Man what a day for football!

Today and yesterday were days in which a lot of things happened in football.

First the good- There were a lot of amazing games, even though Alabama won it was still an amazing game to watch, the K-State and Texas game, the TCU and Oklahoma game. What a great weekend for football games, with my Colts playing my dad's Lions tomorrow too.

The Bad and Sad- A linebacker for the Kansas City Chiefs committed suicide after having shot and killed his girlfriend. It is such a tragic thing when life is lost, and what is hard as well is that we have no reason for it, and when something this tragic happens and it can't be explained it is extremely scary. All we can do is pray for the family and the teammates who are in shock right now. I don't think it is right that the NFL is continuing to make the Chiefs play their game this Sunday. It is already an emotionally charged game to play, but people will be emotional wrecks which is unsafe and insulting to not allow people a time to mourn this tragedy.

God Bless.

NOOOOOO!

Today was a sad day. I had been given hope last week that Alabama would not play in the championship game for college football. Today that dream was smashed into a million tiny little pieces as both the numbers 1 and 2 teams, Kansas State and Oregon, lost. This will leave Notre Dame as the top rated team and Alabama as the 2nd.

My predictions for the rankings come Monday top 5
1 Notre Dame
2 Alabama
3 Oregon
4 Georgia
5 Florida

I was hoping the SEC could stay out of the BCS game just this once, but no it was not to be.....

Oh well. There are more important things in life

Have a Great Day!

Nov 15th

I hope to create an awareness with my paper on the severity of one's bad decisions and the effects they can have on others. My target audience is towards celebrities. My main text is covering the prevalence of tattoos in today's culture, the exposure it has through celebrities and the consequences that people are feeling because of following the example of celebrities and getting offensive or overwhelming tattoos. When I am done I hope my audience understands the consequences, maybe not deservedly but nevertheless consequences, of getting permanent body art of offensive or overpowering nature.

Organization

The type of organization that I have used for previous research papers were to create a point-subpoint list with the main points and ideas under that for later usage. I found this method to be quite effective as I was able to clearly see what I had and if my thesis needed to be changed because of something that becomes evident through the organization of the notes.
Other strategies for this paper may be to do this method and highlight the main ideas and important facts included.

Have a Great Day

Pop Culture

This past week was very cool, as there was the first election I really kept up with. It was great for me to see how passionate people were about their views, either supporting Romney or President Obama or neither. I am glad that so many people I know had the desire and passion to follow closely and make sure that they voted.

Have a Great Day

October 8th

Of the different modes of writing a paper the one that will be the mode for writing this paper is that of a Research Essay. Since it is kind of descriptive, kind of argumentative, but all of it is from the research that will and has been acquired. I will need to strive to make sure it stays argumentative and not become a narrative.

In the anti example on D2L the author uses what seems to be a descriptive research paper. It is very thorough in its descriptions of the different areas, giving many specific examples.

Pop Culture

This past week was extremely relaxing. I was able to enjoy having turned in many projects and therefore I enjoyed a great break. I was able to enjoy movie watching in this past week. I would suggest watching the new Snow White movie. It is "Snow White and the Huntsman". The actress who is the queen is magnificent, and Thor does a great job as the Huntsman. If you get a chance, go watch it

Pop Culture

Yes I'll admit it. I watched Twilight this past week. I figured "what's the big deal every one makes about it" so I watched it with a couple buddies and almost fell out of our chairs with laughter.
I apologize to any die hard Twilight fans, the story could be interesting, but the cheesiness of the movie was too overwhelming.
In the end I don't understand all the dislike towards it. Sure it wasn't a great movie but if it made as much money as it did, which according to Wikipedia is $392,616,625, then there can't be much arguing with it. It was extremely successful.

I think that as long as you don't take it too seriously and watch it with some like minded friends then it can be a fun experience


Have a great day!

Source

One of the sources that I have found that I will be using in my annotated bibliography is that of an article written about the prejudices against tattooed and pierced people in the work place. I found this source through the MTSU library data base. I believe that this source is reliable as it is an academic journal and therefore is written by an academic for academics.

Pop Culture

Oh the emotional roller coaster of being a sports fan. This weekend was the rivalry game between my beloved Michigan State Spartans, and the University of Michigan Wolverines. It is always hard to watch one's team lose, but the agony of thinking you just might could pull it off makes it that much more of a let down when the team loses. It was a sad day being that my Spartans had a 1 point lead with 12 seconds left and the Wolverines were on the edge of field goal range until Denard Robinson hit a 20 or so yard pass to set up an easy kick to give them the lead with 5 seconds left. The ensuing kickoff the time ran out and my team lost. Oh the pain of losing to one's rival.

Oh well.

Have a Great day!

Citations

I have had a lot of experience with a very narrow field or citation. In my high school almost all the works that I handed in over my Junior and Senior years had to have citations: however, I have only ever used MLA format and would be completely lost if I had to do any other form of citation. I find it easy to do as long as I have a computer with internet access as there are cites such as easybib and so on which the citation process much easier and simpler. I would be able to do a level of citation MLA if I was told to do it without a computer but it would not be completely correct. There are different citation styles for different subjects and I'm not exactly sure why. I do believe it has something with making it internationally understandable in those areas of expertise but this is just my assumption. Using MLA will help with using different styles because usually a lot of the same information is used in the citation only in a different format.

Have a Great Day

Old School Notion

I feel that there are several valid helpful points in this article. I completely agree that writing seems to be somewhat of a dying art and that it is something that our current generation needs to be challenged about. People have not been trained in ways that equip them to conduct themselves successfully in their area of work either career or academic thereby crippling them. I agree that though one cannot completely revamp someone's ability to write argumentatively in a short amount of time you can start it in the right direction.

Have a great day!

Pop Culture

This past week I watched "Revolution". I would not say that it was a great or even good show. It was OK not any better. The problem for me was the main character. The girl Charlie is not an experienced actor and so she is hard for me to take for long periods of time. I did like the uncle though, he gave the show some type of character. Also the two companions who are with Charlie add character and the concept is interesting but I don't think that I will continue to watch. If I do I hope that the main character becomes more bearable or else I can't continue to watch much longer.

Source

One of the sources that I have found so far is an academic article written by Velliquete in a sociological study of tattoos and the culture surrounding them both from the the tattooed people's side and that of the rest of society. I found this course through another one of my courses here at university, sociology. I believe this source will be very helpful as it is reliable, due to it's use in the world of academia as a teaching tool, and covers much of the items I wish to find in my research.

Have a great day!

Pop Culture

Today I went to the homecoming parade. This was the first time I have ever been a part of a homecoming event. When I was growing up we never had a homecoming in the countries I was in. It was a fun experience. Yes it was cold, but the atmosphere was a lot of fun and so it made up for it. It was awesome to see all the little kids who got so excited to be able to run into the street and collect up the candy that had just been thrown out by the last passing group. My favorite group that passed by was the Band of Blue. They are one of my favorite groups to watch on the campus. At the football games they always have really great spirit and have some awesome dances. 

Hoping that I will be able to see several more during my time here at MTSU

Have a great day!

The Shadow Scholar

Some organizational strategies that I have developed from previous classes and research projects is the ability to separate larger sections into smaller more specific categories allowing me to place information into those smaller categories for easier access later on. Other organization skills that I have learned is that of using color coding to highlight things to keep them in, again, those smaller more specific areas.

The Shadow Scholar. This is an extremely interesting article about academic cheating. The idea that someone sits around doing other people's work for them on such a large scale is something I had never thought about. I have heard of people doing small work for one another, say for a good friend, but the idea of cheating on such a large scale as this is mind blowing. The problem in this article is that people are not doing their own work on things such as Ph.D's and the sort. It is scary to think that people can be 'qualified' for something through the work of another person.


The Shadow Scholar defends his occupation by reasoning that the reason students cheat is not because of his services but that the school has not clamped down or helped to fulfill the needs of some students who cannot write to the level required. I believe that when people do use these services it is damaging the state of education however it does bring out the idea that many students have, "the only important thing is the grade." While I agree that grades are important they are not so important that skipping the info and having another individual do the work for you is alright. It is sad that this is what people would do instead of doing the work and learning themselves. So I do not believe it is his fault necessarily but I do think that because of him and his coworkers this cycle is perpetuated and a stop is not being put to it which does hurt the state of education.

Have a great day

Finally!

This past week the NFL commissioner, Roger Goodell, and the NFL referees came to an agreement in order to bring back the official NFL refs. This action was taken after yet another week of poorly reffed games. The replacement refs that Goodell brought in to take the place for the NFL refs were sadly unprepared and were not ready for football's biggest stage.

Over the past four weeks the NFL has been plagued with bad calls culminating in the one on September 24th's Monday night game between the Seattle Seahawks and the Green Bay Packers. This bad call was that of awarding the Seahawk's receiver, Golden Tate, a touchdown on the final play of the game giving the seahawks a win. This play was 'upheld' after official review when it should have been an interception.

The Green Bay Packers may not appreciate it but the rest of the league and the fans blew a sigh of relief this past week when an agreement was reached with the official NFL referees.

I look forward to watching much better officiated games the rest of the season and hope that my team, the Indianapolis Colts, are not robbed of a game like the Packers were.

Have a Great Day!

Over Time

Over the 4 weeks here at campus some of the skills and abilities that I have developed are that of time management, and preparation.

The time management aspect has really developed in the fact that I have started to use the awkward breaks in between classes to get work done instead of sitting around and wasting a half hour to a hour. This has built up and I now realize how important it has become because it allows things to be broken into not so time consuming of tasks.

The preparation ability which I have been developing here in college is that of being prepared for the next class by keeping up with the syllabus. I realize now that the teachers will not always give you a heads up on what will be due soon or needs to be read for next class. This caused me to fall behind in the beginning but now that I'm getting a hang of it I am able to be prepared for what is coming.

My ability to manage time better and to be prepared will help me to give appropriate amount of time to work on it by knowing how to set up my schedule for the next week or so.

Have a great day!

Typing on a phone

Something that I have never done before is writing on a smart phone. I figure that since phones have become such a large part of our culture now I figured might as well try it. I find that it is extremely challenging for me to do as my fingers are not accustomed to typing or texting on a phone. I have reached a whole new level of frustration as my big fingers don't fit on the keyboard and I accidentally keep pressing buttons.

Well I guess now that I tried it I know it is not something I want to spend my time doing

Have a great day!

Johnson or Stevens?

After having read both Johnson and Stevens articles I have come to the conclusion that Johnson may be right in that modern TV is more cognitively challenging than older TV in that it has more plot threads. I do like Stevens point that the same old Starsky and Hutch are still enjoyable to watch again even though it is so supposedly simple.

I still have a problem with accepting Johnson's idea that more complicated shows have made us smarter by watching them. I agree with Stevens in that watching more complicated shows has made us better at tracking with the more complicated shows and not necessarily with life in general.

Pop Culture

There is a sad situation which is going on right now in the world. The dumb choice of a couple people are causing the deaths and injury to people and property.
I don't know if people have heard but there was a guy who made a movie about the life of the Islamic prophet Mohammed and it has a caused a lot of uproar. The movie mocks and insults the prophet which has caused a huge backlash. There have been riots in numerous countries where the American embassies have been attacked and other such as the German embassy and a nearby British mission.
several people have died because of this one persons decision to make this movie. It makes me extremely sad about both the decision by the movie creator and the people who have decided to take out their anger on people who have nothing to do with this mans decision and have in no way supported it.

It makes me extremely sad that people's lives have been lost because of this.

The truth about first drafts

I think that Anne Lamont's advice in the reading is understandably right for me. Sometimes you just have to get what you're thinking out on paper to help you realize that either you are on the right track or you need to completely change your direction. Another thing about getting out on paper is that you can begin to re-arrange the ideas so that they do become coherent.

This advice at times is similar to my drafting style when I just can't function mentally, I just get it out on paper so that I can have something to work with.

In the Student A's essay on the TV article I was confused at first by the 1st body paragraph in that I wasn't sure if the student was arguing for or against Johnson's ideas in how the student's last sentence ended. The student however does a good job later in clarifying the argument, being against Johnson's approach.

Just on a personal note on the essay- I don't agree with the student that It's OK for adults to watch the kind of things he mentions as it still has a pull on them even if they think they 'know' or are 'above' it.

Have a great day! 

Pop Culture 2

One thing that I've noticed this past week that is a matter of 'popular culture' is MTVU. This is what has been playing in the cafeteria every time that I go in to McCallie's. What it seems like to me is a bad taste in music being played most of the time and only every now and then will a song that I enjoy come on. It is interesting for me to think that MTV is something that, from what I've gathered, is very popular among other people in my generation. I know that MTV and MTVU is different but still the idea that this TV is popular is hard for me to grasp. I guess it's just not in my taste.


Have a great day.

Preparing For Class Discussion

To prepare myself for class and the class discussions I try to make sure I have covered all the material that has been given to cover, such as reading the prescribed writings and doing assignments. When in class, if I am prepared for the subject, I usually like to get involved in the discussion as it helps to keep me mentally engaged and also the fact that I like for other people to know my thoughts. I know that I like to talk a lot and tell other people what I think in a way that makes it seem like I'm right and so I try to remind myself of that so that I don't hog a discussion to myself. I do notice that class participation helps because when I'm not mentally engaged in the class I find myself lost as to what I need to be doing and how it is done.

Have a great day!

Does watching TV make you smarter? Hmmm

Johnson's 'Watching TV Makes You Smarter' is an article that argues that modern TV is promoting cognitive function in that the plots of modern TV shows for the most part have complex in having multiple story threads to follow as opposed to the older TV shows with few threads or even a single thread to follow. I agree with Johnson in the fact that TV shows are not all easy to follow. There are some, movies included, which are just plain simple and take no cognitive function at all in that they include all the "arrows" that Johnson mentioned. The idea that having complex shows makes you smarter as an individual is stretching it for me. I admit that I enjoy watching on occasion such shows as 24, lost, and the mentalist. I enjoy trying to guess what is going to happen next, however, I don't think this is making me into a smarter individual. Even if it is true that TV may be helping one to exercise your brain but not to a great extent, because even if you have to guess a little bit the answer is eventually provided to the viewer. So even if Johnson is right there must be better substitutes for exercising your brain than trying to count couch entertainment as such.

I almost feel like this article is trying to give an excuse to being lazy and watching TV.

Have a nice day!

Pop culture encounter #1

This past week I went to my first ever live comedy show. It was a lot of fun to be there with a bunch of friends and to be able to walk out the Murphy center quoting the comedians. I went to the Angela Johnson comedy show, which included two former MTSU students who introduced her act with their own small acts. It was enjoyable to go to and I think I may go to another if the opportunity presents itself. 

On another interesting note related to the comedy show, I had never watched MTV or any other show of the sort and so I went to my room and looked up several videos with the popular comedic figure "Bon Qui Qui" who is Angela Johnson's character. It was actually pretty funny and I enjoyed sharing the videos with some of my friends.

Have a great day.

Skills

A skill that I have acquired over time is the ability to be very outgoing in completely new situations where I don't know any one in that environment. This is a skill that I have acquired from moving many, many, times during my life. I have learned that without this skill it is easy to remain lonely as most people have a hard time beginning the conversation with a new person as it is a little awkward if not intimidating to begin a new relationship with someone without any common friends.
It has taken many moves to acquire and hone my skill of not being embarrassed to be outgoing in new situations. My motivation for honing this skill was because of the many times I have moved and the realization that if I was not the one to break the ice, a lot of the time no one does and you end up remaining on the outside instead of becoming part of the group.

I believe the way that my skill has been acquired can be applied to writing in the idea that I am unafraid of making a mistake, possibly suffering public embarrassment, therefore in my writing I can be creative and adventurous in the way I write and accept criticism in a positive way as I have learned to accept social criticism at times. Like any skill writing will take time to hone as well and I want to be more skilled at it by the time I have finished this class.

Have a great day

First day questions

My name is Josh Pentecost,
I was born in Union City, Tennessee however, I have grown up in 7 different countries. I'm a freshman here at MTSU and have the major of an undeclared. A book series that I have been reading recently is the 'Wheel of Time' series which is a fictional tale kind of like the 'Lord of The Rings', I have also been reading 'Church Membership' by Jonathan Leeman. I like to watch 'The Office' every now and then because it provides a good laugh, and the music I like to listen to is 'DC Talk' and hits from the 60's through the 90's.
I enjoy reading in my spare time and so when my brother suggested the 'WOT' series I began to read it and really enjoyed it. The TV show The Office was something that my brother introduced me to as well and I enjoy watching it every now and then because watching too much of it makes the show more annoying that entertaining. I enjoy listening to the older hits because there is a lot of good music from those years, and I enjoy DC Talk because their lyrics are extremely meaningful to me.

I have had to do in depth research for many of my papers in High School, mainly History class. I was not involved in any debate groups or things of that sort as most of my time was occupied by sports and studying for classes. I enjoy debating topics with my friends and enjoy the banter that comes with a debate even though I have never pursued it further than at a casual level.

Have a good day