Wednesday, April 25, 2012

Summer on the mind


Ahhhhh summer is just right around the corner. I think it’s safe to say that my mind has officially shut down and is focused on one and one thing only, summer! These last two weeks are the most miserable and stressful on students. You can find students passed out in the library in their workspaces stressing over an upcoming final. Many students’ grades are border line and the final exam is the making or breaking point to getting that grade they need. The other stressful thing is when you have two finals on the same day. How are you expected to learn a full semesters worth of material for two classes in the matter of a week. These next few weeks are filled with sleepless nights, a lot of coffee, and headaches. Though I know how miserable these next few weeks are I can still see the light at the end of the tunnel. As soon as I get home from a finals week I go into hibernation. I sleep for like three days just trying to get my body back to normal so that I can function. Im really excited to be home for the summer because I have the coolest job lined up. Im really excited to make money. I work at my local marina. So I will be getting paid to fill boats with gas, sell ice cream, and hit on girls that need help docking their boats. Words cannot describe how happy I am to start making money doing this. My summers are super chilled and relaxed. I try to use my brain as minimal as possible. We live and have a boat on our lake. I can literally drive my boat across the lake to get to work. I love summers on the water fishing, skiing, wakeboarding, and hanging with friends. I can see the light at the end of the tunnel, but for now bring on the coffee!
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Friday, April 20, 2012

4-20


With 4-20 finally here I feel like theres going to be a huge commotion over the whole marijuana issue. Last night when I was walking out to my friend’s house on willow to watch the hawks and bulls game I couldn’t help but to notice all of the red white and blue lights. They say the colors red white and blue stands for freedom, those colors seem to mean the opposite when those colors are coming up from behind you with a siren. I really don’t see why there needs to be a sudden rise in police force. Im not a “pot head” or “stoner” but I know that students that are drinking are a lot higher at risk of going out and doing something reckless rather then the kid smoking pot eating Cheetos on his couch. Our school is even hosting a hemp fest festival where theyre going to be promoting the legalization of marijuana and there will be a bunch of live bands playing on the quad. How can our school hold such a event but then turn around and be completely against it. I feel as though they are trapping the hippies in a bear trap and containing them in like mice. I really don’t see what all of the commotion is about 4-20. I believe it stands for something completely different then smoking a bunch of weed. I think its stupid that kids use this date as a excuse to smoke weed.

Thursday, April 12, 2012

Research papers


Writing papers has honestly got to be one of my least favorite things to do. I feel as though I always have one thousand ideas going on in my head and I have no idea how to put it on paper or I have no ideas and hate what I see on the paper. When I usually do papers I have found that outlines are extremely beneficial to me. When I can get a little direction with my papers it really helps me to get a running start in a direction with my papers. Once I get going with a paper its easy for me to keep going. It always seems to be that first sentence that trips me up. Gathering research has always been the easiest thing for me to do when writing research papers. I love finding cool or new facts about my topic. When I find cool new information that I wasn’t aware of before it fuels my fire. I love taking the new things ive learned and incorporating them into my paper. The new information really gives me something to build the rest of my paper off of. I seem to be really having a hard time finding enough information with my paper on the show Workaholics. It’s a relatively newer show and theres not a lot of background information on the show. Ive mostly been coming up with viewer reviews or general information on what the show is about. My writing style definitely changes as I go from class to class. And it all depends on the basis of what your topic is that you’re writing about. It doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to be extremely punctual and proper when you’re writing a paper on Workaholics. The show is the farthest thing from punctual and proper. Im having a really difficult time trying to come up with 8-10 pages of information on the show. So if you have any ideas about how I could broaden my topic to meet the paper requirements im all ears! PLEASE HELP

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Thursday, April 5, 2012

close reading


 Close reading to me is looking at a text under a microscope. A lot of the reading that I do in college is more of a quick speed read with a quick skim. I usually never take the time to look deep into my reading. Close reading is truly dissecting your text and looking at it at all angles. There are many ways to close read and some do it better then others. The best thing about close reading is that anyone can do it. Annotating a text by going through the text and underlining grey areas or other areas that stand out to you can be very beneficial. By underlining the text it allows you to go back and observe the text. If you have a question about a authors purpose of a certain portion of a text, no matter the readers level, you can go back and ask questions and look at it from different points of view. Another good thing about close reading is that you can incorporate it into your speed reading or skimming. As your cruising through a reading skipping over chapters you can still mark or highlight things that stick out to you, allowing you to go back and look at them later. Close reading is something that I was taught in my high school English classes but I didn’t even realize I was doing it. I never really put a name on it. We would be assigned to read outside of class as homework and would be assigned quizzes weekly based on our reading. As we would read we would sit down and discuss the reading like as if we were our own little book club. In these discussions we would annotate the text assignment after assignment. We would break the text down into little pieces and using everyone’s own different perspective on the reading would piece it together. Close reading is a great way to understand a text and is a great way to approach any problem that you may come across.

Friday, March 30, 2012

Paper Proposal


When I first started writing this proposal I had no idea what I was going to do. First of all I had no idea how I was going to approach this paper. I decided to pick the comedy series workaholics as my research topic. It wasn’t hard for me to pick this topic because it happens to be one of my favorite shows. It’s a relatively brand new show its only had one season and a second season approaching. The only problem with it being new is the fact that there’s no research on it. When I started digging into my google searches I literally was coming up with nothing other than reviews on the show. I have no idea how I’m going to come up with eight to ten pages of information on this show, I just know there’s no way. So instead of focusing on just workaholics, I decided to branch out my topic to all comedies. By comparing and contrasting all comedy shows I hope that I will be able to find a lot more information. This also makes the topic a lot more interesting to research. I plan on looking at the success or lack of, and what characteristics go into these shows. Now to tie it all in with workaholics is going to be the hard part. I love the show workaholics because of its originality and creativeness. The writers of the show are also the main characters. I noticed that this is really the only show where this occurs. I tried to find similar shows where the writers had a majority of the control or all of the control of the characters. When I thought really hard about some of my favorite comedies, South Park couldn’t escape my mind. Though South Park doesn’t deal with real fictional characters, the writers still create the characters through their sketches. I looked at some of the things that have made South Park the show it is today and tied it in with what makes Workaholics, Workaholics.

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Sunday, March 25, 2012

Review

http://www.metacritic.com/tv/workaholics/season-1/user-reviews



When you think of the word workaholic, a lot of things come to mind. The word workaholic means that someone is addicted to work. It also implies that a person enjoys work more then their family/social life. To me this sounds absolutely insane! How could anyone be addicted to work, or like working more then hanging out with friends and family? The Comedy Central show Workaholics puts the workplace into a whole new perspective.
            Workaholics is a comedy series that tells the story of three young men who recently graduated college and now are being faced with the obstacles of the real world. Blake, Anders, and Adam play the roles of these three men, and their efforts in the workplace are far from serious. Anders takes the role of the leader in the group. He is a ex-swimmer and has hopes of one day becoming mayor. Blake is a super chill, layed back, guy that plays the role of the mediator of the group. Adam is a little nut job that lives life to the fullest. He definitely isn’t the sharpest knife in the drawer but that doesn’t stop him from busting out a flex and always trying to show off his muscles. These three men live and work together every day. They make the workspace a fun and interesting place to be. Not one day is ever the same. You can expect to see them chasing women, smoking and drinking religiously, or chasing down Internet pedophiles rather frequently. They take their crazy care-free lifestyles and pack them in their suit cases every day.
            Workaholics is a rather new show. It had good success its first season, and is currently working on putting a second season together. The show comes on weekly at 10pm, and run for relatively thirty to forty minutes. I would not recommend this show to someone that is young or not watching it with an adult. It is aimed towards the teen to thirty-year-old audience. There is a lot of adult humor that may not be appropriate for a young audience.
            After viewing multiple episodes and sitting down with friends and watching the show I would give it two thumbs up and four out of five stars. If you’re the type of person that has a weird sense of humor and has a sense of adventure I would definitely recommend Workaholics to the audience that this appeals to. Every episode has you bent over laughing, and you will find yourself quoting the show for weeks to follow.

Thursday, March 8, 2012

Spring Break


Ahhhhhhhh spring break, how I love to say those two words. I am extremely excited for spring break! Were leaving Thursday night for Tennessee to see my aunt whos sick. Im really looking forward to seeing her and my cousins who I haven’t seen in a very long time. I hope to enjoy the warmer weather down there and cruise with the windows down for once. I wish I was going somewhere crazy with friends like panama city or cancun but I can still dream. I feel like every year me and all my friends hype up spring break and always make some crazy plans to go somewhere awesome but the plans never fall through. In all honesty when I get back from Tennessee all I plan to do is hibernate and relax. Midterms are extremely stressful and I could definitely use a break. I feel like as soon as we get back from break finals are in front of us before a blink of a eye. So im really looking forward to relaxing and recharging the batteries. Oh, I would also like to enjoy a good home cooked meal, showering without shoes on my feet, and maybe not sharing a bathroom with ten other guys and coming home to the smell of throw-up every weekend. My sister also goes to college and I haven’t seen her since Christmas so im looking forward to spending some time with her and beating up my other little sister. I always know when my mom starts to miss me because shell call me nonstop, like every day, just to talk. It starts to get super annoying so ill enjoy her spoiling me and her shoving food down my face. Its me and my two younger sisters so my dad really loves just having guy time when I come home. He always tells me he gets mad because I left him with the girls, which I find hilarious. Spring break 2012 here I come!!!!!

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