The most interesting thing we talked about in class the other day over the articles is the connections between the two articles “The epidemic of worry”, and “Confessions of a quit addict. The both of these articles have some similarities, in Brooks he talks about the worrying of the election, how people was stressing over who was gonna win the election. In paragraph 14 sentence two he says, " If the next president starts enacting a slew of actual policies, than at least we can argue about concrete plans, rather than vague apocalyptic moods." In Graham's article she was telling us how she quits everything in life so basically she stresses over her life trying to match a dream that doesn’t really exist in real life. In paragraph 6 sentence one she said, "It had taken thousands of miles and one child for me to understand that the quitting I took for freedom was as much of a trap as the social conventions we were trying to escape." She needed to give a better life for her son and herself, she had to stop running away from the real picture and quitting all the hard obstacles in her life. Abstract is something existing in thought or as an idea but not having a physical or concrete existence. Concrete is something that is existing in a material or physical form so it's not abstract. Brooks article is abstract because it warns you against dangers. There’s good and bad, the good tries to tell you the dangers you're getting into, and the bad is the self destructive thoughts. Concrete is something that is existing in a material or physical form so it's not abstract. Graham's article is a bit concrete everything in her life she tries to get a physical thought of. How she quits college and moves forward in her life, jumping from one place to another she can’t figure out what place she wants to stay at, she's tired of being a quit addict but she also knows she will always stay a quit addict. Discussing these two articles in class helped me visualize both of them more than I did before, I didn’t really understand brooks article. After comparing these two together I got a better understanding on what they was talking about. We discussed the classification pattern for brooks article, it’s breaking down big topics into smaller categories. The bad is brooks we said is, “self-destructive thoughts, educated/affluent, well it’s too many choices and the meaning of life”.

In Brooks article  “The Epidemic of Worry”, he brings up some very interesting points over being worried and having anxiety. Anxiety is something that worries you or you feel a bit of nervousness. Worrying is what causes your anxiety.  He says “Worry is circular”, because we stress over the little things. When you think someone is following you, you get a bit anxious and very worried about the situation so you tend to pace a little faster to your car.  I’m a person that won’t go out at night time by myself I get bad anxiety thinking someone is gonna rob me or even kidnap me you never know with crazy people these days. I didn’t even go out for Halloween because I was super stressed out that a clown might pop out. When I go running during the day, I look behind me constantly I get a bad feeling someone is following me and they say you always follow your gut. These types of situations is what causes people's anxiety attacks. Another point he said “ Anxiety is coursing through American society.” This is very true, we stress ourselves so bad we tend to not focus on the positive outlook of things. Sometimes when stress myself out to the max I tend to put myself in a bad place, I literally will cry over the stupidest things ever.

    The two “flavors” of worrying in America one is Educated- class anxiety is really a overload of different options without a purpose. Many students have anxiety over a test, they can study for weeks before the test but still be worried about passing it. I try to study at least an hour a day over notes we take in class so I can know the material. The second one is affluent people basically when you are very wealthy but you have a fear of missing out on things.  Most of these people try to buy their happiness. I’m not the person that judges anybody, but I wouldn’t like someone that tries to buy their friendship I couldn’t be with someone that does that. My family sometimes tries to buy their way in my life, but I instantly say no. I don’t like when people pay for anything for me, I appreciate the curiosity but I like to be independent and try to do it myself. I come from a family where I was extremely spoiled, I mean I still am but I feel like a terrible person when my parents buy everything for me I feel like a hopeless person.

My experience for this first semester has been very different. College so far for me has been very stressful, but I always told your first year is the hardest, you just have to keep pushing yourself to do your best. Starting college is something I was really afraid of because college is where things get serious. It is like a whole different level of education. High school is nothing compared to college. This scenario was the complete opposite to my thinking. After graduating from High school, I really wanted to go to college to take another, huge step towards my career. I had a decent amount of friends who were going to Blinn college and they told me that this college is good to start off with. So, now I find myself in this college. Although I was looking forward to go to college, my first semester has been hard time to go by because of new people, new classes and new teachers as well. In my life, I continuously meet new people every now and then, and college is no different. Even if I had friends from high school going to the same college, I didn’t have the same classes that they had. So the first day of college I walked into a class completely full of strangers. I had no idea how old they were, where they were from or what kind of personality they had. But I eventually got to know some of them as weeks passed by. It was nothing like high school, people are actually really nice to you even if you do not know them. In high school there is a lot of criticism depending on what you look like. Your race, your gender and many other things. College is a complete opposite. Along with having new people in my classes, the classes itself are really different. Classes in college differ a lot from classes in high School. There is no reason one should say that classes in college are similar to the classes in high school. Subjects that you get in colleges are way more advanced than the ones in high school. The material is made in a way that you know it is trying to say that I need to know more about a lot of things. A person may think they know enough to be in the class but once you start getting into more things, you actually learn the concept of the class.

Mike Rowe's has been doing the T.V. show Dirty Jobs for awhile, we use to watch it every Friday in business class I loved that show, it was very interesting. In this video about the high cost of college, he pulls up some very interesting points regarding the workforce and student loans in college. The first point I wanna talk to you about is he stated that, "he got nothing against college" but believes it's a huge mistake to push everyone in the same direction regardless of interest or ability. Why would you want to go to college when you can go straight towards working and making $10-$100 an hour? The jobs without college are paying really good and it’s really good opportunities. A good work ethic is that you got to love what you're doing so you can be more involved, that's why it’s good to go to college so you can have more options and be more open about the things you wanna do in life. He’s right at most points, we are wasting money on careers that don’t even exist. His show dirty jobs was too show young viewers to look at their options in a different standpoint, to follow their passion. On his show dirty jobs he met many people, he was always told by his family to follow his passion but when he was working with several of those people he asked them “what did you do before this?” they would say something opposite of what they are doing now, they wanted to own their own business instead of being a counselor anymore. He talks about his work ethic scholarship, it’s a scholarship to encourage the behavior that the micro wants to at least talk about here’s two things: the willingness to learn a useful skill, and the willingness to work your but off. Like he mention our parents want us to succeed and do better than they did. When they went to college the price was lower than what we are spending now. It has increased tremendously over the years. Many students are trillions of dollars in debt from student loans. I disagree where he says, "If I depended on a skill workforce then I would not depend on a public education.” We can’t just go straight to the workforce, college is supposed to help you learn the things you would need in life, I understand that it is very expensive but when you think about it will be worth it in the end, college is supposed to be this whole new adventure in your life.

Do you know how many people die a year from texting and driving? You will be surprised most accidents are from looking at electronic devices while driving. I will admit I have looked at my phone a couple of times while I’m driving but it takes just one second to look down at your device to get in someone else’s lane. You can take someone’s life away in just one instant, I promise you your phone can wait, it’s not that important. If you took someone's life away because of your stupidity, you wouldn’t be able to live with yourself. A prime example to not text and drive, one morning I was heading to work, I was going faster than I should down my road, but I was running really late to work. I got on twitter to post just one tweet, next thing you know I thought I was having some kind of nightmare but really I was getting slung around in my car going through a pipe fence and ending up in someone’s pastor. I lost control of my car, I wasn't paying attention to the rode. There was no telling how long I was out there but I woke up screaming my lungs out thinking someone could hear me in the middle of nowhere. I was very lucky I survived that wreck, nobody knows how I got out of that car a live. I’m blessed, I had a guardian angel watching over me. Nobody else was involved in this wreck. I walked away with just scratches, bruising and I was very sore for a couple of weeks. This was over one tweet people that’s all it takes. Maybe someday we will have cars that do the driving for us or devices that will shut down when safety is compromised. But today we know that electronic devices that pull a driver’s attention away from his or her primary task are unsafe. It’s time to put a stop to distraction. In David Brooks Article he said, “Being online isn’t just something we do. It has become who we are, transforming the very nature of the self.” Just because we can stay connected when we drive does not mean we should. No call, no text, no update is worth a human life.

The day of October 14, 1949 my father was born in Tomball, Texas. That day is next Friday he would of been 67 years old. He passed away June 6, 1997, in memory of my dad I got a tattoo for him. It hasn't been the easiest situation, I lost my father at a very young age, I was only 10 months. He didn’t even get to see his only daughter turn one. I’m sharing this with y'all because it’s on my mind right now. This month is always the hardest for me, I really didn’t get to know my father but I can still hear him talk to me. Like I always ask myself like why me? Why was my father taking away from me? God took the man that was my father because he didn’t want him suffering anymore it was his time to go. The day my dad died he was really ill, he wasn't feeling good that day . My mom tried to get him to go to the hospital but he was too stubborn to go. He finally listened to her, by time they made it there it was already too late we really don’t know what caused him passing. When he was eighteen he got his spleen taking out, so they think it had something to do with that.

    I strongly dislike when people tell me they know what I’m going through, they know what I’m feeling but truly they really don’t have no clue what it feels like to not have your father in your life unless it happen to them. It gets harder and harder each day, the things I’m doing now I’m trying to make my father proud of me. I don’t really talk about this situation to people or express anything I like to keep things to myself. I don’t like when people feel bad for me. When I think about it, when I get married he won’t be able to walk his baby girl down the aisle, it’s not fair. I look at other girls with their fathers, I always wonder what it’s like. I do have a step-dad but it’s not the same at all, he’s been in my life since I was two. I really don’t feel comfortable calling him dad, I think it’s wrong. He was the father figure for me but I wanted my real dad, I wish I could just see him one last time. Like the song says “If heaven wasn't so far away”.

   

The first Major exam we took Thursday, I was super nervous and my anxiety got really bad I don’t do well on exams.  I had done all the reading twice, I was thinking over and over about the material and filled pages with notes from my own responses as well as from class. I couldn’t have been more prepared for the exam. Having a short answer test makes you study even harder because you have to have a more bulk response and think about the questions that are given to you. The vocabulary was very simple, we went over them several times in class so they should of got stuck in your head. They got stuck in my head, I felt like I was dreaming about them all night making sentences for them.

The hardest part about the whole exam, I knew the material I study for hours the past two nights, I just couldn’t think how to word some of the things. Basically I was second guessing myself, I do that quite a lot. I felt like I put a lot vague in my responses, I couldn’t think about a good answer. Sometimes I mark out two answer that I know wouldn't be it, so I can have fifty percent chance. I had maybe two questions I couldn’t figure out, I didn’t know the difference between denotative and connotative but instead of leaving it blank I gave it a shot and answered the question. When you answer a question instead of leaving it blank you still have a chance of getting it right, you never know if you are wrong. Another question I didn’t know is the one about bias, which I should of knew that one we went over the material several times in class. He didn’t give us a hard test at all, he even gave us a study guide too look over.

I am sure you have heard someone say, “You are going to eat those words.”  It may sound like a different phrase to you, but in reality we do eat our words. What we say not only affects others, but it also affects us. I always try to use words in a proper way when I speak to people. They can encourage and give confidence to others. A right word spoken at the right time can actually be life-changing. We can literally increase our own joy by speaking right words. We can also upset ourselves by talking unnecessarily about our problems or things that have hurt us in relationships. Not too long ago I had a disappointing situation take place with someone I considered to be a close friend. I noticed that each time I talked about it, I would have a difficult time getting it off of my mind for the remainder of the day. I finally realized that if I wanted to get over it, I was going to have to stop mentally and verbally going over it again and again. People kept asking me about the situation out of concern, but I realized that I had to answer, “It is better for me if I just don’t talk about it.”

    The words that come out of our mouth go into our own ears as well as other people’s, and then they drop down into our soul where they give us either joy or sadness, peace or upset, depending on the types of words we have spoken. People don’t understand how this can hurt other people think about the situation before speaking to anyone about it. We talk a lot and quite often pay no attention to what we are saying, let alone think seriously about the impact of our words. If we are honest with ourselves, we may find that some of our bad moods are directly linked to our conversation. Even some of our problems can be linked to bad choices we make about what we say. I have many words that have inspired me in my life and helped me get through difficult situations. People don’t think about it sometimes, but you tend to use the same words in your daily life. Your words may not be the cause all of your problems, but they can cause a lot of them and they should be given a good deal of consideration when we are looking for answers to the problems we encounter in life.

My name is Makayla Troyer, I’m 20 years old. I’m from Tomball, TX. I have four brothers and one sister. I come from a really big family with a lot of drama. I am in the first semester of my freshman year in college. I decided to take it easy and go to Blinn first. I want to transfer over to Texas A&M later on down the road about 2 years from now.  Most of my family has graduated from A&M so it’s a family tradition so I’m trying to keep it in the family. I have huge dreams for my future I want to become a Physical therapist it has been my dream ever since I was little. I love helping people when they really need help getting the ability back to walk or move. I’m a very positive, outgoing person it’s the perfect job for me. I watched my mom work as a Physical therapist growing up so that’s what really made me choose this. It’s a lot of schooling but it’s so worth it.   

I graduated from Buffalo High School with about 72 kids in our class. I would always be at the football games cheering the boys on. I loved playing sports and being involved in the extracurricular activities. I played every sport we had it was keeping me really busy. Volleyball, track and softball was my favorite sports I didn’t really like basketball that much. I was also working 40 hours a week at Brookshire Brothers, I enjoyed working up there. Most people can’t say it but I love working. Hard work pays off in the end I have my own car and my own place. I like to stay busy I still made time to hang out with friends.