portfolio
As the time approaches for me to reflect on my journey through English 1000C, I realize that I’ve learned a lot from my experiences in this class. As a writer, I used to always just stare at a piece of paper with a pen in my hand and write ideas in my head, but I always had trouble transferring them onto the paper in front of me. I’ve learned that making outlines and webs for brainstorming ideas really helps me to get my ideas flowing, but the road to get to where I am today has not been a bed of roses.
I would often ask myself “How do I really feel about English?” Honestly that’s a question that I have battled with my entire life. Being that I actually come from the country that invented the language, then why is it that I have always struggled to write properly? All throughout my high school career, I can honestly say that I probably had one good English teacher, therefore this reflected harshly on my grades. The methods in which was taught to write were somewhat restricting. I was told that in order for me to write a good paper, I had to write with a strict formation that included an introduction, point one, two then three, finally the conclusion, and if I failed to follow this format then it would result in me getting a bad grade.
Nevertheless, I can’t blame everything on my teachers because something that did not particularly help my writing was that as a child I totally despised reading. For someone who wanted to be a lawyer, surprisingly I did not read my first novel until I was thirteen years old. “Harry Potter and the philosopher’s stone” was the first book I actually took a liking to. The book was filled with suspense, action, and all that other good stuff; exactly what someone like me needs to stay interested. I continued to read the Harry Potter series up to the fourth edition. It was from there that I realized if I am ever going to improve on writing, I needed to start reading more intellectual novels.
It was then I read what I considered to be an actual book “A Time to kill”. The story is set in Mississippi, where a ten year old girl is viciously raped and beaten by two white men. The victim’s father recall a case the previous year, in which four white men raped a black girl in a nearby town and were acquitted. He is determined not to allow that happen in this case. He then takes matters into his own hands and kills the two racist men that raped his daughter and was charged with capital murder. After lengthy deliberations during which a massive pro-acquittal demonstration is held, the jury acquits Carl Lee by reason of temporary insanity. It was after reading this novel that I decided I wanted to study law: and maybe even become a lawyer someday. This novel helped open my eyes to all the injustice within the world, and made me want to do something about it. It just goes to show how much of an influence reading can have on someone like with myself. I wouldn’t say this novel was the determining factor to me choosing to study law but, it certainly helped guide me to that decision.
Anyway back to Writing. During this summer session, in English 1000C, Professor Torgerson first went over the basic writing skills with us. Our first topic was our writing territories, which consisted of us basically jotting down some basic ideas that we would be interested in writing about over the next six weeks. I found this extremely helpful because when the time actually came and we had to do some on the spot writing, all I had to do was just look back to my writing territories and start writing. My personal writing territories included law, religion, sports, and family but, majority of my writing pieces were centered on law and religion. In fact my research paper was about, how I could be a good lawyer whilst maintaining my faith at the same time and also just how much of our laws today stems from religious laws? For me this new approach to writing made writing a lot more interesting. I mentioned earlier that in high school I was made to follow a strict rule on writing but now Professor T has made it that we can be free in our writing and by this I think brought out the better writer in me. When I’m allowed to write about something I like and I’m interested in, it enables me to express exactly how I feel about that certain topic.
In addition Professor Torgerson then introduced me to something that I have never done before in any of my previous classes, blogging. We each set up our own individual blog profile which was accessible by everyone in the class. Between two and three times a week, we would have to post a piece of writing on our blog page on something that was relevant towards our writing territories. Professor T was very lenient with what we would post on our page, as long as what we had written was a substantial amount. We would also have to comment on three of our classmate’s blogs as well, whilst making sure that our feedback was constructive and not just plain. I’m sure your thinking how would we know if we were giving good and constructive criticism? Well by using Peter Elbow and Pat Belanoff’s method known as descriptive responding (from the book Summary of Ways of Responding page 65), made it a lot easier for me to comment on blogs. Descriptive responding teaches us four basic steps for ways of responding to other peoples writing.
- (Step one: feedback) – This is self explanatory but basically you would read the piece and them talk on what it’s about
- (Step two: Summarizing) – Very similar to the feedback but this time you just have to pick out what is the main idea you get from reading this piece
- (Step three: Pointing) – The way the writer uses certain words and what you liked or did not like about it.
- (Step four: Left Out) – What is almost said or implied
I honestly thought that this whole blogging experience was helpful towards my writing. It enabled me to gather ideas from other people in the class and see how they went about writing essays and stuff. It ultimately improved my writing for the better although when it came to leaving comments on other peoples work, I must say that I struggled. It’s not that I found it hard in anyway, it was just that it’s hard to critique someone else when your work is not perfect it’s self. I supposed this became a little easier for me to do towards the end of the course because I became a little more familiar with my classmates. One of my classmates would often write about the ups and downs of being a single parent, here is an example of a typical comment I would leave on his blog: “I felt that you expressed a lot of inner pain through this piece and I must say that I was moved. It takes great courage to speak about what you just wrote. I think the main idea of this piece is to get the reader to be sympathetic towards single parents and acknowledge single parent fathers in particular. You mentioned at the end “just because her family was now gone, it didn’t mean that our family wasn’t still there for us both” I just wanted to know what family you were talking about. You also said that there are good parts to being a single parent, I can’t really name any but maybe you can list some”
If I learned one thing in this class, it would probably be the value of good and credible research. Although I’m ashamed to say it, but as a researcher, I used to always type some topic into a search bar on the internet and go to the first few websites available, but I learned that those aren’t always the best ones. Before this class, things like google and wikipidea played major roles when it came time to me researching for papers. I had become accustomed to just reading stuff off the web without actually knowing whether it is a reliable source or not. Professor T stressed to us the importance of using scholarly sources and he also made sure that we were familiar with the metaphor “writing floats on a sea of conversation”, which came in handy when it was time to write my research paper.
Before writing a paper Professor T would ask the entire class what we were going to write about and if you didn’t know you could always get ideas from someone else when they answered. Once you had written your paper, we would get into groups of four so that we could each share our work with one another. The way I see it was that this was a chance for me to receive constructive feedback from my peers by them showing me what I might have left out, something I should not include, or maybe if I needed to explain something a little clearer. A good example of this was when I wrote my research paper on religion in law; I quoted the theologian Angelo Scola when he said “The expression divine law is a pretentious one, for it claims that all the rules which govern human action are of divine origin and nature”, I must have misinterpreted what he was trying to say and ended up making a false statement about how are laws today come from religion. Thanks to the workshop, Professor T was able point out my mistake and this gave me a chance to reread the quote and altar my comment.
These workshops weren’t the only things that helped me to write my research paper. I mentioned earlier that Professor T stressed the importance of using good sources, and the database EBSCO was what I began to use for any researching I had to do. Fortunately, it was here I found all the scholarly sources I needed to write my paper. In fact I also used EBSCO to find out all the information I needed for my technology project but this time I was researching about how teachers determined their grades. It goes to show just how useful this method of research was for me, because whatever information I required was easily accessible through EBSCO.
I am also more aware with the importance of annotation. From what I can remember, the first assignment we had to do for Professor Torgerson was to read our syllabus and annotate the entire thing. In the beginning I felt like this was a waste of time and that we should not be forced to annotate something just to prove that we read it. Fast forward a few weeks and now I see that his intention was not for us to prove that we were reading but instead to show that we understood what was there and if we didn’t we could make little comments on where we got lost. I am also taking another English class this summer and using the annotating skills I learned in Professor Torgerson’s class has made it a whole lot easier. We would have to read about fifteen pages each night then the following day he would ask us some of the easiest but at the same time hardest question ever. Luckily for me I would do a lot of annotating on what I had read before and I ended up getting an A on all my quizzes.
After this class, it would be hard for me to use a quote correctly without the use of a signal phrase. For example, if I wanted to use a quote by Peter Elbow about a reader reviewing someone’s writing, I would say, according to Peter Elbow(signal phrase) “The reader is always right” (Elbow 62). That little part after the quote is known as a parenthetical citation.
As a student, the first thing that I already knew about myself is that I am a huge procrastinator, and I always falsely reassure myself that that’s a good thing for me because I work well under pressure; but I learned that if I begin assignments early, then it really does give me time to revise and make changes for the better before I turn in my final drafts. I also learned that pacing myself and making a to-do list or schedule really helps me keep track of time and assignments that I have to do, so that I get them done in a timely manner. Since Professor Torgerson would often give us various assignments to do every week, such as the blogs, journal entries, and research papers, I found it extremely difficult to juggle all the homework which I would also get from my other two classes. Sometime I honestly thought that these professors were out to get me. Therefore, if I did not do the work I was given immediately, I would have really struggled to complete three classes this summer.
Professor Torgerson is a real perfectionist. After I completed my first draft of my research paper, I handed it in to him so that he could make some corrections then I would edit the paper. What I didn’t know was that I would end up doing this entire process about four or five times in the space of two weeks. I became extremely frustrated because as I said I also had other projects for my other two classes, but his correction really did make a difference on my research paper. When read my first draft in comparison to my final piece, I noticed a considerable difference between the two pieces. Although, Professor Torgerson wasn’t the only person that helped me with this paper. I also took this paper to the writing center because I knew that it needed much work. I can’t remember her name of head, but the young lady there really didn’t make as much corrections as professor T did on my paper, but instead she just gave me some advise how I should structure my paper which to me made sense because everything looked muddled up before. This was my research paper Religion, Law, and Politics:
“Raised in a Catholic household, my three brothers and I went to church every Sunday with my mum, and we were discouraged in questioning our faith. As a Catholic, I was taught to put religion before anything and that I must live my life based on the teachings of the Bible, which meant I should never cheat, neither steal, or kill nor stand by anyone who does. As I got older, I started to realize how much being a Catholic could affect my future in the legal field; this also raised the question, do I really want to be a lawyer? To me
Like many lawyers today, I have always claimed that I wanted to be a lawyer since I was quite young. Although, I can honestly say that I am struggling with this decision now. It’s not the thought of going to court which scares me, but I know that my religion is going to play major role in my decision-making process. There will be areas where my faith may contradict the laws of the country, especially when it comes to the topic of abortion. It is a well known fact that the Catholic community is pretty much against abortion, however I found out that this is only true to a certain extent, apparently “most Americans and a majority of Catholics support legal abortion, most (81%) want abortion reduction” (Cahill 188) therefore, if I had to defend someone in court who wanted a legal abortion, I would not feel as guilty because I know that the majority of Catholics in America support legal abortion, and I could avoid much criticism from a religious point of view. This quote really challenges my faith because if the majority of Catholics in America don’t mind abortion, then would I be punished by God if became just another statistic. This will be something I have to overcome in order for me to draw the line from staying true to my faith whilst being the best lawyer I could be.
The death penalty is something else which may cause conflict in regards to me being a good lawyer whilst maintaining my faith. According to article written by lawyer Christopher Stawski: “The Roman Catechism states another kind of lawful slaying belongs to the civil authorities, to whom is entrusted power of life and death, by the legal and judicious exercise of which they punish the guilty and protect the innocent. The just use of this power, far from involving the crime of murder, is an act of paramount obedience to this Commandment which prohibits murder. The end of the Commandment is the preservation and security of human life. Now the punishments inflicted by the civil authority, which is the legitimate avenger of crime, naturally tend to this end, since they give security to life by repressing outrage and violence” (Stawski 426) in other words, “civil authority” (judges, politicians, police…) must not abuse the power entrusted to them from God by taking another person’s life, this would be a direct defiance to God’s Commandments. Therefore, this also means that I would be restricted in the type of case I could take and people I can defend.
Nevertheless, as a lawyer you must be willing to defend your client no matter what the circumstances are even if they are guilty. This would be another reason why a career in the legal field might not be right for me; it would be difficult to know where to draw the line between doing my job and staying true to my faith. It’s not that the Bible teaches us not to defend anyone who is guilty, it’s just that confession is the first step of forgiveness, so it’s better to advise a guilty client to own up to whatever they’ve done rather than lie and try to fight it out in court. This conflict also raises the question “Whether I could be a Catholic and a good Lawyer at the same time?” My mum always told me that as long as I live my life by the word of God, then I could endure anything that life throws at me “For with God nothing shall be impossible” (Luke 1 verse 37). So as a lawyer if I am faced with one of those dilemmas I mentioned before as long as I dedicate everything to God and by everything I mean my dilemmas, then all should be well. So therefore, I do believe that I can be a good lawyer and Catholic at the same time.
Aside from my religious values, I have always felt that for me to be a good lawyer with spiritual values would require a great deal of integrity, something which I think I might lack. Like many others, I was attracted to the job mainly because of the financial gain, but as I grew older it became apparent to me that through law, I can make a difference. I also realized that a degree in law would open up a lot of doors and I would have the opportunity to choose between many jobs. Since the requirements and educational discipline for lawyers are so great, it would only make sense that lawyers are ideal candidates for many jobs outside the practice of law.
A law degree will provide nearly unlimited career opportunities, because all professions need people who are skilled at interpreting the words and actions of individuals and organizations. With my law degree, it will enable me to work as a practicing attorney or as a consultant with a company that more closely represents your personal interests. A graduate with an interest in communications, for example, may choose to work for a media company. I’m not saying that everyone should pursue a future in law because I would definitely advise anyone to do what they love. I just think that law degree makes a lot more sense because it serves as a platform which you can move into many career areas.
With a bachelor degree in law and a master in political science, my father has been a Senator for the past twelve years in Nigeria. I asked him what type of degree I would need to enter a political career such as his, and he told me that: “Many politicians have law degrees, and many aspiring politicians get law degrees. Some other options I could choose should include degrees dealing with government, administration, or international relations, depending on what kind of politician I want to be.” Eventually, I intend to enter some sort of political career with my law degree like my father, but I’m not exactly sure why lawyers tend to lean towards politics later on in their careers. Although, I do know that countless politicians have pursued law degrees prior to starting their career in politics, maybe because lawyers tend to have a network of wealthy peers and connections in industry that help them if they pursue a political career.
In America, politicians are the ones that control the fate of the country, and they’re the ones that determine what laws are to be passed or not. If I were a politician, I would find it extremely hard to suppress my religious values from influencing my opinions on certain political topics such as same-sex marriage. Catholics follow the teachings of the Holy Bible and as stated in the bible (Genesis. 2:24) “a man leaves his father and mother and cleaves to his wife, and they become one flesh”. Homosexuality within the Catholic Church is viewed as being a sin against God because this is a direct disobedience to God’s orders. Catholics compare the relationship between man and wife as to the relationship between Christ and the church; marriage is viewed as being a holy vocation in other words a religious obligation one should fulfill. I too believe that gay marriage should not be allowed based on what the Catholic Church teaches, but as I said this could have a negative impact on my political career because there is a large population of gays in America and they too have the right to vote and in order for me to win I would need their vote as well.
From what I have said in this paper, it sounds like being a Catholic will get in the way of me having any chance for a successful career in life. Nevertheless, the way I intend balance the two is by just being the best lawyer I can be without abandoning my religious beliefs or values.
Works Cited
Cahill, Lisa . “Religion and Politics USA .” Theological Studies . (1999-2001): 188. Print.
Stawski, Christopher. “William James, Religion, and Spiritual Transformation.” Definition and Hypothesis . (2007): 426. Print.
“Genesis. 2:24 .” Holy Bible Print.
“Luke 1 Verse 37.” Holy Bible Print.”
The main idea of this paper was for me to express how my faith and being a Catholic could intervene with my desire to be a good lawyer. I also went to explain why I want to be a lawyer and what I intend to do with my law degree besides practicing law. Although, I don’t know what grade I actually received for this paper which was little frustrating for me because I put so much time and effort into it and surprisingly enough this was the topic I picked for my technology project.
Doing a technology project wasn’t anything new to me. My subject title was, “how do teachers determine their student’s grades” I made personal comment in the research part of the project about not receiving grades in class. I said: “Ever since we started this class, my professor hasn’t given out a single grade throughout the entire course. To me, he too seems like the type of teacher that will base his grades on how much a student improves. Well, I did say that this method of grading made perfect sense and to be honest it would probably make it a lot easier for the teacher to grade in the sense that all he has to do is compare the past papers to present ones.
Nevertheless, is this a fair way to grade though? My answer to this question would be yes and no. My reason for saying yes is that not every student is clever and some people will always struggle when it comes to education, take someone who is dyslexic for example; no matter how hard they try it will always be an extreme challenge for them to grasp something whereas someone without this disadvantage might catch on a lot quicker. Therefore, the only equal way in which you could grade the two must be based on their improvement not academic ability. On the other hand, this does bring up the argument that what if there is an A student and does not have that much room for improvement, should this mean that their grade goes down instead of up?”
I actually had fun doing this project because I had an opportunity to try something new by working with someone else. In order to make the workload easier, myself and my partner Stephon split the project up into two sections. Stephon did the technology part of the paper whilst I tended to the research paper, probably because his major revolved around working with computers (computer science), and mine has to do with a lot of writing (legal studies). Overall the project was a success and we ended up giving a good presentation with which we actually interviewed a New York high school teacher in.
This class really showed me a different approach to English. There is a multitude of different ways that you can approach writing: essays, articles, speeches, explications, chronologies, translations, dissertations, presentations, etc., and each form takes a completely different approach to the topic. The fact that we used blogs for our entries taught me that writing doesn’t have to be sitting in your room with a piece of paper and a pencil and a trashcan full of balled up pages of rough drafts that turned out to be trash; but writing can be anything that you make of it. This class really opened my eyes and made me see that writing is each individual’s own freedom of expression, and writing has no limits. If you do have to take this class, I would certainly advise you to take professor Torgerson because in a strange way he has definitely made writing more interesting for me.
Arizona Immigration Law
I believe that a law which makes people suspects on the basis of their looks should outrage African Americans and other minorities. The immigration law passed in Arizona is the kind of reckless act that keeps us minorities paranoid in America. This new law completely overlooks the former law and it enforcers to verify immigration status based on reasonable suspicion, whatever that is.
Even the sheriff of Pima County, Arizona (which borders Mexico) says the law is “stupid,” “racist,” and would force his officers to racially profile people. Being stopped for Driving While Black or Brown is such a common phenomenon that comedians make jokes about it. Cities like New York, which operates a massive stop and frisk policy that probably violates a dozen constitutional principles. The reason people of color get worked up about such policies is America’s nasty habit of making everything racial in a panic. America has a long history of lynching’s and runaway convictions that were triggered by fears that black people were getting out of hand in some fashion.
Whilst there are many Irish, English and other Europeans who had overstayed their visas in New York, I never heard of a raid of an Irish bar, except when ATF or the FBI were trying to trap Irish Republican Army gun runners during the “troubles.”
portfolio intro draft
How do I really feel about English? Honestly that’s a question that I have battled with my entire life. Being that I actually come from the country that invented the language, then why is it that I have always struggled to write properly? Something that did not particularly help my writing was that as a child I totally despised reading. For someone who wanted to be a lawyer, surprisingly I did not read my first novel until I was thirteen years old.
“Harry Potter and the philosopher’s stone” was the first book I actually took a liking to. The book was filled with suspense, action, and all that other good stuff; exactly what someone like me needed to stay interested. I continued to read the Harry Potter series up to the fourth edition. It was from there that I realized if I am ever going to improve on writing, I needed to start reading more intellectual novels.
It was then I read what I considered to be an actual book “A Time to kill”. The story is set in Mississippi, where a ten year old girl is viciously raped and beaten by two white men. The victim’s father recall a case the previous year, in which four white men raped a black girl in a nearby town and were acquitted. He is determined not to allow that happen in this case. He then takes matters into his own hands and kills the two racist men that raped his daughter and was charged with capital murder. After lengthy deliberations during which a massive pro-acquittal demonstration is held, the jury acquits Carl Lee by reason of temporary insanity. It was after reading this novel that I decided I wanted to study law: and maybe even become a lawyer someday. Is novel opened my eyes to all the injustice within the world, and made me want to do something about it.
Anyway back to Writing. During this summer session, in English 1000C, Professor Torgerson first went over the basic writing skills with us. Our first topic was our writing territories, which consisted of us basically jotting down some basic ideas that we would be interested in writing about over the next six weeks. I found this extremely helpful because when the time actually came, and we had to do some on the spot writing, all I had to do was just look back to my writing territories and start writing.
In addition Professor Torgerson then introduced me to something that I have never done before in any of my previous classes, blogging. We each set up our own individual blog profile which was accessible by everyone in the class. Between two and three times a week, we would have to post a piece of writing on our blog page on something that was relevant towards our writing territories. Professor T was very lenient with what we would post on our page, as long as what we had written was a substantial amount. We would also have to comment on three of our classmate’s blogs as well, whilst making sure that our feedback was constructive and not just plain. I’m sure your thinking how would we know if we were giving good and constructive criticism? Well, if you used Peter Elbow’s method, you could not go wrong. Elbow teaches us four basic steps for ways of responding to other peoples writing.
- (Step one: feedback) – This is self explanatory but basically you would read the piece and them talk on what it’s about
- (Step two: Main point) – Very similar to the feedback but this time you just have to pick out what is the main idea you get from reading this piece
- (Step three: Interesting words and phrase) – The way the writer uses certain words and what you liked or did not like about it.
- (Step four: Metaphor) – Use a metaphor to describe the piece. “If this piece was ……….…… it would be that because ………………………….” Also put what the writing might have been trying to say and didn’t or totally missed out
I honestly thought that this whole blogging experience was helpful towards my writing. It enabled me to gather ideas from other people in the class and see how they went about writing essays and stuff. It ultimately improved my writing for the better although when it came to leaving comments on other peoples work, I must say that I struggled. It’s not that I found it hard in anyway, it was just that it’s hard to critique someone else when your work is not perfect it’s self. I supposed this became a little easier for me to do towards the end of the course because I became a little more familiar with my classmates.
If I only learned one thing in this class, it would probably be the value of good and credible research. Although I’m ashamed to say that before this class, things like google and wikipidea played major roles when it came time to me researching for papers. I had become accustomed to just reading stuff off the web without actually knowing whether it is a reliable source or not. Professor T stressed to us the importance of using scholarly sources. The database known as EBSCO was what I started using in his class, and it was here I could find all the scholarly sources I needed to write a paper. In fact, it was with EBSCO where all my research came from for the technology and research paper we had to.
Religion, Law and Politics 2
Everyone has their own reasons for wanting to be a lawyer, and for many it is the prestige and the income that come along with the profession. Although, the one thing people fail to realize is just how much religion plays a major part in law. Many people believe that religion has nothing to do with the law. They think that the law only governs society whereas, religion strictly deals with God. Religion, law and morals can be separated, they are nevertheless still very much dependant on one another. Without religion, there can be no morality, there can be no law. Although there are some differences between our laws today and religious laws an Italian Bishop explains “divine law can order and sanction intentions, while human law is virtually powerless in this regard” (Scola 83).
I was raised in a single parent household, and my mother was a devoted Catholic. My three brothers and I went to church every Sunday with my mum, and we were discouraged in questioning our faith. As a Catholic, I taught that one must live their life based on the teachings of the Bible, which meant I should never cheat, steal, or kill nor stand for by anyone who does. As I got older I started to realize how much being a Catholic could affect my future in the legal field; whether I would take on a case for the right reasons.
As a lawyer, you must be willing to defend your client no matter what the circumstances are even if they are guilty. This is why I have always been reluctant to practice Law; it would be difficult to know where to draw the line between doing my job and staying true to my faith. Therefore the question “Could I be a Catholic and a good Lawyer at the same time?” has puzzled me for the last five years of my life.
To be a lawyer, I understand that my faith will continue to be tested. For example, if I have a client that has committed a crime and confesses this crime to me but, as his legal representative I’m obligated to stand by him and must try to prove his innocence. As a good Catholic should I continue to represent my client or do the right thing and leave the case? Time after time situations such as this will come up where I am forced to make critical decisions but, I am not sure if I will have the discipline or will to resist such temptations.
The way I see it, most of our laws today stem from religious laws (divine laws) which existed thousands of years ago. This is a common belief amongst society today. According to theologian Angelo Scola “The expression divine law is a pretentious one, for it claims that all the rules which govern human action are of divine origin and nature” (Scola 81).
There are also many laws that go against my faith entirely. The Catholics Church teaches us that no man has the right to decide whether another person lives or dies, therefore as a lawyer this means that I would be restricted to certain cases I can take, such as the ones that might end up in someone receiving the death penalty.
Aside from the fact of my religious values, I have always thought for me to become a lawyer would require a great deal of integrity; something which I think I might lack. Like many others, I was attracted to the job mainly because of the financial gain but, as I grew older it became apparent to me that through law, I can make a difference. I realized that a degree in law would open a lot of doors and I would have the opportunity to choose between many jobs. Since the requirements and educational discipline for lawyers are so great, it would only make sense that lawyers are ideal candidates for many jobs outside the practice of law; such as politics, business management, news media, education and many other professions.
Many lawyers spend most of their time in law libraries and offices. An attorney’s job is to make the laws known to their clients. They also have the ability to make wills, mortgages, and contracts for their clients. I’m not saying that everyone should pursue a future in law because I would definitely advise anyone to do what they love. I just think that law degree makes a lot more sense because it serves as a platform which you can move into many career areas.
Eventually, I intend to enter some sort of political career with my law degree. I’m not exactly sure why lawyers tend to lean towards politics later on in their careers but, I do know that countless politicians have pursued law degrees prior to starting their career in politics; maybe because lawyers tend to have a network of wealthy peers and connections in industry that help them if they pursue a political career. Knowledge of the law can be an important part of the pitch to the public for jobs helping write the country’s laws.
I mentioned earlier whether I could be a good lawyer and remain a devoted Catholic at the same time? I can honestly say that my answer to this would be yes. My mum always told me that as long as I live my life by the word of God, then I could endure anything that life throws at me “For with God nothing shall be impossible” (Luke 1 verse 37). Therefore, as a lawyer if I am faced with one of those dilemmas I mentioned before as long as I dedicate everything to God and by everything I mean my problems, then all should be well.
Parade
As soon as you I stepped off the train, I could see all of the smiles and hear the roars of the multicultural crowd. I was captured by all the music and dancing, a sea of revelers decked out in red, white and blue. The Puerto Rican flag stood along Fifth Avenue to celebrate the Puerto Rican Day Parade.
As the parade made their way along Fifth Avenue with thousands of marchers, numerous floats, celebrities and politicians were also at hand. Singer Mark Anthony was named as the king of the parade and was greeted by multiple cheers when he and his wife Jenifer as they made their way up the parade route.
When Anthony received the microphone, the first thing he said about the parade was “it is fantastic to be here, the parade is such a big part of my life and it always has been” then he started to sing. I could not comprehend anything he was saying because it was all in Spanish but, from the crowd’s excessive reaction it let me know that he was doing a good job. Whether the crowd was reacting to his singing or the fact that Jenifer Lopez was practically seducing her husband on top of the float, the energy there was amazing.
To tell the truth, the main reason I attended this parade was to see Diddy and The Dream Team perform. After all, I not Puerto Rican or I’m I of Hispanic decent so why should partake in celebrating their festivities.
BP Oil Spill
After Saturday’s World Cup game between USA and England, I found out that President Obama and British Prime Minister David Cameron had placed a friendly bet over the game. This came as a surprise to me because before they talk about sports, I feel like they should address more pressing issues such as Afghanistan. Then there’s also the mounting fallout from BP’s handling of the oil spill and environmental disaster in the Gulf coast.
I completely understand the American people’s frustration because this is an environmental catastrophe. Instead of making stupid bets over Soccer games, our leaders should be finding ways to mitigate the effects of the leak by getting to the root of the problem. It also doesn’t help that BP has concealed and kept most of the information away from the public.
According to the BBC, over twenty billion worth of damage has been caused as a result of the oil spill. The effects of the spill are endless but I believe that the fishing industry will perhaps be the hardest hit. Thousands of fishermen will be put out of work and the economic loss to their families and the region is expected to be in the millions of dollars.
This oil spill is a disaster that likely will cause damage quite a bit into the future. Both the American government and BP are in for a long and painful ride.
The 2012 Games
London is the only city to host the modern Olympic Games three times. London was selected to be the host city outdoing Paris, Moscow, Madrid, and New York City. The London 2012 Olympics has a lot to live up to with the success of previous Olympics which was held in Beijing. China clearly had a lot more money, better technology and more space to put together such an event. I wonder if London will be able to do the same.
Nevertheless, there are some positive things that can come out of this. London will benefit from the Olympics in a number of ways: a lot of new facilities will be built. The games will give London a chance to be an attraction for many people of different cultures, and it will be way of showing the rest of the world what we are able to do. It will bring money and a higher income to lots of people, such as shopkeepers, restaurants, hotels.
On the other hand, there are some negatives to London hosting the games such as the increase for taxpayers. An increase in terrorism would also be inevitable because there would be so many people living in London at the time that it would be difficult to keep a close eye on everyone. This brings me on to my next point that there would be a lot f traffic and congestion on the roads, as well as overcrowding on the streets.
At the end of the day, I sincerely hope that we do not make a mess of this London can continue to maintain a solid reputation.
Adapting to life abroad
For sixteen years of my life London has been the place I called home. This all changed when my parents decided that it would be better for me to study in America for a few years. Before moving to Atlanta I didn’t know much about America besides the fact that is was extremely big in comparison to the U.K which sort of frightened me.
Within a couple days of arriving in the United States, I started public school as an eleventh grader in a small town located a few miles north of Atlanta. I felt overwhelmed by the fact that there were over four hundred students in my grade alone. For the first time in my life, it was like I was an outcast, an outsider, someone who struggled to fit in amongst his peers. My classmates viewed me as this quiet boy from London who had a funny British accent. I would often find myself wanting to return home but, this feeling quickly went away as soon as I came to terms with the fact that this was going to be my new home for some years to come.
Immediately, I was faced with the challenge of finding new friends, adapting to a new school system, and adjusting to a different culture. Although I didn’t find adjusting to the American culture incredibly difficult, besides the fact that they drove on the opposite side of the road everything else was more or less the same as it were back in London.
Outside of school, I also had to become familiar with a completely different environment which meant that I had to travel around a lot so that I could get a firsthand experience on what things were like and where everything was located. It probably took the entire two years of me living in Atlanta to become fully accustomed to the way of life but, soon enough Atlanta became like a second home to me and I was now looking forward to relocating again; but this time I was moving to New York.
Since I had already adjusted to the American culture, I thought that by me moving from Atlanta to New York shouldn’t be that difficult. What I found out was that living in New York in comparison to living in Atlanta is like being in an entirely different country. It was surprising to me just how different things were. Life in New York was more fast paced and it city felt extremely congested
Nevertheless, I took an instant liking to New York and found it a lot easier to settle down. This is probably because London is by far the closest city to New York on almost every scale. All of this moving around in life has created a positive change within me. It made realize my inner strength and gave me the confidence to approach any new situation with an open mind.
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