My Presentation

I did my presentation on Monday. I think it went really well. For class engagement I decided to have everyone come up to the board and put up the year. I also passed out flyers so that the class could get a better understanding of what the ingredients are when making a Grimm's Fairytale. During my presentation, I tried to keep eye contact the entire time. I used flashcards and part of my paper to briefly talk about what Grimm's fairytales was all about. The tone of my voice I thought was very steady the entire time. I used hand gestures just so the audience could get a feel of how comfortable I was during my presentation. I saw a lot of jaws drop when I told them what really happened in the fairytales which was very good to see. It made me think that people are actually paying attention to me and that I did somewhat of a good job presenting. I think i did pretty good with my time too. Overall, the presentation wasn't as bad as what I had thought. Now, I get to relax and watch all of the other people describe their genre.

Presentations

I really enjoyed class on Wednesday. I love when a teacher grabs our attention through the media. It's one way that gets everyone focused. A teacher presents every day and Wednesday's was a great time to really bring out what it takes to get the audiences attention. My favorite advertisement was the "Tiddy Bear". It really made me laugh and just the name of it was awful. What they were trying to sell wasn't even a good idea. The last video was very clever and a great way to get the audience's attention. I want to use part of a video for my presentation next monday. I am usually a great presenter. My main key elements that I try to go by is eye contact, knowing your information well (not reading off cards), making hand gestures, and going within the time limit. You always need to maintain a loud voice so the audience can hear you clearly.  The only problem that I have specifically with this presentation is the time limit. I feel like 10 minutes is an extremely long time to present a piece of literature. I know I could possibly do present it roughly around 10 minutes but not quite. But, I would rather present my paper over writing another paper.

Cinderella

My genre was Grimm's Fairytales. My all time favorite fairytale is Cinderella. So, I decided to go with that one. The first thing that I noticed was the punctuation in the paragraphs. There are many commas throughout the sentences which end up making the sentences extremely long. There is a lot of narration in the story. The narrator I can just image that they are talking in the background and then what they are explaining the whole time is the background image. They do this throughout the entire story. The sentences are choppy. The narrator just kind of gets to the point but uses not exactly metaphors but a lot of adjectives for example: "The woman had brought with her into the house two daughters, who were beautiful and fair of face, but vile and black of heart." Which brings me to the characters. There are 3 main characters that the narrator really describes. Cinderella known as the "housekeeper" daughter and then the two other step-daughters who are beautiful but have an evil side. Cinderella is also known as being beautiful. I saw a few metaphors. The one that was brought to my attention was "Is the stupid goose to sit in the parlor with us, they said." They are referring to Cinderella as a goose who just sits back with her family and does all of the work. Those are the only types of content that stuck out to me the most when it came to reading a few short paragraphs.

Construction Worker Part 2

Tim, a 42 year old construction worker, was working on a hot spring day. He was working on a new building called Sangren. Tim has family to take care of. A wife named Sarah and his little daughter Eva, with brown hair and deep green eyes, who is 6 years old. Since Tim has a family to take care of back at home, he works hard for his money. He has an average income and the wife is a stay at home mom. On this hot spring day Tim was drilling wooden pieces together in the light brown dirt. The dirt was flying all throughout the air going with the breeze. While people hurry up and walk past the construction site so they don't get a whiff of ground dirt. Even though, it makes the campus smell like soil. Tim still worked on the pieces. His neon green shirt had stains of dirt looking like he kept wiping his black gloves all over his shirt. His Levi jeans had streaks of dirt as well. His working boots were supposed to be a tan chestnut color, but instead they kept getting darker towards the bottom of the boot from the soil. Tim stopped to take a break for a little while. He took a sip of his bottle of gatorade which was filled with faucet water instead. After taking a sip of his water, which looked like he desperately needed from all the sweat dripping down from his forehead, he was making jokes with his other construction friends. It was hard for them to communicate because it was so noisy from all of the other machinery going on. Tim and the other construction workers were cracking jokes about their job just to kill time. "I can't wait to go home and have a beer" one of his friends said. While Tim stated "You are tellin' me!" Both of them laughed and went on with the rest of their hot spring afternoon.

Observations of the Construction Worker

The person I decided to observe was a construction worker. This man had a white hat, that looked like a helmet, a bright neon green shirt, old Levi jeans, and a brown leather tool belt around his waist. This man had sweat running down his forehead. He kept getting drinks of his water. It smelt like dirt because it was all in the air. He had a drilling tool in his hand. He was drilling metal together. The environment was loud so, the construction workers were yelling to each other the whole time. I couldn't really hear the conversations but I could tell they were cracking jokes just to try and get through the hot day. The feelings I experienced was kind of felt bad for him. Not just him, but all of the construction workers. They have to wear all of that gear which made them extremely hot. The man that I was observing looked like he just wanted to hurry up and get home to take a shower. I don't really think he would be my friend because he looked like he was in his 30s. Possibly had a a little baby. It looked like he lived in a little house with his wife and his daughter. I probably would never talk to him but I know he would never approach me either. When he goes home for the day he goes home to a little white house and walks through the door with his wife trying to take care of the little baby daughter. I feel like he is always working hard and most likely always will. I feel like he gets a break when he goes to work. He is always stressed about his job and his new family. He doesn't get any credit for all of the things he does for everyone else. I just felt bad for him and you could see it in his eyes. I think all of this because just by his posture, his look, and they way he talked to people. I just felt really bad for him.

The Writing Center

I went to the writing center to help me with my research paper. I ended up helping me a lot. I was always scared to go in there. It was very intimidating. I ended up getting all the help that I needed. At first, we introduced each other. Then she asked me  what this paper was and what it was about. She then asked me to either read the paper out loud or have her read it out loud. So, I read it out loud. While I was reading it out loud we stopped at all of the problems that I had. There was quite a bit. We then fixed them with some of my ideas and some of her ideas. After, we went literally line by line and read it aloud. We fixed all of the the grammar errors. I then asked her questions that I wasn't sure of. She gave me some tips and pointers to add to my paper. For example, she said if you use a quote that is more than 40 words you need to make it it's own paragraph and single space it. From there on, you finish the sentence explaining it. Honestly, the writing center was so helpful. I am kinda upset that I didn't use it for my first paper. For the revision, I will be taking my paper to them. It' such a great source and they can help me with any type of paper that I need help with!

Showing vs. Telling

The breakfast was delicious

Waking up to the sun on a beautiful spring morning. The birds are chirping and my mother is calling my name. As I am walking down the steps, I smell homemade Belgium waffles and scrambled eggs. When I go to sit down at the table, my plate was already made. The white Victorian china plate was filled from rim to rim. Gasping as I go to take a bite of my hash browns that were steamy. I swear, it felt like I ate my whole plate within a few seconds. It filled me up for the rest of the day.

Advertisement-Tommy Hilfiger

The advertisement I picked was Tommy Hilfiger in the Fall of 2011 Campaign. The idea that was brought to my attention the most was how young and “hip” the people are. You can tell that all of these people are in their early 20s. They are all dressed in, obviously, Tommy Hilfiger clothes, which are supposed to be preppy and colorful. Because the clothes are preppy they are all on a tennis court. Tennis is known as what all of the older rich people play. Well at least that’s what I think of. But the actual advertisement on TV is playing a song that is very up beat and catchy. Definitely can’t miss the commercial. All of these young adults are dressed in these nice clothes running around a house looking like they are having the time of their lives. In the end, I believe Tommy Hilfiger, or the spokesperson is in the ad. He is actually in all of the ads that Tommy Hilfiger produces. I’m not sure why they have a dog in every advertisement. So, the main thing that stuck out to me the most was how there are always so many people in the ads. It looks like they are always having a good time and just pausing in action to take a quick photo and then start to go back having fun. Everyone is extremely attractive and all of the cool haircuts stick out as well. It matches the clothing which is also supposed to be fun and for younger people. 

Gay "Marriage":Societal Suicide

In the short story that I had just read was biased. I thought of this because he was a Christian and served as a U.S. Marine Corp. He knew his facts mostly about the amendment and rights but he kind of went all over the place with them. He also didn’t state that as one of the amendments is the freedom to be who we want to be in the United States which he is kind of making himself look like a hypocrite for using amendments but not bringing up the main one. He says he is a supporter of the amendment so then why does he care if people are getting married with the same sex. It’s their freedom and right. I personally don’t have a problem with same sex marriage. It isn’t harming or affecting me or any one else for that matter. He is missing omission when he starts to talk about the amendment. Most of his information is non-relevant in this case. When he brings up percentages of adolescents it really doesn’t make sense. They assume people are the way they are because of their past. He is trying to say people who have experienced awful pasts with not living with a mom or father will turn out to be gay which isn’t the case at all. He is taking for granted about people past relationships with family members. Some of the context maybe accurate but I feel like most isn’t. What appealed to me about the authority is that he kept brining up Christianity, his religion, and he came from an elite school, Brown University. Even though he sounded very smart and seemed like he knew what he was talking about, when I broke down each step he had many mistakes made.

The Plunge

When I was little I actually had to deal with this. My dad took me right down to the river just like the girl and I just very hesitant to get rid of my fish called Spots. I won him at a carnival and he literally lasted for like 6 years. Usually, they don't last that long especially the ones from a street fair. So yeah, I feel her pain. But I think this story has a different meaning behind it. I feel like the girl is a "daddy's girl" just like myself. I feel like that was her first pet that she got with her dad and she didn't want to get rid of it. I felt like she was scared because she would lose a connection with her father. The subtext for the girl, mostly, is probably thinking should I do it or not? I feel like some of her other subtexts was where she was second guessing herself. For the dads subtext, I feel like it was something like we need to get rid of this thing soon and fast. But then towards the end he actually felt bad and wanted to keep the fish. I feel like the dad thought it was going to be easy to just get rid of the fish but in the end he realized that he was teaching his daughter a life lesson. This life lesson could mean multiple things. I feel like this ultimately means that when she is growing up that it's okay to make other friends besides her dad. To go out and experience school with girls and boys and to become social and get involved in different things. To start now while she is younger to help her in the long run.

Dead Boy in the Window Film

This video was definitely different than what I thought it would be like. I thought the overall video was really creepy. Everyone looked like baby fetuses and it was disturbing. Even the voice was eerie. The story was entertaining but the film was very interesting. It caught my attention, thats for sure. It was interesting to see what the land looked like but they really didn't give too much background about it.

Man Chair

I image this person's name is many different types of names. I feel like he doesn't really need a name but if I had to make one up it would be Alwan. Alwan is thinking about his life in the past, present, and future. He is thinking maybe he should've done something different in the past to get him more successful. For the present, I feel like he thinks he isn't good enough and that no one can help him. For the future, I feel like he doesn't even want to know where he will end up. He looks the way the does because of his past. He looks like he grew up in a rough neighborhood or that his parents weren't around much. He is sitting in an alley on a old chair that looks like someone had thrown out in the street. There is garbage everywhere in the alley. This is probably his normal routine. I know for a fact he doesn't want it to be but, I feel like he has nothing left. Alwan would really like to have a family, a friend, and even a job. Not a big job, but a job that gives minimum wage. Alwan was born and raised in Compton, California. He lived in a rough neighborhood with his mom and 6 other siblings. Alwan's dad left him and his family when Alwan was 12. When Alwan was young he was introduced to drugs being used heavily within the neighborhood. Alwan was extremely good at raping. He was known as one of the best rappers in his neighborhood. He pictured himself in a huge mansion with his mom and the rest of his siblings. Alwan was also amazing at football. But, he couldn't keep up from all of the alcohol and drugs. Alwan would give anything to take back getting into drugs and just trying to fit into his neighborhood. He influenced himself with the wrong crowd. To this day, Alwan is sitting in the chair looking around at what he could've had. He thinks of his past constantly and regrets it all. Alwan is trying to get a job and hopefully make a living and get off the streets. Alwan also lost touch with his family and would really like to find them one day.

Obstacles Freewrite

One of my obstacles that I have encountered was when I broke my ankle for soccer in 8th grade. This was when I had my biggest peak in soccer and I was out for a whole season. At this time, it was my biggest peak. I felt very overwhelmed getting the news from the doctor because soccer had been my life. I played it all year-round. But, I still went to all of the soccer games and practices because I missed being with my team. This helped shape me into becoming a better person because I still supported my teammates even when I really didn't have to go. To this day, I still support my friends and I always put them first. Even though it was a painful experience, watching my team on the sideline, it still made me realize that I had so much love for the sport. After I was healed, I spent hours playing soccer that I made the Varsity team my freshman year and remained on it for the next 3 years. During my career I won the league, district champions for 2 years, and I was nominated for All District Team First Round. So, even though I hit an obstacle in my soccer career, it made me a better person towards my team and a player. I believe everything happens for a reason. Now, I think back and I'm actually thankful for what had happened, even though it took a lot of tears and anxiousness to get back on the field. It was all well worth it.

Just being friendly

I feel like I haven't been to class in forever! I kind of forgot about it actually..well, this is my first blog and I don't really know how to blog but I hope this is good for now. :D

First day of class!

Hi everyone! My name is Allison Bacso. I am a freshman here at Western Michigan University. I have had a lot of experience dealing with writing. I took English classes all throughout freshman year until my senior year in high school. On top of that, I took a creative writing class and an advanced grammar class. The advanced grammar class has helped me so much throughout the years, it even helped improve my writing. To this day, I still look back in the folder and notebook. That class was the most beneficial to me. My first semester here at Western, I was put into English 1000. The class didn't really help improve any of my skills, it just helped me think more outside of the box. I am looking forward to this class and I hope it improves my skills and ideas of writing!