Unit 2 Essay

Here is the link to my final draft.

The End is Here

I think that the most memorable thing I have learned through my time in this course is that writing is much more free form than I previously thought. There is no set structure for every single type of paper out there, one can simply start writing and if they are able to pull all their points together, it works. In the past, I always found myself sticking to the same format, same paragraph length, and always answering the same questions. I guess I felt what works in the past will also work in the future, but I was wrong. Times change and so does writing style, with the coming of the internet, a drastic change has occurred. No longer can an instructor say that a certain type of writing can be suitable for most, if not all situations. Writing is an art, and do be good at it involves a great level of creativity. One of the most artistic elements is the transition, also one of the most important. With this, a writer must be able to smoothly change from one topic to another, while maintaining a steady flow in the text. I feel in the past I have struggled in this area, but this class has really helped me to take a new approach to transitions and writing as a whole. I no longer see writing as an arduous task meant for pure torture, I see it as a way to convey my opinion and let my voice be heard. Writing is no longer just about research, it can be a passion for any normal person that can be shared with others. With the help of the internet, people can publish a work whenever they want about whatever they want for absolutely no cost at all.

Unit 2 essay

Here is a link to my rough draft for my unit 2 essay.

"Approaching" The End

In Harris’s words, taking an approach can be defined as, “working in the mode of another writer.” I feel that in my own words the definition would be using a similar style of a previous author to write a response or work similar to their own. To do this you do not merely look at their work and try to imitate it, one must use the ideas and some methods of an author in their own new passage. Harris reveals three ways of taking an approach; acknowledging influences, turning an approach on itself, and reflexivity.

Many blogs are full of these concepts; Sullivan’s is constantly acknowledging things that his readers have said. In his article, “Why I Blog,” he states that roughly a third of his site is full of reader responses, many of which he shows by posting them on his main blog screen. I have also found articles he has analyzed where he asks question about the topics involved, a main component in turning an approach on itself. After looking through several blogs, I found that taking an approach is one of the more prevalent concepts in almost every one. I think one of the main reasons it is so common is that many blogs are written in response to something read or that has occurred in the world, but also because readers have an open forum to comment on and add to stories.

I found that the New York Times proved to be a little more difficult in finding this concept. It is most common in the op-ed section, where writers are writing in response to a text or to an event. News stories are merely reporting what is happening in the world and there is a set style to almost all of the articles, which could be considered a part of the acknowledging influences aspect. However, the use of this is very limited because today people want a short bit of text that gets all the facts out to them, and is not just a long commentary.

Turning My Word Upside Down

In the literary community today there is a great surge in the amount of writing done by young scholars. However, it is not in the form of great academic prose as you would expect, it comes in a much more dumbed-down version know as social communication. Facebook, MySpace, and text messaging are all involved in this revolution, but it is not the kind of writing young students need. In these formats, there is no need for a wide vocabulary, simple acronyms and numbers will do, and most writing involves no more than a few sentences. While I can say that any writing is good writing, students need much less of this. There is no need for research or time spent delved into books searching for answers, people can simply write what they feel or how they are laughing about something. Also, the fact that this form of literacy is so short can easily influence the newer generation to try to get a point across in less and less words. Long down the road, research projects could become mere sentences long, and contain very few bits of information, unlike those enormous projects of the past. Students could miss bits of information in their readings by only skimming articles, leaving out critical details. There is no doubt that getting younger people to write is a very good thing, just not in this form. Blogs can still be great tools for literacy, if they are used in the right fashion. If not, we are only throwing away the great literacy levels we strove so hard for in the past.
In this post I countered a past article about how I thought the new age of writing was a good thing for literacy. While I truly do believe that this new writing is a good thing, I chose to counter this post because my opinion was so strongly held. I tried to use all three forms of countering, but I put my main emphasis on dissenting from the article. I looked for limits in some of the points I made, and exposed them in the best fashion I thought possible. I truly do believe that the new age of literacy is a great thing, and I have to admit I felt like I was siding very strongly with Hedges while writing this.

Countering

Pretty much everyone alive today loves a little argument and controversy in their daily lives. We, as Americans, feed off of it with nightly gossip news and the countless debates that go on about different aspects of the US government. I, for one thrive off of a healthy disagreement every once in a while, but only if both sides are able to back up themselves with strong points, not incessant chatter. Harris outlines the art of disagreement in textual form in his chapter about countering, saying that in order to provide a good argument against a text, you must not prove how smart you are, but instead add to what can be said about a subject. The first step in Harris’s countering is to identify the limits of the writing you want to oppose. Then, work out a new way of thinking to respond to the limits of that text. Using this method, one can acknowledge the points of one way of thinking, while still proposing new ones that can suit a situation better. Using this technique, one adds to a text and doesn’t just try to disprove it.

While reading through Sullivan’s blog, I found that for the most part, his readers have taken over his entire blog site. A main argument I witness is one over religion. I really have had a hard time finding any of his readers using Harris’s approach in their arguments. Many times the people want to say what church they are from and why it is better than the others out there. In fact, I had trouble finding an article on the website that acknowledged that other religions were ok but then listed the limits of them. On my other blog, I could not find any example of countering because it is mostly talking about the scores of different basketball games, and the fact are irrefutable for the most part.

I feel like Harris’s version of countering is the best form in the sense that it allows for both sides to prove their points. While I may feel one way, it allows readers to see both sides of an argument. In this fashion, reader can form their own opinion about something. A writer is not just trying to look smarter than the person they disagree with, but they are adding to their writings. With this style one can present limits and then propose counters to them.

And the Text Moves On...

To Harris, forwarding is basically the idea of taking text from previous works and compiling it into your own. However, it is not in a sense a copyright violation because you can reword the text, and make it your own. I feel he really gives great insight into the way people learn in this chapter. He states, “Learning a subject means acquiring discourse, not just mastering a body of knowledge.” This idea makes perfect sense. A student really does not know much about a topic at all until they are able to speak the language associated with it. In this aspect, we are forwarding our own knowledge about a subject to others every time we speak of it. We are taking words learned from textbooks, and putting them to use in a new context. This is Harris’s underlying idea of forwarding.
I think a prime example of this technique is the Daily Dish by Andrew Sullivan. Throughout his blog one can find comments written by readers, links to articles, and Sullivan’s own opinion on issues in the world today. He quotes comments in new posts, using them in a new context. Most of the quote remains intact, and he usually will give his opinion on what his readers are writing to him about. In my other blog, Seth Davis frequently uses information from other individuals, and then proceeds to give his opinion about what has been stated. He comments on scores from games, news reports about players, and also the character of each athlete, which can be considered forwarding when you think about character being the ideas of a person. Since reading this chapter I have noticed that almost every text I pick up makes use of forwarding. When I think about it, I believe I have used this technique in my writings throughout school, I just never thought consciously about what I was doing. With forwarding we can take our writings to new levels using the help of others.

A Relationship With Blogs

Throughout the years, people across the world have trusted the New York Times for information on what is going on in the world today. With the coming of the internet, this publication seems to be making a good transition onto the internet as a great online source. The site has links to blogs and is very interwoven in the online literary community of today. As far as a comparison to my blogs, I find that I can obtain much more factual information from the Times, whereas the blogs that I am reading are mostly opinion related. Because of this I feel that my bubble for the Times is much bigger than the one for blogs in my press sphere. In fact, the Times is starting to become my main source for news due to my lack of television in my dorm room. While I may not get much news from my blogs, I do love reading them. I enjoy listening to the opinions of others on subjects that interest me. The basketball blog I read shows a lot about a player’s character and how the writer thinks they should behave. I completely agree with his views on behavior, which is probably why I enjoy reading it so much. I feel that I have a connection with the blogs that I read, much more so than to the New York Times. I share beliefs, ways of thinking, and a love of the same things with the bloggers that I read. That connection is very hard to obtain from a news website; their stories are all about getting the facts out, not what they think about them. Granted they do have opinion pages, but that is not the main reason people flock to a news website. They go for the facts, and can get their opinions elsewhere.

Jarvis and Sullivan

When I read Sullivan’s article side by side with Jarvis’s article about the press sphere, I found many striking similarities in their views on how the news is changing. Both agree that the age of the newspaper is nearing its end, and it shows. Many newspaper companies are suffering from terrible losses on the stock market, they simply cannot compete with news that is released on the internet. It is too fast, and much shorter than articles in the paper. I found that both men agree on the fact that the reader is slowly becoming the editor. Readers can comment on material posted on the internet, giving criticism or telling the author how they feel about the subject.
When you think about it, the readers of the past can actually become the writers of today with the help of the internet. A person can write how they feel about a historical event or anything that is newsworthy. One can read information straight from their peers instead of seeing it in a newspaper first. In the past you could still get the news from a friend, however they read about nit in a newspaper and it was past orally for the most part, whereas today it can be done in a blog, Facebook status, etc. I really could not find any differences in opinion, as I feel that Jarvis’s article had no opinion to it whatsoever, it was just written to inform people about the change in the way the press works. Saying that, I feel that Sullivan is much more passionate about the new form than Jarvis, who simply doesn’t seem to care either way.

The New Age of Nes

I think Jarvis makes a good point when it comes to describing the new ways that we obtain news. Newspapers are beginning to become obsolete, and we can now turn to the internet for answers to all our questions regarding what is going on in the world today. It is so much quicker and easier to type in a topic on a search engine rather than looking through a newspaper to find information about it. To him, the press sphere is the way we obtain information pertaining to the news. There are so many different ways to do so today rather than the straight line path of the past. With the internet, we can get information from companies, the government, witnesses, video evidence, or even the good old press themselves. In the past, information was obtained by the press and then passed onto the people in a straight line fashion. This is not so today, because of many advances in technology we can obtain our news from almost anywhere we choose, even straight from the source. This makes it much quicker to do so, and puts a lot less stress on the story and more on how quickly the information is released and who releases it first. In fact, the stress o speed actually reduces the need for editors due to the fact that people just want to hear it first, not in a well-written newspaper the next day. “Hear it first,” is actually starting to come around as the motto of some news organizations to show their speed in the release of a story. With all this stress on speed one can only wonder, will editors soon be out of a job in the near future?

The "Times" is Changing... Me

I have really enjoyed reading the New York Times so far. At first, I was a little apprehensive at the thought of reading a newspaper online. I have always seen reading the paper as something that older or middle-aged adults do, not a young college student lie myself. But after reading it for about a week now, I have seen that it contains information that peaks my interest while being very informative on current issues today.
I have really felt a strong draw to the opinions section, where a specifically remember an article about testing being done for an AIDS vaccine in Asia. I also like the science section, partly because of my inner nerd, and also the stories on the main page are very interesting. The two stories that have stuck out the most in my mind were the one about the AIDS vaccine, and another about a pregnant woman who lost her baby when she came down with the swine flu. I think these caught my eye because I have a great interest in epidemiology and how to treat diseases. I find the fact that there is actually an AIDS vaccine in the works remarkable, and it is even being used in human trials.
While I have a great interest in the science aspect of this paper, I fell that I may be over looking another very important aspect in America today, politics. I have never found myself to be a very political person, so it is hard for me to get motivated into looking at articles on that subject; I feel that they will bore me. However, most of the political articles I have read are actually very interesting and flow nice enough that I am not ready for nap after three lines. Maybe reading the Times will change my opinion in the future about this topic so that I am much more politically involved.

A Tale of Two Blogs

The two blogs that I am following are Hoop Thoughts and the Daily Dish. Hoop Thoughts is a blog written by Seth Davis. Davis is a written for Sports Illustrated magazine, and has been there since 1995. He is primarily a writer on all aspects of college basketball. The main audience for his blog would most likely be fans of college basketball that want to know more about the game than just what goes on the court. He writes about not only how good player within a team are, but also how they handle other situations such as dealing with the media. His purpose is to present a view of the game that outside of just what happens on the court. The blog involves issues such as how players deal with the media, whether tournament play should be done away with altogether and all the way to the character of coaches and players. I enjoy reading what he has to say because it shows that the athletes and coaches are also humans like us, not just some machines invented for the sole purpose of shooting a three point shot.
The other blog I will follow is the Daily Dish by Andrew Sullivan. Sullivan is a conservative, gay writer that has applied for citizenship to the United States; however he has been rejected due to the fact that he is HIV positive. The audience for his blog would most likely be conservatives with similar views as his own, or even people who do not share his views, as his blog is one of the more popular on the web. He writes his blog to express his views to his audience, and he also explains further reasons in his, “Why I Blog,” post located inside his blog. His posts contain information on a plethora of information, from recent historically significant events, to little entertaining videos that he designates as, “mental health breaks.” His site is chock-full of information on nearly everything, from funny to serious matters, and I am looking forward to reading it in the future.

The Blogs I Will Follow

I will follow Seth Davis's blog on fannation.com because I like his commentary on the world of sports. I will also follow Daily Dish because i enjoy reading most of Sullivan's material.

Similarities

As I read through the sources that other people use to obtain their news I can easily find one reoccurring theme; the internet. We, as college students almost all own a laptop or other computer, and have free access to the internet on campus, whether it be wirelessly or on a library computer. I also found that hearsay is another main way that we acquire information, we hear about a story while we are walking around, or from a friend, and then do further research on the topic. The internet has completely changed the way we get news, while not all go to the same source; it is an everyday stop for all college students. We can get news through our email accounts, Facebook pages, or at specific news sites. Some of these, “so-called,” news websites are extremely biased and will do anything to dish out the bad information or gossip on the latest celebrity, and others, such as the Onion, concoct entirely false stories altogether. People flock to these biased sites because they give out information that people want to hear, the regular American wants to know that every celebrity has problems just like them, and some even more severe. Personally, I do not visit these gossip sites because, I feel that, for one, the information in them really has no effect on my life whatsoever, and I really just don’t care about them. Most of the news that is important to us students will eventually get around to us whether we seek it or not, we will overhear someone talking, see a new status or Facebook or Twitter, or simply just receive an email about it. Sometimes it is easiest not to seek out the news at all.

The News for Me

For the past few years, I have always enjoyed staying up to date on what is going on in the world, and in my community. I have always been able to turn on a television and urn the dial MSNBC or Fox news and find out any reports that may interest me. This has always been my major source of information, as my parents normally hogged the newspaper in the morning. However, as I have made my transition to college life, and I have moved away from home I find that I am now lacking my primary source, the TV. I have not been able to purchase one since I have moved in, and for the first few weeks I felt lost without my source. I was not able to find a newspaper readily available, and I finally turned to the one source on hand, the internet. With it, I can select from many different news sites, some biased and others not. I feel that the internet is a great place to find news stories, but a major drawback is the difficulty to read a full article on a computer when there are so many other things available to do on the internet. One can easily get sidetracked by Facebook, MySpace, YouTube, etc. Normally I will skim headlines to find articles that peak my interest and then I will read the first few paragraphs. I hardly ever read through an entire article when I am using a computer, only on occasions of extreme boredom will I go through a full story. I also hear some news from other people around campus. I mostly overhear information from people, and then I will look up the story further online. The ways I used to get my news are a thing of the past, and now I am learning new ways to obtain reports about current events.

Unit 1

Here is my essay, it is very rough. http://docs.google.com/Doc?docid=0AdsTTcS951fiZGNoM2NxdnBfMDZicWNobmRi&hl=en sorry about the last link, it would'nt go through to the paper.

The Evolution of Literacy

So far, in writing these posts I feel that my writing has improved. I actually enjoy writing now, which is very strange because before I even dreaded the thought of it. Blogging has shown that there is a certain aspect of freedom to writing. I can write my own opinion about something, not just a big research project. The posts are short and frequent, and the articles peak my interest enough that I do have an opinion on what is being said. They are modern and concern our generation, not some ancient historical culture. Reading these articles has opened my eyes to a phenomenon that is occurring in our world today, reading is undergoing a drastic change. Deep reading is becoming less common, and we are becoming more efficient readers. While this thought first shocked me, I can now easily see how this is the truth. I think the most difficult aspect of this experience so far has been putting my thoughts into words. While this part has been developing throughout this class, I feel I need to take a more academic approach. I do not use an extensive vocabulary, and I am trying to improve on that, the use of a thesaurus has helped tremendously. As well as the use of an extended vocabulary, I now find myself taking a different approach to reading. I jot notes down of points that I find to be important to the article. This process helps me to better comprehend the text in the end so that I can grasp the author’s point. I feel that these blog posts have changed the way I read and write for the better, I now grasp material quicker and my writing has made a drastic improvement. I am excited to continue forward and become the best writer I can be.

Article

This article caught my attention because it told a story about how a seventh grade student could not use an encyclopedia because they were so used to the internet. I felt that this greatly relates to our topic of literacy in the digital age. http://docs.google.com/fileview?id=0B9sTTcS951fiYWM5YWE3ZmUtYThhMy00MGE4LTk3ZTAtOTc4OTAwZjJiY2U1&hl=en

The New Renaissance of Writing

To Chris Hedges, the once great art of writing is becoming a thing of the past. We can no longer put together great essays, and our new journalistic style is an insult to the illustrious newspaper prose of historical times. We have become a nation that exists solely for entertainment purposes, and due to this, our democracy is bound to fail. While Hedges feels that the destruction of our great nation is imminent, Stanford Professor Andrea Lunsford feels that we are on the edge of literary breakthrough. The young people of America are writing more than ever before, and even a lot of that writing takes place outside of class. Whether it is texting, updating a status on Facebook, or blogging about your ideals, writing has become the cool thing to do. Hedges is correct in the fact that strictly journalistic writing has become a thing of the past, however writing is evolving rapidly. We write to entertain ourselves, and for an audience, mostly our peers, not just for professors as in previous years. It has become a social practice; we can check up on our friends and tell everyone our moods. The internet has indeed changed the way people write, but it has been for the better. It has caused young people to write more, and has not changed the language used in our academic papers. While Hedges thinks that our country is on the verge of collapse due to the appearance of the internet, we are actually on the edge of a new golden age of writing.

A Scary Proposition

In Hedges’ article he defines literacy as the ability to cope with complexity and to separate illusion from truth. He states that many Americans today are unable to accomplish this feat, and rely on pictures and fancy announcers to tell them what to eat or buy. Even the workers at these restaurants rely on pictures to tell them what the customers have ordered. We are living in a country where reading is no longer considered the, “cool,” thing to do, and due to this many people have stopped reading entirely. Most grade school children I have talked to actually despise reading, which is frightening considering that they will soon be a part of the workforce. I also found it surprising, and almost scary for that matter, that the speaking levels of the recent presidents have dropped so dramatically from the great men of the past. Our voters do not grasp the concept of civic literacy as they just vote for their favorite person , and then disappear for a few years. I feel that the levels of speaking should have risen dramatically from over one hundred years ago, due to the fact that we have advanced so far technologically. It’s as if all these hi-tech advances have only made us dumber. This decrease in intelligence points back to Carr’s theory that technology is, indeed, making us stupider. We use it to take the easy way out of problems, not our great American reasoning that we were once so proud of. Technology has such great potential to bring about a great new life for everyone, but only if we use it along with reasoning, and critical thinking, not just for an easy way out.

Changing Brain Waves, One Click at a Time

Nearly every student has had to use Google at some point in their academic career. Whether it was researching for a huge academic paper, or to look up the answer to some homework problems, there is not one single college student who can deny having ever used a search engine. I for one use Google almost daily for everything from entertainment, to exploration of new school topics. In Carr’s article, he makes a statement that the use of search engines is, in fact, decreasing our intelligence. He thinks this because we no longer have to delve deeply into books to get the information that is desired; now all that is needed is a few keystrokes. With this absence of deep reading, some conclude that an absence of deep thinking will coincide. We will risk becoming, “pancake people,” spread so thin that we can no longer think deeply about certain subjects. I disagree with Carr’s statement; I think that Google allows us to process information more efficiently. With the invention of the search engine, we have access to information that we may have never come across without it. Google allows the ability to process information more efficiently, which contributes to one’s critical thinking abilities. In today’s world a person needs to process information very quickly and resourcefully, and the internet aids in that aspect. Just as the inventions of writing, paper, and the printing press have shaped the way humans think in the past, the advent of the internet has completely changed the way we think and perform tasks. Our brains have adapted with every new development in the history of reading and writing, so one can only imagine what new ways we will learn to reason. The future is exciting, and change will always be on the brain.

Sullivan's Blog vs. Harris's Writing

In Harris’s book on writing, he describes the subject as a process of, “drawing on, commenting on, and adding to the works of others.” While to some this could be seen as plagiarism, he sees it as a chance to revisit the works of other intellectuals. He emphasizes using the writing techniques of others in order to become a better academic writer. His purpose of academic writing is to convey information in response to text, which he shows in five moves; coming to terms, forwarding, countering, taking an approach, and revising. In the coming to terms section, Harris gives a theory for reading. It states that in order to understand a text one needs to rewrite it. I agree with this statement because many texts that are from before our time are often very difficult to understand, but readings from our time are relatively easy to grasp. This is due to the fact that we know how to write in the same ways as authors of our time. In a sense, that our language is the same, and we can for the most part put together sentences in a similar way. Those who are able to write in Elizabethan English will be well equipped to tackle any Shakespearean play thrown their way. Sullivan’s view on blogging easily transfers over to Harris’s definition of writing. In a blog, many times a writer takes information gathered from other sources, such as news articles, and compiles it into their own opinion on the subject. From this point of view, one can easily see that blogging is considered writing in Harris’s definition.

Response to Web Habits

It only took a few quick glances at other students’ web habits to realize that my tendency to procrastinate is shared by the fellow freshman. Hardly anyone got on their computer to do just work and nothing else. Some did not even work on any school related issues at all. In fact; we all share much of the same interests in web pages for the most part. While most students have their own specific sites they enjoy visiting, almost everyone will visit one of the social networking sites to keep up with friends and make new ones.
The dominant web site that I found frequenting students’ web habits has to be Facebook. I know that it is my most visited site by far, nothing else even comes close. Other than that, the further sites visited can tell a reader a great deal about what the writer is like. One can see what the author finds humorous, music types, and even whether the person likes to stay up on celebrity gossip. I personally enjoy sports and music the most, but I do not mind reading the occasional news story just to shake things up.
In the end this exercise has taught me that I am not alone when I feel like I put everything off. We freshman do not lack motivation, we merely are still young at heart and want to converse with our friends rather than write that six page essay that’s due tomorrow. We have just left High School after four long years, and it’s not fair to abandon the friends we have shared so many moments with. As we mature, we will learn to put schoolwork first and let our friends wait on us to finish. We must accept that friends come and go, and no matter how hard you try to stop it, your high school pals will not always be with you through life.

My Web Habits

My web habits over the past few days have been very typical of a young college student. I have almost always put off all my productive work to the very last minute, and spent the majority of my time talking to my friends. If I am to succeed in college, I must learn to put my study work first. My friends will understand that I am busy with school. This exercise has revealed that a drastic change is needed in my internet habits, and I will begin working on it asap.

On Friday, September 4, I first checked my U of L email account for around five minutes. As soon as that was over, I moved to Facebook for around twenty-five minutes to talk with my friends. From there I went to Youtube to watch videos and listen to music for thirty minutes. I then went to my Blackboard account for around fifteen minutes, and downloaded some important documents for my bio class. With that completed I read some news articles on Yahoo for twenty minutes.

On Saturday, September 5, I started the day checking my various email accounts for around fifteen minutes. With that completed, I listened to some music on Youtube for ten minutes, and then my mind turned to sports. I was on ESPN's website checking football scores for around thirty minutes. With my sports fix over, I checked my Facebook site for about five minutes, and then skyped with a friend for ten minutes. My final move was to check some different news sites for twenty minutes.

2.) Response to Sullivan

Sullivan’s essay, “Why I Blog,” is an interesting take on the online community that has developed due to the creation of the web log. To him, blogging is an entire world away from the structured form of writing published in newspapers and magazines; there is no editing or final draft, there is just one draft of all the writer’s thoughts. Because of this, he sees blogging as the most personal form of writing out there. There is no editor to watch your back, if you screw up or say something wrong, it’s all on you. This is why I think Andrew Sullivan blogs, the personality that goes along with it.
A blog is like a log of all the thoughts and writings of a single author. For this reason a blog is a completely personal endeavor, which is why Andrew Sullivan enjoys keeping one. He likes that it is instantaneous, and thoughts are not planned out. Readers will see the first draft of the paper, instead of a final copy after multiple revisions. The writer is completely responsible for any mistakes; there is no editor to watch his back. He likes the criticism received and the praise when the audience enjoys his writing. The feedback is instant because there is no need to write a letter to an editor, readers simply add comments to tell how they feel. As he said in his essay, “The feedback is instant, personal, and brutal.”
I believe Andrew Sullivan’s take on blogs is an explanation of why they are so popular. Blogging is the most personal form of writing and has more of a voice than academic papers, as well as published writing. Writers can express emotions on a minute-by-minute basis, and publishing it involves just the click of a mouse. It is truly like the extreme sport in the writhing community due to all the risk involved. However, the thrill of the written word will always allure those in the writing community to the blog.

1.) Here Goes Nothing

This has been a week of firsts for me. There was the beginning of college, being away from home for longer than ever before, and now I’m on to my first blog. Life is very different here than back home. There are no parents, hardly any homework, and a load of responsibility the likes of which I have never before seen. It makes me feel like I am finally a full-fledged adult. While the experience has been enjoyable so far, I can tell that it will take a great deal of getting used to, not to mention some much improved time management skills, but these skills will be needed throughout my life so it’s better to get them sooner than later.
For my first blog I did not really find any difficulty creating it. In fact, the most surprising thing was the fact that it is so easy to do. I like that you can just write about anything you want in a blog and personalize the page so that it fits your personality. In this way it is a lot like Facebook and MySpace. I found no problems in creating it other than having to get a new Gmail account, but other than that it was completely straightforward and simple. It used to be that writing for me was a hated process, but as I mature I find that it is much more enjoyable than before, especially when I can write about something interesting. If I enjoy my topic then the words just pour out.
This week has been a very drastic change from the laid back years of high school. I feel that I am acclimating well, but I won’t know for sure until grades begin to pour in. My opinion on blogs has changed a lot with this assignment, and I may try reading some in the near future. I really thought this would be just a boring assignment, but it is engaging and really interests me. I am looking forward to writing more in the future.