Proposal for next project

Lauren Linz
Mr. Griffin
10 November 2008
Loss of Past Memories
Description of Project:
For my project, I will be doing a power point on Alzheimer’s disease. I became extremely interested in this disease after my grandma’s sister became diagnosed with it and the disease then caught my eye again after taking Anatomy and Physiology. I was even able to see the disease first hand when I worked in my dad’s office and patients would come in for a regular physical who were at the early stage of the disease. I have decided for this project that I would like to do a power point on the disease so I can become even more familiar with the disease. Since I have a little bit of a background on the disease as well as first hand connections with the disease, I feel that a report on Alzheimer’s will help not only my family but also myself and others be more familiar with it. Throughout my power point, I would like to incorporate background information on the disease (who first discovered it and how long it has been around for), symptoms of the disease, diagnosis, treatments, emotional and physical factors on the family and patient, as well any other information or pictures that could help the audience better understand the disease.
Genre:
This power point will take the form of an informational side on the disease which would cause it to be a non-fictional piece. Facts and statists will make up the majority of the power point however, I may include a couple of interviews either from doctors that have seen the disease, family members of a patient who has the disease, or the patient themselves. Interviewing the patient may be hard to do considering many are unable to have a full out conversation when they are in the later stages of the disease. The power point will take a more serious voice since the information will not be persuasive but rather factual.
Intended Audience:
The intended audience for this power point will be either students who are in an anatomy class who are learning about the disease as well as families who have an elderly person in their family who they feel is overly forgetful with their everyday activities. Many times people attribute loss of memory to old age, however, sometimes they overlook the idea of Alzheimer’s and the disease is not caught until it is in a late stage. It is good for families to be familiar with this disease because many patients are in denial of their loss of memory and actions need to be taken early on in the disease. This power point can also be intended towards families who have recently had one of their loved ones diagnosed with the disease so they can become more familiar with the disease and develop an understanding of Alzheimer’s. With having a better understand of the disease as well as the varying treatments they have to offer, a family may feel less overwhelmed when different stages arise throughout Alzheimer’s.
Purpose:
Since my most recent paper was on health care costs, Alzheimer’s disease was brought up a lot throughout my research. It began to interest me and I felt that it would be a good follow up to my paper. Also, with having a major in Zoology, I enjoy researching and writing papers on scientific matters because I will have to deal with diseases and other health situations for my occupation for the rest of my life. I always like to incorporate science in my research because I feel like I learn the most from these topics and they are interesting to me. I also understand that the disease is continuing to arise more frequently among the elderly population and without having a cure for it yet, it can be an extremely devastating disease to not only the patient but also the family. The disease is also carried genetically which can be frightening to have to deal with after watching a loved one suffer through it for so many years. I want to become more informed on the disease because I could someday have the disease since it is in my genetics which is a scary thought to me.

When I first starting reading this story, it actually made me sad to think about. But then I realized that I do the same thing as other people. When I’m walking alone at night, I always hold things close to my body and secured just in case anything would happen. I also stereotype certain people with either doing drugs, looking like a friendly person, a creepy person, etc. Although I know all of society does this and it comes naturally, it makes me feel horrible when I realized that some people are treated different. Especially because of their skin color. As I have gotten older and been around many different types of people (from different cultures and backgrounds), it makes me respect everyone for who they are. No one is perfect in the world and we know nothing about their life by just seeing them walk by. I can remember when I was younger and sitting on the subway in New York City, that an older black woman had white splotches of skin all over her arms. I remember sitting their staring at her arms thinking that something horrible happened to her or maybe she was half and half…yeah I know…I was dumb…but as I was sitting there, I was stereotyping the lady as a somewhat creepy old lady. It wasn’t until my step mom realized that I was staring that a snap out of thinking about who the lady was as a person. My step mom knew she had a skin disorder called Vitiligoes which I did a report on in anatomy 13 years later that we started talking to the women. She was actually an extremely nice woman and explained to me about her disease so I could better understand it. She was even understanding and nonjudgmental of me for staring at her arms…of course she knew I was early since I was sitting right next to her. From that day forward…I think I was about 5 or 6 at the time that I learned to always treat everyone with respect and to not judge people just based off looks. Although we live in a free country and everyone has the same rights, it is not always that way. People are judged and discriminated against everyday based off of their skin color, beliefs, sexual orientation, and many other things. It is just sad that our world has still not gotten over all the little things. I wish there was something we could do about it but I know that it would be an almost impossible situation to stop. All of us are guilty of judging people who we have never even met just based off of what they look like or what they wear. I hope that as time goes on, people will be more understanding of each other and expect everyone for who they are.

Rhetoric Topic

For my rhetorical analysis, I will be analyzing the store Abercrombie and Fitch. Although I occasionally shop there and have friends and relatives that work there, I feel that Abercrombie uses a lot of persuasion to guide there costumers to buy their product. They almost remind me of Starbucks in the sense that most people look at the two company names as a well known upper class kind of store. After having two friends do a psychology project on stereotypes and have Abercrombie as a key store in their research, it made me realize more of what kind of store Abercrombie is and what type of people they try to persuade to buy their products. With the shirtless boys and cologne filling the store, no wonder so many girls want to wear Abercrombie on their shirts as they walk around each day.

Logical Fallacy

When trying to come up with an idea of a logical fallacy, I decided to use an example that interested me. While in cross country season I never use to wear a watch while running. However, one day I decided to wear someone’s watch and did really well during that race although I never once looked down at the time on the watch. From that day forward I wore the same pink watch during every race and started the time as the gun was shot. It was almost like I thought the watch was good luck and made me run faster. This example would fall under the faulty causation fallacy because I correlated the watch with running a faster time when in reality, it made no difference. It was more like I was superstitious and had to wear that watch in order to do well. Running is pretty much an entire mental game and in order to do well, you have to think positive. It amazes me to look back on this situation and realize that I convinced myself that there was a correlation between running and wearing my watch when in actuality, a watch cannot make a person run faster. The only real thing it can do is pace a person during a race and help them run a faster time however, I never looked at the time during any race even though I started it when the gun went off.

Residence Halls

After reading “Residence Halls”, it gave me a better understanding of what rhetoric is. McCormick’s explanation was a lot easier to understand then reading the facts and key points about what the word means. After reading her story, I felt like she did a good job of explaining what it was. Although I may not agree with everything she said or be able to relate to some of the story, I feel her overall outlook and explanation was relatively strong. McCormick’s comments on what actually occurs in the dorm gives a vivid picture of what a “real life” dorm experience is like and doesn’t try to make the dorm look better or worse then what it really is. McCormick was able to pick out a lot of truth to the brochure and explain the good parts to dorms but she was also able to give good reasoning for why some of the brochure was rather fake. The only thing that I question about her story is why it seemed that the brochure would be targeted towards the underclassman. Since all underclassman are required to live on campus now for their first 2 years, I questioned why she continued to bring up the idea of underclassmen having the choice of living on campus or not. The only reason I could see her bringing up this whole fact was for underclassman who were unsure if they would stay on campus or commute from home. However, it seems like the majority of the population that goes here live a pretty far distance away which would make it impossible for them to commute from home. After reading her explanation of the brochure, I was able to get a clear picture of what it looked like and said. Although I never read or saw the brochure, it seems to me that it is fairly fake when it comes to the information that is provided and it would have done no good for me reading it considering I have no choice if I lived on campus or not. Other than being an RA, it seems like no upperclassman live on campus and the brochures so called persuasion really wouldn’t work considering almost everyone moves off campus once they have the chance. Air conditioning, a kitchen, a bigger place to live, and a place that they can call their “own” seems to be a better ideal home for most college students. As a first year student leaving in a dorm, I have to say that it isn’t as bad as I thought it would be. Maybe it’s because I got lucky and have a sweet roommate and RA but as long as you come in with an open mind, living in a dorm really isn’t that bad. However I do have to agree with McCormick’s comment on the food and how it seems like they have a lot to offer, but really after eating 2 meals a day with the same food, it gets boring after about 3 weeks. The only other thing to do if you don’t eat at a main dining hall is to spend a crap load of money in an al a cart place which isn’t the best thing to do when you already have a lot of money to pay back for school alone.

Place...first look of Yager Stadium and what i saw

Drops of sweat ran down the side of my exhausted face as I came upon the entrance to the home of excitement. As I looked around this place that made the north side of campus what it is today, I caught myself staring at a mural of familiar faces. These faces with big beady eyes all seemed to represent a famous coach but one particular face stuck out to me. The University of Michigan’s well known coach, Bo Schembechler, who passed away in November of 2006, filled the entire left hang corner of the mural. Seeing his face up there not only meant a lot to me since I grew up a Michigan fan but also seemed to be a big part of the Miami University. It was not till later that I discovered that Bo actually played football for Miami. As my eyes wandered away from the mural, two enormous black gates with capital m’s on them opened up a new world of life. As I walked closer to the gates, Yager Stadium was imprinted on just about everything in the stadium. The ticket booths, which are tan cement boxes, filled the left hand corner while the large entrance of the stadium was surrounded by much smaller entrances. As I began to walk through the gates, I stopped in the middle of the opening to sit down and observe the surrounding area. Surrounding this massive stadium is lines of green bushy trees which all seem to look the same as well as other sporting facilities. The architecture of the stadium all seemed to match the modern style of the rest of the University and the flooring of the stadium was lined with what looked like black asphalt with large amounts of rocks throughout it. Shade did not seem to cover any square inch of the stadium especially in the stands. Each row of the stands was covered with sun light which made it hard to recognize the red and white seating around it. Some of the seating on the reserved side was even painted a washed out black color with random looking red seats throughout it. Right next to the two story glass windowed announcement box, five interchangeable white and red flags lined the top portion in a straight line. As my eyes wandered through the stands, it made me feel like I was going to a Cleveland Browns football game. The entrance ways to the stands which come from a lower level where the bathrooms and concession stands are, made me feel as if I left high school sports and came to a professional athletic school. My gaze of the stadium came to an end as blaring music from the announcement box came over the loud speakers with “Hale to the Victor’s”. As the heat seemed to tire me out, I slowly began walking out of the stadium gates until I noticed two large plaques at either side of the entrance. Both were embroidered with names of old head coaches who seemed in have an impact on Miami. Terry Hoeppner who coach at Miami from 1999-2004 and then went to coach at Indiana University from 2005-2006, took up a large portion of the left side entrance. Randy Walker , on the other hand, who played at Miami from 1972-1975 and coached at Miami from 1990-1998, took up the right hand side. After observing each of these coaches’ plaques, I turned my back from Yager Stadium to head back to the life outside of this entertaining place.

What I think about English/Writing

When I hear the words “writing assignment”, I cringe inside my body. For some reason, I have never thought of myself as a good writer. I always seem to get good grades on papers in school but I also had the help of my parents to proof read my work. Writing is always something that I have struggled at and never look forward to doing. I usually have tons of ideas for papers and information to write about but after I put it all together, it either does not make sense or has a lot of unnecessary “junk” words. After writing numerous college essays, senior research papers, and scholarship prompts, my confidence as a writer has increased but I still have a little part in me that will always be timid to write.
Throughout my years of taking English, I have never had a bad experience with my writing or a teacher. I think my intimidation of writing came when I compared myself to my older brother who never really needed any help from my parents with his papers and could write a paper in 3 times the pace I could. Although English has never been my favorite subject, I enjoy reading many different novels and short exerts in class. If I had more free time on my hands, I would probably read Jodi Picoults’ collection of stories. I love reading novels that I can either relate to or ones that drawl in my attention. Even though English is not my best or favorite subject, I have always thought that it was a worthwhile class. Sometimes I got annoyed with reading poetry and works of Shakespeare (mainly because it was hard to interpret), but I truly think that English is something that I will always use in my life. No matter what major I go into, reading and writing will always be used on a regular basis.
Now that college is here and I no longer have the ability for my parents or friends to check my work, I hope that I can gain more confidence in my writing and learn to become a better writer. Hopefully these next two semesters of English will help me better my writing ability and interpretation of various works.