In Class: Ethically Appealing Object

Today, I brought in a Tumbler from Starbucks. It is green and says "recycle" and "made from 28% post-consumer recycled content" and has a long quip about the water cycle and how it pertains to you (especially the coffee in your hand). I saw it in Starbucks and realized that I go through about 10 cups a week and ultimately create a lot of trash. I usually make coffee at home in the morning but I have to drink it really fast and usually burn myself every morning. I thought that the tumbler would also come in hand in respect to my being able to make a lot more coffee and carry it with me for at least the whole first class of my day (while keeping it somewhat warm). I do, however, end up stopping my starbucks every once and a while when I'm having a long study night or just studying during the day or just need a quick pick-me-up during the day. I believe this tumbler is ethically appealing because it is not only made from recycled material, but it significantly reduces the waste I will produce from the many coffee cups. Imagine if it was a law to own a tumbler? or it was a law to bring your own bags to the grocery store when shopping? This microcosm of my tumbler being expanded to the U.S. or even the world would cut our trash down to a much healthier amount. It would create a cascade of beneficial events as well, like the taxes and money granted to garbage companies going to another, better, cause. I feel a company as prosperous as Starbucks would definitely have the credibility to ensure the customer that they really are using post-consumer recycled content and that the really are doing their part to control what they can in order to better our world.

Public Space Proposal

I am going to do my Unit 1 paper over Blue Mesa, the southwestern restaurant I mentioned earlier that I work at on the weekends. I feel that, because I am there quite often, I will have a good notion of how the crowds work and what is going on at all times. This space is appealing to the public because it is located in University Park Village, a big shopping center in a prime area of Fort Worth. Tons of people each day go shopping through the area and end up getting hungry in the middle of the day or at the end of a long day and come into Blue Mesa because it's within walking distance. 

Upon observation of the restaurant, I can take note of the initial features one notices when entering the front door. There are several things I have in mind: the smell of the food, the dim and calming lights, or the wide open windows during the daytime, or the spread out patio with the waterfall in the back. I know I will find these things for obvious reasons; but in any case they are expected at a public place. These features are expected because it is common in public spaces to create a warm, friendly, and inviting atmosphere in which most people would feel welcomed and comfortable.

I consider myself a part of the target audience. The restaurant targets people of all ages, statuses, and communities. I do work there so I am usually on the opposite end, but every now and then I meet my parents or friends up there for happy hour or dinner just to relax and catch up. 

The fact that I work there may have a strong influence on the things I notice while there. For instance, the smell of the food may not really affect me or the feeling of being there may make me tired and despondent because I am usually running around like crazy there and stressed and worn out so when I associate with work, I feel irritated and distant. I can overcome these observations by going up there with a cup of coffee (which always helps me in many ways) and in normal clothes so I'll feel clean and set aside from the chaos and busy work. 

In Class: Public Space Ideas

I think i am going to do my unit 1 paper over Blue Mesa, a southwestern restaurant that i work at as a server on the weekends. i spend enough time there so i already know the place very well. i will definitely still have to go up there while im not working so i can sit on my laptop and type up observations so i won't ahve to commit them to memory. i know there are 5 blue mesas in the DFW area and from our work meetings i've learned what the owner is concerned with (and what all owners are obviously concerned about). they want to make as much profit as they can while retaining the highest customer clientele as possible. they do so by using fresh products and fresh ingredients and by having a friendly and knowledgeable staff. physically, the restaurants fit the area they are in by appearing inviting and appealing to the kind of people that live in the same area. ours, in fort worth, has a very rustic wooden architecture to it, with darkly stained tile and minimal light- i suppose to relax the quickly paced businessmen that swing by for lunch and make the families that come at night feel more relaxed and at home and comfortable as a family, although they are out to eat and close to many other families doing the same. the first room you walk into is huge and wide open so i think that seems welcoming as well to the guests. i think i'll try and focus on the physical attributes first and then work my way down the list to the more detailed aspects of the restaurant like the food and the people....

In Class: Free Writing

Today i got up and went out on my back porch and it was pretty cold so i decided to check the weather because it looked sunny and it is texas so i figured it would get hot by noon and of course it said it would get up to about 85 degrees today so i'll have the joy of carrying my hoodie for the rest of the day.... today i feel weird because i do not have my coffee tumbler i carried around all week.... i broke it yesterday and it ruined my day... i suppose i can just go buy a new one today or something but it was quite disheartening for me. i thought it was really cool to watch the inauguration the other day because it was assigned, otherwise i probably would not have watched it. there were so many people outside the capital cheering, it was nice to see our country so united at a time like this. it also reminded me of that scene from Forrest Gump when he accidentally got in line for the peace rally during the Vietnam War. and he spoke to all of those people at the capital and Jenny ran across the lake to see him. Forrest Gump was a good movie. i actually got it for christmas and watched it with my girlfriend on New Years day. we just laid around in pajamas, recovering from the previous evening, and drank coffee and made popcorn and order pizza and were just worthless all day. it was a wonderful change of pace, considering i had to work almost everyday over the break and catch up on chores and errands that needed to be done but i never found time to because of school. now i feel pretty much caught up on everything, except maybe reading for classes but i think i'll be okay for now. im not sure if this semester will be rough or not.... i havent decided yet.... i have to take this precal class because i need calculus for the neuroscience degree and i pretty much hate it... it's 4 days a week and then calculus will be the same... 4days a week. but i guess it's better than writing long papers... :)

Inauguration Arguments

As President Obama was introduced, the already roaring crowd went ecstatic with praise and chanted 'O-bam-a' over and over again with a tone of excitement and joy. The live coverage captured a strongly emotional event in our nation. Before his speech, Obama took the Presidential Oath which instilled a sense of ethical credibility upon the crowd. Obama began his inaugural speech with an argument to explore and define our history, our roots in our nation's founding fathers and documents and what they stood for. He briefly mentioned the past 44 Americans who lead the nation through good and bad times. He moved up from the past to the present times and how we have all gone astray from our original precedents and standards we set long ago. He then informed us of our future plans and made a solemn promise that our needs will be met. He spoke with a heavily reassuring tone in order to plant an emotional and logical feeling inside of the community. 

He proposed that we, as a community, take responsibility for the nation's present turmoil and not place blame solely on a few individuals in power. He argued that we all need to make decisions as a whole community. Decisions have not been made in the past, and procrastination has made things worse. Obama reinstated the need for choices being made in order for the most logical and greater good to result. 

The basis for his entire speech was an argument of fact about what kind of state our country is in and the crises of the economy and the war abroad. He evaluated our problems and argued in attempt to convince our nation that, with him as the new leader, we will repair our broken country. 

He spoke with rises and falls in his inflection and it was extremely predictable when the crowd was about to go wild for him. Each time, you could pinpoint the sentence that would end in a loud cheer based on the emotion he buried within his words. He chose logical topics that concern us all and did not speak above the heads of his audience; he spoke as one of us. It seemed he was aiming to capture a sense of two-sided empathy between the audience and himself. Even to the end of his speech, he held the audience's emotions and attention until the cheered him off the stage and for who-knows how long after the speech ended.

In Class: Chapter 1 Reflection

After having read Chapter 1 of Everything's an Argument, I feel the definition of arguments and expressing opinions has turned to a more functional perspective. The chapter explains each and every different aspect of organizing argumentative ideas and concepts into ways that efficiently present one's idea and how to strongly appeal to a specific audience. The chapter was divided into many sections and each individual section heading was labelled with a different aspect of writing/presenting argumentatively. I, personally, would not have broken my ideas down into so many different categories and organized them into different sections with one overall idea. i probably would have just thrown out pros and cons in, at best, a disorderly fashion; maybe i would have at least split down the middle into pros first, then cons. or a single pro then a con to whatever opinion or concept was being debated. after reading the chapter, however, i believe it would be a wise idea to ask myself a few questions such as: who is the audience? or what do i really want to express? or what kind of argument am i going to attempt?
there are different kinds of arguments that the chapter outlined, many i didn't even really consider arguments. you can argue to explore, discuss, and discover, not just in effort to convince or persuade an opposing viewpoint to convert to your conceptualization of the idea or opinion at hand.

In Class: Argument Example

For today, I brought in a bundle of newspaper ads that all came in my front door at the exact same time. one is for CVS, one for Kroger, ...albertsons, walmart, tom thumbs. all in teh same bundled package. This is an attempt to convince shoppers and consumers to go to a particular store to get the best deals and best prices. and at an economic time like these days, these have a lot more pull and push on the community and the average citizen. why go to albertsons to pay 1.49 for a dozen eggs when you go to Sack n Save and spend .98c ? combining the full grocery list into the calculations of prices can end up saving more than just a half a dollar in the long run. and further irritating the problem is seeing the gas signs on the way to and from the store to remind you that they are going back up; slowly, but surely. everyone must have a high hopes or bitterly low expectations for the new president's plans for changing this economy's ruins for the better. there was a long and grueling debate against McCain and no one was certain which one would do the country any better than the other? i'm not going to go into any details about my beliefs because i honestly do not know anything about politics other than what i hear from my parents and friends parents so i dont think that gives me the right to put my ignorant opinion out into the world. i'm not a hippie or anything i just don't ever find the time to watch tv anymore what with school forcing me to spend hours on end in the basement of the library... done

Introduction

I'm Nick. I was born and raised in Fort Worth, Texas. I went to Nolan Catholic High School and then came to TCU as a Neuroscience major. I am now a junior and my goal is to attend Medical School and become a Psychiatrist, although I have the feeling that I may discover another passion while in the field of neuroscience such as neurosurgery or neurology. I work at Blue Mesa Restaurant as a waiter on the weekends and I play guitar and banjo mainly, but I also play around with the harmonica, piano, and drums when I find the free time.


I chose to take this writing course, honestly, because it is required. I do, however, enjoy writing but I have found the coursework assigned in the past composition classes to be irritating because they are based on topics that do not interest me in any way and I never liked the awkward peer review sessions. So, that being said, I am hoping that this course will prove to be more interesting than my previous experiences with composition classes. Hopefully, the topics will be fun and I already like the people in the classroom, i think it was a good idea for us to talk and get to know each other on the first day.



The only writing I do these days is texting, facebook, and psychology-based research papers for classes. I feel that I am capable of becoming a good writer, but I seem to never put enough real effort into my work. I mainly focus on studying for tests all the time. I think that's just the way my brain works, i prefer to study facts and research to regurgitate it on exam days rather than create ongoing works of my own thoughts and feelings or opinions toward a specific topic.



I think my blog is a kind of argument about myself and my attitude because the layout, font, and content I am using is an indirect and direct expression of how my personality appears. Now that I have read the question I look back at my blog and realize that it is plain white with typical black font and it seems to be saying that I am not (or was not at the time) very interested in creating a blog so i chose the most conventional layout and color scheme for my account. With any hope, my interest will be uplifted a bit once the semester gets going because I find myself still a bit tired and relaxed from enjoying the (short) Winter Break. However, I've come to know myself as a very anxious and nervous person since college life began, so I am quite positive that I will start freaking out in the next couple of weeks and spend my every free minute that I'm not in class in the quiet basement of the library hyped up on redbull with my leg doing the little twitching up and down thing that almost everyone (hopefully) does while sitting down anxiously.

"I have read, understand, and agree to the terms of the course syllabus"

-Nick