It's Finally Here

I know we don't have a post for Eng201 this week but I'm determined to keep this blog alive, even if I'm the only soul who takes the time to read it. I used to do a lot of personal writing and keep this running word document with the things that cluttered my head and needed a good home. I find it easier to think about school, work, and other things if the useless topics that I ponder on a daily basis get out in some form or another.

I'm extremely excited for the end of the year. I ready to get back home and work, see my girlfriend and old friends. I have a ton planned for this summer. I'm going to Florida for my girlfriend's cousins wedding. I'm spending 5 days at Country USA. I have a ten day Organic Chem. Lab Boot Camp at Marshfield and since my brother is a high school senior and some of my friends also have siblings my brothers age, we have graduation parties lined up all summer. Yet part of me doesn't want to leave Madison. It's hard to explain, but you grow used to a place and leaving just makes you feel empty. I remember when I was younger going up north for the weekends. We'd leave Friday afternoon and spend two and a half days swimming, fishing, riding the dirt bikes, and whatever I could find to entertain myself. Come Sunday I knew we had to go back to De Pere and school would follow the next day. But something inside me always felt missing when I got home, like I wasn't part of where I was. I was still back up north at the cabin. I guess what I'm trying to say if a weird way is that I'm going to miss Madison over the Summer yet I'm compelled to go home for so many good reasons and I know once i settle in at home for a few days that feeling will vanish.

Well on a different note, I hope everyone survives finals week and either has a great summer and finds a job if they are graduating. It's been a pleasure meeting all of you in Eng201, take care.

I'm Out!

Class Presentations

I thought both the other groups presented good studies and i found their findings interesting. The Destroyers presentation comparing Washingtonpost.com and Digg.com was thurough and i learned a few things. I have never been to either website, but I believe i could navigate either now. I personally liked the idea of Digg.com. It was a lot more informal and offered freedom in responses to articles. Also, there was a multitude of different types of media that can be accessed from this site. Obviously there are problems with credibility at this site, but the less credible sources were dispersed among credible ones. It really makes the viewer responsible for deciding what can be trusted and what can not. The Washington Post website had all if not nearly all reliable sources. I agree with what the group said about demographics for the two sites. Digg.com gives the impression that it is after a younger generation for its primary users with less restriction on comments and interesting multimedia.
The group that presented on campus libraries had some good information for me. I really don't go to libraries often. I just don't like to sit in the hard chairs and many libraries remind me of being back in class. I want what the group presented as the "thrid space". I need something comfrotable yet functional, which is why i go to Union South and study in the Fireside Lounge. There is comfortable seating there, some desks, some small couches and most importantly the fireplace. It's just more relaxing and less like a classroom, but I might check out some of the areas this group mentioned for the upcoming finals week.
On a sidenote, this weekend is Mifflin and yet again the forecast is calling for cold temps and rain, which is nothing new. Mifflin is that one party that signifies the end of the school year. It means the end is near, but finals are just around the corner as well. This weekend should be a relaxin fun one that prepares me for the insane last two weeks on campus.

What is Writing?

Writing is many things to me. It is all around you everywhere you look and life as we know it wouldn't be the same without it. We would all be grunting and groaning at each like a bunch of cavemen without it. Unless for some strange reason we developed speech without written word, but then how would be teach the phonetics of speech? Anyway, enough crazy chicken or egg talk. Writing is the lyrics to your favorite song, a letter home to grandma, a scientific publication, or even your latest instant message. It's a way to put our thoughts on something more permanent, more tangible. Do you ever see things clearer on paper than if people just tell you them? Writing connects us all at some level. Anyone who can write understands how to use the letters and symbols to create something meaningful. Writing conveys messages from one person to another and not always a literal one. The words often have more subtle meanings and interpretations. This is one thing I wrote once that people would read differently, and can apply it and mold it to their own lives:

Buried in my resolve
I dive beneath the sorrow
To grit my teeth and hide
For the struggle within,
Dies as conscience thought weeps.
No device to bring solitude,
A lonely soul embraces eternity
As lustful dreams devour the remnants of love,
And a soul searches a vast obscurity
To find calm in wasteful illusions of reality.
-Ruf-

Everyone is entitled to their own way of taking in writing, this obviously excludes some things, like scientific writing which needs to be read in a certain context in order to make sense. Man has created many extraordinary things in our short time on Earth. Consider early man as he tries to produce fire or the wheel. Think of Newcomen endlessly searching to perfect the steam engine. Where today’s technologies are is truly remarkable, but regardless of what is to come for humankind (more p.c. than mankind), writing is truly humankind's greatest inventions.

Free Post and Other Class Writing

Today the NFL distributed the 08-09 schedules, which got me thinking about my beloved Packers and their fate this season. By now everyone is aware that Brett Favre will not be returning for next season. It’s going to be hard for me to see the Pack take the field without number 4 in the huddle. I haven’t known a Green Bay without him and now our future rests with Aaron Rodgers. I have never been a huge fan of his. I really don’t feel he has the talent to be a starting quarterback. Obviously it is not my decision and the Packers coaching staff think he can replace Favre effectively, but the season holds a lot of uncertainty. We have many young players left and they’ll be under the command of Rodgers. I question whether Rodger’s lack of experience will leave the young players without a leader on the field. Anyway, the season could go really well or really bad. I’ll have to watch the pre-season and make up my mind, but the one thing I do know, “We are going to beat da Bears!”
My other courses this semester don’t require much writing at all and over my college career this has been my most intensive writing course. I figured it would be going into it. In my Anthro. 104 class we write weekly summaries on assigned readings, nothing serious and especially not interesting by any means. The books we read are not my idea of stimulating reads and you can guess neither are my responses. My other classes don’t have any writing assignment so it’s been pretty nice. The only thing is that they require a good portion of my time for studying notes. Writing is a slow process for me. I sit down and analyze everything as I write it down. So a considerable amount of time I usually study with gets consumed in my writing. It’s not that I won’t sit down and do the work; it just takes more of my day than I’d like. On a positive note, I’m looking forward to writing my literary memoir. It should be a fun piece to finish out my college writing course career.

What I've Learned about Negative Advertising

       Well, for starters I always got a kick out of negative advertising on TV.  I guess you could say I found joy in watching one hopeful candidate verbally beat down his opposition.  I would sit there and watch in disbelief.  How could people be willing to attack someone like this on national television and then in some cases, get away with it and benefit themselves.  I don’t think walking into my English 201 class and laying down some vocal carnage saying everyone in the class is worthless and I should get an A would be very effective.  Yet politicians do it all the time, focusing on their opponent’s negatives and not their own qualifications for office.  Part of my research led me to look up and try to view some negative advertising from the past.  Let me tell you there are some real winners out there shelling out auditory poundings.  None of this what I’ve learned, but really why I chose the topic. 

       I knew from previous courses in psychology that memory is quite a complex process.  I didn’t expect to find that negative advertising would actually show stimulatory benefits for viewers.  Recall and recognition of the candidates involved was slightly larger than for positive ads.   There are a ton of different psychological views and approaches to how memories are exactly incorporated and recalled and how emotional states can help or hinder a person’s ability to remember.  The brain is such a complex machine it is hard to know anything definitively.  Along those lines I didn’t expect some aspects of the research I was doing to have a definitive answer.  We are under the general assumption that advertising works and draws in voters or consumers.  But what I didn’t stop to think about was how can we be sure it was just the advertising that caused the effect.  Can we correlate a voter’s intentions with an ad?  How do you connect the two?  The research in this field is primarily based on self-reported results, which is of course prone to countless errors, bias, etc.  Either way, negative advertising is something we all should think about at least a little.  Is it right to slander another person to better yourself?  Are moral standards even relevant when people are protected by the first amendment?  Let’s face it, we all know our politicians are crooks, or hold special interest and politics is at the center of our comedic industry.  Negative ads have been around for some time now, but recently have risen in number.  I would have to believe people’s dislike for politics could have a root in the negativity associated ads and the system as a whole.  Have politicians begun digging the grave for what little respect this democracy still has left?

Response to Sotirin: Bitch, Bitch, Bitch

Overall I found this article pretty dull. The last thing I want to read is someone ramble on about the different styles and implications of bitching. But for sake of having something to talk about, the concept that bitching contains both “talking with” and “talking against” was interesting. You never stop to analyze how you or others complain and the implications that is has. When I listen to others bitch, it is just a natural response to say things like “yea, I know how you feel”, or “ something like that happened to me once”. Establishing a connection with that person is the inherently right thing to do. But then there’s always the person being complained about. There are obvious implications if bitching about a superior, get around to that superior. The discussion of that situation was not in this article, but I’m sure much could be said.
One thing I really didn’t care for was the dividing of all variations of what they call bitching. I realize the irony here that I am now the one bitching about this article, but when it comes down to it, bitching is bitching. Whether your not being treated right at work, had a bad day, or just not feeling well, complaining is just a part of everyday life. It is something to talk about. If you ask someone “How was your day?”, you’re never going to get “Everything went exactly how I planed today.”. And if you do, it’s definitely not going to happen everyday.
Sotirin made a good argument that bitching is just a way to cope with one’s situation and is in no way a move towards actually solving it. Given that people of lower job status mostly do the bitching, you see their limit in what they can do. Upper management doesn’t always respond well to complaining from those in lower positions. The best thing to do is just do your work and avoid confrontation. The phrase I remember my mom telling me is “No one likes a winer”.
One thing we talked about in class was how this article seems to point fingers at women for bitching, but it’s more of a general feature of lower status workers. But from that I must say guys will avoid bitching if it makes them look weak. At work, you won’t hear a construction worker complain about the heat or cold or sore hands to his boss. It’s about pride. It’s the same thing with asking for directions, men just won’t do it unless things get desperate. Looking vulnerable is something to avoid as a guy, while women are not opposed to it. Of course these are very general statements, but definitely carry some legitimacy. Either way, bitching is just something we all get to dish out and endure.

Why I'm here and what I've learned about my writing?

For me college was the only option. I want to work in the genetics field and go into research. I’m not sure whether I want to do plant or human genetics yet. It all started with my sophomore biology class in high school. Before then I had never cover genetics in any detail before, but everything was fascinating to me. How a molecule that is modestly simple can give life to such an area of creatures and the machinery that makes them perform is amazing. So college was the only place I could further my education and get into the field I wanted to research, and what better place for genetic research than the university that pioneered stem cells under James Thomson. Right now the plan to get a job with just a bachelor’s degree and maybe come back for master or doctorate later.

I’ve always been very critical of my writing, but I think the biggest thing I’ve learned this semester so far is that I like using long wordy phrases. I just have a tendency to ramble on and as we touch on today in class, I use plenty of metadiscourse. I think I’ve always written like this, but it has never been brought to my attention nor has it been asked of me to fix it. I think writing less creative works is where I tend to run into problems. I feel more constricted and my ideas get boxed when I write these pieces. But I think if I take something from this semester, it’s to trust my ideas and the writing I put work into. The responses I got from our first workshop in class really surprised me. I didn’t think much of the paper, but apparently it was well written in the eyes of my group. So, the two things I want to take are a greater confidence in what I write and to limit my use of wordy clauses.