My college experience at UTD

My college esperience at UTD has been one of the most wonderful experiences in all my life. I have learned from it and grown as a person. My first impression was that college life was going to be hard, but once you get the hang of it, everything falls in place.

One of the classes I learned the most from is my Rhetoric 1302. I would say that it was the hardest of all my classes. Never in my life was I assigned that much homework. The first day of class I had tons of omework due. One of the big issues I had was managing my time. Like our teacher said, it is not high school anymore and your teachers are not going to be always telling you what to do and reminding you when assignments are due. Little did I know of the truth of this words. At first I really had trouble in this class. Essays were not my strongest part and this class was all about essays. Thankfuly I had a good teacher that taught me a lot of strategies to write college level essays. Some of those are: do not start a sentence with "but", unless you know how to do it, choose your words wisely, do not use passive voices or fallacies that can bring the ethic of your essay down, always quote, and many more.

Like I said Rhetoric 1302 was my hardest class but it was the class that I learned the most from. Thnks Proffesor Henson.

My Day at Six Flags

I had a fabulous day at Six Flags on Friday the sixteenth. All the Bridge kids were invited, but some of them didn't go. I went with my crew: Fanny, Mayra, Okary and Viri. At first I thought it was going to be boring because no one wanted to get in the Titan with me. I was going to go in only with Okary, but at the end I convinced Fanny to go in with me too.

After going in the Titan Fanny was unstopable. At first she was super scared because she never got on the big rides before, but after the Titan we went to almost all the big roller coasters. At the end of the day we went to buy a funnel cake and some fries with chesse. We were the last ones to come to the bus but we were happy and somewhat tired. The funnest day I've had in my college life.

Open Letter to President Obama

This letter is directed to President Barack Obama.

President Obama, I wanted to addressed that illegal Immigration is a problem that is affecting between eleven and twenty million people in the United States. This is from ten to twenty percent of the entire population of the United Sates. Almost a quarter of the of the people living in this country are and will continue to be illegal unless you do something about it.

You have so often addressed this issue but unfortunately you have done nothing about it. You mentioned it in your public speeches but the illegal immigrant population do not see any action. You are focusing on things that to my concern and the concern of all this illegal people are not as relevant or important as is legalizing immigrants.

If you think about it immigrants are the people that do the work that white people would never do. Those jobs that most white people will consider filthy are the sustenance of the thousands of immigrant families that come here in search of a better life. I would only suggest that you take this issue more seriously and stop talking and start doing something about it.

Sincerely: Luzmaria Cuevas

Geography

My major is Geography. I want to travel the world without actually spending thousands of dollars. This subject was appealing to me because I like to discover new things. It is really fascinating how there is different people, cultures, languages, and religions all over the world. Studding Geography will help me get a glimpse of all those differences out there.

I did not have an idea of what question can I come out with about my major. Well at the end I thought about one: what is the difference between migration and immigration? This is one of the topics that most of the people get confused on. Migration is the movement of people and animals from one country to the other without never settling in a surtain place. Immigration is when animals or people move from one place to the other and settle there for the rest of their life or for a long period of time.

There is more to it than just this. I hope that I can fine the way to explain it so that people can retain it and do not confuse this two terms anymore.

Homelessness

John Grisham published "My Turn: Somewhere for Everyone" on February 1998 in Newsweek magazine. In this article Grisham argues that homelessness is a problem that society has not address with the proper importance. in In this article Grisham estates that Americans and most of the people only see homeless people as "winos" or "hobos" but what societies do not see is that the majority o the times this people do not have a home or anybody to look up for them. I do agree with Grisham in the aspect that the community does not take this problem seriously. The high class population does not take the time to see beyond the cover and anly judges by the looks.

I am a very sensitive person and I cannot stand to see a homeless person and just pass by her and prettend that I did not see her. I was close to be homeless. Around three months ago http://https//www.msu.edu/~jdowell/135/Somewhere.html

The Pesuit of Happiness

Like the declaration of Independence says, we all as human beings have the right to live, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. It is human nature to always look for happiness. We are all different and have different perspectives when it comes to happiness. While some of us can happiness in enjoying life, being with our family or being with our loved ones, some might find it in having a huge house, a brand new car, jewelry and all that material things. We do have to accept that happiness, even if we see it differently, is a combination of the two. You cannot only live of love even if it is the greatest love ever seen. On the other hand you cannot only live of the material things you can buy. We need to have both, the sufficient ammount of money to live without worries and the sufficient ammount of love to enjoy the money. We all persue happiness in different ways but at the end we will always look for a balance on the two ends: the material things and the sentimental feelings.

"Who Killed King Kong?"

The article "Who Killed King Kong?" by X.J. Kennedy is talking about how King Kong, even though he dies in the movie, is not dead in the mind of the American people. Kennedy addresses that even if a quarter century has gone by, Kong still lives in today's world. He explains that we find a connection with the giant ape. We see our inner feelings release when Kong releases his as well, such as when he turns against the shooting helicopters. Kennedy shows this point of view by saying, "And so we kill him again and again, in much-spliced celluloid; while the ape in us expires from day to day, obscure in desperation." This is telling us that we have not let King Kong die not because he is "unkillable", but because we reflect on him. All our inside frustration comes out when we see Kong killing all the people that did him wrong. I choose this quote because I agree with Kennedy. Since we cannot release our emotions the way we want we need someone more powerful to do it for us. Kong gives us that pleasure and will continue to do so probably for the rest of our life.

Worst morning in my college life

Today was one of the worst mornings ever. Yesterday night I took a long nap at 7pm of about

three hours. I woke up all lost at ten. I could not go to sleep so I watched the novela with my roommate. We went to sleep around one in the morning. I was really worry because next morning I was going to have my algebra test. I finally fell asleep around two. I woke up all scared at six in the morning after having a really bad dream.

It was a childish dream. It was about that walking doll named Chucky!!! I hated him since I was little, but still I watched his movies. In my dream I was lost. I was in a place I did not recognize. I was waiting for the bus to come back home,and I was being follow by two man. It was kind of ironic at the same time because Chucky instead of killing me he saved me!!! He followed the men and killed them. The bus finally came and I got on it, not waiting for Chucky to come back. I knew he was looking for me, but fortunately, I woke up.

I could not go to sleep after that so I got up and studied for my algebra test. I wrote down the things I did not know and I was ready. Unfortunately the test did not cover any of those things and I was in bad shape. I did my best but I think I fail. Oh well there is nothing more to do than wait for the results and hoe for the best.

The oil spill

The website VoteVets.com was created to campaign veterans to occupy positions in the government. They recently brought up an ad http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IOWffhbEn60 that talks about the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. They use this as a resource to attract peoples attention to this problem and at the same time encourage their main purpose, try to make people vote for veterans because "[we"ll] do whatever mission we're given and do it well". This is a very strong appeal to ethos well used for the cause. The first pictures we see are that of people pumping oil and of a crab covered in oil. This is an appeal to pathos that is used correctly for its purpose.

After all, is all this true? No, it is not. The veterans that created this ad did so based on the fact that we Americans are always miss informed. We believe everything that we hear as long as it sounds good. America is always going to be dependent in oil no matter what we do. How can we "cut our dependency in oil" if oil is always going to be needed one way or the other? We cannot. Of course we can start using "clean energy", but even that will not suffice our oil needs. They talk about pumping "our own oil". We cannot do that. All oil is pumped by an international company and ends all together with oil from all around the world. This creates a false appeal to logos that most people that watched this ad did not even see. All this is a well constructed ad that suficed its purpose, but it has false statements as well.

Liberty

1. Have you ever ask yourself what liberty is? Every head is a world of ideas or as they would say in Spanish, "Cada cabeza es un mundo" Consequently, we all have different opinions about liberty. Liberty in the South since the colonial times until the civil war meant freedom. Freedom to do and have the rights that only white men could enjoy. Freedom meant more than just being able to have the same rights; for the slaves, it was winning a war fought for hundreds of years. At the end, was it really worth it? Did what the slaves fought for was truly what they expected? I would say it was not. After the 13Th, 14Th, and 15Th amendments were given to the slaves, segregation still existed, and even worst. The KKK arose and the Jim Crow Laws were posted in most of the South. They used to lynch "Negroes" all aver the southerner states, specially in Mississippi. That is not liberty. As the founder fathers try to state in the Declaration of Independence, as human beings,we all have the rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Liberty is only a word to describe a desire. We are and would never be free to so or say what we think without being reprehended or judge. I just hope that one day the hate will stop and we can all be okay with the difference of opinions.

The Gay Straight Alliance

Well, my the community I belong to is called the Gay Straight Alliance or GSA for short. I belonged to this club only my senior year of high school, but I got really passionate about it. First, because the point that we discussed is equal rights for homosexual, bisexual, transsexual, lesbians, and transgender people. I think that all of us, as human beings, deserve to have the same rights. As the Declaration of Independence said, "All men are created equal and so should have equal rights". What we try to do is to get involved in the community as much as we can so our voices could be heard. We started with a very little group of people, but as the school year went more people that shared our same ideas and desires got involved.

The second reason I joined this club is because I have many gay, bisexual, and lesbian friends and I do not believe in the division of rights for heterosexual and homosexual people. I do believe that one day equality will come. A lot of people have tell me that I dream and hope too high. I don't think the same way. I know that society is a hard enemy to go against but I have never loose hopes that one day they will learn to see with other eyes. Thanks to societies homophobia many innocent lives have been lost and I hate that.

The problem in my community is that even though most of us share the same ideals, when someone disagrees we all get in a big fight. We have to learn to control our temper. We act without thinking and the results are things that we cannot go back and fix. I hate seen my people getting in a fight because they haven't learn to accept that not all of us think the same. In order to get to where we want we need to work together instead of picking a side and working separately. I really hope to get people to see my point of view and help them get over the problem that, even though seems like nothing, is destroying our community.

Life

Life is hard and unfair, I think all of us know that by now. It is full of obstacles and the unknown. I do not like the unknown and bet most of us don't, but we have to venture in order to start accumulating knowledge. We have to make mistakes so we can learn. We do not like to make mistakes and hate to be wrong. But even though we don't realize it, that is the cycle of life. We have to make a mistake and consequently we would learn. At least that is how it's supposed to be. If you don't learn from your wrongs then you are stuck in the process of evolving to a better human being.
I myself have made many mistakes throughout my short life. Fortunately, I have learn from my mistakes and I know I won't make them again. Learning from mistakes is a process many people have trouble with. Some times we don't even realize that what we're doing is wrong so we keep doing it over again. Most of the time persons in our surroundings have to tell us that we are wrong for us to comprehend our mistakes.
All of us should really do an effort to live life the best we can and make the most out of it. At the same time, we have to leave that fear of being wrong behind and just accept that we can't be right all the time or else life won't have any meaning. We have to realize, that hard, unfair, and wrong as it might be, life is a blessing and we should not take it for granted. Just live life to the fullest because you never know if the tomorrow will come.

Biography

I am Luzmaria Cuevas, daughter of Agustin Garcia and Maria Elena Serrato. I am an only child, and was always pampered when I was little. I was named after two very important persons in my life, Maria Serrato, my aunt and moms' sister, and Luz Cintora, my grandmother and dad's mom. My parents told me that I symbolize the light of their path, which is what Luz means. I was born in a very little town called Santiago Maravatio, Guanajuato, Mexico. It is a very beautifully peaceful town, but it does not have many attractions. Now, if we talk about Guanajuato itself, it is a very big city full of history. It is called the crib of Mexico's' independence because that is where all the battles for independence were fought. It has many touristic and historical places that will be a delight to visit and it even has a kind of white people village for those who go visit from the US.
I started preschool at the age of 3. I don't really remember much of that but I do remember some remarkable things. My first day for example. It was a fun day because it was the first day that my mom and my dad allowed me to use my bicycle, with the two support wheels in the back of course. All the other kids were crying because it was the first time they left their moms' side. I wasn't. I even asked my mom why were they crying. I guess I just was too excited. I remember this other day on my 3rd and last year of preschool that I got in a fight. I just hated a girl named Amparito. She was stuck up and always lying about having a bunch of money. She would always said that she had a swimming pool in her back yard and that she had a siren in it. I knew, at my short age, that it was not possible, but everyone else believed her. I just got tired of all her lies and I pulled her hair and scratched her back. She started crying and the teachers came. The good thing was that I was the teachers favorite, so I didn't get in trouble. That was my kinder garden experience. When I went to 1st grade, everything was so different. I had only 4 teachers throughout my elementary school. On 1st and 2ND grade I had this woman named Estella. My 3rd and 4Th grade teachers' name was Gregorio. the name of my 5Th and 6Th grade teachers were Abel and Luzmaria. They all were really strict but I managed to make good grades throughout my elementary education. My middle and part the part of my high school that attended in Mexico were the worst days of my life until then, but little did I know of what was yet to come.
In the last months of my 9Th grade, many things changed. That is, 4 years ago, when I had to come to the US seeking a better education. My parents had to give up on me and let me come with one of my aunts. They didn't want me to live a life as hard and needy as they had. My first year was the hardest one. I didn't know a bit of English but the very basic. I've learned that with perseverance and hard work you can achieve as high as you dream.