I Don’t Like Being Lied To

Let’s be honest, how many of us don’t like to be lied to but are scared to know the truth sometimes? Well, I am. It’s weird because I’ll be at a certain point where I really want to know the truth but I would rather be lied to. If you were to ask your partner or anyone an important question about your relationship or whatever the situation might be, aren’t you going to expect the truth the first time you ask not the second time? I would expect the truth the first time. Do you ever question why some people tell white lies while you’re having a regular conversation? I have. It’s weird because you’ll ask a simple question and you’ll get an answer but five minutes later you find out the person was lying. I believe in honesty. Honesty is very important to me because I would rather get hurt by the truth than to have plenty of lies told to me. A lot of people live a lie; they’ve had someone close to them like their parents lie to them about something that they should’ve found out a long time ago. That’s one way of ruining trust.

You put your trust into these people like family, friends, your partner or someone who’s trying to get to know you, to tell the truth the first time not the fifth or tenth time. I expect my family to tell me truth. That’s home and I’m expecting to trust them. Home to me in this situation means, the trust I have for those really close to me. I expect my friends to always tell me when I’m wrong, not let me believe my wrongs are right. I expect my partner to be honest throughout the whole relationship.

Life is based on reality not fiction unless you make it that way. It’s like being blind and not being able to see the world, you’ll just get to touch it. It’s also like living in a cave, you’re living in a cave like the prisoners in The Allegory of the Cave by Plato. The cave held prisoners who only saw shadows but had never seen the “real world”. The prisoners had mistaken shadows for reality. Once, the prisoner was released he’d see everything he had seen in the cave, get used to it, go back and tell the other prisoners but they wouldn’t believe him.

During the summer I met this guy who said he wanted to get to know me. The problem was that every time we met up he kept throwing little white lies. That was really the most annoying experience of my life. Do you want to know why? Of course you do. It was the most annoying experience of my life because that meant if he was lying about little tiny details that barely mattered, he’ll keep lying about things that do matter. So, after that experience I told him I’d rather be friends.

I don’t like being lied to that’s why I’m always honest. I don’t really care about telling the truth. So, if I’m telling you the truth when you ask me about something or whatever the case might be I will expect the same in return. I don’t like being untrustworthy and I rather still trust you than not to. It’s like having to question everything the person says to you, because of that lie they told the first time.

A few words can change your life

Stephen A. Bruno

English 200/ Professor Hill

“This I believe” Essay

21 September 2016

A Few Words Can Change Your Life

                    During my senior year in high school, I figured out what was meant when my track coach said very powerfully “Hard work beats talent when talent doesn’t work hard”. Those words to me mean that no matter how talented somebody is, Hard work will always prevail because you actually have to work for it, it’s never given to you.

               My beliefs are simple and stem straight from my coach’s wise words. That is that anything is possible to achieve once you start using words such as the ones I live my life by. Those are Motivation, Dedication, and Determination. Once words such as these are used as assets in your life; you won’t ever let something with true meaning to you slip away and given up on. You never truly lose sight of the goal big or small if it has true meaning to you and you definitely won’t lose grip of the future you so clearly see once you start to live by what you believe in.

              My beliefs weren’t always what they are now. The words dedication, motivation, and determination weren’t anything I saw clearly at a young age and until I cracked my wrist and damaged my back in my third football game of my senior year of high school football; I thought talent in the sport I loved would get me anywhere I needed to go. Well, let me tell you I was dead wrong and I was going to have to work hard for what I wanted to achieve in life.

             Starting with my health. Being big was all I ever knew in life and my position I played in football kind of called upon being an immovable object. A change in living arrangements soon after my injuries was the final straw for me. Watching what my uncle goes through, struggling with diabetes wasn’t anything I was looking forward to in life and weighing in at over 300 pounds it was the path I was ironically “Sprinting” towards.

              I say ironically because perhaps my greatest decision in life up to this point was joining my high school Track and Field team. Track not only gave me another chance to be somebody in life, but opened doors for me that I never saw coming. I was more Determined, dedicated, and especially motivated then anybody in my school and it was seen and awarded. I went from the 303-pound kid with nothing going for him to a 179 pound “Student Athlete” with nothing but a bright future. I lost 120 pounds within my final six months of high school and honestly can’t say that’s possible if I didn’t live my life by the words I stated above.

         I educated myself on everything health related and now am pursuing a degree in sport management to one-day help in a bigger way then just speaking.

           More often than not you hear people using these strong words as excuses. The best one being “I’m not motivated enough”. That’s just a sad way of saying no I like where I’m at. There is always room for improvement and nobody has the right to think otherwise. Nobody does by watching, one must go out and fight for greatness.

         One must learn to reevaluate their life before they can ever make improvements upon it. Adding a few strong words to your vocabulary will change your life tremendously, I am living proof that a few simple words can go along a way.

Be Their Voice When They Cant Be Their Own

Be Their Voice When They Can’t Be Their Own

            I believe that all animals should be treated humanely and should not be harmed. I believe that animals of all sorts don’t have a voice so you should give them one. I love all animals no matter if they are fat, ugly, old, young, dog, cat or any other species. They are all the same to me. I believe that you should always get an animal from your local pound. If you adopt from an online source instead, the dogs probably came from a puppy mill and their mothers are killed when they cannot breed anymore.  

            When you adopt from your local shelter at least you know more than if you were getting a dog from a mill.  There are about 10,000 puppy mills across the United States (By State).  You shouldn’t get a dog from a mill when there are about7.6 million dogs in shelters that need good and loving homes.

            Dogs today in puppy mills have very bad experiences including being put in overcrowded cages where they get very little food or water and there is no flooring so they’re always stepping on the crate which make it very painful for them to stand correctly once they get out of their cages. The majority of the mother dogs spend their whole lives in these crates creating new puppies constantly.   

            There are many health risks that come with a puppy that has been in the puppy mills. Some of these include heart disease, difficulty breathing, kidney disease, deafness, eye problems, epilepsy and musculoskeletal disorders (ASPCA).  The majority of these puppies have many behavioral issues which in the long run people don’t want because they want well- behaved dogs. Often the dogs are returned and they are killed to make room for other dogs that people are going to send back.

            When it comes to dogs that are put into shelters there are probably many different reasons.  Some of those reasons may be that their owners can’t take care of their pets anymore and they need to get rid of them or they might not be able to afford the vet bills. A person who owns a dog spends about 38,000 dollars to have a dog until they die.

            I believe that if you really want a dog, you should think about what you are doing and where it comes from.  Also, keep in mind that this dog may have different health risks and if so, can you afford all the vet appointments, treatments and medicine. Please, when you go home and you see your pet, just think  about where they came from and  if  it was the shelter or the kennel  remember that they can’t tell you what their life was like previously. When you go home later express love to your pet how they do to you.

A Voice for the Voiceless

A Voice for the Voiceless

When I was in high school, I always felt passionate about wanting to help animals and pursue a career in veterinary technology. Ever since college started, I realized how academically challenging this major is, but it will be worth it in the end. I also started to become a vegetarian at the age of 14 for certain health reasons along with believing that eating animal meat was wrong. I believe that creating awareness for abused animals will be helpful and gets people’s attention about the reality of it. Whenever I see helpless animals being dropped in shelters or pounds, I wish that there was something I could do about it, so they don’t end up getting put down if no one adopts them. I always feel so much joy being surrounded by these furry critters, and I just knew that this is exactly what I wanted to do.

Since I was a kid, my family and friends would call me an “animal magnet” because all the animals would just come right on up to me whenever I went on vacations or camping trips. In some of my high school classes, I chose to do projects that were about animal awareness. Some of them were the reality of how brutally humans treated the animals, such as cattle or pigs, before getting turned into meat. Doing the research for those projects made me realize how unhealthy and unsanitary the meat process really is, which is the reason I chose to become a vegetarian. When I did my first internship at an animal hospital back in Rochester, I saw firsthand of what being a veterinary technician is like. I enjoyed having the hands-on experience with the animals and being able to help them, along with learning a lot while I was there. Some of these hands-on experiences I had were basic stuff such as restraining the animal and giving their temperature.

I try to do what I believe is right for myself along with others around me. Sometimes I would go the extra mile to help out someone in need. I also believe in doing my best in school and getting good grades in all of my classes, no matter how difficult they are. Another thing I feel strongly about is becoming a better person on the inside and out. Doing what I feel passionate about, helping and working with animals, makes me believe that I am doing something right. 

For Friday September 30, Option #3

This story was published in a magazine called Tikkun, which, according to its website, is “a magazine dedicated to healing and transforming the world. We seek writing that gives us insight on how to make that utopian vision a reality. We build bridges between religious and secular progressives by delivering a forceful critique of all forms of exploitation, oppression, and domination while nurturing an interfaith vision of a caring society — one whose institutions are reconstructed on the basis of love, generosity, nonviolence, social justice, caring for nature, and awe and wonder at the grandeur of the universe.”  (Tikkun)  Why do you feel Tikkun published this story?  How might this story be “transformative”?  

For Friday September 30, Option #2

·       What is "Poor Thing" about?  Can you apply the meaning of this story to situations in the modern world?    This requires that you interpret the story, but also apply it to contemporary situations

For Friday September 30; Option #1

·       

Present a careful analysis of how Joyce Carol Oates wrote this story.  Why do you think the author chose to put it in first person?  Who is the narrator?  Who/what is Pepe?  Why does Joyce Carol Oates end this story as she does?  Why is this called “Poor Thing”?  What/who is the poor thing?