How do you use this... ; (semi-colon)

I don't understand when to use it or where to put it??? Why should I use the semi-colon instead of a regular comma? I'm just completely confused!
THE RULE
1) It connects two independent clauses that are logically related and that are not joined by a conjunction.
2) It separates items on a list, especially when the items on the list contain commas.
3) It separates independent clauses if there are commas within the clauses. http://www.worktalk.com/tips/semi_colon.html

The 1950s were great....NOT!!!!

"Looking for Work" by Gary Soto, I thought was a very well written essay about the everyday life of 9 year old boy in the 1950s (not that I'd know, but it sounded good!). The point of both essays was to get across the similarities and differences of the present time and the 50s. Soto, writing the essay in a very laid back manner, only talking about how "Mrs. Moore gave him a quarter and two peaches after weeding the flower garden." While Coontz, forgive me but was probably one of the most boring essays I have ever read! The whole thing was statictics and comparing the 50s to the 90s. I didn't like her writing as much as I liked Soto's.
I think that both authors, as much as I would rather not talk about the second one because the reference and use of nostalgia in the first paragraphs was a bit of overkill! What both authors were driving at in their essays was that even though the 50s were nice, they had many problems we don't have today and vise versa. Some people really do miss the 50s as pointed out by Coontz but then there are those people that couldn't be happier that they are over. I don't think these essays challenge cultural beliefs about American families because once Soto realized that the life of "Leave it to Beaver" wasn't how his was going to be, he was content on going out in the last hour of light and making dime to end the day right.

Well... Here I Go...

After reading the introduction to "Rereading America" I found that I have so much trouble with critical thinking. I don't know where to start, what I should be thinking about, where I should be ending. Once you get through the introduction, you find that there are many underlying ideas but that is the main point. You need to be critical thinkers! Hopefully I can get to that later in the course so this blog is a warm up for me.
Being an American Citizen has its responsibilities as well as its perks. Not that there is a good or a bad to either of them. For me, I am so glad I happen to be growing up here as an American Citizen. But you also have to understand that with being an American Citizen you also have the responsibility to be a critical thinking (just an example from the text; there are many others). And by that going back to a high school class I took called Gender Studies, we studied the "myths" of roles of men and women in our society as well as throughout history. And it talks about that in the introduction! So for complicating my view, I don't think it will much because I've already been exposed to so much in that class that I probably will never forget!