All Grown Up

Auvil 1
Sam Auvil
All Grown Up
Writing has never been my best subject; the rules and structure always seem to trip me up. All the different formats and types of papers all which you have to use a different style of writing. It’s all just confusing for me. But I do think that I grew a lot as a writer throughout my winter quarter English 151 experience. Although it took me a while to finally decide that I should put more effort into fixing the problem.
At first I continued to use my old writing habits just throwing words on paper and whichever ones stuck were the ones I would use. I hate rereading my work and editing, not to mention I suck at it.
But then I started to realize that my grades were riding on me becoming a better writer so I started to focus on the items that I thought I needed to work on. For example I figured that it would be a good idea for me to start editing my papers and also to have other people edit my papers. To makes sure they were following the format that they needed to but also to make sure that they were grammatically correct. This entire change in attitude took place while we were starting to write our research papers.
After the exploratory essay where the entire class was scolded for lack of effort I decided that I needed to step up. For example part of the exploratory essay read “Just the other day 10 people were killed by Cholera in Kuwanda on June 4.” Which is clearly a poorly written sentence, which if the paper had been revised
Auvil 2
would have disappeared. Also the paper was supposed to tell a story about how I acquired information pertaining to the topic. And throughout the paper I would tell details about why I looked for certain things although I never actually explained the researching process which was what the entire paper was supposed to be. So my grammar, sentence structure and content was bad in this paper.
For the actual research paper I tried to fix as many of those problems as possible. After re-reasearching to make sure that all the information would be relevant to not only the topic but also would fit in with the argument that I was trying to make, I wrote the paper. Although after the re-researching the six to eight page paper we were supposed to write turned to a twelve page paper, once I had said everything I wanted to. I then went and reread the entire essay and looked for mistakes. After that I reread the paper again just out loud this time. Catching as many mistakes as I could. I then asked a friend of mine who is in the journalism school to edit my paper. And she did amazing. So I figured I had two of the problems covered. Grammar and sentence structure. the last was the content. It was supposed to be an argumentative research paper, and I had my argument layed out in the paper exactly how I wanted it. But the problem I did not catch is that my argument wasn’t an argument at all. As my paper read and my thesis shows you “Poverty is something that should be eradicated whether it’s in the banana farms of Uganda or the coal mines of Appalachia. The attention of our aid should not only focus on third world countries such as Uganda, but they should also be shared
Auvil 2
with the poor in our own country. The poor of Appalachia suffer from mistreated and misused water sources, shortages in food quality and supply, and lack of health education and care, just like the poor of Uganda.” My argument was actually a comparission.
Although I did not achieve full success with my research paper I still believe that I learned an important lesson with my writing. That I really need to edit everything I write. And not just once multiple times to catch all the mistakes. I plan on taking this knowledge and building on it with each paper I write.

Who Is Controlling Your Mind?

Auvil 1
Sam Auvil
Who Is Controlling Your Mind?
What is something we see everyday but hardly notice most of it? The media. We are constantly barraged with ad’s and promotions. They are all telling us to do something or buy something or act a certain way. But how much do these message actually affect us? I believe that the media has more power than we give it credit. It not only has the power to show us what they think is hip and cool but they can intentionally not show us other stuff. Leaving us completely unaware of it.
For example yesterday I was talking to my dad about this English final and about how the media influences our knowledge. And he showed me this article about a tsunami wave that hit California by Jesse Mckinely. It was the first time I had heard anything about the tragedy, because the media was too busy covering all the drama that is going on in japan. It is sickening to think that the media of our own country would not talk more about this. I think this just goes to show what the media is about. They are about the next big thing, the drama, the things that will grab peoples attention which isn’t always what they should be hearing.
I believe that a main reason that the Appalachian region is so poor still is because there has been no excitement there. The coal mines close down and leave towns in ruins but there are horrific deaths that are caused and so the media looks elsewhere for a story. Another reason is because I believe that America likes to keep this appearance of ultimate power, and with the economy failing they are turning all negative attention to the rest of the world as if to say, “Ya, our politicians are
Auvil 2
fighting but at least a tsunami didn’t hit us.” I don’t get why they can’t just cover what is effecting us just as much as they cover the tragedies of over countries. The people suffering from poverty and malnutrition in Appalachia deserve our aid just as much as the people recovering from the tsunami and earthquake in Japan. The difference is the media is covering Japans story. Google for example changed its main page to promote the aid of the Japanese. The media controls what we see and hear.
Everyday we see different we hear and see exactly what the media wants us to. Whether it be the messages they are spewing about there product or what they are telling us on the news. They are always looking for the next big thing, while they rarely stick around the see those topics to the end. They never focus on the problems that need to be fixed long enough for them to be fixed. I believe that the media should use their power to benefit the world rather than just show them the next big tragedy or story.

Human Health

Human Health RP on Prezi

Musically Inclined

Musically Inclined

“Now the Past is just a conduit, and the light there at the end is where I’ll be…” (Relient K). Music has always been a passion of mine, ever since I was forced to take piano lessons in 2^nd grade. Since then I’ve learned to play guitar and am currently working on singing. So when I was asked to pick a building to do a history project on it was an easy pick, Glidden Hall, Ohio University’s music building. I created a short video presentation containing information about the history of the building, a music program, The Singing Men of Ohio, and of course music. Music is a form of entertainment and this was the main focus while creating this video. There were many choices I had to make while creating the presentation, such as coloring, graphics, information, and songs. Each choice was made to hopefully enrapture the audience into watching and enjoying the entire presentation, music has always been interesting to me so why shouldn’t my presentation involving music be interesting?

The very first decision I had to make was to decide who my audience was. I chose my peers, because everyone has some interest or stand on music, and I knew I could make the presentation enjoyable for them, because I am one of them I know what we like. Most people my age would throw away a flier, containing lots of information, or anything that looks boring. So I tried to cut down on information while still giving a basic background of the history. This is also why I chose to use a video because I could add audio as well as visual items, giving me a better chance to attract their attention. Attack more of their senses.

I remember the first time I walked into Glidden Hall during my orientation, I was so excited because I knew I was seeing somewhere I was going to be spending a ton of time. So, while designing my presentation I knew I had to show the information about this building first. But I also knew that this information could potentially be the most boring part of the actual presentation so I decided to make it visually appealing, choosing blue and orange, which are complementary colors. I looked up how to make these colors the most visually appealing and I found that a 3:1 blue to orange ratio was the best way to present these colors. This is because our eyes like contrast its one of a graphic designers first lessons, blue and orange are a contrast of each other.

The beginning of the video shows just a slide saying “the history of…” with a picture of Glidden Hall, I was trying to create suspense and interest in finding out what the picture was of. After that I told my peers a couple facts about Glidden. But I made a break in the information with a little joke to re-attract their information and letting them know there is more entertaining stuff coming up. I then proceed to give them more information, but I try and create more suspense and curiosity by adding “…” after “practice rooms”. Then I show a video of me playing the chorus from “Wonderwall” by Oasis to not only give them an idea of what a practice room looks like but also to add a little bit of entertainment.

This is where I switch to talking about the Acapella group The Singing Men of Ohio. The Singing Men of Ohio are a really cool group and what really made me interested to them is that their name use to be Ohio University Men’s Glee Club, I’m a big fan of the show “Glee”. To introduce the topic of the Singing Men of Ohio, I use suspense like I do previously in the video, by saying “Plus Glidden Hall is home to many musical ensembles”. Here I also switch up the text colors to green and white, Ohio University schools colors. This is because the Singing Men of Ohio travel around the country and globe representing Ohio University, so it only made sense to have their slides in the schools colors. The next few slides are about the Singing Men of Ohio as a whole. First giving you background information about the start of the club and following that up with more recent information and happenings. From here I switch to talking about Section 8, the elite group from SMO, and giving a little information about them.

All the information in this video was important, but the music was even more important. I believe it would catch my peer’s attention and hold it. So I got some audio of Section 8 and the Singing Men of Ohio playing various songs. The first song was “I’m Yours” by Jason Mraz. This song was a hit so I know they have all heard it and could most likely sing along. Then there is my playing “Wonderwall” by Oasis, another hit they have undoubtedly heard. And lastly there is “In My Head” by Jason Derulo, of the three songs “In My Head” is the newest. I chose these songs not only from their popularity but to show all of my peers what the Singing Men of Ohio and Section 8 sounded like.

Every choice made while creating this project was create enjoyment, and to keep my peers attentive and paying attention. Not always the easiest task. But hopefully with the chance in color and graphics as well as the music I was able to accomplish this. This project was to create a promo of the history of a building. And I believe I accomplished that I may not have given them all the information about Glidden but hopefully enough to create a spark of interest in the music building or maybe and hopefully music itself.

Place.

My relationship with "place" is something that is always changing. I have never been good with people telling me what to do or trying to control me. Even if the person is in an obvious position of power over me. Also I played sports most of my life and have always strived to be the best played I could be and therefore increasing my place on the team. To me "place" is how you view yourself and how the people around you view you. And you can always change those things.

I do not think it is always good to have a sense of "place" because it may impare you from trying to improve yourself or strive for your goals. If you believe you are stuck in your"place" then you will have no incentive or motivation to improve or change your "place".