Computer Tech Essay

I decided to take Computer Tech during the second semester of this school year. I thought I should do this so that I don't have to take it at the end of my senior year because I completely spaced it in previous years. The class isn't too bad except for the timings that we have to complete by midterm and the end of the term. We did a timing at the beginning of the semester to see where we stood. I wasn't thinking about how we had to improve, and so I went as fast as I could. I now have the problem of not being able to boost my words per minute. I hope I can solve this problem by practicing typing at home. In Computer Tech, we study computer programs in sections. Right now we are doing the Computer Basics unit. For extra credit, we could write an essay on a person who has changed the world of computers. I decided to do this, because I am assuming I will need the extra credit later on when I don't improve on my timings. This is my essay that I wrote about Steve Jobs, the creator of Apple.

Steve Jobs

          Think about waking up every morning and knowing that you have millions of dollars from your accomplishments. Steve Jobs wakes up with this feeling every morning. Steve Jobs has made endless contributions to the world of computers and technology. He has made his mark and will never be forgotten. He is the CEO of the Apple Computer company, he has participated in Disney Animated Pixar, and he has received many important honors for his accomplishments.

          First, Steve Jobs is the Primary Chief Executive Officer of the Apple Company. He was one of the co-creators of the company starting back in the late 1970s. In the early 1980s, he and his co-workers created the Apple II. This Macintosh, created by Apple, was a huge breakthrough in the computer world because it was a mouse-driven computer. He left Apple in 1984 because of a struggle with the board of directors. The company was bought out, and this brought Jobs back into the company.

          Next, Steve Jobs has also contributed his talents to the world of Disney. Pixar made many great movies in the 1990s and the early 2000s, but in 2004 Pixar's contract with Disney was almost up. Steve Jobs stepped in and Disney ended up buying Pixar for $7.4 billion dollars. Jobs is now Disney's biggest shareholder with 7% share in stocks. He continues to help with Pixar's movies, and he earns a lot of money from his contributions to the company.

          Last, Jobs has won many great awards for his accomplishments. He was named the most powerful person in business by Fortune Magazine. He also received the Nation Medal of Technology by the president Ronald Reagan along with the co-creators of Apple. Jobs was named person of the year by Financial Times in 2010. Jobs has earned many awards for his great contributions to the world of technology.

          Steve Jobs is an extremely intelligent man when it comes to technology and computers. He has made many discoveries and helped the business of computers grow. He will always be remembered as one of the people who made it possible for us to use computers each and every day of our lives.

Teachers vs. Athletes

Every A day I come in early to see my math teacher Mrs. Corry, to ask her questions about the homework. Mrs. Corry is always willing to help me with anything I don’t understand. I deeply appreciate the time she spends with me and all of her students in need. It makes me sad to know that she will be paid less money throughout the whole school year than some professional baseball players will make in one inning. This pay difference is a problem in our world that needs to be changed. Professional athletes should be paid less money, and school teachers should be paid more.

            There are a few reasons why this should change, but the first reason is that teacher’s pay should increase so that more qualified and gifted teachers would go into the field. There could be so many more great teachers if it was a higher paying job.  It’s as simple as this: if you want good teachers to teach, then pay them more money. Many qualified teaching candidates feel they cannot choose teaching as a career because they can’t support a family with a teacher’s salary. For example, my dad is great at teaching and would have loved to be a law teacher. However, there are six kids in my family, and so my dad had to choose a different career to support our family. While some teachers have financial problems, athletes are making more money than they can spend. It was reported that at one point, Michael Jordan was making $160 per second, which means that he was paid about $78,000,000 that year. If you compare this to a teacher, who makes about 43,000 per year, there is a drastic difference. Can you imagine how many amazing teachers would choose this as a job if they could make $78,000,000 a year?

Even though the pay is low, some teachers still choose this career, but they have to become qualified by going to college. The second reason that teachers should be paid more is that teachers make a financial investment to become teachers. They must pay for the training and education in college to qualify them for their job. Professional athletes, on the other hand, rarely spend any money on their college education (if they go to college), when they begin their professions, professional athletes make millions while teachers make relatively little. There is a saying that tells us, “You’ve have to spend money to make money.” In most cases this is true; however, teachers spend the money to go to college, but are paid much less money than those athletes who didn’t spend a penny. Not only are teachers giving up their money, but they also spend four or more years of their time in college. Since athletes don’t need anything but skill to qualify them for their jobs, they don’t have to put any time into college.

Although people may say that athletes play a big role in children’s lives, they don’t contribute nearly as much to society as teachers. School teachers spend time with children every school day teaching them math, science, English, and history. They are educating them and helping prepare them to be contributing members of society. On the other hand, professional athletes are not usually good examples to children and don’t teach them good principles. If teachers are contributing to the betterment of society while athletes are merely entertaining us, shouldn’t we pay teachers more than professional athletes?

As shown above, teachers should be paid more money, and professional athletes should be paid less. More good teachers would go into the field, teachers make a time and money investment by going to college, and teachers contribute more to children’s lives than professional athletes. Teachers play a big role in our lives as students, and I hope that more of our world can understand this so that by the time I go to college; I can choose to be a teacher like I would love to be someday.

"Salary for All K-12 Teachers." Payscale. Payscale Report. 2010-2011. Web. 1 Jan. 2010-2011. <http://www.payscale.com/research/US/All_K-12_Teachers/Salary>.

The Clasroom of Carter

          "Smup, cuss, splain, HDIC!" The language you just read is called Carter, and it is only spoken in one place around the world. That place is in Mr. Carter's classroom at Fairfield Junior High. Mr. Carter is my favorite teacher and has changed my life throughout junior high. There is no one else who can be quite as unique or as clever when it comes to Mr. Carter.

          Each day that I have Geography, I look forward to going to school because I get to go to class with Mr. Carter. He is one of the only teachers I know that can have the perfect balance of learning and fun. He lectures the whole class period, and we take notes on what he says. You would think that after just listening to the same man for an hour and a half it might get a little dull. This is not the case because he will always do something that will catch you off guard, and it will make you ask, "Is there something wrong with him?" Whether it's singing, dancing, or scaring you with a blow horn, Mr. Carter always has a way to keep Geography interesting.

          Mr. Carter not only keeps class entertaining, but he is very clever as well. Each day when we go to class there is what he calls a "Carterism" up on the board. A "Carterism" is one of Mr. Carter's words that he changes up the meaning a little bit. For example, in his class, the term Utter Destruction is referring to a female cow that got stuck on a fence, and a crowbar is known as a pub for black birds. As I mentioned before, the words smup, cuss, splain, and HDIC all mean something as well. "Smup" means to pass 'em up, and he tells us this when we need to pass our assignments up. "Cuss" means to discuss, and "splain" means to explain. "HDIC" stands for the Head Dude in Charge. This is referring to the president or leader of a country.

          In Mr. Carter's class we learn new words and funny jokes, but we also learn a lot about Geography. Last year, he was my teacher for U.S. History, which is my favorite subject. I love learning about the Civil War, and I already knew a lot about it. I couldn't believe how much more I knew about the Civil War, and everything else in U.S. History by the time the year was over. This year in Geography we are learning the location of every country in the world, the major rivers, cities, and mountain ranges. This is a great skill to have, and I am grateful that he is putting us through the pain of learning all these places. We also learn some very important life lessons and just some crazy trivia that nobody knows except for Mr. Carter.

          When I think of amazing teachers, only a few names come to my mind, and Mr. Carter is definitely at the top of my list. He is a fabulous teacher because he makes learning fun, I have learned a whole new vocabulary, and I have learned a lot about history and Geography. Looking back on Junior High, Mr. Carter has definitely made his mark in the my life, and the lives of many students.

Child Soldiers Essay

 

Sarge P4

Child Soldiers

            It is estimated that right now, at this very moment there are 300,000 children under the age of 18 fighting all over the world. These children are taken from their homes in the cruelest and unusual ways to fight for a cause that they don't even believe in. Many of the children are forced to kill their parents when they leave their homes, and then later they are commanded to shoot their personal friends.

            Imagine being one of these poor, helpless children who are dragged into this misery at such young ages. Here in America, all we are worried about is if our outfit looks cute, or what we're having for dinner. On the front of my scrapbook there is a boy, and the quote says, "And in America, violent video games come with an R rating." This shows us that we have no idea what these children go through every single day of their lives. These kids have nothing to think about but fighting and death. They wake up every morning and wonder whether they will stay alive that day, or if they will follow many of their friend's fates. These poor children have no choice where they go, or what cause they are fighting for.

            It is not right that the children are taken and mistreated in such ways. It is awful to think that many of the young girls are raped, and they become pregnant. They are still used to fight even in such circumstances. The children are used as cooks, spies, laying explosives, and in serious combat.

            You might ask where these awful things are taking place. The answer is almost everywhere in the world. The most common places are Rwanda, Uganda, The Congo, and many places in Asia. Children are taken thousands of miles away from their homes to fight and most of them will never return to their mother and father.

            Will they be forced to stay in the army for the rest of their lives? Sadly, the answer is usually yes. This doesn't mean that they will always be called child soldiers. Once a teenager turns the age of eighteen, they are no longer considered a child of war, and their past is completely forgotten.

            There are very few wars right now where children are not participating in the fighting. When you imagine war, you probably think of lines of men they are in camouflage dress with guns. This is definitely not the case for most places in the world. Children are a big part of the fighting, even though many of them don't know how to use the weapons. Thousands of children die from the misuse of weaponry each year. Many of them also die from disease and infection.

            We have many great resources that are trying to stop the use of child soldiers. The symbol that represents this groups is a hand with a small child holding a gun inside. These groups are helping to make people aware of the dangers and horrors of child soldiers. Their job is to inform the public about the awful things that are happening around the world.

            As you can see, the use of child soldiers is a very big issue in our world today. I hope we can all be more aware and do everything we can to help these children who have no choice but to kill, or they will be killed.

My Biggest Fear

We as human beings fear a lot of things. Sometimes it's spiders, sometimes it's a big math test that's coming up at the end of the term. We are all afraid of many things and for many different reasons, but I'm guessing that most of you aren't afraid of your volleyball coach. This may sound really funny to you, but for the most part it is true that I am scared of her.

I have played club volleyball for quite a while, and I have had a range of different coaches. Some of my coaches were too serious, and they never focused on the positive. Another coach of mine had troubles with getting upset and telling us what we were doing wrong. My coach now is very different than anything I have ever experienced.

I have practice twice a week, every Tuesday and Thursday night. I carpool with some girls on my team, and we talk about our coach on the way. We have all agreed that we get this sick feeling before volleyball. I don't know what it is but it's this little voice nagging at you all day saying, "You have volleyball tonight." Once I get there it's completely fine and normal, but the whole day makes me nervous.

Although she yells at me, and scares the living daylights out of me, she is by far the most amazing coach I have ever had. I have already improved a ton so far, and I am in way better shape now. She is so motivating, and she makes we want to be better at everything, not just volleyball. On the court, she is nobody's friend. I repeat, nobody's friend. She works us so hard until we can hardly breathe. She keeps on reminding us that, "No one has ever died from playing volleyball, so you can do this!" But the second you step off that court, we don't talk about volleyball, and I can tell that she cares so much about me.

This probably sounds like a really weird situation, and I'm guessing that she sounds a bit bipolar. But she definitely knows the game of volleyball and loves to play. She wants all of her girls to improve, and so she is willing to put them through the hardest practices ever to make them better players. I really do come home from every practice just feeling exhausted. My body just feels like it needs to lie down for a while and wake up in few days.

We had our very first tournament this weekend, and we did really well! All the hard work now feels like it has paid off, and that we get to show how much work we put in. She always reminds us that, "when our team is practicing, we're getting better, and other teams aren't as hard as we are." This definitely rang true this weekend when we showed what we put into practice. She tells us that we work hard at practice, so matches will seem easy. I am so grateful for the opportunity that I get to be on this great volleyball team with such an amazing coach. Even though she scares me to death with her penetrating eyes and when she yells at me, she is making me a better person, on and off the court.

New Year's Resolutions

This week for our discussion question, we were asked to tell what our New Year's Resolutions are going to be. I thought that I would expand and go into more detail about my goals for this upcoming year.

First, I would like to start keeping a journal. I shoot for this almost every year, but this year I would really like to start getting in the habit of doing it. My plan to help me do this is to set apart time everyday to write in my journal, so that it will become a habit. I love reading my parent's journals, so I try to write down a few things that I think will be important to my kids.

Next, I am going to try and be more organized with school. I have a planner, and I sometimes take it to classes with me. I just forget to write things down in it, so I just stop using them. All of my friends that use them say that it helps them to keep up with their homework, and they never miss due dates. I come home a lot of times thinking that I don't have any homework, and then I will remember when I get to school. This forces me to use my homeroom time to finish up assignments, when I really need the time to read. Procrastination is my biggest weakness, and I am really trying hard not to put things off until the last minute. For example, this break I waited to do all my homework until today. I have been really stressed today, and it would have helped if I had spread it out over the two weeks. I know that using a planner, and not procrastinating would help me in school, and I hope I can really follow up on this goal for the rest of the year.

Another thing I would like to get better at is being more positive about things that happen to me, and always trying to look on the bright side. I wouldn't call myself a negative person, but sometimes I find that I make things seem so horrible when there really are many positive things about the situation. Being more positive would help be a happier person, and that is what I am shooting for.

I have a giant list of books that I would like to plow through this year. I am hoping that I can make it a habit to read for at least a half hour each day. I love to read, but often times I save it for right when I go to bed, and I fall asleep. Maybe this year, I could read for a while directly after I get home from school. This way I wouldn't be too tired to read. I want to finish up the Harry Potter series, and read more Jane Austen books. I am liking Pride and Prejudice so far, and hope to finish it up here pretty quickly.

I hope that I can follow up on these New Year's Resolutions, and really make them happen in throughout the year 2010!