Jessica Rodriguez: "Cafe Cultura" (Extra Credit Blog)

On Wednesday,October 28th, I formed part of a group of students that assisted to an interesting event at Miami-Dade College Hialeah Campus. The name of the event was Cafe Cultura; it was a very good event in which I got to enrich my knowledge by listening to knowledgeable people talk about literature. Also, I had a great time with my friends and I definitely enjoy the food there. Overall it was an amazing experience.

Jessica Rodriguez: Reaction to "The Lie Detector" by Lewis Thomas (Blog # 17)

In my point of view lie detectors are useful. Although they should not be the last measure because they aren't one hundred percent efficient, they may sometimes or most of the times do their job. In other words, I personally agree and disagreed with Lewis Thomas in this essay. After we tell a lie to somebody we feel guilty, our body and brain feels different we start sweating and get really nervous because we know that we are doing something wrong especially if is a member of the family or our best friend, someone that we care about. In those cases I think that lying is wrong. There are other cases where I consider lying is appropriate for example when I go to eat at my grandmother's house and she ask who cooks better between my mother and her of course I have to make a little lie and tell her that she is the best cooker in the world, that way she won’t feel bad. Therefore lie detectors work most of the times but not always because there is people that are very nervous all the time so they can’t be submitted to a lie detector test. Humans have a tendency to lie for some reason and it is really hard to trust someone but you can never know what a person is thinking or feeling inside. You only hear what the persons telling you and what they want you to hear. Lie detectors might be correct in some cases but you can’t ever really know the truth. That is when trusting someone comes in hand. You need to believe in what you’re hearing and what they’re telling you. Some people make that hard but there are some good people in this world and not everyone is always lying.

Jessica Rodriguez: Reaction to "Why We Crave Horror Movies" by Stephen King (Blog #16)

Stephen King’s first argument is something that I would say everyone has to agree with. He chose a very good starting sentence through which he tells the reader that we are all mentally ill, the only difference is that some of us are better at hiding it. When we go to horror movies we are proving people and ourselves that we can bear the horrific events that we will watch; it is as King says like “riding a roller coaster.” Another reason we go to the movies is to have fun. The movies are a type of entertainment that keeps us away from the outer world. Just with the two hours that the movie takes we relax and concentrate on what we are watching rather than in the problems that we are having in the outer world. I agree with King’s mentality that we are exercising a muscle when we watch these horror movies. The human being has a set of emotions that we all feel should be exercised. For instance, we all love, we all hate and at times we feel sad. The only emotion that we don’t exercise is the feeling of hurting someone else, because as I stated that crosses the border from sanity to insanity. When we go to the movie theatres and we watch these horror movies, and we watch people being menaced we enjoy it. We enjoy it because our sick fantasies are being realized, and as one of the viewers our instincts are being set free.

Jessica Rodriguez: Reaction to "My Wood" by E.M. Forster (Blog #15)

In My Wood by E.M. relays a cause and effect essay. He conveys the experience of owning a piece of land which comes with a lot of responsibilities. He mentions four effects. First, he feels heavy (he maybe feels important after buying the property). Second, he feels it ought to be larger. Third, the property make feels the owner that his is ought to do something to it (usually owners take care of their property). Four, the blackberries (he is pleased that the bird got and ate it). He seems not too happy with the way of owners change. He expresses that the owner become jealous and selfish because they don't share with other people. Owners only care about their property, and do not let strangers enter in it. I think he is kind of shame because he does not have enough money to buy a big property. This story gives an example of how someone can build greed without even noticing. Every time that you build or create something, many times you want it to grow into something bigger. For example, when a person takes control of a property, later on, you want to expand your property. People with small businesses or even big corporations find ways to expand their companies to make them stronger and more powerful. This essay showed me how greed can grow easily in every person.

Jessica Rodriguez: Reaction to "A Fable for Tomorrow" by Rachel Carson(Blog # 14)

In A Fable for Tomorrow, our Earth is pictured as a place that once held the beauty of nature and as days go by; this beauty alters into as an epidemic that no one could escape. After scrutinizing through this essay, I was made to believe that the reason as to why nature itself is diminishing in its beauty and life is because we humans are the cause of these unfortunate events. The author begins by contemplating on the past where beauty was all a person could see in nature. "Great ferns and wildflowers delighted the traveler's eye through much of the year", however, with much facilitation due to the usage of technology and our new ways of preventing the preservation of our green Earth, such "ferns" and "wildflowers" cease reproducing due to harmful chemicals that people use inflicting harm on nature.

Jessica Rodriguez: Reaction to "Grant and Lee" A Study in Contrast (Blog # 13)

This is a great essay about two amazing generals, Ulysses S. Grant and Robert E. Lee. Lee came from the age of aristocratic chivalry. Unlike Lee, Grant was from the democratic west. They were both representative for their regions. Lee didn't want to change anything in his society but however, Grant fought for a growth, expansion, and a constantly widening horizon. In addition, they also had much in common, such as they both wonderful fighters, and they were able to turn from war to peace. The author also mentions that the two titans had their similarities. As Catton puts it, "They were two strong men, these oddly different generals, and they represented the strengths of two conflicting currents that through them, had come into final collision". Grant and Lee were born into nearly opposite families and environments, which greatly influenced who they later became. Both men embraced democracy, but Grant stood for the concept realistically while Lee only stood for it idealistically. Grant was a modern man, whereas Lee was quite old-fashioned.

Jessica Rodriguez: Reaction to "Neat People vs. Sloppy People" by Suzanne Brit (Blog #12)

This is a great essay, Neat people vs. Sloppy people by Suzanne Britt, in it the author used many humorous details to show the different characteristics of the two types of personalities. In my opinion, the author favors sloppy people, she says that sloppy people live in never never land and that someday they are planning to alphabetize all their books and set up home catalogues. For all these reasons and more, sloppy people never get neat. They aim too high and wide. They save everything, planning someday to file. On the other hand she says that neat people are bums and clods at heart. Neat people will toy with the idea of throwing the children out of the house just to cut down on the clutter. Neat people don't care about process, they like results. Neat people operate on two unvarying principles, never handle any item twice, and throw everything away. Neat people are especially vicious with mail. Neat people place neatness above averything, even economics. According to the essay neat people are incredible wasteful, and cut a clean swath through the organic as well as the inorganic world. People, animals, and things are all one to them. They are so insensitive.