What I want to learn

One of the hardest things about writing for me, is the first sentence. I have a hard time thinking of something interesting that grabs people's attention quickly. Everything I think always sounds extremely boring or just stupid. I'm always worried that people won't want to read my writing because of this.
Another thing I'm not the best at is thesis statements. I never was truly able to grasp the concept of what one is. In high school whenever I would have a paper, I would go to my yearbook adviser and she would help me come up with one; doing it on my own seemed impossible. Now I'm stuck with the task of trying to figure out what a real thesis statement is; how to make complete sense of it.

Right to Remain Silent

I don’t think Officer Schoolcraft is a trouble-maker. He was standing up for what was right; he wanted people to realize and understand what the department was doing wrong, how they were breaking the law. He is a truth teller in that way. People were being punished for things that they weren’t doing. The police officers were forced to bring people in and then find something that they were doing wrong. They were arresting people for nothing. That is wrong and that should be stopped. Officer Schoolcraft was the only one who really wanted to stand up for what was right, he saw the reality of it all. It’s not about making money and arresting people; they were affecting people’s lives. I would have been nervous to step outside of my house in fear of getting a ticket for nothing.
Officer Schoolcraft was brave for doing this. He didn’t know exactly what the consequences would be for recording what was being said. He thought that his superiors would be the ones in trouble; someone would step in and stop it from going further. Instead he was the one punished. This does not make him stupid; this kind of act makes him brave. He was doing his job as an officer. He was trying to help the people, to protect them. He may have never thought that he would have to protect them from police officers, but he was willing to still do it. The police force he was working for only concentrated on making money and Officer Schoolcraft knew that is not what being a police offer was about. He ended up going above what a normal police officer would do, even if it was not seen that way because he was the one being punished.
To challenge the status quo means to challenge the norm or what people expect. He did this by challenging his boss and his coworkers. If I had been in the same situation I don’t know if I would have had the guts to do what he did. He was brave. Knowing that I might lose my job over it, I might have just stuck through it for my family and my career. I may have tried to transfer to a different police force but I don’t think I would have had the guts to stick up to them. I don’t know if Officer Schoolcraft could have handled it in a different way. He thought he was doing it a way that would get people’s attention, but instead it backfired. I don’t know how else he could have done it.

Facebook

Facebook is used in many different ways. Some of my friends I will hardly see online and they update pictures and their status about once a month. Other’s are on several times a day posting and talking and sharing useless information. I have to admit that I’m on Facebook a lot. It’s the first page I go to when I open the internet browser. I have an app for it on my Ipod and on my phone. I also have new notifications sent to my phone so I always know what’s going on. I use it to talk to people, to keep in contact with people I don’t live close to anymore. It’s a more casual way of keeping in touch than the phone and texting. I don’t use it to stalk people I don’t talk to anymore or have never met. I move from Iowa when I was a sophomore in high school to Cincinnati. At first we would call each other and text, but soon we didn’t have the same bond that we used to and we moved our relationship to Facebook. The same is happening now that I’ve graduated from high school, I use Facebook to keep in touch with all of my friends.

Some people on Facebook can get the wrong idea from things posted, like what happened in “The First Rule of the Apple Store.” My great aunt has a Facebook, and she is always on. She takes things the complete opposite of what they actually are. My older sister posted something on her status about wanting to die. She posted it because she was stressed out and had a lot going on in her life. My aunt interpreted it as she wants to commit suicide. She told my grandma who called my mom concerned. It started huge drama within the family and my aunt continued to be worried about my sister for a very long time. People need to realize that some people don’t take Facebook seriously; it’s just a way to goof off with friends and have fun.

The thing that annoys me most about Facebook is when people post status that are scream “Pity me! Pity me!” or “Look at me I’m so cool!” You don’t need to reach out to the Facebook world for attention. There are so many people in your life you should go to for help in support. Most of your friends on Facebook could care less if you broke your nail or you and your boyfriend got in a fight. Facebook is not your diary nor a help center.

Troublemakers and Truth-Tellers

It’s one of the hardest things you can do in life; it causes fights, hurts people’s feelings, and causes people to see the reality they’ve been hiding from. At the same time it pulls people together, strengthening relationships and gaining respect. Telling the truth can be scarier than anything else; it’s hard to know which way it’s going to go. It’s an important decision people have to make in life, but in the end it’s usually for the best. Living a life of lies is far from being happy. The truth may sting for a moment, but when looked at in the long run it benefits a person. It will help teach lessons that may have never been learned and makes a person stronger.

                Troublemakers are the opposite of truth-tellers. Troublemakers will say things to cause debate or problems; they like to stir things up. What they’re saying is not the complete truth in a situation. They may tell part of the truth, but then spin it to make it more controversial. This may cause people to fight and disagree with one another, but this is not always a bad thing. It gets people thinking about something they might not have ever before. It puts people out of their comfort zone and into a situation they may have wanted to avoid before. This is how people learn to form opinions on a subject. Although troublemakers may seem to cause more problems than anything else, they also help people to learn and grow.

                People are not either a truth-teller or a troublemaker, people are both and some more so than another person. It is nearly impossible to tell the truth 100 percent of the time. Everyone has been a troublemaker at some point in their life. Glenn Beck is great example of being both. He likes to stir things up, get people thinking. Some of the things he says cause much controversy. He is not afraid to debate things that most people won’t talk about, like religion and politics. He will voice his opinion loud and clear, though it may not always be right. Beck is also a truth teller; he will tell of things exactly how they are. Recently he has been talking about the shooting in Arizona. People have been trying to come up with reasons to why Jared Lee Loughner did what he did. They want to blame it on something, the government, Atheists, or people who think differently than the norm. Glenn points out that no one is to blame but Jared Lee Loughner himself. No one else made him decide to go to that store and shoot those people; he thought of the idea and made himself do it. People may not want to believe this; it’s easier to blame someone else for a person’s wrong doings. This kind of truth may sting for a bit, it may take some time to accept it. In the long run the truth will be better than trying to blame and cause more problems.