former papers (ec)

#1

Imagine that you wake up on any ordinary day and you head to your job at the oil rig with everything seems normal; the breakfast, the shower, the boat ride to the rig, and the job. You’re working on the job and you hear and feel a rumbling but you don’t know what is going on. You soon realize that your oil rig has had an explosion down underwater and nobody knows what to do so they are all panicking and you can’t do anything about it. This is exactly what happened with the British Petroleum (BP) oil rig when the rig blew and started to gush out oil. It is and has been the biggest news story for the past two weeks. And it of course happened in the Gulf of Mexico near the U.S. Whenever you hear of a major oil rig leak, it is usually in or near the U.S. Oil leaks don’t happen often but when they do, they can take a long time to clean up, especially if they are underwater like this one. On the rare occasion that this does happen, there has to be a tested plan to get rid of the leaking oil (which this rig didn’t have). Because of this leaking that is happening with the Deepwater Horizon- the name of the rig-, there should not be anymore offshore drilling except for the already existing rigs- which need to have tested “incase of emergency” plans.

The reason that the existing plants shouldn’t be shut down is because the U.S. truly needs that offshore oil. The U.S. is struggling with their oil and would not be able to provide for their whole country for very long without the oil from the ocean. There is just so much oil on land but oil is limited. The U.S. is a huge country with so many people that drive cars. However, oil is not just for operating vehicles, it is in paint, hair products, for generating electricity, and much more which would make oil even more valuable. So the offshore rigs would be good to have. If we don’t have it, then somebody else will claim it and we should take any oil we can get. The U.S. without enough oil is like girl not having enough shoes. It would be complete chaos. But we don’t want to get out of hand. Like I said, oil spills do happen and if that is going to happen, then you might not want many more oil rigs because those are just more rigs that could start leaking and the more tested backup plans that you’ll need.

If we make too many off shore rigs, that would just be an accident waiting to happen because those are just more oil rigs that have a chance of leaking. And if leaks do happen, you will definitely need something to stop the leaks. Most people would just say to put some waterproof duct tape on there, but in some very rare cases, duct tape won’t do it and this is one of them. The owners of the rig will need to have an “incase of emergency” plan that has been tested many times. If it is only tested once, in might not work the second, or actual, time. That would be like testing a roller coaster only once before it is open to the public. It could be disastrous. This is only my opinion on what to do though.

Some people might think that they should completely shut down off shore drilling. That wouldn’t do any good because there is hardly any oil on land compared to the oil that is offshore. Just because there were some bad things that happened doesn’t mean that you give up. It should not be allowed to have any more rigs come into offshore drilling because there are already so many that they could provide for countries. If they are completely shut down, then countries will quickly run out of oil.

#2

What comes to mind when you think of a teenager? Most people will of a selfish and immature child that doesn’t listen to anybody but their friends. But that doesn’t define every teen because there are many different kinds of teenagers. There are orphans, only-children, leaders, etc. For the ordinary teenager, nobody matters to them; the world is resolved around them. Some teens actually care about people, though. Some teenagers have to be caring because of a certain situation and some even have to take the role of a parent. In the book Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry by Mildred D. Taylor, the main character, Cassie, changes throughout the book by starting as an ordinary African American teenager and slowly develops to taking a parental role for her brothers.

There are many different signs of Cassie acting like a normal African American girl at the beginning. She gets ready and walks to school just like and other black girl would at her age. Cassie wakes up early and gets ready in her Sunday dress for the first day of school and takes the ordinary one hour stroll down to the school with her brothers. She gets harmed and treated horribly because of the racism that happens every day; just like any other African American girl would. Black girls were all treated equally 50 years ago, but that doesn’t mean that they were treated fair. They were all treated horribly and they were harmed just because of their race. Like when the Wallaces said “’ Get out of my store you n*****.”’ It just seemed like a way of living, for the whites to harm the blacks. And the African American girls couldn’t do anything about it. They aren’t going to pick a fight with a big white person. Neither would Cassie. However, Cassie did not stay that way throughout the whole book.

Cassie becomes a parental figure to her brothers by taking the role of a parent to her brothers because her actual parents tell her to take care of her brothers while they are away. When there was a fir in their rice field, Cassie watched her brothers. A fire was set in the rice field and Cassie’s parents helped put it out and said to Cassie “’Watch your brothers while me and your papa are gone.”’ They thought that she was responsible enough to take care of the kids- which is one of the main roles as a parent. Also, regular people that take care of others can be described as a parent. You don’t need to be a biological parent to be somebody’s parent. There are aunts, uncles, godfathers, grandparents, foster parents, and others. They may not be the real parent, but they still take the role of parent. If something happens to the actual parents, somebody else can step in. Whoever steps in, the children will always be dependent on that person.

Another reason that Cassie represents a parent is because she takes the role of being a role model. Parents are often role models to their children because children always want to be just like their mom and/or dad. If you ever ask a five year-old child what they want to be when they grow up, most of them will want to be what their mom or dad is. If a boy’s dad is a police officer, the boy will most likely say that he wants to be a police officer as well. I want to be exactly like my dad without his job because I don’t really want to be an accountant right now. Parents are role models to their kids just like Cassie is a role model to her brothers. Parents will always want their kids to be nice and good kids. Then they will have to be a nice and good role model to their kids and they will most likely be like their parents. Children with nice parents will most likely grow up to be nice people and children with bad parents will most likely grow up to be bad people. If you have parents that are mean and rude people and they raise their kids like that, the children will learn how their parents act and will grow up to be mean and rude. Good people are good role models for other people. Their children will eventually become teenagers, and that’s where the parenting pays off.

Parents work hard for 13 years, trying to raise a good child. They always seem sweet until they turn 13. That is when you will know if you did a good job raising them or not. That age is the same time when you get the selfish, immature, and demonic child. Some teenagers do act their age though, and will act kind. Your parenting will probably be the foundation of how your child acts from then on.