Millmaap's Weblog

Posting Secrets

millmaap — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 16:30:38 +0000

I was thinking about how much I love checking PostSecret.com, when I mentioned my obsession with the other kids around me, no one seemed to have any idea what I was talking about. I decided to choose Post Secret as my newest blog topic. Post Secret is a website created by a man named Frank. Frank has created a phenomenon, through anonymous postcards. The idea is to creatively decorate a post card, reveling your innermost secrets and then send them to Frank. Frank hopes that the process of releasing your secrets through the mail, helps relieve the stress of keeping or hiding such secrets. Every Sunday Frank updates his website, Postsecret.com with the new postcards he received the week before. The band All American Rejects featured many post cards in their video “Dirty Little Secrets.” Frank has put together a collection of the powerful, influential, and creative post cards into FOUR books already. The secrets are incredible, some I find gross, some sad, some moving, some hopeful. The Post Secret project has reached world wide levels, Frank receives many postcards in other languages, from more than 30 other countries. I have two of Frank’s books, they are incredibly fascinating. Once you visit the site, you will be there every Sunday to read the newest secrets.

Memory

millmaap — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 21:54:16 +0000

Since I’m able to choose any topic to blog about today, I want to discuss my thoughts after seeing an Oprah episode today. Oprah featured unique people, a twelve year old boy who was seven feet three inches tall, and a 26 year old woman who is three feet tall. Then Oprah featured a woman who has an amazing memory, who can remember everything, she can recall any date randomly picked. She told Oprah about her first shows, and a Christmas show Oprah did in 1990, which Oprah had absolutely memory of. I was thinking about how tough and torturous it would be to have such an impeccable memory and ability to recall any event. It would be terrible to remember everything sad and tragic exactly how it happened years later. To remember everything mean and terrible someone has said to you, how could you ever let it go. The saying “forgive and forget” would never apply. You would never be able to forget the terrible and embarrassing remarks people say, even when they may not mean it. The woman with the amazing memory explains how painful it is to have such a good memory because every year she relives the date of her husband’s funeral, and they memories and the emotions are still so raw, as if it just happened. I’ve never thought about what it would be like to have such a remarkable memory, something as simple as memory extremely heightened. The grass is not always greener on the other side.

“Lovely Hula Hands” Response

millmaap — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 20:17:02 +0000

After reading the essay in our Writing and Place book, titled “Lovely Hula Hands” I had a different perspective on tourism and culture. I have never been to Hawaii myself, but I have traveled to many Caribbean islands where poverty was very common and the majority of citizens worked at gorgeous, secluded, all inclusive resorts. The essay brings up various topics and facts I never knew of. Her article persuades and informs the reader of the negative aspects of Hawaii’s people and culture. The writer often repeats the phrase, “what has happened to my Hawaiian culture..” as if instead of evolving and adapting positively, it was negatively influenced by tourism and multinational corporations.

Visual Text Brainstorm

millmaap — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 18:47:10 +0000

I am thinking of different ways to express my opinion of recycling through a visual text. The type of text depends greatly on my audience. I think my audience should be the general public, since of course recycling applies to all people, everywhere. But to make the point that recycling effects everyone, I want to try to use information specific to Miami University or Oxford, Ohio. I first wanted to create a unique collage, circular,in the shape of the earth. Using blue and green images and words to design my collage to look like the earth with blue as the water and green as the land. But after much thinking, I’ve decided that while my collage idea is unique and creative it is not practical. It doesn’t appeal to my audience in an effective manor. It would be very difficult to use actual persuasive text to support my opinion. My collage would have been mainly visual, with pictures and bold words, but the use of text in facts, statistics, and quotes would be limited. Ive decided to create an informational PowerPoint, that uses pictures paired with helpful information to support my opinion on the important environmental issue of recycling.

Response to Readings

millmaap — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 20:02:37 +0000

After reading the two different political debate essays in the College Composition at Miami, I was very influenced by the topic and impressed with the different writing styles. I already had my own opinion on the topic of legalizing marijuana, but reading the two essays I found myself being more persuaded and more dead set on my opinions. I liked how the two essays were based generally on the same topic but became very different essays. One was based solely on legalizing marijuana, period. While the other was more specific to legalizing medical marijuana. Both essays were full of helpful statistics and information to help persuade the audience. The second article titled, “Letter to a Senator” was very thoughtful, and appealed more to the readers emotions than the other essay. In “Letter to a Senator” it uses real life information, and therefore tugs at the heart-stings of readers, imagining their life or a loved one suffering from a painful cancer and prohibited the use of medical marijuana. I enjoyed reading the second essay, “Letter to a Senator” better than “Opposition to the Continued Prohibition of Marijuana” because I enjoyed the writing style of a letter, along with the real life examples and use of ethos. Both articles were convincing and eye opening; reading them just confirmed my beliefs in legalizing marijuana.

Political Article Extra Credit

millmaap — Wed, 22 Oct 2008 21:58:26 +0000

I chose to find an article on a public issue, specifically the environment. I think keeping our environment safe, is extremely important. The article I chose to read was in response to the 2004 release of America’s top 50 states where the air quality is most dangerous and negatively effecting kids. Children very commonly have asthma, and this report proved how unhealthy come cities can be, especially hot summer days when kids are out playing the most. Some cities were potentially harmful because of the air quality 70 percent of the summer. That is harmful to all children, not just those with asthma. The environment is our responsibility, is our one world, we don’t have enough time to keep ruining it. I think its time to drastically change society’s behavior when it starts to affect the health of children. Soon everyone will have asthma because the air around us is being ruined. Soon it won’t be possible to go outside and play at the beach without harmful UV rays, and easily developing skin cancer. The article gives suggestions as to reduce smokestack, and diesel pollution as well as regular road pollution. It will take a while for the changes to be put into effect, but sooner or later our everyday little changes will help save our environment.

I fully trust this site because it’s a governmental site, Environmental Defense.

Obama’s 2004 Speech

millmaap — Thu, 09 Oct 2008 16:49:26 +0000

I chose to write this blog post in response to Barack Obama’s 2004 speech at the Democratic National Convention. I felt that it was an amazing and powerful speech. Its clear to the audience Barack Obama believes in what he is saying, and is passionate about his ideas. Some things I noticed while watching him deliver his speech was his impeccable delivery. I immediately noticed his confidence behind the podium. He didn’t just stand their giving a speech, he rotated his body, making eye contact with the audience. He used various hand gestures to convey the importance of his messages and his ideas. He speaks about the American dream, and his own American success story, he introduces himself and includes background information about his family. He explain how he is an unlikely politician because he had such a unique childhood. He is able to relate to the American people, and share common goals for a successful life. Its obvious to the view and audience how passionate and serious Obama feels about these issues and his speech alone. He is extremely charismatic and eloquent with his words. The words he chooses are extremely descriptive, depicting a vivid picture in the audiences mind. He also uses words such as “we” or “our”, to incorporate the audience, make it seem like he is having a causal conversation and really connecting one on one with viewers. All in all I felt very impacted by this phenomenal example of speech delivery.

Rhetoric Analysis

millmaap — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 17:43:58 +0000

I’ve been thinking about various topics I could choose for my Rhetoric Analysis paper. I want to choose something that interests me, since I will need to be able to write over four pages of information. I think I would like to choose a political speech to analysis. The problem is I cant decide who, from what time period, and on what topic. I figure that with any political figure, behind their words they have an agenda, to convince the audience, the Americans people, of something. Behind the eloquent words, pour political role models tend to persuade the public and get a vote anywhere they can. That’s what politics is about. So I think a speech of a larger scale would give me enough information to dissect, and hopefully other people have analysed these speeches too, making it easy for me to use other people’s opinions as my support and citations. Maybe I’ll choose something by President JFK, or his brother Robert Kennedy. I am fascinated with the Kennedys and the time period of the 1960′s. I’ve read interview and watched movies, and written my own papers on the Kennedys and their assassinations. American culture and American government in the 1960′s is so interesting to me.

9/18 entry

millmaap — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 17:58:09 +0000

Since this blog entry was without a defined topic, I thought I’d just talk about my weekend experiencing this power outage. I went home to Cincinnati this weekend, was home by around 3 on Friday. I decided it would be better just to relax and watch the Bengals game on tv on Sunday rather than going downtown earlier and tailgating and going to the game. It would just be easier and more relaxing to stay home and watch it (even though the Bengals are awful). Well seven minutes before kickoff my electricity went out. I had no idea the weather was even suppose to be so bad on Sunday. Well by around three my cell phone had little battery and I knew I needed to contact the other kids I was suppose to go back to Miami with… We decided the weather and roads were way to dangerous to go back to school, that we would just wait until later or leave early Monday morning. Luckily classes were cancelled Monday so I didn’t leave to come back to Oxford until Tuesday morning. It was a long, relaxing weekend. Its funny how frustrating it can be without power, away from campus I needed to check my email to see what the class situation was for Monday, not to mention finish and print my paper for this class. My family and I drove around Cincinnati looking for something open, somewhere to eat and luckily they let us charge our electronics. Its nice to be back at school, back with electricity.

Peer Editing

millmaap — Thu, 11 Sep 2008 14:37:16 +0000

Today was our first day of peer editing. I printed out three copies of my ethnography paper for my peer editors, Megan and Courtney. After reading my paper allowed, and hearing their advice/ fedback, its easier to figure out what I need to do to improve my paper. It was helpful to read their papers, and base my paper off of theirs. I think that I need to elaborate on my larger claim of society. In my paper, I’m going to re-word some sentences to add/change repetative adjectives… I want to add more about the menu, how sandwiches are created by students and if they become popular and catch on, they can be apart of the permanet menu. Thats how sandwiches are created at Bagel and Deli. I want to add a few sentences about the few brave Miami students who actually have tried EVERY sandwich.

I think once I write my writer’s memo I will understand my paper more, to reflect over my experience writing.