What I Already Know

     I do not have a lot of knowledge about the specifics of memory, but I do know that there is long term and short term memory. Also that there are many theories about ways to improve memory, from medicines that claim to better your memory, to therapy sessions and "brain exercises" that claim to do the same thing. I have heard of things such as Memory Championships that test people's memories to the limit. I have also heard of people with photographic memories that can remember everything perfectly.
     The few things that I know are mostly limited to personal experiences, such as being very forgetful at times, to remembering things that happened a long time ago that don't necessarily matter or have any use to me, other than sentimentally.

Cause Essay Outro

So after expensive birthday presents, big decisions that make my bank account sad, and many nights out, I have finally decided to start saving my money. Between having a full time job and being a full time college student, I have decided that there are things I need to prepare for and I need to start taking responsibility for things. I know, it's all boring, no-fun adult stuff, and I know it's not going to be easy (or fun!!). In the end, my bank account and future me will thank me!

Intro #2

"Thank you! Your credit card has been charged $175.45!"
This was my boyfriend's 21st birthday present: concert tickets for this past summer. Yes, I'm broke again!
"Your check will be made out for $1,200, and you may move in immediately."
This was what my landlord told me the day I moved into my apartment. Freedom! But yet again, I'm broke!
"Let's go to Chili's for dinner, and maybe I'll get some drinks. Then we can go to the movies and get a bunch of popcorn." Finally, a night out. Bye, bye, money! Why is it that no matter how hard I try, I can't save my money to save my life? It's always one thing or another, and my bank account is always the one that is suffering.

Graf #13

When I read through the example cause essays, it gave me more clarification about the assignment. I was confused at first about what was expected of the essay, but the examples definitely helped. They also gave me many ideas on essays that I could write. It's very interesting to read essays that other students have written in the past, and it's reassuring to find that almost anything goes as long it's along the base line of what the assignment's goal is.

Intro #1

For as long as I have been making my own money, I've had such a hard time saving it. Whether it's because I have crazy amounts of bills due, or because I went out and had some fun, or because there was a birthday or holiday that I had to use my money for, I am always broke.

Graf #12

Place- The Haunted House of Graham Lake


     Quiet.
     Opposed to the lush, green leaves rustling together in the hot, humid, summer breeze, and the distant sound of the lake water making friends with the gravel shore, and the unsure breathing of my friend next to me, there are no sounds to be heard. Before us stands something of horror movies; we're in the scene of the movie where everyone watching shouts "Turn around, stupid!" But I can't move. Curiosity floods over me as if it's a white sheet mimicking the ones covering furniture through the windows. The cabin has to be at least a hundred years old; the boards are rotted beyond repair, half of the windows are repaired with plastic, the other half left broken with glass debris still present. The roof is so droopy I wouldn't be surprised if it were to cave in right before our eyes, trash speckles the overgrown lawn, and most importantly, someone left the door wide open. My heart sinks deep, deep down into my belly, as I declare: "What are we waiting for? Let's go inside."

Graf #11

Research

     I "Google" a lot.
     You know that thing on the internet where you type in any question, word, phrase, or letter and you instantly become a doctor, scientist, stalker, chef, navigator, know-it-all, etc.
I've decided to type "How to" into my Google bar, (I begin with this a lot), and describe to you my research about the first thing that pops up in my Google history.

     And the winner is:
     "How to remove powder acrylic nails."
     Oh boy, this is quite a story.

     The beginning of Summer 2012, I was still living with my parents, I had just graduated high school, and I thought it would be a marvelous idea to work two jobs, acquiring 18 hours a day. It was awful, but worth it when I got my shiny, fat pay-checks. One Saturday morning, I put my checks in the bank and decided that I deserved a little pampering. I had never gotten "fake" nails before, as people call them, so I stopped into a little salon in Ellsworth, Maine to have some put on. I was in love with my nails; they looked gorgeous, and I was having a fun time with my new-found long nails, which I had never had before due to my nail-biting habit.

     Two weeks went by, which is the average life-span for acrylic nails, and I couldn't find the time to go to the salon to have them removed. Eventually, my natural nails had grown so much and had been covered for so long that they had begun to hurt. So, I decided to take matters into my own hands, and Googled "How to remove powder acrylic nails." I watched several videos where women showed me the step-by-step process of removing fake nails. A billion videos and 5 hours later, those little acrylic demons were still stuck on my hands.

     If you're wondering the outcome of my battle, I did eventually get the nails removed myself, but not without accidentally ripping my REAL pinky nail out.... ouch. :( But from my personal research, I learned a valuable lesson: I am NOT a nail technician, and I will NEVER get fake nails again. I'm happy with my short, natural nails that I will never get out of the habit of biting.

Memory vs Memories- An extra thought based on something Mr. Goldfine said to me

Memory and memories: two in the same, yet they are different.

Memory: The mental capacity or faculty of retaining and reviving facts, events, impressions, etc. In other words, your memory is what your brain can remember about things you've seen, learned, experienced, and so on. It's the potential to remember.

Memories: Recalling or recognizing previous experiences. In other words, the things that you already remember.

Why I'm Writing

Why I'm Writing

I have wondered about memory and memories since I was a kid. What if I want to remember not knowing how to talk, or how I learned how to ride a bike to teach my child some day, or what happened in our United States history? I think that the best thing you can research is something you've been wanting an answer to for a long time. I also thing that it will be beneficial to me to learn more about how our brain works, since it's such a complex thing, and it's a topic with endless information and exploring. Some of the questions I would like to answer are:

• Why is it that I store some memories, but not others?
• Why do I only remember some dreams?
• In what part of the brain are memories stored?
• How does storing memories work?
• Are there ways I can recover my memories or dreams?
• Is there any way that I can improve my memory?

Graf #10

Person


So many people come into your life just to visit, but there are very few people who decide to move in and stay awhile. One of my favorite quotes reads, "Understand that friends come and go, but with a precious few you should hold on. The older you get, the more you need the people who knew you when you were young." You don't know who is going to actually stay around forever, but it's easy to get a good idea of who those people are early on. I believe that my best friend Michael is the one I'll hold on to.

When Michael and I first met, we were both in very rough places in our lives, family and relationship wise. He never got along with his family, and I currently wasn't getting along with mine and was living with my best friend, and we had both recently gotten our hearts broken. After time had past, both of us realized that we made each other forget all of that mess. After even more time had passed, we decided to make that feeling more permanent, and we've been together for a year now. 

Of course it's only been a short time, but like I said before, you can't possibly know who is going to be there for you forever. But I'm reassured every day that Michael will be there for me for a long time, and that's all I need for now. Reassurance... Isn't that all anyone needs? 

Isearch Background -REVISED

Ever since I was old enough to think logically, I have wondered why I can't remember everything. I have random memories about times from my childhood, like that time when my baby brother stole my favorite baby doll and started chewing and drooling all over her head. I started freaking out and crying, but my dad held him and laughed at me, and told me it was just a doll and he wouldn't ruin it.
I can remember everything and anything about proper grammar and proper English (even if I don't always use it...), but after taking a year of AP U.S. History, I couldn't tell you what year Paul Revere took his ride, or what Teddy's Big Stick Policy was, or what happened in the Bay of Pigs Invasion.
I can remember a dream I had a few years ago, about my brother trying to kill me because I had a cold, but I can't remember what I dreamed about last night.
I need to know, why can't I remember most of my life? Was spending all that time in school and working so hard a waste of time if I can't remember any of it? 

Graf #9

When I was a little girl, I had a giant, pink net that went across my ceiling that was filled with hundreds of stuffed animals. Nothing was more exciting to me than getting a new stuffed animal. All different varieties of stuffed animals, from the teddy bear I would get every Christmas with the current year sewn onto its left foot, to Cabbage Patch Kids. I remember I had stuffed dogs, dolls that talked, characters from shows like The Big Comfy Couch, Care Bears, Barney, Pokemon, etc.

But my favorite stuffed animal of all time was my Bugs Bunny. Bugs was my very first stuffed animal, given to me by my dad when I was born. He stands about a foot tall, holds a bright orange carrot in his left hand, and wears a big grin that shows off his dominant buck teeth.

Bugs always lived on a shelf in my bedroom. Unlike the other hundreds of stuffed animals I had, he sat on a mini, wooden rocking chair on that shelf, mocking all the others trapped in the net above.

Settled in my very first apartment, living on my own now, Bugs Bunny still sits and protects me on that mini, wooden rocking chair on my bureau. He's in perfect condition, other than a small chocolate milk stain here or there, and is the only stuffed animal I have left from my giant collection.

Graf #8

Reaction to Isearch Samples

After reading through these samples, I have a better understanding of what to look for, and what is expected. I also found how amazing it is that some things interest some people a lot more than they do others...
From these samples, I've decided I need to figure out why I'm writing. What questions I have. What I see during my search for the answers. What I've learned. Why this matters in the future. And of course the infamous bibligraphy.
I think now it'll be easier to direct my search!

Graf 7

Why is it that we only store some memories, but not others?

Why do we only remember some dreams?

In what part of the brain are memories stored?
How does storing memories work?

Are there ways that we can recover memories or dreams?

Are there ways that we can improve our memories?

Graf #6

My "girl car," or my navy blue 2001 Chevy Malibu, is my baby, and my most prized possession. It's usually pretty messy; you'll see things like clothes, shoes, paper, movies, etc. My favorite movie of all time is the Lion King, and you'll see a large collection of Disney movies on my DVD stand in my living room. My favorite outfit is my EMCC sweatpants and my boyfriend's comfy sweatshirt that's way too big for me. I like to be comfortable. If I could choose anywhere to be right now, it would be having the time of my life at a live concert. Any type of music, but I prefer country or rock. I'm not the kind of person that always likes to sit at home and relax. I would rather be out around people doing something fun. Of course ocasionally I like to sit at home, watch Netflix and do a puzzle. Currently I'm working on a puzzle of New York. My favorite food is chicken alfredo; I could eat it all day, every day. My favorite color is purple, and I'm addicted to coffee.

Isearch Worksheet

What do you want to write about? How children's brains work.

What do you want to find out aboit your topic?
Development and how they work.

What are your questions about the topic?
1. Why are children able to learn so quickly?
2. What is it about children's brains that make them "spongy" and able to retain more information?
3. How are they different from adult's brains?
4. If we're able to learn so much as children, why do most people not remember the first few years of our childhood?

Subquestion?
1. What age do you stop retaining information as well?
2. Why can I remember some things, but not everything from my childhood?
3. What's different about the brain of a child with Autism that makes them less able to retain certain information?

Give three reasons why you like the topic
1. I work at a daycare and we teach children. It's interesting how much they can learn and remember in such a short period of time.
2. There is one child that has mild autism and has a harder time learning things at the same pace as the children without autism. I'm curious what is different about their brains that make things more difficult for them.
3. Memories and dreams have always fascinated me. I've always wondered why we can only remember some memories as well as only some dreams, but not all of them.

Give three ways your life might change if you answer your questions
1. I'll be able to better understand the children that I work with almost every day.
2. I'll be able to find new ways to work with the child with autism so that he can maybe catch up to the other children his age.
3. I'll answer my life-long question of why we can't remember everything.

Graf #5

Reaction to Isearch Brainstorm

I'm loving the fact that we are able to choose ANY topic we want. I also love that we're not expected to be neat and organized about our brainstorms. When I was in middle school, my brainstorms use to be webs. These webs looked like confusing, jumbled, unreadable nonsense to anyone but me, and my teachers use to get frustrated because they couldn't make out any fathomable ideas from them. I was told that I was wasting time and needed to come up with one idea. We normally had about ten minutes to create a brainstorm and choose a topic. Throughout high school I continued the habit that my middle school teachers got me into: just take the first topic I think of and go with it, I just need a grade. When I read the Isearch brainstorm, I got excited that I get to go back to my confusing, jumbled, unreadable nonsense that my teacher will be exited about, too.