Finals

I have already taken two of my finals on inqsit and I have four more to take next week! I really wish that I didn't have one on Friday so that I could go home early! My roommate gets done on Wednesday so she is going home after that. I am already worrying for finals week. I need to start studying! I wish we knew what our English final was too! Good luck to everyone during finals week!

SNOW!

We got our first snow of the year! I usually really like snow, but I've realized that I like it when I don't have to walk in class in it. It's gotten really cold here the past couple of days. I started bundling up in my clothes. I wore leggings under my jeans, wool socks, 2 sweatshirts and a jacket, and mittens today to stay warm. The worst part about walking in the cold is the wind. If the wind wasn't there I don't think it would be that bad. Anyways I have been trying to stay inside as much as possible cause I don't want to freeze! I can't wait to go home and have snow though because I will be able to go outside in the snow and then come back inside and drink hot chocolate!

Blog Assignment

Course Goals ~ Introduces and develops understanding of principles of rhetoric; basic research methods; elements, strategies, and conventions of persuasion used in constructing written and multi-modal texts. Upon completion of English 103 students will:
1. I feel like I learned that almost everything that we do is persuading. Everything that I write, say, or post means something.
2. I learned a lot about how to identify my audience. I learned how to appropriately address different audiences. I learned a of this when we did intensive reviews because I had to write and read others papers.
3. I don't really feel like a learned any new way to brain storm, draft, and revise. I feel like it has remained the same from high school.
4. Yes I feel like I learned a lot about how to properly back up my information and to give effective reasons for my ideas.
5. Yes I feel like I learned this in English and other classes here this semester.
6. Yes intensive reviews helped me be able to critically look at another work a lot. It was good to see what others thought besides just me and it got me thinking a lot more.
7. I don't really feel like the class concentrate on this, but I don't really feel like it needed to. I think that by college everyone should already know it is important to format and spell things in your writings correctly.
8. Yes I took a lot of responsibility in my own writings. I spent a lot of time on my writings and even went to the writing center to get extra help.
9. Yes working with others during intensive reviews helped a lot.

Course Content & Format ~ The content and format of English 103 are designed to enable students to achieve the course goals; specifically, students in English 103 will:
1. I feel like the class address a variety of topics to help me respond to ideas.
2. I feel like I improved in my ability to persuade in my writing.
3. I learned more about how to analysis writing through intensive reviews and I learned how to collaborate visual and written text in our weebly project.
4. Yes I learned how to rewrite my drafts and take the ideas and feedback I was given.
5. I think I improved on this this semester.
6. I am better at analyzing work now.
7. I feel like all the writing assignments helped me address different ideas and audiences.

University Core Curriculum Goals ~ The central purpose of University Core Curriculum is to enable men and women to live rich and satisfying lives and to undertake the broad responsibilities of citizenship in a free society. Although The University Core Curriculum seeks to discover and nurture individual talents, its primary emphasis is preparation for roles people share as human beings and as members of family and community groups. Thus, students will be able to:
1. I have never gotten so involved in some of my writings. I find myself looking for information up about it and wanting to keep up with the problems and issues I have wrote about.
2. I feel like I was able to communicate my ideas with others clearly and appropriately. I feel like overall as a class though I others did not communicate well with me or do their work properly.
3. I never had any problems with being sensitive to others ideas and thoughts.
4. I feel like I learned how to find new ideas about my topics and writing through other people and their experiences when editing.
5. I feel like my writings gave ideas about how we can solve world problems especially in my public writing assignment and weebly website.
6. I feel like I used my talents and passions to write about ideas that I cared about.

Really Interesting...

Over break someone showed me this video on youtube and I thought that it was really interesting. Check it out!

Christmas Tree

So this will be the first year that I don't get to help put up Christmas decorations and our tree because I will be at school. It will be really weird not helping at all. My roommate was suppose to bring a mini tree from home to put in our room and I was suppose to bring Christmas lights but we both forgot! It won't be that same not helping to put up decorations.

First Hockey Game!

Over break I went to my first hockey game! I went to Columbus, Ohio to watched the Red Wings play the Blue Jackets. I wish that I could have gone to Detroit to watch the Wings play, but Columbus is closer to my house. I went to watch them play on Black Friday and it was about a 3 hour drive to the arena. I went into the arena early and watched the Wings warm up. My favorite player is Zetterburg, who had a great game! The wings won 2 to 1 and I was on TV! It was a great experience. I can't wait for my hockey games in the future!

Thanksgiving!

I was so excited to go home for Thanksgiving! My cousins were in town from Colorado for the holiday. It was great to see them and spend time with them! On Thanksgiving my uncle made a ham and a turkey and we had way too much dessert! We watched lots of football and I learned how to play the game banana-grams. Over break my cousins were talking about giving blood. My cousin, Kayla, and my brother, Eric, who are both juniors in high school have blood. Our high school has an annual blood drive and can food drive right before Thanksgiving. This year the raised 16,000 cans! My cousin was talking about how she wanted to give blood again and how great it was to do it. I told her that I wanted to give blood sometime soon and she was talking to me about it. She had credibility (ethos) because she has given blood before. She had pathos because she was talking about how a girl at my school who has cancer was encouraging people to give blood. The girl has to have many blood transfusions which appealed to my emotions because it made me feel like I could help save a life. Also, this discussion appealed to my logos (logic) because my cousin explained to me how the body reproduces its blood and how it doesn't hurt when they draw the blood from you. Before she explained the process of donating blood I was nervous, but now I realize that it's not that bad!

Kid Cudi's new song!!!

I am a new fan of Kid Cudi and his new album just came out. One of his singles off the album is called "Erase Me". Below I posted the video of the new song. Check it out! I really like him because I think he has a new style of music and isn't what most people are singing right now.

Grey's Anatomy!

Over the weekend some of my friends and I rented one of the seasons of Grey's Anatomy at the library. First of all I never knew that you could rent whole seasons of shows at the library which is great! Second of all I have become totally addicted to the show. On Friday night we watched the first four episodes of the show together. The next day though I watched almost the rest of the season by myself because I was so addicted!!! For those of you who haven't seen Grey's Anatomy it is a medical drama. It is about a bunch of doctors who work at one the the biggest hospitals in the nation, Seattle Grace Hospital. Many of the characters have romances too. I think that me and my friends are going to watch it again this weekend!

To write love on her arms

Last night I went Pruis Hall to see speaker to Jamie Tworkowski who is the founder of To Write Love On Her Arms (TWLOHA). To Write Love On Her Arms is a foundation that raises awareness about depression, addiction, suicide, and self-injury. Below is a video that gives you a glimpse about how the foundation was started and a little about what it is about.


To find out more about TWLOHA there is a link below that is the main website for the foundation.
http://www.twloha.com/index.php

Movies from my childhood

Recently, I have been obsessed with watching old movies and shows from when I grew up. I went home this weekend to visit my boyfriend and we couldn't stop talking about the old Disney movies like Winnie the Pooh, Mickey Mouse, Toy Story, Aladdin, and many more. We found our old VHS's that were from our childhood and started watching the movies. I personally think that growing up during the 90's was one of the best times to grow up. I grew up with classic movies and TV shows that will probably never get old. Disney has some of the best movies, and I think that for Christmas I might ask my parents to get me some of the old Disney movies on DVD, because all my old movies are still on VHS.

World Cup

One of my favorite sporting events is the World Cup. I love it so much because it is a worldly event. There are teams there from Europe, South America, Asia, Africa, and all over the world. The World Cup is held every 4 years. The most recent World Cup took place in the summer of 2010. The cup took place in South Africa. Below is the official music video of the 2010 World Cup. I love the song and I love the video. The next World Cup is taking place in 2014 in Brazil. Hopefully I will be able to make it to this one. I love to travel and I think that it is an important part of life. I love to learn about different cultures and to become a part of them by visiting them. Although soccer is not as popular in the United States as it is in other countries, it is huge around the world. People in other countries go crazy during the world cup. To the left is a picture of a crowd watching the World Cup game in their country. Soccer is a big deal in other countries. It's almost like the while country comes together, and I think that it is amazing. It's like the superbowl, only bigger!

Digital Photo Frame

My boyfriend got me a digital photo frame for our two year anniversary and I love it! I love having photos of my family and friends hanging everywhere! I have it set up on a slide show so that the picture shows for 30 seconds and then switches to another picture. At first I was a little hesitant about digital photo frames, but I really enjoy mine. It saves me money from printing out pictures and it is fun to look at the slide show. I am always guessing what picture will show up next. It distracts me sometimes when I am doing my homework, but that's ok!

Proposal for Public Writing Assignment

CAFE (Corporate Average Fuel Economy) is a policy regulates the average fuel economy on cars in the United States. CAFE makes it more expensive for automakers to make inefficient cars, but does not lower the price of gas or cars. This act was established in 1975, but it has been revised ever year raising the MPG regulations to higher standards. Recently, President Obama proposed revising the CAFE act which would make the rules for MPG to jump from 25 MPG to 35 MPG before the year 2016. However, there are many issues with CAFE. Many people think that CAFE is ineffective because most auto makers violate the regulations and pay the fines for regulating them. Others argue that if fuel efficiency gets better then people will start driving their cars more and balance the changes that we made to begin with. Although many people argue against the CAFE act, I believe that it is a good idea. The CAFE act can help lower the amount of money that people spend on gas and it can help save our environment if we use more fuel efficient cars. I care about this because I think that auto makers need to be pushed to keep up with the times. Most other industrialized countries have much better fuel efficiency, and we need to catch up. It would also help decrease the amount of money people spend on gas and it would also help the United States decrease the amount of oil they rely on from foreign countries. Lastly, it would help save our environment.

Skiing

I couple of years ago I took up skiing. At first I was really bad at it, but last year I got really good at skiing. I even started to go on some of hills and moguls to get air! I am really excited for Christmas break so that I can go skiing again. One of my friends gets to go skiing in Colorado over break, but I will be stuck at Perfect North. I have been to Colorado a couple of times during the summer and it looks like an amazing place to go skiing!

Fall time is here!

I went home for fall break and I did a lot of fall festivities. On Friday I went to Brown County in Nashville, Indiana. While I was there I did a lot of shopping and then I went to the State Park and went on some short hikes. It was the perfect time to go because all of the leaves were just starting to turn yellow and red. While I was in town I went into a lot of the local shops to buy caramel corn, peanut brittle, fudge, and taffy. On our way back home from Brown County we stopped to buy a pumpkin and apple cider at a place called The Apple Orchard which is close to my house. The workers told us the cider is made daily and when I tired it it was really good! I went home and carved my pumpkin after I got it! I carved Winnie the Pooh into my pumpkin! It turned out well, even though it was hard to do. The only part I messed up on was his right eye, but I think the rest looks good! It was just nice to have the fall weather and all of the fall foods and festivities to do when I went home over break.

What is Public Writing?

I think that public writing is any text that is available for the public to read which gives information about news or opinions. Such texts include letters to the editor, newspaper articles, and newsletters.

GO IRISH!

This weekend I went to the Notre Dame football game. My boyfriend goes to school there and I went up to visit him for the weekend and to go to the game. It was funny because Ball State played Western Michigan the weekend before Notre Dame played them. It was a big difference because one Notre Dame beat Western Michigan 44-20 and the day was filled with much more festivities. It was a great weekend for the game because it was in the mid 60's and sunny without any clouds in the sky and the leaves were changing colors and falling on the ground. When we got on campus for the game I went to visit the grotto, see the band play, and got some pictures in from of the Golden Dome. My was able to sit in the student sections and do pushups for the touchdowns. It was a great win for Notre Dame too! After the game, I went to mass at the Basilica. I love to go to mass at the Basilica, because it is so beautiful. I especially love old churches that are more traditional. Overall it was a great weekend and a great win for the Irish!

Naked Juice

Recently I have tried Naked Juice. It is a juice that is made from 100% juice. It has no added sugar and no preservatives, is non-GMO, gluten free, and vegan. The juice that I tired first was strawberry banana. It is made with 22 strawberries, 1 3/4 apples, 1 1/3 bananas', and a hint of orange. The Naked Juice was delicious! It was really think and almost like a smoothie. The juice is really good for you and I have been drinking it a lot lately because I feel like I might be getting a cold. All of the vitamins and fruit in the juice will help fight a virus. If you look on the ingredients the only thing you will find is the list of fruits that are blended together to make the juice and nothing else! It is hard to find things that aren't packed with added sugar and preservatives today, but Naked Juice is a product that doesn't. I would suggest trying Naked Juice the next time anyone is at the dining hall. It is expensive, but really good and an easy way to get your fruit for the day!

MM assignment

snhanley.weebly.com

My argument is that the U.S. education system is failing our students because of poor teaching quality. Many students leave school unprepared for the real world or to continue to go on to higher education. Some recent changes have been occurring in the government that could help improve our education system, but no one knows if the programs and reform will continue. My argument is that we must find a way to grade our teachers and to find the best professionals for our children, because the teachers have a great influence on the child's learning capabilities.

Log for Sept 28

Today in class we discussed our new assignment. Our new assignment is to create a video or a website for a multimodal argument. Before Professor McArdle showed us examples of multimodal arguments, we reviewed the reading assignments for the class. We went over the rhetorical fallacies. Some of the fallacies including appeal to tradition and false authority. Then we watched a few videos in class. The videos were about gay rights, the story of Little Red Riding Hood, and architecture. The videos were useful even though the architecture video was a little long and tiring. The videos helped me decide what I wanted to write about and how I was going to present it.

Log for Sept 23

In class we did intensive reviews on our rhetorical analysis papers. Andrew's paper was about energy drinks and the negative impact they can have on you and your body. Jordan's paper was about the song Mockingbird by Rob Thomas. The intensive reviews helped a lot and it was nice that everyone was able to help Andrew and Jordan out so that they can make their papers better!

Did you know?

I watched She's the Man on Friday night with a bunch of girls. Did you know that the movie is based off a Shakespeare play?! The movie is based of of Shakespeare's play The Twelfth Night. I read the play in high school for my English class. The characters names are the same in the play and the movie including Olivia, Viola, Duke, Sebastien, Antonio, Andrew, and Toby. The plot's are also similar. In She's the Man Viola (Amanda Bynes) dresses up as her brother to play on the soccer team. She then falls for Duke (Channing Tatum) and they end up together at the end of the movie after Duke realizes that she is really a girl. The Twelfth Night features Viola dressing up as a man and ending up marrying Duke at the end of the play.

Psychology: How we think

I had some pretty cool demonstrations in my psychology class about how humans think. Here is an example. Let's see how you do!






To the left there are nine dots. Can you connect all of the dots together in four lines without moving your pencil? You can connect them anyway you want as long as you have four lines and didn't move your pencil. Psychology says that most of you won't be able to figure this out.


To find out how to connect all the dots Click Here!

Home Sweet Home

I went home for the first time this weekend! It was really exciting. I actually got to shower without any flip flops on and I got to cook homemade meals! I made pizza baked spaghetti with caprese flatbread and chicken tortilla soup over the weekend. I was so excited to eat at home. I like the food at school, but I am starting to get tired of it because I feel like I eat the same thing over and over again. I also got to see my dog, Monty! I missed him so much! He was so excited to see me that he barked for awhile, because he didn't know what else to do. He knows that he always gets spoiled by me so I took him on a walk and got him a dog dish of ice cream from Ritter's. Now that I am back from home I have a whole week filled with lots of work!

Disney World

I just found out that I get to Disney World over spring break! I am so excited. My grandparents live in Florida so I will also get to stay with them (and use them for a hotel ;) ). I have been to Disney World twice, but they last time I went I was 12. My favorite park is Magic Kingdom because it has all of the Disney characters. My favorite Disney movie is Aladin, so I hope that I can get my picture taken with Aladin and Jasmine. My favorite ride is the tea cups because I think that they are cute and fun to spin around in. Yay for Disney World! I also love some of Walt Dinsey's quotes. My favorite one is "all of our dreams can come true, if we have the courage to pursue them". Disney World is a place where you can feel like a kid again and just have fun. No one can have a bad time at Disney World!

Bed Bugs EW!

I was watching the news while I was working out and I watched a story that was covering the new bed bug problem that is spreading across the country. The news covered a story on a woman that had bed bugs in here home. She has been trying to get rid of them for several months but they are too hard to find and kill. The woman never has anyone come to her house or goes to her friend's homes for fear of spreading the bedbugs. In order to get rid of all the bed bugs in her home she had to have a dog come and find them in her home and then she had to put all of her home items into a room that was heated to 130 degrees. Bed bugs can be killed if they are exposed to heat that is over 130 degrees. What I thought was really interesting, and a little gross, was when the news interviewed a scientist who studies bed bugs. In order for him to study the bed bugs he has to allow the bugs to feed on his skin. A couple of days later I got a flyer in my mailbox that describes how to protect yourself from bedbugs. It's scary knowing that someone can easily get bed bugs through the contact of furniture or clothes.

Hot Air Balloon Race

One of my friends going to school at Saint Louis attended the Annual Saint Louis Great Forest Park Balloon Race over the weekend. I have always been amazed at hot air balloons. In Saint Louis the night before the race all of the balloon pilots light up their balloons, but they stay on the ground. Many people come out to view the balloons. As the picture to the right shows this makes for quite a beautiful view. The race starts the next day. An energizer bunny hot air balloon takes of a few minutesbefore the other 70 selected balloons, and all of the other balloons are to follow the bunny and the first to get to the end wins.
I have never been on a hot air balloon, but it is on my list of things to do. I think that it would be really cool to go to one in Colorado, Europe, or Mexico. Festivals are held all over the country ever year. Going to one of these is on my "bucket list" of things to do in my life. Hopefully I will be able to go to something like this one day and to actually ride in one of the balloons, not just watch the balloons.

Hey Hey Hockeytown!

I am a Red Wings fan and they start off their season on Wednesday. The will be playing the Pittsburgh Penguins and then they end the week by playing the Chicago Blackhawks. This will be a tough start for the Wings, but I have no doubt that they will start off the year strong. I'm really mad that I won't get most of the games here at school! My favorite player on the team is Henrik Zetterburg (#40). I might be going to a game over Thanksgiving break and I am really hoping that it works out so that I can go!

One for One

I just learned about the shoe company named Toms. Toms sells shoes, but for every shoe that someone buys they send another pair to a child in need. Their motto is "One for One". I am going to buy a pair, not only because they are really comfortable and cute, but because theyhelp others out in need.
I was reading about Toms mission on their website and I learned that the leading cause for disease in third world countries comes from the soil. This is why it is important that children have shoes to protect their feet. Children often get cuts on their feet too, and that makes it easy for the feet to become infected with disease if they are running around barefoot. I think that this company is doing something awesome. After I graduate I hope to start one of my own charities that can help people out. I'm not quite sure what I want to do yet, but I think that it is important to help out others more in need.

Facebook Friends

Over the weekend I decided that I would go edit my list of facebook friends. I had nearly 600 facebook friends. Some of them were my actual friends and some where family members, however others were people that I didn't even know or have never talked to. I decided that I didn't want these people "creeping" and "facestalking" by profile so I deleted a lot of them. I deleted almost 300 of my friends. It was almost scary to see how many people I was friends with and I didn't even recognize the name or know them. Another reason why I wanted to do this was because I am addictive to facebook. When I should be doing my homework, I'm actually checking peoples statuses. I get off read for a little bit, get bored, and then check again. I wanted to delete people who I don't talk to and aren't friends with so I can stop creeping on there pages and reading about them on my newsfeed. Facebook has changed the way that we do things. Our parents didn't have facebook pages when they were in high school and in college, but we do. When they graduated high school or broke up with someone they didn't see much of these people, now however I am friends with all of these people and can keep up with their lives. I am not saying that I don't love facebook, but it is something that can become addicting and I waste a lot of my time on it worrying about other peoples lives. I am glad that I deleted some of my friends and that I now most of my friends are ones that are involved in my life.

Sheep Art

Someone showed me the video posted below and I thought it was really cool. I have a Bearded Collie at home which is one of the typical breeds for sheep dogs and I wonder if he would be able to herd these sheep to do these things. I also think that sometimes people have too much time on there hands! This was a crazy idea to think up and I wonder how long it took them to create this video. It, however, is really awesome. I would probably need more patience to do this.

Power Soccer

An extra credit opportunity for my sociology class was to attend a Ball State power soccer practice. Before I went to the power soccer practice I was very curious if the players actually played with the soccer ball on the ground or if they played by tossing the ball. It seemed almost impossible for me to imagine playing soccer in a wheel chair. I have seen many other chair sports, such as murderball, but I did not think that soccer would be one of them. As I entered the gym, the players were already on the court playing. They had bumpers on the front of their chairs to hit the ball with. As I continued to observe the players I began thinking that this still seemed impossible. I think that it would be very difficult to play soccer in a chair and I was amazed and gained an appreciation for the players. It must take a lot of patience and determination in order to learn to play this game. These are two characteristics that I sometimes lack, but this has inspired me to work on that. I would encourage others to attend a match or a practice!

The fight in the Irish is back!

I was really excited to watch the season opener of the Notre Dame Fighting Irish on Saturday. I was nervous at first for the game, but I knew that the Irish could pull through. I'm excited to see how they do for the rest of the season! I'm going up for a couple of games in October and I hope that they are still doing well. I think that Brian Kelly showed today that he can be a good coach and I saw a lot of good plays in the game. It wasn't the best game and I think that they still have some work, but it was good to see them win today.

What am I watching?

Last night I went with a couple of friends I went to someone's dorm room to hang out. We ended up watching Jersey Shore. I have never watched Jersey Shore before, but I now know why Professor McArdle now says that MTV will bring about the end of the world. I kept thinking to myself: what am I watching? Someone I was watching asked what the purpose of the show was and no one could answer. The people just fight and hook up. I felt like I was losing some of my intelligence just watching the show. I told my boyfriend that I watched the show for the first time and he responded by saying "don't turn to the dark side and let it brain wash you".

Fire Drill!!!

Early this morning I was woken up by a beeping noise. At first I thought that it was my roommate's alarm clock, but after it beeped for a few minutes I decided that it was some of the construction work outside. Suddenly someone was pounding on my door yelling "get out!". I woke up my roommate and told her someone was pounding on her door, but she replied that she didn't care. However, she changed her mind when I told her I thought the fire alarm was going off. My floor starting marching outside. I was surprised when walking down the stairs that one of the maintenance workers was just calmly sweeping the floor. It wasn't until I went outside that I realized that it was only my floor that had to evacuate. Someone one my floor set off the fire alarm in the laundry room when she was using the drier. But really who does laundry at 8 on a Friday morning?!

Mission Impossible: First load of laundry

After a couple days of procrastination, I decided that I finally needed to attempt my first load of laundry. Unfortunately, the washing machine on my floor was broken. I went to the floors below me and above me to find a time to sign up for the machines. Arriving in the laundry room 5 minutes before my time, I sat down and waited for the person before me to come pick up her clothes in the machine to put them in the dryer. I waited and waited.... for about 30 minutes. Finally, she came and got her clothes. I successfully washed my first load of laundry, however, there were no open driers to put them in. How this happens I do not know. I walked to every floor in my hall to try and find a dryer, but there were none available. I brought my wet clothes back to my room and hung them around my room. I waited 2 more hours to finally got to an open dryer. I miss when my mom did my laundry...

Publish Post

Luck of the Draw

After my first week in college here at Ball State, I have quickly discovered the advantage of having the new Recreational and Wellness Center right across from my dorm room. I have been working out there almost everyday. Yesterday, while I was working out on the elliptical I was watching CNN cover a story on New York Charter Schools. Many parents are trying to enroll their children into the best schools, but in some New York districts parents are having to enter a lottery in order to make that possible. Thousands of children are entered into the lottery and only a few hundred are selected to attend the charter schools. Charters schools are a publicly funded school, but is ran individually therefore providing a better education for students. Charter schools are statistically proven to award students better standardize testing scores and to increase the child's chances of continuing on to higher education. After hearing about this I began to wonder why not all children are given the chance to go to a good school? Why isn't there enough funding for every children to be given the best education possible? What must we do to ensure that all of our children are being properly educated instead of just a few lucky ones?