"What's in the bag"

“What’s in the bag?” The first masked man screamed at the woman on the ground.

“Nothing, I just wanted some water.” She responded in fear.

“Give me that bag, you don’t need anything.”

The two masked men paced back and forth through the bank, stepping over hostage after hostage.

“Man, you said that we would slip in and slip out no problem.  Now the cops have this placed surrounded, I don’t want to go to jail, I can’t” one robber said the other.

“Hey, hey, hey, calm down! Nobody is going to jail, we are getting out of here and then we will be living the life of kings. OK?

Suddenly the bank land line phone rang.  It kept ringing over and over again.

“Should we answer it?” asked the robber.

The second robber didn’t say a word.  He simply walked over to the phone, looked around and picked up the phone.

“Hello?”

“Sir, this is Officer Thompson, from the Kane County sheriff’s department, I need you to come out with your hands up and no one will get hurt.”

“We are not coming out until our demands are met.” Said the robber.

“Ok, ok, what do you want?” asked the officer.

“We want all of the officers to go to the east side of the building.”

“Ok, ok, but we will need you to release all of the hostages first.”

“No, I’m not stupid. I know that these hostages are the only thing that is keeping me alive.” Replied the robber.

“Well I’m sorry but we can’t make a deal until you relese them.”

“What do you think Rob?” the robber asked his campanion.

“I don’t think we have a choice.  I think we have to take our chances and release them.”

The robber sighs and then returns the officer’s phone call. “Ok, fine I will release them but then move all of your officers to the east side of the bank.”

“Ok send them out one at a time” Officer Thompson said.

The hostages exit the building and run to safety.  And the officers move to the east of the building.  But little do the robbers know that the snipers remain on the roof.

The robbers see the officer’s move and begin to move out of the west side of the building.  The snipers take aim just as the robbers begin to make their run.  The officers watch anxiously as they wait for their trap to take action.  The officers wait and to their amazement the robbers keep running.  They get away.  The officers enter the bank and go to the top of the building only to find all of their snipers shot dead.

Definition Proposal

Chris Behr

02/23/11

Assignment #3 Proposal

1.      I will be defining what it means to be a leader.  I think that many people believe that a leader is simply someone that is in charge of others, but it is much more than that.

2.      I am in the Air Force ROTC program here at Penn State, and the Air Force stresses strong leadership in every aspect of your life.  Immediately after graduation I will be “in charge” of roughly 100 people.  But I do not believe that the day that I graduate from college, I will be a leader.  I need to learn from those around me, both superiors and inferiors, what it means to be a leader.

3.      My audience will be anyone looking to take on positions of leadership in their life.  Every person of society should have a quality set of leadership skills.  I want to persuade everyone to learn how to lead now to excel in the future.

4.      I will use a dictionary definition of what a leader is, and then I will go into what I have learned in my life to be a leader giving personal examples of leaders in my life.  I may pull some quotes from my Air Force book as well as they seem to drive home this point well.

5.      I will use pathos in my stories about leaders in my life.  I will use logos in saying what a leader is and what a leader does. And I will use ethos to show how morals and values come into leadership.

proposal

Assignment #2 Proposal

1.      My topic will be that rap music is a very valuable music style to today’s society.  Rap tends to get a bad rap (no pun intended) for corrupting children however cleaned up and in the right situations, it can lead society.

2.      I am writing about this topic because many people of older generations accuse rap music as the root of all of teenage problems these days saying that it is not music.  I would argue that it is as much music as doo wap or swing music is.  It leads society just as music of their day did.

3.      I am arguing that rap music is a very valuable type of music, and that it should not be blamed for child corruption.

4.      I will argue my position by simply stating what music is and how it has influenced society over the years and show how rap is following this same trend.

5.      I belive that I am a creditable speaker on this topic because I am a target audience for rap music, however I also value the music of past generations.  I think that music has evolved into new and different types over the years, and just because it does not match a definition from years ago does not mean that it does not correspond to today’s definition of music.

"The password is 1272"

"The password is 1272" he whispered as he stood in front of a locked door.

"Enter" A kind woman's voice said calmly. The door swung open and the man and his son walked in.

"Now just stay quiet and let dad handle this." the man said.  They walked for what seemed like 20 minutes down winding hallway after winding hallway. Finally, they rounded another corner and the pair came face to face with a large man. He had to be at least 8 feet tall. He stood there in a hooded cloak, just staring at them.

"Who was this guy" the son thought to himself. "Why was he here?"

Suddenly he spoke. "Welcome 1014. I see you brought 1272."

"Yes sir, I did.  He is ready." said the father.

"Good" the large man said.  The large man turned and continued down the winding hallway as if to say "Follow me"

We walked for another 20 minutes or so and finally we came to another door.  We entered without impediment this time and suddenly we stood in a dark room with a single bright light pointed at a chair in the center of the room.

"Come, son, have a seat." said the boy's father.

The son, trusting his father, hesitantly walked forward, and sat down.

“Son, today is the day I have been waiting for for a long time.  Today is the day that you become a man.”

“What was he talking about? How could I suddenly become a man overnight?” thought the boy.

“Son, do remember when you were young and you would always ask me what my job was?”

“Yeah dad, I do.”

“And what is my job?”

“Dad, you are an accountant.”

“Well son, today I can tell you the truth….”

The boy’s heart was pumping. “What is my dad trying to tell me? Why would he lie to me all these years?” he thought.

“Son, I…”

“WAIT!!!!” A woman screams from somewhere beyond the confines of the room. “He is just a boy!”

The boy’s mother storms through the door and grabs her son. 

“He is only 10 years old. We agreed we were going to wait till he is 18 so that he could make a mature decision. Come on, we are going home.” 

She storms out dragging her son by the wrist.

“Well I guess we will try again next year.” The father sighs.