March 27, 2018                                                                                                                                            Re: Teacher Assistant Job

To Whom It May Concern:

I am contacting you in response of your search for a Teacher Assistant which you posted on Indeed.com. I not only have a high school diploma but also a lot of experience with young children from working at the beach as well as babysitting. I am currently attending Stony Brook for Health Sciences to gain a better understanding of people and how they act so as I can help them. My extensive experience with children and unhappy adults has given me the communication, teaching, and caring skills that would allow me to perform this job the best.

In working at the beach for 3 years, I have gained the ability to handle children and deal with people. As most of the families that come down have young children, I see and care for the children a lot. Many times, the parents will go down on the beach with the children, although the children will come back up to hang out with the “cool” looking beach guard. This gave me the chance to get experience handling children and their habits. I also must deal with many adults whom are unhappy that they are unable to use the private beach as they do not belong. In talking to these sometimes-emotional people, I have gained the ability to handle emotional and irrational people and children. My babysitting experience is also irreplaceable. Being 19 years old while my older siblings are in their mid to late thirties, I babysit their children often. I watch two of my nephews, ages two and four, every Friday, and sometimes even more, every week. This has given me the ability to care for young children even when their parents aren’t around. I understand how to deal with everything from a rowdy eight-year-old to a pooped and crying one-year-old. I am sure that I can handle anything the children at The Learning Academy will throw at me.

I can’t wait for the opportunity to help positively shape and influence the next generation and teach them while I learn from them. I am determined to use the techniques and experience which I’ve learned over my lifetime to positively impact and influence these young children and the other workers at the Academy. You will find my resume enclosed as well. Thank you for the opportunity. I look forward to hearing from you in the future.

Sincerely,

James Samonas

Neal Stephenson, a science fiction game designer and writer, wrote the article “Its All Geek To Me”. In the article Stephenson talks about how nerd culture is oftentimes criticized. Although, his main point is how this criticism has now made nerd culture almost immune criticism and has brought the culture into the mainstream. This is especially apparent today with a lot of superhero movies being the main blockbusters of the year and video games perforating most users’ feeds on social media.

Stephenson uses mainly ethos and logos to get these points across. I feel as if he very well knows his audience and who is going to be reading his article as he gears it a lot towards geeks themselves. This is seen throughout his article where he tells relatable stories which have occurred in the past such as when “Galaxy Quest” won the Hugo award by being voted on by “Trekkies” even though it made fun of them (Stephenson). This goes to show the reader, whom is most likely a geek, that the author knows what he is talking about and builds ethos for him. He also uses pathos by calling people whom read, watch, and play anything geeky cool. “…the fact that geeks can make lots of money now, have given creators and fans of this kind of art a confidence… is kind of cool now” (Stephenson). Here Stephenson uses logos to try to get the point that geek culture is cool and part of the mainstream now by reasoning that people involved in it make a lot of money and are confident. This goes back to the reader to also affect them with pathos, as if they identify as a geek, then they themselves will feel cool and trust the article more because of it.

Although the article is old, from 2007, it is still extremely prevalent and applicable today. Such phenomena can be seen rampantly today with the game Fortnite going into the mainstream and being played by people who’ve never played video games before as well as the same being done with superhero blockbuster films like Black Panther. The article also realized that the criticism of the genre also doesn’t affect it very much anymore, which is also very apparent today with many self-deprecating memes, jokes, and videos appearing all over the internet having to do with a lot of fans of a lot of geeky subcultures.

Works Cited:

Stephenson, Neal. “It’s All Geek to Me.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 18 Mar. 2007, www.nytimes.com/2007/03/18/opinion/18stephenson.html?rref=collection/sectioncollection/opinion-contributors&action=click&contentCollection=contributors®ion=stream&module=stream_unit&version=search&contentPlacement=6&pgtype=sectionfront.

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I am taking a stand, I will protect my land! My argument is that beaches are land that should be able to be owned. It is land after all. I chose this topic because I work at the beach during the summer. During my shifts, people whom do not belong to the beach club trespass onto the beach and argue with me that they are able to. It is important to discuss as, especially with Long Island, some people own beaches and other people want to use them. This often causes a predicament between the two parties that usually sends both home angry and frustrated. It also comes into play whilst buying beach front property and should affect the pricing appropriately.

In New York, the law is that any land below the high tide line is public land. Other states such as Maine allow public access below the mean low tide, while states like Washington allow for public access to the whole beach. This shows that there really is no solid choice between the states of whether or not beach lands should be able to be owned.

I claim that having the beach as public access lowers beachfront property worth. This would then further lower the worth of the towns near the coast, voiding them of that value. The citizens in these towns already pay higher taxes for living near the coast (helping to keep it clean), they shouldn’t also have to have their property values drop. If there was only public beaches, the coast would also be much more polluted. As most private beaches keep their land clean of trash, it helps to keep the coast and water communities of wildlife clean of harmful garbage. In many places which people violate the laws of private access to beaches, there are also full public access beaches within a couple miles. This in and of itself makes the need to trespass onto a beach owner’s property completely unnecessary as there is a completely public beach down the road.

Using articles from NY Times and documents explaining the laws of public access to coastland, I plan to drive home the claim that people should be able to own the land that they pay for. Although, I would probably get counterclaims that the land is everchanging and that you can’t own the water. I actually agree with these, although only to a certain point. I do not believe that these are enough to say that you can’t own whatever sand is not covered by the tide at the current time. I do believe that one should be able to walk past a beach on foot though as there is no impact of them being there for the small amount of time they are there. If you pay for land, you should be able to own it. Otherwise, no one would buy and own land near the shore and this would cause a massive reduction in the value of all lands near coasts.