Religion in Harry Potter by Ari Armstrong

This reading by Ari Armstrong was quite interesting. I did not know that many people believed that Harry Potter was written with in a religious manner. I’ve read almost every one of those books and I’ve never once thought that they represented religion in any way. They are about sorcery, not a God. Some of the topics can be mistaken though. I never thought of religion when reading these books, I just thought that magic isn’t real but it would be awesome if it was. Harry Potter is a wizard, not a messiah or a religious figure in any way. This reading showed me how ridiculous some religious individuals can be. I really enjoyed this reading though because it was pretty insightful. I never really knew that people thought of Harry Potter in this way, but now I do. The book is about wizards going to wizard school to learn magic. That cannot happen in real life unfortunately. These books should not be looked upon as religious novels. Harry Potter does not represent Jesus or any other religious figure. Although some of the topics are close to that of a religious novel, Rowling probably did not do that intentionally. Every person reads this book differently, but it’s not the bible. 

The High Price of Materialism by Tim Kasser

This story by Tim Kasser was extremely psychologically related. We have yet to have a reading where it is all about psychology. This story was about the psychological effects of materialism. Kasser and Ryan performed an experiment where the people were tested to see just how materialism ran their lives. I think this experiment should be done more often because people are too materialistic. This experiment was pretty extensive and really specific. Psychology subjects are pretty interesting and this reading was quite informational. I found it to be an easy read since I love psychology so very much. Ti surprised me when the test revealed that people who are focused primarily on financial problems are going to be unhappy, stressed, and not fit in well with society. This experiment proved to me that being materialistic can be extremely self-destructive. The America dream is all about financial success, so the American Dream could be ruining people without any of their conscious awareness to doing so. The most surprising thing of this blog was the bit about illegal substance, alcohol, etc. I had no idea that materialism had to do with a persons want to do drugs and continuance with the drug. This story opened up a lot for me to understand the materialistic views of society. I will concentrate more on when I am thinking materialistic than unmaterialistic. 

Abortion Is Too Complex to Feel All One Way About By Anna Quindlen

      Anna Quindlen and I can definitely agree that you cannot just think about abortion in one way. Abortion is a very complex subject and once brought up in a conversation among friends, it can ruin it. I can say that I am 75% Pro-choice when it comes to abortion. Sometimes it is just the right thing to do. Yes, you are “killing” an un-born little person but what would happen if that child was unwanted. Honestly, I would rather get an abortion myself than allow my child to be unhappy. Getting an abortion is a big thing and even if you are for it, you will feel terrible for the rest of your life. Even so, I still would do it for the sake of the child. What if that child was a product of rape, incest, unplanned pregnancy etc? Do you think that child will be brought up in a wonderful household? Maybe in some cases but in most cases, a child being born to family that does not want and is not ready will most likely lead an unhappy life. I feel as Anna does on the case of abortion. The other 25% of the time when I doubt that abortion is an okay thing to do is when I see happy couples do it just because they can. They could have put the child up for adoption. Yes, there are many other way to deal with an unwanted child other than abortion. If a mother gave birth to her child that was conceived through rape, she will see the eyes of that person who did that too her. She will relive her experience and she will doubt the life of the child. This may not happen in every case but it does for most of them. Abortion is a tough subject and that’s that. 

The Dog Ate My Disk and Other Tales of Woe

     Carolyn Foster Segal’s essay was extremely funny. I loved this story. The excuses that some of her students made up in order to get of an assignment were really funny. I am pretty sure that it would have been easier for them to just do the work that was assigned to them. Her students became pretty clever when it came to their excuses. The funny part about this is that I have heard students use almost every one of these excuses before. Most students use the death of a family member excuse more than any other one because what teacher would be so rude as to make the student do school work when one of their precious family members has died. Maybe, just maybe, some of the excuses told by the students were true but most of the time, they probably were not. Student will do almost anything and think of almost anything to get out of writing a paper. I think that the students who think of the excuses spend more time working on the excuse than it would have taken them to write their paper. I love to hear a student babble out an excuse to a teacher when you can tell that they are obviously lying. I am sure that teachers get a good laugh out of hearing their students make up the wildest excuses. 

Food Product Design by Eric Schlosser

        This story by Eric Schlosser makes me not want to eat anything. When he started listing g the items that are in my favorite processed foods, I could not imagine what sort of things were going into body as I ate that item. I always knew that McDonald’s is a gross place to eat but I did not know they were that bad. Why do they have to put meat flavoring into their French Fries? Is that really necessary? Eric Schlosser has definitely got me thinking about what I should and should not eat from now on. Maybe I should eat fruits and vegetables rather than something that has to have flavor put into it. I want to eat stuff with really natural flavor, not chemically altered natural flavor. Mr. Schlosser has changed my opinion on fast food joints forever. I may think twice from now on when I go out to eat or even when I am cooking my own food in my own kitchen. Eric Schlosser is an expert on food and he knows what he is talking about. I never knew that all of my favorite foods had these chemicals in them. I do not even know how to pronounce half of the names that he listed. I don’t think that I am going to eat fast food nearly as much anymore. 

How to say nothing in 500 words By: Paul Roberts

     This story by Paul Roberts allowed me to obtain new information on how I should write. This story let me gain the knowledge on how to write proactively and not go off subject about what I am writing. I did not really care for the subject since it was about football. He gave me some ideas on how to write about anything and now I can do just that. The story was not boring but it wasn’t a lot of fun either. He got his point across and that is about it. Although I did gain some knowledge, the football topic was getting boring. I could care less about that. Paul Roberts really knows what he is talking about when it comes to proactive ways to write and now I can look back at this story if I get writer’s block or if I have just lost my way. Mr. Roberts wrote about some useful stuff, such as what words to use, what sides to take, and what to say to get your point across. This story will help me with persuasive papers on the long road and I am glad that I have some material that I can go to when I am stuck on a persuasive writing. 

"Serving in Florida" from Nickel and Dimed by Barbara Ehrenreich

     This story by Barbara Ehrenreich has allowed me to look at waiters and waitresses in a whole other perspective. I had no idea that what she wrote about happened in a restaurant. The life of someone in poverty seems quite hard. Barbara has a Ph.D. and she did this as an experiment. She learned a lot from this little journey and she wrote a best seller. I really liked this story although a lot of it was really sad. These people live in hotels, cars and terrible environments. They work so hard but they do not get what they deserve. The managers get everything and they do not do half as much as a typical waiter does. Waiters always seem so happy but that is because they have no choice, we have no idea what is really happening in their life and we (the customers) are not always very nice to them. I do not like to send back my food or drink if I am not fond of it because I feel so bad for all the work they put in. Restaurant workers are brave souls because they have to put up with so many stressful things. This was a well written story and although it was a little long, it did not seem that long because I could not stop reading. I really liked this story. I feel bad for waitresses because they usually are not happy and a customer that actually cares can tell.  Waiting on people all day and not really earning much from it can be quite stressful and I can understand why a waiter looks disheveled or just tired.