Revealed!

1. Definition
2. Compare/Contrast
3. Narration
4. Process Analysis
5. Cause and Effect
6. Argument

Happiness

Happiness is one of the most wonderful feelings in the world. It is what someone feels at the highest moments of his or her lives. Even if something horrible is happening, happiness makes one forget the trouble and feel joy for that moment. It can be the result of one of your actions, or the actions of another. Happiness is being pleased with something, someone, or some event. It is a feeling that people need in their lives, at least at some point, to make them have a joyful life, or even a livable life really. Everyone needs happiness, and everyone is able to feel happiness if they want it. 

Happiness is like the feeling one gets on Christmas morning if they celebrate Christmas. Or when one meets someone they love, like a family member, after an extended period of time. Happiness is like being a little kid and having no worries. It's like traveling to a place you have been waiting to visit all of your life. It's like being with the one's you love, doing the things you enjoy. Happiness can be found in great things, as well as small. Happiness is being as far away from sadness, even for a moment.

This weekend has been one of the best weekends of my life, one where I have been happy with my life and my family and friends. I went up to my cabin with my two brother, mom, dad, and dog. We left on Wednesday and arrived back home only a couple minutes ago. My grandma and her husband, who are from North Dakota, came on Thursday and left this morning as well. We did absolutely nothing except watch movies, play games, and sit by the fire. We talked and laughed and everyone was simply happy. 

It doesn't take a winning ticket to the lottery, or a big promotion at a job, happiness can be found in the simple things in life. Although these things would just as well make a person happy, sitting with family and enjoying dinner can cause happiness easily. As long as a person allows for himself to have a good time, and enjoys the company around him, he will feel happiness. It is really easy if you surround yourself with others who are happy, it's like something contagious, if one person is happy, others will be too. 

If one surrounds himself with people who are very happy with their lives and express it in a pleasing, or not annoying way, then he will eventually find himself just as happy. If he surrounds himself with people who see the glass half empty, then he will also see the glass half empty, and therefore will most likely not feel happiness, or at least not as much as in the other scenario.

When someone feels happiness, they live a better life. This is because they enjoy the things they do and people they are surrounded by, and as a result simply enjoy living more. If you enjoy living, then life is better. If you are not happy, people will not want to be around you, there won't be things in life to live for really, and your life will not be even close to as pleasurable as one who is happy. It's a fact, you can't live a good life without being happy.

Holiday Season

The traditions assignment really got me thinking about the holiday season, and to be completely honest, I was about to jump out of my chair I was so excited. And NOW it's snowing. I can't even believe that it's almost Christmas time again! For me, it is absolutely the most wonderful time of the year. I would take the snowy, snowmobiling weather over any 80 degree beach. But not just the weather, because believe me, I am not one of those people who actually like the freezing wind that nearly slashes your face open when it hits you, but only because it means that Christmas is almost here. And even if you don't celebrate Christmas, the entire season is the most wonderful experience. Everyone is happy. Everyone is helping, and giving, and receiving, and it is just the best time ever. I love Christmas. I love the season of Christmas. And I love being able to snowmobile, sled, four-wheel, and so on during this time. I AM SO EXCITED!

.....I wrote this on Saturday night, I know I have no life, but I realized I didn't post it until right now. Great.

The Rhetoric of Communication

The different messages people send out may not be recognized by the person, but when looking at the situation from a different perspective, a message can be perceived as very rude even though it may not have been meant to be rude. A couple examples include:

• When a businessperson leaves a restaurant table to answer a page, he may think that he is doing his work and it's okay, but really the message is that work is more important than the person you are at the restaurant with, and that means that the person is not very important at all.
• A doctor leaving the table to answer a page is an excusable act, but it also puts a damper on the night considering the doctor now has to leave and the dinner is ruined. 
• An answering machine that cuts off after 30 seconds is basically saying, say something quickly because by the time you hit 30 seconds, I probably will be tuned out anyways. It gives off a message that you have better things to be doing than hearing from the person leaving the message.
• When a telephone solicitor mispronounces my name I instantly know that what they are about to talk about in completely unimportant, and usually I'll just hang up. But the message they are portraying is that they don't care enough to figure out how to pronounce your name, they don't even know you at all, and they really don't give a crap but only want slash need to get paid.
• When a fax is marked "Urgent", a person instantly feels a rush of most likely dread, anxiety, and anticipation.  At the same time, the situation is probably not as urgent as one may think, otherwise the sender of the message would say what happened straight up.

These are some examples of what your message can give off, even if you don't mean to. This is how technology has changed us and how a message is perceived.

Babysitting Horrors

Babysitting is the easiest way to make money. And if you agree with this statement then I am very sorry to be the one to tell you that you are completely wrong. Actually I take that back, you are completely wrong and I really don't mind shoving it down your throat, so you know get to enjoy as I enlighten you about my night last night. 

I get inside and I am welcomed by their stupid, loud dog trying to bite my hand off. This dog is pretty small, but if I had the choice, I would throw it out the back window. Then the parents come downstairs and the seven year old Adam, who is too cute for words but is a little devil, informs me that his dad was naked upstairs and he saw his "pee-pee". He used a couple of other words I won't share, but you can imagine the awkward silence that followed that comment. They were out the door within the minute. 

The next couple of hours went pretty well, I got yelled at for making PB&J's on wheat bread, and for making them turn off the TV and play with me, but other than those few things, it went pretty well. That is, until bedtime started.

Every single babysitter knows the difficulty of putting little kids to sleep because you really aren't allowed to yell at them or spank them or argue other threats that the parents of the children can, so we have to resort to the significantly less effective threats like calling their parents or not coming back again. Those are the best i've come up with, and they usually do squat. 

So last night Adam and Annie (the two seven year old twins), started out the night by fighting over who gets the iPad in bed. They are supposed to switch every night, but it seems that every single time I go over there, they simply can't remember who had it the night before. Right. So we all agreed to flip a coin. Annie won. That meant hell for the next hour and ten minutes. I knew that if Adam didn't get the iPad then he would make a much bigger fuss, but I didn't predict this big.

Let's recap:

He started by running for the iPad, punching and kicking Annie on the way. As she was sitting on the ground crying as I pried the little devil off her, Jacob (the third kid who's older and can put himself to sleep, thank God), sat on the stairs and cheered them on. Adam had the iPad so I had to get that from him, Annie was still crying. Adam was screaming at me how it wasn't fair at all, when really, it was pretty fair. I sent Annie up with the iPad and Adam to bed, which I knew was not going to happen. After a whole lot of yelling and threatening, I read him a book and he was in bed. Finally. But when I got downstairs and just unloaded my backpack, Adam comes down the stairs. You have GOT to be kidding me. Long story short, he had a headache, so I went upstairs and rubbed his back, he argued with me about sleep until two minutes later he couldn't even get out another word, and soon enough he was snoring. Oh happy day. 

The parents came home and of coursed asked, "How were the kids?"....I said good. That's the lie of the year.

How I Write...

Every time I write I write in the same spot, on the same computer, with the same pair of knit socks. If you know I am writing and you need to find me, I will be sitting in my bed on the third floor of my house looking over a big swamp, half blocked by a tree that envelopes the lower half of my window. I am always under the comforter, but never under the sheet...it's just too much. Actually, to be honest, I have no idea why I don't go under the sheets, but they just bother me and by the end are usually at the bottom of my bed anyways. I always wear my favorite pair of socks that i'm not really sure can be considered socks. More like knit slippers that go up to my mid-calf. I got them from my Auntie Cindy as a gift a while ago and I remember thinking, wow socks? Cool auntie...but look at it now, they are my favorite pair! Anyways, enough with the socks, I also write on my laptop and only on my laptop. There are actually many reasons for this, mainly because I can't take our desktop computer to my bed, but also because I know my laptop. I know how hard I have to press down to type out a word. I know that when the computer gets so hot that I can feel it on my legs that it's time to give it a rest. And I know the size of the screen and how the words fit to it, I just know my computer and how I want whatever i'm writing to look when I finish.
Unlike most people, I don't exactly need complete silence. I assume this is because I have two brothers and my parents are really loud and obnoxious usually, so I don't really have the option of quiet. BUT when I start my paper or whatever i'm writing, I try to get things as quiet as possible. It's just the beginning that always throws me off. There I need quiet. Oddly, I can never write with music playing. If it's classical with no words and I don't know the song, then I can. But if it's a song that I know, has lyrics, or a melody that is repeating slash I recognize it, then no way jose am I going to be able to concentrate long enough to write even half of a sentence.
So basically I followed every single one of these  to get ready for writing my paper. I started with writing out a rough draft that basically sucked. As I went through my paper writing draft after draft I had different people proof read it and give me corrections. I always have my mom be the first to proof read, then I don't let her see it until the very last proof read. By the end she said it turned into a completely different paper. Success. I love proof reading my papers and thinking about one thing, then reading through the entire paper and changing everything that has to do with that rule. I loved it! Am I a nerd that way? yes. Do I care? nope.

How Safe is Downtown?

    How safe do you think downtown really is? The question could be answered in so many different ways depending on the circumstances of course, but in this post I am going to be talking about my circumstances and my experience from last night. Trust me, they are worth talking about.
    Let me give you a small recap of my night. My friend Shannon and I went to see the Scottish Ballet at the Orpheum by ourselves and it ended at 10:40 PM. The Orpheum is located on Hennepin and 9th street, unfortunately we parked on Marquette and 6th. So we were dressed up in high heels that were way to high, skirts, and I personally think we looked pretty good. So did many men on the streets on our walk home.
    Everybody knows who I'm talking about when I talk about these guys right? The ones that come out of the alleys (we looked in one and I almost screamed), the ones that wear their pants to the ground, the ones that have never taken a grammar class in their lives, and of course the ones that make rude and inappropriate comments to young girls in skirts. These are the kind of people I am wondering about. I kept wondering to myself last night if these guys were just talking the talk or if they would actually try to touch me. I'm sure in the end it's probably all harassment, but at the time there was no way I was about to risk it.
   Shannon told me that she heard from someone that you should walk with your head down when you pass those people. So we did that, and I just looked up what you should do if something happens. If they speak to you, walk away and ignore them. Did that. If they follow, get into an entrance of a building that looks safe. The problem with this is that we were looking for entrances and there were very few, or they were closed buildings. Also, always try to find a group of people to walk with. We definitely did that and got some very strange looks and comments, but we felt much safer. If they try to grab you run, point a gun at you run, chase after you...run faster. But remember, high heels. There was no running for us. We could do this sort of gallopy looking thing, but if we were being chased, it would be a good night to be the bad guy.
   In the end we got to the car safely, and to be honest the comments did boost our egos a bit, but for future reference I just won't be wearing the clothing I was in downtown Minneapolis at 10:40 PM with my tall, blonde, sixteen year old best friend anymore, because we are bound to get captured and raped. I just know it.  And also, every single one of the solutions I looked up are common sense. So if you are put in this situation, keep your head down, don't talk to strangers, and if anything happens, by all means run your little heart out! Swell travels to you all.