Observation Paper (first draft)

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Tara Link

English 1010

Haley Stokes

1 February

Taco Bell

Its a Saturday night and like always my husband,Riley, is working. He is a shift manager at Taco Bell on Saturday and Sunday nights. I decided that for my observation I would visit him and observe everything that goes on at Taco Bell. I wanted to know what kind of people go there, especially past mid night.

I got to Taco Bell at around 11, it was way busy. It was going to be a great night to observe. There were a total of four employees working that night. My husband, an older lady named Angela, and two teenagers, Oscar and Brad. It was Angela’s second day so Riley was really helping her and still training her. Brad and Oscar were both making the food while Riley was training Angela to take orders.

I wasn’t able to observe the drive-thru very well so I mostly just sat in the lobby and observed. At around 11:30 an older man came in and went straight to the restroom. He then came into the restaurant and ordered a few items. After that he went to his table and sat by himself, started to read a book and eat. I looked away and started to observe the other customers that were in the lobby. I looked back at him ten minutes later and he was completely passed out on the table. His drink was spilled, so he was laying face down in his soda with a half eaten taco right under his face. I was super shocked by this so I ran to get my husband, Riley. He came out and tried to

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wake the man up, he didn’t move. Riley was really busy so he just decided to let him be for a little while.

The next people I’m going to write about was this huge family with a ton of kids. I tried counting but there was just too many of them running around the entire store. They ordered over $60 of food. Surprisingly it didn’t take too long for them to get all of their food. The parents didn’t do anything. All of the kids were just sitting at different tables and eating very sloppy. They were there for about 45 minutes before finally leaving. When they left the whole lobby was completely destroyed. Riley was so happy that they finally left.

After this crazy family left I decided to go behind the counter and listen in on the head phones, where you can hear people ordering their food. I can say it would be very difficult to do fast food. Because of the wind, and the cars driving by it can be very hard to hear sometimes. The Drive-thru was busy all night long. There was never a break in the cars at all. The workers had no time at all for any breaks or anything they were just trying to keep up with all of the massive orders they were receiving. Then Lobby was closed and locked by 1:oo am. but that doesn’t mean the drive-thru stops. It was really busy all night. The best part of the night was when a man drove through the drive thru, got to the window, and then said

“uh..never mind I don’t want my food anymore.”

He then put his car in reverse and backed up, hitting the car behind him pretty good. I could see and hear the whole thing happen. The guy that go hit then got out of the car threw his hands in the air and said

“ What the fuck man, seriously who goes in reverse in a drive-thru?”

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The other man was then yelling back in a panicked voice

“Calm down man, calm down.”

You man not think this is funny, especially for the two men in the accident, but I on the other hand was busting up laughing. I could hardly catch my breath.

It was a very interesting night at Taco bell, it may be sad to say this, but I think I may go hang out there more often. By the end of the night all the employees were super tired, and were very grateful to finally be going home. And in my conclusion there are some pretty interesting people that visit taco bell late at night.

Reflection Paper (second draft)

Link 1

Tara Link

English 1010

Haley Stokes

24 January

Close Call

It was in the middle of winter on a Friday night when my friends and I decided to have a sleepover at Haley’s house. Having a sleepover is the best way to cause lots of trouble (which we were good at). Kalie, Erin, Ashley, and I all slept over at Haley’s house. Haley’s three brothers Dane, Dillan, and Brennon stayed with us all night. We all decided that we wanted to go toilet papering that night. Haley’s three little brothers offered to pay for the toilet paper if we just let them come with us. We thought this was a good idea so they came along.

The next thing to do was decide who we wanted to toilet paper. We decided on three people that we all wanted to do. The first was another friend of ours who we all liked to pick on a ton. The second was a boy that my friend Haley thought was cute. The third person we decided to toilet paper lived just down the street from Haley.

We all went to the basement and pretended to be asleep so that we could sneak out. Sneaking out was a thrill in it self, the butterflies I get in my stomach before I do something exciting, and scary is the best feeling. The second we were out of the house the chill of the air caught my breath, and looking around you could see all the white fog coming from our mouths. The smell was fresh and crisp, were pumped and ready to go. We went and did the first and second house and we did a great job. We destroyed their

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houses and still had a lot of toilet paper left. Just one more to go before heading back for home.

Finally we were on our third and final house. I couldn’t wait to get started. I love the feel of throwing the toilet paper up in the air over a tree, and hearing the light rustle as it falls back to the ground. We were just about out of toilet paper, because it was all over their trees and everything else in their yard, when a car pulled up and shined their lights on us, and honked a few times. My stomach about jumped up my throat, as my heart started to race. We just thought that they were trying to scare us so we all just hid quickly. My friend haley rolled under a car, while I jumped behind a bush. My friend Erin on the other hand just stood there shaking saying “what do I do? what do I do?”. She eventually hid behind a bush by me. After about five minutes had passed the car was still there. We started to get scared, and we knew we had to get out of there. We were all signaling, and whispering to each other, and we finally decided to go through backyards, and make our way back to Haley’s house. We all finally got there and we realized that we had locked ourselves out when we snuck out earlier.

We didn’t know what we were going to do but we were all grateful that we got away from that car. We were all sitting in the backyard thinking of ways to get inside without getting caught when the car drove by and saw us. The car then turned around and shined their lights on us again. We all hid quickly again. We didn’t know what to do but we didn’t like that car. We started to make snowballs and we threw them at the car. While we were throwing snowballs we could hear sirens. They had called the cops on us. At that point I’m pretty sure all my friends could hear my heart beat quicken. Right

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then we could see the red and blue lights and thats when we really freaked out. We were locked out and we didn’t know what to do.

We finally decided at the last moment to try to stuff Haley’s little brother through the little doggy door that they had. We had to all push on his feet as hard as we could, and he finally slid through. We got inside just before the police pulled up. We were watching from the windows to find out what was going on. The police were wandering all around the house with their flashlights looking for us, and yet I wasn’t scared anymore, I was excited, and relieved. After almost ten minutes of searching they rang the door bell. We all ran down to the basement and pretended to be asleep immediately. Haley’s mother woke up to the doorbell and answered the door.

The police officer had found some of the toilet paper that we had left behind and asked her “Is this your brand Ma’am.” Once she was out of shock she answered him “I don’t think so. Why?” He then asked if we were all sleeping over and she told him we were. Then she came down stairs to check on us and see if we were asleep. She told the officers that we were all asleep. As soon as the cops left we all came up laughing. Her mom found out later that morning that it was us but to our surprise she wasn’t angry.

My friends and I used to always get into trouble but we were just kids trying to have some fun. Our friendship grew stronger and we gained more trust between each other during our close calls. We did everything together and we will always be close friends because of all of the times we have had together.

Reflection Paper (first draft)

Link 1

Tara Link

English 1010

Haley Stokes

24 January

Close Call

When I was a teenager my friends and I were trouble makers. Every weekend we would get together and think of something to do. As time went by it became a little harder to come up with ideas. This made it even more fun. We did pretty much everything together and we rarely got caught, but we had a few close calls.

It was in the middle of winter on a Friday night when my friends and I decided to have a sleepover at Haley’s house. Having a sleepover is the best way to cause lots of trouble. Kalie, Erin, Ashley, and I all slept over at Haley’s house. Haley’s three brothers Dane, Dillan, and Brennon stayed with us all night. We all decided that we wanted to go toilet papering that night. Haley’s three little brothers offered to pay for the toilet paper if we just let them come with us. We thought this was a good idea so they came along.

We went to Walmart to buy some toilet paper, because it is cheap there, and since his little brothers were paying we got a ton. The next thing to do was decide who we wanted to toilet paper. We decided on three people that we all wanted to do. The first was another friend of ours who we all liked to pick on a ton. The second was a boy that my friend Haley thought was cute. The third person we decided to toilet paper lived just down the street from Haley. A boy lived there that we were all friends with and he

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had a younger sister our age. We didn’t dislike any of them we just thought it would be fun.

We all went to the basement and pretended to be asleep so that we could sneak out. We went and did the first and second house and we did a great job. We destroyed their houses and still had a lot of toilet paper left. Just one more to go before heading back for home.

Finally we were on our third and final house. We were just about out of toilet paper, because it was all over their trees and everything else in their yard, when a car pulled up and shined their lights on us and honked a few times. We just thought that they were trying to scare us so we all just hid quickly. After about five minutes had passed the car was still there. We started to get scared and we knew we had to get out of there. We were all signaling and whispering to each other and we finally decided to go through backyards and make our way back to Haley’s house. We all finally got there and we realized that we had locked ourselves out when we snuck out earlier.

We didn’t know what we were going to do but we were all grateful that we got away from that car. We were all sitting in the backyard thinking of ways to get inside without getting caught when the car drove by and saw us. The car then turned around and shined their lights on us again. We all hid quickly again. We didn’t know what to do but we didn’t like that car. We started to make snowballs and we threw them at the car. While we were throwing snowballs we could hear sirens. They had called the cops on us. Right then we could see the red and blue lights and thats when we really freaked out. We were locked out and we didn’t know what to do.

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We finally decided at the last moment to try to stuff Haley’s little brother through the little doggy door that they had. We had to all push on his feet as hard as we could

and he finally slid through. We got inside just before the police pulled up. We were watching from the windows to find out what was going on. The police were wandering all around the house with their flashlights looking for us. After almost ten minutes of searching they rang the door bell. We all ran down to the basement and pretended to be asleep immediately. Haley’s mother woke up to the doorbell and answered the door.

The police officer had found some of the toilet paper that we had left behind and asked her “Is this your brand Ma’am.” Once she was out of shock she answered him “I don’t think so. Why?” He then asked if we were all sleeping over and she told him we were. Then she came down stairs to check on us and see if we were asleep. She told the officers that we were all asleep. As soon as the cops left we all came up laughing. His mom found out later that morning that it was us but to our surprise she wasn’t angry.

My friends and I used to always get into trouble but we were just kids trying to have some fun. Our friendship grew stronger and we gained more trust between each other during our close calls. We did everything together and we will always be close friends because of all of the times we have had together.

Fallacies

Tara Link

English 1010

Haley Stokes

1/21/10

Fallacies

1. Begging the Question: All teachers are smart, because no stupid person could become a teacher.

2. Either-or: Either you get your grades up in school or else you will never graduate.

3. False analogies: I cheated on one test and didn’t get caught, and got a good grade. I should cheat on all my tests.

4. Hasty generalization: I have been underweight for 7 years; thats a sure sign of malnutrition

5. Non sequitur: A rich man that can raise a bunch of money for the homeless should not have to do it at all.

6. Oversimplification: No one would steal if we had a mandatory death penalty for doing it.

7. Post hoc fallacy: The pregnant women get depression after birth therefore the baby suffers.

8. Rationalization: I could have been on time this morning if my alarm wouldn’t have broke

9. Slippery slope: We shouldn’t let students have off campus lunches because they will get into trouble.

10. Bandwagon appeals: It doesn’t matter if I cheat, everyone else is doing it.

11. Name calling: Like calling a marine a “jar head”

12. Polarization: All LDS people are against gay rights.

13. Straw man: Vegetarians won’t be satisfied until not a single human being is allowed to eat meat.

Mother Tongue (Analyzing and Connecting)

Tara Link

English 1010

Haley Stokes

1/14/10

Mother Tongue (Analyzing and Connecting)

1. Tans attitude toward her mother changed from being ashamed of her, because of the way people treated her differently, and the way in which her mothers english could have almost had an effect on limiting Tans possibilities in life to... being more understanding of her mothers “broken” english. I believe her mother inspired her to write the way she did, so that people like her mother would be able to read it and understand it.

2. She explains how her mother is always judged because of her “broken” or “limited” english, and how it affects how people treat her, like at department stores, at banks, at restaurants, and other places like that. She give some great examples, the one I remember most is the hospital story. Her mother had had a CAT scan done that revealed a benign brain tumor, when she went to the hospital to find out more about it, they informed her that they had lost the CAT scan. Her mother using her best english tried to explain that her husband and son both died of brain tumors, and she wanted to know her diagnosis, the hospital showed no sympathy, and did not apologize once, but instead told her she would have to wait and make another appointment. Her mother then told them that they needed to call her daughter (Tan). Once they spoke to Tan, who spoke perfect english they told her how sorry they were for the mistake and made promises to fix it.

3. I believe it was important because she had a interest in language, and she wanted to be good at what she did, she also didn’t want to be like others and just go into math, accounting, or engineering. She was rebellious and stuck it out with writing. It was also so important because that is how she was able to write a book that people would understand better, and one that her mother understood.

4. I think imaging a reader is important because you need to know who your writing for, who is going to be reading your book, and if you have an idea of that, it is easier to write something. Something good that people will want to read. It is also important to understand how her mothers english is, and so by imagining her mother as a reader she was able to create a book that her mother was able to understand, and like.

Mother Tongue (Summary)

Tara Link

English 1010

Haley Stokes

1/15/10

Mother Tongue (Summary)

This story is about a young Chinese-American, who grows up speaking Chinese and English (many different forms of English). She talks about how not being able to speak english can create some real difficulties. She tells stories about how her mother spoke, what she calls “broken” english, and how it affected her everyday life, as well as her daughters. At first she was ashamed of her mothers english, and that if reflected the quality of what her mother was trying to say. Towards the end of the story I feel like her attitude changes, and she becomes inspired by her mother, and started writing things not in english, or chinese per-say, but in a way that showed passion, imagery, the rhythms of her mothers speech, and the nature of her mothers thoughts. She knew she had succeeded when her mother finished reading the book and said “So easy to read.”

Let It Snow (Summary)

Tara Link

English 1010

Haley Stokes

1/13/10

Let It Snow (summary)

After reading this short story, I was glad to hear that none of the kids were really hurt, and that the mother finally came to get them. This story seems to be about a family with some problems. The father is most likely a workaholic, and goes to work to escape from his wife, and family. The mother has a drinking issue, which she probably does to escape from her everyday life, and the children are caught in the middle. This family may have problems, but it seems even after being kicked out of the house by their mother, in the end they are able to come together again.

Let It Snow (Analyzing and Connecting)

Tara Link

English 1010

Haley Stokes

1/13/10

Let It Snow (Analyzing and Connecting)

1. The snowstorm focuses Sedaris’s story because it was because of the snowstorm that their mom kicked them out. She lead a secret life while they were at school, and because of the snowstorm school was cancelled. The mom finally had a break down and kicked the kids out.

2. I believe the adult narrator feels guilty about it now. He probably understands now that, that would not have been the perfect solution, it would have caused even more problems. Yes I believe there are clues that show that the narrator feels differently about it now. One being how in the story he says “Amy in turn, pushed it off onto Tiffany, who was the youngest and had no concept of death”. To me its like he is trying to justify why they had Tiffany do it, by saying “well she had no concept of death anyways.” The main clue that he gives though is when he says “Poor Tiffany. She’d do just about anything in return for a little affection.... Her eagerness to please was absolute and naked.” By saying that I think it shows how he feels differently now.

3. I do not believe this story would have been as effective with out the humor in it. With out the humor the story would have been boring, and sad. The humor also helps the reader want to continue reading it. I personally would not have wanted to continue from one paragraph to the next if it didn’t have the humor.

4. Every family fights, but in the end they stick it out together and they go back to the house being a family. Even all the mother did to the kids, and even after they tried to have there little sister die to get attention they went back to the house all together.