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.

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When I think of inspirational people, I think of people who care for others. No quality in a human being is more admirable than compassion for those people who are less fortunate. Being a baseball player, I naturally look up to outstanding baseball players. Very few baseball players cover both of these categories, none cover these two categories as well as Roberto Clemente. Roberto Clemente is by far the most philanthropic baseball player who has ever played the game, and he is also my idol. On the diamond, Roberto Clemente played right field, which he regularly showed off a stellar arm. Roberto Clemente was born in Puerto Rico, which has a baseball rich culture. Roberto loved the game from a young age, and fans could see his love for the game on the field. Roberto Clemente was a stalwart in the Pittsburg Pirates starting lineup for almost two decades, and was selected to the all star team an amazing twelve times. Roberto won multiple batting and fielding titles, and was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1973.  He was the first Latin player to reach the 3,000 career hit mark.  His 3,000 hit was his last regular season at bat. Even more impressive that his baseball accolades, is his care and compassion for others.  The most notable is the way he died.  Roberto Clemente died in a plane crash while on his way to help earthquake victims in Nicaragua.  Roberto Clemente's humility makes him a role model for everyone to live up to.  I hope I can one day have a fraction of the care and compassion for others as he did.;

Challenge post check-in 1
For my Challenge post, I am going to try and attempt doing the Dark Disney post.  I feel that this post combines the two things that I am not good at: reading and analyzing, and appreciating Disney.  I look forward to getting started on these twists of the well-known fairytales.

Blog Post 2
I am lucky to be close to both sets of my grandparents.  However, I must admit that I am closer to my mom’s parents, both geographically and emotionally.  They moved up to my hometown of St. Petersburg in my early teenage years because my sister and I were their last set of grandchildren.  They are the type of grandparents that believe the health of one person is directly proportional to the amount of food he or she eats.  I did reap some benefits from this way of thinking.  Everyday during my junior and senior year of high school, my grandpa would bring me take-out lunch.  He would always call the night before to take my lunch order.  The places included but were not limited to Cracker Barrel, Firehouse Sub, Chipotle, and Trip’s Diner.  As for my grandma, she would cook me breakfast every morning.  This breakfast usually consisted of grits, ham, eggs, toast, little smokies (sausage), and bacon.  She was not very happy if I did not feel like eating that morning.  For instance, there was a morning where I filled up on drinking milk and orange juice while waiting for her to finish cooking.  When it came time to eat, my stomach just dropped because I knew I could not make a dent in the mountain of food before me.  She then proceeded to guilt trip me saying, “you don’t like my cooking?” and “come on, a growing boy needs more than that; that’s ridiculous.”  I ate so much that I threw up.  However, this solved the problem since I could go back and eat more.  To this day, I still make fun of her for this story, but I believe it was an important experience to me.  I think it taught me to trust my instinct of what to do, even if someone who seems to know better is persuading me to act differently. 

Post One

Being the son of two doctors, it would be natural for me to become a doctor.  However, I was never quite sure that this is what I wanted to be.  The biggest fear in my mind is that I couldn't make it.  I was afraid I would have to stay up to all hours of the night, every night, studying and memorizing material.  If I would say that I wanted to be a doctor when I grew up, the response was, "see you in 12 years," joking that I would never have a life.  I also feared being responsible for a life.  The thought that one missed concept in medical school could result in someone dying because I made the wrong diagnosis put too much weight on my shoulders.  Having that two letter abbreviation in front of my name, immediately identifying me as one of the intelligent members of society, was something I would never deserve.  My dad putting a picture of a brain from his last surgery only reminded me that one mistake could ruin a person's life.
As much as I love my dad, I would not have been friends with him if we went to school together.  Back then, he was a know-it-all, arrogant, cocky, obnoxious; he would get to class early and sit at the front corner seat by the door so he could try and talk to every girl that walked in.  He thought he was the whole package.  However, when it came to academics, he could back it up.  He graduated as valid victorian despite having to be a bee keeper to make money for his family.  His freshman year at the University of Florida, he took a nineteen credit course load, rather than the usual 12-16.  He told his worried academic advisor that he could handle it and did not need his help.  He got all A's.  This is the type of person who should be a doctor.  Someone who is just naturally smart and loves learning.  I was not this person.  However, one rainy thursday night changed my perspective.
My dad and I were in the kitchen.  We were washing the dishes after dinner.  My mom had cooked, so she left the clean up to us.  The lights were out because he accidentally hit the switch putting a pot away.  During our casual conversation about my future, five words put my fears of becoming a doctor aside: "you really could do it."  This may not seem like much, but that was the confidence I needed to give this career path a shot.