advertisement idea

For my ad, I had an idea to do a commercial for cleaning products such as mops, dusters, vacuums, and other sort of things. But I would make these items more "manly" since cleaning commercials always seem to relate towards women. So this would be a more spoof type ad that is directed towards men and dads. I'll have camoflauge colored cleaning products, or things with flames or other "tough" designs. It'll have men smiling ear to ear acting like cleaning is the absolute best thing the world, just like the commercials show women acting. I'll tell you right now, no one smiles like that when they clean. But I guess it's some sort of weird persuasion deal to get people to buy their products.

Ad's these days...

After starting paying closer attention to the ad's and commercials I've seen so many times, they start to confuse and worry me more and more. The Dr. Pepper "not for women" ad still just blows my mind. I don't see at all how a pop that has 10 calories is classified as "not for women". What, it makes men feel more manly because it's technically not a diet soda? Like 10 calories is such a huge manly difference.
Victoria's Secret commercials really bug me too. The size of those women on their ad's are not normal size. They're sticks, and I have yet to see a Victoria's Secret model that doesn't look like that; I haven't seen a model that looks normal size. It's unrealistic and I personally feel like those ad's appeal to men more than women anyway.
I've noticed a lot of commericals tend to be sort of degrading to certain social classes, genders, and races in a way. Even if it's not obvious or intended, I just don't think people really think before they show these ad's.

Research Papers

I never had to do a ton of research papers throughout my high school career, but I did have a fair share. Most of my grade in 10th grade English depended on a research project we worked on throughout half of the class. I didn't mind it persay, but I didn't enjoy it either. I had trouble staying focused on the actual task of researching a topic. I remember my topic was on assisted suicide, like the case of Jack Kevorkian and things such as that. This topic deffinitely was'nt boring by any means, but sitting at a computer or looking up books and reading and reading and reading facts on the same subject bored me to death (no pun intended). Granted, it is a good way to gather a lot of information on a topic, but I think you have to be almost more than interested in the topic to actually enjoy the researching part of the process.

Diversity in Higher Education

According to Cantor, higher education still talks about race because they feel a need to create and preserve culture in the community. They also want to create leaders to be more socially aware. Personally, I think higher education focuses on race to encourage more people to come to their campus. By advertising how "diverse" and "cultural" their campus is, more people of other ethnicities will want to attend. I haven't seen too many activities or groups that really and truly support and encourage diversity. Sure, we talk about it in English class, but that's abouta s much as I've seen. I honestly feel like it's more of an advertising idea than a real issue that's being taken seriously at campuses. There definitely are alot of different cultures on campus, but I'm still unaware of any special programs encouraging diversity.

Diversity & Multiculturalism at WMU

Before even reading the WMU website for their standings on the diversity and multiculturalism here, I already knew that Western is a very diverse campus. Just walking around campus or being in a class you can see that. I always hear people speaking in different languages, and see people dressed in their particular cultural attire. By that alone, you can also see why Western is so proud of the diversity here, and why they do all they can to emphasize it and continue broadening their horizons. Even in their mission statement they reference the diversity that's here. They have special programs to make everyone feel as comfortable as possible, and to let others explore other cultures. You know they've got to be doing something right when you see all the diversity that is here.

Peer Review

I thought the peer review process was helpful overall. It's always good to be able to get feed back on your work, and the sheets asked specific questions which made you realize what you had or didn't have in your paper. Talking about the details helped because I saw what I did a good job of describing, and what I tried to describe but wasn't noticed. Reading my story out loud actually did make me realize some things I could do better, and some things that didn't sound quite right, or what else I could add. The downfall of peer review is that sometimes it's hard to get specific constructive criticism from peers, which makes it difficult to figure out how to really improve your paper. But getting feedback from both a peer and a professor seems like the best way to figure out how to get the most out of your paper.

Skill-Less?

One skill that I've never been able to really pick up on is cooking. I've always wished I could cook something more exciting than tacos or grilled cheese, and honestly half the time I somehow even mess up those simple things. I don't know exactly why I'm so awful at cooking, part of the reason is probably because I was never really taught. My mom never made me help her out in the kichen so I never acquired that skill. And I'm not good at teaching myself things, so trying to teach myself how to cook never worked. Hopefully now that I'm living on my own I'll slowly improve my cooking skills, since my parents aren't there anymore. But I do live with a girl that's going to culinary school, so I think I'll mostly leave the cooking up to her!