Hi!
My name is Dana Maxey, and I am attending ACC to gain my associates degree in Arts in hopes to later become an art or music teacher. I'm the student that has the hand injury, and sit in the front but don't take notes since I can't write or do anything really. I went to a very small charter school that did not have much of a program for any extra curricular activities, nor did the state of Texas require their teachers to hold any sort of teaching certificate or valid working visas. Therefore my education thus far has been limited, and what little I did learn during the time I spent in high school usually were never learned in a classroom setting. I could go on about a twenty five minuet rant about how messed up the education system is in this particular state, but I don't want to digress too much
As ironic as it may seem to aspire to become a teacher after having such a dreadful time in the education system, I still wish to learn something everyday, even though for somethings I have a huge gap that I continue to fill. I have had various full time jobs since I was 16, and currently I am only enrolled in one other class besides this one. However, this isn't my first time taking US Government at ACC. I failed the first time I took the class thinking I could handle a full load on top of a full time job, and enrolled with a professor that I soon discovered had the attention span of a squirrel but also resembled a charging rhino with a extremely loud voice that startled easily.
I do have a great fascination with History, and remember some things about the politics in that context. But I couldn't tell you squat about anything past the Korean War, including today's politics. My parents are your typical super conservative church going republicans, but I was taught history by a somewhat moderate democrat. So between that and living in Austin most of my life, my opinions tend to be all over the map. But I am completely out of the loop for most of the big political issues. For this presidential election, the farthest I got was registering to vote. I did not think that I was informed enough to make the decision to vote, and it is something that I kick myself for because even in high school I understood the concept that by not voting or by voting third party, you are basically giving way to the popular vote. Now we all know that in this state, the electoral college says that we are a solid red state, so my vote wouldn't have mattered whether it was red or blue or yellow.
Taking all of that into account is why my quizzes were so wonky. I got a 80% on the historical quiz, a 50% on the current events, and was told that I am a post-modern (I still think the wording on those questions were bogus). I know of a lot of people my age that seem to have the same pattern of being utterly clueless to the world around them, but I never thought the magnitude of just how many of us there are that some of the articles posted suggest, particularly after I went back through the introduction forum posts we created. That's also when I realized I seemed to post more there than most, so it might be the same here.
So overall, I would like to learn the functions of our government so that I can be informed enough to make a rational decision based on my opinions in order to be an active in that aspect of our society. Also to gain a good grade in this class since this is the second time I have taken it. I hate to end this post with that last sentence being said since its such a cliche, so here is a Froggy helping me learn how to write left handed with crayons while my right hand heals (likely to see a lot of this frog here, gotta have fun sometimes right?)
