Journal Entry #2

In this journal entry I mainly want to talk about the book we are reading for the class, Soul of a Citizen. First off let me say I like the point that Loeb is trying to get across. Being active in society and trying to make a better community for all of us would/could make us happier and a better person all around. But I do not like the tone he uses making this point. He makes it seem as though there is no alternative to making our lives worth while. Like there is no other way to be happy and the best person we can be, or like there would be a huge hole in our hearts or chunks missing from our soul if we didn't do something to help out our community. I disagree with this entirely. You can live a very successful life, have an amazing family and do everything to support them and just love your job, never once having done anything for society or spoken out against something you didn't like and still be perfectly fine. You wouldn't be affected at all in my opinion. But like I said before you can definitely lead that same life and be happier or less happy, having done something for society. I think it all depends on the person and the situation.
Apart from this I find the book very hard to read with all the repetitive stories and life lessons. He starts his stories different but they all end with the same moral or core value. I find it very annoying and makes the book very hard to get through. I almost find it as an oxymoron. Him preaching these stories almost makes me not want to go out and do something to change society. Being told over and over again to go do something to make a change or your life will be incomplete makes it almost counter productive.
However I do seem to connect with some of the stories he mentions throughout the chapters. There was one in particular about a young man who was wasting all his days getting high with his friends and not doing anything with his life. I do not by any means go out and get high, I've never even smoked once, but I feel like sometimes my life is missing something. My life gets really repetitive and boring every once and awhile. Wake up, work, class, friends, video games, and then sleep. My life is on too much of a schedule right now. I need change. I feel like I'm just stuck in a routine. I'm not saying I need to go out and change the world to feel like my life is going somewhere at the moment, but I am saying that without some change you may end up like the young man who wasted his days getting high and not doing anything to change it. Some people may find this change by voicing their opinions to other people about things in the community that bother them and fighting to get things changed. Loeb would agree with that. I partly do. I definitely think that this route is for some people and not for others. I don't think that you need to try and be active in society to make something of yourself and live an effective life.

Journal Entry #1

So in class today Prof Satkoski told us to write something about our lives that is interesting. At first I couldn't really think of any stories in my life that someone else would consider interesting. But then I started thinking of when my dad about broke my nose completely off my face. Other people might find this interesting...

When I was 4 years old my dad broke my nose. I don't remember anything from that day and only a little bit from the next day. I've heard the story over and over again though. My dad was practicing his golf swing in the house (don't ask me why) and I was too, right behind him. I hit my golf ball right past his right leg. When I crawled past him (I guess I couldn't walk yet) he was coming down on his downswing. The club connected right on my nose and almost broke it completely off my face, it was just hanging there by skin. I was bleeding so bad my mom had to put me in the sink until the ambulance came. I must have lost a lot of blood. The only thing I remember from the next day is leaving the hospital with a band aid-like cast on my nose, going to Burger King on the way home and getting a Lion King happy meal toy. I still get nose bleeds all the time to this day and have a big crack in the bone of my nose. I also get really bad headaches every once and awhile but I don't know if that has anything to do with my nose being broken at one point.

Other than this incident I don't think any other notable things have happened to me. I haven't broken any other bones and haven't had surgery besides getting my wisdom teeth taken out.

As for helping out my community, I have done quite a bit of community service at the YMCA helping out children that were staying there while their parents were at work. I was in the IB program at Fort Myers High School until my junior year, so I had to do a bit of community service hours and I decided I'd enjoy working with little kids the best. I love little kids. My main jobs were setting up games for the kids to play, such as basketball, kickball, and dodge ball. Before they were allowed to go outside and play though they had to finish their homework, which was another one of my jobs, helping them with their homework. I consider this a decent contribution to the community and I can't wait to do more through the Malaria Project and the 5k race we have planned. With the 5k we plan on charging 15 dollars to enter the race, the fee will include the Malaria Project t-shirt. This will hopefully spread the awareness of the problem with malaria over in Africa. All the money earned is going to go to the Malaria Project, with provides families over in Africa with nets to help keep out the malaria infested mosquitos. We also plan on passing out flyers around town. I will probably be taking some to my job at Gap Outlet down by Sanibel and be passing around the information to the tourists and locals alike to help spread awareness. Hopefully this will help the word get out and spread as fast as Malaria does in Africa, and then we can all do something to help this problem get solved.