and my only way to repay such gifts is by pushing my being into achieving a higher statues mentally and spiritually. And what better way than educating myself with more and more in every given chance. I don’t know what scares me more though, the idea that I might not need half of what I learn, or the possibility that I will not apply what I learn half of the time. I believe the answer to this will can only come years from now.

Hello all. I am new to this community. In the spirit of the 2:1 rule, I have already commented on other posts. This is an essay I am working on. I would appreciate some critique. Thanks!


Theory of Evolution

No real reason for this. I wrote it and didn't know what to do with it.

( A Ramble )

Name: Zoë
Age: 17
Writing Experience: Been writing since I learned how to form words out of letter in alphabet soup.
Preferred Genres: Non-Fiction short stories
Education: Senior in high school.
Country: USA.
What do you hope to get from this community: I hope to gain experience, and read great stuff.
Where did you hear of us: rummaging through some random person’s user info.

To start off here's one of my works in progress:

( I Won’t Belittle The Plot With A Phrase )