My E-portfolio

          First off, I am nineteen years old and still trying to figure out exactly who I am, granted that is not very old. I think one of the most important things to remember is we are all constantly changing so as one introduces themselves it is like seeing the blueprint of a house just the beginning, no structures or paint. My name is Caitlin, I am about to finish my first year of college and I feel like I haven't gone anywhere! I have taken prerequisites and I have not been as motivated as I thought I would be. I am determined to go far and accomplish my goals and dreams but at nineteen all I want is to see and change the world; but how? I have two older brothers and one younger sister, a mom and dad, and a huge family whom I love to pieces! I have seen many places, many cultures and have experienced many life events in which I find has created a strong but open mind in myself. Although, I would not consider myself a strong writer, I have great ideas and thoughts, but to write them into paragraph form is still a challenge to me today.

          Secondly, this quarter has affected me so much, I would say that my writing technique has not grown as much as my mind and world. The topics in this class and the way we included our text into our writing was a challenge at best because I was not able to create stories where my mind is the only thing leading the paper. Yes, my thoughts were what created the actual writing but the text and the themes of the writing set in a completely different comfort zone. I am more of a descriptive writer; I can create parks and stories as if you were actually there, but factual essays where real life is a persons’ own story, is hard to create because you have to convince the reader of your thoughts and ways. I have also learned a lot about myself in ways I had not explored yet. Identity was most familiar to me; it was easy to come up with my thoughts and support them but was not a well written paper. I reminded myself about how blind people are and how we all need to step out of our little boxes and see people for who they really are. For example, in “Masks,” by Lucy Grealy she tells a story about how she was made fun of because she didn’t look like everyone else, “Hey, girl, take off that monster mask-oops, she’s not wearing a mask!” (66). We all have flaws in looks and character and sometimes we forget that. The community chapter was probably my favorite to write, because it was interesting to see the way other people perceive different communities. The chapter really opened my eyes to the different types of communities that surround us, for example, I never considered a group of friends or a club to be a community but it makes complete sense. I also found it intriguing how we all, in some way, have a need to belong in some kind of community just as David Brooks explained in “Our Sprawling, Supersize Utopia, “…it becomes much easier to search out and congregate with people who are basically like yourself” (186). In other words we have a need to be around people and be with people who we have common ground with. Tradition was also fun to write. I think that was my best written paper, I feel very passionate about my topic and writing about the way our culture has changed in traditional ways which opened my eyes at how selfish and changing our world is becoming and how the most valuable aspects in our lives are right in front of us yet so many people are unhappy. I am glad, even though it was not my best work, that I had an opportunity to write in this class, being able to see so many different views and altering mine, I hope for the best.

          And thirdly, my portfolio includes my tradition paper “Family” to demonstrate my critical thinking skills. When I was writing my tradition paper I felt like I had to examine many different aspects of life and how it affects the family. I chose my identity essay which doesn’t even have a title to exhibit my revision and re-seeing skills; my paper was very poorly written and needed to be re-written. My community discussion board writing, I believe, best reveals my awareness of audience and voice by the way I interacted and voiced myself with my peers. Then for my writers’ choice I chose my first blog post, to me this was obvious, describing my wallet was a lot of fun and I tried out a new writing style. Each paper and each topic has helped me grow and look at different aspects of life in different ways.

For my critical thinking piece I chose my community paper. I chose this piece because I feel like I had to identify different aspects of life and the different people that our world holds.

Critical Thinking Skills

No Longer Alone

Rudolf Steiner once said "A healthy social life is found only, when in the mirror of each soul the whole community finds its reflection and when in the whole community the virtue of each one is living," I read this over and over again feeling like he, Steiner, said the exact message of what I think a function of a community in our lives is, the point of giving 75% of ourselves to other to feel worthy of a "community." Society is no longer a choice.

To start I had an interview with my dad, David Obee. The first question I asked him was do we society have a need to belong? He replied, claiming, “Yes, just like the human attribute for love and affection; a community is the same.” I had not thought of it in this way, but David sums up exactly what Brookes explained in Our Sprawling, Supersized Utopia. I came to a conclusion that there is an unconscious or even conscious, in some, need to belong whether it is in a community as small as your group of your friends or as large as the president belonging to all of his people. Communities also surface online and the need to belong to the “social networks” and have as many friends as possible even if we haven’t talked or even will talk to half of our “friends.” In Someone to Watch Over Me by Theodora Sites in Remix, she stated, “But like many of my generation I constantly trade actual human contact for the more reliable more

emotional high of smiles on MySpace, winks on Match.com, and pokes on Face book. I live for Friendster views, profile comments, and the dodge ball messages that clog my cell phone every night.” (162). Communities have formed everywhere demonstrating the need for belonging.

            Secondly, the growth of communities has increased because of the growth of population. For example, in my hometown Lake Stevens which in 1990 only consisted of 3380 people then 10 years later in 2000 double at 6361 and the last census, in 2010, approximately 28,069 people now live in Lake Stevens. Lake Stevens which was known to be a small community with great schools and people just like you. Demonstrating what Brookes said “Americans continue to move from the north east and Midwest to the south and west. …for example, the population of metropolitan Pittsburgh has declined by 8 percent since 1980, but as people spread out, the amount of developed land in Pittsburgh area increased by nearly 43 percent. The population of Atlanta increased by 22,000 during the 1990 but the expanding suburbs expanded by 2.1 million.” (pg. 184)

            Luckily I find that communities are more of a positive impact to our world. Communities do that sense of belonging, confidence, and a safe zone for people. In many communities we have created support systems, for example if a fundraiser, a school event, or sports games there will always be people who we can count on to show up and support the occasion going on. A personal experience of mine was two years ago. At a football games for the local high school had a heart attack right there on the football field, he had technically died for a couple seconds but a parent from the stands repetitively gave him CPR until the ambulance arrived at the scene and he survived. Biggs, the football coach, had to have a heart pacer inserted into him, the problem was that he was not that well off, money wise, he volunteered at the high school, and he worked as a taxi driver nightly. So our community came together in 2 weeks and created a silent auction, live auction, and dinner fundraiser, all items in the auctions were donated and the dinner was prepared for free, and so many people chipped in. We all came together planning, preparing, and being one just for one person. Other than that in larger community’s hospitals, better schools, clinics, stores, clubs, and so much more are created that make living in a community more favorable and easy.

            Furthermore, we are lucky to have such communities, imagine trying to cure yourself without having a hospital across town, or putting out a fire without a fire department. We all would crazy talking to ourselves, and there would be no technological advance without cooperation of a team, also known as a community. Although communities have over come this once green, green planet so far it benefits us as a society quite well.

A piece that demonstrates my skills at revision and re-seeing my work would be the Tradition paper. I choose this paper because I thought I had written the paper better than I actually had. Also throughout other assignments I have slowly learned what each paper really is asking for and although you may not agree that this is what the assignment is asking for this is the best way I can identify the assignment. Strength in the paper was the different thoughts I had put into the paper, but I needed re-write the thesis so my thoughts made sense with the thesis and followed along.

Revision and Re-seeing my work

 

Family

          The tradition of family in today’s American culture has become a fad rather than a carefully nurtured tradition. For example, in the 1950's the family would all down together at five o'clock as for today we yearn for the perfect put together family, but we get too distracted by many activities such as sports, games, television, and work .

          Back in the 1950's, mom would stay at home cleaning the house and preparing dinner. After school the kids would do there homework and then were allowed to go outside and play with the other kids on the street. Once dad got home form work everyone would wash up and sit down to have dinner. We would have conversation on how school went, how the neighbor brought over a plate of cookies, and how work went. The world has come very far since the twentieth century; along with our great accomplishments there has come downfalls such as fast food becoming increasing relied on as a meal. Family on the go, no time for quality family time, we have become so 'busy' we can't even find an hour to have a healthy, sit down dinner with the family.

          Between dropping off each kid for his or her chosen sport or dance class and then turning around to pick each up or having to sit through each game or recital there is simply no time for a grocery run and dinner preparation then sitting down with everyone to eat the dinner, driving through the drive thru is just easier. Eric Schlosser describes the rapid fast food demand in an excerpt in Remix; "Why McDonald's Fries Taste So Good,"

          "McDonald's fries now come from huge manufacturing plants that can peel, slice, cook, and freeze 2 million pounds of potatoes a day. The rapid expansion of McDonald's and the popularity of its low-cost, mass-produced fries changed the way Americans eat." (526). In other words the accessibility to fast food is convenient and cheap.

          Furthermore, how many television shows do you have on record, and how many video games do you have stacked next to the gaming system? "Children zone out in front of the TV shows or their video games because the mind seeks out mindlessness," Steven Johnson illustrates in "Everything Good for You Is Bad for You: Games" a story from Remix how the television has altered our lifestyles. What does this say about the twenty-first century, our children? Our family? Ourselves? We used to have to go outside and make games up or play kickball in the streets with neighbors or pull out a board game and entertain ourselves with the family. Hours and hours are spent in front of the television screen which will always be there, unlike family and friend who come and go willingly and unannounced and we all regret not spending more time with our loved ones but at the end of the night we all sit back down, on the couch and watch our reality shows or finish feeding the cows on Farmville. Why not put the effort that we put into these distractions into our real life before it passes us by?

          As well as, success and wealth being a natural greed we all nurture and mother. Yes, ever since the beginning of time we have been competitive for a wealthy life style, get all the things we want and be able to give out children everything we couldn't have but what we forget is the importance of not losing our family in the process, we all appreciate the effort and the gifts but what we all appreciate more is the love from our parents. A lot of times Americans have to work extra hard to be able to afford all the material items meaning that mom or dad is staying late at the office, taking on extra shift or extra projects, always working our way up the ladder like it is the most important factor of life, to smother our families in things but our spouses grow distant, daughters begin to date, sons are star quarterbacks. But all we do is come home tired from work and keep working to keep up or head straight to bad to wake up and do it all over again. Many families today have both mom and dads who work during the day leaving kids fending for themselves for dinner or putting themselves to bed. We lose sight of who our children are because we don't spend time with them anymore. Families go through divorce more often, single parents are more common everyday, and the family unit is not what is once used to be.

          Our daily lifestyle becomes so busy by the want of wanting that we forget what we really have. A common dream lies within all of us; to grow up and have a perfect family. Just as we start to get there we get bulldozed by TV, magazines, video games, commercials, radio advertising 'stuff' that claims to make us happier or make life easier or more convenient but what we realize is everything that we need is right in front of us because we get too distracted too many activities such as sports, games, television, and work.

The piece that displays my awareness of my audience and my voice is in my community discussion board posts. An example in my writing where I demonstrate the awareness of audience is when I spoke about realizing that my life is not like everyone else, “I realize that is not the case with everyone, but with many people your home is where you came from, what created you, and you have family there, and you can always return there.” A spot where I displayed my voice in my writing was when I expressed my personal views, “That is how I would assume we form "cliques" or as this chapter reveals it communities.”

Awareness of Audience and Voice

My response:

I really like what you have said! Although I have never moved around my family every summer took a road trip to somewhere, so traveled. I would consider myself well rounded in this manner. As soon as you had said and as Brooks said one minute you are in a crunchy place and then next in a big city it reminded me of all the times I have driven not only through Oregon but California. We have Los Angeles which is high class, you have to look all fancy to even look upon, and a few minutes you are in San Diego which has more "Mexicans" and lower standard of living (not to offend) but it is what it is.

I think even when we are on the top of the food chain we still feel like we judged. Yes, that person may look down on others but they have to try SO hard to be on the top and act certain ways and look certain ways. Even the top of the top are judged, because they have been put up so high. Look at it this way when a celebrity or a president does something wrong they are frowned upon. We even forget that they are just like us and mess up and make mistakes sometimes. That is kind of off topic but just referring to what you had said.

My Post:

Just the phrase "Communities provide us with a sense of stability" makes me think of my home. A place where I know I belong and can return to. I realize that is not the case with everyone, but with many people your home is where you came from, what created you, and you have family there, and you can always return there. Or even when establish your own home, it is yours and you have created a "safe zone." The trick with this phrase is it is not complete stability it is a sense. Brooks states "He or she is subtly more attached to the glorious future than to the temporary and unsatisfactory present." When he says attached, he is not saying physically but mentally, the way some of us gets attached to an idea and are disappointed when that idea cannot be reality for the time being or some other reason, but here we "the people" create this imaginary community of utopizam and get comfortable like "a sense of stability."

Communities Accept Us for Who We are?

My post:

  I do not think "communities accept us for who we are" can be said as a fact, more as an opinion. As brooks says in Our Sprawling, Supersize Utopia, "...it becomes much easier to search out and congregate with people who are basically like yourself," which to me says that we have to search out OTHER communities to be who we are. According to Brooks, as I understand, in our natural home community we either have to hide who we really are or act as if we are what our "community" standards are. 

                That is how I would assume we form "cliques" or as this chapter reveals it communities. Although even within certain or any cliques I am positive you could find students who are acting the way of that clique because they think or know they would not be "accepted" otherwise. It puzzles me why we can't just accept people for who they are and let them be that way without feeling that we cannot be accepted for who we are. We are all raised in different families and environments’ or "communities" so it would be impossible to all be alike in the accepting manner. Plus, why would we all want everyone to be just like me, or in your case you? The world would be such a bland place with so many mysteries that would never be found upon because "I" am not as creative or smart or whatever as people who are different form me.