I've been putting this post off for several days now because I just wasn't sure how to start it. But now I think I do.
I'm in high school. And sometimes, high school can get really tough and the teachers always tell you to do your best and show quality work. But my question is this. What is quality? What the hell is quality?! There are nineteen different definitions of quality. And because of those nineteen different definitions, an actual definition of quality can't be found. It would be like closing your eyes, running your finger up and down the numbers, picking one blindly and saying "Yep, that's quality!". It just doesn't work that way.
Quality can't be defined by one single thing, because there's too many things that are pegged to quality. In my AP English class at school I recently read an excerpt from a fictional and philosophical book called Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry into Values written by Robert M. Pirsig in 1974. The author, Pirsig, makes his main character reflect on a hiking trip he took with his son. In those couple of paragraphs I remember something that the character said about the mountain that he and his son were going to climb and all the different ways of getting through the mountain.
Pirsig writes about the mountain and how "For more than three centuries now the old routes common in this hemisphere have been undercut and almost washed out by the natural erosion and change of the shape of the mountain wrought by scientific truth. The early climbers established paths that were on firm ground with an accessibility that appealed to all, but today the Western routes are all but closed because of dogmatic inflexibility in the face of change."
The way Pirsig writes about the mountain and all its different paths is how I think of quality. Quality has so many definitions to its name that nobody really knows how to comprehend what quality actually is. Quality doesn't hold the same meaning to me as it does to anyone who reads this post. Just like forming new paths in the mountain, quality has a different feeling and different definition to each and every person. Quality doesn't have a solid definition and maybe that's why kids at school get frustrated when they're told to produce quality work. Because they don't know what quality work is. But maybe having no solid definition will make people stop and think about what they are going to do with their life.
But that is something that I haven't quite figured out yet.
Friday, February 3, 2012
Thursday, January 26, 2012
Finals Week
I've Finals Week this past week and this is an essay that I wrote for my American Studies class. We had to write about Franklin Delano Roosevelt's New Deal Program and whether or not it was effective in helping America and how the role that the federal government played inproved or not. I am quite proud of it. Here it is:
In the year 1929 the stock market in New York City crashed and millions of dollars were lost. After the crash, the people of America were understandably frightened and they were looking to President Hoover for help. He helped as much as he could, but the people kept demanding for more and more resources. American’s were almost at their wits end when a new President was elected. Franklin Delano Roosevelt was elected in 1933 and soon after he moved into the Whitehouse, he started to implement plans to help America get out of its slump. Not only did these plans become known as The New Deal and they helped America get back on its feet, they also changed the role the federal government played.
Before FDR was elected President, as stated above, the stock market crashed. This shows that the federal government took more of a “hands off” approach in how they dealt with businesses and people’s lives in general. Because the federal government did not oversee those businesses as good as they should have, those businesses in turn helped to fill the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) with their money. When the NYSE crashed, all of that money was lost and those businesses were going out of business and were more than likely filing for bankruptcy. Businesses’ filing for bankruptcy does not reflect the federal government in a good way. The federal government should’ve been overseeing those businesses a lot better but they weren’t.
Due to businesses closing down, there were a lot of American’s that couldn’t find work. Before President Roosevelt got elected in 1933, there were approximately twelve million people that weren’t farmers that were unemployed. That is quite a large number. But as soon as he started implementing his New Deal strategies, the unemployment started going down and by 1937 the amount of workers that were unemployed reached approximately seven million. The unemployment rose for a bit for a year before it continued to fall dramatically. Between the years 1943 and 1945, America had seen its lowest unemployment rate ever since the stock market crashed: between six thousand and one point five million people were still unemployed. That is quite a drop from the twelve million people that were unemployed when Roosevelt became president in 1933. The number of people that were still jobless by 1945 proved that the New Deal strategies that Roosevelt had implemented were doing their job in helping America get back on its feet.
Although the President before Roosevelt, Herbert Hoover, had the ideas to start the Civilian Conservation Corp, also known as the CCC, it was FDR who came up with the resources to make it actually happen. The CCC provided millions of jobs to young men to make trails in state and national parks and to re-plant trees. The jobs that the CCC provided helped those young men prepare for the future and what was to come.
Another thing that seemed futuristic and some critics called it “militaristic”, was the introduction of Social Security (SS) Numbers. SS numbers were given to each person that applied for a job. With these SS numbers, the federal government kept tabs on the money that got taken out of each workers pay-day. Every year the federal government would look at the workers work history and when it came time to retire, the government would look at all of a persons work history to decide how much money they would get back from the government. It took several years to get the kinks out of this program and it took even more years to give a SS number to a person once they were born instead of when they applied for a job.
Over the span of sixteen years the role that the federal government played improved greatly. Some people appreciated the involvement of the government, some thought the govt. was becoming too involved, and others still wanted more help. The govt. was becoming more and more involved in people’s lives and businesses, both big and small, which is what they should’ve done in the very beginning. The New Deal strategies that President Franklin Delano Roosevelt implemented all those years ago improved America, albeit slowly. So much improvement came to America that some of the New Deal parts still exist today!
In the year 1929 the stock market in New York City crashed and millions of dollars were lost. After the crash, the people of America were understandably frightened and they were looking to President Hoover for help. He helped as much as he could, but the people kept demanding for more and more resources. American’s were almost at their wits end when a new President was elected. Franklin Delano Roosevelt was elected in 1933 and soon after he moved into the Whitehouse, he started to implement plans to help America get out of its slump. Not only did these plans become known as The New Deal and they helped America get back on its feet, they also changed the role the federal government played.
Before FDR was elected President, as stated above, the stock market crashed. This shows that the federal government took more of a “hands off” approach in how they dealt with businesses and people’s lives in general. Because the federal government did not oversee those businesses as good as they should have, those businesses in turn helped to fill the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) with their money. When the NYSE crashed, all of that money was lost and those businesses were going out of business and were more than likely filing for bankruptcy. Businesses’ filing for bankruptcy does not reflect the federal government in a good way. The federal government should’ve been overseeing those businesses a lot better but they weren’t.
Due to businesses closing down, there were a lot of American’s that couldn’t find work. Before President Roosevelt got elected in 1933, there were approximately twelve million people that weren’t farmers that were unemployed. That is quite a large number. But as soon as he started implementing his New Deal strategies, the unemployment started going down and by 1937 the amount of workers that were unemployed reached approximately seven million. The unemployment rose for a bit for a year before it continued to fall dramatically. Between the years 1943 and 1945, America had seen its lowest unemployment rate ever since the stock market crashed: between six thousand and one point five million people were still unemployed. That is quite a drop from the twelve million people that were unemployed when Roosevelt became president in 1933. The number of people that were still jobless by 1945 proved that the New Deal strategies that Roosevelt had implemented were doing their job in helping America get back on its feet.
Although the President before Roosevelt, Herbert Hoover, had the ideas to start the Civilian Conservation Corp, also known as the CCC, it was FDR who came up with the resources to make it actually happen. The CCC provided millions of jobs to young men to make trails in state and national parks and to re-plant trees. The jobs that the CCC provided helped those young men prepare for the future and what was to come.
Another thing that seemed futuristic and some critics called it “militaristic”, was the introduction of Social Security (SS) Numbers. SS numbers were given to each person that applied for a job. With these SS numbers, the federal government kept tabs on the money that got taken out of each workers pay-day. Every year the federal government would look at the workers work history and when it came time to retire, the government would look at all of a persons work history to decide how much money they would get back from the government. It took several years to get the kinks out of this program and it took even more years to give a SS number to a person once they were born instead of when they applied for a job.
Over the span of sixteen years the role that the federal government played improved greatly. Some people appreciated the involvement of the government, some thought the govt. was becoming too involved, and others still wanted more help. The govt. was becoming more and more involved in people’s lives and businesses, both big and small, which is what they should’ve done in the very beginning. The New Deal strategies that President Franklin Delano Roosevelt implemented all those years ago improved America, albeit slowly. So much improvement came to America that some of the New Deal parts still exist today!
Tuesday, January 17, 2012
That's a Wrap!
Ok I think these are the last pics of my Summer 2011 Vacation that I will put on cuz they are the best and some of my favorites ♥
AND I'M TERRIBLY SORRY FOR BEING SO SLOW AT POSTING THESE!
AND I'M TERRIBLY SORRY FOR BEING SO SLOW AT POSTING THESE!
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| Me sittin at a bench while the pretty sun sets |
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| This is beautiful |
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| Snow in the Mountain on the way home! Incredible! |
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| A kite in the sky |
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| Black and white of Cape Meares Lighthouse |
Wednesday, September 21, 2011
Down Memory Lane
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The last time I was here there was a bench...but not anymore. But I still like this picture too |
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| Overhead view of Arcadia Beach |
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| A really old house! |
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| Some more mussel things |
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| I was requested to put this one on here...so here ya go |
Sunday, September 18, 2011
More Pictures!!
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| Reflection and People |
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| Cape Meares Light House~Black&White |
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| Sun in the Corner |
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| The Octopus Tree! |
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| Macro of Barnacles~Arcadia Beach, Or |
Monday, September 12, 2011
More Summer Vaca Pics
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| My new friend!! |
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| My little crab friend!! |
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| Some waves |
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| Another shot of Haystack Rock in Cannon Beach, Or. My Fav:) |
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| A Beautiful Sunset |
Saturday, September 10, 2011
An Adventure without Words...well mabybe a few
Ok guys, I'm sorry that I didn't start putting pictures on here last night, but I was tired after school. And my eyes burned from whatever crap is out in the yard and I had a killer head-ache. But that's no excuse. So here, today, I will start putting those pictures on. Here's the first five:
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| Haystack Rock in Cannon Beach, Oregon |
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| A different shot of The Rock |
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| Some grasses...the dunes |
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| Twin Rocks in Rockaway Beach, Or. (aka the lochness monster) |
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| Reflections |
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