It has been a few weeks now since my class has been using blogs to communicate and I have to say that it is not as bad as I thought it would be. I mean sure, it is hard to remember sometimes to post everyday since our professor requires that each post is on different days but other than that it is going well. I feel free to write about anything that I might take interest but I try to make sure that what I write about might be of some interest to others. As i wrote on my first post about promoting your blog, what we choose to write about is very essential to people visiting our blogs. I have tried to keep that in mind.

Now another idea for promoting our blogs is all about putting tags. Tags are key words that you want your post to be associated with so it will make it easier for others to see. Tags are something very important and it will help promote our blogs and get more visitors but I find that I usually don’t do it. I have done it for two or three but no more than that and I will be doing it from now on to promote my blog but also to test how much it works. As the days go, I have found that there are more visitors I’m my stats and I hope it will only get higher and higher.

Tags do work and I have even talked about it with other kids and they recommend it too. For example, if someone writes about abortion, then they could put tags or key words that go with the subject such as abortion itself and then baby, morality, killing, and much more. That way people will see the tags and it could be something that they are looking for and just click it and it will take them to the blog. I too have found myself visiting blogs and then clicking on tags and it takes me somewhere else and I find myself at so many different sites, just doors opening basically. Now we have two ways to promote our blogs and they are choosing to write something interesting because it will draw people in and putting tags or key words taht will allow people to come to your site from other people’s blog. It’s a start and next time, we’ll have another point to add. Till next time.

Well, I never knew that some universities required that students had to have a speech class. I would understand if it involved your major but not everyone needs it. But of course, St. John’s University has it as a core. When I had to pick my schedule for spring, I knew I could not avoid the subject so I decided I might as well just get it over with. I was horrified with getting a bad grade in the class because talking in front of a class is very different from speaking in front of friends of family because you are more comfortable. And then…there is a professor that is grading based on his standards so it is very scary.

So our first speech was just introducing ourselves and it was not graded so we can get a little comfortable with everything, but I honestly was so scared and just felt as if I was going to faint. Then we just moved up with grading and the speeches got longer and longer. Recently we had to do a 6 minute speech and we had to inform people about something so research was involved. I was really nervous because I thought that I would skp it all of my notes and have a speech that wasn’t even 2 minutes. That would have been horrible! BUT that wasn’t the case. It went fine actually and I became more confidant so it was good for me. Maybe speech classes will help us later in life.

I chose to inform people about smoking. Now I know that it is not a new issue but it just seems to me that people know what it can do but they still don’t do anything about it. I talked about the history of tobacco and that it started in the pre-Columbian Americas and I also talked about how it was used for medical purposes like to heal wounds and for toothaches. I also mentioned some health problems that come along with smoking which people know but somehow it doesn’t bother them enough to stop smoking or maybe they think that it wont happen to them…everyone thinks that until something bad DOES happen. The major problem is Lung cancer and lung cancer is the leading death cancer among men and women. Also heart attacks and strokes are increased from smoking. Now all these, people know but I felt like I needed to mention them in my speech because people need to hear it over and over until they stop. I will be posting about smoking because i believe the more people talk about it, maybe we can see changes.

We all know that teenagers can start work at the age of 16. But is that a little early? We are still kids and for all that responsibility, it is a lot. Than the big issue is juggling school and work. I was one of those kids that started work at the age of 16. I didn’t do it because I needed to, in fact by parents were against it but I was so caught up in making my own money. So the first day i went looking, I found a job at a new clothing store. At that time I was in high school and i had to juggle both school and work. In the beginning, it was fine…but as the days and weeks passed, the responsibility just mounted up. I found myself being pulled into work more and more. When summer came around, I started full time and there was not a week where I didn’t have overtime on my hours. It really got crazy fast. I stayed for a year but then I realized it was time to leave because it was really taking a lot out of me. It came to a decision on whether it was school or work because the two became hard to handle. My grades did not suffer but I knew they would eventually and with senior year being so important for colleges, I knew it was time.

My close friend actually started work a few months ago and I see her and how much time she has on her hands and it is basically nothing. When I see her, I see me when I first started work and I did not mind how much hours I put in at the time and she is exactly like that. I wonder a lot of times how she has time for school work. So that leads to my question on whether college students can really juggle school and work. So much is demanded from school and usually so much from work. I mean there are students that can do that but i find it hard as I am pretty sure a lot of others do too. College students have so much stress these days and sometimes they cant really do anything about it.

Today in my theology class, we had a very interesting discussion with everyone. We had just watched the movie by Mel Gibson, The Passion of the Christ. So the discussion led to talking about what are some things that we can protest about. Therefore, my teacher put abortion, hunger and capital punishment on the board. Of course my theology professor who just happens to be a priest mind you, absolutely disagrees with the use of capital punishment. He was expected everyone to agree with him being that all the student in the class, well almost all of them are Christians and they would probably follow the teachings of the church. But that is not what he got.

So all of my class got into the discussion whether capital punishment should be legal. One of the students blurted out “Hell yea” and my professor just stopped and looked at him. I think at that point everyone was in awe and very uncomfortable. Then others started to get their words in. some said that we don’t have the right to take someones life so therefore capital punishment should be illegal. Everyone started getting into the conversation and literally spend the whole class time on it.

Now the topic is very controversial because we have those who think that it should be legal and practiced on those that commit horrible crimes as punishment. But when should people receive the capital punishment if it is legal, raping someone or murdering someone? Why is it that sometimes when one murders another, they receive capital punishment and when another commits the same punishment, they just get time in prison.

I don’t think that we should be able to decide who dies or who lives. Of course there are some crimes that are horrendous and deserve to be punished but as my professor said, the worst punishment someone could get is to be a prisoner for the rest of their lives. We wont be any better if we do exactly what the criminals have done. Just last year, 42 males were executed in the US. 26 of them were in Texas. Are we god? Should we decide who lives and dies? My professor were trying to make us see his side because of him being in the church and their beliefs but we all have to come up with our own decisions on issues like capital punishment. Should capital punishment be legal or illegal?

Hey guys, underneath i have the first essay we had to do about remembered events. The event i chose is something so special to me but I’m not going to ruin the topic. I felt good about writing this essay but some concerns that i had about it is that the professor said that my topic is hard to express so any feedback would be great…anything that i can improve so readers will like it better and understand the emotions better. Hope you guys enjoy reading it.

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About two weeks ago, I received a call from my aunt about a blast in Albania. She has Albanian channels at her house and she saw the news first straight from Albania cameras. The moment she told me what had happened, my heart started beating so fast. About 10 years ago, arms opened in Albania and the year 1997 became so tamed because people had arms and were shooting for no reason. They would see people on the streets and just shoot them for no reason. Kids, the elderly were no exceptions. It was a devastating year that took so many lives and at that time, I used to live there. That is when my family decided it was time to go because the chaos was too much and they did not want that for me and of course they were scared.

So going back to when my aunt called me, that’s the first thing that came to my mind. I immediately called my father because he was in Albania for a few weeks. I needed to make sure that he was okay which he was. Then I directly went on-line and I tried to keep up with the news and make sure I had the story straight. I went to CNN and I found out that it was accidental. I was so relieved, the fact that people were not trying to hurt others intentionally. According to the Prime Minister Sali Berisha, the explosions were accidental when they were trying to destroy excess ammunition stockpiled during Albania’s communist past. They were in the right direction on trying to destroy their communist past but things went wrong. It was another devastating event that up to date took the lives of 15 people and injured more than 300 others.

The whole country was in a state of shock. The blast were heard as far as 120 miles from the base. Over 2000 houses and business buildings were damaged because of the blasts. What happened that day was a misfortune for the people that lived near there. I, for one that lives across the world from there was very distraught about the news. I still have family and I was praying to God that everyone was okay. I felt so bad for those who suffered and who are still suffering. When I imagine children hurt, my heart aches. Being that a I was born in Albania makes it more hard to see the catastrophe that happened that day. Many people thought that someone had set it up, just as I did but it was an accident. Lives were lost and the country is trying to deal with the event as sad as it was.

I love cars as much as the next person…lol…as far as how it look that is! When I see a car, the first thing I think of is “ohh how pretty”. Well, that is what girls usually think of; we are not really known for caring of how fast it goes or any of the technicalities. But I might share something with some girls and that is having fiance who is a car fanatic. For some time I have been hearing about the auto show 2008 at the Jacob Javits Convention Center  which is running March 21 to March 30, 2008 of course. This was where all the cars you can imagine were at. The purpose of this show was to show off the cars of 2008 and for those that had the 2009 cars displayed those. All the car companies you can imagine were there. You had from Mercedes to BMW, Acura, Honda, Chevy, Porches, and so on.

I didn’t want to go at first because I would get depressed looking at all the cars but then I also wanted to accompany my fiance because he loves cars so I decided to go. One of the other reasons I went was because soon I am buying a new car and I love the Acura MDX and if I went with my fiance, then I could have a better look at it; even thought I went to the dealer already lol. Also Arber, my fiance, had called his friends from upstate just for this auto show. Anyway, we went there and I was amazed with all the cars there. It was like heaven but we could take them home lol. I was tempted thought.

As I was walking around, I stared to get bored and my feet started to hurt from all the walking around. It was a big convention and I mean BIG! But there was no pulling Arber away from the cars. It was fun thought in the beginning when I wasn’t tired because we got to go in the cars and experience them from the inside. Overall it was a fun day and experience and the cars were fantastic. It was another day where the hobby of fiance dragged me to a car show. I’ll see where it takes me another day.

Below is my peer review draft.

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Prostitution is a real problem in today’s world. There is nothing more horrific than being taken against your will and be forced to prostitute to stay alive. Some girls, when they hear about what goes in the world and what women are forced to do,  get scared and are horrified to even imagine something like that happening.

In other countries, girls are taken from the streets and kidnapped and sent in places where there is no help especially from the government, most likely they are sent in third world countries. Imagine the pain that those girls are going through and there is no way out and they can not find help. Being stripped of your family and having to sell your body as a way of life is a terrible thing. Most prostitutes who have found their way of life through human trafficking have been abducted at a very early age. They have been forced to have sexual intercourse as a way of life and the moment they lose their freshness they are disposed of on the spot. In fact most prostitutes in these third world countries are being sold as organ donors against their will. Their organs are being stripped out of them alive. Its very bizarre.

When we think of prostitution, we automatically think of the worst thing ever, but we fail to realize sometimes, people do it because they choose to. That is the worst thing to do, sale yourself for money, but no one should judge anyone on what they choose to do. We don’t know the reasons behind the actions so therefore we cant be judging on what happens. In Amsterdam, Netherlands, prostitution is profession. In fact its a very well paying job. This profession has the option to register and join unions and pay taxes for their services. Imagine the gained profit to the individuals and the government through the tourist attraction. It is said that the average male goes to Amsterdam as least once in their lifetime. Maybe a myth, maybe reality.

Prostitution is a way of life which in one way or another causes problems in today’s society. It is a trend which in one way has become normal for some people. The product of such behavior causes problems from infidelity to the spread of sexually transmitted diseases. Prostitution is illegal and will remain to be illegal in the Unites States yet stringed laws must go in affect to discourage people to engage in  such activities.

We all have seen what link there is between politics and scandals. We as a state were embarrassed to learn of the prostitution scandal with our past Governor Spitzer. Since announcing the big shocker, we are were waiting for him to resign and he did but it took him a while. Why? We don’t know. I mean why would he wait? Did he think that people maybe wound not want him to resign if time pasted. Anyhow, he did last Wednesday.

All the blame is on our past Governor. I mean people are blaming him and they should because what he did was very wrong and especially when he had a family and was in a political office, it is something that cant be forgotten. And then, what is even more disgusting is the fact that before he was governor, he was fighting cases against prostitution and then to go and do exactly that is not forgettable. Because of that, he has to take a lot of heat from the public.

Now, what about the prostitute involved, She was unmasked last week and since then, she has been a hit. WHAT!? What is going on? There she is, this girl who is in fact 22 years old and a prostitute and not only just prostitute but to our past governor. Instead of her getting flack for what she has done, she has become an overnight sensation. Everyone wants to know about her. What is going on? Why is she all of the sudden popular.

Our society handles things the wrong way. Instead of looking down on her, they are giving her exactly what she wants…attention! She supposedly wants a music career and she has a few songs on a website and they were selling 19 cents a download but ever since the blow-up, her songs are now going for 98 cents a download. People are giving her exactly what she wants and buying her songs. Because of the downloads, she is reportedly making 200,000 dollars. And she has been on girls gone wild when she was 17. This girl has been on the wrong track but somehow the latest news of scandals have made her famous instead of punishing her.