The Psche of a Runner

Adam Carroll is a pretty convincing guy considering he gets paid to go around and tell people how to manage money. He has all the life story and background to follow along the path of any one mind’s dream career. Carroll had to dip into the good and bad of experiencing a college kid’s budget. He got to see both sides of the spectrum and to know the safe feeling money can give you. The one big take away for me, however, was how he was open to bring in a unique idea of money management. This was in part due to his ability to look at the big picture. This connects to what college students hope to do for their future career. It’s not all about that in his eyes though, it’s about just getting a good start on life. I think this speech would be best suited for older college students who are looking more for a direction but it still was fulfilling in content for any that is willing to listen.

I got the opportunity to hear two speeches on Palmer Research day. I will be discussing the second because I believe it was more intuitive and it was my favorite.

The big picture here was to show the magic effect that myth and music have had on us. He went about this by breaking down the classic myth of Orpheus. He focused on common themes that included the power of love as a motivator, using music as a metaphor of hope and meaningful to life. He used one of two tellings of the myth that lead down the path until Orpheus had to save his love, his inspiration from the underworld. He ended up losing his musical gift for which he was known for when he lost his love. That took away part of Orpheus’s identity. It was on him for he lost confidence and therefore lost his love too. The speaker paralleled this to music as a whole. Music is a huge part of many of our lives. Music inspires and extends who we are. People who identity themselves with music go through a similar thing as Orpheus as they strive to perfect the art of music. Both Greeks and our present culture share this musical gift to guide parts of life. Our pop culture reflects that and especially in my favorite tv show, Glee. Music is hope and inspiration for the beauty of our lives.

I want to also point out a couple key parallels from the first speech to enhance both of them. The first one compared myths of old to our present day opera and the arts. In a way, she was saying that myths and plays of the past were like their motif of pop culture. The influence and love of music inspired by these ancient stories have become integral parts of current day pop culture. She pointed out an opera structured after the Orpheus myth. You can also see the workings of this in retellings of Romeo and Juliet, the Odyssey, and the Bible stories.

2. Jones believes that many more are helped by this violence then hurt. He uses examples of parents pushing against a kids violence to just make them want to do it more. There is also the instance with the girl who was one of the most successful in her class despite listening to rap lyrics. Her classmates were actually the ones doing drugs. He states that aspects of everything can be helpful in some sort in people’s lives. People really want kids to succeed and make things out of their lives. Jones is preaching tools here that would indicate they would. She also can connect with others through her own personal experience. She even acknowledges that bad that can be but looks towards the good that can happen so she is perfectly optimistic.

4. We all need socialization factors to influence us and especially if we don’t have physical presences. There always needs to be someone to look up to. I take respect above a lot of things. I look up to ball players who have it all but still show respect and recognition for others. Rappers have preached to push for your dreams which has heavily driven me.

2. She first makes a connection that TV is like a drug. She then says it makes people go on like zombies with the drug and not getting what is really going on. They don’t care unless they have this “drug.” I can really see how this connection would work between drugs and TV but I think she could use more description in her comparison to make it more blatant. She lists all the downturns at the end in which your life would go through. She could make a parallel here to drug addiction though to really hit a dark note. The last part is great with love being sapped of its medium. She just kind of uses most of what she has already said and did not go radically in a new direction to jump out at us.

4. I think in many cases technology can defiantly strengthen and profess family values that we need. It’s all on the family though. They need to do things together. Like anything, togetherness builds bonds. If you played a sport and your parents just asked you about it without going or helping you with it, there would be no connection. I do also believe in the power of themes in technology that show us values, and happenings that we can do and relate to.  I admit that TV can also hinder efforts of togetherness though so people must at least try to be together in these times. My mom and I have a DVR so we tape and watch things together. We critique and joke about shows in parallel as they play. This is active connections that you need.

Not to say that I didn’t enjoy my spring break, but it really wasn’t filled with a ton of headline events. I enjoy the simple things. I hooked up with a couple of my friends to do some usual, wacky things. I filled up on homemade goods courtesy of me all break. The big give here was that I actually knew what was in what I ate. The one thing that stood out among the other things was seeing my hometown school’s team go to state for boys basketball. For the most part though, the rest was a true break of just rest. I did have time to get sick though but I am coming in prepared and charged to make a run at the end of the year!

My break wasn’t expected to be the big hoorah people usually plan out. I needed to get away from the stress of college and my break certainly fulfilled that. Just being home is the big reward of this challenging semester.  Getting sick and going back with homework to meet me this weekend really was a downer though. This did little to diminish the experience of being around friendly faces, family, and friends to see every day. It sure has made me yearn for summer to come! We all can sure say that with the little taste we got. It may have been one of the biggest things to “shine through” that went well on this break. I do not regret and I definitely think this  break worked out the best I could have hoped for.

To have an up toned vibe of a break, I suggest you embrace the simple things in life.

A. Probably the hardest part about making this speech and the hardest thing overall was to put the right things in to backup what I was trying to tell the audience. I wanted to be strong and get my audience to “feel” where I’m coming from. I also then had some trouble remembering all the cliques I was going to use. I think that the gestures, eye contact, and other visual cues were the easiest to put together since they were true to me and what I believe. The biggest change in view came from writing my paper so when I got to my speech, it just emphasized all my thoughts on business advertising.

B. I think that a lot of what I did during my speech lined up with what I was hoping to convey. I could have stretched the pathos out more in my intro story though. My gestures were stronger than I expected and I had pretty good eye contact. I feel that I used like too much and did not notice that as I performed my speech. It may have been nerves. It would also have helped if I could have cracked a go-lucky smile every now and then to be more warm.

C. I should definetely work on relaxing. It would also help my cause to take my audience into account with certain cues to connect with them. I need to cater to their likes.

D. I think one of the biggest things to skew how the speeches went was a firm topic and purpose in thesis. Some people just had a comparison with a vague idea of why they wanted to compare them and what we were supposed to get out of it. I think that speeches with the strongest evidence presented left little question of their objective reached. Taja and Mara’s speeches brought this out very well.

1. Writing has taken up a cozy little spot in my mind. Since I have taken my first year seminar class and started writing for college, it has become a vital part of my life. Not just that though, writing also helps me explore the complexities of my mind so I really do enjoy writing. In a way you write about yourself a lot, which could mean qualities, language cues, or just the literal take on yourself.

2. Probably the biggest new take I got on writing from first year seminar was how it can be interpreted in so many different ways by all different people. This is why a message can be really skewed sometimes. You need to make yourself clear but it also means that it can really impact one person through your message and maybe not others. As I mentioned before, writing can also help you understand yourself better by, pretty much, pouring out your soul on paper.

3. I hope that C and C can better help me vocalize my feelings and make stronger connections with my audience. It was hard at times to connect in my first year seminar class but I feel that this class can have a better vibe. I want to also be able to prepare speeches that people can really follow and genuinely see the reasonings and emotions that I want to present by telling them my thoughts.

First couple sentences:

This will be about how businesses work to make you fell “fuzzy” about their advertising.

Rest of first paragraph:

VanderMeer was in the business of making people feel good about taking part in their business. Smiles and friendly service made sure of that. This is supposed to create that good vibe of personal connection in businesses.

Second paragraph:

Personal, closeness with local businesses was common in my hometown of Le Mars. This was shown through sponsorships, local owners, and basic word of mouth between people like on Facebook. Local businesses make a big effort to connect with people.

Third paragraph:

Big businesses can be personal too. They can have localized products, or owners. They also can have people talk them up and employ locals too. Coupons are used too with ads. Big businesses have methods of advertising that are similar to small businesses.

Fourth paragraph part 1:

Big businesses use key words and local people in their advertising to give it a family-like feel.  Businesses use real people and not actors often to make you feel about them.

Fourth paragraph part 2:

Home computers could also be called personal computers so designed just for you. This gives another personal take away from food.

Fifth paragraph:

Big companies have small business beginnings and may use that history in their advertising. This makes you see big businesses more down to earth.

Last paragraph:

Big and small businesses provide unique products and advertising that gets you on a personal level. They also give and take from eachothers’ ads. This part brings back the connection of both types of businesses from being separate.

The first part draws people in. The next two are a comparison of how I have experienced both types of businesses locally. The next few paragraphs show you how big businesses can appeal to pathos too. The only part on local businesses gives it that pathos connection, which comes a lot stronger. You could probably organize the last three paragraphs in any way you want but the first couple are the intro which work together well. I feel like it would really weaken the overall writing if you switched the first part anywhere. I could look to add more for local businesses but I think, as I observe this, my main point is actually to give big businesses their due.

I feel like I want this to be a little controversial maybe…. Well here is my first ideas:

1.Mcdonald’s commercials vs. Nike commercials. This could go off of overall health and a starting point: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2JnYcuRW_qo

2. Car commercials vs. candy commercials. I would like to dive into the sexual nature of how they portray their products.

3. Local commercials and big commercial companies. This would be on what they may take from each other and common themes.

4. Video game ads then and now.

5. Commercials using other companies in their ads to poke fun at but may actually promote them.

Bryson and Fletcher both show an advocating view of two successful country’s advertising business. One trick of the trade that is most familiar in advertising is the persuasive and sometimes funny slogans and jargons used to sell the product. Both of these men illustrate the infamy that ads make with those kind of things.  They give very convincing examples in their own rights of these products. They both elude to the downfalls these companies may have in certain campaigns or the way they go about them but also show it tends not to matter all the time. Generally though, Fletcher draws on a broad base of opinions of many sides of advertising while Bryson just gives a strict history on the advertising business and its success. They both use their own writings to conclude that ads do work and can show us the concise parts that make them so intriguing. Fletcher was being very straight forward and valid in his research and Bryson played with the idea to show a more laid back tone. Never the less, they both came to the same conclusion of a booming success for ad companies and for people to validate this by “voting with their dollar.”

http://www.speedhitter.com/

pg. 70

My job here is to critique the advertisement of the Speed Hitter baseball tool. I always see this advertised on MLB Network and wondered how much it really can do. Let’s first poke holes at the statement on the first part of their site. It reads: “The ultimate training bat.” Ultimate can mean the best of its kind and actually the Speed Hitter is very unique so perhaps just the only of its “kind.” Ultimate, therefore, could be a weasel word. We can then go to a short statement posted: “The Speed Hitter is a revolutionary multi-purpose training bat designed to dramatically improve your contact point, immediately increase bat speed, fine tune your swing mechanics, and turn you into the best hitter you can be!” First of all, dramatically just means it is dramatic? Another weasel appears. The next part can mean that it increases all this as you use it because it is specified for that but what about in the game? One thing you also notice when you watch the commercial, it shows real hitting but does not show where the ball goes or if you get a good swing on it. They talk over the swinging and hitting so you may miss some of the talking too.

pg. 119

How many things in the world can you think of that wastes money that we always seem to need? Advertising is a poster child for this and some even become jokingly so. Money put into advertisement could actually go to things that can help people. They are basically traps and should be illegal anyway because they can cause people to waste their life away. I give the example of cigarettes, and fast food. The point was made it the reading if we really need some of this stuff when they have no real value. I am in that corner. Advertisements mess with our head. Sure we may lose some jobs but the extra money can be spread out more to make the economy boom. We are basically giving our well-earned money to advertisers to make back their expense and spend it on more ads while we get mostly useless products.