Presentations

Every single person is so good that has been speaking. This week we had Brittany who talked about the benefits of exercise. She is really passionate about this and has been exercising for quite some time now. She had a great use and incorporation of her project into her multimodel. Most the things I already knew, but she hit home a lot of key points for anyone who doesn't know much about the benefits of exercising.

Presentations Tues-April 17

Lathaniel
Great Presentation. Used a lot of pathos and is a great speaker. His topic was Anti-Gay bullying, and he created a website that focused on reaching out to gay kids in school. Starts of website and speech by using a persuasive quote saying "It can start with you". Lathaniel also uses videos to "hit home more." Really focusing on and has a passion for kids being bullied in school. Provides a guide to help teachers intervene with bullying because teachers are typically to scared. To help stop bullying, tell an adult, do not use physical violence. Overall, great presentation and really did a great job being proud in front of everyone to cause awareness

Vinnie
This topic was very interesting to me. It was about Lucid Dreaming. Vinnie keeps his composure while speaking and also did a very great job. His Multimodel was a poster with a very artistic picture of a hot air balloon with a person laying in the with dream bubbles rising into the balloon. The person resembles people and the balloon was being powered by the dreams. The balloon was separated in three different sections which resembled the three different arguments or reasons for Lucid Dreaming. These three were: a way to escape, improve motor skills, and to be at free will. On the picture, the right side of the balloon represented a business life to an escaping realty. On the left, it went from baseball to improving motor skills and in the middle it went from a courtroom to having absolute free will. Interesting thought Vinnie mentioned was that he got the images from google to represent what really is the first thing people think of when they hear these words of escaping reality, free will, improving motor skills, business, courtroom, and baseball. Another great presentation.

Multimodel Project

I will be doing my multimodel project in the form of a website. I am familiar with websites and believe I can do something interesting with it. Also, websites are a great way to include a lot of information, and that is exactly what my experiment entails. There is a lot of research to incorporate and this is the best way to display and present it.

Research Meme

What is Text?

Text is the written form of language. It physically starts with a letter or symbol. Then letters make words, words make sentences, sentences make paragraphs, and so on. Although we can get more in depth with our letters and characters, we don't necessarily have to use just these to make text. Text is simply a written idea. Whether your words make sense or not, it is still text. Although text is different from pictures.

30 day challenge (Day 29)

The month goes by fast when you actually count every week out. I had my blood drawn today to get my final levels of Cholesterol and Blood Pressure. I will get the results for my cholesterol on Friday but I do have my Blood Pressure now. Firstly, the normal Blood Pressure is 120/80. Now, at the beginning of the month I was at 122/70 and after getting the results today, I am at 100/68. Also, I get my Blood pressure checked every Monday and Friday when I give plasma, and this past Monday I was at 117/52. The pressures seem to be all over the place but both recordings at the end of the month were lower than my Original. There have been studies of fish oil elevating moods. Since I was not blinded to the affects of fish oil it is hard to determine of my bias view had a mental impact at all. Although, after the second week I was feeling good and unsure if the fish oil had anything to do with it. Then, I was also in great spirits the third and fourth week. Therefore, even though judgements are hard to pass, I want to say I definitely felt an anti-depressant effect from taking fish oil. I will continue to take fish oil, only 1200mg less (2 capsules), simply for the cost. 

How Shoes Define You

Your typical connotation of someone who likes shoes is a diva girl. Well sorry to break the status quo, but I really like shoes. It actually wasn't until recently that I realized my love for shoes, and it all started when I was a little kid. I didn't grow up in the best financial situation, I didn't even grow up above poverty. But every time I would visit my Grandmother she asked the same question, "Do you need new shoes?" I would reply the same with a no, as I would wear the same wore down tennis shoes until I literally couldn't. I would eventually let her buy me a new pair out of annoyance from her asking. You see, my family is a distorted one and me and my Grandma are very close and always have been. She is getting older now, 92,  and I am starting to take an interest in her life. Something I learned about her a couple months ago is that she used to model for shoes, and they would send her a new pair often, which explains why she always wants me to get new shoes. Now in the recent month I have realized something about myself and my shoes. I realized that what ever pair I decide to wear, really has an influence on my attitude. Living in a small room on a college campus, I didn't want to bring all my shoes, so I really only have 6 or 7 pairs with me. I don't know if some would say that is a lot or not but I do not feel that it is. I don't feel its a lot because each one is used for a different purpose. I have tennis shoes, dress shoes, sperries, slip-ons, work shoes, style shoes. I usually always wear my style shoes which are kinda like skater shoes, but when I wear these I feel like a bolder individual and take things slow. If dont have room in my book bag and am working out that day, I will just wear my tennis shoes. Wearing my tennis shoes really changes my whole outfit, it makes me feel ready to move more and more of a common individual, almost bringing my pride down. If I wear my sperris, it gives me a casual feel, I am still careful and catious in these shoes but I feel classy. If I wear my slip-ons, it means I am lazy and comfortable that day, and introvert. Even if you don't notice it, your shoes have an influence on your mood. And now if you ever see me and what shoes I am wearing, you will know how I feel that day

Waste Land

The quote "99 is not a 100" can be used in various analogies and arguments. It can be referred to about the recycling of the garbage or the acknowledgement of a wounded soul. The Pickers of "Waste Land"were passionate, caring people that also were unfortunate, poor people. Many Pickers probably don't even realize why or how the group started.

The Pickers started as a group to collect the recycles of the dump, and was mocked. The organization grew and become something bigger than any of founders imagined. This inspired those people that they were making there community a better place. Now, they want to share this organization with others. Although a great thing, the Pickers humbly admit that this wasn't there first job preference. It is mentioned in the documentary that one of the Pickers is working there so he can help his boy to become bigger than that and not become a Picker.

Vik really inspires these Pickers by using the garbage to creating photos and art. He remakes pictures he took of the Pickers with the garbage. His intent is to raise money with his art to then assist the Pickers. This process goes global. Vik takes his work to America, and brings some friends with him. Vik is known internationally for his artwork.

 

30 day challenge (Day 21)

The actual taking of FO is going well. I only missed Friday night (I take 3 capsules in the morning and at night). I haven't noticed any significant side effects. I mentioned I was a little dizzy at the gym and I thought my blood pressure being lowered by the fish oil may have something to do with it. I highly doubt that though because I am not taking a high enough dosage for it to have any drastic change like that. Plus, I have always gotten dizzy if I do to much strenuous exercise. I found some awesome resources by doing the annotated bibliography. I even found an article that is on the opposing side of FO. It talked a little about how the effects may not be so beneficial as we thought. As I will discuss in my paper, the facts were not very clear on that article and it sided more on the benefits than the observation of not so many benefits.

30 day challenge (Day 14)

I did great this week. Only missed one day. I haven't had any side effects so far except for the same fishy burp you get no matter how much you take. I also haven't noticed any benefits. Although I have been in a great mood this week, I can't declare that is just from the fish oil. As far as research is going, we had to get an article for class to do our comic strip. That article was really interesting, it just seems like fish oil helps so many different things about the human body. I already have known it helps with brain cells, your heart, and now your weight. This article was about cancer patients going through chemotherapy. They were losing weight after the treatment, but new studies show those who took fish oil lost significantly less and even maintained. This week our annotated bibliography is due, so I should have plenty more information on next weeks follow up.

30 day challenge

Well here we all are a week into our 30 day challenge now. I am taking 3000 mg of fish oil a day to show that positive effects of it. My main focus is on the brain aspect but since we can't really get any proof of this, I will be measuring my cholesterol and blood pressure before and after. It should be decreasing. But I'm going to be honest here. I kinda failed last week on keeping up with the habit of taking my supplements. But I also failed on making it to the health center to get my blood drawn, well I didn't really fail that but in order for an accurate reading of cholesterol you need to fast for 12 hours before, and I have been trying to find a good time to do that. Therefore, Thursday I plan to get my blood work done and hopefully keep up my fish oil from there on out and the whole challenge will be back on track :) Yes, I will get into a week of March, or as long as I can while we are here. Next week I will have more hard facts about fish oil to talk about. I already know them now but since I haven't been consistant on the dosage, I just want to wait until next week to discuss what fish oil should do and how I actually feel.

Making Something out of Nothing

I brought an xbox controller to call in order to break. This item has meaning because of two reasons; the first being that it belonged to my xbox console that I still play, and the second because anything that is electronic just seems wrong to break. I played a lot more xbox when I was younger and it had to do with a big part of my life. That makes me sound like a pretty big nerd but I am not worried about it. Most kids in eighth grade were starting to experiment with alcohol,drugs, and girls while I just played xbox with my friends. I'm not saying all people in eighth grade did that but the majority, so I'm glad I could postpone my inevitable unveiling of those sins. Plus, if it wasn't for the fact that my friends played, I wouldn't have. I mean, two of my room mates in college are people I was playing xbox with back then.

I realize this is really much of nothing. I simply attempted to form a picture. There are supposed to be multiple X's in the picture. I can count 4 if you include the X that isn't really visible on the green button in the middle.

Even When You Know You're Right, You're Not Right

A time where even when I know I was right, I still wasn't right. The first time I can remember this is when I was about 8 years old. I was in the backyard with some friends and my brother. For some reason I was spinning in circles with a piece of large bark from a tree, and then released it. I continued to play for a couple minutes when I was confronted by my neighbor accompanied by my little brother. My brother was bleeding from the head, and the neighbor was pointing at me accusing me of his injury. The neighbor was saying that I intentionally hit my brother. I was sure that I hadn't done it. But with thought afterwards I must have flung that bark at his head and not noticed. Even when I knew I was right, I wasn't right.

The Art of Listening

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/11/opinion/sunday/in-africa-the-art-of-listening.html?_r=1

This has always been a key element to my lifestyle, listening more than talking. It has come up many times throughout my life that we learn more when we listen, so that's what I do. Hence, I liked this article.
If I were to take away one thing from this, it would be the parable. "human beings have two ears but only one tongue. Why is this? Probably so that we have to listen twice as much as we speak."  Now that is just so true. He talks about getting away from the egocentric community, and I am %100 in agreement with that. It seems like anything anyone wants to do is talk and never return the favor by listening.

The story we read in class and this article have an ironic similarity in which neither of the conversations ended. Although the two conversations have different tones and can be interpreted differently I think we can come to an agreement on this quote by Henning Mankell, "What differentiates us from animals is the fact that we can listen to other people’s dreams, fears, joys, sorrows, desires and defeats — and they in turn can listen to ours." This quote says how in anyway way we express ourselves, that is what makes us human . You can learn something from an old man telling his life story or from a professor giving a lecture, but you are still listening which in turn is learning. 

When we do our experiments, we are going to be gathering as much information as we can. And in order to learn more, we must listen more. That is simply the key.

Library Session

I have already attended those library introductions before, but I still learned some new useful information. I like the reference articles and being able to find a related article. The Multi-Link icon was never really explained before, and I now know how it works and why it sometimes fails. I will definitely be using these resources to gather more information on fish oil. There should be a lot of useful, scholarly articles to read from and gather research. Not only will I be using the library website for research to come and future research but I will use it to hold books and find them as well.

Find Out Whats Important To Me

This was a great method to give me more to write about and even show me what I value. I made four different lists of what's important to me in four communities, which are: personal, professional, academic, and civic. I tried to keep it short in each category, so I will just say all of them and let you guess which community they fall under.
Without a doubt my little brother is the most important thing to me. He deserves so much more than he has been given and I make it my effort to fill in the gaps. Video games have been a big part of my life. Although I don't play them as much as I used to, I still find it useful to relieve stress every once in a while by diving in that imaginary world. I worked at Papa Johns throughout all of high school so it has really been a big part of my life. I want to be a Math Professor after I get my PhD. Being on a University is one of the GREATEST feelings and I absolutely love Ball State. Finally, what I couldn't do without would be Church. Being around Christians and being uplifted has really been the only way I have made it through my life.
1. What discussions (in writing, on the Internet, verbally) engage you and other members of the community?
The biggest way I engage with my brother and even my family is by writing. It is a great way to say how you really feel and get all of your point across. When It comes to my job or school. I really believe verbal conversion is the only way to get things done most efficiently.
2. What events or experiences have happened that you still remember that left you with concerns?
-Being at Papa Johns so long, I had a lot of different General Managers. I became a shift manager not even a year after working there. Eventually they found a concrete General Manager and they didn't really respect my seniority, and I didn't really respect their authority.
-My brother had been taken out of our family and put into a correctional facility, and that caused me to fall away from the church.
3. What problems or concerns exist in this particular community?
-They dont respect me as much. Although I don't work there anymore.
-My brother is back but is on probation, and it is just a gamble that he will stay out of trouble and stay home.

I am going to skip 4-6 because I answered them in the previous questions. If there are any readers curious of what they are. Just ask

7. Why is the discussion,event, or problem significant to the community members?
-By working at Papa Johns so long, I am very talented at making pizza. I know that sounds funny. But I seriously am and thats why it is significant because I deserve to be treated as such.
-It is my brother. You can assume why it is significant

8. How does the community usually start to resolve the discussion, event, or problem?
-I am actually really good friends with all of my coworkers at Papa Johns now. I still stop by to say hi to the GM and his wife. I just had to be nice, continue to work hard, prove what I had, and it didn't take long for them to see that I knew how to control the store.
-My brother has been doing very well also. We went about that by having weekly family meetings and discussing how to cope with our problems better as individuals and as a family.