23 Final Blog Post Reflection

23

7/19/13

Based on our instructions to not try and appease the teacher with our final post, I have to assume there is typically some negative reaction to this assignment.  I was actually very pleased with the blogging assignment.  When we first started this semester we were asked to write about how we perceived writing, ourselves as writers, and the role this class would have in our development as writers.  I wrote that I am somewhat familiar with the writing process, as I have a roommate who is an aspiring writer. I stated my hope was that the class would help me write more consistently.  Well, there isn't a much better assignment to accomplish that, than being asked to write at least three hundred words a day for three weeks.  I was not excited to do the writing each day.  Some days I struggled to get myself to sit down and complete the daily writing.  I sometimes would find myself watching the word counter at the bottom of the screen, just waiting to cross the required threshold.  Other days I absolutely enjoyed it.  I didn't use the blogging for any of the class assignments, instead I tried to just create a new entry each day.  Sometimes this was a simple free write, other times it was a story or memory from my past.  I also tried to share some things that I am very interested in, like comedians, video games, and music.  I enjoyed the comments that my peers and instructor left on my various posts.   I was able to complete the assignment in less than fifteen minutes each day, so I definitely learned that I am capable of generating a paragraph or two of text in not very much time.  I intend to keep the practice up, although I will probably change the blog itself as this one I intended to only use for school.  I feel like I try and be too formal in my writing, even if the topic isn't that serious.  I wrote one blog post about the warm weather and my dislike for it.  I would say this post is not one of the better ones that I wrote, but I enjoyed writing it because I felt very casual during the process.  I find myself trying to justify or rationalize what I am writing as I am writing it.  This cheats the writing process a bit, because I am not just letting things come out and instead am trying to be a step or two ahead of my own words.  I think part of this was because this blog was for school, so I was aware constantly of the audience and the impact of what I was writing could have on my academic success.  I hope to work on writing more informally when the blog is not being graded or observed by an instructor.  I don’t mean to imply that our teacher was strict on what we wrote, in fact there were almost no rules outside of it being accomplished daily and a minimum word requirement.  All in all I think the assignment was a terrific one that helped me incorporate writing into my day to day routine.  

22

22
7/18/13

I used to play a video game called Dark Age of Camelot.  It was, and I guess still is, an MMORPG.  This game came out in 2002, which is a bit before the MMO everybody is familiar with in World of Warcraft or WoW.  Dark Age of Camelot was significantly more hardcore than WoW.  What I mean by that is that the time investment required to achieve anything in the game was significantly larger than it would be in WoW.  This might sound shocking to somebody who has not played these type of games, but is familiar with the time sink that a game like WoW can bring.  WoW actually changed the entire genre, by moving away from incredibly long and often absurd paths to high level content, which is a huge part of WoW’s success.  Dark Age of Camelot was my first MMO experience.  I spent many nights with my roommates playing into the sunrise.  Dark Age of Camelot had three playable factions a player could choose to align with.  This led for much more dynamic competitive play (Player vs Player or PvP) because there was always a chance a third faction would show up to a conflict throwing a wrench in the works for the other two factions.  I spent a large amount of time playing Dark Age of Camelot, and I sometimes miss it.  I have tried to play a few times in recent years though, and it just doesn’t grab me the same way.  I still remember it fondly however.  I recently went to twitch.tv which allows players to stream their live game play and anybody can log in to observe.  I actually found a stream of some guys playing DAoC which was aweome to see.  It hasn’t really aged well over the years, but I thought it was awesome that such an old game was still fun for somebody.

21

21

7/17/13

Personal responsibility is a difficult topic.  On the one hand, a person should be accountable for their choices, but on the other hand, the human mind is so malleable that it could be very challenging for a person to overcome or change a behavior pattern.  My mom for example, does not like peas.  As a child she was forced to eat peas when they were served for dinner.  If she did not eat them, which she did not, she was forced to remain at the dinner table until she either finished her peas or it was bed time.  If she remained at the table without eating the peas until bed time, she could then go to bed and not eat the peas.  This has led to her as an adult having a huge aversion to peas.  She has even admitted that she probably would like peas that weren’t canned, as that’s what she was given as a kid, but that she is unwilling to try them because of her negative association with eating the peas.  I think her stance is very understandable, as the notion of eating peas is now tied to a negative memory.  Obviously whether or not she eats peas is of no consequence to anybody but herself.  My point with that example is that she was subjected as a kid to an unfair treatment which has shaped her mind to operate differently than most other people in regards to eating peas.  I don’t think she is to blame for not wanting to eat them decades later.  If, though, her peas perspective was instead a perspective on some socially unacceptable activity, she would have to be accountable for her actions.  I do believe in personal responsibility, and I do believe in accountability, but I think that a person’s motivations can be infinitely more complex than an observer might ever imagine, which can make determining personal responsibility very challenging.

20

20
7/16/13

I am done with the heat of summer.  I know I have already written one blog post about weather, but this isn’t about the variety of Springfield weather, or which seasons I like best.  The problem with my whining is that it’s not August yet.  The worst of the heat is still to come.  I don’t always go outside, but when I do, I like to not appear as if I have just jumped in a swimming pool from sweat.  I will also cry when winter comes, and it gets unbearably cold.  I probably would like California weather, but so does every other living person, therefore making California uninhabitable from due to overpopulation.  I have considered moving north to avoid the heat, but then the winter is immensely worse, so I don’t know that it’s a smart tradeoff.  Someday I would like to own two homes, and be a snowbird.  One to avoid heat and one to avoid cold would be the game plan.  I wonder how far north one has to go to avoid miserable summers?  Iowa still gets hot in the summer, but I don’t know about Minnesota or anything on the border of Canada.  I guess Canada is always an option too, or Alaska.  That all just seems very far removed.  Maybe mankind can develop weather controlling technology someday, and I can utilize that.  Come to me sweet, sweet autumn, and cool me with your breezes.  Autumn never lasts long enough though, it always has summer bleeding over into it, and winter trying to steal the show before autumn’s end is supposed to come.  That hasn’t actually been true the last couple of years, we have had incredibly mild winters, which has been pleasant.  I am looking for a mild summer now, one in which we don’t cross the eighty degree mark, and can blissfully enjoy the outdoors, without perspiration.

19

19
7/15/13

Both of my parents are from Iowa.  I still have two uncles that live in Iowa, one from each side of the family.  My mom’s brother that lives there owns a winery.  He grows grapes on his land and makes wine out of them.  Many people scoff at the idea of wine made in Iowa, but it was a dream of his.  My uncle worked at a factory job until he could retire, then spent all of his retirement on building his vineyard and all the wine manufacturing equipment.  He has been running it for several years now.  To try and promote his wine he shows new release movies via projector onto the side of a giant building he has on his land.  He serves food and of course wine along with the movie.  He also promotes at various vendor fairs and the local supermarkets.  I have had the wine several times, and while I am not a wine connoisseur, I think it’s pretty good stuff.  I am not a huge drinker, but I drink socially, and wine is one of my favorites.  It’s pretty impressive that my uncle was able to go for his dream of owning the vineyard, flying in the face of doubt and mockery.  He is an incredibly calm person also.  I remember when I was probably about eight years old, I was visiting him with my mom, and he was working on something around the house.  He asked me to toss him a hammer that was nearby, so I did.  Except that I tossed the hammer overhand instead of underhand, and hit him directly in the forehead.  He was not injured luckily, but I felt awful right away.  I wasn’t trying to hurt him or even be funny, I just “tossed” him the hammer.  Instead of being upset though, he just calmly told me to always throw it underhanded if somebody asked for a hammer tossing in the future.  

18

18
7/14/13

My mom’s mom was an immigrant from Denmark.  She came over to the US with her family when she was a little girl, sometime in the early 30’s.  She had a very hard childhood which she spoke of very rarely.  In her adult life she was very involved, becoming the leader of several social networking type groups, as well as being involved with the local schools.  She was an impressive seamstress, a terrific gardener, a great cook, and many other things.  When I was about 3 years old, she sewed completely from scratch a Big Bird doll that was about the same size as me.  I, unfortunately, decided to play ninja turtles with the doll, and proceeded to “play fight” with it all the time.  This ultimately led to the bird’s demise, as I eventually beat the stuffing out of it.  At the time I didn’t really understand how cool the doll was.  Looking back I wish I would have picked some other toy to abuse, because the Big Bird doll was actually really cool.  My mom’s dad was a marine in World War II, and became a carpenter after he left the service.  He spent the rest of his working life building houses for people.  He was also very into the stock market.  Every night he would watch the Nightly Business News which was (and probably still is) a program on PBS that covered the news relating to business from that day.  When my grandparents would come to visit he would want to know what time the show aired here so he wouldn’t miss it. Even though I was too young to know what any of it was about, I enjoyed sitting with him and watching the news.  We would also watch sports together, mainly football and basketball.  My grandparents are now deceased, but they are missed, and appreciated now more than when I was a kid.  

17

17
7/13/13

Springfield, MO has the most varied weather in the country of any city according to the city’s Wikipedia page which cites a 2007 Forbes article.  I have lived here in Springfield for my entire life and can certainly believe that statistic.  I am a fan of spring and fall, with no real preference of one over the other.  I don’t like the extreme temperatures that winter and summer bring.  In summer, the heat becomes unbearable, which I am told is compounded by the humidity levels.  I have never visited a place like Arizona, where I understand it is more comfortable, despite it being higher temperatures, due to the lack of humidity.  I don’t like extreme cold either, but more than the cold of winter, I don’t like ice.  I am fine with snow, actually I love watching it snow, and love things being covered in snow, as long as I don’t have to drive in it or anything.  Spring usually has thunderstorms, which are one of my favorite things.  It is so relaxing to me to hear the rain and thunder.   I love to watch the lightning as well.  Fall brings beautiful colors from the trees which never gets old.  There is a smell in the air during fall, which I can’t truly identify, other than to say it smells like fall.  The temperatures in spring and fall are much more favorable as well, not too hot and not too cold.  I guess living in the city with the most varied weather gives me a pretty good sampling of the different extremes.  I would like to travel and experience other climates as well.  The south has never really appealed to me though, as I understand it’s even more muggy, which is a big turnoff. I would like to experience the “dry heat” of a desert area though, so I can finally understand what people mean.