Essay 4

In the events of great catastrophe, we rely on what is real as oppose to fantasy. Marvel superheroes play an important role in our everyday life but when real tragedy strikes, the fact remains that they are still only comic book. I am writing about a picture that was published on page 6 of the marvel "Heroes" book that is a 65 page book filled with illustrations from all of the artists of several marvel comics, dedicating art in homage to the events of September 11, 2001. By the end of this essay I hope that the reader will be able to glance at this illustration and hopefully feel the same way that I did when I paid attention to the details of the picture that gives it the feel and emotion that it gave me.

In the scene, there is a boy and a girl centered in a small room with yellowish walls staring through their window at the catastrophic events of 9/11 and a spotlight that shines light on most of the room. The left side of the room consists of marvel comic books, posters, and action figures all thrown together in an unimportant order that still gets the message across. There is a poster of spider-man in his most famous pose of him swinging from his web, under that is the classic poster of Captain America in his fighting stance, while the hulk and wolverine lay upside down against the pillow. On the edge of the bed is a Black Panther comic book that is half open and laying half way off of the bed. There are two more action figures and both of them are practically under the bed, the two action figures are the daredevil and Mr. Fantastic from the fantastic 4.  As you pan to the right a little bit there are 3 toy vehicles on the floor, those of which our modern day heroes use to save lives, these vehicles are a police car, ambulance, and a fire truck. The boy and the girl are dressed up in their best efforts to represent our modern day, real life heroes. The boy is wearing a red shirt with the word "fire" scrawled on the top of it, a fire hat and rubber boots, while the girl has a blue jacket with the word "police" is taped to the upper shoulder blade and a police hat. Through the window, the children gape at the dastard events and commotion of September 11. As they gaze you cannot help but notice the way that they are clutching multiple dolls of a variety of ethnicities.

When I look at the picture I feel the desire to play along with the children so that they know that they are not alone. The way the two children are positioned show a visual feeling of despair and helplessness that the kids are feeling. It is obvious that they are doing everything that they can in their power to help, but at that age all they can do is watch. The two of them have the best intentions and obviously understand the meaning of unity and courage by the way that they are clutching the many dolls of several different race and ethnicities, along with the American flag. The children are obviously bright enough to know the difference between fantasies and real world by the way they choose to be a police woman and fireman over the likes of a super hero like super-man or wonder-woman, while also understanding how important it is to keep everyone together from every ethnicity

The way that the fantasy heroes are obviously, carelessly placed as oppose to the main focus of the picture which is of the two children dressed up as the "real" heroes of today. It illustrates that as much as we look up to those "fantasy" heroes saving people's lives every day, is still just a fantasy and all takes place in a fictional world. But when it comes to real life tragedy taking place such as the events of 9/11, we must rely on our actual heroes to help and do what they can as regular average humans, and let the comic book heroes sit aside.  With a picture like this it somewhat takes value from our comic book heroes that we ever so look up to and makes them seem much smaller than they already are. It is both positive and negative because it is always good for a child to look up to a superhero as a role model to do the right thing or be a little bit heroic, but at the same time elaborates to children in general that those fantasy heroes can't really do anything but inspire those that have a good imagination.

Personally I think that this picture relays one of the strongest messages out of the rest of the 52 illustrations in the book. Although every one of the pictures give great meaning, and show strength, unity, love, great tragedy. I feel that this picture speaks for itself to any and every type of person, and to me, for a picture with such a message to be able to be understood by anyone from the simple age of 5 to 95, African American to Russian just makes the picture all that much more to write about.

prolly my worst one yet..ha but damn..i just dont care..

its been a month++ since my last blog..haha but SO FUCKIN MUCH has gone on since..i just havent had the time to sit down and tell all...well.
im not even gona tell all. but. alot went down man.
ive changed a bit sinec the beginning of nov..
and also..haha the end of this year is going by SO FUCKIN fast!!!!! im not down....

ill post for the people soon. thanks for tuning in america.. feel free to comment i guess

Essay 2

so its pretty trashy...i read it..im uninterested. haha

but fck..its too late for revision and all that. its 4:50 am.

class is at 9..which is when its due haha.

i love it..college baby.i only have 1 class too!

anyways

here ya go my fellow americans..haha

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Significance of the Adoption Process..:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />

Adoption isn't as easy as just applying for a child and receiving them in 10 to 20 business days; there is a little bit more to it than that. There are many steps to the adoption process that include the procedure of applying to become an adoptive parent, and the issues/controversy surrounding adoption. Although there are many other steps in the adoption process, those are some of the points that I feel people should know a little bit more about than what is already known acquired through common knowledge.

The adoption process consists of choosing the type of adoption which can be done either publically or privately. When done publically, you have to go through an agency that is funded by the state or a 3^rd party organization. If the adoptive parents choose to adopt publically then most parents will receive assistance in the process from the state's Department of Social Services, or the Department of Family and Children Services, included in the assistance are training and education on what to do and the outcome of the situations that can and will occur. As oppose to a private adoption which doesn't involve an agency. A private adoption is done through an attorney or a facilitator where they have to hire a lawyer for themselves. In this process the adoptive parents have more control on the outcome of the adoption process and the decision on whether the birth mother can or cannot be in touch with them.  Next is deciding whether they want an open, closed or semi open adoption. If the parents choose an open adoption then the birth parents have the option of meeting the adoptive parents before they choose to place their child with them. If the birth parents are comfortable with the family then the relationship may grow even after the adoption is finalized. The relationship can grow more personal and include visits, phone calls, exchanging letters, pictures and or e-mails. The adopted child can meet his/her birth family and communication is as open as the parties involved decide together. At the age of 18 the adopted child has complete access to their original records.

If the adoptive parents chose to have a closed adoption then the record of the biological parents are kept completely secret.  The adoption of an older child whom already knows their biological parents cannot be made closed. This used to be the more popular/traditional type of adoption before the use of internet and other means of tracking a person down. The semi open adoption is basically the agency letting the parent see the progress of their child without any contact.  After the process of deciding on how the parents want to go about adopting comes the more personal phase of the long adoption process.

After all of the fuss of being setup to adopt a child, the next step in the process is to complete a home study. The home study is a report for the courts and the adoption professionals to determine whether the parents could provide a stable environment for an adopted child. The elements that are included in a majority of home studies include the following:

·         An Autobiography: Consists of a brief overview of the parent's childhood experiences, family relationships, their marriage, employment status and personal interests?

·         A Personal Interview: The social worker will have a one on interview with each parent alone, and then one with the both of them together. From the interviews the social worker determines if a stable living environment can be provided for the child.

·         Background Checks: They check each parent's criminal record and or any claims of child abuse.

·         Health Status: The status check of each parents health from a physical examination performed by their routine practitioner to determine if they have a regular life expectancy.

·         Financial Statements: The social worker reviews their annual income, savings, liabilities or debts, and overall net worth

Those are the 5 steps of the home study portion of the adoption process that occur most. Some steps are added or subtracted from the procedure depending on the state, agency or the social worker.  If approved then the parents have to wait for a placement.

        After the long process of finding an agency or attorney, and then completing the home study, comes possibly the most difficult component in the adoption process, which is waiting for a placement. The time that is spent waiting on placement depends on many different factors of the type of child their adopting varying from the race, age, to mental and physical health. Adopting a child of a different race greatly reduces the waiting time of being placed.

Once everything in the extensive process of becoming an adoptive parent, and receiving a new child into the family is complete, the adoption is finalized and official after the parents receive full legal rights and responsibilities of the child. Full parental guardianship is acquired after the biological parent's rights have been terminated, the child has lived in the home for a minimum of 6 months, and the social worker has submitted a recommendation of approval, a judge will finalize it all by rewarding the adoptive parents with full guardianship.

Things may seem great after everything is finished but the problems can only start to occur once the child gets older and develops a mind of their own or is easily influenced by the wrong crowd. Being an adopted person myself, I completely understand how easy it is to have question or concern about how and why I am where I am now.  Most of the more popular issues that most people are familiar with when they think of problems with adoption are what they see and hear in schools, and in the media, in some situations teachers' lesson plans have to be slightly altered because they include activities that involve the child drawing their family tree and or even tracing their eye color back through their parents and grandparents to see whom they inherited them from.  When it comes to the media it is an ongoing dispute on how adoption is represented as unfair. Or in most cases in television or film, the adoptee spending a majority of the program searching for their biological parents; in both cases the feelings and thoughts of the adoptee are dumbed down and one participant group is favored, ignoring the two other participants in the adoption process, thus leading to younger kids to teenagers having the wrong perception of the way adoption really is.

Another instance of an issue in adoption is the term "adoptism", which means to have the conviction that goes against adoption like the belief that adoption is not a legitimate way to build a family, and the belief that adoptees are defined throughout their lives by the fact of their adoption, and the assumption that the individual's abilities come from their family's abilities, and the attitude that all abilities are "inherited" rather than learned.    

One of the more serious issues with adoption is the disruption of an adoption. Disruption is what most people call the ending of an adoption before it is legally completed thus potentially being able to cause the child to suffer from reactive attachment disorder, and the parents suffering from social stigma. All in all it is a completely negative situation but the fact that the parents were approved for adoption after all of the tests and studies that were run does not mean that the adoption will go completely as planned.

So when it comes down to it, those are just a few factors to consider while still thinking about adopting a child and providing them with a different life than what is considered "normal"  in today's society.

 :D 1296/1250..success baby

               

so this evanescence cd is so amazing..why didnt i ever buy it!!

[the] Room of Doom

essay number 1 for the semester...

im not proud of it..but i should def. get a c or better...idk haha

i wish  some ome this ish were more natural..haha anyways
 

 

"The Room of Doom" is what I have begun to call my sanctuary. This area that is also my room is that of a publically private domain located in the back of my current residence. This location that I chose to write about doesn't only mean the world to me, but it is my world, and I am the governor, president and sometimes even a dictator of and in my own room. By the end of this essay you should have a little bit of insight on the feel of the room and an understanding of how important a room can be to an individual.

                As I lie here on my love sac, I start to realize that my room has a modern feel to it. At first glance it seems like an active 26 year old could occupy this space. The room seems filled but not entirely used; I have a poster of New York's Time Square positioned above my door that leads to my backyard, I keep it up there for some nature of inspiration. There are six usable corners, four of which are filled with the essentials of my generation. One corner has my bed that is one the most reliable sources of relaxation that the room provides. The corner opposite of that the bed lounges the love sac. I call it "the sac", and that big bag of memory foam holds the power to attract the body of any onlooker; the word "Plop" comes to mind when I listen to people blitz themselves onto it. Opposite of that corner stands my television that I acquired with the room; it provides adequate entertainment when needed, but doesn't play an active role in the importance of my room. The corner that matters most is the corner that is located in the back of the room; where my computer desk is established. I spend 75% of my time in this vicinity of the room typing my life away while listening to whatever music is relevant for the day. A bookshelf is situated less than 5 feet away from the computer desk and two of the four shelves are filled with DVD movies and one of the four shelves has a bunch of cd cases that I have accumulated through the years. My closet is a small but spacious parcel that holds my attire and useless rubbish from my last room.

When you walk into the room you will hear music, regardless of the time of day. I leave the music playing while I am gone to set the mood of the room for whoever visits while I am gone. My computer provides the musical entertainment in the far corner of the room thus creating a distant but definite 'feel' for the room. The room in its whole smells like that of an unsolicited capacity at times but the daily douse of febreze leaves a consistent citrusy smell that enlightens your senses on how to feel when in the room itself.

                Before I moved into it, this room was a neglected storage space. It was basically an in-home shed but without the cliché spiders and unwanted attendance of decay. When I was younger; whenever there was a family event, me and most of the extended family of my age would play hide and seek while the family visited. I always hid in this room if it was during the day because at night when the lights in the room were off it looked like that of a lifeless and gloomy den...With monsters!

 My house is that of a helping home; Extended family and friends are forever staying here only for a couple months at a time. At one point we didn't have enough space to hold everyone comfortably because more family was going to move in for a couple of months in addition to a few other family members already residing with us. Upon realization of how the living situations would be; my dad decided to convert the storage room into a fully functional bedroom. He finished within the 6 months that he had to work on it. It was a project for him to execute because he was newly retired and needed something to do with his time. By the end of 2006; the family that was occupying this room moved into their new home and this leaving this fresh opportunity to stretch my legs. My mother beat me to it! Turns out, she already had plans to turn the room into an area for her to take care of a few of her everyday chores that she can do without the essence of a new room. By September 2007; my parentals elected to move me into the room by my birthday.

                A simple day in this room consists of computing, eating, sleeping, being lazy and singing. I wake up every day and roll out of my bed without making it. I head to my closet and put on whatever is relevant for the occasion and I attend to whatever is on the agenda for the day.

When I return from wherever I was at; I instantly plop onto my uber comfortable love sac and just let my body rest until I get bored. From there I proceed to my computer desk where I check on what is going on in my world along with the real world, listen to my music, and talk to my friends. After I finish eating whatever I yearn for throughout the day, I procrastinate for the remaining hours of the night until my eyes start to burn and I slither back into my bed that feels the same way I left it 12+ hours ago where I  call it a night. Everyone has a place that they can be at peace if its anything from there room to a random location in their town, I am very grateful that my room provides everything that I need. It protects me from external harm, shelter from the public and most of all it provides plenty of entertainment for me and others that aren't fortunate enough to spend as much time in it as I do.