Midterm Assignments

Dear Friend,

            So, in English 1102 we write…a lot. And I know some people hate the idea of writing so much and so often, but honestly you learn more than you know. I’ve always been a writer; it’s always come so naturally. But every time I take a new class on writing, I learn something more. In English this semester, I’ve learn that it’s natural to mess up and mold your writing into something better. I’ve learned that academic writing doesn’t always have to sound like a robot. I’ve learned that your writing should reflect some of who you are. I’ve seen that within my writing, someone else will connect to it or understand something more meaningful than just the words. I always wanted to be a writer that had a connection and a meaning. I wanted to somehow change someone’s life. I have seen that, through this class, I can do that with my writing. My words are not just words, but are something more. English 1102 has taught me that.

Sincerely,

Taylor

What is it like to be you? Paper one in English 1102. I wrote this paper in hopes that it would just be good enough to do the job. In hopes that my grade would be an A and I could move on. English is my strongest class, so I never have had to worry about my writing. Once I started writing and realized what I was doing, I knew this was no ordinary paper. I had pages to write, things to say, people to influence, or maybe just to explain. I have a life like no other, because it’s no other’s life. I needed to tell these people about the girl that I am and the reasons for that. I needed the audience to be affected and to enjoy my story. I wanted them to soak up the hardships, revel in the happiness, and stay seated at the edge of their chair wondering what was next. I worked on my ability to flow my story, since instead of just being a paper, this was a story. I knew that sometimes I can jump around, so I wanted to make sure there was some kind of flow in the work. While making sure I was flowing properly, I had to make sure it was all real and true too. I had to think back in time and remember who I was and who I did not want to be. I had to look forward and think I want to be and who I will be. I needed to make sure my life was on track, before sharing those intimate details. Writing my life was not difficult. I found ease in writing, but I just needed to remember everything. Without memory, there would be nothing to write about. Throughout the process, I wrote, re-wrote, and wrote again many passages. I wanted to make sure it flowed just right. I worked on my grammar. I tried to keep my paper exciting. I only thought of exciting things to put in. I wanted to make it fun to read. I tried writing about times in my life when I was sad and didn’t know what to do. I don’t like to rely on people, or to talk about it with others really often, so writing it to whoever wants to read it seemed nearly impossible. I managed to conquer it though! I hope that a reader reads my paper and sees me, sees that I’m actually a cool person. I hope that a reader sees something they can connect to and realizes that if anyone ever needed me, I’d be the first one to help. I want a reader to read the paper, and think that they want to be like me (personality wise) and want to be a strong person. I hope the reader reads my paper, and takes away a sense of strength and assurance in themselves because they found someone who went through something like that too. I want to make my final revision on some of the flowing and editing, maybe adding in one or two paragraphs.

Peace, Butter, & Jelly was a great book to read. I can say that I learned some things from David’s life, even if I don’t agree with him. I got to experience a book, and then a person from a different ideal and a different set of thinking. I know that on campus there are many of those, but it becomes different once you have read the writing of someone and then converse with them about that writing.

Haikus are so hard

I am no good at these things

Way too difficult

Little Miss Know-It-All (Assignment 4)

By doing a blog, everyone else gets to see the true, real thoughts on my mind. You get to see what I really believe, what I do not. You get to experience who I am. But, what do I get to learn about myself? That’s a much more difficult question to answer. Who am I in my writing? I’ve learned that I write about what I care about, and why I care about it. I learned that I write thinking about what will run through someone else’s mind after reading it. I learned that my writing has my heart inside it. Shouldn’t that happen in all my writing? In high school, my writing had no meaning. It had to truth. It was facts on facts on facts. Who wants to read that? It gets boring. I want to know my writer. I want to feel their opinion. I want to read their feelings, their heart.

            Through this process, I’ve learned more than just who I am in my writing. I’ve learned about soda and caffeine, and how it kills you slowly. I learned about how unhealthy I was before I stopped. I learned about how to help those who need to stop. I learned that just because I think I know something, does not mean that I really know it. I probably don’t even know half of it. That’s why you are supposed to do research. I mean, truthfully, no one wants to look ignorant. Ignorance is not bliss. The research almost humbles me. To read scholarly accounts on something that I didn’t know, it’s almost as if I can teach myself through the writers writing. I mean, no one likes a know-it-all.

            I feel like this process as taught me so much about who I am, and what I can do with my writing. I’ve become a different person in the writing sense. It has changed the ideas that I have about my academics. It has caused me to work harder on certain papers, and really have a thirst for knowledge and becoming the person I am meant to be (in all aspects).

Effects of Soda and Caffeine (Assignment 3)

I will be writing to those people that are like me out there. Those who struggle with getting over the fact that the oh so yummy sodas are not good for you. Those people whose life revolves around when they get to drink their next dosage of caffeine. I am writing to those who feel as if without the caffeine, they can’t live. I am writing to those who are highly dehydrated, and know that they are but don’t do anything about it because the thought of drinking water just makes them want to sleep. Those people who say “water doesn’t taste good”.

            My topic is timely because of the amount of obesity in America. Other countries do not drink soda like we do, and oddly enough, they are not fat like Americans are. I want people to see why we need the water, and what it does to change our lives. It affects us because it’s our lives, it’s our children, and it’s our bodies. I don’t think people see that the amount of sodas our country drinks affect our entire lives, and those coming after us. I care about this topic because I was one of those people. I was on my way to being fat and unhealthy. I was already extremely unhealthy, but when I put down the can and picked up the water bottle something changed inside me. Yes, the addiction still fights to get through, but it’s not going to beat me. I won’t give in when I know that it’s going to save not only my life, but my future children’s lives.

I was taught to just be able to answer the question without the personal investment, because all that matters is my ability to give a proper answer. My professors now care, because now I am an adult. I am old enough to be considered a part of the community. If I am the next president, senator, actress, singer, etc., I need to be able to have a proper influence on the generation below me. If I can’t, then our country is shot to hell.

I see some viewpoints. Some people argue that small dosages of caffeine are not a problem, and this may be true, but with caffeine comes the addiction and the sugar. Sugar brings fat, and addiction brings higher dosages more often and more struggles. I learned that people actually see caffeine as a good thing to take in small dosages. I have never heard anything “good” about caffeine when it comes to health, until now. I’ve learned that there is so much more to caffeine than anyone expected or really even knows.

Sleeping much? (Assignment Two)

The most interesting source that I’ve found is called Clinical and physiological correlates of caffeine and caffeine metabolites in primary insomnia. It is an article, and it is written by five different scientists. It seems like it is a long and boring article, but it intrigues me because I have major insomnia also. It is a study completed to see what effects caffeine has on someone’s sleeping pattern. Different dosages were tested on people with different food patterns. Some could sleep, while others were wide awake and found it difficult to fall asleep. Many different studies have been done on the effects of caffeine on sleep, and all seem to show that the caffeine used has different effects according to your sleeping pattern as well as how much caffeine intake you have during each day.

I haven’t changed my topic. I’m studying the effects of caffeine on someone’s body. I believe what I have done is narrow it down. It’s still the effects, just on certain parts of the body, mainly sleeping and appetite. I’m also interested in how long it takes your body to have a full recovery from the damage that sodas cause, or if it is even possible that there is a recovery. Sodas can trick your body to feel empty and make you want to eat more, which is unhealthy along with the amount of sugar already taken in from the soda. Most of the challenges I am facing are from my own disbelief. I have drank sodas all my life without a care in the world, and now that I am working on stopping and studying the effects on your body, I do not want to believe that my body could be that messed up from the sodas. I am afraid to admit that I may have truly damaged something key in my body just because I want to drink something.

One Harmful Substance (Assignment One)

I chose to do my research assignment on the effects of soda on your body. I used to drink about 6 sodas a day, at least. My boyfriend decided that I was too unhealthy and that he wanted to help me stop. He set a rule, I can only have soda on Sunday. Through out the week, I can only drink water or something healthy. It has been really hard, but I am doing it. Obviously, sodas are not good and it seems like a "duh" kind of a subject. But there's a lot more to it than just the caffeine and sugar. I think this is a good thing to study now because so many people don't realize what the sodas do to them and will drink them constantly and cause so many problems to their bodies. I think that people should really care about this study because it could cost them their lives in the long run. I expect to really discover what soda has done to my body and what I have stopped it from getting worse. I have looked up some stuff on caffeine and how addictive it is, since I struggle with an addiction to caffeine. Caffeine is definitely a horrible "drug", but some people seem to think that it isn't as bad as it really is. I think this is from the idea that soda isn't a problem to drink. I just want to look more into sodas in general, not just the caffeine, but everything. The stories that I've heard about and if they are true, and also how badly they do mess up your body.