Women in the Early 1900s

Women were focused on themselves, and the well-being of the community. Even though everyone thought that the women's place should be in the home, many stepped outside of their homes to volunteer to help in election settings, club work, and reform movements. They worked hard to get rid of problems with poverty and disease, but it wasn't something that could be solved at the local level, so they started to work on the legislation to make laws that dealt with the sanitary issues of the cities. This helped women gain political skills and feelings of self worth. A lot of the upper class urban women expanded from their home to the city and the state. Women were really concerned with the well-being of everyone at this point, and did their best to change regulations on food, and sanitation. In 1920 women earned the right to vote this didn't change anyone's life substantially, but it did give some women the initiative to search for some independence from their family by searching for a job outside of the home.

Works Cited

Sivulka, Juliann. "From Domestic to Municipal Housekeeper: The Influence of the Sanitary Reform Movement on Changing Women's Roles in America, 1860-1920." Journal of American Culture (01911813) 22.4 (1999): 1-7. Academic Search Premier. EBSCO. Web. 31 Oct. 2010.

Short Stories

We read 2 stories for today, one was The Most Dangerous Game, and the other was An Occurance At Owl Creek Bridge. I didn't really like either of them, we read the Most Dangerous Game in high school so I already knew what that one was all about, that one really creeps me out, because what if there are sick people who actually want/try to do things like hunt people? The second one was hard for me to follow along with I couldn't actually. It made me sad that he ended up dying because he has a wife and some kids that are alone now. I think he died because he was trying to break or damage the bridge? I don't know really.

Omelas

Oh my goodness. What was that? I don't even understand what that was. A happy little town where everything is perfect except they don't need the priests, and that way they can walk around naked like they want to. Oh and that little thing that is locked in the basement! Is that a child?!  How terrible! Where is social services? And they tell all the kids about it so everyone goes to see it, and it usually upsets them so they cry for a couple of days or some of them run away. Which maybe I understand because are they leaving because they don't agree with how that is being handled? I would be one of the ones to leave then. I don't know, this was one super weird story and I'm not sure what the exact point of the is.

The Writing Process

The process is going terrible. I can't pick a topic, well actually I have a topic but not really an argument so I've just been doing research all day and my head and eyes are hating me from all the reading I've done. I'm writing about Adoption, and why it's important that every adult gives it a thought. I think it needs to be more narrowed down than that though. I'm stressing big time. I have some points though like that it's better than the alternatives (abortion, or single parenthood) and it's better for the child long term, and it's better for the biological parent(s) too because with open adoptions they can still keep in touch with the child and be a part of their life. So I'll probably keep trying to figure it out all day tomorrow and Monday and hopefully something will be put together by Tuesday. Ugh.

Class This Semester

Some of the things I like about class are the class discussions when we sit in a circle, I feel like I can see everyone, and this may be creepy, but watch how their faces react to different things. I'm sure I make all kinds of facial expressions without even knowing it so I'm sure people like to see how I react too. I also like some of the random things we talk about before class, and sometimes in the middle.  I hate being put on the spot, but I love when other people are uncomfortable, it's cruel I know, but usually I'm just glad it's someone else and not me. Another thing I like is hearing my classmate's opinions on different things, and think that a lot of learning is done through each other.

Debates

In class on Thursday we had a couple small debates about a few different topics, the one that stands out most to me is the religious one. I was surprised to see that there are a few people who have a really hard time believing that there is a God. I come from a small town and I think in my high school there was 1 boy who didn't believe in God, and when he graduated 3 years ago I'm pretty sure there weren't any. So it was a shock to me to see that there were 2 or 3 people in just 1 class that didn't. It's hard to get people to believe and to know God, because it's a complete personal decision. If someone doesn't want to know, and wants to pretend that everything is completely up to us and all the miracles and such are just coincidences then that's that, and they won't be swayed to believing anything else. At mass Sunday we talked about how after 9/11 all the churches were full, because people needed God and needed someone to be there and rely on, but since then the attendance has gone back to normal because they don't "need" him anymore. It's so weird to me to imagine not believing in God. I'm going to do a promotion for CRU (Campus Crusade for Christ) quickly. If anyone is reading this and wants to hang out with a bunch of cool people and grow in their faith, or just learn more about it, then you should come! It's Thursdays at 8 pm 2nd floor of the MUC it's amazing, and Dusty Hoffman will change your life! Hope to see you there :)

Research Topic

For my research paper in 11th grade I wrote about polygamy and the reason it has such a negative effect on society. I loved researching this, and reading all the articles about it. It's so interesting some of the things that the FLDS (fundamentalist church of Jesus Christ of latter day saints) believes. They say they're Mormons, but modern day Mormons don't claim them as their own, and no longer practice multiple marriages. I would love to write another paper on polygamy in the United States, they're are quite a few books out about people escaping from the church and them going back to try to rescue their siblings. Once they leave the church everyone in the church believes they're going to hell. So once the person gets out into the real world they usually have no one to help them, which leads some of them to go back. I'm excited to maybe write about this topic again.

Presentations

In class Thursday we gave presentations on effective ways of revising our papers. The strategy I covered was "Cutting Clutter." I know that I could definitely use this one! I think a lot of the time we all try to sound smart so we'll use bigger words or smarter phrases that really don't even fit in with the rest of the writing. Also, I think another reason people add more than they need to is because they are trying to meet the number of word requirement, which is important to do, but could easily be achieved by finding another fact or two to fit in there instead.