Silly Blogging Requirements...NOT my idea!

This is just a reminder to everyone who (does not) read my blogs--I would not be writing them if it were not for a grade in an AP Language and Composition class. These blog posts are required and I personally hate writing them. Why should everyone else in the world care what I think or have to say?

I am a private person. I enjoy my privacy. I do not enjoy sharing all of my thoughts and feelings with everyone else in the world/for all to see. There is a reason that I do not have a Twitter account. There is a reason why I do not post status on Facebook.

I am only writing these blogs because they are required for class in school. Each week we are required to post three blog posts, accumulating a total of 1200 words. It really seems like a silly requirement to me. I think it would be more reasonable if you just plain had to have 1200 words. But the fact that we have to have three posts is a different story. What happens when you write one blog that already adds up to 1200 words? Or two of posts combined equal 1200 words? Then you are writing a low-quality post just for the sake of having a third post.

Whatever happened to quality vs. quantity? If these blog posts are supposed to represent our writing skills as AP students, why require multiple posts each week if they will not be quality? And you may argue then, "Well why don't you put effort into all three of them and make sure all of them are high quality and well-written?". The answer is simple. We only have so many things on our mind that we feel are important enough to write about. We should not write about meaningless things just for the sake of words. Instead, we should put forth our very best effort into one or two masterpieces.

Think about it this way. Are famous bloggers required to post a certain number of blog posts each week, and a certain number of words? No. I don't think so.

Real bloggers write only when they feel like it. Only when they have something great to talk about. And they are famous! Some of the best blogs are the ones that are short and sweet; straight to the point. No nonsense.

It is silly for AP students to use filler words and make their blogs as wordy as possible, just in order to fulfill a requirement of 1200 words per week. In fact, I am on a rant and I am guilty of it myself--right now, in this very moment, in this very blog post.

I think it is more important to think about quality vs. quantity when it comes to many things, but especially in blogging for an AP Language and Composition class. It is silly to have a required number of posts and word count each week. It is also unfair to make students write things that the whole public can see, and future employers will someday see. Something that will be on the internet forever, for all the world to see.

I honestly would much rather be writing papers each week...I think.

(Word Count: 623)

P.S. If you look above and see that I posted my word count in parenthisis, there it is. It is required. And I still have to write two more blogs, whether I want to or not. Whether I have anything to say or not. Even if this blog totaled up to enough words. Oh well. Looks like I will be up late again Sunday night, blogging until I barely reach 1200 words.

School Vocabulary Always Comes Back to Haunt You

Remember when you had to do those red Sadlier-Oxford Vocabulary Workshop books in middle school and high school? It seems as though everyone despised them. Every week we would have to complete a unit that consisted of multiple pages of filling in the blank (completing the sentence), synonyms, antonyms, choosing the right word, and that one at the end that was similar to reading comprehension. Rarely did people take this task seriously. Perhaps this is why these words are coming back to haunt us.

Last night I was thinking about how I would be taking the Iowa Assessments in vocabulary, and I though it would be a good idea to review some vocabulary words since I had saved all my red Sadlier-Oxford Vocabulary Workshop books from years past. I had the hardest time trying to find them, since my mom had gone through and organized all my old school papers, books, etc. I finally found it on a bookshelf later that evening.

Before testing, I glanced through some of the words in the book so that I could refresh my memory in case any of the same words word be used on the Iowa Tests. Sure enough, quite a few of them were. I guess this goes to show how important learning and studying those vocabulary words are. They will always come back to haunt you.

I sure am glad I took vocabulary seriously and that I saved all my old vocab books from previous years.It really did come in handy.

(Word Count: 259)

Ad Analysis

Ad Analysis

The ad shown below is an ad I used as an analysis in my AP Language and Composition class. We were supposed to analyze the ad and see what kinds of things the advertisers used to appeal to the reader in the magazine. Here are some of the things that I observed:

#1: The advertisers are using a play on words with the word "stems". Now, this part may get complicated and tricky to understand, because this is not the identical ad that I had found in the Glamour magazine. It is similar, but it is missing the part that says "formulated with Raspberry Stem Cell Technology".

This is a play on words because when it says "Youth Stems from Origins", "Stems" is being used as a verb, implying that looking young/youthful comes from (stems from) using this anti-aging cream/product called "Origins". Yet, at the same time, they used the word stems in "formulated with Raspberry Stem Cell Technology".

#2: Another connection to that phrase is the fact that the add pictures fresh red raspberries. Raspberries also provide a burst of vibrant color for the otherwise colorless ad, and raspberries are also known for their anti-aging properties, a result of antioxidants in the berries, which prevent damage to the skin from free radicals.

#3: The marketers are establishing ethos when they say "The truth is nothing can permanently erase wrinkles." The advertisers are admitting/acknowledging the fact that you cannot stop the aging process, but you can at least slow it down or prevent it from worsening. This makes them look like better people for telling the truth about anti-aging products.

#4: Another way they establish ethos is encouraging the reader to read the reviews of women who have already used and rated their product. This shows how confident they are in the quality and effectiveness of their product. Reviews usually show both the good and the bad in the product. Some will give rave reviews, others will only give the product one star out of five. But this company is so sure that their product will work that they believe the good reviews will outweigh the bad.

#5: This company makes the claim that you will see results within four weeks of using this product. It says "83% showed an improvement in the appearance of lines and wrinkles in just 4 weeks." This would also be an example of logos, because they are using reasoning/logic to persuade the reader to buy the product.

Everyone is offended by something

I am so sick and tired of everyone in this society being "offended" by something that has been tradition for a very long time. I am sure there is not a single person who is not offended by something. We are all  offended by one thing or another. Now it is the Easter Bunny.

Some schools have stopped allowing children to call the Easter Bunny the Easter Bunny because it may offend some of the other children at the school. Easter eggs and Easter egg hunts are now called Spring eggs and  Spring egg hunts. It is absolutely sickening.

Can't I be offended by their offense? I personally offended that these people who are complaining about the Easter bunny can prevent everyone else from calling it the Easter bunny. It is like when the Atheists were offended by a park that annually set up a Nativity set for Christmas. Just because the Atheists did not like it, the Christians had to get rid of it. That just seems totally unfair. I am just as offended by their offense as they are offended by the Nativity set. Why should they get their way, and we have to make sacrifices and give up things that have been tradition for generation after generation? Besides, the majority of the U.S. population is Christian. The Atheists are actually a minority. So why should we have to give up our traditions just because someone in the world is "offended".

(Word Count: 248)

Easter

This Easter was wonderful yet disappointing at the same time. It was fun because I was able to go to my grandparents' house on Friday to spend the night, and then wake up in the morning to the smell of Grandma's buttermilk pancakes. It was good because I was able to spend time with my sister, who was also there visiting my grandparents. I also was able to spend time with my aunt Lori, aunt Linda, and my cousins; Tyler, Lana, and Erica. I also got the chance to meet my cousin Lana's boyfriend for the first time. He seemed like a really nice guy.

I enjoyed being able to spend time with my family and listen to my grandpa's stories. I loved my grandma's cooking and I will not even mention how many chocolate chip cookies I ate. I loved exploring the many entrances to the basement (there are 4!--it is a really old house which had many additions added later). The original basement is really scary, though. It has stone walls and about five foot ceilings. It is completely dark and there are lots of old artifacts down there, including an old washer and drier, an old cast-iron stove, and a barn door boarded up, with stairs leading out of the storm cellar.

On the more negative side, I did not get to see my brother the entire weekend, nor did I see him on Easter Sunday. Also, my sister had to work all day Sunday (on Easter!) at Red Lobster, so she did not get to eat Easter dinner with the family. In addition, my family did not go to visit my aunt and uncle in Omaha, Nebraska this year, so it did not really feel like Easter. We could not go because Easter is on a Sunday and it takes six hours to get there, and school is the very next day. Despite my mother cooking a fabulous dinner, there were only three people to enjoy it (well...I guess four if you include our old, senile dog, Bailey)--my mom, my dad, and me. It was a quiet Easter. It was cold, and there was no Easter egg hunt. I am too old. In fact, I did not eat even one piece of candy this Easter. What a shame!

(Word Count: 385)

Negative Effects of Social Media

Has social media ruined our social skills? In my opinion, yes. Yes indeed.

When we were kids and when our parents were growing up, people would either have to call each other on the phone or see each other in person to communicate. We could not bury our noses underneath our cell phones to avoid making conversation with other people or to avoid talking to someone we did not like. We knew how to carry a conversation and make eye contact.

Now, we do not even have to see a person or talk on the phone to communicate with them. We can simply go to Facebook and write on people's walls, send private messages, or use instant messaging. This helps to avoid/prevent those akward silences everyone dreads. You have time to think about what you want to say to the person before you say it, without akward pauses. You do not have to make eye contact whatsoever. If you want to see the person, you can simply look at a photo on their facebook but only you can see them, and they do not see you. This makes you feel more comfortable not being face-to-face and having to make eye contact with this person and decide what to talk about. You can even pretened to be someone else! Or maybe get advice from a friend on how you should reply to the person you are having a "conversation" with.

So many time, I will go to a store, a restaurant, a cafe, etc. and all I see is people constantly checking their iPhones for their Facebook and Twitter updates. People will not even say "Hello" to you because they are so engrossed with whatever they are doing on their iPhones.

Our society is losing the ability to initiate face-to-face conversation with other people. Some of us meet people online who we have never even met in person, and when we do meet in person, we do not know what to say to each other and it is "akward". People may say things they would never say in person to someone through Facebook. Or maybe a really shy person acts like someone who is extremely outgoing and talkative, but when you meet that person they do not have a word to say to you.

When we do socialize with people face-to-face, it is almost always something involving social media, such as things someone posted on Twitter as their status, or a photo someone uploaded onto their Facebook that is getting a lot of attention. Most of what teens talk about with each other involves topics such as social media. People merely gossip.

It is so irritating to me when people cannot wait longer than ten minutes before having to check their iPhones for news feed and updates.

Not only has the social media ruined our social skills; it has also ruined our spelling and grammar. When people post on Twitter or Facebook, they usually could care less about spelling, capitalization, punctuation, etc. Think about when it comes time to fill out a job application and it is just filled and filled with numerous spelling errors. What employer will ever want to hire you if you cannot even do such a basic thing as spelling words correctly or using proper punctuation and grammar? I know I sure wouldn't want to hire that person.

I wish we could go back to the days when things like Twitter did not exist. I personally have never had a Twitter account in my life, and I still do not see the point of it. Who cares what you are doing at every precise moment in your life? What makes you think it is so important that you have to share it with the rest of the world? What ever happend to the thing known as "privacy"???

I wish I could say it's time for a change, but in reality, I do not know how the effects of something like this can be reversed. It is truly sad.

(Word Count: 671)

Simplicity is Elegance

I have seen so many bad wedding dresses and bridesmaid dresses in my life. What makes them so bad? First, there is the choice of fabric. So many women buy dresses made of satin. In my opinion, this is the worst choice for a wedding dress because it looks very cheap and it usually does not hang well. It looks so ordinary and also looks like any other cheap dress I could find off the racks of Goodwill or any other consignment store. There is nothing expensive-looking about a satin dress.

  

    
This one fits almost all the categories.
It is too perfectly white, too fluffy, too
much bling, looks cheap, and it is made
of satin. I hate it.

Another thing I dislike in a wedding dress is too much bling or too much of anything. Many dresses today are gaudy. I do not like excessive bead work or a design that is too intricate. Again, simplicity is elegance.

      
I do not think the bead work on this dress
looks elegant. I think it cheapens the dress
and looks like a high school prom dress.

I also have a problem with dresses that are too perfectly white. I think this makes a dress look cheaper. Personally, dresses that are slightly off-white look more expensive to me.


If you want to know my ideal wedding dress, here it is. Simple, off-white, somewhat form-fitting, not made of satin,  no bling.



The dresses below are also very nice, and they are designed by Vera Wang:

   

(Word Count: 255)