Hoodies Vs. Sweaters

Fashion is as important in today's society as it has ever been. Most people care about what they wear and how they look on a daily basis no matter what season it is. In the summer girls may want to go buy the newest and prettiest sundress and a guy could possibly want that new designer t-shirt. When it begins to get cold out you are forced to switch around your wardrobe. Depending on what type of person you are you will start to wear either a hoodie sweatshirt or a sweater. These two pieces of clothing may seem similar but really they are not the same at all.

Hoodie: This form of a sweatshirt serves you to keep you warm when it starts to get cold out. When it begins to get cold out in Happy Valley you will see all different types of hoodies being warn by many different students. Hoodies are very practical for a few different reasons. Hoodies obviously have a hood, but also have a string to adjust the tightness of your hood. Personally I get annoyed at times when a sweatshirt does not have a hood. When it is raining or even windy out I find myself urning for a hood to keep my head warm and keep the rain off my head. Also, hoodies almost always have a large frontal pocket. This pocket can serve to either hold something as any pocket would but also you can keep your hands inside to keep them warm. Someone who wears a hoodie may not care about fashion quite as much as someone who would wear a a sweater

Sweater: A sweater serves the same basic purpose as a hoodie sweatshirt does, and that is to keep you warm. Although that is true there are many differences between these two forms of sweatshirts. Sweaters don't have those functional factors that hoodies do. Although sweaters keep you warm when it gets cold out, sweaters don't have hoods, they don't have pockets and overall they are just not as useful as hoodies are. Sweaters have an aspect to them that raise themselves above the hoodie and that is that they are more fashionable. You would never wear a hoodie out to a fancy dinner, but that is not at all the case with a nice wool sweater. The type of person that would wear a hoodie my be considered more "preppy" or upperclass. I am personally not the type of person that would a sweater on a daily basis, but I do choose to wear hoodies nearly every chilly day. I would really only wear a sweater for something like a fancy dinner or if it were the holidays.

Establishing Merit and Criteria: Blackberry

1.For my critical review I have decided to review a specific line of products. I will be looking into the pros and cons of this line of smart phones. The blackberry merits evaluation for a few reasons. The popularity of this cell phone has been off the charts for more than half a decade. Personally, I have been surrounded by "the crackberry" for my entire teenage life. I would guess that about three fourths of everyone in my high school owned a blackberry last year. There are several qualities to the blackberry that make it very appealing to a wide range of consumers. One of these qualities is the email software that the blackberry possesses. Professionals such as lawyers or business men are attracted to this phone for this reason. Blackberry comes out with a new model nearly every year. They continue to strive for a newer and better product in order to continue to compete with other smart phones such as the iphone and the android. The blackberry is definitely a revolutionary devise but there are several negative qualities to this phone. As a blackberry owner myself I find myself frustrated with glitching and freezing nearly everyday. Because of these negative qualities you can consider the blackberrys controversial. This unique smartphone is both popular, revolutionary and controversial and for these reasons it merits evaluation.

2.The blackberry falls under the category of a cellphone and even more specifically a smart phone. In today's society the wellbeing of your handy dandy cell phone is very valuable. Compared to other smart phones such as the iphone or android, blackberrys are not quite as expensive. Still, with the addition of the monthly fee to have internet on your phone makes it relatively expensive. There are many phones on the market that could be compared to the blackberry. The line of android smart phones are a new popular alternative but the new king of the smartphone world is the iphone. Every single piece of criteria that makes a cell phone better and more advanced has been mastered by apple in the iphone. Blackberrys are completely outmatched by all the advanced qualities that the new iphone 4s possesses.

3. a)Messaging: Texting is becoming a more popular mode of communication in cellphones than actually speaking. The messaging software is where the blackberry beats out the iphone. The famous bbm is what draws many consumers to buying blackberry. Blackberry messaging puts texting into a quicker and more accessible format. The fact that you can only bbm with other people that have blackberrys makes people want to buy the phone if they have friends that have it.

b)Battery Life: The battery life in a blackberry is worse than most. I find myself needing to charge my phone once overnight and then again during the day. If you do not properly close your applications, they continue to run and kill you battery.

c)Apps: Cool apps are necessity in smart phones today. Of the three main smart phones, the blackberry, iphone and droid the blackberry has by far the worst apps. There are less apps to choose from and the and the ones that they do have don't seem to function as well as their rival cell phones.

d)Easiness to use: I find that the layout of the blackberry is somewhat confusing. Its like there are a bunch of file cabinets on the front of your phone. Also I find myself frustrated with a frozen blackberry. In order to fix this issue you must restart your phone. When you take out the battery of most cellphones they go back on in a few seconds but that is not the case with the blackberry. It can take up to five minutes for a blackberry to reboot.

e)Durable: I have only had a blackberry for a few months and so far I have not had any issues with durableness but that is not the case with everyone. I have a friend who has gone through more than ten blackberrys. I find that if you keep your case on and keep it away from water you shouldn't have any issues with your blackberry breaking.

Blog and Better Than Ever

I'm going to honest, when English 15 first began and I found out that we were going to have to create our own blog I was a little intimidated. I had never created my own blog before and for that matter I had never really blogged at all before. That made it somewhat difficult to figure out exactly how I wanted my blog to look. I attempted to design my blog so that it was as easy as possible for the reader to look at. That is why I use the classic font of times new roman for all of my blogs. I also use black font with a light background for ultimate reading pleasure. When reading an extensive blog, such as the blogs for our class you don't want the reader to struggle through just the visual aspect of your blog. When I originally designed my blog I didn't put too much effort or thought into how I wanted it to look but now knowing the aspects of what makes a good blog I don't think I would change much about my blog.

When deciding what I wanted to name my blog I wanted a title that each writer can relate to. When beginning a new writing assignment you are always presented with a rhetorical situation. That is how I try to approach each of my own writing assignments. We are all presented with an issue and as best as we can, we have to explain this issue to our intended audience. When writing these blogs I try to use a conversational tone to attempt to relate to the reader as best as possible. If the reader feels as if they understand who I am and can relate to what I am writing about there is a better chance that they trust and appreciate my writing.

Although my blog is approachable for the reader and easy to read in general there were still some aspects I wanted to improve on. I felt as if my blog was a little amateur in appearence and that is why I made some improvements. I changed the overall layout and appearance of my blog in order to seem more advanced and professional. One blog that I have enjoyed for a long time and has inspired my blogging as a whole is the consistent and entertaining yankee bloghttp://yankees.lhblogs.com/. Also the overall layout and design of Facebook I think is a perfect example of good web design.

#1 Party School: PSU

For this blog entry we had to listen to a broadcast entitled #1 Party School and give our reaction to it. This interactive broadcast puts the listener in the shoes of a person on an average night in one of the biggest party schools in the nation, Penn State University. Penn State year in and year out is always at the top of the list of the biggest party schools in the nation. In 2008 according to the Princeton Review we were not just one of the biggest party schools, we were the number one party school of every single college in the entire United States. The purpose of this broadcast was to investigate the meaning of this title and the exact reasons why we have captured it. The five minutes or so of the broadcast is a conversation between two Penn State students sitting on their off-campus house porch on a friday night listening and watching the number one party school pass on by. In the span of a half hour the two students see several alcoholic involved incidents. They observe things such as a group of girls trying pee on their front lawn and guys walking around with an uprooted stop sign. Are these really the things that give is this very prestigious title. I really would hope that aspects such as a great football team or the best frat parties would have led us to optioning this title but that is not the case. In the words of Graham Spanier "You know the reason we're the number one party school?...its because the students vote on it...its not like someone came in and did an assessment." Many people, especially students, I don't think would view Penn State being the number one party school as an issue. I believe that much of Penn State's prosperity has to do with having the reputation of being one of the most fun schools to go to in the country. There are several aspects that go into the Princeton Review's decision of what college is the number one party school. 120,000 students across the country are asked three simple questions. How big is the influence of beer,liquor, marijuana and other drugs at your university? How big is frat life at your University? How much do you study on an average day? Since I'm only a freshman I am still only beginning to understand to what extent Penn State compares to other colleges for each one of these questions. The two people who made this broadcast do a very good job at getting sounds bites of a wide range of people at Penn State. They tend to focus in on the people who are representing PSU at the biggest party school in the nation. They interview several intoxicating students who speak freely about how they feel about Penn State and if they think we deserve to be considered the number one party school. Although the student body takes pride in this title I think that the school in general has tried to crack down on what makes us one of the most fun colleges in the world. I have spoken to many upperclassman about this topic and they have told me that in just two short years Penn State is not what it once was. There is now less hazing in fraternities, the police has become stricter on the student body and we are even beginning to study on a daily basis. I hope that in the coming years we retake our spot on top of the list of the top party schools in the country but sadly I don't think that day will come.

When beginning any type of writing assignment you are attempting to accomplish some sort of goal. Over the course of my academic career I have had countless writing assignments. With each new essay, novel, or journal entry that I am assigned to I am faced with a new rhetorical situation. Whether it be providing the argument for why democracy is right or explaining why I am the correct person to be chosen to attend Penn State, when diving into a writing assignment there is always some point the writer is trying to prove. In today's society it's not just essays where we are faced with rhetoric. Through the use of social media such as Facebook and Myspace and other modern forms of communication like instant messaging and texting, our generation is faced with a situation where we can express ourselves in a public light on a daily basis. With each wall post or text message that I write there is a some type of goal that I am trying to accomplish. Before sending a text or posting on someone's wall their is always a mental process that takes place. For the most part when I post something on Facebook it is in response to someone else writing on my wall. I don't want to just write any old thing. I hope to truly entertain the person I am writing towards and all of the "mutual friends" that may take the time to see what I have written. Over the course of my life I have developed my own personal writing style. My writing style has some good qualities but also some negative aspects to it. One of the aspects of my writing that I would consider a strength is my ability to be descriptive with the style of writing that I choose. I try to write in a specific way so that my writing is easy and enjoyable to read. When writing a story I feel as if I do a good job at allowing the reader to picture the event I am writing about. One of the people that I truly look up to, both in life and in writing ability is James Taylor. Ever since I was a little kid I have been listening to this incredible artist. James Taylor does an unbeilavable job at making his songs into intricate stories that paint a vivid picture. One of my favorites is http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5EoNd_maBbY, a song called Sweet Baby James. With each consecutive line I picture the same thing in my head as I did since I was a little kid. My personal writing style does have some negative qualities to it. One of the ways I hope to improve my writing is my vocabulary. With a wider range of vacabulary I feel as if it is easier to write a captivating and interesting story. One of the people that opened my eyes to the potential of language is the master, William Shakespeare. The first play I read by Shakespeare was Romeo & Juliet. I found his style of writing so incredibly poetic and descriptive, and after finishing Romeo & Juliet I moved onto his other plays such as Hamlet and Macbeth. Over the course of the semester in English 015, I hope to continue to grow as a writer and improve on several aspects of my writing.