Assigned Entry #4: Bye-bye Blog

Well, blogging has been fun, but it’s time for me stop!

The semester (well, first summer) is over and I won’t have time to blog anymore with all of my new classes coming up.

I really liked sharing all of my findings with all of you and teaching some of you a little bit.

I always tried to find fun or interesting information to share, so I hope you all enjoyed it.

I know I enjoyed learning new things too!

I’m glad I got to know the blogging experience; it helped me grow a lot as a writer.

Thanks to this blog I was able to open myself up for new writing styles.

You’re probably thinking, “How in the world can blogs help with writing an essay?”

I know, it’s hard to believe and even harder to connect the two together.

Well, basically, when I write my blogs, I write as if I’m me.

I talk as if I’m having a normal conversation with someone.

But when it comes to writing an essay, I would write professionally; it wouldn’t be me.

So after seeing the difference in the two, I started writing my essays as I write my blogs.

This wasn’t my idea, though.  My professor recommended it, and I’m glad he did.

My essays sound a lot better now; they’re more interesting, and they’re more fun to write!
Weird, right? I know!

I never thought I would actually enjoy writing, but when I write as I do in my blog, it’s a whole different experience.

Has everyone else been writing this way all along?

I hope so!

If you haven’t, you should definitely give it a try.

It might feel weird writing an essay as if you were writing a blog at first, but you’ll get used to it and enjoy it more.

Writing doesn’t always have to be boring; you can make it fun by how you say things!

Personally, I’m glad I had to write blogs for my English 101 class.

It didn’t feel like homework and it helped me improve my writing.

If developing writing skills was always this easy, everyone would be a great writer!

Plus, it’s much more fun than writing essays because you get to receive comments from people and interact with the audience.

I wish I could’ve gotten into blogging sooner; my rhetoric would be so much better!

Professor Nielson should definitely keep this as an assignment - students will not only grow more, but their writing will definitely improve.

Besides, even if students don’t improve (which I’m sure they will), they’ll have fun blogging.

Well, I’ll try to keep up with this blog once in a while, but don’t expect much!
I’m a busy girl!

- Pillow

What You REALLY Sound Like... Eww

Have you ever heard a recording of yourself and were totally shocked to hear yourself?
It's like, "I don't sound like that!"
Then everyone looks at you weird because, yeah, you do sound like that.
If you didn't know this before, now you do: the voice you hear in videos, voicemail, or any audio recording is in fact how you really sound like.

So now that you know this, do you like your voice?
When you hear yourself in any audio, can you stand it?
I know I can't!
My voice is too high pitched on audio, I sound so much better in my head.
If you're anything like the majority of people, you're probably wondering how in the world people can stand hearing you.

I found a video explaining why you sound differently and why people hate the sound of their own voice; check it out!

So the main point of the video: you're not hearing yourself the same way you hear everything else.
The voice you hear is only a voice in your head because it doesn't travel the same way other sounds do - your voice skips the process that other sounds go through.
So the answer is yes, everyone has to stand hearing that awful voice you have!
I'm just kidding, I don't think others find your voice awful just like you probably don't find most people's voices awful.

But now I'm curious: is there anyone who does like their voice?
And is there anyone who gets told they have a beautiful voice, yet they hate it?
Comment and let me know!

- Pillow

Assigned Entry #3: Food, Yummy?

I saw Food Inc. again for the second time last week, and either I forgot a lot of stuff or I wasn’t paying enough attention the first time.
I think it was a bit of both.
Anyways, just like the first time, I don’t feel like eating meat from anywhere other than Chipotle.
There’s a few reasons why: I don’t like the fact that they inject animals with chemicals, antibiotics, and so on; I can’t stand the way animals are treated in the farms; and it’s repulsive to know that the food industry is run by only a few companies.

Who wants to eat engineered food with antibiotics and hormones pumped into it?  I don’t know about you, but that sounds disgusting to me.

Food shouldn’t need to be made this way; nature has been fine for centuries without humans using so many products on it.

It's just hurting us in the long run because we're become resistant to antibiotics.

The Swine Flu Scare

Also, animals shouldn’t have to be treated that way.

They have feelings, and living such a meaningless life is just plain cruel.

I’m not saying not to kill any animals, but treating them with respect wouldn’t hurt.

Just because they’ll be killed one day doesn’t mean they can’t enjoy their life.

All of these food companies only care about one thing: money.

I bet they don’t even care about “feeding the world” as they claim.

It’s just incredible to see how heartless and selfish some people can be!

I don’t know about you, but I would really like for this to stop.  I know it’s not easy, but if everyone starts buying more organic and local food, I think we could slowly change the food industry.

For now, I think I’ll keep eating from Chipotle until I can stand to look at meat again.

If it weren’t for steak, I would’ve already become vegan (even though nowadays I could still die from eating my greens!).

I thought this picture was pretty funny - it has to do with the diseases spinach was carrying a few years ago.

- Pillow

Getting More Zzz's

Every morning when the alarm clock rings, do you push the snooze button?
"Just 10 more minutes"
"Just 10 more minutes"
Then, it's completely past the time you were suppose to wake up!
Personally, whenever I have to wake up early, I set an alarm an hour ahead of when I have to wake up, so I get "an extra hour" of sleep.
I thought that was pretty clever, until I saw this video!
Check it out!

It talks about why the snooze button is actually harmful, and you're better off setting your alarm clock 30 minutes to get those "10 more minutes."

If you're too lazy to watch the video, I'll summarize it for you.
Basically, you have a sleep cycle that you go through when you fall asleep.  Your body naturally knows when to wake up, but if your alarm clock wakes you up, it cuts off that cycle.
By trying to regain it with "10 more minutes" you're actually harming yourself!
Instead of feeling more rested, you'll get more tired because the sleep cycle begins all over again every time you take "10 more minutes."

So, you might be thinking you're resting more, but you're really only getting sleepier!!
That's pretty crazy.
I actually experienced this today when I used my snooze button to get my "10 more minutes"
I was extremely sleepy after those extra 10 minutes!
After remembering this video, I forced myself to get up.
I must admit it was hard, but I knew it would only get harder.
This was basically me and my bed this morning... except I'm a girl!

STOP PUSHING THAT SNOOZE BUTTON AND GET UP SLEEPY-HEADS!

- Pillow

Assigned Entry #2: Tech and Brain

Since I talked about psychology in my last post, I decided to talk about the brain this time.
Well, I'm not going to simply talk about the brain, but I'm also going to discuss how technology affects it.

I went on YouTube and looked at many videos about the brain.
They were all so interesting that I ended up watching videos for about an hour.
I felt like Cyanide and Happiness (the mini comic on the left)!
I just can't help it - I love learning about the mind!
I guess that makes me nerd.

Anyways, I found a cute cartoon that explained some of the damage that technology (the internet) can have on people.
It's called What the Internet is Doing to Our Brains.
Check it out! It's very interesting, and it portrays everyday life.

Personally, I liked how they go back to prehistoric times and explain why the brain enjoys receiving so much information, and thus the internet is perfect for our brains.
Then they talk about the down side to having so much information.
It turns out that we need to have focused, calm thinking in order to absorb information and retain it.
Thus, although we have the internet with all this information everywhere, it really doesn't help because we don't retain it, so we never build our knowledge.
That's actually depressing.
Instead of getting smarter with all of this available information, we seem to be getting dumber!
It all makes sense, though.  With so much information constantly thrown at us, it's impossible to store it all!
There's a lot more information in the video, so watch it; it's only 4 minutes long!

I hope you all enjoy it as much as I did! Here's another mini comic that made me giggle (too bad it has nothing to do with technology).

- Pillow