3.28.2007
Dedication
Tonight i had soccer practice with my team. I coach 13 years old girls, and most of the time they're quite good and listen to me, but tonight is a whole other story. I went to practice and to my disbelief, none of the girls showed up!! This is a team of 15 girls and somehow none of them showed up to practice. I am so amazed at how little they care and how little dedication they have to this team. I personally feel that if you decide to be a part of the team that you must show up to every single practice and not just to the games and expect to play and even start each game. It is the biggest insult to the coach for an entire team to just now show up like that. Not one girl called me and told me that she wasn't comming for whatever reason. All i could think of is how rude it would be that when they grow up and go to work that they'd just miss work on day and not even have the decency to call the boss and let him know. Things like this bother me because I always make sure that I'm on top of things and that I am where I should be at all times. I am never late to anywhere I have to go and i feel that everyone should be that way also. I don't know if it's just me, but I think that missing a practice and not having the decncy to call your coach and tell her that you won't be there is quite possibly the rudest thing you could do.
3.27.2007
Summarizing
Summarizing
-involves putting the main idea(s) into your own words, including only the main point(s). Once again, it is necessary to attribute summarized ideas to the original source. Summaries are significantly shorter than the original and take a broad overview of the source material.
Summarizing involves putting the main idea(s) or one or several writers into your own words, including only the main point(s). Once again, it is necessary to attribute summarized ideas to the original source. Summarized ideas are not necessarily presented in the same order as in the original source. Summaries are significantly shorter than the original and take a broad overview of the source material.
Summarize when:
You want to establish background or offer an overview of a topic
You want to describe common knowledge (from several sources) about a topic
You want to determine the main ideas of a single source
What Is Summarizing?Summarizing is how we take larger selections of text and reduce them to their bare essentials: the gist, the key ideas, the main points that are worth noting and remembering. Webster's calls a summary the "general idea in brief form"; it's the distillation, condensation, or reduction of a larger work into its primary notions.
What Are We Doing When We Summarize?We strip away the extra verbiage and extraneous examples. We focus on the heart of the matter. We try to find the key words and phrases that, when uttered later, still manage to capture the gist of what we've read. We are trying to capture the main ideas and the crucial details necessary for supporting them.
When You Ask Your Students to Summarize, What Usually Happens?
they write down everything
they write down next to nothing
they give me complete sentences
they write way too much
they don't write enough
they copy word for word
What Did You Want Them To Do?
pull out main ideas
focus on key details
use key words and phrases
break down the larger ideas
write only enough to convey the gist
take succinct but complete notes
How Can I Teach My Students to Summarize?Please be warned: teaching summarizing is no small undertaking. It's one of the hardest strategies for students to grasp, and one of the hardest strategies for you to teach. You have to repeatedly model it and give your students ample time and opportunities to practice it. But it is such a valuable strategy and competency. Can you imagine your students succeeding in school without being able to break down content into manageable small succinct pieces? We ask students to summarize all the time, but we're terrible about teaching them good ways to do this!
Here are a few ideas; try one...try them all. But keep plugging away at summarizing. This strategy is truly about equipping your students to be lifelong learners.
After students have used selective underlining on a selection, have them turn the sheet over or close the handout packet and attempt to create a summary paragraph of what they can remember of the key ideas in the piece. They should only look back at their underlining when they reach a point of being stumped. They can go back and forth between writing the summary and checking their underlining several times until they have captured the important ideas in the article in the single paragraph.
Have students write successively shorter summaries, constantly refining and reducing their written piece until only the most essential and relevant information remains. They can start off with half a page; then try to get it down to two paragraphs; then one paragraph; then two or three sentences; and ultimately a single sentence.
Teach students to go with the newspaper mantra: have them use the key words or phrases to identify only Who, What, When, Where, Why, and How.
Take articles from the newspaper, and cut off their headlines. Have students practice writing headlines for (or matching the severed headlines to) the "headless" stories.
Sum It Up: Pat Widdowson of Surry County Schools in North Carolina shared this very cool strategy with me. How's it work? You have students imagine they are placing a classified ad or sending a telegram, where every word used costs them money. Tell them each word costs 10 cents, and then tell them they can spend "so much." For instance, if you say they have $2.00 to spend, then that means they have to write a summary that has no more than 20 words. You can adjust the amount they have to spend, and therefore the length of the summary, according to the text they are summarizing. Consider setting this up as a learning station, with articles in a folder that they can practice on whenever they finish their work early or have time when other students are still working.
http://mciunix.mciu.k12.pa.us/~spjvweb/sumparquo.html
http://www.readingquest.org/strat/home.html
-involves putting the main idea(s) into your own words, including only the main point(s). Once again, it is necessary to attribute summarized ideas to the original source. Summaries are significantly shorter than the original and take a broad overview of the source material.
Summarizing involves putting the main idea(s) or one or several writers into your own words, including only the main point(s). Once again, it is necessary to attribute summarized ideas to the original source. Summarized ideas are not necessarily presented in the same order as in the original source. Summaries are significantly shorter than the original and take a broad overview of the source material.
Summarize when:
You want to establish background or offer an overview of a topic
You want to describe common knowledge (from several sources) about a topic
You want to determine the main ideas of a single source
What Is Summarizing?Summarizing is how we take larger selections of text and reduce them to their bare essentials: the gist, the key ideas, the main points that are worth noting and remembering. Webster's calls a summary the "general idea in brief form"; it's the distillation, condensation, or reduction of a larger work into its primary notions.
What Are We Doing When We Summarize?We strip away the extra verbiage and extraneous examples. We focus on the heart of the matter. We try to find the key words and phrases that, when uttered later, still manage to capture the gist of what we've read. We are trying to capture the main ideas and the crucial details necessary for supporting them.
When You Ask Your Students to Summarize, What Usually Happens?
they write down everything
they write down next to nothing
they give me complete sentences
they write way too much
they don't write enough
they copy word for word
What Did You Want Them To Do?
pull out main ideas
focus on key details
use key words and phrases
break down the larger ideas
write only enough to convey the gist
take succinct but complete notes
How Can I Teach My Students to Summarize?Please be warned: teaching summarizing is no small undertaking. It's one of the hardest strategies for students to grasp, and one of the hardest strategies for you to teach. You have to repeatedly model it and give your students ample time and opportunities to practice it. But it is such a valuable strategy and competency. Can you imagine your students succeeding in school without being able to break down content into manageable small succinct pieces? We ask students to summarize all the time, but we're terrible about teaching them good ways to do this!
Here are a few ideas; try one...try them all. But keep plugging away at summarizing. This strategy is truly about equipping your students to be lifelong learners.
After students have used selective underlining on a selection, have them turn the sheet over or close the handout packet and attempt to create a summary paragraph of what they can remember of the key ideas in the piece. They should only look back at their underlining when they reach a point of being stumped. They can go back and forth between writing the summary and checking their underlining several times until they have captured the important ideas in the article in the single paragraph.
Have students write successively shorter summaries, constantly refining and reducing their written piece until only the most essential and relevant information remains. They can start off with half a page; then try to get it down to two paragraphs; then one paragraph; then two or three sentences; and ultimately a single sentence.
Teach students to go with the newspaper mantra: have them use the key words or phrases to identify only Who, What, When, Where, Why, and How.
Take articles from the newspaper, and cut off their headlines. Have students practice writing headlines for (or matching the severed headlines to) the "headless" stories.
Sum It Up: Pat Widdowson of Surry County Schools in North Carolina shared this very cool strategy with me. How's it work? You have students imagine they are placing a classified ad or sending a telegram, where every word used costs them money. Tell them each word costs 10 cents, and then tell them they can spend "so much." For instance, if you say they have $2.00 to spend, then that means they have to write a summary that has no more than 20 words. You can adjust the amount they have to spend, and therefore the length of the summary, according to the text they are summarizing. Consider setting this up as a learning station, with articles in a folder that they can practice on whenever they finish their work early or have time when other students are still working.
http://mciunix.mciu.k12.pa.us/~spjvweb/sumparquo.html
http://www.readingquest.org/strat/home.html
Paraphrasing
Paraphrasing-
- involves putting a passage from source material into your own words. A paraphrase must also be attributed to the original source. Paraphrased material is usually shorter than the original passage, taking a somewhat broader segment of the source and condensing it slightly.
A paraphrase is...
your own rendition of essential information and ideas expressed by someone else, presented in a new form.
one legitimate way (when accompanied by accurate documentation) to borrow from a source.
a more detailed restatement than a summary, which focuses concisely on a single main idea.
Paraphrasing is a valuable skill because...
it is better than quoting information from an undistinguished passage.
it helps you control the temptation to quote too much.
the mental process required for successful paraphrasing helps you to grasp the full meaning of the original.
6 Steps to Effective Paraphrasing
1. Reread the original passage until you understand its full meaning.
2. Set the original aside, and write your paraphrase on a note card.
3. Jot down a few words below your paraphrase to remind you later how you envision using this material. At the top of the note card, write a key word or phrase to indicate the subject of your paraphrase.
4. Check your rendition with the original to make sure that your version accurately expresses all the essential information in a new form.
5. Use quotation marks to identify any unique term or phraseology you have borrowed exactly from the source.
6. Record the source (including the page) on your note card so that you can credit it easily if you decide to incorporate the material into your paper.
http://owl.english.purdue.edu/handouts/research/r_quotprsum.html
- involves putting a passage from source material into your own words. A paraphrase must also be attributed to the original source. Paraphrased material is usually shorter than the original passage, taking a somewhat broader segment of the source and condensing it slightly.
A paraphrase is...
your own rendition of essential information and ideas expressed by someone else, presented in a new form.
one legitimate way (when accompanied by accurate documentation) to borrow from a source.
a more detailed restatement than a summary, which focuses concisely on a single main idea.
Paraphrasing is a valuable skill because...
it is better than quoting information from an undistinguished passage.
it helps you control the temptation to quote too much.
the mental process required for successful paraphrasing helps you to grasp the full meaning of the original.
6 Steps to Effective Paraphrasing
1. Reread the original passage until you understand its full meaning.
2. Set the original aside, and write your paraphrase on a note card.
3. Jot down a few words below your paraphrase to remind you later how you envision using this material. At the top of the note card, write a key word or phrase to indicate the subject of your paraphrase.
4. Check your rendition with the original to make sure that your version accurately expresses all the essential information in a new form.
5. Use quotation marks to identify any unique term or phraseology you have borrowed exactly from the source.
6. Record the source (including the page) on your note card so that you can credit it easily if you decide to incorporate the material into your paper.
http://owl.english.purdue.edu/handouts/research/r_quotprsum.html
raising children ?!
The sad truth about raising children these days is that many parents are so busy with their work lives that most children become 'latch-key kids'. These children are exposed to all the dangers of the streets and the only thing that keeps them company at home is the television. If anyone has turned on a television recently, you have seen that many of the shows, even chilrend's show, have violence. How do we expect to raise children to be kind and loving and compassionate if they were explosed to so much evil and corruption? And then we wonder why the U.S. is 18th in the world in students attending colleges and making careers for themselves. It's terrible that parents are so busy that they cannot even take the time out to entertain or even talk to their children and keep these bad things away from them. If for example, a child grows up watching horror movies with killing and gore and violence, that is the child that would quite possibly hurt another child because he saw it on televsion and so he velieves it is the correct way. In a newpaper article I read a few years ago, a little boy was at the beach with his family and he wanted to be with SpongeBob Square Pants and he decided to run into the water and look for him. Tragically, that little boy drowned and lost his life. I am just trying to show how even the shows that we feel are innocent and perfect for children to watch can quite possibly be one of the worst things you can expose them to. If you want to occupy your children with television go out and buy a Disney movie, not the horror moves and television shows that could corrupt their young minds.
Francis Coppola
"Anything you build on a large scale or with intense passion invites chaos."
-Francis Ford Coppola
-Francis Ford Coppola
A note for Professor Marsh..
"Keep writing. Try to do a little bit every day, even if the result looks like crap. Getting from page four to page five is more important than spending three weeks getting page four perfect."
-Alan Dean Foster
-Alan Dean Foster
Freedom
As young adults we are given much more freedom than we had when we were younger, this of course is expected, but what if we were given too much freedom? When children are younger all they want is to be able to do as they please and not have to listen to their parents, the authorities or anyone else in charge and that is okay, but it becomes a problem when these children, that eventually grow up to be adults, have too much freedom. Freedom, if used the wrong way, can and probably will lead to corruption, chaos and undoubtedly great havoc. What I want to prove in this paper is just how negative and unnecessary freedom, at great lengths, can be. I hope to prove that when people are given too much freedom, that no good ever comes out of it, and that there should always be limits and boundaries that ever single person should abide by.
By writing this paper I hope to show my ‘buddy list group” that although we all love freedom and would rather nothing but it, that freedom comes with a price that no one can pay. It is a great responsibility and once you are given freedom, it is like a drug, and you constantly want more and more. Once exposed to too much freedom, people become addicted and will go to any lengths to get it, and sadly, many people do terrible things just to have a taste of freedom. The perfect way to prove my point, I feel, is to compile a bunch of footage of people acting up because of too much freedom. There is also the possibility of researching some pictures and do a ‘before and after’ take on approximately 3-5 different situations that went wrong when people were given too much freedom. The first pictures could be how everything was calm and had order and then afterwards I could prove how terrible the idea of too much freedom is by showing the after effects. Of course, not all outcomes would be so extreme, but I would definitely choose some extreme ones to help make my point stronger and get my message across. Both ideas could be great to prove my point but I think that if it’s possible to find footage online and do some editing that it would help greatly. If all goes well with finding the footage and or pictures so I could show the class, I could help to show them how too much is sometimes isn’t good.
Documenting on a project like this could turn out to be very difficult. I know that there is not one way I can start looking into this topic because there are many aspects and points that I have to cover. To begin, I will definitely have to do some online research and read about some people that were given freedom and abused it, hopefully abused it enough to get me point across to the class. Afterwards, if I find information on specific people, I can use video search engines such as You Tube and Google Videos to hopefully find a match between the person I have researched and a short video clip, or even photos of these people and they outcome of their abused freedom. I will, in the next few days, have to familiarize myself with all these video search engines to help make my research more accurate. After every article of information I find, or ever video (or picture), I will save it in my Favorites folder, on AOL, but also e-mail the sites to myself, just incase there is a problem with my laptop and I cannot get access to it. It would also help if I went around and asked people if they knew of anyone that would fit the category of my subject. This would make my research a lot faster and easier to do.
By writing this paper I hope to show my ‘buddy list group” that although we all love freedom and would rather nothing but it, that freedom comes with a price that no one can pay. It is a great responsibility and once you are given freedom, it is like a drug, and you constantly want more and more. Once exposed to too much freedom, people become addicted and will go to any lengths to get it, and sadly, many people do terrible things just to have a taste of freedom. The perfect way to prove my point, I feel, is to compile a bunch of footage of people acting up because of too much freedom. There is also the possibility of researching some pictures and do a ‘before and after’ take on approximately 3-5 different situations that went wrong when people were given too much freedom. The first pictures could be how everything was calm and had order and then afterwards I could prove how terrible the idea of too much freedom is by showing the after effects. Of course, not all outcomes would be so extreme, but I would definitely choose some extreme ones to help make my point stronger and get my message across. Both ideas could be great to prove my point but I think that if it’s possible to find footage online and do some editing that it would help greatly. If all goes well with finding the footage and or pictures so I could show the class, I could help to show them how too much is sometimes isn’t good.
Documenting on a project like this could turn out to be very difficult. I know that there is not one way I can start looking into this topic because there are many aspects and points that I have to cover. To begin, I will definitely have to do some online research and read about some people that were given freedom and abused it, hopefully abused it enough to get me point across to the class. Afterwards, if I find information on specific people, I can use video search engines such as You Tube and Google Videos to hopefully find a match between the person I have researched and a short video clip, or even photos of these people and they outcome of their abused freedom. I will, in the next few days, have to familiarize myself with all these video search engines to help make my research more accurate. After every article of information I find, or ever video (or picture), I will save it in my Favorites folder, on AOL, but also e-mail the sites to myself, just incase there is a problem with my laptop and I cannot get access to it. It would also help if I went around and asked people if they knew of anyone that would fit the category of my subject. This would make my research a lot faster and easier to do.
3.25.2007
wii
Tonight my brother and I had a few friends over and we decided to play wii. I personally have never been a fan of video games, mostly because I am terrible at them, but poartly because I'm not a fan of television. I would much rather spend my time outdoors, or saldly, on the computer "IMimg" my friends. I must admit though, as much as I disliked video games in the past, I love this one! Tonight was the first time I ever picked up a wii remote, and I must admit that all the craze about it isn't wrong. It's so different from all the other systems because you actually have to move around and in a sense become one of the characters in the game, and you can even create an avatar of yourself, otherwise known as a mii, which makes it even more realistic. It is such a versatile system because the remotes can be used as countless things, such as: a bat, a golf club, boxing gloves, or a tennis racket, but it can also be used as an actual remote with buttons and a joystick. I had more laughs in one night playing the wii with my friends than I have in a very long time, so for me, wii is an A+ in my book!!
3.24.2007
Patience.. 2
The other day at work my boss gave me an almost impossible assignment to do and told me that I had until 3:00 p.m. to hand it in to him. He gave me this assigment the day it was due at around 12:00 p.m. To most people this 3 hour window would look quite fair, but not in my case. This project he had me doing was going to take me at least 5 hours to do because I had to do research and compare note and go through boxes of old paperwork to try and make sense of this mess. I didn't take a lunchbreak that day and worked in this project for three hours straight just to get this done, and, I have no idea how, but I did! The only problem was that I got it to him at around 3:30, half an hour after the deadline. I quickly printed out my report and gave it to him. After he read through it and told me I had done a great job, he printed out something and gave it to me, and told me to read it when I got back to my office, and so I did. The quote (which is below) actualy made me 'laugh out loud'. I thought it was so funny! It was as if he was holding that quote for me for the one time that I handed in a project late. Afterwards I went back into his office and he had the biggest smile on his face; said "You've been working here for over six months and never have you handed anything to me after deadline. I give this to all the new employees when they are late with a project but you are the only one that I had to wait so long to give it to." I can't even begin to write how much that relieved me. So, it turns out that I'm actually pretty good at what i do, and honestly, it was a great way to end a terribly hectic and stressful day at the office.
Patience
"Patience isn't a virtue,
It's just what you tell the bosses when your projects are off schedule"
- Anonymous
3.20.2007
Bratz v Barbie*
This morning in class professor Marsh showed us an article he found which spoke about the differences between the Barbie doll and the new Bratz dolls. Personally, I have at least 20 Barbie dolls still in their original packaging because they are 'collectors edition' and are suppose to cost a lot of money a few years down the road, and now, with the new Bratz dolls I'm starting to believe that. There were many complaints about the Barbie dolls a few years ago because their bodies were an impossibility for real women and women all over the world were striving to look like these 'perfect' dolls. Soon after though, the makers of the doll changed the way she looked and made her proportions more realistic, BUT* Barbie was never sleazy. She was always the classy doll that all little girls looked up to and wanted to grow up to be. On the other hand, these new dolls, the Bratz dolls, are indeed quite sleazy. They are anorexic looking, with huge heads and way too much make up on. What kind of an impression does this leave on young girls?? -that it's okay to look cheap and sleazy?? That's ridiculious!! These are not the things that we should be exposing our young girls to. What happened to being classy and sophisticated? These new Bratz dolls are nothing but cheap and and sleazy, basically the complete opposite of the Barbie doll. Which brings me to my next point- which makes me quite happy- knowing now that these new Bratz dolls are taking over and they are the new 'craze' with young girls, Barbie will become a thing of the past, and so, my over 20 sealed boxes of Collector's Edition Barbie dolls will be worth quite a nice amount of money by the time I have chilren and pass them on to my daughter. BUT* I am in no way encouraging these new Bratz dolls. I think they are ruining the image of respectable women to young girls, but sadly, I know that their growth and sales will only rise in time.
3.18.2007
3.13.2007
Cars
This morning I had the very terrible luck of breaking my car. I won't get into all the details of what happened but I will say that there are a few parts broken under the hood and my car will be with the mechanic for a few days. What a terrible thing!! There is no possible way that I am going to get a rental car because I know that when I get the mechanic's bill I will probabably go crazy. So, now what? Public transportation? What a crazy idea. I'm not saying that I've been spoiled all my life with cars and people driving me everywhere because that is definately not the way it is. Throughout high school I used public transportation every single day, and even for the first semester of college I took three busses to get home each day. This past winter, I bought myself a car which i have been driving every since day since it was delivered to my house. So what's my problem?? For some reason I cannot get the thought through my head that for the new few days, I will be taking public transportation to school and the work. Our society has become so depenfant on cars that people that once had cars and are told to take a bus somewhere will probably become quite upset. I for one am definately not looking forward to tomorrow when I have the joy of taking two busses to school and three to come back home. I am definately not looking forward to tomorrow.
Have a good night and a pleasant tomorrow, all!
Have a good night and a pleasant tomorrow, all!
3.12.2007
3.05.2007
How is this even possible??
We all know that our country is at war, and I know I speak for many people when I say that this war is completely useless. What really blows me away is the fact that we are paying millions of dollars an hour it seems to fight a war that we shouldn't even be in, and yet some of the most meaningful jobs are paying barely any money. Our teachers aren't getting paid nearly as much money as they should be. I believe that being a teacher is one of the most important jobs anyone can have, but they aren't getting paid accordingly because this nation's priorities are not in check. Did you know that the average professional sports player makes a few million dollars a season? Or that most well known actors are paid about ten million dollars a movie? What skill do these people have that they deserve so much money? Our teachers must go through years of schooling and earn all sorts of degrees in order to be able to teach. What do actors do? Memorize a few lines and recite them? I just think that it is completely unfair that people who work had and are very educated and spend many many years in school, but also help people every single day aren't getting half of what they deserve.
3.01.2007
*LOVE*
One of the most well known statistics these days is about married couples and divorce, what happens, does the love run out? It is said that approximately one in every two marriages ends up in divorce within the first few years of marriage. Even though the percentages are against love, there are still many couples that have been and still are together for many years. Knowing that the statistics are very high, I have decided to ask people what they think about love. Do you think love is real? Do you truly believe in love and that there is one perfect person for everyone? Love is one of, if not the hardest word to define because its true definition lies within the person defining it.
Wikipedia describes love “as any of a number of emotions and experiences related to a sense of strong affection or profound oneness.” The Singapore Medical Journal says that “Love is defined as the will to extend one’s self for the purpose of nurturing one’s own or another’s spiritual growth.“ There is not one word that can describe love because whether you believe in it or not, everyone has their own opinion. I went around and did some research and my findings were quite typical, I believe. I interviewed six people, three males and three females, all in different age groups, and asked them all the same questions: do you believe in love, have you ever been in love, and why do you feel this way.
Three of the people that I interviewed told me that they absolutely think love is real and that they believe in it 100%. The people on this side of the spectrum were two men and one woman. They basically all told me that even though love isn’t exactly the easiest thing to find, they know that the ‘right person’ is out there somewhere. Of course, all three people have also been in love, which causes them to believe in it so strongly. One person told me that he knows love is real every time he looks into his significant other’s eyes and sees that she hides nothing from him. Another person told me that she believes in love because, “Without love, my world would fall apart. He [my husband] is the one thing I think of all day and all night, and that feeling I get whenever I’m with him; that’s love”.
On the other side of course, are the other three people I interviewed, and as I predicted, they all hated the word ‘love’ and everything it stands for. This time, two women and one man agreed that they didn’t believe in it one bit. They all three agreed that once in their lives they had been in love, or what they thought love was. When it came to why they disbelieve now, the stories took an unexpected turn, but all had quite a similar end. One person was cheated on, the other’s significant other passed away, and the third claimed his significant other ‘fell out of love’ with him. In all cases, these three people were hurt and as the saying goes ‘had their hearts ripped out of their chests’. Although none of the three had gone through what the others did, they all were in terrible disbelief and were full of hurt when their relationships ended. They all told me that they devoted so much time and effort into their relationships and they received nothing in return, which is the reason why they were all so sour on the topic.
After interviewing these six people and reading over the notes I took and the responses they wrote to me, I realized that, I agree and disagree with both groups, the people that do believe, and the people the despise love with a passion. Contrary to my belief though, I did realize that each side isn’t specifically only for one gender, because the answers came out even on both ends. I realized something that was under my nose the entire time; everyone that had been hurt in the past stop believing, and everyone that is still in a happy and committed relationship believes in love to the fullest. Of course, it was just my luck that I found six people that each had strong views on the issue, I fall in the middle. I believed in love when I was in a happy relationship and thought that everything was going well, and as soon as the relationship ended, I became very sour and almost hated the word love and what it meant. Now though, after some time has passed, I feel as if love is real and that it may take a very long time, but there is someone for everyone and that people shouldn’t be bitter about endings, but happy because they happened in the first place.
I know that no two people are a like and that everyone is entitled to their own opinion and that is why I chose this topic. I know that many people feel strongly about love, either positively or negatively, and that is why it caught my attention. The people I interviewed happened to have been from two opposite sides of the spectrum, which I have come to realize is very normal, but when I asked myself the same questions, I found that I didn’t believe or disbelieve, I was somewhat in the middle. Does that make me abnormal? No, I think it makes me hopeful that even though life has handed me lemons, I’ve made lemonade and I’m ready to sit back and enjoy it.
Wikipedia describes love “as any of a number of emotions and experiences related to a sense of strong affection or profound oneness.” The Singapore Medical Journal says that “Love is defined as the will to extend one’s self for the purpose of nurturing one’s own or another’s spiritual growth.“ There is not one word that can describe love because whether you believe in it or not, everyone has their own opinion. I went around and did some research and my findings were quite typical, I believe. I interviewed six people, three males and three females, all in different age groups, and asked them all the same questions: do you believe in love, have you ever been in love, and why do you feel this way.
Three of the people that I interviewed told me that they absolutely think love is real and that they believe in it 100%. The people on this side of the spectrum were two men and one woman. They basically all told me that even though love isn’t exactly the easiest thing to find, they know that the ‘right person’ is out there somewhere. Of course, all three people have also been in love, which causes them to believe in it so strongly. One person told me that he knows love is real every time he looks into his significant other’s eyes and sees that she hides nothing from him. Another person told me that she believes in love because, “Without love, my world would fall apart. He [my husband] is the one thing I think of all day and all night, and that feeling I get whenever I’m with him; that’s love”.
On the other side of course, are the other three people I interviewed, and as I predicted, they all hated the word ‘love’ and everything it stands for. This time, two women and one man agreed that they didn’t believe in it one bit. They all three agreed that once in their lives they had been in love, or what they thought love was. When it came to why they disbelieve now, the stories took an unexpected turn, but all had quite a similar end. One person was cheated on, the other’s significant other passed away, and the third claimed his significant other ‘fell out of love’ with him. In all cases, these three people were hurt and as the saying goes ‘had their hearts ripped out of their chests’. Although none of the three had gone through what the others did, they all were in terrible disbelief and were full of hurt when their relationships ended. They all told me that they devoted so much time and effort into their relationships and they received nothing in return, which is the reason why they were all so sour on the topic.
After interviewing these six people and reading over the notes I took and the responses they wrote to me, I realized that, I agree and disagree with both groups, the people that do believe, and the people the despise love with a passion. Contrary to my belief though, I did realize that each side isn’t specifically only for one gender, because the answers came out even on both ends. I realized something that was under my nose the entire time; everyone that had been hurt in the past stop believing, and everyone that is still in a happy and committed relationship believes in love to the fullest. Of course, it was just my luck that I found six people that each had strong views on the issue, I fall in the middle. I believed in love when I was in a happy relationship and thought that everything was going well, and as soon as the relationship ended, I became very sour and almost hated the word love and what it meant. Now though, after some time has passed, I feel as if love is real and that it may take a very long time, but there is someone for everyone and that people shouldn’t be bitter about endings, but happy because they happened in the first place.
I know that no two people are a like and that everyone is entitled to their own opinion and that is why I chose this topic. I know that many people feel strongly about love, either positively or negatively, and that is why it caught my attention. The people I interviewed happened to have been from two opposite sides of the spectrum, which I have come to realize is very normal, but when I asked myself the same questions, I found that I didn’t believe or disbelieve, I was somewhat in the middle. Does that make me abnormal? No, I think it makes me hopeful that even though life has handed me lemons, I’ve made lemonade and I’m ready to sit back and enjoy it.
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