The slogan to end my extra credit assignment is from Desmond Tutu, "You don't chose your family, they are God's gift to you, as you are to them."

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This picture depicts a dad teaching his son how to play baseball.  He is guiding him in the few basics that he knows from years of experience.  Even if the dad tells him something wrong mechanically with the baseball swing, it is all good nature.

When I looked back through my posts, the number one recurring theme was family.  I have been blessed with an amazing family.  My mom and dad do everything in their power to give me the best life possible.  They both experienced tough times financially when they were kids, but they have worked their whole life to never put that worry in me.  I have also been blessed with loving grandparents.  One set of grandparents were even willing to move from their home town of 50 years to me closer to my sister and me.  I cannot express how truly blessed I am.  There is no doubt in my mind that I am spoiled.  All the food that my grandparents give me and the countless hours of work and time spent with me given by my parents is incomparable.  I included baseball in this picture because this is an aspect that we all love and share with each other.  My grandma stayed up with me to 1 am to watch an all star game that went into extras.  I hope I can one day give back to them the same way Roberto Clemente gave back to his community.

Challenge Check-in 3
I decided to change my topic of the challenge essay to the Gothic Place option.  This is because I felt more time was going into finding a disney movie to watch than the essay.  I chose the Gothic Place option because I wanted to test my skills at describing feelings, something I have also never been good at.  This was very difficult for me to do.  I found myself trying to relive the situation in the dark room of the law library to get a more accurate description of the feelings.  I was feeling my way from wall to wall, walking with big uncertain steps, when a group for some gathering in the law school walked by.  I assumed these were alumni of the UF Law School.
As for my understanding of the gothic, I was amazed at how much the writing process refined my ideas of the gothic.  In my paper, I tried to first describe how I identify a gothic place, then describe my gothic space, and finally compare these two and show how my space fits into the gothic place.  In order to do this, I had to do some critical thinking into how I defined the gothic.

Proposal Problem Statement: Determining the correct punishment for Ray Rice

            On July 24, 2014, Ray Rice was handed a two game suspension from the National Football League for violation of its player conduct policy.  This is the result of a surveillance video from a casino in New Jersey arising last February.  The video shows Ray Rice dragging his unconscious wife out of an elevator after he beat her.  After the length of the suspension was released, controversy arose regarding its short length.  The mere two game suspension was compared to the recent Josh Gordon season-long (16 games) suspension for testing positive for marijuana.  Many believed that domestic abuse, especially to the extent of beating someone senseless, was much worse than smoking marijuana.  It is important to note that Josh Gordon was a two-time offender of the league’s drug policy.  However, it is still a minimum four game suspension for every first time offender to the drug policy, which includes marijuana.  Another comparable suspension involves the Oakland Raiders and former Ohio State quarterback Terrelle Prior.  Prior received a five game suspension from the NFL regarding allegations from his college years of signing memorabilia for money.  The third, and final, suspension to compare this allegation to involves the Richie Incognito of the Miami Dolphins situation.  Incognito was suspended for three months for the bullying of teammate Jonathan Martin.  It is questionable whether this situation was worse than Ray Rice’s domestic abuse case, but the much larger length of the suspension for Incognito is the important part.  Smoking marijuana and signing memorabilia for money while in college are certainly not considered as bad as domestic abuse.  Smoking marijuana and paying college athletes are rules that may be demolished by the United States government and the NCAA.  However, a man beating a woman is considered both immoral and appropriately illegal.  This is why there is so much controversy over Ray Rice’s two game suspension compared to previous longer, less immoral, suspensions.

Blog Post 4

A place I will always have a strong connection with is my Grandma’s house in Fort Myers.  This is the house they lived in before they moved up to my hometown, St. Petersburg, when I was 12.  Before their move, Grandma and Papa would see my family come down around 5 times a year.  While down there, everyone would get a haircut from one of our long time family friends, who is still the only hairdresser my mom lets cut her hair.  Also noteworthy, they would come up to St. Petersburg about every month.  Every time I saw them, they’d always have some treat for me.  Whether it was homemade cookies or a cold chocolate bar, this was their way of saying that they were looking forward to seeing me.  I’ll never forget the Fort Myers’ house because of all the memories I had there.  I always had a good time playing on the indoor toy bowling set or playing whiffle ball with the neighborhood kids.  That one oak tree stole many whiffle balls and Frisbees through its days.  My family would also always make rounds to various other family members if they could not stop by my grandma’s house.  Most of my family live down in that city because that is where both my parents are from.  

Problem thesis: Parents not vaccinating their children is a problem because it puts other children at risk
Practical solution: Require all kids to get vaccinated, don't let them play sports or go to school without vaccination record
Research: How many kids get sick because of lack of vaccination by either their parents choice or another unvaccinated kid gave it to them
Media: Make a campaign for parents to get their kid vaccinated

Challenge post check-in 2
I am currently reading Peter Pan in pursuit of finding the two best chapters to analyze.  I also plan on looking at some other disney works since I am not quite familiar with fairy tales as I should be.  I am also trying to figure out a way to watch the Disney movie version of these fairy tales for free.  However, I might be forced to bite the bullet and pay money for these fairy tale movies.  If I do this, I'll probably be willing to give the DVD away for free to anybody that requests or shows interest.