Skip to main content

Posts

A Self-Reflection on a Reflection on Navigation

I remembered from the Civic Artifact Speech there were certain areas I wanted to cover and practice for this talk, one of which was eye-contact. The activity in class where I had to read out the lyrics of Queen's Bohemian Rhapsody definitely helped with focusing where my eyes went. For the content of my speech, I went over all the facts and times in my head in order until I felt I could recall all the information comfortably. I would look over my essay and add interesting tid-bits into my essay and incorporate those into my talk. I wanted to avoid the "valley of awkwardness" I mentioned in a previous blog post and I think I actually did overcome it. I managed to go through all my information rather smoothly and cover all of my important points within five and a half minutes. I would benefit more for future talks if I practiced more in front of live audiences and not just repeated the talk in my head. I think in hindsight I should have also practiced my talk with my v...
Recent posts

Where Do You Recycle A Juice Box?

copied   Let's imagine you're back in elementary school, and you just finished a box of juice. Your homeroom teacher tells you to throw it out, but you, being a good gold-star-getting kid, decide to recycle your juice box (because recycling saves the environment). You go to the recycling bins and browse the labels: paper, plastic, metal. You move toward the paper bin, since the juice box is mostly paper, right? But no! It has plastic too! You then move towards the plastic bin. But wait! Isn't that shiny bit that seals the opening of the juice box metal? Where do you put it? Where does it go?? When did recycling get so hard??? It used to be so simple, back in the good ol' days. You got a bin and you just put stuff in it, no sorting required. Usually, it was pretty self-explanatory what went where, but with the rise of "extreme" recycling, it's critical you put your trash EXACTLY in the right place, or else you might kill a forest or cause ...

From Work Space to Home Space: A Shift in Visual Technology

Technology has advanced extremely in these past 20 years - creation of the internet, touchscreens, robot AI, and live video feeds. Visuals have gained higher resolution, have become crisper, cleaner, faster, slimmer. This technology, however, did not originally start off in the hands of the public, but rather the work places of highly trained professionals. Now, everyone has advanced technology at their finger tips. Video calls have existed since the 1850's, mostly used for business and telecommunications. The public didn't get a hold of the technology until a decade later, in the 1860's. However, it didn't gain popularity until a decade after that. The Picturephone was what it was called, back in the day, and that was the first commercially sold product that supported video calls. It was pretty much a TV with a camera hooked up to a phone. Yes. It was boxy. Since then, however, video calls have upgraded from box with boxes to smartphones with cameras, with more expen...

Don't Be Infamous When Speeching

It's pretty much a requirement that all people of importance or leadership position have good public speaking skills. Anyone can write a good speech on paper, but it's the delivery that sells it. A person who knows how to deliver themselves can make any argument or proposition sound amazing. That is why there are only few who have truly great speeches - ones that stick to your brain and recorded in history. I was born on the same day Pearl Harbor happened (December 7th, for those who need to brush up on American History), so I'm biased toward a certain speech that was delivered on the day after in 1941. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt gave his Pearl Harbor Address to Congress with a voice full of conviction and determination.  He opens his address with probably his most iconic line: "Yesterday, Dec. 7, 1941 - a date which will live in infamy - the United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked by naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan"...

The Power of Friendship (and Timing)!

You probably have one or two classmates that you usually talk to before lecture. You chat about things like last night's homework, or that exam coming up, or that weird thing you overheard the other day. You're friendly to them, but they aren't your "friend". Not a lot of thought is put into the conversations you make with other people, but with friends and family, words mean more and timing does too. Picture Provided by flickr Though kairos is normally a term used to describe the timing in rhetorical situations like speeches, it actually can be applied to more than just essays or declarations. The importance of timing in a relationship can mean a lot - saying the right thing when a friend is upset, knowing when to break tension when people are fighting, sitting down to have a cup of tea when things aren't going right. In the case of friends - the only people besides for family who are close and precious to you - timing can save or break a relationshi...

Be American, Buy American!

Original post for this picture here It is a popular slogan thrown around by politicians and companies alike, "Buy American". The above poster is decades old but the concept holds true till today, that it is the American's duty to purchase USA-made goods to support the economy and give jobs to fellow Americans.  In the speech for this artifact, several points to be brought up will include the origin of "buy American", the American perspective from both the consumer and producer's point of view, common myths about free trade and outsourcing, and the reality of "buying American". The civic duty this poster wants you to do is support the country's economy by paying for American-made goods. It is assumed that purchasing USA will help pay for jobs, if not create, more jobs for Americans, and show disapproval for countries using sweatshops to create cheaper items by not buying imported products. However, there are a lot of misconce...