"Either I'm nobody or I'm a nation"

The poem that is included in the beginning of Diaz's book, to me seemed very random at first. I didn't really understand how this poem about a "red nigger that loves the sea" pertains to the book. However on closer inspection I am starting to see how it relates to the life of Oscar and also his family. The character in the poem feels that they are living in a world where they must behave a certain way. I perceive this from the 4th & 5th line that says "If loving these islands must be my load, out of corruption my soul takes wings". This person feels that they are being forced to appreciate something that they do not, but they will rise above this corruption. They are not impressed by the people with the big houses and cars (conspicuous consumption), it "poisons their soul". I see that this relates to the character because he turns out to be sort of an outsider and does not share the views of most of the peers around him. I think that the end of the poem represents the feelings of an outsider as well when it states "either I'm  nobody, or I'm a nation" because one never knows if he is alone with his opinions or if other people share them as well. These feelings that Oscar and the person in the poem have are feelings that I think many of us grapple with as well. No one can ever be inside of each others' heads so we can never know if we are alone or not.

Evaluating my own work...

After reading through the comments on my memoir, and rereading the actual memoir itself, I was honestly pretty disappointed at what I saw. I realized that although I felt initially that my memoir was brilliant and deserving of a high "A" grade, it still had a lot of work that needed to be done to it in order to get it to the level I know it capable of. I think that the main two issues I have with my writing include my over use of words and repetitiveness and also my difficulty in choosing what is relevant and what is not to a work.
Throughout my memoir there was multiple times when I used too many words to explain one meaning. I think that I really need to work on being concise and short in the production of my ideas. I think that because I've been able to write in that way for so long and get away with it I felt that it was okay. However I do realize that when reading a text a reader wants to get to the point as quick as possible, so shortening over wordiness is very necessary.
Another thing that I saw as a problem was my extensive paragraphs. I need to learn how to choose the most relevant information to include in a paper. I'm still struggling with this in my editorial, but I'm hoping that on my later drafts I will be able to eliminate this problem.
I will be working on both of these components in my writing. I'm hoping that after this class I will feel more comfortable about my writing style.

Production of an Editorial: A Look at Local Cyber Bullying

A recent experience with the trashing of my boyfriends reputation on an anonymous site called collegeacb.com brought the negative outcome of the websites' harsh comments home for me. I have known about the site since it was produced last year and have repeatedly seen rude, and mostly untrue, things posted on it by anonymous writers. Not only do I think it is extremely disrespectful to the university to have Oakland posted on there, but also it is very immature to me that students in college participate in such a childish act. I think that cyber bullying is a fast growing problem in this country, whether it be through the use of social networking sites like facebook or myspace or through anonymous posting sites like collegeacb or the late juicy campus. I hate to know that the website exists and that people I care about are bashed on it. There is no way to find out who is posting so it just adds to my frustration of the usage of the site by students. I think if people have a problem with other students they should personally confront them rather than cowardly post something anonymously online for everyone to see which is essentially publishing this information. Internet posting, especially in this context, should not be taken lightly because it can greatly affect the people that it has targeted.