A High School student's journey through her Senior year in Rhetoric class. Witness all her ideas and different styles of writing, as she travels down the road towards graduation and finally to college.
End of the Year in Rhetoric: List of Things to Look At.
Listen to this: Bastille
and Jack White
These two artist are in the top part of my very long list of artist I like. And I'm also going to see them in concert. Jack White in the summer and Bastille in the fall, so there's that as well.
Read This: All My Friends Are Dead and the sequel All My Friends Are Still Dead. The link is a brief 10 page preview of the 96 page thriller, that will keep you guessing on what will happen next.
Watch This: These kids speaking in German, doesn't stop you from learning a new magic trick to impress your friends. Watch and be amazed.
Play This: Ever wanted to play Super Mario, but didn't have a Nintendo 64 to do it? Well now you can. Or, if you don't have the app on your phone already, 2048 is the most addicting game out, and is now available to play online as well as your phone.
Eat This: Chicago style hot dog.
Need I say more?
Do This: Read books. Seriously, they are way better than any app in your phone, and they help raise your IQ and you actually learn things. There are so many different types of books, there should be one for you to read. A book a day keeps illiteracy away.
Click This: Just enjoy the randomness of this website, Move your mouse around slowly at first, and then quickly, and see what happens. It does have sound, so make sure it's on, but not too loud.
Go Here: The UP, or Upper Peninsula of Michigan. It's beautiful up there. I've been going up there since I was born, and it's a second home to me. (I also have a lot of family up there on my dad's side. One even owns a campground in Bessemer.) The forests are beautiful in the summer, but even better in the fall, Lake Superior is cleaner than Lake Michigan, there are a few waterfalls, and in the winter it's a huge skiing spot. You can really connect with nature up there.
Always, and I mean always, remember this: Nothing is ever easy. You will face challenges, and obstacles will be in your way. It's up to you to keep pushing forward and never let your goal fall out of sights. Just keep swimming, and one day you will make it.
This is the link to my Rhetoric presentation about my story as a writer. It's a timeline, which is kind of neat, and it goes through my growth as a writer over time. The video on here is for my presentation as well, but it wouldn't work on Tiki-Toki
These images may not make sense on their own, because, they're metaphors. Newman wants metaphors, and images that need explaining for our presentation. So these images describe the story of how I got my first job, Enjoy these metaphors.
A very monotone voice isn't good for an interview.
I met Tom Petty's long lost twin at Red Lobster.
You mean I have to actually start conversations with people?
It's a simple question. Do you like speaking in front of people, without feeling nervous and out of your comfort zone? Can you easily talk to an audience, big or small, and entertain them instead of boring them? Do you have a good sense of humor, and know how to project and enunciate your voice?
If you answered yes to any of those questions, congratulations. Public speaking is for you, and you don't have to suffer through it like the rest of us do.
So if speaking in front of crowds is not your cup of tea, here are a few tips that can help you suffer through it until the very end, because let's face it, public speaking is not going to disappear anytime soon.
HowStuffWorks.com wrote an article listing 18 tips they believe can help people who struggle with public speaking do better. Reading through them, A lot of them are pretty good, and can actually help, and others are just basic common sense. The 4 tips they list that I think will help the public speaking impaired are these:
1. Know your material. I know it may seem easy just to give up, or know about half of your material, but knowing your material helps you remember what you're going to do, and even what else you need to cover in your speech. It also shows organization, and preparation. Which leads to practice. Which is a way to make sure you know your material, and you feel better presenting your speech.
2. Relax. Make sure you breathing is right, so that you don't hyperventilate and pass out, and that your keep your emotions in line, so you're not storming out of the room you're presenting in with tears streaming down your face. I've also found that either eye contact with someone you know in the crowd, or basically staring at the wall right above your audience's heads works great too. It makes you feel like not so many people are staring at you. Moving your hands, or slightly walking around can help shake some of your nerves too when speaking. Just don't be like this:
3. Crack a couple of jokes. Humor definitely lightens the mood for anything. It keeps the audience entertained, and it helps you feel better knowing that your audience is responsive and listening to your speech. But don't focus it mainly on the humor, because it makes your speech more of a really long joke rather than a speech
4. Errors are okay. You just have to learn that mistakes happen, and that nobody's perfect. If you forget to say a sentence or two in your speech, it's okay. Who is going to know that your forgot it? Only you. Just keep moving forward, and roll with it.
A good example of a good unprofessional yet formal speech would be a kid's High School Graduation speech that I found while searching through Youtube. He's from East Jessamine High School, and his speech reflects on his life before graduation, and his high school career.
He opens up with an airline joke, and ties it into his speech, warning them "... in case my speech crashes, your seats do double as a flotation device." Comedic genius.
Throughout his speech, he has a consistent speed, and he has his entire speech memorized. and he cracks plenty of jokes to keep his audience entertained and engaged. He gets the message of his speech across, and was successful in doing so. He didn't show fear, and kept his cool.
Although he did good, there were a few mistakes he made. The tone of his voice was consistently lacking emotion, and he was basically reciting his speech in front of people. He also leaned too much on the podium in front of him, making him look less professional because he was hovering over the podium. Standing up straight would of made him look a lot more professional, and given his speech better presentation.
Hopefully you take these tips into consideration next time you're about to speak in front of a bunch of people. I used these tips while I was in speech team. and even though I didn't do super awesome in speech team, I always got A's on my speeches in English.
Almost every High school senior has to do it, no matter how much they dread it. They try and prepare themselves for it by thinking of a interesting topic beforehand, maybe having a general idea of what direction their paper will go. But in the end, every attempt a senior tries to make in order to prepare themselves for this, fails.
None of the attempts i made to prepare myself for this helped me in the slightest for this paper.
I started off my senior research paper with my topic idea and basic understanding on what direction on how I wanted my paper to go. I didn't know what kind of sources I would find, or what major points I wanted to make, because I was relying on my research to give me new knowledge and facts that I didn't know, and lead me to different points I could make for my paper. It's like I walked into this research paper thinking I was going in the right direction, but really I was walking into it with a blindfold on, and my blindfold was senioritis.
Senioritis hits a senior hard. Before you even know it, due dates are hitting you in the face (not literally), and the overall feeling of laziness and just plain stupidity remains no matter how hard you try and fight it. I began this paper with little to no senioritis. I was determined to not let myself fall victim to its illustrious charms of long hours of sleep and netflix marathons. I would be the bigger person.But with all the assignments that flooded in, and my sudden lack of free time, I began to ask see myself fall for senioritis's charms.
(the motto of senioritis)
This paper is a product of senioritis, high school class requirement, and lots of on the brink of sleep late night writing. This paper had a pretty easy beginning and middle, but towards the end of it, near it's final construction is when it all fell apart. I like the topic that I picked. Every time I tell someone about my topic, they think that it's very interesting and want to know more about, which is basically what a research paper is about.
I am some what satisfied with the way my essay is, but I feel like I need to get feedback for other people, and edit it a lot more, and I will be much more happier with it. I did think several times throughout this paper about how much easier it could of been if I had chosen a different topic, but then I realized that's what everyone thinks. I really wish that I had planned out my whole deeper understanding of this paper, as well as flow and direction. Maybe if I had these, I would feel a lot better about my research paper.
Who am I kidding? I hate research papers.Every year I try and learn from my mistakes on past papers,but I seemed to have flushed all those lessons down the drain with this paper. I'm just glad that I had enough sense to write most of this paper before it was due. I would have totally set myself up for failure otherwise.
My biggest hope is that this paper doesn't look or sound like someone who hates research papers wrote it. I want it to look and sound like a professional high quality paper.
Women advocacy for gender equality has been an ongoing process since women began to raise their voices and fight against oppression. Feminism began and grew and became the biggest force against the male patriarchy, and evolved society into what it is today, a society that has more opportunities open to women that weren’t open before, and has paved the way to a more gender equal society. But even though feminism has benefitted women in a tremendous way and has changed the way society functions today, the changes feminism has made to society not only affected women, but men as well. When feminism is defined, it is defined as the fight for women equality against men, and mainly just about the effects on women. It is important to also see the effects that the advancements that feminism has made for not only women, but men as well, and see if feminism has a negative or positive affect.
I was first drawn to this topic because of the debate on raising minimum wage. It is still a pretty well-known fact that women still are paid significantly less than men to do the exact same job, and I was curious if raising minimum wage would mean giving women equal pay or not. I was also curious because I saw several male celebrities that declare themselves male feminists, and it had me thinking about how feminism affects men, because the main focus of feminism is on how it affects women, not men. I would like to find out more information on the affects that feminism has had on men, how men have reacted to these effects, and possible solutions to reaching a gender equal society.
In this paper, I will argue that feminism has helped establish equality for not only women, but for men as well, and that men should care about feminism and gender equality, because in the end it will only benefit them. Although it seems like with the growth of women’s rights has seemed to somehow oppress men, it has had the opposite effect. More than ever, people have been involved with fighting for equal rights and opportunities, and men are getting more involved and seeing better outcomes for themselves, not just a certain group. I will argue that it is necessary for men to get involved in the fight for gender equality, because women cannot do it without them; it has to be equal grounds on both sides. I will mention briefly about the change in feminism over the course of history and the effect it has had on men, but I will not be going into a full depth history of feminism and the several feminist movements. The main points of my paper will be about feminism and the effects on men, not about feminism itself.
The perspectives that I will include in my paper will be male and female feminists, average men and women, as well as those who oppose feminism. From the perspective of male and female feminist, the opinions from fighters for equal rights for women and men are shown. They show insight into the fight and struggle for equality, as well as what motivated them to join the cause. From the view of average men and women, the neutral party’s overall opinion can be shown, and I can observe when they tend to favor certain views of feminism, and when they disagree. Their perspective is important because even if they are not picking a side, they are still affected by feminism in some way. And the perspectives of the forces that oppose feminism are important to show the effects that feminism has had, and how people have reacted to the changes. This point of view is important to include because opposition to feminism is an effect of feminism, and their opinion is important to show because the main opposition to feminism is mainly men, but it is not limited to just them.
The sources that I have found in my research so far have been newspaper and magazine articles, websites, and a book. The book that I have found shows several different writings from different author, and shows in depth history on the feminist movements throughout history. The articles that I have found range from several different topics such as the fight for gender equality, feminisms effect in the workforce, male activist groups, and history on feminism and feminism movements. A website article that I found is from the point of view of a male feminist, and he expresses his personal view on things. I also plan on conducting a survey about people’s view on feminism and the impact they believe it has had, and conducting it online and sharing it throughout the web, and hopefully get enough of a male response in order to get an in-depth response on men’s view on feminism. I believe my survey will turn out in my favor, and that I can use it to compare men’s and women’s opinions and views on feminism, and use the information I find to compare and contrast my findings.
Own a lot of books? Higher test scores are in your future.
In the 5th chapter of Freakonomics, Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner discuss and analyze different factors and components of parenting that could possibly impact young children’s test scores. One of the factors on their list was that the child has many books in his home, which was proven to help improve test scores, but they weren't exactly sure how. They interpreted the correlation as parents “… who buy a lot of children’s books tend to be smart and well educated to begin with” (176). Or even the parents “care a great deal about education, and their children in general” (176), which I know is the reason behind my parents buying me nearly every book I wanted when I was little.
I remember reading from a very young age. At about the age of five, I had my own library card, and I was reading as many books that I could get my hands on. I had piles of books from the library and the store, and read them constantly.
I know from my own personal experience that reading at an early age got me excited about reading, and I wanted to own as may books as possible. Books reports were my favorite assignments to do, and while everyone else would talk to their friends, I was always reading a new book. I became an advanced reader when I was younger, and when I was in second grade, I read the first four Harry Potter books in a month because I was so excited my parents bought them for me.
Even now, I’m constantly reading new books, and English has become my best subject in school, and I think it was because of my parents involving me with reading, getting me excited to read, and letting it blossom by showering me with an almost endless supply of books. My parents aren't highly educated and financially stable as some people, conditions that Levitt and Dubner found factor to high test scores, but they tried to get me actively involved in learning and education by giving me books. I had the resources to improve my reading and comprehension skill on my own with a little or no encouragement from my parents
(Fun fact: One time I got grounded from reading. My mom caught me up at 4 in the morning, still reading my book.)
I think that a child having books in their house does pertain to higher test scores because giving a child the materials to develop and strengthen a necessary skill has them better prepared than a child who doesn't have the resources available to them. A child who has unlimited supply of books isn't bored of reading, because they have any book they want, unlike a child who has a couple books that they reread over and over again until they don't want to read anymore because they find it boring. So reading may have not been proven by Levitt and Dubner to improve test scores, but if you buy a lot of books, that's been proven. So overwhelm your children with an endless supply of both fictional and nonfictional books, slightly encourage them to read, and hope that they blossom with superior intelligence, and get high test scores.
If you really care about high test scores, buy your kid a lot of books.
If you care if your child is literate and intelligent, buy your kid a lot of books.
If you still question if this is true or not, listen to my story. My parents bought me a lot of books, and I get pretty high test scores. I'm even in an advanced English class that I had to test into to take. Plus, I got a 26 on my ACT, which is pretty high considering: I didn't study, that was my first time taking it, and the average composite score is 20.
So go buy your kid a new book. Maybe the next test they take they'll bring home the A+ you've always wanted, and you can take pride in the fact that your parenting skills are superior to other parents. And all because you spoiled your child with literature.
I’m a strong believer that the attitude you come into a restaurant with reflects on your experience when going out to eat. If you are in a bad mood, you are going to have a bad time, and vice-versa. I went out to Red Lobster with a group of my friends, on a time crunch and sleep deprived. So my judgement and experience dining at Red Lobster was factored by several different outside reasons that lead to my overall experience, but I also work there, so I know what I want and should expect when I go to eat in there. But I wasn't expecting what actually happened when I went there.
It was a Tuesday I will never forget. It ended up being one of the worst days I have ever had in a very long time, but that was because of several different reasons, not involving when we went out to eat. I stayed up late, working on several different homework assignments, and then I had to wake early to go to a meeting before school. So I was already running on the few precious hours of sleep I was able to get, and days on a few hours of sleep are normally not very good days. So then came several long hours of boring classes and several surprises.
We already had decided that Tuesday was the only day we could do our review together, and if we couldn't do it, then we had do it separately, or decide to review something else. But then Tuesday arrived, and one of our group members found out she had to babysit, and couldn't go. We decided still to go, because we needed to get it done. But that wasn't the only surprise for me that day.
When I was in lunch, I saw that I received a phone call from my general manager at work, who wanted me to come in and work for someone who decided they didn't want to work that day. This presented a major problem for me, because I was already planning on coming into my work to eat, so I couldn't just be like, “Oh, I can’t work today. I’m coming into work to eat.” I was already going be there by the time they needed me, so when I went into eat, I was rushed for time because I had to work shortly after. Being rushed for time is not something you want when you go out to eat. Every minute that passes by feels like an hour. I wasn't looking forward to that at all.
As soon as school got out, I waited for the rest of my group to get out so that we could go and eat as fast as we could before I had to work. We were planning on going to eat at around three thirty, but instead we didn't reach the restaurant before four, loosing precious time to eat. When we reached the restaurant, the group member that we though wasn't going to show up because she had to babysit, was already there, and had been waiting for us for about fifteen minutes before we showed up.
We sat down, and our server appeared, taking our drink orders and letting us look at the menu. I knew what I was going to order, the wood grilled chicken with wild rice and green beans, and waited for everyone to decide what they wanted, and how we were going to pay. I was expecting to get my food fast, and be able to enjoy it with enough time to spare to get dressed and ready for work, which shouldn't have been hard, since the restaurant was pretty empty. Everyone started pulling out their phones and started taking pictures and selfies, and I did as well. The restaurant was pretty dim, and my phone doesn't take the best of pictures, so I only took a couple. We then got our drinks and some biscuits, placed our orders, and then waited for our food.
We were seated at a round table in the middle of restaurant, between two tables that were occupied by some really loud and obnoxious old people, who ate their food with their mouths open, and talked to each other like their hearing aids were on the fritz. I noticed that there weren't that many people eating in, and I wondered why they still needed me to work. All that was really on my mind was about how I was going to finish my meal before I had to work.
We got our two orders of fried green beans, salads, and some more biscuits, and we started eating and slightly chit chatting with one another. The green beans were delicious. Slightly breaded, with a jalapeno dipping sauce beat TGI Friday's fried green beans as my favorite.
It got darker outside, and it made the restaurant even darker. I ate my food fast, still rushed on time and patience. I kept checking my phone every few minutes, seeing what time it was, and how much time I had left. It just added to my nerves and annoyances. Everything just added up, and was making my dining experience that I wanted to be good, get worse and worse.
There was a long awkward silence before our food finally showed up at about quarter to five, and our main concern wasn't the food, it was paying for the bill with the short amount of time we had. We flagged down our waitress, who was always ensnared by the loud table of old people next to us. As she got the bill, we each quickly sampled each other's dishes.
We each got different dishes: mozzarella sticks and chicken strips, tilapia with broccoli and a baked potato, parmesan crusted chicken with corkscrew noodles and broccoli, and wood grilled chicken with wild rice and green beans.
The mozzarella sticks and chicken strips were tasty. just about as good as fried food can get. The mozzarella stick's cheese was very gooey and hot. The chicken strips were crispy, covered with enough breading, and weren't dry, but instead were very juicy . The sauces she got as well, a mustard and marinara sauce, added more flavor to them, and were very good.
The tilapia was good, and that's coming from a person that isn't a big fish fan. I really don't know how to describe it besides that it tasted like fish, but it was rich in flavor, besides fish flavor, and the texture was strange but tolerable. The baked potato with lobster sauce was really good. The sauce made the potato super flavorful, and it was something I never had before, as well as tilapia.
My wood grilled chicken was very savory and juicy, even though on the outside it looked like it was going to be dry. The rice was a bit dull, not much flavor to it, and needed a sauce or something. The green beans were cooked perfectly. They were buttery and flavored just right with a few seasonings. A good dish, but maybe would of been even better if I got a sauce on it.
The parmesan crusted chicken was the best dish I tried. The chicken was delicious, crunchy from the cheese on it, but full of flavor. The noodles and broccoli mixed together underneath the chicken were delicious, going together well with the chicken. Overall it had an amazing texture with the crunchiness, and a delightful cheesy taste.
After a debate and struggle on how much everyone owed, we payed, while a member of our group left early to head to classes, she was rushed for time as well.
Then we had to figure out how much to tip.
(An example on the new suggestion on the bottom of a receipt from Red Lobster)
There is a new thing that Red Lobster has done in order for their customers to know exactly how much they should tip their waiters and waitresses. They give a "Suggested amounts for tipping" right at the bottom of the bill. They give a percentage, and then the amount you should tip based on the percentage and the total of your bill. They added this after the law passed getting rid of gratuity for larger parties. So now it just suggest the amount that you should tip, and that helped us out a ton. I really like that I didn't have to calculate how much I had to tip, but instead saw it at the bottom of the receipt, and put the amount needed to tip correctly. We each
tipped our share, boxed our leftovers, and then headed our separate ways.
My overall experience wasn't that bad. But it was just a few categories that didn't meet my criteria.
Service: 9/10
The service was good. Our server made sure to check up on us, get us what we needed, and was very friendly to all of us. She even chatted with us for a bit, and asked about our project and what we were doing.
Food: 5/10
The food was delicious and piping hot. Although the food was good, it did take its time to make it from the kitchen to the table. The restaurant wasn't busy at all, so our food should have come faster than it did. That is why it received such a low score.
Seating: 7/10
I didn't mind that we were at a table, but I didn't like that we were next to really loud old people who didn't know how to shut up. The first person that arrived to the restaurant before us said she waited a while before she was greeted, so I factored that into the score as well.
Cleanliness: 9/10
Bathrooms were cleaned and stocked. The restaurant looked very nice and organized. Everything seemed in place and was running smoothly.
Cost: 7/10
My meal: an appetizer, soda, and entree was about $20 with my employee discount. I spent the money I saved on my meal on my share of the tip. So it was pretty costly, about 4 hours pay for me.
Overall Rating: 7.4/10
Compared to other times that I have dined at Red Lobster, this was below satisfactory. Granted, I was in a bigger group then any of my previous times, this time it didn't meet my personal standards, most likely because of the time crunch I was in. I enjoyed my meal, but I couldn't enjoy it the same because I didn't have the time too. Make sure to have time to savor your food, enjoy the dining in experience, not rush it and ruin the entire experience.
Learn from my mistake/bad experience.
1. Make sure you are not on a time crunch.
2. Look at the restaurant's menu and get an idea of what you want.
3. Be prepared to pay, or otherwise plan out your meal and cost.
4. Make sure that you limit the amount of complications that can occur by planning and coordinating with the other members of your party.
5. Ask for the kind of seating that you want. And if you like a certain server, you can request them if they are working.
Now don't get me wrong, but some movies out there that are classified as "dramatic movies" are not that dramatic. Some have some dramatic elements, but can be placed in different categories that are under drama, like "melodramatic" or "romantic" movies. These types of movies have dramatic elements, but are not considered true dramas.
So what makes a movie a true drama compared to other types of dramatic categories a movie can fall into? Well, any question can be answered by just typing it into Google, so I decided to search for the criteria of a dramatic movie. The first website suggestion that popped up was The Script Lab, a website that is dedicated to news on screenwriting and the entertainment business. The suggestion link on Google brought me to a page entirely devoted to explaining the drama genre of film.
I read through the page, looking at all the definitions they put.They gave not only the definition for a dramatic film, but they also gave examples for sub-genres as well. And then under each definition, they gave a few examples of movies that are categorized under that genre. I thought that was great in the way they not only explained it, but with the examples, if a person is confused on their definition, they can watch one of the movies they gave as an example and see what they mean.
For example, they give they list a subcategory called a "Dramedy," which is a category I have never heard before. They define it as, "a genre that has a dramatic tone yet important elements of comedy." A dramedy has an equal balance of dramatic and comedic elements, and the balance "...provides comedic relief for the audience, while still addressing serious issues." After I read that, it made sense. I thought of a bunch of different movies that were "dramedies," like Little Miss Sunshine, which they had listed as an example.
I thought this website was a great source for explaining they different types of dramatic movie genres that are out there, and giving examples.
If I was a young, and inspired indie filmmaker, and was looking for the criteria for a good dramatic movie to make my big break like Quentin Tarantino's Reservoir Dogs, I would need to narrow down the basics of each genre, and what necessary components are needed for each genre. So here is my easy to follow list of what you need in each type of genre in order to make it good.
Dramatic Biography
It’s basically a documentary that is made to be dramatic. it either covers a serious topic, or is very intense. They follow the story of a specific person or group of people. Make sure you make it personal, and get in touch with the audience feelings. Make sure you stick to the hard truth, because this isn’t a “Based on a true story” movie, it’s real, and you want to show the audience it’s real.
EX: Ray. 2004
Courtroom Dramas
These are all you Law and Order type of movies. They’re all based on the structure of the justice system, from following a case, or the life a lawyer, anything involving courtrooms, law breaking, and long monologues from lawyers. It either end with death, incarceration, or freedom. So make sure to involve the law, and the people who choose to enforce it, and those who choose to break it.
Ex: A Time to Kill
Historical Dramas
The movie is basically a drama, except it is set in a different time period. Whether it's in the Victorian era, or BC Greece, these pieces like to look at powerful figures and societies in the past, and are loosely based on historical context. Make sure to add historical elements, and stay within your historical time piece. Make sure accents and style of language and words are used to their full advantage. And don't be historically inaccurate.
EX: 300
Melodrama
This is the type of movie that grips your emotions and feelings and just tears them apart. Their main objective is to tell a story about a major crisis or protagonist, and mess with your emotions. Usually the characters are hard to relate to, and sometimes unrealistic. You either need a strong, stand alone character, or narrator to tell the story. Make sure the story line is strong, and taps into the emotions of the viewer.
Ex: Steel Magnolias
Political
Movies that revolves around the political scene and the way the system works, or the corruption behind everything. It's more based on the lies, deception and conspiracies behind politics. Make sure to add a lot of lies, and selfish people. Throw a scandal in there, and lots of betrayal, manipulation and backstabbing.
EX: The Manchurian Candidate
Romance
The whole main point of this is to follow the love story of two people. Anything can, and usually does happen. People try and keep them apart, something happens, and they either end up together or split up. Make sure to include cute couple moments, fights, and makeup moments. Maybe a kissing scene out in the rain like The Notebook? The I'll never let you go scene from Titanic? Somewhere along those lines.
EX: Titanic
And lastly: Tragedy.
Look up any Shakespeare play, and take detailed notes.From Romeo and Juliet, to Hamlet, you can find nothing but flawed characters, plans gone wrong, and death. You want the character's mistakes and selfish choices to be their downfall, which leads to degradation, or ultimately death.
Ex:The Great Gatsby
Hopefully my list can help you narrow down the type of genre you are watching, and see if it meet the basic requirements for each genre. If it doesn't, then the movie probably sucks.
Fall Out Boy Saves Rock and Roll... and My Hope for Band Reunions
Now gather around, little children. Sydney has a story for you about how a certain band and their comeback album restored her faith in long awaited band reunions.
Now, if you didn't know this, I am a huge Fall Out Boy fan.
I've been a fan of them since "Sugar We're Goin Down" got popular, and my appreciation for them only grew during my years in middle school. They rose in popularity, being the most popular band to emerge from the "post-hardcore" music genre that was on the rise during then, also know as the "emo/pop punk" music genre. When I was in middle school, everyone knew at least one Fall Out Boy song, and it was probably due to either the several hit songs that made it on the pop radio stations, or they were like me: a self claimed "emo kid" who listened to hard rock and had a depressing and bleak outlook on life, because middle school doesn't really make you feel like you can do much in your life. So I worshiped bands like Panic! At The Disco, My Chemical Romance, and Green Day, and made it through my years in middle school by constantly listening to them on my mp3 player. So you can imagine the trauma I went through when Fall Out Boy decided to go on a hiatus, or in other words: wait a few years, see if inspiration strikes us, and if not, break up officially. My middle school self cried for days and listened to nothing but Fall Out Boy songs on repeat when they officially announced their hiatus.
As the days of the hiatus increased with no glimpses of a reunion any time soon, I began to drift away from Fall Out Boy and their music genre entirely, and sought out new types of music. I grew out of my depressing, middle school-er, preteen angst phase, and began to develop into the person I am today. I listen to more unknown bands and different styles of music, began to gain a positive outlook on life, and dressed in more than black band t-shirts and skinny jeans. I never did forget my love for Fall Out Boy, singing along to one of their songs on the odd chance that I heard one, and the song bringing back memories of middle school that I try very hard to forget. But one day while I was on tumblr, more memories and hopeful feeling emerged when information was leaked about a possible Fall Out Boy reunion. And when I found out it was true, I was ecstatic.
With the leak,every Fall Out Boy fan got super excited, including myself, and was hoping that they would come out and confirm it before doubt began settling in. And sure enough, the next day they came out and confirmed that they were back together, as well as informing fans about their new album and all the songs being turned into a music video series called the "Youngblood Chronicles," followed by two tours for the album. Fans went nuts, and when they released their single from the album, "My Song Know What You Did In The Dark (Light 'Em Up)", everyone started going even crazier. They were back, and sounding better then ever.
When I first listen to this song, I couldn't stop. It was amazing. I thought before listening to any of their new stuff that they would sound like the same Fall Out Boy that I knew and loved, and I was completely wrong. Fall Out Boy clearly experimented with electronic effects in music, and took on a darker tone then before, and it completely worked for them. Patrick's vocals were still incredible, and their songs were still amazing, lyrics were maybe a bit darker, but it worked for the whole tone of the song. I was even surprised by the album itself. Some songs were like "My Songs Know What You Did In the Dark," but others were collaborations with other artist such as Courtney Love and Big Sean, and while some of their songs were darker and had more electronics to them, some songs like "Young Volcanoes" had the old Fall Out Boy sound to them. I wanted an exceptional comeback from them, with Patrick's amazing vocals, their unique lyrics, their previous style of music, and making me feel like I was in middle school again, jamming to my CD loudly in my room.
But despite what my expectations were for this album, I couldn't have wished for a better comeback album from them. Save Rock and Roll is an album I can listen to over again and again, and I have. I don't feel like I'm back in middle school again because the album is so different from their previous ones. When I listen to this album I just get very excited, and I feel energetic. I loved what they did, and I get very excited when they release a new video for the "Youngblood Chronicles." I'm even going to see them in concert over the summer. (Their concert is scheduled to come to where I live on my birthday. It's fate that I go.) Overall, if Fall Out Boy can take a 4 year hiatus and comeback album, then so can other bands. They just have to beat the bar that Fall Out Boy has set, which is a pretty high bar to beat.
If you want to watch all of the released videos of the "Youngblood Chronicles," I'll link them below to the song. Just as a warning, they are pretty graphic, violent, and gory. And some of them are explicit. I warned you if you decide to watch them. (They are very good though. I suggest you watch them if you can handle it.)
1. My Songs Know What You Did In The Dark (Light 'Em Up)
2. The Phoenix
3. Young Volcanoes
4. Alone Together
5. The Mighty Fall
6. Just One Yesterday
7. Where Did The Party Go
8. Death Valley
I made this video as a remix of my Compare and Contrast Essay that I wrote on two movie review from Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope. I liked when I mentioned in my essay about man’s fascination with space, the moon and science, and I wanted to remix my essay into a video that went into detail about that. I wanted to make the video about man's ideas and predictions that they have about space and our involvement in the future, reflected in the science fiction movie genre. I tried to make it funny, or at least make the audio of the clips flow together. Please pay attention on the audio of the clips. I wish I could make it less choppy, but I didn't know how to fix that. I still incorporated Star Wars into it, tying it closer with my essay.
I used some ringtone clips I had too for my transition scenes, and mixed a multitude of different types of science fiction films from different decades, and even some cool videos with Walt Disney and scientist explaining about the race to space in the 50’s. I liked the way this turned out. I feel that I could incorporate even more films, but with me sort of changing the way I wanted to approach my remix topic a few days before this was due, I’m quite satisfied.
But as a helpful tip, use Windows Movie Maker to make a video, not WeVideo. WeVideo is a long and stressful process to make a 5 minute movie. I would not suggest it.
This essay was the last and final essay of the semester. We had to use multiple sources from a New York Times article in their Room For Debate section. The day that we were reading through them, I saw one about the fate of humanities, and chose that because I like writing and English, and wanted to write about something that I was interested in. It turned out to be a bit difficult on finding out what exactly I was writing my essay about. I knew what my subject was about, it was finding a side to stand on and deliver a clever and good argument on that was the hard part.
I tried to use a lot of quotes, and make a very sound and clear argument, clearly showing the situation and the different standpoints to it, and then show which side I stand on. Then I finally tried to take a risk with my conclusion again, like with my literary analysis essay. I tried to make this my best essay yet, and I think that I did a pretty good job. Certainly an improvement from my first essay in rhetoric. The only thing I probably would change about this one is my topic. Save me some of the stress that I had when writing this paper.
This essay was our literary analysis of Sherman Alexie's short story "Flight Patterns." Alexie's story was about a man named William who while heading to the airport, converses with the driver of his taxi, and learns about his dark past.
For this essay, I'm actually surprised with the grade that I got on this essay. The only reason I chose the topic of my essay is because when I read the story, I noticed how important the time and place that the story was set it was so vital to the message of the story. I knew that was the main focus and best part of my essay, and to get to that, I had to get through all the boring parts, and save the best part for last.
I took Newman's advice to "Take a chance with your conclusion," and decided to do just that. I wasn't sure if he would like it or not, because I was going out on a limb with guessing on Alexie's purpose on the time and place of his story. But he liked it, and I was happy that I did take the chance.
If I would change anything in this essay, I would probably change the first three paragraphs. I would make them more exciting, and make sure to tie them closer to the topic of my essay.
This essay was our 4th essay in the class, the Compare and Contrast essay on two different movie reviews. So naturally, being the semi movie buff that I am, I decided to chose one of the most iconic movies to write my compare and contrast on, Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope.
If you can't guess,I am definitely a major Star Wars fan. At the start of this essay, I thought that it would be easy to find a bunch of reviews for this movie. I was wrong. Dead wrong. It turned out to be very hard to find a review for this movie that was longer than a few sentences. And even then, it was hard to find what to compare and contrast about between the two that I chose to use. But that's not the worst of it.
The day the paper was due, I had Newman come in and read over my essay. I felt like something was off with it, and it was. Since I was having a hard time finding what to compare and contrast in the reviews, my contrasts weren't even the contrasts of the reviews. He helped me get an idea of what I should do, and wished me good luck, knowing that I had 2/5 of my essay to rewrite in a few hours.
And rewrite it I did. It took about two hours and a half a pack of gum to get me though the rewriting. And I'm proud to say that I was successful with my rewrite. I got a good grade, and reading through this essay actually made sense compared to the older version. If I was to change anything about it, I would probably made some of my points in my essay a bit stronger, and edited some stuff grammatically. Other than that, I'm pretty proud of this essay.
This was the essay gave me hope that I had a chance to survive and pass Newman's rhetoric class with an A. For the single textual analysis, we had to find an article, and analyze the meaning of it, and what the writer was trying to portray to the reader.
I chose an article from Time magazine about pennies. Yes pennies. Specifically the U.S. penny.
(Yup. I wrote about this lucky penny.)
The whole article was about the declining worth of the penny, and showing the reader both sides of the argument about what will happen to it. I chose this article because of two reasons: it was the only good article in the magazine I found, and I thought of the creative title for my essay when I read the article, and couldn't pass up the chance to have my paper named that.
I really liked the way this essay turned out. Except for one thing. And this was a really rookie mistake on my part: I forgot to put my work cited. I was so focused on the content of my essay, that I forgot a crucial part of my essay. So if there are any future rhetoric students reading this, please learn from my mistake. Always make sure to double check for your works cited page (in my case it was just one work.) And also add the date that the article was published. That's important too.
If I was to change anything else, I would probably do what Newman suggested and fit more creativity into the rest of my essay, instead of just my conclusion. But overall I was very happy with this essay. I knew that I was starting to get the hang of all this essay writing.
My Statement of Scope/Annotated Bibliography essay is definitely an essay that I regret. This essay technically isn't even an essay, if you think about it. It's basically an essay about the outline for an essay. We had to write a statement of scope based on our summer reading novel, Gabriel Thompson's Working In the Shadows. We got to choose the topic of our paper, but it had to somehow relate to his novel, and the subject of his novel. We then had to then write about what we would write about, and what sources we had to use. Then we needed a annotated bibliography for our sources.
I would definitely change this essay. How? Well, I would first make sure to not rush this as I wrote this. I would also for one make sure to go back and fix grammar mistakes and make sure that it sounds better. I also think I would pick a better topic than I did. It was hard to find good sources to use, and I as I was writing this, I wasn't as enthused to write this as I originally was.
I would basically rewrite this paper. Do a total makeover of it. Make it look nothing like it was previously. You would think that writing a essay about what you would write an essay about would be easy, but for me I found it difficult, and definitely struggled with it.
My Lack of Public Speaking and Essay Writing Skills.
My literacy narrative was my first essay that I did in Rhetoric. I was rusty with my writing with just getting back to school and not writing essays in a while, I knew that it would be difficult. I chose my topic to be about my experience in speech team when I was a Sophomore, and how I used it to help me learn and become a better speaker for my English class.
I could have made this essay better. I knew that it was good, but it wasn't my best work. I wrote a lot of words, way over the word limit, and mainly just talked about my failures in speaking during speech team, instead of having a balance between my speech team experience and my English class speech experiences.
Every time I read my essay, I notice several changes that I should have made before turning it in. Several small grammar mistakes, different sentences I should have shorten or phrased differently. Do I regret this essay? No. I really think this essay is great to use as a comparison between how my writing was when I first started Rhetoric, to how my writing has evolved over the semester.
