The Catch

The greatest catch in Super Bowl history! Obviously this statement is arguable to football fans but many football analysts have agreed to the fact that it is the greatest catch and nearly all agree that it at least ranks in the top four. Steve Sabol of NFL films said that David Tyree’s catch goes down as the best play in Super Bowl history. I personally think that it is truly the most amazing Super Bowl catch I have ever seen. When I looked it up on the internet, I found out that this photograph was taken by a professional photographer, Andrew Mills. He works for Star-Ledger Photography. This is a New Jersey based news, sports and entertainment photography company. Whenever I look at this picture, I think of the heart, courage and passion for the game that David Tyree had in order to make this catch.

The message of this photograph is incredible to me. It shows me that this man had a lot of passion for the game. He was willing to put his body in a injury vulnerable position because he wanted to help his team win the biggest game of their lives. This was not only an amazing catch but a catch that his teammates will never forget. Also, David Tyree’s courage should never be forgotten because he saw the challenge arise and because he took on the challenge, he was paid off with a marvelous result. Another message that this photograph shows me is that when an opportunity flashes itself in front of you, it’s important to take it because there might not be anymore like it. In this case, if he didn’t make that catch, the other team would have won because he made this catch in the final two minutes of the game and it set up the winning touchdown catch by his teammate Plaxico Burress, seconds later.

This picture is arguable for one reason. You can debate whether this is the greatest catch in history. Some might say that it’s not because the player didn’t really catch the ball. I see where one would think that way because if you look closely, the ball is on the helmet and he has only one hand on it. In this case, the ball is insecure and vulnerable to the defender or to falling out when the player eventually falls down. The result was that he managed to keep the ball secured on his helmet while landing without the ball touching the ground. If the ball touched the ground, it would have been an incomplete pass and football history would be different. Showing the different perspective, I would say that this is an amazing catch. Some reasons to back my view are that David Tyree has a defender all over him and that he is nearly parallel to the ground in mid-air. Even with both of these preventing factors, he manages to concentrate on holding on to the ball. It’s a great accomplishment and I acknowledge David Tyree for pulling it off.

I think that this picture was clearly not staged in any way. This is because it is impossible to stage a catch of that magnitude. For example, football receivers run particular routes that are designed for them to go a certain way with the quarterback knowing where they are going and where to throw the ball. Here the receiver was running his route but when he realized his quarterback was about to get tackled he came back and became a target for the quarterback who threw it to him and it resulted in the amazing catch. The photographer had to follow the play and focus on how it was unfolding. I think it's hard for the photographer to predict what a wide receiver might do and if the photogrpaher doesn’t react quickly, the play might be over and it would be too late to get any picture. Also, since this happened extremely fast, staging the play is nearly impossible. I think that the photographer was in the right place and at the right time to snap this picture.

In my opinion, this is an amazing picture taken by a professional photographer. This picture is more than just the catch. It has passion, courage, guts and athleticism all involved in one way or another. That's what makes this catch the greatest in Super Bowl history which is saying something because there were many great changes over the years. It changed the course of the biggest game in sports history and that is why I agree to the fact that it is truly the most incredible catch!

Essay 3 Rough Draft

The greatest catch in Super Bowl history! Obviously this statement is quite arguable to football fans but many football analysts have agreed that it is the greatest catch and nearly all agree that it at least ranks in the top four. Steve Sabol of NFL films said that David Tyree’s catch goes down as the best play in Super Bowl history. I personally think that it is truly the most amazing Super Bowl catch I have ever seen. When I looked it up on the internet, I found out that this photograph was taken by a professional photographer, Andrew Mills. He works for Star-Ledger Photography. This is a New Jersey based news, sports and entertainment photography company. Whenever I look at this picture, I think of the heart, courage and passion for the game that David Tyree had in order to make this catch.

The message of this photograph is incredible to me. It shows me that this man had a lot of passion for the game. He was willing to put his body in a injury vulnerable position because he wanted to help his team win the biggest game of their lives. This was not only an amazing catch but a catch that his teammates will never forget. His courage should also never be forgotten because David Tyree saw the challenge arise and because he took on the challenge, he was paid off with a marvelous result. Another message that this photograph shows me is that when an opportunity flashes itself in front of you, it’s important to take it because there might not be anymore like it. In this case, if he didn’t make that catch, the other team would probably have won because there was only one minute left it the game. This catch set up the winning touchdown catch seconds later.

This picture is arguable for one reason. You can debate whether this is the greatest catch in history. Some might say that it’s not because the player didn’t really catch the ball. I see where one would think that way because if you look closely, the ball is on the helmet and he has only one hand on it. In this case, the ball is insecure and vulnerable to the defender or to getting loose when the player falls down. The result was that he managed to keep the ball secured on his helmet and landing without the ball touching the ground. If the ball touched the ground, it would have been an incomplete pass and football history would be different. Showing the different perspective, I would say that this is an amazing catch. Some reasons to back my view are that David Tyree has a defender all over him and he is nearly parallel to the ground in mid-air. Even with both of these preventing factors, he manages to concentrate on holding on to the ball and landing on his back without the ball touching the ground. It’s a great accomplishment and I acknowledge David Tyree for pulling it off.

In my opinion, this picture was clearly not staged in any way. This is because it is impossible to stage a catch of that magnitude. For example, football receivers run particular routes that are designed for them to go a certain way and with the quarterback knowing where they are going and where to throw the ball. Here the receiver was running his route but when he realized his quarterback was about to get tackled he came back and became a target for the quarterback who threw it to him and it resulted in the amazing catch. The photographer had to follow the play and focus on how it was unfolding. I think it's hard for the photographer to predict what they might do and if they don't react quickly, the play might be over and it would be too late to get any picture. Also, since this happened extremely fast, so staging the play is nearly impossible. I think that the photographer was in the right place and at the right time to snap this picture.

In my opinion, this is an amazing picture taken by a professional photographer. This picture is more than just the catch. It has passion, courage, guts and athleticism all involved in one way or another. That's what makes this catch the greatest in Super Bowl history and that's saying something. It changed the course of the biggest game in sports history and that is why I agree to the fact that it is truly the most incredible catch!

The Best Catch

Weekly Reflection

1) How is class going this week?

moves too fast/ moves about right/ moves too slow

Class was good this week. Well we only went to class once and had a meeting so good week.

2) The assignments are:

too hard/ about right/ too easy

The assignments are about right. We didn't have too many of them this week.

3) This week, here’s what helped me learn about writing and reading:

Edit thoroughly and don't just quickly scan your rough draft or you will receive a bad grade.

4) This week, here’s what made it hard for me to learn about writing and reading:

I had a lot of work to do and it was hard to learn new things when you have to work on previous things.

5) I have a question (or concern):

N/A

My Personal Heroes (Revised)

My personal heroes are a big part of my life and how I develop into the person I am and to still be. I have chosen to describe why my parents are the biggest heroes of my life. Consistent positive influence throughout my life, being wonderful parents and helping me with my struggles in my religion have become the three main reasons why my parents are my heroes. When drugs and alcohol came into my life, my parents were there to keep me from getting into it, when I wanted to hang out instead of going to church, my parents made sure I was in church and like any good parents, they made sure that my daily necessities were met.

Positive influence is something every teenager or even person needs to have in their life. My parents were the people that have that positive influence on me. For example, there was a time in my life where I was thinking of dropping out of high school. This was my freshman year and a really hard year for me. My grades were good but school was extremely boring for me. My parents helped me get through this situation by not allowing me to drop out. I remember my dad telling me that if I dropped out he wouldn't let me go to driving school. As a fifteen year old at the time, I yearned to get my license at sixteen. After my dad threatened me with that, I wisely decided to stay in school. I thought I would drop out when I got my license but fortunately, the urge never came back. Im glad I got past this stage and didn’t drop out. Another example is the friends that I had. My friends were a bad influence on me because they would skip and invite me to go with them. When we would skip school, my friends usually smoked and had some alcohol. I didn’t smoke but I occasionally drank a little because I didn’t want to stand out as a different person. My parents eventually found out and quickly put an end to it by grounding me, taking away a lot of my driving privileges and giving me a ten P.M. curfew. The way I look at this is that if my parents did not care about what I did in my life, I would be in some deep trouble right now.

Good parents. What this means to me is that they show you how to live life as an adult and provide you with the daily necessities. My dad has shown me the working part of life very well. He would take me to construction on Saturday’s. His line of work is construction and trust me there are better ways of making a living. So he would take me to work with him and over the years I learned to work extremely hard. My dad knew that I needed the skills for construction because if for any reason a better career didn’t work out or I wasn’t able to go to college, I would be able to find a decent construction job. Another quality that good parents need to have is to be able to provide for their family. I know that in America this might sound silly but when my family lived in Ukraine, there were plenty of parents that struggled in providing food, clothing and shelter for their family. My parents always provided us with all the necessities that we need, even beside the fact that out family of eleven is above the average size. I recall wanting my own car. My dad had given my older brother and sister a car, so when it was my turn, he came through again. I remember how last summer, I was the happiest person in the world when I saw my car for the first time. Overall, the mark of wonderful parents is when they manage to get it done amidst all the problems they face.

Religion is an extremely important part of my family's culture and tradition. It has been in our family tree for many years before I was born. So when I was having a hard time going to church and finding God, my parents were there to help me out. My mom got me involved with some church programs. I was in Sunday School and later on a Teen Class program that met once a week. I learned to read the Bible, how to pray and even things like choosing the proper friends. Now that I am too old for that program I joined a Cell Group. This is a group of young men who meet about once a week and discuss the Bible and life. This helps me spiritually because it’s like a weekly reminder that I have a purpose in life and that someone cares about me. It’s really quite uplifting. My dad helped me get involved in this. I have to say that I needed all the help I could get with my struggles in my spiritual life and my parents provided that help.

As I look back, I realize that heroes are people that truly have a marvelous impact on an individual’s life. In most cases, they are role models. I used to think of a hero only as a fictional character that has the good guy role. Now I know that these are fictional superheroes. My parents might not have super powers but they still have a big impact on my life. They are truly my heroes!

Schizophrenia: A Writer’s Problem (Revised)

Schizophrenia is something that I used to have for a long time. I had it all through high school and even up until I wrote the first essay in this class. This is something that you get from writing a rough draft and instead of writing your ideas properly you stress out, you cough out your sentences slowly. These sentences tend to not make any sense at all when they are read out loud. There is no flow to this kind of writing. I’m still working on this aspect of my writing progress but it is getting much better than it used to be.

I compare this problem as a basketball player in a game. Some basketball players are wound up, stressed out or just in a bad mood. These kinds of players do not perform very well. The players that are more successful are the ones that are relaxed, calm and because of this, they allow the game to come to them. I relate this to writing an essay because to write a good essay, you need to let the ideas and words come to you instead of trying to reach out and grab them. For example, I love to play basketball with my friends a couple times a week. I used to come excited to play but when I we would start playing, I would miss some shots. Eventually, I would get frustrated, play bad defense and it would turn out to be a bad day for me. Also, if I miss a couple of shots, I would lose confidence and hardly every shoot again for the rest of the game. Writing has the same effect on me. When I would look at every word and sentence while writing a rough draft, I would get frustrated when something wouldn’t make sense. I would even give up sometimes not even completing the assignment.

This quarter started out quite well. My first essay was not too bad. I had a few glimpses of schizophrenia but I got through it. The second essay was a little better but I noticed that I kept going back to my old habits a couple of times. The good thing about this is that by the time I was at the third paragraph, I was writing freely without schizophrenia. Also, after writing a rough draft, I do go back and look at my essays. I can relate this to what Tobias Wolff said, “Later on, you have to look back at your work with a very cold eye, as if you were editing someone else’s”. I can see now that I am doing better and better as the quarter rolls on.

My instructor Craig McKenney has described how to write a good essay and shown us examples of good and bad ways to writing. All writing is writing and there is no wrong answer is writing but there are some aspects to writing that sound better in an essay. For example, Craig explained how we need to have the flow in our essays. I learned about the flow and I am now currently trying to incorporate this into my essays. It is still a problem but I’m working on it. Writing with schizophrenia results in an essay with no flow. It has pauses and sentences out of place.

Schizophrenia is a problem among writer’s who are just beginning and even the writer’s that have not been shown the way to write a rough draft normally. I believe that the foundation of an essay is the rough draft and if you have a bad foundation consistently, then your rough drafts will be bad, consistently. This can be fixed during editing but it becomes a pain fixing the parts of your essay that could be very well done in the rough draft. It makes writing easier, fun and better sounding.

Essay 2 Reflection Questions

1. What is one thing that you like about your final draft (a certain example, how you summarized something, etc)?

One thing I liked about my final draft was that I had some things to change and when I did I thought that it sounded pretty good and that it turned out to be a pretty good essay. This was a result of the good comments from peer review and putting what we learned in class into my essay.

2. If you had another day to work on this draft, what would you focus on fixing?

If I had another day to work on my final draft, I would focus on making a better introduction paragraph and on making the body paragraphs a little longer. I would also try to improve the flow a little.

3. What are two or three important things you learned from doing this assignment?

Three important things I learned from this assignment. First, this was my first time writing a thesis in this class. Second, I learned how to perfect the hook or at least try. Lastly, I learned that if I write the rough draft by just writing down thoughts and ideas and the correcting later, I will write a much better final draft.

Schizophrenia: A Writer’s Problem

Schizophrenia is something that I used to have for a long time. I had it all through high school and even up until I wrote the first essay in this class. This is something that you get from writing a rough draft and instead of writing your ideas properly you stress out, you cough out your sentences slowly. These sentences tend to not make any sense at all when they are read out loud. There is no flow to this kind of writing. I’m still working on this aspect of my writing progress but it is getting much better than it used to be.

I compare this problem as a basketball player in a game. Some basketball players are wound up, stressed out or just in a bad mood. These kinds of players do not perform very well. The players that are more successful are the ones that are relaxed, calm and because of this, they allow the game to come to them. I relate this to writing an essay because to write a good essay, you need to let the ideas and words come to you instead of trying to reach out and grab them. For example, I love to play basketball with my friends a couple times a week. I used to come excited to play but when I we would start playing, I would miss some shots. Eventually, I would get frustrated, play bad defense and it would turn out to be a bad day for me. Also, if I miss a couple of shots, I would lose confidence and hardly every shoot again for the rest of the game. Writing has the same effect on me. When I would look at every word and sentence while writing a rough draft, I would get frustrated when something wouldn’t make sense. I would even give up sometimes not even completing the assignment.

This quarter started out quite well. My first essay was not too bad. I had a few glimpses of schizophrenia but I got through it. The second essay was a little better but I noticed that I kept going back to my old habits a couple of times. The good thing about this is that by the time I was at the third paragraph, I was writing freely without schizophrenia. Also, after writing a rough draft, I do go back and look at my essays. I can relate this to what Tobias Wolff said, “Later on, you have to look back at your work with a very cold eye, as if you were editing someone else’s”. I can see now that I am doing better and better as the quarter rolls on.

My instructor Craig McKenney has described how to write a good essay and shown us examples of good and bad ways to writing. All writing is writing and there is no wrong answer is writing but there are some aspects to writing that sound better in an essay. For example, Craig explained how we need to have the flow in our essays. I learned about the flow and I am now currently trying to incorporate this into my essays. It is still a problem but I’m working on it. Writing with schizophrenia results in an essay with no flow. It has pauses and sentences out of place.

Schizophrenia is a problem among writer’s who are just beginning and even the writer’s that have not been shown the way to write a rough draft normally. I believe that the foundation of an essay is the rough draft and if you have a bad foundation consistently, then your rough drafts will be bad, consistently. This can be fixed during editing but it becomes a pain fixing the parts of your essay that could be very well done in the rough draft. It makes writing easier, fun and better sounding.