Post 11 - Analysis: The Elements of the Photograph

The picture is intended to have the reader follow the crowd. The crowd is staring at something in particular. What ever it is remains a mystery. I believe this was the creator’s original intended meaning.

The picture is in black and white, which fails to inform the viewer of any colors that might make something in the picture stand out. The overall picture is dull with little light except the brightness in between the two building. The picture reveals very little information to what the crowd is viewing. The only clue that is provided to what the crowd is observing is the United State Flags right of the picture. With this information one can conclude that the crowd is viewing some sort of patriotic event. What ever the event is, one will never know simply by this picture alone. Once again the intention of the creator of the picture is not to reveal the mystery of the crowds’ observation, but to simply follow the crowd. Follow the crowd to what? Follow the crowd to what ever one wants inside of a patriotic event. You decide. The message here is what ever one wants it to be. It gives the observer of the picture an opportunity to be creative, and fill as if they are part of the picture by imagining what the crowd is viewing. If one imagines them selves being part of the crowd than they could chose what the crowd is observing.

Post 10 - "Reflection" On Picture

What is the large crowd so intently staring at? Is it something exciting and interested like the President of the United States, or something terrible and depressing, such as a hearse taking a dead soldier to the cemetery where they will rest forever. What ever the case for the gathering of the large crowd, the strong curiosity to know is consuming my thoughts. This gathering sparks so many different emotions and questions, that one does not know where to begin reflecting on the picture. Is there joy or anguish in all of their hearts as they view, that which is a mystery to the observer of the picture? If only one knew the crowds emotional state, it would be so much easier to determine ones own feeling of the picture. With out this essential source it is impossible to have a clear and strong reflection of the picture. The only thing that keeps on going through my mind is one simple word, which dominated my mind. That word was curiosity, curiosity, CURIOSITY, on what the crowd was observing.

This is a great picture. I believe the picture is designed to keep the observer curious of what the crowd is viewing. The creator of the picture is Jerry Dantzic, which did an amazing job at capturing the audience attention to this picture, by sparking there curiosity level. As stated earlier the only thing that I could get out of this picture is a sense of curiosity to what the crowd was observing.

Post 9 - "Observation" On Picture

The picture that I chose from the photo gallery is in black and white. The focal point of the picture is the people numbering more than a hundred, which are staring at something in particular. The large crowd is made up of mostly men, and a few females on the left side of the picture. Most of the men are wearing long trench coats except two of them. The first one of these is in the left side of the picture, next to a female. He is wearing a sports coat with some sort of logo in the back. The female next to him is wearing a head covering. The second man without a long coat is right of the picture and is wearing a long sleeve dress up shirt. He also has his hands inside his pant pockets. The commonality that all the people in the picture have is that they are all properly dressed for cold weather.

There are also a lot of different buildings in the picture. One of these buildings has a United States flag hanging from the second story. There are also, about six to eight United State flags just below the United States flag on the building. With all the buildings in the picture, and all of the U.S flags, one would have to assume that the picture is of a downtown somewhere in the U.S. Another assumption do to the U.S. Flags, is that the people are observing a patriotic event, such as a presidential candidate visiting them or a patriotic parade.

Reflective Essay "Broken Down in the Army"

It took place two weeks into basic combat training for the United States Army. The place was at Fort Leonard Wood Missouri inside the Drill sergeant’s office. There were four other privates and myself which is what we were referred to while in Basic Combat Training. The reason for the visit was for us to be completely broken down physically, and mentally. For one to understand why only five out of about seventy other privates were chosen for this visit, one must first understand the first two weeks before this meeting.

The first two weeks of Basic Combat Training are designed to break every single individual down physically and mentally in order to bring everyone to the same level, and then build them up together as a team. The reason for this is to build a strong union and friendship among the privates so they could perform flawless under combat. The Drill Sergeants are the ones responsible for making this happen. Mentally they break privates down in a variety of ways. One example is by constantly yelling as loud as possible only inches from a private’s face. The Drill Sergeants yell negative remarks such as, how weak and useless privates are.


Physically, privates are also broken down in more than one way. One way is by intense workouts that are not designed to keep you fit, but designed to push and break down your muscles to there fullest capability and more. For example, pushups and sit-ups were some exercises that Drill Sergeants had us do. These workouts are good for you, but the problem was that privates would do these workouts and a variety of others, none stop. It started in the morning, and would continue until the evening. The only rest time, was during meals where privates only had about two minutes to eat their food, and then had to continue working out.


Once evening came the Drill Sergeants would continue to break privates down mentally by dismissing the privates to their barracks with a list, of things to do, which were impossible to complete before bedtime. Privates would be dismissed at 2100 hours with lights out being at 2200 hours. This gave privates only one hour to finish there list, such as, shower, clean bathroom, clean hallways, clean classroom, mope and wax every floor, clean their boots, organize their uniform, etc… The list just went on and on. What would happen was that almost every private would stay up after lights out to work on the list, which would lead to a serious lack of sleep. A mixture of privates constantly being yelled at, with non stop exercising, with a lack of sleep, all lead to extreme fatigue, which resulted in being broken down physically and mentally.

The first two weeks of Basic Combat Training were the most difficult for most privates, but for me and four other privates it was hard, but not unbearable. The Drill Sergeants noticed this and knew that we would have to get a little more extra attention from them. This is when we got a personal invitation to the Drill Sergeants office. At the time of the invitation there was only one Drill Sergeant in the office. He was sitting behind a desk working on some sort of paper work. I will never forget this Drill Sergeant, his name was Drill Sergeant Robinson. He had the reputation of being the meanest and toughest Drill Sergeant in the whole company. All five of us were standing in front of his desk in the parade rest position waiting for further orders from him. While he was still working on the paper work, not even looking up to us he commanded us to get in the front leaning rest position and start pushing. In other words, he told us to start doing push-ups until he said stop. We started with push ups, then sit ups, flutter kicks, squads, jumping jacks, and finally the invisible chair or what some people call the Roman Chair. We did way too many push-ups to count but I remember my chest and arms burning intensely. As I kept doing them I kept on telling myself “one more, just one more, it’s all a mental game” every time I thought it was over, it was only beginning. After doing non stop push-ups for an excessive amount of time we were all told to start doing sit ups and flutter kicks. We continued to do flutter kicks and sit-ups way after our abdominal muscle gave up.

At this time the Drill Sergeant quit focusing on his paperwork and him and another Drill Sergeant started to focus more on us. They were there ready to scream their loudest at us if we quit doing flutter kicks or could no longer do any more sit-ups. They would tell us things like, “quit now, you know you can’t handle it, just QUIT”. I remember feeling such intense pain, but once again kept telling my self that it was all a mental game, that I was destined to overcome. I could not let the Drill Sergeants get the best of me. After the push-ups, flutter kicks, sit-ups, we moved on to other workouts that were just as bad. The final workout was the invisible chair. After more than an hour of intense pain the Drill Sergeants was finally fed up with us not quitting and made us all sit back against the office wall at a 90 degree angle with our hand against the wall. This was the invisible chair. The Drill Sergeants stood there inspecting us to make sure we were doing the exercise properly. At this time my whole body was bruised and exhausted, but I had to keep going. I felt like I had something to prove. Five minutes into the invisible chair my legs began burning. After ten minutes my legs were burning intensely. Twenty to twenty five minutes had past, my legs were bruised purple and shaking from the pain, but I was determined not to quit. I knew that I could only hold on a little while longer, but told my self once again “It’s all mental”. Finally, the moment came where I could not go on, tears filled my eyes from the pain and disgrace I felt that I was about to throw in the towel. I fell from the invisible chair and laid on the ground, like a baby in the fetal position. I had been broken.

Post 8 – Free Writing “Critical Thinking"

“The unexamined life is not worth living” is a quote from the famous Greek Philosopher Socrates. This quote to me personally, not only signifies the importance of developing critical thinking skills, but critical in consistently using them.

The easiest, simplest definition of critical thinking is to simply think for your self and not believe everything you hear. With our culture nowadays constantly bombarding us with advertisements, about how to live life, and what to buy it’s easy for us to easily believe what ever they are advertising without critical thinking. For example, when my wife and I bought our first home, we looked for a professional mortgage broker to help us finance our home. We ended up talking to about nine or more different mortgage brokers before finally deciding who we wanted to hire. Each mortgage broker promised and guaranteed us that they were the absolute best for the job. They all claimed that they could get us the cheapest rates in the market. After my wife and I used critical thinking by doing some homework about the market and comparing all the mortgage brokers to each other, we found that not all of them were suited for the job. Some of the mortgage brokers were charging an insanely amount for their services, which they would try to hide, by being persuasive and friendly. By using critical thinking we eventually hired a mortgage broker to help us finance our new home.

If my wife and I would have not used our critical thinking skills, while hiring a mortgage broker we would of easily fallen victims to a bad one. Critical thinking should always be used before doing or believing something you hear. Don’t let others think for you, but take the stand to think for your self. As Author Marva Collins says "Trust yourself. Think for yourself. Act for yourself. Speak for yourself. Be yourself. Imitation is suicide."

Post 7 - Dreams Caption

Why do we have dreams and what are they made of is what millions of people ask. Some people say they come from a spiritual source and are a super natural experience, others say it’s an unexplained science waiting to be resolved. The man to the left is the representative of all the ones believing dreams come from a spiritual source and are super natural. The one to the right is the one representing the ones believing dreams are an unexplained science waiting to be resolved. Both individuals are staring at a tree, and a man’s transparent head, which reveals his brain in detail. The tree represents the mystery of dreams. For example, some of these mysteries are why we sometimes have nightmares, and other times sweet soothing dreams. The man’s head with the transparent brain symbolizes the agreement between the two men representing the people, which is that they both deeply agree that dreams start and end in the brain. Another thing that represents this agreement is the two men holding hands. Outside of this agreement there is a lot of disagreement that is among both men. They are both desperately trying to resolve the hidden meaning of dreams and are both going two different ways about it. One is looking in spiritual things, and the other is looking in science. Both men will continue to seek among themselves the meaning of dreams, but until they both come together on a more personal relationship they will never find the meaning of dreams. This is what the red in the picture represents.

Post 6 - Other Blog "The Huffington Post"

The assigned blog for this post is titled “The Huffington post” with the subtitle being “delivering news and opinion since May 9th 2005”. Briefly stated, the blog is packed with opinions about the news in general and mainly focuses on the politics side of the media. The blog has many different articles about politics, from the Presidency in 2008 to the war on Iraq.

The creator of the blog uses some very good methods to catch the reader’s attention. For example, the article labeled “Cheney: Iraq War A "Remarkable Achievement"” catches ones attention instantly. The article is located on the top left hand corner of the blog. This article is about the war on Iraq. This article has three large photos, which help catch the reader’s attention. These photos are of a man standing on a burning car, Dick Cheney, and a soldier aiming his weapon upwards at something or someone.

The blog is well organized and has a number of good conventions. Some of these conventions include, but are not limited to things, such as hyperlinks, video, to eye capturing pictures. Some extremely useful conventions to navigate the blog easily are the hyperlinks located on the top center of the blog. The names of these links are, Home, The News, The Blog, Eat The Press, and Fearless Voices. These same links are also located on the very bottom of the page, which makes it convenient to navigate the blog up and down. Each one of the links takes the reader to another section of the blog, which have more news of some sort.

When comparing this blog to my own I noticed a limited amount of similarities. The only similarity that was noticed was that we both used hyperlinks in some way. My blog has hyperlinks that are located on the right side of the screen. The Huffington blog has its main hyperlinks on the top and bottom of the blog. Besides this minor similarity both blogs are extremely different. For example, my blog has a dark background with white lettering and only a few posts. The Huffington blog has over a hundred or more posts and has a white background with dark lettering. The Huffington blog also has a lot of different advertisements all around it, from the top to the sides of the blog. The advertisements are annoying and unwanted.

The one thing I believe the creator of the blog does exceptionally well is put photos together that are relevant to each article on the blog. This is the one thing that I would like to start including in my blog. Another thing that is done very well is how the blog is continuously being updated. For example, as I was writing this post the article mentioned earlier about the war on Iraq was replaced by an article about Presidency candidate, Hillary Clinton. This article also has a large photograph designed to capture the reader’s attention, just like the earlier article with the three photos. There are a lot of other things not mentioned that make the assigned blog, a great blog.