Ad project

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NeFy76P-w2I

Commercial

I will be doing a commercial for Oreos!

Commercial for what????

In doing my research on commercials and advertisements I began to realize that a lot of company's commercials have nothing to do with the product or service they provide until the very very end. This is demonstrated in commercials for things like Dairy Queen. Kittens in bubbles? That is animal cruelty and not funny. How is that going to make me want to eat ice cream, or their second rate hamburgers? Hey Dairy Queen, stick to ice cream and leave the kittens alone. This observation led me to an ad that not so much advertised its product as promoted itself as a company. In this age of "Going Green", Chipotle, the Mexican food restaurant, has tried to advertise itself as a "Green" company by reducing waste and pollution. This commercial really caught my eye because it was very interesting and kept my attention. I had no clue what the commercial was going to be for and when Chipotle entered the screen I was utterly surprised. It is a good commercial so I am posting in this entry.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aMfSGt6rHos

Researching, because apparently they didn't find it the first time!

My experience with writing research is one full of blood and gore. Violent and aggressive measures have been taken to avoid writing a research paper. I have never won the battle. Time and time again I find myself writing a paper about some topic given to me against my will! When the words "Research Paper" are spoken to me I instantly think of one class, freshman year English. My teacher was this 68 year old marathon runner who used references from epic novels to communicate to her students. This woman being a terribly outdated teacher gave me the awesome topic of "Fetal Farming" to write a 8 page research paper. What is "Fetal Farming" you ask? As a freshman in high school I enjoyed researching the process and market for genetically engineering stem cells to grow organs and other tissues as replacement parts for people. Joy! This was easily the worst experience in an English class I have ever had. The pure hatred seeped from every pore and my writing became more of an attack of the teacher rather then about the black market for human organs and the artificial growth of body parts I didn't even know existed. Whats a duodenum? I have had a couple very good experiences. I was very lucky my senior year of high school getting to write about the salary caps in professional sports. Although research papers and I have a similar relationship to that of the Fellowship of the Ring and the Orcs, I cannot say with the right topic they are somewhat useful. So bring it Mr. Bob. Do your worst!

Kentucky - An English Teacher's Nightmare

Mr. Bob mentioned something about me writing about my experience in Kentucky. I was in Kentucky for a week and a half and learned quite a bit about the literacy of the people. This ties nicely in with what we're talking about in class. The majority of the people living in Harlan, Kentucky are not well educated. If they were lucky they graduated the 8th grade. The people have a very unique twang and a way of missing letters all together as they talk. They often change their vowel sounds as well. Examples of this would be the word "Down" would come out like "Dern". A common phrase was "Ya'll aint got nothing". Another infuriating sentence was " I seen yous yesterday." I saw! I SAW!! The fact that I knew the people did not have a very good education helped me understand why the people talked so horrifically, but also their culture comes into play. Everyone talks like that down there. Its just how they are and how they grew up. They don't have anyone who speaks so called "Perfect English" within 100 miles of them. This being said and even with all these factors clearly present I unfortunately judged these people as not being very intelligent. Something about the way they talked made me feel superior when that is anything but the truth. It was a very good lesson learned for me. I worked on a house with people from the area. These men could each build a whole house on their own. Each one could start from scratch and put up a house, a barn, or anything. They were supreme carpenters and masons. Each person I met could tell you the history of Harlan and the history of Kentucky. The people were in no way stupid or unintelligent. Unfortunately just the way they talked made me judge them as so. Moral of this story? Don't assume you know anything or anyone until you have all the facts.

Better Late Than Never Cantor

Cantor says that the biggest thing universities can do is promote diversity. It is very important to introduce students to more of the world and broaden their horizons but at the same time I feel it is much more important to make the real goal the education being given. The ability to welcome international students and a diverse student body is fantastic but they should be coming to the university because of the great academic excellence demonstrated there. The process of accepting students should be completely unbiased even to the point of trying to diversify the community. There are valid points for making a diverse community. You need a diverse community to ensure that the best possible people are working together especially in a research university. It is beneficial to expose people to other culture so create a tolerance and therefore harmony among different races and cultures of people. This being said, I still believe that the education comes first before the life experience.

Multiculturalism

            Multiculturalism, what does it mean for Western Michigan University? This is a question that needs to be answered. I see the diversity and multiculturalism present on campus everyday. I see people from all over the world. I hear different languages and see different cultural wardrobes in all my classes. My floor in the dorms is home to three people from oversees. Having talked to them, they seem happy and very welcomed. Western Michigan's website states that it is trying to create a diverse atmosphere and want to be supportive and welcoming to all people. I see this everyday and I am very proud to help sustain that. I think the greatest evidence of how well Western Michigan promotes diversity and multiculturalism is the amount of foreign students it has. The students are coming and staying here to get an education. The university is obviously doing something right. The fact that Western has so many foreign students really shows the quality of the classes and teachers. We should be very proud of our school.

Peer Editing (Rushed)

 I have been doing peer editing for quite awhile now so Thursday was no big deal for me. The personable and exceptional writer Morgan Townsend was my partner. We both read our narratives aloud with a little discomfort at first but we became comfortable with a few jokes here and there. We read silently and critiqued each others narratives with a fine toothed comb. This was going all so well until someone decided to ruin all the fun and hurry us along. Mr. Bob! Apparently the process was suppose to be quick and not thorough. We were being harassed every other minute to hurry up which probably caused careless editing mistakes. Are Morgan and I going to be held responsible for less then perfect peer editing when we were forced to work in such hostile conditions? On the upside of all this, Morgan and I now have a common dislike with the peer editing styles of Mr. Bob. With this in common, we are becoming the best of pals. Will this blog post effect my grade? Will Mr. Bob apologize? Am I still typing to prove the point that I work better when not rushed? We will answer these questions and more in due time!

"Why My Mother Can't Speak English"

         I have always been very good at many things. Sports, school, and other things along those lines, came very easy to me and I was able to learn them and even develop those skills. However, one thing has always frustrated me to no end. I have no musical talent whatsoever! I have tried to to learn the piano which ended with me learning happy birthday and the University of Michigan Fight Song. I have tried the drums and failed miserably with my inability to keep a rhythm using both my hands and feet. But, most frustrating of all was the guitar. I envy all those who can play the guitar. I have always wished i could just sit on my front porch on a nice warm day and just jam away on an acoustic guitar, or better yet have that rare occasion when your at a bonfire and you bring out the guitar and all the ladies love you at the end of the night. My struggles with the guitar started when I tried learning how to read music. I never got to hang of it and tried to use the new tab method. My fingers never seemed to find the right cord or string and I would become frustrated. Another reason why this skill has never been formed is that is my town where I grew up, there wasn't any place to take lessons and I didn't know any really good guitar players to teach me or show me so I depended on self teaching via the internet. These limited resources killed the dream I still have to this very day. If I could learn to play to guitar, I'm pretty sure it would change my life.