El Tigre's blog

At first glance, classmate Erin Ponder might seem like another run of the mill student in Comm 208,  but delving a little more into her interests will make you reconsider.

Erin is a Mass Communications major with a minor in English studies.  On July 12th, Ponder will turn 21, “or 7-12 like the area code,” she adds .  One day, Erin hopes to use her schooling and experiences to aid her ambition for writing and directing movies.  Currently, Erin is a sales associate for Old Navy, a job which she has held for almost 3 years.  Ponder past experience includes a stint on Sioux City East’s Speech team.

“Being part of the Ponder household means you going into some type of career involving English,” Erin explained.  Her brother, Matthew, is an English major here at Morningside College and her mother works in the English and Modern Languages department as a secretary.  Even her dogs, Polly, Pippy and Boo, are named after characters of books she grew up reading.

As a young child Erin’s scholastic career began at Longfellow Elementary, where she vividly recalls walking home from every day.  This path took her across Morningside’s campus, where she would ironically attend classes daily as an adult.  Good habits from her childhood still endure, such as the urge to organize everything.  One interest that has endured and evolved through the years for Erin was her love for movies.

As a college student she is getting closer to her ambitions as a writer, but not without a little help from her secret love.  Ponder has a few loose beans for coffee, her preferred beverage.  However, so long as caffeine is involved, she is content with an ice cold Red Bull or any other energetic beverage to fuel her throughout the day.  Writing can be a hard task, but with the support of her knowledgeable family and an iced latte Erin feels like she could take on the world.

If you wanna get to know Erin a little bit better, look no further than her blog here on WordPress, where she posts topics of interest and her opinions about things going on in the world.

Click here to go to Ponder’s WordPress site.

Amongst the various news stories I saw as I was gazing upon CNN’s website, this one intrigued me over all of the others, reason being that I just CAN’T stand these damned single brewing coffee makers.  It’s apparent that these terrible wasteful machines have angered the coffee and hot tea Gods and their malfunctions and overall failure was made prominent on one of the worlds leading news websites.

The Coffee Gods Retaliate

Apparently these deathtraps have been backfiring for the consumers who have foolishly purchased an item I like to call a “selfish coffeemaker”.  Thesingle serve Keurigs are not only the laziest tool to hit the breakfast nook, but also the most antisocial thing since one slice of bread toasters.  These coffee pots are nothing but trouble causing 61 incidents of “facial and hand burns” and are being recalled.  A voluntary recall was made by the Mr. Coffee company, urging stores and consumers to return the malfunctioning caffeinated death machine.  If you want my honest opinion though, anyone who makes coffee one cup at a time can’t be trusted and deserved to be burned by their disloyal environmentally harmful coffee making assassin robot.  The author of this piece also brings up another good point and repeats it several times in the article, that is that these specific Mr. Coffee machines were manufactured in, drum roll please… you guessed it, China!!!!! It is without saying, if that coffee pot was manufactured here in the good ol’ U. S. of A.,  uncle Sam and the rest of our good American people (citizens or not) would’ve produced a non-violent coffee pot.  This would have also created some jobs here, which apparently our economy is hurting without.  When will huge corporations learn to spend a little more money to manufacture a product here in the states? They will be making a little less profit yes, but these corporations will  be selling a product that is brimming with quality and can lead to satisfied repeat costumers.

This story is newsworthy because not only does provide a public service by explaining how these coffee machines have been hurting people recently, but the author, Jim Barnett also points out a problem with our corporations and their conquest for fast cheap labor and their stingy job exporting ways.

I opened the packaging slightly as if it were a business letter. the ice cream bar  whispered slightly “undress me”.  As the paper wrapping was gone the dark brown chocolate shell revealed itself, and i couldnt help but notice that the bottom end of the ice cream bar had been damaged and partially melting away to waste. I could wait no longer. My mouth inched closer to the bar and a waft of cocoa slithered its way up my nostrils, egging me on even more.  At last I finally took that first bite of the bar, crunching through the outer chocolate shell, sinking my teeth like a vampire into its unsuspecting vanilla flesh.  The bite I took had harmonically melted and mixed on my pallet and ever so easily slid its way down my esophagus.  After that initial munch my mouth was off to the races,  violently attacking and masticating giant piece after piece of the chocolate coated vanilla ice cream bar.  At a point, my tongue caressed the ice cream and lavishly lapped up each lick of vanilla until it reached the wooden stick.  As my tongue brushed against the core of the ice cream, a slight taste of wood and a rough sensation had signalling to my pallet that the end was unjustly near.  Unfortunately, with a last delectable slurp, the ice cream had gone and the short vacation for my mouth had abruptly ended.