Text-To-Text Article

After reading the text-to-text article, Colin Kaepernick’s National Anthem Protest and Frederick Douglass’s ‘What to the Slave is the 4th of July?’, by Katie Harris and Tracey Barrett; I come to the really strained conclusion that Colin Kaepernick's way of protesting is not the best way at going about it. Within the article, we are given a basic summary of the life of Frederick Douglas' life and what his writing embodied regarding patriotism in a torn society. We are also provided with a comparison of our society today and if patriotism is being used the in the same sense then as it is now. In Douglas' writing he claims that the Fourth of July is just a reminder of the "gross injustice" of the country that they live in. In the more recent David Brooks article, Brooks claims that "pulling a Kaepernick" is just "extremely counterproductive". In my opinion, I agree with Brooks more than Douglas. This is NOT because I think that there isn't a problem within the United States regarding the topic of equality, but because the article does make some really good points. The first has to do with national symbols and abolitionism. For instance, the national anthem describes the flag and the article takes the time out to highlight the fact that only abolitionist states prided on that flag throughout the civil war. Anti-abolitionists even took the time to create their own in order to defy freedom of all. Brooks spoke to me on a deeper level because he claims that the national anthem has nothing to do with whats going on within in the country but is solidifying our "foundational creed". It is really hard for me to not feel hurt when I see my fellow and equal Americans kneeling before our flag and national anthem because I have lost family members because they were serving our country. I currently have a brother that is leaving for the Marines in June as well. I understand the anger that comes from not having your voice heard within our country, but if I lose my brother because he was fighting to keep us safe; it would break my heart to know people don't look at the flag and our anthem as a symbol for that.

Planning is Hard (So apparently I never hit publish draft on Oct. 21......Oops)

My life has literally been so hard to keep organized lately. I have so much on my plate that is making everything seem so much worse than it is. As of right now this is what I have to complete in my life: My multimodal and microtheme, I need to finish my training at my new job, study for my philosophy midterm, start planning some major events for my sorority, get my oil changed in my car. Try to get my statistics homework done because I have an exam coming up, I have a service event next Friday, and a TON of little assignments. I honestly do not know where to even start and it is driving me up the wall. I am considering just rewriting out my monthly planner so I can keep on top of my stuff because lets be real, I got so behind that it would be almost impossible to just pick my life up and continue on. I am going to have to just stop, regather my thoughts, and drudge on. Hopefully this will be all put together by Sunday because on Monday, Greek week starts! Let's go Theta Kappa Pi!

Multimodal reflection

When I look back on my multimodal and microtheme project, I can honestly say that I grew so much bigger and better as a writer and creative mind. This was easily one of the biggest challenges I have ever faced in school. It may be that this was so challenging for me because taking my ideas and condensing one topic into one paper and sticking to that theme is SO hard. Sure, I made some rookie mistakes, but is happens. In my multimodal, I forgot to add a quick credit scroll for the free music available on YouTube Editor, so I will give credit to that generous artist now. The audio was called "In Albany New York" by The 126ers (matched my video so well!). While taking a gander at the hollistic rubric in this course, I came across four major components within it. These major components are rhetorical knowledge, critical and creative thinking, genre knowledge, and mechanical knowledge. In this project, I feel like all of these areas were tested; but the one that stuck out to me the most was the rhetorical knowledge. I say this because in order to practice your rhetorical knowledge, you have to come up with an idea, organize it, and refine it down into a legible thought. For the microtheme and multimodal, we had to come up with a question and then try to give precise consequences for it without making completely worldly claims. This required a tremendous amount of work for me because I wanted to go off on a tangent really bad. To completely honest, I got frustrated that I couldn't just say what I wanted the way I wanted. I guess this ties into the component of mechanical knowledge because I needed to try and teach myself how to improve my writing without completely relying on Dr. Kyburz for help. She guided me along the way to get me where I wanted to be, but at the same time she was there to provide insight and let me spread my own wings to write the way I wanted (with some fine tuning). I could probably go on forever about how this project bettered me as a person and writer, but I would end up writing a book rather than a blog post. I just want to thank Dr. Kyburz for helping me with this, I couldn't have done it without her help. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=02dO-AjOnUI

Microtheme

This microtheme has easily been one of the most challenging assignments I have ever done. I don't know why, but refining my thoughts to a single page is really difficult! I have made a lot edits because I wanted my writing discussed in class (so all my errors were found), yet I still am trying to get this done. I am thinking that maybe I should continue to look back at the syllabus so that I know that I am following the proper method. That way, I know for sure that I can do this. Apart from the microtheme, I've started compiling pictures for my multimodal, and I think I am going to do something with all the pictures I took in Colorado back in June. I don't know what type of story it will tell, but I am hoping that I can figure something out because I have well over 500 pictures to pick from. I am just ready to be done with microtheme and multimodal because these assignments are making me struggle. At least it is a good learning experience for me.

A little bit of a rant

Okay everyone, I am a day behind, but I promise I am going to make it up with this post. I just recently left my job in retail at a department store (I don't want to say the name because I really don't want to offend anyone if they like to shop there). Now that I am done there; I want to voice my opinion on something. At the front registers, there is stuff there to look at while you wait to be rung up. Typically, this is the stuff like lip glosses, candies, etc. Essentially, its a ton of garbage that is there to tempt you to spend more money while in the store. One of my now former bosses asked me to restock the shelves at the registers with this stuff, and filled a push cart with the items. It wasn't until I was stocking the shelves that I noticed something really peculiar. At the men's side register, the majority of the things I was putting out was candy like M&M's, Snickers, Twix, and Godiva chocolates. There were also a lot of different fun knick-knacks and toys like selfie sticks for your smartphone! When I made my way to the misses side registers, I started noticing the things I was putting out were diet foods, healthy trail mixes, "skinny stix" (a dieting powder for food and drinks), and protein bars. I know I am probably reading way too far into what I was doing, but I found it really peculiar that on the men's side, there was a lot of unhealthy and enjoyable foods and stuff to look at, while at the misses side; it was all pertaining to health and weight. It kind of irritated me because I feel like there was a reason why it was set up that way. No, not because of coincidence, but because there seemed to be a theme. I want to know why the dieting items are conveniently placed at the misses side registers while the men's side register has all the junk. I personally find it really hard to believe that all has to do with marketing, because I for dang sure know that if the candy was on the misses side, I would possibly buy some. I personally just feel like the dieting items on the misses side are there as a guilt purpose. I feel as if that society has really made women so insecure that marketing diet products in a DEPARTMENT store is the new norm. Ugh!