Journal #7

Honestly Lassell's text caught be off guard a little bit. I mean my heart sank the way he chronologically went through the steps of accepting the loss of a brother. I think it really does a great job of just explaining how different and difficult it would be to ignore cultural stereotypes of homosexuality and be able to look past them and be there for your brother. I think this can relate to the show glee because the gay boy in the show has a similar problem with his dad and friends. They find it hard to relate to him because they don't know what it feels like to be judge everyday of their lives. I think this poem reeally made me think about whether I would be able to accept if one of my close friends or family members turned out to be homosexual or bi-sexual. I don't consider my self homophobic but I thin deep down inside it would be hard  just because of the feelings of gays deep inside me that have been instilled in me from the media and society itself.

Journal #6

        The "adopt the dog" ad seemed to me like the best to rhetoricaly anaylyze because it used logos, ethos, pathos all very well. The ad strategically tries to use the "guilt trip" of having an extreamely sad ad. This can be appiled to the pathos, which is apparent in how the sad ad makes people feel sad and guilty so they will donate. The ad does this with the use of sad pictures and music. The ad uses logos as well in how it presents that celebrities donating and says this suffering will stop if you "just pay 19 dollars convinces the audience that thats really cheap. The ethos involves the use of them showing a celebrity and making the audience try and compare themselves to celebrities. This is ultimately making them try and compete with someone. The HS commercial uses logos, ethos and pathos with the emotions and similicity of the donation to convince the audience viewing the ad to donate.

CESL Visit

         I met two students from CESL, both of whom are from China. They were both really cool and both had some interesting perspectives on writing. I think I realized after talking with them that writing is a tool that can be used in math, history or science. It can be used in so many subjects that even if you are trying to write in a language your not fluent, if you can organize your ideas and put them together you can write about anything.

Persona Text

               For my persona text I'm using a poem I wrote to one of my friends at the end of senior year. He had been kicked out of my school and was heading down the wrong path. Him and I were best friends and back in the day we used to write lyrics and make songs over instrumentals I would make. This song is sort of just a freestyle. I gave him the song when I saw him before my graduation. I censored some of the actual lyrics because some of the language I use could be seen as offensive but at the time of me writing it I felt it was necessary because that was a facet of hour friendship. This song to me is the most meaningful I've written because it's a lot more serious then the other stuff I've written.
               This piece doesn't really remind me of any texts we've read in class but it does have similar metaphors and its own unique language just like the other memoirs We've read does. The language I use reflects the same I used with him and is important in creating a sense of our friendship.

Journal #1

           When I was 16, my best friend at the time was Kyle Talson. We had been friends since the 2nd grade and did almost everything together. We were always harping on each other but we were never afraid to be blunt with each other. It was the first big party of the summer and we had both had gotten our cars. We decided to roll in his car because we didn't both want to drive because it was far from our houses. So we took off and planned to crash at the party because we didn't want to have to drive back. We thought it was going to be an awesome night.
       We got to the party and it was raging. I went off and did my own thing and told Kyle not to drive anywhere because he had been drinking. He said ok and I didn't worry about him because I knew he always made good decisions. Later on that night he came up to me and he asked if I could drive him to a Mcdonalds, because he said he was hungry. I was hanging out with some kids and didn't want to leave because I didnt feel like driving. He was kind of mad but just walked off. That moment is one I'll always remember. The next morning, I woke up and looked at my phone and noticed I had missed 8 phone calls. I freaked out because I thought my dad was looking for me. I called the number and it was Kyle's mom, she answered and told me Kyle had got into and accident last night and was at the ICU in the Hospital. I thought to myself how could he have drove I told him not to leave without me. I figured out that after I had told him I wouldn't drive him to food, he drove his car and got t-boned and was in intensive care. Kyle recovered but it took him 7 weeks in the hospital. We are still great friends but to this day I wonder if I had been a better friend and helped him out if this would never have happened. Since then I have always tried to be a good friend and look out for them.
         This was an interesting assignment, because I've never told this story through writing. I found it sort of hard though to write this because so much happened it was hard to write about it in only a few paragraphs. I liked writing about it because I don't usually think about it as detailed as I did.