English 151

Gabby Gonzales
English 151
Final essay
My thoughts on English 151
Surprisingly English was my favorite class that I’ve taken all year besides learning community. In high school I didn’t care for English at all, it was by far my least favorite subject. It was my least favorite subject because I felt as if every year we did the same thing over and over again. We learned about periods, commas, and all that other stuff. I pretty much assumed we would be doing the same thing in English 151. Luckily I was wrong, I like that I did get to review that stuff, but when I did it wasn’t just in some boring way.
The part of English 151 that I enjoyed the most and was the last thing I expected to happen in an English class was the group discussion and participation. Out of all the English classes that I’ve taken we have never really had group discussion or input on anything. Ultimately the class was a group discussion class which made it more fun and diverse. I say diverse because you got to hear what other people thought and why and sometimes I was swayed in what I thought because I never looked at most things from both point of views just my own. Also since we all participating I think it kept everyone’s interest. Even though the class was a group discussion class and that was good too much of something always ends up getting boring, but I thought we had a good mix because every now and then we did things like go to the library or watch documentaries and things like that which worked out perfect for me. The mix of how we had our classes I thought was very fitting.
Even though I would say our English class was more modern I still believe that I took more out of that class then I did from many of my other English classes. One thing that I found out needed work in my writing was that I was very vague and didn’t use exact details very often. I guess I never really took much thought about how a detail can have a bigger impact or make the picture clearer for the reader. My assignment about Bird Arena helped me with because I had to explain why I did everything the way I did. By explaining why I did the things I did I had to be very exact in my details and it made me realize the small things make a difference. Another instance where I wasn’t detailed in my writing was when talking about sustainability at OU I just said ping saves money and it funds other projects throughout the campus. Luckily you caught that and told me to be specific. When I put how the money saved from Ping is generally put towards intramural equipment and other recreational activities at OU it made OU look more sustainable and had a good impact on the paragraph. So if I had to pick one thing that improved on from English 151 I would say being more specific in my writing. There were many other things such as MLA formatting, attributive tags and citations in general that I learned a great deal about, but being specific I think will help my writing the most.
Lastly something really good that I can use throughout college that I learned from English 151 is how to use Presi. I probably never would’ve took the time to sit down and figure out how to work Presi because I would’ve thought it looked complicated. I realized it wasn’t complicated but I know myself and I know I wouldn’t have taken the time to figure it out but thank goodness I did. I will now be able to use that for presentations in other classes and for a while before everyone else finds out I will have an advantage over everyone else who still uses powerpoint. It was a nice way to end the class it was a fun and interesting project that got me acquainted with Presi.

Future

Gabby Gonzales
English 151
Final Essay

The Future

When I think about the future it only made sense to me that I should write this paper while I’m at home, this is because home is where I see a major part of my future and I feel most comfortable and happy. My whole family is here and I’m extremely close with everyone in my family. I’ll be transferring next year to BGSU and that will make me only an hour away from home instead of four. After I graduate I plan on doing all the typical things like get married have a family a big one and hopefully buy my parents’ house when they decide to move out. These are just several things that will sum up major events I hope to happen in my life. These things will be very important in my life but there are many things that don’t’ directly affect me that I hope will be a part of my future.
When I think about the future in my mind everything is perfect but I know in reality that it’s not all going to be sunshine and rainbows. One major thing that I hope for that there will be a big scientific breakthrough in medicine. I would want this breakthrough to be the cure to cancer. I do actually think this will happen in my future because cancer is such a big cause of death and there is much research being done for this disease. That is the happy side to health that I want to see in my future. I do think that we will encounter another type of disease not yet known to us that will cause many deaths. The reason for this disease I think will be direct negative effect of the way we treat our environment. With how much we pollute and destroy our environment I think we will see a huge negative effect that will harm many.
Our future is our environment so as of now it doesn’t look that great. With the green movement starting to roll I think this will have a positive impact on my future. I think we are getting to that point where we realize we need to make a change. I believe that I will get to see the change in my lifetime. I’m not sure whether we can make up for the damage that we’ve already done but I think we will all make a good effort.
All the talk about over population and the damage that we’ve caused has led to many far-fetched theories. I don’t think the world will end in 2012 or that all the sun will be covered by some large object and we will all freeze. But there are some that seem pretty out there but I think that one of these theories will be in my distant future. Who knows by the time I’m sixty or seventy there may be big talk about moving to mars or some other planet, or maybe like in China we might have laws restricting how many kids we can have. I’m sure which one I think will happen nor do I know which one I want to happen but I think something along these lines will occur during my lifetime.
So I discussed the main things that I would like to see happen or occur in my future mostly distant future. I wrote about the distant future because I’m not exactly sure about my near future everything is still a big blur to me. I think it’s supposed to be this way but I’m not sure. But one thing I am very sure of is that I believe that my future will be a good one. I’m pretty positive when I think of that because I know that no matter what happens I have my family and close friends, and they will keep me going in the right way and lead by example to me and make sure that I have to best future possible, also I see how attitudes and opinions are changing about climate change and its becoming a more serious topic. Since climate change is becoming a more serious topic I think it will bring positive things in motion and hopefully make the Earth a safer and better place to live.

Final Eco Event!

On this webpage you can read about why experts say the Earth will expire by 2050. This page talks about how we have used up a big quantity of our natural resources, and that if our population continues to grow at the same rate we will overpopulate the world. The experts talk about how we will have to colonise space. On a more frightening note it talks about how the seas will be empty of fish and all the forests destroyed, it a very interesting article that sums up the damage and repercussions of what we are doing to the environment

Eco Event six

This faucet may be the just the trick to get people to start conserving water properly. The theory that we use six liters of water to wash our hands when in fact we only need one is what this faucet is hoping to change. The faucet holds one liter of water and once it runs out you have to wait for a while, while the faucet refills. The hope is that people won't want to sit there and wait for the faucet to refill so they will be more conservative and make the one liter count when it comes to washing their hands. This will hopefully cut down the amount of water wasted.

Eco Event five

On this website you can search the top polluters in different areas of pollutants. Not only does this page show which companies are the top polluters in the U.S. but you can narrow you search down to your specific region. By doing this you can see what pollutants are hazardous to you where you live. Knowing this can help you take the neccessary precautions to making sure that you stay healthy.

How Colleges are the Starting Grounds for Sustainability

Eco Event 4

When looking at this diagram you will get to see how trash thrown into rivers and the ocean get swept into a vortex of trash in the middle of the ocean. Also you can see how over the time span of six years how the trash will build up and there will be more trash than plankton by mass in these regions of the ocean.

Ways to help save the environment

There are many ways we can all help save the environment. Sure there are some drastic measures we can take, but there are also many little ways to help the environment. For a list of ways to help the environment read this. This will provide you with 100 ways to help make the environment better without having to make big changes in your life.

Wind Powered Town

Want to read about a town that is solely dependent on wind energy click here. A town in Missouri is completely ran by wind turbines. Not only is this town powered by the wind turbines it has enough energy left over to export energy. This first city to be powered by wind is making its mark nationally by trying to promote wind energy as a clean source of energy.

Owls change as Climate Warms

In this article it explains how the climate is changing and how it is changing the colors of owls. When the temperatures were cooler many of the owls were a darker brown. Now that temperatures are warmer many of the owls are turning a lighter brownish red. With milder winters scientist say grey owls may disappear altogether. If the gene pool for grey owls is lost we may never see grey owls again.

Campus History Project for Bird Arena

Bird Arena

When choosing a place to do my promotional piece on my first choice was the clock on south green. After looking up information I realized there wasn’t too much information on the clock so I had to choose a different place. When trying to decide on a place I thought of places that took me by surprised in my first year at Ohio University. Bird Arena was the placed that surprised me the most. The atmosphere at Bird Arena is very unique, everyone there loves the place. Also since many people don’t too much information on the actual arena. These are the reasons why I decided to do my promotional piece on Bird Arena. Ohio University has many popular varsity sports that many people attend, and there are also club sport games that fans go to. One sport in particular that gets as much attention as the varsity sports is the club hockey team, this could be because it was once considered a varsity sport. The hockey games are held in Bird Arena, which also holds public skating several days a week. Hockey and public skating are important factors of Bird Arena that were kept in mind throughout my promotional piece. There were many other details I had to keep in my mind when making this promotional piece including; color scheme, target audience, song choice, also ethos, logos and pathos. These helped me to grab my audience’s attention while also keeping them interested the whole way through the promotional piece.

The color scheme for my slideshow is dark green surrounded by gray. I chose these colors because it still appeals to Ohio University students and alumni since its green like Ohio University colors, however the gray makes it seems dark gloomy and old. I wanted the gloomy and old effect because Bird Arena was never given as much attention as all the other sports facility which is why hockey is so well liked at OU, also the fact that it is no longer a varsity sport but once was. These factors help add to the gloomy and old effect. Bird Arena didn’t even have locker rooms until 2000-01. This shows some neglect for this building. I thought this would help me appeal to my target audience which is Ohio University students and alumni who are also hockey and skating fans. Just by going in to the arena you can tell it’s older and most fans or frequent skaters like the feeling the arena gives off. Showing pictures on each slide I think also helps keeps the audience interested because they are all old photos and not just random. By focusing on how this arena helped get hockey started at Ohio University made the piece more appealing. Without Bird Arena, hockey wouldn’t have existed here at Ohio University, many people don’t know about the history of the arena or the hockey team and they go hand in hand. So by killing two birds with one stone this makes the piece more appealing.

When going through small details of my promotional piece I had pathos in mind. Each of the small details gave off a different feeling, and to get the feelings I wanted, the details had to be just right. I chose the song “Sympathy” by the Goo Goo Dolls for multiple reasons I thought would appeal to and keep my audience interested. The song is soft and has a distinctive guitar and I decided to get the instru. I liked this because it gives off a nostalgic feeling. Since we’re talking about the history I thought nostalgia was best feeling to give off since there is so much history behind Bird Arena. Also with the fading transition between slides it was just symbolizing how everything came from one another. It started as just a skating arena and then became a hockey arena so I thought the fading transitions best fit the slide show. I thought these two effects would help give a nostalgia overall effect. Towards the end of the slide show I changed the transition because the information was more modern. Also the pictures were more recent, so a faster more modern transition was more fitting because nostalgia was no longer the wanted feeling my audience to feel. Instead I wanted to give off a transformation happiness feeling because after all of those years that Bird Arena was somewhat neglected from the budget, it finally got the renovations it needed. The colored renovation picture of Bird Arena was the first colored picture I decided to put in because it symobolized change in the building and the renovation was the first time any changes were made to Bird Arena. Lastly at the very end there is a comparison and this is to just help the audience see the transformation of the building from the very beginning to the end. This is also trying to appeal to an inspirational feeling.

When thinking about ethos I thought about how I wasn’t too excited to make a promotional piece about Bird Arena. The project was about finding out history and it made sense in my mind to do Bird Arena. The main reason for choosing Bird Arena was that most people don’t know much about it so I thought it was a good opportunity to inform people of the history of the Arena. When trying to make the promotional piece make sense I realized this was the logos part of the project. It seemed logical to start from the beginning when the building was built. Also I had to find certain aspects about the arena that I could focus in on. Bird Arena is used for public ice skating and hockey games and practice. Once I found two aspects to focus in on I showed the people skating because at first Bird Arena was just for ice skating. Being opened for skating lead to starting a hockey team since the public skate was such a big success. After talking about the starting of the hockey team I told a little bit about it and its successes. Towards the end the renovations were brought up and that was placed at the end because it was very recent. Bringing up how the hockey team eventually became a club game was important because it brought up the budget cut. The budget cut helped to give off the effect of neglect towards this building. Focusing on the neglect throughout is why I decided to make the last slide a comparison slide. It showed the old and new ice surface. This made sense to me because it showed the big difference in the ice surface but also how long it took for the arena to finally get those renovations.

Place

When I think of my relationship with place I believe that I have two different relationships. My physical relationship is important, most of the places I go; I go there for a reason. They help keep me balanced, that is why I go to certain places for calmness, fun, and responsibility. The other relationship I have with place is the mental one. I can go to any place I want in my head. So when I’m in a place I don’t care to be I can change my mood by going to a different place and that is the relationship that helps keep me sane and able to do things I don’t want to do.

It’s important to have a sense of place because if you don’t your just wandering and most things don’t get accomplished when you’re wandering. It’s hard to know what your next move is if you don’t know where you’re at, if you’re not balanced. Place is also important because people use it to define you. They look at where you in the class system, what place you are in your class ranking, where you live and they use these places to define and judge you. It may not be fair but it is second nature for people to judge and these are things people are often judged by.