advanced comp. blog

Alissa Haan
Advanced Comp
Lydia Brown had always been a curious child. At the mere age of 3 she was already pestering her parents with constant questions such as, “How come the sky is blue, daddy?”, “but, why is the grass green, mom?”, and even the dreaded “Where do babies come from?”. Her parents yearned for the day when Lydia would start school, if only to give her a new outlet to stream her never ending questions towards. Though her parents secretly hoped Lydia’s constant questions were just a phase, her curiosity persisted with her throughout the years.
It was just another Tuesday morning for sixth grader Lydia Brown. She finished her bowl of soggy Cinnimen Toast Crunch cereal, wondering why they were called such when they lost their ‘crunch’ after about 3 mouthfuls, and shuffled over to the bathroom to brush her hair. Her mother, already late for work, was busy applying make-up to herself. Lydia narrowed her eyes in curiosity as she noticed her mother’s mouth automatically open she applied mascara to her eyelashes.
“Why do you do that–open your mouth when you put that stuff on?”, she asked. Her mother simply shrugged as if to say ‘I have no time for your questions right now’ and bustled away.
Still pondering over this mystery, Lydia asked her father on the drive to school why women open their mouths when applying makeup. Her dad merely laughed and told her: “Women love to talk all the time. The reason why their mouth’s are open is because they can’t keep them shut that long.”
Lydia wasn’t exactly satisfied with this answer though, and as soon as she got to school she strode up to the desk of her favorite science teacher.
“Excuse me, Mr. Joldersma,” Lydia asked, “I was wondering if you could tell me why women open their mouths when they put mascara on?”
After puzzling for a few seconds, no doubt on what in the world ‘mascara’ was, his eyes brightened and he smiled.
“Well, Miss Brown, it’s because if they were to breathe through their nose, then they would likely inhale floating mascara particles. This would probably cause a sneeze, and if one were to sneeze while applying mascara… Well, I think you can see why that wouldn’t be good.”
Though it was a reasonable explanation, and she hated to doubt a teacher’s word, Lydia still wasn’t completely satisfied with this answer, so she asked her best friend Randy, a notorious know-it-all, what he thought. “Well,” he told her, “The eye’s are being opened so wide, see, that they start to dry out. But when you open your mouth, your airflow increases. This increased airflow keeps your eyes more moisturized so that you have to blink less. That’s why.”
Momentarily satisfied with this answer, Lydia left Randy to go to English class. About an hour later, she entered the girls bathroom. As she pushed open the door her eyes fell upon Mandy Carlile, a popular 7th grader, primping in front of a mirror, applying cherry red lip gloss to her already coated lips. If no one else, maybe a wise, make-up expert like Mandy would know why women open their mouths to put on mascara. After all, she was a whole grade ahead of Lydia, so she had to be pretty wise. Lydia asked her why women open their mouths when putting on mascara.
“Because,” Mandy said, “As we see our reflection in the mirror we are totally shocked by our beauty and our mouth’s open in surprise. Duh.”
Lydia thought this answer was particularly ridiculous and her quest for an answer to the question only intensified through her next few classes. It was only when math class rolled around that an answer started to dawn on her. As she watched her friend Randy concentrating hard on his math homework, she noticed his mouth hanging slightly open in concentration. ‘Aha!’ She thought. ‘Maybe the opening of the mouth while applying mascara is for the exact same reason—concentration!’
As she rode the bus home, Lydia smiled to herself, proud that she had come up with the answer to her question all on her own. As soon as she saw her mom that night she told her her discovery: women open their mouths when applying mascara because all they’re thinking about are their eyes and not their mouths. Their mouths are open because they are relaxing them in order to fully concentrate on their eyes, and acheve beautiful, clump-free eyelashes.

Every spring, all across Japan, there is a huge party to celebrate spring and the blossoming of the cherry blossoms. Usually the blossoms start to bloom somewhere in March or April. In order to properly schedule parties, festivals, and tours during the right time, people need to have an accurate guess of when the trees will start to bloom. To predict this, the Japanese Meteorological Agency relies on a huge database filled with all sorts of climate reports from the last 3 decades. The problem? Global Warming.

Due to the peculiar climate changes from Global Warming, it’s becoming harder to predict when the cherry blossom will bloom. Also, global warming has caused them to start blooming earlier and earlier. This year they began to bloom on March 20–the third earliest blooming ever to be recorded in the capital. (This is probably because our winters are getting warmer.)

I’m not entirely sure how to respond to this article. It didn’t contain much opinion and its tone was simply factual. Its just another case of the effects of global warming. Its so frustrating how there is so many instances such as this which provide proof of the legitimacy of global climate change. I don’t get how people can think it doesn’t exist when there is this sort of proof everywhere.

The article was nicely organized and easy to comprehend. It had lots of quotes and interviews, which I think made it a lot more interesting and conversational.
Global Warming is Hell on Party Planners–TIME

In an effort to reduce air pollution from large amounts of traffic, Paris, France is starting a new transportation system: bikes. There are going to be tons of low-cost rental bikes all over the city for people to rent. This program has already been tested a few years ago in another large French city named Lyon. Apparently in just the 2 years since the program has begun, it has stopped more then 3,000 tons of CO2 from being emitted into the air. They also are doing for asthetic reasons. Supposedly, they think that if bikes become the main mode of transportation in the city it will give off an artistic air of laid-backness.

In light of all the Global warming and pollution hype I think that this is a great idea, even if it seems a bit corny. Im glad that countries all over the world are starting to think about their effects on the climate. Its sort of a weird idea, though, if you really think about it. Bikes? I would imagine that a better bus plan or something would be more practical, but who knows. Still, I could never imagine bike riding as a main transportation mode catching on in the US.

This article was well written, if a little long. It was well organized into small paragraphs that only expressed one idea, and it was easy to follow.

Paris Embraces Plan to Become City of Bikes–Washington Post Foreign Service

The University of Alberta recently conducted a research study which “analyzed the performance outcomes” of old people when being tested on the computer and internet. Apparently, they found that one of the main reasons why older adults have trouble with the computer is because they have a strong lack of confidence in their abilities. Also, they study found that older people have trouble with the computer because of their problems with health, hearing, and decreased motor skills. Problems like arthritis make typing on a keyboard a big challenge.

I found this news article interesting, and honestly, kind of funny. Its definitely speaks the truth though. Old people are just too stubborn to learn the tricks of a computer, and if they think its too hard then they are never going to learn. I never really thought about the health reasons why computers might be difficult though. Maybe computer companies should start making special computers with keyboards that are easier to type on, and screens with larger fonts and other features that would make computers easier for older people to use.

This article was well written and very strait forward and formal, despite being centered on a slightly humorous topic, in my opinion. It was direct and informational, filled with lots of quotes and statistics to back up the information.
It can be found at:
Why Computers Frustrate Older Adults–Science Daily

This op-ed article is about the random objects in space that could potentially hit the Earth sometime in the next century. In light of these fears, US Congress have given NASA the job of “discovering, tracking, cataloging, and characterizing 90% of all near-Earth object larger then 3200 feet”. These objects are big enough to destroy a small country if just one of them crashed into Earth. This new job for NASA should be up and running by 2008. By tracking the location of these objects, scientists can use technology to change their orbit if it is heading dangerously close to Earth.

This article complains that NASA isn’t working hard enough to fufill this job of theirs before the 2008 deadline. The author points out that this is not just America’s problem, since an asteroid hitting earth would affect the entire planet, and so The US and NASA need to step up and start taking action in order to set a good example for the other parts of the world.

I thought this article was interesting, but a lot of it sounded a bit paranoid. The article was written in a very formal tone, which made it come across as kind of boring. One thing that I loved about it was the title, though, which I kept as my own title. It was called “The Sky is Falling. Really”, and I thought that was a really clever reference to the Chicken Little book.

This op-ed article can be found at:
“The Sky is Falling. Really.”–New York Times

Florida is widely known for running their elections badly. Elections such as the ‘2000 Gore vs. Bush one, have particularly brought this to the attention of the public. This op-ed article, published by the New York Times, is all about the new steps that Florida’s new governor is taking to insure fairer future elections for the state. More specifically, ex-convicts are going to be able to vote again. Florida houses more then 950,000 ex-offenders: more than any other state in the country. By allowing them to vote, the probability for a fairer election greatly increases. Almost all the Northern and Midwestern states have already given complete voting rights to ex-offenders, but in order for them to vote in Florida they have to apply to a slow moving state-clemency board, which only meets once every 4 years, and is incredibly inefficient. The new governor proposes to automatically give ex-cons their voting rights.

The writer of this article definitely supports the governor’s decision. There are numerous references throughout the article about how America stands for equality and democracy and that by denying these rights to convicts, we’re going against what makes America America. I agree with this article. I didn’t know that there were so many voting restrictions in Florida, I just thought they had some organizational problems with the elections. Its encouraging that their governor is working to create more equal elections in the future.

This op-ed article seemed pretty well written. It was super short, but still contained enough information to make it worth while. I liked reading it because it was new information, while lots of these other articles are about overused topics.

This article can be found at:

Free to Vote in Florida–New York Times

In the past years, the USA has been by far the biggest emitter of harmful greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere; significantly more toxins come from here then from any other countries. However, a new report recently released in Beijing marks China as the soon to be biggest green house gas contributor.
China’s economy is expanding incredibly quickly, and all these new factories are creating more and more pollutants into the atmosphere. As other countries around the world work to decrease their harmful emissions, China’s emissions are still quickly increasing, and this creates a huge problem for the future. One of the people this article interviewed said that “Today’s global warming problem has been caused mainly by us in the West, but China is contributing to the global warming problem of tomorrow.” I think this quote is a good summary of the basic message of the article.

I think its important that we get the whole world to work together to stop global warming, because its not going to work if just a few countries are involved and some of the others do nothing. This article didn’t contain a whole lot of opinion about what should be done to fix this problem, it just displayed the facts. It was written like a report so it wasn’t exactly interesting, but it was definitely informative.

this article can be found at:
A Warming World–San Francisco Chronicle

This op-ed article is all about Iraq, and a potential step in the right direction. It says that Iraq should carry out the supposedly long-promised legislation that makes sharing the nations oil equally with all the Iraqis mandatory. A draft of this agreement was passed by Iraq’s cabinet last Monday. The problem with this legislation is that it’s going to be incredibly hard to get everyone to agree with it. Iraq’s Shiites, who happen to dominate Iraq’s parliament, probably aren’t going to be very intent on sharing equally with Iraq’s Sunnis. This article seems skeptical that this legislation will ever be actually passed due to these types of ethnic rivalries which seem to litter the Middle east.

Weirdly, the intended audience for this article seems not to be any Americans. Rather, it appears to be directed at Iraqi’s congress, though I find it doubtful that any of them would ever read this. The article urges Iraqi officials to work on unifying the nation by sharing their resources equally, despite religious or ethnic groups.

I found this article sort of interesting, but it seems unlikely that any Iraqi government official will happen to read this random editorial or that it would have much effect on his biggest political goals. It just seems a little pointless. I mean, obviously the nation should unify together. No one needs to be told that by an article.

This op-ed piece seemed quite well written. Maybe its all our recent work with this in class, but the article’s thesis statement jumped out at me as soon as I read it: “It would be a big step forward if Iraq actually approved and carried out long-promised and never-delivered legislation equitably sharing the nation’s oil revenues among all Iraqis”).

This article can be found at:

Coming Soon, Maybe–NY times

There’s a new, energy efficient lightbulb in town: the flourecent.
This florecent light saves money, energy, and might even help to prevent global warming. If every non-flourecent lightbulb was replaced with a flourecent it would cut electricity consumption by up to 75%. Since these lightbulbs burn better, you have to replace them much less often. Collectively, the whole world could save $3 billion dollars if they only used florecent, since each bulb would last so much longer. The use of just one fluorescent bulb eliminate’s the need to burn 110 pounds of coal to generate electricity, as well as 450 pounds of CO2 and other greenhouse gases from reaching the atmosphere and contributing to the global warming problem. There’s no doubt that the flourecent bulb is much more environmentally friendly.

For these reasons, California lawmakers are considering putting a ban on the original, incandecent lightbulbs. This ban would start in 2012 if it is approved. Some of California’s consumers are unhappy though. Although they recognize the logic in using energy efficent lightbulbs, they dont like the idea of the government having that much control over their lives. The article mentions one lady who calls it “Big Brother” the way the government can choose what lightbulbs people are allowed to buy.

My responce to this article is a little mixed. While I can understand how these people who object the ban want their independance, it also seems a little ridiculous to me. Using florecent bulbs will help the environment, and it will save them money. I think that there is absolutely no reason why people should be objecting.

This article is pretty well written. I think it had a little bit too much information in it though. It was hard to find the message of the article behind all of the facts thrown around.

This article can be found at:
Battle of the Lightbulbs-LA times

In order to help prevent the high levels of illegal immigration from Mexico, homeland security is building a fence along the border. Not only will this fence (supposedly) keep people out, but it will additionally prevent animals from crossing the border, which could potentially be damaging to the fragile ecosystems.

This Op-ed article’s most convincing argument, in my opinion, was this: The lights on top of the fence will undoubtedly attract many insects, making them easy prey for hunting birds. Since these same insects are necessary to pollinate many of the desert plants (such as the cactus), plant life will suffer from their decreased population. This damage of plant life will cause a domino effect throughout the entire ecosystem. This article also argues that the fence will prohibit some of the wildlife viewing in national parks, therefor decreasing tourism in the Southwest and significantly hurting the economy. The article urges politicians to have a clear head and keep in mind potential ecological damage while they plan and build the fence.

I agree with this article and found it very interesting to read. The environment is a gift from God, and I think that we should be more careful with it. Almost everything we do is irreversable, so we should really think about the consiquences of our actions a little more.

This article was well written and each idea was supported with plenty of examples. I sincerely hope politicians are keeping these things in mind as they work on the border fence.

This Op-Ed piece can be found at:
Borders Without Fences–New York Times