Holy Fuzzy Socks

It's like when someone tells you to put on your "thinking cap." I just put on my fuzzy socks.  Yeah, they don't have magical powers or anything but I'm a creature of habit.  Everyday after school when I get home, the first thing I do is change into comfy clothes.  This means putting on my fuzzy socks of course! My sisters and mom think they are embarrassing and told me not to wear them around the guy I like.  So I wore them on my date Friday night.  I'm all about staying true to myself, and hey, if he doesn't appreciate the socks then he isn't worth it anyway.  NOW that I have gotten completely off topic about dates and boys (don't be too surprised) maybe I should get back to my writing process.  Okay so next, I check my Facebook and Twitter about a gazillion times until I can convince myself that nothing exciting has happened since the last time I refreshed the page 30 seconds ago.  Nothing exciting is going to happen in the future.  So I go and stare at the pictures of hot guys that I creep routinely for another good five minutes and then it is time to GET DOWN TO BUSINESS.  I need my cup of water because for some reason my mouth always gets really dry when I write for a long time, which speaking of, I'll be right back, got to grab a cup of water.............................................................  I'm back.  Oh my god get ready for this because Ms. Cardona taught me it..... I just write.  If I think about it, I'll get about one sentence written in two hours.  I just write whatever comes to my mind.  Sometimes it doesn't come out in full sentences.  A lot of the time it should be in its own paragraph, maybe its own paper.  But that is the beauty of copying, and cutting, and pasting.  I just spew my ideas.  Then I can go back and say "I can develop this" or "I could write a paragraph focused solely on this."  From there I fine-tune. Clean up the rough edges.  It is still rough, REALLY rough.  But I'm going somewhere, and I know where I am going. Soon enough, okay no, lots of time later, I have a finished product that hopefully I'm proud of.  If this class has taught me anything it is that there is not time to worry about grades.  The only thing I can worry about is doing my best.  So maybe my best is a C, I can live with that knowing that I did my best and I least tried to figure it out.  It still sucks, but life goes on.  It isn't like I'm not going to go to college because I got a C on my rhetorical analysis paper in 11th grade.

Rhetorical Analysitis

Hello fellow bloggers! This will be my first (and hopefully only) blog from my phone! Anyways...

My brain is being taken over by rhetorical analysis. I swear it is like a virus that is rapidly multiplying and eating away at my insides until everything around me has been completely rhetorically analified. I am turning into a rhetorical analysis robot.

On Friday, I had my first college tour in Madison. Sitting there, I started twitching at every logical fallacy and rhetorical appeal that spewed from my speaker's mouth. And then to make things worse, I started processing to what extent the devices he was using were effective. I thought this weekend was supposed to be a break from school, but apparently it is stalking me everywhere I go.

I know the fact that I'm noticing all of this should make me feel like I'm making progress but really all I feel is even more lost. I recognize all this rhetoric like its screaming my name in a silent room but it is still beyond me how I'm supposed to put my thoughts into words that make sense and explain the point I am trying to make. I read one sentence of my rhetorical analysis essay and I see five different devices. How am I supposed to pick which is the most effective? How am I supposed to organize a paper that isn't just a jumbled bunch of thoughts?

I need to take a step back and utilize my thoughts. I need to acknowledge that I know what rhetorical devices are and how they appear because that is an accomplishment in itself. I need to sit down and have a good long review session of everything I have learned in class so far. Then I will be able to breathe and say, "Hey, I can do this!" And then maybe, just maybe, rhetorical analysis and I can be friends again.

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Bad Stuff, Don't Do It.

Okay so I know if someone gets me started I could go on for forever and ever. I'm going to try and condense it.

The dress code.  If someone looks like they are going to work the street after school, I get it.  But are you really going to make me change because my shorts are a little shorter than my fingertips? Hello! I have really long arms!

Grinding.  It's straight up raunchy. Okay so this is coming from the girl who is uncomfortable with holding her boyfriend's hand in public, but still.  Would you give your boyfriend a handie in front of everyone at the dance? I would hope not.  I don't see the difference between a handie and grinding when it's just your butt doing the same work. 

Sluts.  I hate how all these girls think they have to advertise their vagina like it's a festival.  We are in high school, there should not be ANY kind of festival going on down there.  You should want a guy to like who you are as a person, not for your goods.  If he doesn't see how beautiful you really are, it's his loss not yours.  Move on

Texting.  I'm definitely guilty of this one but I have to say it.  If I'm trying to have a conversation with you, put the phone away.  It's disrespectful and it seems like you could care less about what I have to say.

PDA. STOP PRIVATES ARE FOR PRIVATE TIME ENOUGH SAID.

Fake girls. Stop talking behind my back and say what you have to say TO MY FACE. I wish girls were like boys where they just punched each other when they were pissed.

Lying.  I don't care if the truth hurts.  It hurts more to know you lied.

People who hate on the Packers.  It's just unattractive.  Yeah, I don't like the Vikings. Do I need to go around broadcasting it and trying to make people feel bad about liking them? No.  If you don't have anything nice to say, don't say it at all.

People who are overly sarcastic.  It actually hurts my feelings.  You can joke around without being mean and it is a whole lot funnier.

People with gross hair.  Brush it. Wash it. Do whatever you need to do so it doesn't look like something is living in there.

Pimples.  I know this is so gross, but when people have big juicy zits that are about to blow you just need to pop it.

Taylor Swift Haters. She is brilliant. Just accept it. 

Okay so this could be so much longer but I don't need to be in a rant-y mood for the rest of the night so I'm going to stop where I am.

Congrats, You Don't Have a Life

In middle school I was really smart.  I didn't have to try that hard and I knew I would still get an A.  I watched as my friends struggled with school and I didn't get it, it was just so easy to me.  Then came high school.  Suddenly classes weren't so easy.  I actually had to study for my tests and my homework took a lot longer than 20 minutes.  Everyday I felt like I wasn't good enough, like I wasn't smart enough.  Because school was harder, so was planning my social life and playing sports.  There wasn't time to hang with friends after school and on top of a long school day I had basketball for two hours afterwords. I saw Two Million Minutes for the first time last year in Honors Communication.  Watching it for a second time made just as mad as I was the first time I watched it.  Here I am, working my butt off, and Robert Compton has to come along and throw it all down the shitter.  I'm happy as I am, and I don't want to be like any of those Chinese and Indian kids.  My life is about so much more than school.  There is plenty of ways I can be successful without secluding myself to my household trying to become some kind of genius. I mean, what kind of life is that? The beauty of America is that we have the freedom to do what we want.  So our kids aren't as 'smart' as the kids in India and China.  Not everyone can be.  In those countries, if you aren't smart enough to get a good job your life is pretty much down the drains.  Sports are a huge part of most Americans lives and this is portrayed as a bad thing.  I don't see how sports can be so bad when they give kids opportunities they can't get with school.  Sports keep kids out of drugs. They get people to work together.  There are kids who aren't smart enough to succeed in life but they are athletic enough to make it to the pro level.  No one's life should be defined by their intelligence level and how hard they study.  Life is about things you don't learn in school.  Are you going to look back on your life and think "Wow I really liked that girl because she was so smart," or are you more likely to look back and think "Wow I really liked her because she was so nice?" I'm proud of the people in my country.  So we are different than India and China. Big deal.  I'm not giving up my life and who I am as a person for a couple extra hours of studying. No thank you.  We all have the freedom to work as hard as we want.  People will be who they want to be, if that's a Yale graduate, great, if it's singer, that's great, too.

Thanks Steve

Thursday night my dad threw a pile of papers at me with a single instruction: "Read."  Anytime one decides to take on the challenge of printing from our devil printer, it is for a very important reason.  What followed was the text to one of Steve Job's most famous and influential speeches, his Commencement Speech at Stanford in 2005.  As soon as Mrs. Cardona announced in class on Friday that our blog posts could be on anything we wanted, I knew immediately that this speech is what I wanted to write about.  So sitting down this morning to write, I realize, oh crap, it's a speech.  And then not only, "Oh crap, it's a speech," but ohhhhh crap, there is a video that goes along with it.  So I'm guessing right now Mrs. Cardona is thinking "Yeah Caroline! More practice for rhetorical analysis!" And I'm thinking "Really Caroline? Look at the hole you have dug for yourself. You think your weekend will be brain-pain free without any of that silly analyzing Cardona is always making you do and then you have to go and find a speech to blog about."  I've decided however that maybe, just maybe, I can use this blog post to somewhat, hopefully, redeem just a little bit of my dignity after butchering my Jesse Jackson analysis paper in class on Friday.  
Ever yelled at your computer and then awkwardly realized nothing was going to happen because, well, it's a computer?  I'm definitely guilty.  The biggest thing that Steve Jobs did WRONG was his failure to make eye contact with his audience.  The majority of the speech Jobs stared down at his podium, reading off his script. This is BAD BAD BAD! If I have learned anything in this class it's that if you are looking to put someone to sleep, just read off exactly what you have written down.  I was so disappointed when I watched this video because the transcript was SO good and Jobs's delivery and body language was atrocious.  Okay, that is all the hating I will do on Steve Jobs because he is Steve Jobs, basically the creator of the modern world.  As follows are my two favorite quotes from the speech:


"Remembering that I'll be dead soon is the most important tool I've ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything — all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure - these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart."


"Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary."


I know these two quotes are the reason my dad gave me this speech to read and they relate to two major periods of time in my life. 


When I was five, my dad was diagnosed with cancer and it almost killed him.  When that kind of thing happens, it really changes your perspective on life.  Last year, I was diagnosed with major depressive disorder.  The last thing I was thinking about was being positive.  Jobs's speech was just a reminder of how important it is to be happy. It is okay to be selfish sometimes.  You have to do what is best for you and you can't be afraid to take risks.  Life is short and you only get one of them so you have to make the best of it.  I know everyone has heard this same kind of thing a million times, but when you have faced death or hit rock bottom because you are so sad, these kind of words really stand out.  My dad was saved, and rededicating his life to being happy was the choice he made.  As my parent, he is teaching me this same life lesson.  Be brave and be true to yourself.  As Jobs's says, "There is no reason not to follow your heart."

Rhetorical Analysis

On Wednesday, Obama spoke to students across America on the topic of school.  He stressed the importance of today's students as tomorrow's future.  "Whether we fall behind or race ahead in the coming years is up to you."  He places a lot of responsibility on students but because of his delivery it does not come off as telling them what to do as much as it comes off as encouraging students to WANT to be the best they can be.

Obama's speech was well-written but it didn't appear as he had rehearsed it over and over so many times that it lost its meaning.  Rather than reading off what he had to say, he spoke as if he was talking to one individual person, giving them advice.  He chose diction that students would be able to understand and want to listen to.  He seemed comfortable, using hand gestures to emphasize his points.  His words were delivered with feeling, like he really believed in what he was saying.  This all emphasized his credibility. 

Obama does a good job of gaining trust with his audience.  He relates to all kids and teenagers when he acknowledges that they have "a lot on their plate."  He knows that friend, family, and money problems are omnipresent in student lives and the influence of online social networking sites is more powerful than ever.  Because of these appeals, the audience is more likely to listen to him since it feels like he knows what else is going on in their lives but is still able to apply his advice.

The logical appeals Obama used his speech strengthened his argument strongly.  He brought up the fact that the U.S. went from having the highest proportion of college graduates to the population to be being ranked sixteenth.  This creates competition, making students want to work harder to be number one.  He stated that in the next decade, more than 60% of jobs will require a college degree.  The main purpose of these statistics was to encourage students even more to work in school by showing how it will pay off.