A Final Reflection

Wow. It’s already the end of the semester.  Who knew it would fly so fast.  English was always a harder subject for me; I wasn’t very good at writing papers.  But for some reason, my college papers are much better than my high school papers.  I think my writing style has changed a little bit since high school, which isn’t always a bad thing.  My writing is more structured and organized, and I connect my ideas better.  My transitions have gotten a lot better, thanks Ms. Dimaggio for stressing that so much in class.  I think the best thing I’ve written this semester was a History 001 paper about the Black Death, comparing two different documents.  Most of that paper was influenced by this class though.  The two revising techniques I used were taught in this class.  The best thing I think I wrote in English was my evaluation paper about the Chrysler 200 commercial.  Eminem is one of my favorite artists, and he was great in that commercial. Not only that, I feel I did a good job analyzing the commercial and how it persuaded the audience.  But, I feel that all of my other papers have been very well written and of good quality.  I spent many hours writing and revising them, and they turned out well for the most part.  I liked the discussion of different techniques; it has me look at a paper much differently than I did before.  However, I wish there was a list of techniques, or one that I’d compiled, because sometimes I feel different techniques are necessary.  I hope to continue writing in my engineering classes, and I feel there will be an opportunity to.  I think there will be other classes that I will need to write papers for, so I think my writing should continue.  If I’m not writing in classes, I might continue blogging; it’s a good way to write about my ideas.

Lifting

                I love lifting weights at the gym with my buddies.  Not only is it a good workout, it creates bonds with the people you work out with.  I’m best friends with most of my workout buddies.  But I’m going to describe some of the workouts I particularly like.

                Now that I’m college, I tend to do 3 different days of lifts: On the first day, I do chest and triceps and abdominals.  On the second day, I lift shoulders and calves.  And on the third day, I do biceps and back.  The reason I’ve cut out my legs is because I do such much walking, that when I squat it becomes nearly impossible for me to walk the next day.   And in college, I walk just about everywhere, so it’s difficult to make it to class on time and get where I need to go.  So, I only squat when I know I’m not doing anything the next day.

                For chest and triceps, I start with a regular bench press.  This is just doing a pushup with a bar and weight instead of the floor.  Normally, after completing all the reps needed, I’ll finish with around 135 on the bar and see how many I can do.  It also pushes the pectoral muscles to the breaking point, along with showing how much one’s improved since last time.  After the regular press, I follow this with both inclined and declined bench press, which just changes the angle of the bench press.  On average, I’ll do about four sets of presses, varying the repetitions, but following a pyramid style lift.  As the weight increases, the repetitions decrease.

                After completing the presses, there are several exercises one can choose from to complete their workout.  Normally, one does some sort of dumbbell press.  This can happen just about anywhere; a bench, a workout ball, or the floors are just some examples.  One can also do offset pushups with a medicine ball under one hand.  A slightly different pushup would be a tricep pushup with dumb bells.   Using two low weight dumb bells (a five or a ten usually), one places them parallel to each other shoulder-width apart.  Using these dumb bells as the push off point, one changes the rotation from the shoulder to the elbows, allowing the triceps muscles to work harder.  For added intensity, after one comes up from the pushup, he or she can rotate at the shoulder and lift one weight above his head.

The Charlotte Bobcats

Well, tonight, we will see something you don’t see very often; the worst team in NBA history. Yes, the worst team over a course of 75 years. The Charlotte Bobcats have accomplished history… if you call it history. Over the course of this season, they have gone 7-59, a measly .106 winning percentage. Even the 1972-73 Philadelphia 76ers had a better winning percentage of .110. The talent level these days is much higher, especially with Kemba Walker on their team. He led the UConn Huskies to the national championship in 2011, and was hoping to change the culture in Charlotte. But he’s the backup point guard. Kemba’s a rookie, who started 18 games in place of DJ Augustin, Charlotte’s best player. DJ Augustin has been in the league for a couple years, and the offense runs through him. But after DJ, the offense gets very thin. Their third highest paid player, Corey Maggette, spends his time on the bench behind 2 other players. There is no leadership. Maggette should be a veteran presence, both on the court and weight room, but it’s hard to have a presence on the court if you’re on the bench. There was almost no preseason for the players to come together and bond as a team. Tyrus Thomas, brought in over the offseason to strengthen the offense, has had injury problems all year and has become petulant. He even got into a shoving match with his coach several games ago. The coach, Paul Silas, has been in the league several years, but when he took over last year, his winning percentage was slightly lower than .500. The Bobcats were so bad, they couldn’t even beat the next worse team, the Washington Wizards. They lost by 28 a couple games ago. The irony of this record is that their general manager is Michael Jordan, the greatest basketball player in history. The greatest player in history is now the worst general manager.

Exploring Venues/Publications

The two publications I chose are Grantland and Sports Illustrated, and both of these publications focus on sports and related subjects. They share a common audience, with any sports-crazy to average fan looking for an interesting story about sports. They try to attract the teenagers to middle-aged males, and to a certain extent some females could be interested in these publications. There are no major barriers, like race or religion, since they talk about all different sports and seem to have a good moral compass. Grantland is formatted a little differently from Sports Illustrated, as its online versus in-print like SI. However, there are several notable differences in their styles; first, their content. Sports Illustrated is similar to investigative reporting, giving reasons why teams are performing at certain levels and give predictions for the future. They delve deeper into the actual events, focusing on the human element of the story, the athletes and the coaches involved in the games. In comparison, Grantland focuses on the pop culture surrounding the sports; the articles often relate to music or sports or combine elements of both. Another difference is their writing style; they are nearly polar opposites. On one side, Sports Illustrated writes in a much more serious, more authoritative style. On the other, Grantland writes in a narrative style. Their articles are more free-flowing, and often take tangents off their topic. The articles have a relaxed tone, and tend to include irregular grammar usage not found in serious writing. Their use of evidence is often the same; lots of statistics from games and drafts and other important numbers. Sports has become a numbers game, and both use these numbers to support their arguments. I mentioned this earlier, but their formats are also radically different; Sports Illustrated is a biweekly magazine delivered to houses while Grantland is an online publication that gets delivered to your computer. Both are incredibly interesting, although Grantland’s articles tend to be very long.

Great Writing

One of the best fictional writers, in my opinion, is Clive Cusseler. I liked action-packed books, but his were almost addicting, to the point that I felt compelled to read. I had to find out what would happen, and his introductions did a good job of raising my curiosity for the novels as a whole, and how they related to the overall plot. Below is the first two paragraphs from his novel Vixen 03:

"The Boeing C-97 Stratocruiser bore the look of a crypt. Perhaps the image was bred by the cold winter night, or perhaps it came from the gusting snow that was piling an icy shroud on the wings and fuselage. The flickering lights from the cockpit windshield and the fleeting shadows of the maintenance crew served only to exaggerate the chilling scene.
Major Raymond Vylander, United States Air Force, did not care for what he saw. He watched silently as the fuel truck drove away and vanished into the stormy darkness. The loading ramp was dropped from the rear of the great whalelike belly, and then the cargo doors slowly swung closed, cutting off a rectangle of light that spilled onto a heavy-duty forklift. He shifted his gaze slightly and stared at the twin rows of white lights bordering the eleven-thousand-foot Buckley Naval Air Station runway that stretched across the plains of Colorado. Their ghostly luminescence marched into the night and gradually faded behind the curtain of falling snow."

Reflection

One of my favorite experiences is my car. My car is my baby. I had difficulty learning how to drive since I had a concussion, but I got drive it more and get a feel for it. One of the best feelings about it is the independence it affords me, but also just driving with the windows down and the stereo on is one of the best memories of summer. Being able to work on something that has significance is important too. I take good care of my car, both in terms of maintenance in looks. I take care of the oil and change the air filters myself, and change other miscellaneous parts such as headlights, spark plugs, etcetera and then wax and buff the finish on the car. After I do this, I wipe down the inside using leather protector and plastic protector, it makes it look much better than it did without the protector. The way the car neatly sparkles in the afternoon sun after its been waxed is a little mesmerizing. So is the shiny hubcaps and the shiny washed tires after I’ve cleaned off the dirt and grime. Despite its small size, it is still my favorite car, much more fun than any suv could ever be. It is my Saab 9-3, it is my baby, it is Trixie. She’s had a few small issues with her computer and she doesn’t always run as smoothly as she did, she’s always reliable and fun to drive. She provides the serenity I need sometimes, and that makes all the difference. She relaxes me, and it’s something I wish I could do all the time. But there is more to life than just sexy cars and fast rides, which is why I wouldn’t want to spend my entire life driving, so I invest my time in other ways. But when I get that independence I enjoy it as much as I can.

Several political ads that show ad hominem

My political ad shows ad hominem because it is an attack on a person's character, rather than discussing or debating issues that he agrees with.  The definition of Ad hominem is that the arguments attack someone’s character rather than addressing the issues.  The book says its common in political discourse, and it becomes obvious when you look at the first block.  What does military experience have to do with running for office?  Maybe Joe Courtney didn’t want to go into the military because he didn’t feel it was necessary for him to succeed, or it didn’t fit in with the plan he had for his life.  Being in the military doesn’t necessarily make someone a better person either; why it matters is beyond me.  It’s simply telling me facts.  In the next block, it is more of the same; attacking character, only this time its Heather Wilson.  “More than $400,000 from Insurance and Rx Drug Interests” is attacking who she raises money from.  Any politician can receive any sort of donation from any company, any citizen, anytime, and anywhere.  No ifs, ands, or buts.  Its attacking her character by making it seems like a bad thing that she was able to work hard and raise that money.  In the third block, it says “rewards 12 million illegals.”  Now this is more of the same, but it’s also a very inflationary statement; we don’t know he rewards them.  It allows us to immediately draw a conclusion about his character, which is what the advertisers want; follows the ad hominem theme.  And for the fourth block, “voted against bonus pay for troops” is just a continuation of the theme.  One seeing that immediately draws a conclusion about his character that he is unwilling to reward hard work and dedication.  This follows the ad hominem of not addressing the issues while attacking the character.