03 December 2009- Blog

College Composition 111 was not at all the class I expected. Hundreds of writing assignments, overly critical grammar-focused professors and boring lectures was how I envisioned the course. This was not how my first college level English course revealed itself. The amount of actual graded writing was amazingly few, the instructor Paul Gasparo was very knowledgeable but less than focused and the classes were often too lively to effectively achieve true learning.

Maybe because I waited so long to attend college or maybe because of horror stories friends told, apprehension filled my guts when thinking of English 111. Frantically typing trying to finish a twenty page paper every week is the way the course looked in my mind. This image is the furthest from actuality that I possibly could have created. With a total of ten graded writing assignments and only one with a length exceeding one thousand words, I truly had nothing to worry about.

With only ten graded writing assignments I actually feel cheated by this class. The amount of assignments did not allow me to develop my writing skills during this semester. If twenty papers are graded and each paper quality checked by a professor, a pattern of development would be apparent. Having only ten papers to review, I feel that no marked improvement is visible.

With at least ten assignments each from over forty students, my instructor Paul Gasparo is always busy. Too add to that work, Paul developed an extensive list of thought provoking out-of-course material, maintains class assignments on Blackboard, moderates a class discussion forum, attends classes to improve his online teaching and also works at the Tidewater Community College Online Writing Lab. His plate is overly full.

This “fullness” might affect the flow of our class learning. In my opinion Paul is an excellent teacher. His lessons are created to bolster a sense of independence in the students and understand our individual creative writing process. In the effort to incorporate as much creative learning as possible sometimes we only glaze over important fundamental concepts. As Paul is learning of new methods and ideas, they are being incorporated into our lessons. While this is an attempt to help energize our learning, often our lessons seem scattered and rarely are all of the students on the same page.

The students in Paul Gasparo’s 111-60 College Composition course are extremely varied: short, tall, skinny, fat, black, white, tan, young, old, quiet, loud, pleasant and overly obnoxious. These are just some of the traits of my classmates. Growing up in a diverse city I learned to coexist peacefully with nearly all types of people. This aided my transition into the military, the most culturally diverse environment I ever belonged to. Nothing could have totally prepared me for this class. Every week I looked forward to the new lesson but not learning it with my classmates.

Most people are taught that learning is a privilege and everyone should give respect to your teacher for allowing you that privilege. I doubt many in this class learned that lesson. Talking back to a teacher, interrupting a teacher or other students and refusing to listen to instructions were common place all semester. My classmates have taught me that a mob mentality can be completely infectious and I have joined in with their commotion. For those times I apologize to Paul and all of my classmates. My parents and former teachers taught me better classroom etiquette and would have been ashamed to watch a single class.

As this semester nears the climax I realize that this class taught me many things that will assist me throughout my higher education. Understanding the course workload in advance caused me to seek other people to review and critique my writing. Having a teacher offer as much information from all available sources, has allowed me to better understand my capacity for research. My classmates taught me learning should be done in quiet and I should not add to their noise. Though this class was not perfect I am glad that I attended and I would recommend that only independent learners enroll in the future.

Revised Diagnostic Essay- 1 December 2009

Sightseeing for Money
The power of teleportation opens up multiple avenues for personal gain. I plan to become wealthy by working as an assassin and saboteur. I will accomplish this goal by performing strategic assassinations and thefts to manipulate world politics and business for profit.

I remember the morning I was granted my powers. I awoke and found myself standing before the downstairs toilet. Moments ago, I was under the covers. After relieving myself, I appeared under the bed sheets again. I inherited the ability of teleportation overnight; I needed to carefully contemplate how to use it.

Teleportation to anywhere in the world lends itself to the profession of contract killing. Governments pay large sums of money to have terrorist leaders, ruthless dictators, and dangerous warlords eliminated without incident. I now possess the talent to topple threatening foreign powers within minutes and without ever having an American soldier set foot on foreign soil. Instead of the military taking months to mobilize and deploy a taskforce to deal with a potential threat, I could carry out an assassination quickly and single handedly. One intelligence briefing encompasses all I need before appearing behind the leader and eliminating him. A debriefing would take longer to complete than the actual operation through the use of teleportation. The government would have no problem paying me the required sum for my actions. My special ability potentially saves countless lives, millions of dollars from the military budget, and is completed in hours instead of months.

In the business world, my powers benefit competing companies by gaining the upper hand in contract dealings and destroying rival companies. Instead of two computer software companies fighting to complete a similar application and introduce it to the public; it would be much simpler to have one company’s product and raw data destroyed entirely. If a company released new computers that have one hundred times the processing capabilities of any other product on the market today, other manufacturers would love to get their hands on that new technology. My capabilities allow competitors to gain access to that information. What would happen to a fast food chain if all of its beef patties tested positive for E. Coli bacteria? Would alcohol companies crumble if their recipes for beer and liquor were stolen and released to the public for free? Too many possibilities abound to list. These feats would prove simple to an individual who possessed the ability to teleport anywhere.

In my first attempt as an assassin, I found government jobs may also provide humanitarian relief. I secured my first contract with incredible ease. After impressing the president by teleporting into the oval office, he immediately offered me work. My first mark was Khashi Tarbul, tribal warlord in Somalia. Tarbul was personally responsible for thousands of deaths. His regime controlled the food and medical supplies for the entire northern region of Somalia.

Somalia is not exactly a dream destination, but, fortunately, the Central Intelligence Agency collected extremely detailed photos and maps of the entire country. The president himself handed me a very thick folder containing all of Tarbuls’ personal. He said, “If you are able to eliminate this man, our country will be in your debt.” “If I eliminate this man, a payment of one million dollars will teleport into my bank account.” I countered. I was pleasantly surprised when he started laughing and flashed me the “thumbs-up”.

At home, I readied myself for the assignment. After studying the folder, arming myself with a Glock 23 handgun, and donning a Superman costume, I was ready for action. The folder of photos included Tarbuls bedroom with several views of the supply depot. The bedroom should serve for the location of the hit. “Why the costume?” someone usually asks. The Superman costume was the only superhero outfit in my closet, but later I replaced it with a custom made suit.

Waiting until midnight in Somalia to teleport, tested my willpower. The plan hinged on Tarbul sleeping in the bedroom, so waiting played a part in the course of action. The hours seemed to drag until the time finally arrived.

Apparently, bedrooms in Somalia smell like a mixture of curry and camel urine. I was nearly knocked off my feet when assaulted by the pungent odor upon my arrival. Tarbul however, was knocked down by my sudden appearance.

I succumbed to neither fear nor hesitation that night. His pleas for mercy were incomprehensible and sounded many miles away. Anger filled my body as I watched that genocidal maniac soil his pajamas in terror. Tarbul understood his imminent death.

Finishing the former warlord, I teleported to the supply depot. The supplies Tarbul hoarded would save entire villages from starvation and sickness. I distributed supplies to the poor even though it was not part of my assignment. I worked until the depot was empty by teleporting truck loads of supplies to surrounding villages.

Watching the nightly newscast the following day, I was pleased to see my exploits covered in great length. A coup occurred, resulting in the death of Kashi Tarbul and the ransack of his supply depots. The reporter made no mention of an assassin, according to plan. After checking my bank account balance, the pleased feeling evolved into sheer delight.

Working for the government as an independent contractor could make me a wealthy man in a short time. Thinking of interesting and creative ways to use my powers for monetary gain provides the real challenge. Using teleportation, I could change the face of politics and business on a global scale and become rich in the process.