I’m not really a fan of selfles. I don’t really take them on a daily basis but sometime when i’m bored I would take one just because its something to do. The first one shows that I like to be with my family and this photo is when me and my little brother came out of his first poetry workshop. I just think its interesting how something I like to do could influence my family in a way. The second picture is when I was with my team over the summer and I think this shows how great last summer was. The last picture I think is a good photo of what some people see. They might see me for just my craft and not me. Which I think is interesting because that means our actions truly do define who we are. If I didn’t do poetry then I wouldn’t be know for that guy who does poetry and writes poems. 

This telephone interview covered the current states of the College drop outs in Ursinus college. Most of the kids who dropped out of this college were because of money, work load but mainly cause of the money to pay for college. Sinnea douglas also gives an insight of how she adapt to the college life and how she took specific steps to stay on track, and making good choices in staying in college. She also explained how hard the college life is and how planning ahead helped her with adapting to the college life and environment. 

2. Mezzacappa, Dale. "Philadelphia." n. page. Web. 15 Feb. 2013. <http://web.ebscohost.com/ehost/detail?sid=c675ada3-a66c-449f-8285-778e0fcfc7a8%40sessionmgr15&vid=1&hid=28&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZQ%3d%3d#db=ofm&AN=504444545

This source about how the amount of college graduation rates increasing form 2001 to 2009. It said that it increased from 48 percent of people graduation college to 56 percent of people graduating from college. It also gives a brief history of how long kids have been dropping out of college and explained how the amount of drop outs decreased as the years went on. It also explained what steps were taken throughout the years to decrease the amount of drop outs and increase the amount of kids who graduate from college. This article showed what steps were taken throughout the years.     

3. State, University. n. page. Web. 15 Feb. 2013. <http://www.stateuniversity.com/blog/permalink/7-Reasons-Why-Students-Drop-Out-Of-College.html>.

This source is about the seven most reasons why kids who go do college drop out. One of things that they talked about and is most common is money. Money is one of the most common factor that causes most kids to drop out of college. Another factor that plays a factor in the amount of kids who drop out is the work load. Most kids who go to college can’t handle the work load an never found a way to adapt to the college life. Causing most students to drop out and making the number of drop outs increase.        

4. Chronicle, analysis. "Who graduates from college, who doesn’t, and why it matters.." n. page. Web. 19 Feb. 2013. <http://collegecompletion.chronicle.com>.

This site has talks about the amount of kids who actually graduated and from what college. The amount of people who graduated from each university is different. The colleges that were for profit had more graduates compared to private, community, and public colleges. This site bassically states that what ever college that a kid attends will determine if their chances of graduating from college.  

5. Beth Marklein, Mary. "Low college graduation rates raise concerns." n. page. Web. 19 Feb. 2013. <http://www.courierpostonline.com/article/20130125/NEWS05/301250050/Low-college-graduation-rates-raise-concerns>.

This article explains that money plays a dominate role in college. If kids who attend college and have no way of paying for college tuition will most likely be the ones who drop out of college. This article stated that 83.4 percent of people are expect to graduate from college but yet only 43 percent of that 83.4 percent of kids will actually graduate college. This article also talks about how the current economic conditions could also play a factor in why kids are dropping out of college. This also explains how 9.5 percent of the kids who try to attend college are not being offered financial aid.    

The reason why me and my partner decided to do the mask was because at the time when we got the project, halloween was approaching. We thought it would be hot if we made the mask look creepier and scarier. We choose to use green and white lights because the eyes and mouth were already dark. We also wanted the eyes and mouth to pop out and be like “BAM”!! Also, we thought it would be cool if the battery was portrayed as the candy in the trick or treat basket, and when you take out the candy, the lights connected to the eyes and mouth would shut off. This is why we chose to do the mask.

When doing the interviews it was better for me to have fun while trying to get my work done because it was more interesting not only for me but also for the people I interviewed. That’s what made the interview flow sound real and not scripted. That is what also made the people who I interviewed feel more comfortable. So they had no problem laughing in the interview or just making it sound like a regular conversation.

While I was doing this project on garage band I learned things that didn’t before about garage band. I learned how to fade out the music and bring it up when I want to. Also I learned how to change the volume on things. I learned how to use garage band by not only asking for help but just sitting down and just playing with garage band on my own. So I learned how to do things on my own.

Things I would tell my peers is to have fun when doing an interview because it makes it more fun for you and who ever you are interviewing. Also try not to just ask questions that are going to get a “yes” or “no” answer, or would just get a sentence, or two response. Try to ask questions that would build up to a story. That would also make the person your interviewing feel more comfortable because their telling a story and everyone loves to tell stories.

If you want to know how my family talks, you should listen to my Uncle.

“Yo, was up Josh!” This is a typical greeting from him.

“Nottin chillin, chillin, you know just doin me.” I said, as I was getting up to shake his hand.

“Hey can I use your laptop for a minute? So I can download some music to my iphone…. Really quick.”

 “Yeah. It’s over there on the table.”

 “Yo nigga how you do this s***!!”

See, I grew up to a lot of people speaking to me mostly in slang and I’m sure I wasn’t the only one. Mostly everyone I have seen grew up with people talking to them in slang, so in a way you can say that slang shows up in everyone’s history. In mine, you would see that we use it like everyday. I was so use to people speaking in slang but as I got older I started to really listen to how I spoke with most of the elders I came across, with them I used less slang and started to speak more proper. Like instead of saying “wassup grandpa,” I said, “Hey grandpa how are you”. This will also show up when I talked with most of my teachers. I would use less slang. Sometimes I would even use none at all. There are some teachers I would talk to in slang but that’s only if they talk to me in slang. The way I respond to people all depends on how they talk to me. To me, it’s funny when I hear one of my cousins talk. He lives in New York and for some reason when he spoke he always had the word “son” at the end of ever sentence. He would say something like “hey wass up,” son or “yo son you better stop playin with me, or I’m gonna f*** you up son”. I always thought that was funny how no matter what he said he always had the word son in it. The reason why I think he used to say son a lot might be because he grew up in an environment where other people did it too. He might have picked it up from someone else too. If you think about it the way people speak can go back generations or even decades.

When people think of speaking proper most think of white people because back in the day, whites were educated. A quote from “Professor Willie Lynch’s Speech,” where he says “Gentlemen. I greet you here on the bank of the James River in the year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and twelve. First, I shall thank you, the gentlemen of the Colony of Virginia, for bringing me here,” shows this. He says that speaking proper original comes from educated white folks back way back when. Slang must originate from slaves, if speaking proper is speaking like a white educated person. Then speaking in slang must mean speaking like a slave. We can see this in “Her Days As A Slave Famous Speech
by Mary Reynolds,” she talks about how her days as a slave were like. She says in one of her paragraphs “I was jus' bout big nough to start playin' with a broom to go bout sweepin' up and not even half doin' it when Dr. Kilpatrick sold me.” When she was speaking it sounds similar to the way most teens speak today.

The way people speak today all depend on how people used to speak decades ago. See today it might be a little bit different the way people speak but it all still comes from the roots of the past. If people in the past spoke differently, then that would have probably made a major difference on how we speak today. Also, in the essay that we reed in class called “If black English isn’t language then tell me what is?” by James Baldwin. It said, “The brutal truth is that the bulk of white people in America never had any interest in educating black people, except as this could serve white purpose.” In this case this shows that since whites never educated blacks in the back days. They had to come up with another way to speak to each other, which creates the existence of the word “slang” because that’s how they used to speak to each other.

The history of a person’s life can really influence how they speak. Since people back in slavery times came up with a way to speak to each other, they still use it today. In personal experience, the people around me speak in slang. So in a way I adapted to my environment. Without history then people today will not have the same type of language we use today.

Once I got up the next morning my mother yelled from the bath room, ‘Anthony its time for school, get up and take your bubble bath’

I yelled back, ‘Okay dog, this time make sure my yellow squeaky duck is in there alright home slice’

Yes I’ve been waiting for this day to come ever since I got an A plus on my art project last year. That project was so hard we had to spell our names out of cereal. I keep putting “Pimp daddy Ant”. Today’s going to be great especially since I have Ms. Snuffle bottoms with me.

When I finally got pass those gates and saw my friend Chuck with his Jan-sport book bag. I started to walk towards him with this expression on my face.

 (With a cheesy face) ‘Hey what’s up Chuck Waggon, how was your summer?’

He look at me with a I’m about to punch you in the face look. ‘It was good man, (in a mad tone) how many times did I tell you to not call me by my full name… Anthony.’

I started to giggle and I almost pissed in my pants when I saw his reaction. I wanted to see it again so I said ‘My bad Chuck Waggon, hey do you want to see something’

He almost popped a vein when I said that, but once his face wasn’t red any more he told me in a silent but mean voice ‘What!’

I grabbed my superman book bag and pulled out Ms. Snuffle bottoms. She keeps getting caught with the pencils and pens I had in my bag. His eyebrows rose and he look as if he wanted to start laughing. He said (With laughter behind it) ‘What? You still have a teddy bear?

i wanted to punch him in the face for asking a question like that but instead I answered ‘Yea so!’

he looked around and saw a crow and told me ‘Nothing I think you should go show Ms. Snuffle bottoms to that big crowd of 8^th graders over there, I think they’ll like Ms. Snuffle bottoms a lot.’

I had got so defensive that I said in a quick and silent voice, ‘you know what… I will!’

I started to walk towards them I knew that they were going to love Ms. Snuffle. Bottoms. I mean who doesn’t love teddy bears with button eyes. Once I go to them I tapped one of them on their navy blue shirt, right on his shoulder. When he turned around I began to stretch out my hands with Ms. Snuffle bottoms.

‘Hey do you like my teddy’

After I said those six words through out the whole day people have been laughing and pointing fingers at me. Most times when people saw me they called me something that was related to (in a disgusted voice)“teddy lover”.

See now Ms. Snuffle bottoms would have never sold me out to the whole school. I mean she wouldn’t have done what my friend Chuck Waggon did to me.

The sun was still brushing out the mucus from his eyes as it was about to hit half time and the breeze felt so soothing when it hit my hot sweaty skin, the parts that shoulder pads, tight pants and a baggy shirt didn’t cover.

 It was our third game and the first two quarters weren’t going as well as I thought they would. We played like professionals that knew we were going to win. So we didn’t really put in a day after day, going home with ever muscle in our body aching and crying out “Please stop! No more. I can’t take any more”. With legs that wobbled at every step we took, we almost fell when we walked. We smelled like rotten chicken, mixed with rotten milk that settled in the sun for hours.

But we didn’t. So we got our wining plans shoved down our throats because every time we tried to run a play. They would stop us in our tracks with hits that hovered us in the air, and made us glide across the field. We had the taste of defeat and fake grass in our mouths it tasted awful. It almost looked as if they were on a mission to fracture rips, and knock off helmets. Every time we got hit mountains shifted. Once that last whistle was blown, we went home with grass stains on our faces, and with black, and blue bruises on our arms and legs. Some even went home with an arm wrapped in white tape. We had lost that game not only because we misread the other team, but also we all tried to fight for the M.V. P spotlight.

When we had our first game, our hands were sweaty, and we all had fear imprinted onto our eyelids. The funny thing about it was that we didn’t even get on the yellow school bus yet to get to our game. When we had finally got to our game and observed the new environment, we noticed that there weren’t any sunbeams, but we saw black clouds forming all around us. They began to cry tears from their soft and cozy looking eyes. Making it harder to catch the ball and making our hits more aggressive. Sometimes when we smacked against the other teams legs, they would get up and start walking with a limp.

Once we stepped foot onto the fake green grass field we knew that we weren’t going to let all our hard work and efforts at practice go to waste. So every time we did a play, we depended on the person right next to us or even right behind us to watch our backs. We depended on each other. The offensive linemen on my team would hold the defense in place, giving the quarter back a lot of time to rewind his arm and make a gold pass to the wide receivers. The wide receivers would move swiftly and smooth, making their route look as easy for a five-year-old kid could do with no problem. They had smoked who ever was sticking them. Our defense would penetrate through the line as if it was nothing, tackling their quarter back. So hard that every time he got hit he had to catch his breath before he got up. We were unstoppable. We had won that game of course.

The crazy thing was that the team we played in our third game reminded me of how my team was something like them.  For the first time I knew that it wasn’t just me on the field trying to put forth 100% of my effort into wining this game. It was all of us; we had worked like a unit. The deep understanding lesson that I had took away from this experience is that threw out life you can’t only depend on your self to get things done. Its good to have some help as you get through it.