REFLECTION:
For my Rhetoric and Civic Life course (which I took in the spring semester of 2011), I was required to create two blogs. For one blog, I was allowed to choose any topic of interest (naturally, I chose to write about the Yankees) and write one blog per week about this topic; for another, I had to write about how rhetoric is prevalent in society. Here are the links for my Passion Blog (the former), and my Rhetoric and Civic Life Blog (the latter):
Not only was this assignment enjoyable, it also taught me a valuable lesson: writing can be easy and stress-less when you find interesting topics to write about. As a perfectionist, when I write, I agonize over each and every individual sentence. For me, this used to always make writing a thankless job. I figured that my Yankee blog would be interesting and easy, because I enjoy following the Yankees. I also believed that the rhetoric blog would be torture, as it seemed to be a tedious and uninteresting subject. To my utter bewilderment, I found that I enjoyed writing the rhetoric blogs more than I enjoyed writing the Yankee blogs. I attribute this to the fact that I approached the rhetoric blog differently than I normally would have: I found topics that were interesting (to me) and I wrote about them with unbridled enthusiasm. Therefore, this assignment helped make writing far more enjoyable, as I learned to write about things that I appreciated.
I have chosen to display three blogs that I felt were compelling enough to feature (two are from the rhetoric blog and one is from the Yankee blog). I have done some revision to these blogs (in an attempt to make them more appealing), and will reflect on the revisions and the overall content of the pieces:
Rhetoric and Civic Life Blog:
Groundhog Day, and the Many Speeches of a Misanthrope
Here, I analyzed the rhetoric of my favorite movie, Groundhog Day. Specifically, I discussed Phil Connor's (the protagonist) numerous speeches. As a weatherman stuck in a time-loop, Phil repeats the same speech countless times. These speeches serve as a treasure trove for rhetorical analysis due to the fact that although the content is the same in each speech, Phil alters each speech considerably as he spends more time in the time-loop. I love this blog in particular because not only do I believe that this movie has the most profound message ever seen in cinema, I also love how Connor's changing disposition affects the mood and rhetoric of his speech.
There was no urgency to do much revision for this speech: I felt that it was good enough already. One of the few changes I made was that I added another paragraph because one of Connor's key speeches was missing in my analysis and I felt like I needed to add it (paragraph four was added).
The Themes and Motifs of "Batman Begins" and the Evolution of Bruce Wayne
In this blog, I analyzed the motifs of another excellent movie, Batman Begins. I felt compelled to right about this movie simply due to the fact that the director, Chris Nolan, added much needed depth and realism to a stale concept (a superhero movie) and produced a masterpiece that accurately portrays the duality of the human mind. In essence, we all have a little batman in our hearts: we aspire to help our peers and contain our inner demons. What I find most interesting about this movie is that Nolan depicts Bruce Wayne (Batman) as being somewhat mentally unstable but shows that he manages to keep himself in check and prevent himself from becoming the criminals he longs to defeat (I elaborate on this in the blog).
Most of the revisions on this blog were simple grammatical ones. One significant revision, however, was that I added the last sentence (and subsequent video), "Finally, in the ending scene, Nolan portrays just how righteous Bruce Wayne really is:" because I felt that without this closing statement, the blog ended to abruptly.
A Closer Look at the Yankee Universe:
My 2011 Yankees Projected Statistics
This was a relatively simple blog, as I merely predicted the 2011 Yankees' future seasonal statistics. Although simple, I had a lot of fun guessing how well each player will do next year. As a huge Yankee fan, I probably was a little generous with these statistics (I had A.J. Burnett full bouncing back from his dreadful 2010 campaign, which seems unlikely). I'm looking forward to season's end, where I can find out how well my predictions came out. This is why I love sports and baseball in particular: the stats are so profound and meticulous, and because of this, it seems like I'm actually part of the team when I track the statistics on a daily basis. My favorite prediction is that I had Alex Rodriquez having a monster season.
Most of the revisions added to this blog were just that I added some additional sentences to the explanations of my statistics. For example, in the paragraph elaborating on the Yankees' bullpen, I added the sentences that explained how Joe Girardi's managing positively affected the bullpen in recent years.
