Blog VII

1) Post your favorite lyrics, poem, or quote for this week.

Favorite Quote: " I would sacrifice the strength and wisdom that i've gained, for the happiness that i spent to be better off." ---C. Uhazie

2) Develop two reflection questions that you would ask your students at this point in the course if you were a UN100 Professor.

Question 1: Have your goals changed since the beginning of your college career?
Question 2: Are you satisfied with the results of your classes over the course of the first semester?


3) What are you passionate about? Why?

I am passionate about my grades because I feel that if i can handle the workload i have this semester, i can handle what the real world has to offer. I like knowing that i can do well in these courses and have a chance at a 4.0 gpa.


4) How are you going to finance your three years of the Radiology program? If you will be in debt from student loans at the end, calculate roughly how much you will owe upon graduation?.

I'm going to use financial aid and grants from Michigan to pay for at least my first 2 years..and figure out what i'm going to do after that....hopefully move out west and take out a loan for my 4th year. I would have to guess that i would owe around $10,000 after school.


5) Have you changed your mind or do you have any new concerns about your program of study after our guest speakers today (Dr. Foley & Joanne)? Are you thinking of a different major or are you dead set on Radiology? What behavior(s) will you maybe have to change in order to keep up with and make the cut?

I have not changed my mind about the radiography program. I have dealt with people in the past and I feel that if i can volunteer at nursing homes to help the elderly, i should have no problem with helping cancer patients. I will have to keep studying and working hard towards the best grades possible (basically Anatomy i need to bring to an A) in order to keep myself in a great position to be accepted into the Radiography program.



6) FAST FOOD NATION (You should be reading through Chapter 7 at this point)Reflect upon the opening lines of Chapter 7:"You can smell Greeley, Colorado, long before you can see it. The smell is hard to forget but not easy to describe, a combination of live animals, manure, and dead animals being rendered into dog food."

I would have to say that i would hate driving through the town, smelling the foulest things possible. It is awful to suffer through the headaches caused by the smell and trying to sleep through the stench would be horrendous. It would get sickening and the factories are a hazard to human life.

-Have you ever read The Jungle by Upton Sinclair? If so, how does it relate to FFN?-How high is the employee turnover rate in the meat industry and why don't the packing plants see this as a problem?

I have not read "The Jungle" by Upton Sinclair, although I have heard about the book. It is terrible from the facts that i have heard in his book that actually take place in the meatpacking business. The employee turnover rate in the meat industry is 400%. They didn't see this as a problem because most of the employees are unskilled immigrants who work for cheap and are very disposable according to them. They are pretty much just numbers to the owners and can be replaced within months.

We discussed captive supplies of cattle versus regular farming. Reflect upon this quote from page 150:"To supply the beef slaughterhouse, ConAgra operates a pair of enormous feedlots. Each of them can hold up to one hundred thousand head of cattle..During the three months before slaughter, they eat grain..The grain fattens the cattle quickly, aided by the anabolic steroids implanted in their ear." -Do you think that these animals' emotions (fears, stress, anger) affect the meat we eat derived from them?

I really don't know if emotions would cause a noticeable difference in meat, however what they are doing with the cattle, is dispicable and steroids will change the chemical composition in meat causing those emotions to come about. It is harmful for people to consume tampered beef and something needs to be done to correct this major issue in the meat industry of the United States.

How?

I'm not entirely sure how the emotions would affect the meat, but I know the steroids would increase hormones changing the composition of the muscles and other parts of the cattle.

-How do you feel about eating steroids via consumption of "USDA Inspected" beef?

I cringe at the fact that we are eating manipulated chunks of flesh that may or may not be real by the time the beef is done going through every false flavor process that allows us to perceive the information provided to us is real. It is hard to know the truth, and it would be nice to know whether or not anything is real anymore....in the U.S.