During everyone’s lifetime they meet so many new people, but who are the ones that they remember, the ones that make a significant influence on their life, the ones that make an experience worth while? In my life there have been many people that have had a significant influence and I’m sure that there will be many more, for I’m only nineteen. One person that has stood out in my life so far is a young child named Jonathan. He is an eighth grade student who has a disability, a young boy who I tutored all of his sixth grade year of schooling.

Jonathan is a son of one of my mother’s longtime friends. He is a really good kid but he has a problem with change, as per his disability. He has to see a physiologist once a week to try to help with his problem. He has the tendency of throwing fits and harming the people around him when he is filled with rage. From birth till fifth grade he lived in Long Island, New York, but his family moved to Pennsylvania at the beginning of sixth grade, which at the time is where I resided. I had knowledge of his disability, but I had no idea it would affect him in an area where I could help him. When he moved his grades in school dropped drastically, he had no interest in doing well in class, and had a big problem adjusting to this new unfamiliar place.

As a student of high standards, I just couldn’t let him fail all of his classes and have to repeat a school year just because of a disability. I was determined to change this. So I volunteered myself for one hour a day four days a week and tutored him. We studied every subject under the sun, things I never even studied when I was in grade school. First we would sit down and go through his planner and see what the homework was and then we did it. Next we would study for up coming tests. I remember one time he had to learn 100 adjectives. He never thought he would be able to learn them all, but I thought of a great way for him to learn them. I thought to myself, well I know he is great at remembering lyrics to all his favorite songs so, we made up a song for them. When it came to test time he got a 100.

We continued studying all school year 4 hours a week and by the end of the school year he had improved all of his grades. He was not failing anything. He was also awarded the most improved student in the sixth grade. Jonathan’s parents were so happy and thankful for what I did for their son. Sometimes it was a struggle and hard work but in the end everything worked out. I do have to admit that there were times that I thought to myself “why am I doing this”, but I’m so glad I stuck it out because it is an experience I will never forget. It was an experience that made me want to become a teacher.

One great way I have come across to promote your blog I found way the set up of the blog. The colors, the font, the headings all of these things matter when people view your blog. See the thing is when we are little we are always told never judge a book by its cover, but lets be perfectly honest, we always judge things by the way they look. The first time someone views your page what they see, the design, the layout, it all counts for something. It just like when you go to someone’s my space page or face book what you see when you are looking around really matter if you will request the person as a friend. The same concept applies to blogging. Not only do you have to have great content like in bloging 102, you have to have something that looks nice and is very attractive. These two definitely intertwine. A great way to find other way to promote your blog is to search it on Google. I came across many good websites that had ideas that helped me out. I actually go the idea for this blog by reading about promoting blogs.

In Literature, there are so many writers that have influenced the writing and writers of today. The impact a person can have through their writing is absolutely amazing. It could change someone’s life. Women writers are particularly influential throughout history. One woman writer who influenced history very much was Kate Chopin. Kate Chopin was a woman writer ahead of her time that changed the way people write and think about women.

A little history of Kate is that she was born into an Irish and French family in St. Louis, Missouri. Kate’s father, Thomas O’Flaherty, was one of the founders of the Pacific Railroad and he was very successful in business. Tragically, he died in a train accident. Kate’s mother, Eliza Faris O’Flaherty, was a very exclusive member of the social circle. She was also a member of the French-Creole community. She had married Thomas at age 16 and was only 27 when he died in the train accident. She never remarried. It was said that she may have been depressed and felt free by the news of the death. This could be seen in Kate’s future work, The Story of an Hour, about a wife who felt free when her husband died in a train accident. Not a bad story if you do have time to read it, and it is very short.

When Kate was 19 years old, she married Oscar Chopin, who was a Louisiana native. They moved to New Orleans and had their first child there. While married to Oscar, they had seven children, two girls and five boys. Boy were they busy, I guess they didn’t have any TV back then. Oscar was a cotton broker, but in 1879 the business failed and they were forced to move north to where his family was. It was there that Kate became knowledgeable of the Creole Community. The Creole Community eventually became an important part of her writings.

In 1882, Oscar died of swamp fever and left Kate with many young children and much debt. It is such a sad story. It must have been hard for her to deal with the situation. Kate was forced to return home to live with her mother. Sadly, a year after moving back, Kate’s mother died. Kate was very burnt out from all the tragedy and death in her life. Not knowing what to do with her emotions Kate went to see the family doctor. He suggested to her that a great outlet for her emotions would be writing. Writing would also be a good way for her to support her family. She was also able to support her family with real-estate that she had in St. Louis and Louisiana.

Kate wrote rapidly and with out revision. While she wrote she was surrounded by her children. Her first stories were successful and were usually about people she had known in Louisiana. Kate continued to write but had some misfortunes when her writings were considered too controversial. Some of her stories were rejected by publishers. She also had to publish some of her own stories with her own money. She continued to write short stories and submit them to different publishers. One of her most famous short stories was “Desiree’s Baby” published in Vogue magazine. It was then put into a collection of her works and published in 1894.

Kate was able to write about things that bothered and disturbed many other people of her time because of the way she was brought up. Her great-grandmother told her stories of married women who did things similar to the way she wrote. Her childhood was different from that of an American girl. It could be compared to a bit of French upbringing, where they did not have such an important look upon marriage as did the Americans at that time. Kate also read many writing of French authors, which many have influenced the way she wrote.

Most of Kate’s stories had to due with the passions of women which were unacceptable during the time she lived in. Most publishers felt her stories contained too much of love, sex, and marriage. Probably her most famous short story, “The Story of an Hour”, was also turned down by publishers. Today this short story is studied in classes and spoke about in many books.

Kate was a feminist in her time, although she might not have known it. Her writings were original. Kate, writing in the time period that she did, went against the traditional male centered everything and wrote about women’s feeling and passions. She broke from the traditional writings, like a true feminist, and wrote what women really thought and even think today. I wish I could have been able to meet someone like Kate Chopin.

I need to take some time today to write about the things that have been going on in my life.  I feel things have been going out of control.  I am so tired and fed up with everything.  Lately, I have been trying to find a new apartment and it is so unbelievably hard.  The first time I looked for an apartment was easy.  I went online and saw the apartment and took it.  Now, its like I cant find anything.  It is very stressing.  I feel like I am working like crazy and I fell like I cant complain because there are people at my job who are dying for more hours and if I give up my hours, what if they don’t schedule me and what if I don’t make enough money.  At school I feel like the work just keeps piling up.  Some of my classes this semester require so much work, hence the reason I am writing this blog.  Some classes have so much reading involved, like my philosophy.  We read like 100 pages a week.  I no that my not sound like a lot but, that English, speech, education, and science plus working 40 hours a week.  Sometimes I think it is too much.  I think can I really handle work and school.  My friends go out all the time and party and have fun.  I just do the school thing and work.  I do go out every once and a while but not compared to my friends.  I also have a boyfriend, which I have been with for like ever.  We have been together for 4 years.  That is a long time.  It is also one more important thing I have to balance out with work, school, and family.  I have to say, he keeps me sane.  I don’t know what I would do with out him.  He also helps me keep my priorities straight, but lately he has been busy with work and school just like me.  I wish things could just be easier.  I honestly cant wait for summer break.  I would love to go on a vacation and relax on the beach.  Is it just me that feels like this??? 

Everyday on the news we hear about the potential candidates for president, the primaries and caucuses, the speeches they make, how they argue with each other, and about their debates.  But from all this information I never seem to understand why I should vote for them.  From watching television, I never hear anything about their plans for change and why they should be president.  I mean then again I’m not one to sit down and watch the debates or speech and I’m am sure that many of you don’t either because of our crazy schedules with work and school and homework and social lives, we just don’t have time.  So I would like to take the time to let everyone know about Barack Obama’s and Hilary Clinton’s ideas and plans on how to make our education system better.  

So currently there is policy called no child left behind, I am sure that many of people have herd of it.  This policy was made to help improve the performance of the US elementary and secondary schools.  Obama feels that the goal of the law is good, but it is not being carried out properly and it is under funded.  Obama wants to start funding the law.  He wants to improve the assessments used to track student progress.  Obama also will starts supporting the schools the need improvement rather than punishing them.

Obama also has many plans for early childhood development.  This includes the zero to five plan, which is a plan to provide support to young children and their parents.  It places emphasis on early care and education for infants.  He wants children ready when they enter kindergarten.  He will create an Early Learning Challenge Grants to promote state efforts to move for voluntary universal pre-schools.  Obama also wants to quadruple Early head start and in crease head start funds.  He also feel the quality for both need to be improved.  Head start is a program which helps children that live in low income families.  Along with head start, Obama wants to provide affordable and high quality child care to ease the burden on working families.

Obama wants to help out the teachers.  It said on his website that 30% of new teacher change profession within the first five years.  He will create scholarships for young people who want to become teacher by either paying for 4 years of undergrad or 2 years of grad in exchange for them teaching in a high need area for at least 4 years. He will require all schools of education to be accredited.  He will also make a plan that pairs new teachers with more experienced teachers, to have a mentoring program.  He also will create a plan that will increase teachers pay and reward teacher who are great with better pay.

For higher education Obama will simplify the process for financial aid.  Yes, this includes the dreadful Fafsa form that college students need to fill out every year.  He plans on making it an option to check when you do your taxes so we would no longer have to fill out a separate application with same exact information.  He also wants to create the American opportunity tax credit which will make sure that the first 4000 dollars of a child college education is free for most Americans.  He also wants to make community colleges free for most students.   This all sound great right? 

Well Clinton also has some great ideas for education reformation.

For early childhood education, she plans on getting children ready for school.  She wants to have nurse home visitation programs to help new parents develop parenting skills.  She also wants to improve quality child care and head start.  She wants to require Pre kindergarten for all four year olds.

For K-12 Clinton wants recruit thousands of more outstanding teachers.   She wants to cut the minority dropout rate in half.  She will create more green schools to reduce energy costs and eliminate environmental hazards in schools.  She will expand early intervention mentoring programs to help children aspire for college and successful jobs.  She wants to double after school programs so that child can have a safe and stimulating place to be between 3 and 6pm. 

For college education Clinton plans on making college more affordable and accessible to all Americans.  She wants to create a new college tax credit and also increase the maximum Pell Grant.  She wants to strengthen community colleges.  And she would like to challenge selective colleges to expand access for students from low income communities.

Both Obama and Clinton have great ideas for education reformation.  It just makes a difference on whose idea you like better.  The ideas of these people are the reason everyone who can vote should go out and do it.  WE HAVE the power to choose who we want to vote for.  To find out more about the ideas of any presidential candidate you should check out their websites (Obama, Clinton), they are very easy to navigate around.

            The Council of Nicaea was put together by Emperor Constantine.  Constantine united all of the Roman Empire and become the only emperor.  Constantine decided that now all of the political problems were at peace and now all religious problems needed to have peace.  The business of the council was to discuss the divinity of Jesus.  They needed to address the wording of the New Testament.  

            Emperor Constantine wrote to bishops of every country to come to Nicaea.  It is said that there were three hundred and nineteen people at the council but according to records only three hundred and eighteen names were recorded.  Every time the bishops rose there were three hundred and nineteen but when everyone sat down there were only three hundred eighteen.  It is suggested that it was the Holy Spirit.  Most of the bishops who were at the council were Greek, although some were Latin. 

            It is not exactly sure the date when the council first came together.  It is unsure because of Constantine and the dates of arrival.  By multiple sources it is said that the council convened on May 20, 325.  The year is not disputed in any way but the dates are.  The Emperor arrived on June 14, when it is said that the sessions properly began.  The date of May 20 is indicated by Socrates and by the Acts of the Council of Chalcedon. 

            The Council met in Nicaea.  This is modern day Turkey, a small town Iznik.  Originally the council was supposed to meet in Ancyra, but Constantine wanted it to be closer to his military headquarters.  The place of Nicaea was also chosen because of its location.  It was easily accessed from the locations of most of the bishops.  It was especially easy for the places of Asia, Syria, Palestine, Egypt, Greece, and Thrace.   It was also a great place to assemble a large number of bishops.  The council was held in the principal church, and in the central hall of the imperial palace.

During the councils meetings, the members came up with the most important document of Christianity, The Nicene Creed.  The wording of the creed is mainly taken from the New Testament.  The Nicene Creed is a written formula of belief of Christians. 

It was meant to strengthen the fellowship of the churches.  The Nicene Creed summarizes the biblical facts of the bible into one easy memorized saying, so everyone can follow and practice it. Also the creed makes the point of Jesus’ divine nature.  The choice of the wisdom of God over the wisdom of humans is considered the single most important theological decision.  This creed has been recited for nearly seventeen centuries.  It is a secure foundation of Christianity belief.  It is a result of long deliberations and struggles.  The Nicene Creed wants to show that the saving action and the trinity is worked out in the body of Christ.  Throughout history the creed has been altered in terms to make it easily understood.  At first the creed was only said during sacred times but eventually became a daily reputation of faith.

As soon as this creed came about all but five were willing to sign it how it was.  They felt it held all the ancient faith of the Apostolic Church.  Soon the number was reduced to only three people who wouldn’t sign.  They were exiled and works were destroyed.  This creed was brought about by a unanimous voted forced by Emperor Constantine.    

Arius was born in Egypt and became a priest in Alexandria.  Arius was taught by St. Lucian of Antioch.  Arius is seen as the “Father of Arianism” because he taught almost all of the followers of this belief.  Arius’ problem was with the trinity.  He thought that Jesus was not god himself but, a quality of God.  Jesus was a creation of God and not held in the same standard.  Jesus was an agent in creation.

            Soon after Arius’ teaching started to spread, problems began to arise.  Alexander the bishop did not like what Arius was teaching and brought it to the attention of the priests and deacons.  Alexander disagreed with what Arius was teaching and wanted it banned.  Alexander held a synod of the bishops in Egypt and Libya.  At this synod they argued of what to do with Arius.  They decided to condemn and exile Arius.  This desion was eighty out of one hundred.  With this Arius fled to Palestine.  In Palestine, Arius was accepted because some of the priest and bishops agreed with his point of view.   With Arius’ gain of followers he condemned Bishop Alexander’s view of Jesus being one with God.

            Arius’ opinion was looked at seriously by the council.  They did not know at first of how to regard his views.  The wording of the bible did make a bit of a point in his favor.  Arius even used words and quotes directly from the bible to make his point come across stronger.  The opponents on each side were very well versed in all

the scriptures.  Arius was called to council many times and questioned.  It was argued about for a long time.  Eventually Bishop Alexander point of view and change of wording won over the point of view of the over all bishops.

The council was made to have every member agree and sign the final product.  The majority of bishops agreed with the final product but a few did not want to sign it.  Emperor Constantine told them few who would not agree that if they did not sign they would be condemned and exiled.  When this was said all but three people signed the document.  These three people were two Libyan bishops and of course Arius.  In the end

all three were exiled.  By orders of Constantine Arius papers and belongings were burned and destroyed.

Recently my brother and I have been looking to move in together.  He is twenty seven and lives in Pennsylvania.  He also works in Manhattan and the everyday commute of five hours is becoming intolerable.  I live in a very small studio apartment, by myself, in Queens.  The situation works out for the both of us.  I get to have a much bigger place and my brother no longer has to commute for hours.  This is all great but the hard part is finding a place to live.  That is a place to live and a palce that accepts animals.  My brother has a cat and dog.  Due to my brother’s lack of interest in computers, I am the one trying to find us a place to live that doesn’t cost an arm and a leg.   What a joke right??  I thought it would be that hard to find a great place and it really isn’t, but its the fact that in order to get a great place you have to come up with first months rent, a months rent for security, and if we go through a broker we have to pay a one months brokers fee.  That adds up to a lot of money!!  I have recently searched sites like Craigslist and found some places to check out.  I guess we are going to look long and hard for the perfect place.

If anyone has any suggestions on where to find a place to get apartment listings that do not have a brokers fee, I would greatly appreciate any information anyone has!!!

Something I would like to take time to write about is something that is very important to me.  This has to do with my current job at Outback Steak House.  I was wondering how people learned how to tip?  This comes to me because many times people just don’t know how.  I came to this conclusion during my first week of working there.  I am a server and I would like to inform everyone that tipping is very important.  I have come to the conclusion that most people don’t understand how important tipping is to us servers.  Well I want to explain that the majority of servers in New York only make $4.60 an hour.  Did you know this?? This is the minimum wage for people who are tipped.  That is only four dollar and sixty cents an hour!!!  So basically we rely on our tips to make a living.  I do not think that people know this.

 

Now I would like to take time to make people understand how much goes into them being served.  It first starts with the hiring process.  Now, not all restaurants are intense about hiring as Outback Steak House is but it is such a tough industry.  If you get a call back, you have to go on an interview, duh, all jobs are like this.  But in most jobs you do not have to take a two hour personality test, like most servers have to.  As long as I passed the personality test I could continue on the grueling process.  Now in my interview I found out that in order to start my training I would have to remember 10 printed Times Roman Newman 12 point font computer printed pages of food description.  I would have to memorize these 10 pages word for word.  Then you have to take a test.  This test is basically 10 blank pages with the names of the food in the area you have to write the description.  This isn’t even the toping on the cake.  If you pass the food test with at least a 90, and by the way, you only have two chances to do this.  Then you are given a 15 page liquor study sheet.  It’s the same thing as the menu test but it’s about all the drinks the restaurant carries.  It has the same requirements as the menu test does.

 

If you pass all of these items, you can them move on to training.  This isn’t that bad.  It consists of four days of following someone around like a puppy and seeing their methods of serving.  It is very boring.  The first day you just follow someone and ask any questions you have.  The second day you do all the side work, anything that doesn’t involve talking to the table.  This includes setting up their food, carrying trays of food, getting their drinks, typing it in the computer, and cleaning up afterwards.  The third day you just stand in the kitchen and set up food so you know how everything is supposed to look.  The four day you do all the work and the trainer watch you and tells you if you are doing anything wrong.  Just to let everyone know, the person training does not see any of the tip money.  We just get the nice $7.25 minimum wage. 

 

Finally you can start on your own and make money for yourself.  But when this happens most servers start to realize that people don’t know how to tip.  Being your server I have to get your drinks, start your food, and juggle three to four other tables of people.  I also have to carry trays of food from the kitchen to you.  Then we also have to deal with the people who want to get nasty with us and think that they know how to do it better when they have never even served in their life.  Also when you go out to eat in a normal restaurant, not a diner, food takes time to make!  It is NOT Burger King people!!! An entree, your main course, takes about 25 minutes to make, especially when you order a steak WELL DONE!!  Nothing is premade, it is all fresh cook to order!!  

So the next time you go out remember all of this.  Try not to be NASTY because ultimately us servers handle YOUR food.  We dont cook it be we do take it to you and wrap it up for you.  We have no problem going out of our way to help nice people, but for the nasty ones, just stay home, or go to Burger King. 

Also, for good service, 15% of the bill is ok and more if the service is great for tipping!  Don’t stress about it if you cant calculate 15% or more of the bill because almost every cell phone in the world has the capability to figure it out!  Thank you for your time and i really appreciate it!!

So I have had this friend for a very long time. We’ll say her name is Jane. I have known Jane since the fourth grade and we are now freshmen in college. We used to hang out all the time when we were little, but once we started high school, and went our separate ways, we did hang out that much. When we were little I noticed that Jane had a bit of a problem. This was that every once and a while I would see her wearing my clothes and jewelry that I had never let to her. One day I decidedto ask Jane where see got the pants she was wearing because I was missing the same pair and I couldn’t remember lending the pants to her. She seemed shocked that I asked a question like that to her being that we were best friends. Her response was “Don’t you remember you let them to me like last week?” The funny thing is I would have never lent that pair of jeans out because they were my absolute favorite and no one but me would wear them! So I asked for them back and she gave them back to me. Now a few months later I saw her with a ring of mine that once again I never had lent to her. I had asked her about it, but this time she said her mom just bought it for her. I went home and looked in my jewelry box and saw that my ring was gone. I didn’t know what to do. So I waited a week and let it go. I then told her that I was missing my ring and that hers looked at it. She then gave me a different answer that I lent it to her a few weeks ago. But this was a big contradiction from what she had originally said to me. So I told her how I felt and she freaked out and cried and apologized saying she thought it would be ok for her to borrow it and she didn’t mean to lie to me the first time. What a shock I had. I was in 5th grade and my best friend in the world was stealing from me! I did not know what to do. So being naive I left it alone. I didn’t tell anyone what had happened. I didn’t have any problems for a while. Actually a year went by and nothing like that happened again. All I did know was that whenever we went to the store she would steal something. It started with candy bars and moved to clothes and fake jewelry. When she first started stealing things from stores I thought it was ok to do. I mean it was just a candy bar right? We were little kids in middle school. I didn’t think it was that bad. But when we started high school and drifted apart I found out that she was stealing more like the clothes and jewelry.

When we were in 11th grade I moved to Pennsylvania. I hadn’t heard from Jane in a while. I got a call from her one day. She told me she was in trouble and needed my advice. I thought what could be that bad? She told me she had been working at a small supermarket and over the past few months had been taking money from the register. She told me it started small with 5 to 20 dollars but that it got a lot worse. She told me she was taking hundreds a day. Finally her boss caught one day when she had tried to take 500 dollars. He told her that she needed to give him the money back and that he was going to review that store surveillance and she everything she had taken and in order for he not to be in trouble with the law she would have to pay it all back. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. What answer was I suppose to give to her. I knew that what she was doing was wrong and I had no pity. I told her that she needed to give all the money back right away. But to my understanding she had spent it all, almost 1500 dollars!!!

What was this girl thinking?? I just couldn’t believe it. I told her to speak to her brother and sister about them lending her some money so she wouldn’t go to jail. So I hung up and didn’t think about it for a while and I didn’t think about her.

Finally, I had moved back to New York and started a new job and began my first semester at St. John’s University. Everything was going well so I decided that I hadn’t spoken to Jane in a while and I wanted to know how everything was in her life. I gave her a call and we started to catch up on things.

We began to hang out again and shop together, have sleep over’s, and all that fun stuff. One day I got home from work rather early and was relaxing. I am a server at outback steak house and I had made some pretty good money that night. Jane had called me up to see if she could stay over because she had got into a huge fight with her mom and didn’t want to stay home. I figured what harm could it do. We are both adults now and have jobs and go to school, so what could happen?

Well to my surprise, when she left the next day I noticed a sweater, I should say a really expensive sweater, missing from my closet and a 20 dollar bill missing from my wallet. I also remember her complaining about not having any money. I couldn’t believe she was still up to her old habbits, stealing.

I haven’t spoken to Jane in a few weeks and she keeps calling me and texting. I don’t want to speak to her because she has hurt me really bad. What do I do? Should I just keep ignoring her or should I call her and tell her what I feel? Should i tell i think she is a kleptomaniac and needs help and continue to be her friend and help her or should i just stop being her friend?? Please help me!!

Hi everyone, my name is Jaclyn Villalba and this is my blog. I am a student at St. John’s University. At this moment I am taking an English 1000c course and had this blog for it.