Final Blog!

This semester has been a tough one. With organic chemistry, biology and English, my least favorite subject, staying up all night studying became normal. Although a lot of memorizing was crucial in organic chemistry, English was much harder solely on the fact that i don't like writing or reading, depending on the piece. This semester in English however was quite interesting because we were given almost two readings every week and were expected to come to class with a brief summary of what we read and understanding the main point of the article. Although the readings were dull, the topic of health in all of them kept me somewhat interested a d allowed me to read them fully. For me, this helped because I despise reading long useless articles but reading these articles helped me in increasing my vocabulary as well as my ability to understand difficult readings. Writing in this class for me improved a little bit as well. Although i didn't dramatically become a better writer, my essays slightly improved over time and I now feel quite confident in my writing. Although there is a lot of rooom for improvement, I feel as if this class has helped me start my way on being able to write without difficulty, or staying up all night.

The Pura Principle

Overall, I thought that it was an interesting read. It was a short story based on a family who's father was gone and out of two sons, the older one was diagnosed with leukemia. It opens up by describing the hardships thee family already goes through and then how it changes as the son is taken out of chemo therapy. The main point of the story was about how the son had met a woman who didn't have any papers and how a relationship formed that was extremely harmful to the whole family. The couple ended up having a baby but had to continuously steal money from the mother because they had no jobs. Although they split up, the relationship costed everlasting damage on the entire family. The genre kept it interesting in that they were able to share an entire story in only a few pages. Also, the bits of Spanish and dialogue throughout the story really helped to connect you to the situation that was at hand.

Waltz with Bashir

One scene that stood out to me in the movie was when Folman went and was visiting Roni Dayag and he was recalling events from his past. The scene started out with his group of men in the tank riding along the countryside and having a good time. They were listening and singing along to music, eating and having a good look around while there was no action. Then all of a sudden, things went from good to horrible. One of his friends had gotten shot and died instantly and they were stunned. And then they started getting fired upon and had to leave their tank and run. Evveryone had dided except for him and he felt alone. This scene stood out because you can never imagine having such a great time and then all of a sudden that mood can be completely changed.

5 New Annotations

1. Ruiter, Robert A.C. "The Role of Coping Appraisal in Reactions to Fear Appeals: Do We Need Threat Ionformation?" Journal of Health Psychology. July 2003. Vol. 8 No. 4. 3 April 2011. <http://hpq.sagepub.com/content/8/4/465.short#cited-by>

This article is important because it talks about how the threat of fear has no relation to coping appraisals on controlling fear.

2. Davis, Michael. "The Role of the Amygdala in Fear and Anxiety." Annual Reviews Inc. 1992, Vol. 15: 353-75. 3 April 2011. <http://www.annualreviews.org/doi/pdf/10.1146/annurev.ne.15.030192.002033>

This article is important because it discusses how the amygdala is related in the functioning of fear and anxiety.

3. Job, Soames R F. "Effective and ineffective use of fear in health promotion campaigns." American Journal of Public Health. Vol. 78 Issue 2. 1988. 3 April 2011. <http://ajph.aphapublications.org/cgi/content/abstract/78/2/163>

This article is important because it talks about the different methods in which fear can be used to promote certain things such as health campaigns. 

4. Harpur, Timothy J. "Two-Factor Conceptualization of Psychopathy: Construct Validity and Assessment Implications." Psychological Assessment. Vol. 1 Issue 1. 1989. 3 April 2011. <http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6WYX-46X49P9-1N&_user=961305&_coverDate=03%2F31%2F1989&_rdoc=1&_fmt=high&_orig=gateway&_origin=gateway&_sort=d&_docanchor=&view=c&_searchStrId=1704014296&_rerunOrigin=scholar.google&_acct=C000049425&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=961305&md5=6a621ddb211118949de05322431fb84f&searchtype=a>

This article is important because it discusses a mental disorder known as Psychopathy from ASPD and how individuals with this illness suffer from fearlessness.

5. Cox, D. "An experimental analysis of fearlessness and courage." British Journal of Psychology. Vol. 74 Issue 1. Feb. 1983. 3 April 2011. <http://psycnet.apa.org/?fa=main.doiLanding&uid=1983-32210-001>

This article is important because it is an experiment done that involves to groups and measures their fearlessness and courage based on how they were conditioned before.

John Q

One scene that stood out to me in the movie was when the parents met with the doctors to discuss what Mike Archibald had in terms of choices to save his life. The rhetorical term that was used in this scene was logos. This was because Rebecca Payne was discussing how Mike needed a heart transplant and needed another heart because his was too weak. Logos was used because she constantly used facts and statistics on how much it costs, the likelihood of getting an organ, and the large amount of individuals that were ahead of them on the organ receiver list. She was not emotional at all and didn't realize that the parents were suffering and she was simply throwing out facts.

MLA citations

1. Kreiner, David. "The Illusion of Control in a Virtual Reality Settting." North AMerican Journal of Psychology. 12.3 (2010) n.pag. EBSCO. Web. 1 March, 2011.

2. Depla, Marja, Have, Margreet, Balkom, Anton and Ron Graaf. "Specific fears and phobias in the general population: Results from the Netherlands Mental Health Survey and Incidence Study." Soc. Pssychiatry Epidemiol. 43: 200-208. EBSCO. Web. 1 March, 2011.

Philadelphia Scene

One scene from the movie that stood out to me was when Denzel Washington was questioning the head of the law firm, Charles Wheeler. The questioning started out with Denzel asking simple questions about Andrew's performance and then suddenly changed his tone and became extremely aggressive asking Charles if he was straight or gay. After being stopped by the judge to cease questioning, he was forced to approach the bench, where he was  forced to explain himself. This was when he explained how this case was not simply about whether or not Charles was fired because he had AIDS but because of the possibility that the law firm was afraid of him being a homosexual. This was the first time in the movie that it was openly admitted that the issue at hand was not because of the disease but the hatred that people had towards homosexuals.