Rogerian Argumentative Essay

Communities are very delicate. One tiny little minute detail could set the whole thing off. It could be anything from people being bad people to a death of some sort. Communities aren't all that unstable; it take a combination of things and major events like the ones listed before to change anything. Huge problems lead to unstable and unhealthy communities. Characteristics of unhealthy communities include; teen pregnancy rates in Latin communities, obesity rates and decision making skills, all of these things can be caused by violence and if efforts were focused on improving how to handle violence, like planned pregnancies, weight loss programs, and proper decision making skills, then unhealthy communities could be improved by becoming less violent.

One very likely reason for unhealthy communities is teen pregnancy rates. Teen pregnancies are characteristics of unhealthy communities because typically children cost a lot of money and teenagers do not have that type of money to spend on themselves or even another human being. So this leads to things like the kids entering the child care system and being sent to foster homes or poverty for the family that decides to keep the child. Teen pregnancy rates around the United States have improved. It varies differently for each type of community. Different ethnicity's have different levels of improvement. Latin communities have shown more susceptibility to becoming more likely to becoming pregnant at a younger age. In one study done, it was shown that Latin communities that had known gang involvement or family and friends with known gang involvement are more likely to become pregnant before they enter adulthood (Miller). This is in part due to the violence. To fix this, it would be best to have options readily available to the women of these communities. Offering services and resources to help them. By doing this, it will lead to less unplanned pregnancies which in turn will lead to less violence.

Another characteristics of an unhealthy community is obesity rates. The reason this a problem is because being overweight at young ages leads to a lot of problems later on in life. One study shows that children that grew up in violent households with physical and mental violence upon them are more likely to be overweight and stay overweight through their lives (Jun). Violence once again caused this unhealthy characteristic of communities. A way to fix this would be to have the government offer more services to help out with getting children out of bad households like that. Or offering services like sponsored after school programs that offer education on what are good foods to eat and what the kids can do to exercise. By doing this, it will make the children more educated and feel like they are important and will feel more accepted.

A third characteristics of an unhealthy community is how people, specifically kids, make decisions. The decision making process for kids is different than the decision making process for adults. Kids can be influenced by a lot of things. Particularly very influential people like big name athletes and political figures. In a study, it was shown that children were more likely to make the risk taking decision than the non-risk taking decision (Hansen). The decision they would be making would be one that is dangerous and not safe. Children are more likely to make those decisions because that want to be cool or impress their friends. The decisions also include thrill seeking decisions. Children will make those because they again want to be cool or impress their friends. These dangerous decision typically lead to violence and not very good situations. The decision to make violent situations needs to be prevented because this is how kids die and live bad lives with gang involvement and criminal records. There are ways to fix this problem though. That includes having education in schools about what is right and wrong and having resources for the kids to want to make the right choices.

The best option to fix violent unhealthy communities it to work on children's decision making skills. If this is done, the children will not make such violent decisions that could get them killed or in jail. This would lead to a all around better and more healthy community.

Works Cited

Hansen, Luke O., et al. “You Get Caught Up: Youth Decision-Making and Violence.” The Journal of Primary Prevention, vol. 35, no. 1, Feb. 2014, pp. 21-31. EBSCOhost.

Jun, Hee-Jin, et al. “Growing up in a Domestic Violence Environment: Relationship with Developmental Trajectories of Body Mass Index during Adolescence into Young Adulthood.” Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health  (1979-), no. 7, 2012, pp. 629. EBSCOhost. 

Miller, E, et al. “Exposure to Partner, Family, and Community Violence: Gang-Affiliated Latina Women and Risk of Unintended Pregnancy.” Journal of Urban Health,vol. 89, no. 1, Feb. 2012, pp. 74-86. EBSCOhost. 

APO

I've recently became a brother of the fraternity Alpha Phi Omega. I'm really excited to become a member because it will help me grow as an individual and get ready for the real world. I really enjoy doing community service and helping other people prosper.

I enjoy being apart of communities where we all genuinely care about other people's well being and we all work together to help others out. My favorite organization that I've helped out so far is probably The Opp Shop. If you don't know what that is, it is part of Project 701. We have a huge collection of clothes that we lend out to people who are in need of something to wear for a class presentation or an interview for something. My second favorite organization is probably Back Pack Buddies. I really like this organization because we have one very similar in my hometown called Jacob's Ladder. I really just enjoy helping other people.

This fraternity is a really good fit for me. Plus, it looks really good on graduate school and job applications. I'm super excited to grow with all the people I meet by being in this fraternity. I hope it shows me more than what is just right in front of my face. I hope it opens my eyes to the bigger picture and see what people really need in this world.

Week 13 Response

1. Can You Feel The Love Tonight by Elton John
    When I was growing up, before both of my younger brothers were born, probably when I was about 3 or 4, all I wanted to watch before I went to bed was The Lion King. It was my favorite movie at the time. I never got tired of it; I'm sure my parents did though. When I get tired of listening to any type of music that I am currently listening to I turn on Disney music. It's a nice change of pace. I really like this song because Elton John is just a classic. I've actually come to the conclusion in the last couple of years that this will be the song for my first dance with my future husband. Shhhh.. He doesn't know that yet.

2. The Sound by The 1975
    I really enjoy this song because the lyrics are just very poetic. Part of the Lyrics are:


"Well I know when you're around cause I know the sound
I know the sound, of your heart"


I know that's so cheesy, but I think it's so romantic at the same time and I am such a hopeless romantic at heart.


3. Bennie And The Jets by Elton John
    I really like Bennie And The Jets just because it is so catchy and Elton John's voice is just so velvety smooth. Elton John will forever be one of my favorite artists around.


4. Car Radio by Twenty One Pilots
    Honestly, I really just like anything Twenty One Pilots. They are close to being one of my favorite bands of all time. Play any song by them when I'm around and I probably know ever single word to it.


5. Hard For by Kevin Gates
    This song is probably slightly inappropriate to play around anyone besides adults; but I throughtly enjoy Kevin Gates and all of his music. There's more to this song than just nasty dirty bad stuff though. There is actually substance to it. It basically talks about how he loves a girl so much that he no longer is attracted to anyone else. Which is all a girl can really ask for.

6. Grillz by Nelly
    This song is just a classic in my opinion. You can never go wrong with a little Nelly. My team has really addopted this song as ours. During our strength and conditioning class we started our morning by listening to it and tried to end our morning by listening to it. It was kind of like a bonding thing.

7. Love On The Weekend by John Mayer
    Again, I am a hopeless romantic and I probably always will be. This song is great for people who like romance and stuff. Plus, John Mayer's voice is like butter on pancakes drizzled with syrup. Nothing better than that.

8. Turning Out by AJR
    If I had to pick one song that describes growing up and finding love, this would be it. It is also jsut a very good song.

9. No Type by Rae Sremmurd
    This song is a great warm up/pump up song. It really gets me going whenever we listen to it before games. This past season we were listening to it and then our coach walked in right as we all were all singing this one explicit part.

10. If It Means A Lot To You by A Day To Remember
     The first time I heard this song I fell in love and am still in love with it to this day. A Day To Remember is a close second to my favorite band. This is definitely my favorite song by them. It makes me very happy and is just a great song.  

Week 12 Response

In the video, there is a lot going on. At first, it is just the young girl and the older gentlemen. The girl starts to play music on her phone, it is a stereotypical song that a girl like her would listen to. The gentlemen gets annoyed and starts playing music on his phone, it is classical music. Then a business looking lady, not much older than the girl. What happens next is that three more people join in the elevator and they are all also playing music from their phones. These phones are also old phones. What happens next is that a guy come into the elevator with a big boombox. Everyone stops their music and puts their phones away. The guy with the boombox puts a tape in it and hits play. Nothing comes out and he pulls up headphones and puts them in his ears. Everyone looks around sheepishly.

The author's purpose of the video is to identify that people only really care about themselves. As in, the people on the elevator do not care what everyone else wants to listen to they only want to do what they want to do. In this case it was listening to what type of music they liked. This inference is correct because at the end of the video it shows how everyone notices how the one guy puts in headphones and then the very first girl gives him a head nod of appreciation and recognition almost. Which shows that the girl understands, almost as if she has learnt a lesson.

I believe the audience is supposed to be everyday people. I believe this because all the people in the video are everyday people just trying to go about there day. One way this video can teach something about community is how they all came to a conclusion of what to do amicably and they did not fight or argue about it. Another thing the viewer could learn about community is that it takes a leader to figure out the right thing to do. In this case the leader was the black man who used headphones instead of playing his big boom box out loud. A third thing you can learn about community from this video is that when you all work together, everyone shutting off their music, good things can happen, the actual elevator music turning on.

DCWS 2016

This past year was my first year playing collegiate soccer. I really had a blast. The girls on the team are now some of my closest friends and I would do anything for every single one of them. I've never been on a soccer team that has as good of team chemistry as we do. Yes, we are girls. Yes, we can be petty sometimes. But the thing is, we get over it. We are truly a real team and have connections on and off the field like no other.

As most people know, we did not have a very good record this year. I think we only won like 2 games. This sounds really bad but please let me put this in perspective for you. We had 17 freshmen and only 3 returners. Talk about inexperience at the college level. At the beginning of the season, we had 10 freshmen and 1 junior in the starting line up. Also, realize that NONE of us have ever played together. This means that we were basically a whole new team and very young. The very good teams that we would play in our conference, like Hanover and Rose-Hulman, had pretty much all seniors and juniors in their starting line up. I'm not making excuses but the odds were definitely stacked against us.

I really would not trade my freshmen year soccer season for anything. We are definitely all improving now during the off season. At the beginning of the semester we had our strength and conditioning class. Now, we are into our non-traditional season with training session 3 times a week in the morning from 7am-9am. I actually enjoy it because I feel like I have accomplished something with my day. We also are playing in a 7v7 tournament on April 22nd at Heidelberg. We also are hosting our own 3v3 tournament the day after and that is open to everyone! So, if you something to do on that Sunday, make a team and come out and play! The link is below:

http://www.dcwomenssoccercamps.com/3v3-tournament.cfm

Week 11 Response

Dear High School Senior,

The first difference that I am going to talk about in The Transition to College Writing is "College courses are not a direct continuations of high school instructions." You would think this one would be obvious but it really isn't. To me, this basically means that there are going to be some blank spots in your education and it's up to you, or not up to you, to figure those things out. I suggest to try as hard as you can to fill in the blanks; expand your mind and don't be afraid to ask questions. 

The second one that I'm going to tell you about from the book is "While high school teachers are usually generalists, college teachers are specialists." This difference basically means that your professor at one point was in your shoes and decided they wanted to know all they could about this topic; just like you. It is probably my favorite one because once you find what you really want to do with your life and you can have conversations about that type of stuff with someone who is already educated in that topic. It's one of the best things because the discussions you can have will be intriguing and interesting to you.

One difference that I have noticed is that you do not have as much academic freedom as you think. Sometimes to pass a class, your opinion doesn't matter and it is wrong. Even though it is your OPINION. To pass, your opinion has to become the professors opinion and you have to believe it is absolutely true. 

Another difference that I have noticed about college is that you have more freedom in the time you do stuff. Kind of the opposite of the first difference I noticed. If you don't wanna go to class, you don't have to. Just because you don't have to though doesn't mean you should do that. Also, having all this free time leads to procrastination and that is never good. So, I suggest using your time wisely and not procrastinating.

In preparing for college, you should try to not come up with these illusions and myths. It's basically lying to yourself and lying to yourself is not good. This is because you get your hopes up for one thing and then another thing happens and you get disappointed. Don't disappoint yourself and please follow my advice. 

Sincerely,

Madi Bowman

The Great British Baking Show

The Great British Baking Show (TGBBS) is one of my new favorites on Netflix. If you are bored on a Sunday afternoon and want something to watch I suggest this show. There are a ton of other great shows on Netflix, but I still recommend this one.


TGBBS is about 12-15 bakers who compete for the final title of star baker. They make all types of stuff from pastries to bread to biscuits. At the end of the week after the three baking competition they pick a weekly star baker and then they send someone home if they came in last.  The three competitions consists of a creation of their own, a technical challenge where they have to rely on pretty much all skill and the the showstopper challenge which is where they make something like a big wedding cake or another thing like that. It's very interesting if you are in to baking even the slightest bit. I'm only on season 1 but I definitely intend to watch the other two seasons also. It's really good and intriguing.