Category: Uncategorized (Page 2 of 2)

1. With Gay suggesting that joy and pain are tangled with one another I fully agree with. My brain is able to wrap around it and realize that to have sorrow you must have felt a type of connection to it that brought about overwhelming emotions such as joy. Otherwise, there would be no real reason to have such an heightened emotion as sorrow. A human connection for example can bring forth joy and sorrow. My cousin Will for example, growing up my cousin Will was my favorite cousin he always was a silly person and always brought a smile to my face he also lived two hours away so when his side of the family came down it was my most favorite time of the year, I remember I would always look forward to seeing him. Background about him he was from my mom’s side of the family and my mom’s side wasn’t always my favorite side to visit but whenever Will’s family my Uncle Mike and Aunt Kathy and Cousin Will and Aj were my favorite. Will was like my older brother I did have an older brother that’s why I can’t say like the one I never had. Will and I also looked like siblings’ little fact about my family I’m actually the only kid in my family that’s black. When I was little, I noticed this, and I would often say I was adopted which is why I thought Will was my brother. In 7th grade February 10th I had just finished my basketball game I think we had won as I left I had seen my coach give my mom and sister a hug as we got into the car my mom gave me the McDonalds that they had left and gotten before they picked me up from basketball. I sat in the back and started to eat my food once we got off the highway my mom angled the dash mirror to look at me. My mom does this alot when she wants to talk with me when I’m in the back but I didn’t know what she wanted to talk about this time she begins talking about how we need to go to my aunts later since it was my cousin Josies birthday. Then she mentions how my Uncle Mike had called I thought this meant they were coming down that I would be seeing them and hopefully Will I hadnt seen him in two years since he was busy with work. This is when my mom tells me that Uncle Mike had called saying Will got into an accident and he died. I felt a drop water started coming from my sisters’ eyes. Then we got to this stop that we had always gone through it was these four ways stop that was on a hill. My sister climbed to the back and gave me a hug.
2. When Gay says we “lay our swords down” I interpret it as we lay our defense down since that’s what swords are for to defend yourself and if putting them down that’s because you don’t feel the need to protect yourself. “Invite sorrow in” If joy and sorrow are entangled then sorrow is joy so your letting joy in as you let sorrow in. I do agree because I read it as you need to let you defenses down and let sorrow in to be able to have joy and also when you have joy in context of relationship you have to let your defense down to be able to form a connection and to let the person in.
3. When I’m skating or longboarding and I finally catch speed that’s controllable and have music in my ear, When I have a really nice poke Bowl, My little brother smiling cause he wants to show me something, When I got a giant duck after doing club Bingo that I was fighting on yik yak for, When there yum yum sauce at the dining hall and I’m able to have fried rice, When I get to meet someone new and it seems like we have a nice conversation, when I got club member of the month as a first year it meant a lot because sometimes they get overlooked, When I accomplish something to help the events I help set up, When I learn my show choir routines and fix steps that I would mess up, When I would be onstage dancing for show choir, when I do little performances for my friends, When I see people I Like ( campus crushes) and friends.
4. My items are kind of little things that don’t seem like much too people but mean a bit for me. Its also a different range of things I like doing different things and will have different attractions at points. I engage with the world over looking at the little things an how each little thing interacts.
5. Gay’s essay interacts with Smith’s by agreeing how sorrow and joy do go in hand its like a supportive argument to Smith’s essay. Gay’s essay helps a freshly graduated high school kid actually understand the world a little more. We young adults do know some stuff and are intelligent however we sometimes forget basic meaning of things and still we don’t always all have a lot of life experiences, so those little things sometimes get overshadow and we forget the true meaning. College is a time to let a lot of joy in, but we need to remember that it will bring us pain are freshman friends might not be friends all the way through and there will be pain from that but it’s a part of life.

Yet some readers may challenge my view by insisting that social media does take away connection within a friendship, and to a point I do agree with them. Social media does take away an aspect of our friendship, the physical connection one retains in a friendship. Dunbar best points out how keeping “face to face friendships strong [is from] the nature of shared experiences” (Konnikova 4).  Having those shared experiences are able to help amplify a friendship and social media isn’t able to create the same experience of laughing together compared to watching a funny video separately instead. For example, moving into college and meeting your roommate on social media. It can be good to try and connect and find common interests to see how the room may function. I have friends who have had the experience where they thought the pairing would work out well but when they actually met at move in things fell apart. Social media does hold up a barrier since “on the internet, you can pull the plug and walk away,” (Konnikova 7) you don’t have to be your true authentic self even though we say we try to put out ourselves we all internally put up a front. 

However, there are exceptions to everything especially when it comes to connections, not everybody puts up as much of a front on social media. We could call out some politicians or other infamous figures for examples. But Chen brings up a better example through Megan’s friendship with David Abitbol which started over opposing views through social media, but their relationship was still respectful and friendly over social media even with their different opinions. When Megan finally was able to meet David “[Their] in-person interaction resembles [their] twitter interactions,” (Chen 18). There are times where social media interactions are still able to transfer over when meeting face-to- face for some it may even be able to amplify the connections. 

In addition to initiating friendships, social media can help keep an already formed relationship in contact in times of separation. We have all been at the point where we are away from home or on vacation away from our friends. Whenever we go away we all turn to social media to keep people informed on our life status whether it be from a small text while gone or scrolling through Snapchat and seeing what your friends have been doing. I had switched schools and because of time conflicts I wouldn’t be able to see my close friends anymore so I would use social media like Snapchat and Instagram to talk to my friends. Some of my deepest relationships we use social media to communicate like my friend Emily. Emily and I use Snapchat to communicate a lot especially since we have busy schedules. The small interactions we get from our little pictures or texts keeps us connected since we are still able to know that there is stuff going on in each other’s lives. Emily for me in relation to the Dunbar number would be one of my core five, however since being in college she in terms of emotionally still one of my core five but because of our distance we are unable to interact as much as we use to. Konnikova points out when she writes from Dunbar “What Facebook does and why it’s been so successful in so many ways is it allows you to keep track of people who would otherwise effectively disappear,” (4). Konnikova allows me to question how Emily and I relationship would be affected if we didn’t have social media to keep us in contact with each other. Because of the fact we are in different states now if we didn’t have a source to communicate, we would evidently end up falling out of touch with each other shifting Emily’s spot within the Dunbar number eventually landing in the outer rings because of the disconnection. However, because of social media Emily and I are still able to have an emotional connection still that were both able to maintain hence we do lose the physical connection that our friendship was also developed on.

According to Lamott’s writing the first draft is all about the product. Since as you go through writing the first draft you get out all the ideas you have in your head out and able to look through and take apart ideas that you like and don’t like. Now that I partake in Peer review, I think the product of my first draft is important because its able to be messy and not all put together as long as it lines up together. Writing is a hard enough task as it is even Lamott states that in her writing explaining how the constant inner critic makes you stress over the process. It helps me consider my writing a little more because of the fact I have always struggled writing since the first draft is intended to be messy, I have less stress because afterwards I’ll be able to go back through and see what ideas are fitting within the writing and what is not making sense or is too much.

My first college peer review experience I felt had gone pretty well. I felt like I received really helpful feedback from my person, and I felt like I was able to help my person review their work which felt nice. Most of my feedback was pretty positive and consistent so it was able to help me actually figure out what I need to work on in my essay. I had comments mentioning how my thesis kind of contradict what I was initially writing which I didn’t notice because I understood what I wanted to say but my reader doesn’t know what I mean to say. My positive comments were more related to me connecting the reading to personal experience or being able to relate the two reading with each other. Which helped me feel a bit more confident in my writing since it seemed like it was nice to be reading. It was helpful to read another person’s paper because it helped me see different layouts of writing and different ways to incorporate text to text connections. I struggle with finding my own set up so having another person’s work to get a layout is helpful. The biggest challenged I faced was finding what to critique some of the issues were easy to point out but finding things to improve on were a little difficult especially as it got closer towards the end. To make this a bit easier for next time I don’t really have any way I could improve it to much other than trying to think of other ways I can go back and maybe having a more structured form of reviewing their work.

Before

In my opinion to maintain a meaningful friendship both parties have to first care for each other in a way that makes them want to still be connected. They also have to have an understanding of each other. Relating back to Konnikovas work on how endorphins from touch also affects a friendship. Most of my friendships uphold components of being physical with like 90 percent of my friendships having some physical aspect whether it’s small as holding pinky to big as hugs.

After

In my opinion to cultivate a meaningful friendship both parties must first care for each other through some sort of connection. For example, my friend Emily and I connect through are roles within our family. We sort of the glue for the family helps keep things run smoothly and can help ease the tension in the house at times. We are able to connect off that and then as we continue to nurture and grow with one another we form new bonds and connections over other things such as our gymnastic instructor job. In Konnikova work she also mentions how endorphins from touch also impacts us quoting Dunbar on how we ” Underestimate how important touch is” when we connect with people in a physical way it allows for us to have a better understanding. Most of my friendships uphold components of being physical with like 90 percent of my friendships having some physical aspect whether it’s small as holding pinky to big as hugs.

Specific improvements I made in the paragraph was including more personal examples to give the reader something to go off, so they have an idea of what I as the author has a view on my own friendship. I also included a more specific quote from the article compared to my first draft where I didn’t add a quote and just reference the essay in word where there was no back up. From adding my revisions, its lengthened my paragraph by like half its size. I feel as including the quotes and example it is able to keep the reader more engaged since their able to connect with what I’m saying.

1. Adrian Chen was a writer for The New Yorker who wrote about Internet culture and technology. Based off his expertise in Internet culture he has a close understanding of the structure of how social media effects people’s social constructs. The article is mainly centered around Phelps-Roper use of social media for Westboro church and how it affected her views of what she herself believed in for her whole life. If Chen didn’t understand the effects technology has on an individual the article would seem misrepresented if it was written for someone that was more focused in religion the article would probably have been more focused on the religion aspect of Westboro.
2. In Chen’s essay Unfollow, He advocates for Megan Phelp-Roper’s transformation from her obedient Westboro church to her redeemed receptive self. Megan grew up having bible verses fed to her “obedience [being] one of the most important values…instilled in [her]” (Chen 7) with this virtue it’s no wonder how Phelp-Roper ended up being the main social media spokesperson to spread Westboro message. However, as she spent more time on social media, she soon began being able to actually resonate with others and acknowledged their views. We see this shift after Brittany Murphy from “Clueless” had passed the Church was almost delighted by this passing and as Megan goes online, she see the mournful comments having ” the contrast between the grief on Twitter and the buoyant mood in the basement” (Chen 16) was unsettling for Megan to witness she slowly begun to switch her view.
3. What initially encouraged Megan to use social media as her outsource as Westboro’s spokesperson was the initial factor that she was able ” to talk to large numbers of people without filter of a journalist” (Chen 3). Megan was able to put out this negative energy on the internet where a large scale of people will look and it’s almost like a fish and bait trap. People tend to react back which is what would happen they see her posts which is like the bait when the commenter responds they taken the bait and start the chain of comments. But as Megan begins to use social media more and starts having new encounters with others such as David Abitbol, Graham Huges, and C.G. though first meet ups may have been rough when started as each interaction went on each pair would have a sort of connection. David Abitbol was able to show Megan a kill them with kindness approach of handling the media contributing to Megan switch of gentler tone on twitter.
4. The conversations that had the most impact with Megan were when the two would both listen to each other views and go back and forth listening to each other views, instead of insulting back and forth and actually acknowledge each other’s thoughts. Her story teaches readers that when in confrontation with hate one doesn’t always have to turn to hate in return instead turn it around on the person. When people say something hateful, they are looking for a negative response back they aren’t expecting one to come back and say something completely opposite as they said. While I understand the impulse to say something negative back, my own view is that when you flip what the person expects it makes them either take a second to rethink on what they originally said, or they’ll continue hating without care. When they take the path to actually reconsider what they say and take the time to listen to others helps one start a redemption path. Phelps-Roper path of redemption is a great example she was able to actually listen to others it may have taken time for her to feel an agreement with others’ views but that’s part of redemption it takes time to rethink your actions and turn your back to what you had thought was either right or the way to go.
5. If I were to meet Phelps-Roper today I would ask her first about her dream about C.G I find it interesting that she had a dream about him and she wasn’t able to see his face. I would want to know if what she imagined was accurate. I wonder that because of the science behind dreams you aren’t able to see faces because you can’t create new faces in your head, so I thought it was intriguing that she dreamt of him and included that he didn’t have his face. I would also want to ask her about if she ever got to see her mom it made me feel sad when she said she loops videos her mom’s featured in to hear her voice. I would also want to hear more about how she left home the journey it was for that and the emotional anguish. When they mentioned her, younger brother playing the hymn it reminded me of my little brother and it pained me when I left him back at home, so I wonder how it felt for her.

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