Table Of Contents

Title	Date	Score
Cover Letter
Argumentative Essay (Unveiling Lottery’s Secrets)	December 2, 2011	9/10 (Outline) 84% (Essay)
Extended Definition Essay (Facebook, is it a must have?)	November 18, 2011	8/10 (Outline) 90%  (Essay)
Comparison and Contrast (Head Over Heels)	October 21, 2011	18/20 (Outline and Essay)
Cause and Effect (Highways and Byways)
Descriptive (London Escapade)	October 07, 2011	8/10 8/10

Cover Letter

Dear Professor,

            Since the medium of communication in each course is writing, it is important for us to know how to write well and communicate our ideas clearly and that was made possible by ENGLCOM’s reading and writing component. For the past 14 weeks, you taught us how to construct essays effectively. We have been through a critical process in writing essays and revising them to reduce flaws and make them perfect. Expressing yourself is not enough but you have to follow rubric in order to achieve a good composition. Writing is not really my area of expertise. With ENGLCOM RWC, it deepened my knowledge in this field.

In our first meeting, you introduced us to the things we need to accomplish until the end of the term. One of which is to create and maintain our own blog. It gave us the opportunity to convey what we have learned in class and express our own feelings. Throughout the weeks we’ve been together, our task was to write essays and paragraphs of various kinds and put in it. But before publishing our masterpiece, you always ask us to make an outline and make our first and final draft. After which, you told us to critique our peers’ work in order to analyze different kind of writing styles and their strengths and weaknesses. Plagiarism is a big no-no in writing so you never fail to tell us that we need to use citations. Moreover, you always tell us that Wikipedia is not a credible source. This has been our routine every Tuesday and Friday.

            From this routine, I honed myself in learning how to become an effective communicator, critical and creative thinker, reflective lifelong learner and service-driven citizen through writing and revising. My essays are the proof that I achieved these attributes. Although I must say that I had a wee bit hard time coping and moulding my skills in becoming a critical and creative thinker. Thanks to ENGLCOM and your tips, bit by bit, I learned to organize my ideas for clarity, conciseness, and coherence and improved myself in other aspects of writing. Because of this, flaws and grammatical errors in my outputs decreased.

The extended definition was one of the evidence of my acquired skills. Knowing the content of my topic was easy for me to construct all the words in my head and write it down on paper. Facebook is a very interesting topic since almost all of us use the Internet everyday and visiting a social networking site has been a part of our daily routine. I got mine way back 2007 and as the years passed by, there are 800 millions of viewers Facebook have and has been trending ever since. I learned that in order to have an effective essay, one must know how to address it to the audience, what purpose and strategy should one have, how to organize the paragraphs, in what kind of style should the essay be written, and its presentation, which is about its spelling and grammar. You taught me the importance of all the attributes we needed to acquire. Thanks to you and according to your comments in my drafts, I can say that I have improved in this field.

             

           Writing is an unending trend, therefore, what I learned in class would be really useful not just in this class but for the purpose of everyday life. I am thankful to have you as my professor in this course. You made me who I am today, in terms of writing. I may not be as good as poets who can deeply express theirselves in writing poems and the like with matching extraordinary vocabularies, but I would like to thank you for knowledge you shared to us. Thank you for giving us the chance to meet you and I hope to see you in the near distant future or around the campus.

Unveiling Lottery's Secrets

          Many people are fond of betting in lotteries and wishes to win the jackpot prizes. It has been a daily routine of Filipino masses to gamble, most especially in Lotto. Who wouldn't be discouraged to try their luck and win millions and transform their lives? Lottery, according to Merriam Webster dictionary, is drawing of lots in which prizes are distributed to the winners among persons buying a chance. The Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office (PCSO) is a government agency that raise and provide funds  for health programs, medical assistance and services, and charities of national character. It holds and conducts charity sweepstakes, lotteries, and races. Since lottery is run by PCSO, they use the profit for funding charities and programs and they set the amount of money they return as prizes. Although betting in lottery can have negative effects such as waste of money, it gives out millions as prizes that winners may have and it provides funds for government projects.
          "In September 1979, Batas Pambansa Blg.42 was enacted into law amending the PCSO Charter (RA 1169). The law raised the fund allocation for the agency's Charity Fund from the previous 25% of net sales to 30%, while 55% now went to prizes and the remaining 15% for operations. On top of the 30% share from net receipts, all unclaimed prizes go to the Charity Fund" (Bigger Share for Charity, 2008). The funds go to Philippine Amateur Athletic Federation (PAAF), the Philippine Tuberculosis Society (PTS), the National Federation of Women's clubs, the Association de Damas de Filipinas, the Associate of Manila and the Provinces, the Gota de Leche, and many more which are the beneficiaries of PCSO. They engage in charitable, health work, and work for the improvement of the conditions of the Filipinos most especially the indigents. PCSO's objective is to provide funds for health programs, medical assistance and services and charities. They have developed and established Tuberculosis centers, Cancer and Pain centers, and dialysis centers that provide vital medical assistance. Moreover, lotteries do not only fund government programs but people also win their consolation prizes and the jackpot money which can help them provide their essential needs.
          Despite the fact that lottery is one of the sources of funding government programs, there are lots of negative effects it can have such as waste of money, taxes people, and have a little chance in winning. People that keep on betting everyday waste their money because of the fact that the money they bet contributes to the jackpot money and as the jackpot money swell, the possibility of winning decreases. Furthermore, it is a tax on people most especially the poor. No one would want to live uncomfortably and everyone wants to live luxuriously. " the Lottery is really a hidden and regressive tax on those least able to afford it: "inner-city" ghetto dwellers plus those on Welfare and others of a lower socio-economic status. These are the people who buy Lottery tickets in disproportionate numbers hoping for a lucky bet and a big win to boost them out of poverty" (Nathan Tabor, 2004). If they would stop and calculate how much money they spend on scratch cards and the like, it would be a waste of money since there are other things that are more important to buy rather than bet everyday and get absolutely nothing in return. In addition, the addicting part of lottery is that when people almost got all the numbers correct or when they did not bet at a certain time where their numbers are the winning numbers and the one divulged on TVs. This what keeps them on betting everyday.
          Lottery, compared to a woman, is like a goddess with voluptuous curves, flattering jet black eyes, red pouty lips and fair skinned. People are attracted to it. People are attracted to its prizes. It may have a good effect such as they provide funds for government programs and few lucky people become millionaires and winners of consolation prizes but there are odds in playing the lottery. I believe that lottery is not a good idea at all because it is like one against the world and the chances of winning is like almost nothing at all. It also taxes people without their knowledge. With a chances like that, I must say that it is indeed a waste of money plus the frustration they get when they are an inch close to winning. 

Facebook, is it a must have?

          People nowadays tend to have their life revolved around the Internet. Youngsters, even adults, enjoy using the Internet and its many applications. There is an outbreak of social networking sites that people subscribe to. One of which is Facebook. Facebook is a social networking service and website launched last February 2004, operated and privately owned by Facebook Inc. Day by day, the population of Facebook users continue to swell and according to Facebook's website, it gained more than 800 million active users. Facebook was founded by Mark Zuckerburg with his colleagues and fellow computer science students Eduardo Saverin, Dustin Moscovitz and Chris Hughes. It was initially limited to the founders and Harvard students but was expanded to other colleges in Boston area, the Ivy League and Stanford University before it was eventually made open to anyone aged 13 and above.
          In order to surf Facebook, users must register. After that, they may customize their personal profile, add other user as friends, and exchange chain of messages with them. Facebook also includes an automatic notifications when users update their profile, leave their posts, comment at other user's statuses, photos and many more. There are other cool features which include joining or creating group/s, organized by workplace, school, or college, and users can categorize their friends into lists such as "Close Friends", "Acquaintances", "People from Work" and many more. Users can upload photos and videos, can add contact and personal information. Facebook allows users to choose their own privacy setting, can control who can see specific parts of their profile, other information they shared, as well as who can find them.
          Since multifold of people are using Facebook, many entrepreneur grabbed this opportunity to sell products online. There is a widespread of shops who upload photos of their products and tag random people and they leave some description about their product, mode of payment and contact numbers. It is one of the most effective ways of advertising nowadays. 
          In addition, the innovation of technology made Facebook available not only for computers but on many devices such as cellphones and tablets. It enables users to continuously stay in touch with other users all over the world as long as they have an Internet connection.
           There are some cons Facebook possess. Some said that such practice causes increase in antisocial tendencies because of indirect communication between people. There are some cases like spam attack wherein pages in Facebook contains or posts nude photos. Once they got clicked, users are actually sending those links to other users without their knowledge. Good thing the Facebook team is currently doing what they can in order to put a halt to this problem."studies have revealed that excessive daily use of social media can negatively affect the health of children, preteens and teenagers alike as they are more prone to anxiety, depression and other psychological disorders as well as more susceptible to future general health problems " (Neuro-Behavioral Clinical Research, 2011). Moreover, Facebook has an effect to students. “Studies found that middle school, high school and college students who checked Facebook at least once during a 15-minute study period achieved lower grades” (Neuro-Behavioral Clinical Research, 2011).        
          In conclusion, there are pros and cons in using Facebook. Communication, opportunities for other people mainly businessmen and many more are just some of the pros but it possesses cons too such as widespread of offensive photos, words and the like. Behind this, Facebook is indeed a hip, a cherry on top. No wonder why it attracted and gained a lot of users and is continuously growing and dominating over other social networking sites.

Head Over Heels

There are certain things people feel everyday. It is a part of being human. They must be similar in some ways but never identical. There are some things that lead us to confusion about which is which. It is just like love and infatuation. People often mistakenly mix the meaning of love and infatuation. Most people feel they're in love, but in fact, they are just infatuated. Love and infatuation are both intense emotions that one feels for another person. But the two differ in the existence of love, intensity and their final outcome. Infatuation is a state where a person is completely carried away by his or her emotions and unreasoning passion or love. It is a feeling and only the emotions are affected in infatuation. It is where people feel butterflies in their stomach, difficult to concentrate, always daydream about the person they are "in love" to, miserable when they are away, and we're not complete unless we are with them. On the other hand, love is a feeling of intense affection for the one they love. Unlike infatuation wherein it is just a feeling, love is a commitment. Love is patient. Love is kind. It is not conceited but is humble. Love is forgiving. Love is all about give and take. Moreover, distance is not a hindrance to love. It is strengthen by time and separation. Love is often demonstrated by white hairs and always young in the heart. There are loads of explanations about the distinctness of the two. It depends on how people decipher what they perceive.

Highways and byways

Big Ben

"No one realizes how beautiful it is to travel until he comes home and rests his head on his old, familiar pillow" - Lin Yutang M.D. What makes a place one in a million? Some people are fond of travelling and unveiling the beautiful sceneries and cultures of a certain place, mingle with other races, have fun and relax. Well, of course one thing to consider when travelling are the landmarks. People travel because of the landmarks that divulge its importance to the masses. One of the most visited place is London which is full of historical places. The immigrants, the city's life blood, continue to flow and contribute their energies and cultures to the capital's melting pot, which is one of the factors that contribute to the swelling number of tourists. The boxy black cabs, the red double deck buses, or those grand symbols of Great Britain - Westminister Abbey, the contour of the Tower Bridge above the murky water of Thames river, the London Eye, Buckingham Palace, Picadilly Circus, St. Paul's Cathedral, Trafalgar Square, St. Margaret's Church are just illustrations of the most popular tourist spots. Indeed, London is one of the most re-hot spots which tourists visit.

London Escapade

Tower Bridge

            United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland (commonly known as GBR or United Kingdom or Britain) is one of the largest European countries. It is known because of its culture which stands out among others and carries the pride of having picturesque and majestic tourist spots, mouth watering foods and many more.London, it's capital, is one of the leading tourist destinations. It is a home of array of famous landmarks.In addition, London has been one of the leading global cities renowned in different fields such as arts, commerce, education, fashion, entertainment, tourism, and many more. Prior to that, it has a diverse range of people, cultures, religions and languages that contribute to its lasting beauty.

Buckingham Palace
The majestic feeling as people walk down the asphalt and red brick road, the shiver that alleys give, smiles from heartwarming people of different races are just examples of what London can give tourists. London is acknowledged by its adorable cabs, gigantic double-deck buses, shopping areas, famous restaurants and ravishing landmarks. The Buckingham Palace where tourists can witness the "Changing of Guards" when a member of a royal family is in residence; The London Eye, a 135-meter (443 ft) tall giant Ferris wheel situated on the banks of the River Thames, in London, England; The Tower Bridge which is often mistaken for London Bridge; Westminster Abbey which is on the other side of Thames River, a must-see and significant structure of British History;  The Tower of London, an historic royal fortress that holds the Crown Jewels of England; The Big Ben, the famous clock tower; The Picadilly Circus which is one of the shopping place in Central London. Other attractions include Covent Garden, St. Paul's Cathedral,  London Zoo, the Natural History Museum, the Globe Theatre, the London Bridge Experience, the Charles Dickens Museum, Madame Tussauds and Wembley Stadium. Seeing these spots will unveil the true beauty and history of London. It is indeed bounded by beauty and culture.