Ethos

I am writing this final assignment, an exploration of Ethos, for English Composition 1213 in spring 2010. I have had graduate assistant instructor Paul Mitchell for my English courses since my first semester at OU in 2009. In one of the first lectures, he explained to his students and I the meanings of Ethos, Logos, and Pathos. Ethos means the character of the author and the impressions of the reader as to the author’s trustworthiness or credibility. I think before he assigns tasks to his students, he usually mentions the importance of Ethos, Logos, and Pathos. The first assignment that I had for English composition was to write a bit about myself and who I am on blogger.com. Well, it was more like what kind of things I think can identify me. I think that the essay itself portrayed the ethos of me. Even though I did not get a great grade for that essay, I still enjoyed writing it. I wrote about my backpack that I have had since 2005. I chose my North Face backpack because I have spent almost five years with it and love to take it with me when I travel around the world. The backpack identifies me as a student and traveler, North Face is a travel product company. Also, I embedded a picture of a poster that is from North Face. It was a depiction of four people climbing Mount Everest with fully packed North Face packs, and full North Face gear, from their toes to their hair. Writing that essay was really fun and easy, because I was writing about myself, I mean, who does not enjoy this; we do not have to really think about it. But, there was a much harder essay from this semester. It was the one where I had to write a Rogerian argument. While writing the Rogerian argument for the first time, I had difficulty narrowing it down to a suitable shared conclusion. I chose to argue that milk is good and milk is bad. Most people might think this is kind a weird topic. But, this debate recently got quite a bit of attention. And, I realized how I happened to feel positively about facts that helped my side, with only a negative attitude toward the points of the other side. I think this society made me and makes me decide one side without negotiating with other sides, because my side is always good, therefore there is no reason to negotiate anything. We as humans drink milk throughout our lives. Most people do not know how the milk is produced and delivered to us. We think we just get milk from convenience stores and that cows are just milked by hand. But, that is not true, nowadays milking is not done by hand, but by machine. Technology really has changed our lives. I still drink milk in some ways, because there are a lot of products that contain milk. If you are interested in what things contain milk, you can research and end up with lots of surprising information. The milk is also the ethos of me. I just realized that milk could be my ethos. I think everything that I wrote for this course could be my ethos.

Happy Meal

I knew one day that this day would come; the day there is no toys in McDonald’s Happy Meals. Last week I read an article that said McDonald’s Happy Meals must be toy-free in a Californian County. The story said that on April 27th, 2010 this California County will have banned toys from meals that are high in calories, salt, sugar or fat. The ban applies to any kids' meal with high amounts of these things, not just to McDonald, to every restaurant. I am so happy to see this wonderful proposal has been adopted. I believe this is first step and there will be lots of similar proposals in other counties. When I was child, I loved the Happy Meals toys from McDonald. I was addicted to collecting these awesome looking toys every time I visited a McDonalds, so that without noticing I was ruining my body eating McDonald’s Happy Meals. I guess, no, I am sure that every child who has visited McDonald’s has tried a happy meal for their awesome looking or pretty toys. I hesitated about which kind of toy to choose. And now do not even remember what those toys were and nor have them anymore. I feel like I am a victim of the business practices of McDonald’s that target children with Happy Meals toys. It is really surprising how these fast food restaurants are going down one by one. Maybe not going down, but reconstructing way that they should provide meals to children.

The Ark

If you are a Christian or interested in historical subjects, this story might get your attention. As I am a Christian, I have read the Bible many times, and wondered about where its important artifacts or objects are. Recently, I read a website news article; it was about Noah’s Ark. There have been numerous rumors about Noah’s Ark throughout the centuries. I remember when I was 7 years old. I went to some kind of Christian museum and there was an ark that looked like Noah’s Ark. The guide man said this figure of the ark was made by father and son witnesses who saw Noah’s Ark on Mt. Everest when they were hiking. The son said he was playing with the ark for an hour. I kind of believed that story then, but now I do not believe it any more. The article that I read says the Noah’s Ark has been found in Turkey. The researchers are not 100 percent sure; however they are 99.9 percent sure. The Bible says the Ark came to rest on a mountain; the ark is on a mountain. I am 90 percents sure that this ark is Noah’s Ark. As a Christian, the finding of Noah’s ark is a really big deal. I do not know how this ark is going to affect non-Christians. But I think this finding of Noah’s Ark would not change the percentage of Christian in the world. Hopefully, the researchers are finding more important Bible artifacts and objects.

Day without Tech.

Tuesday was the day I decided to stay away from tech, because I do not have a class on Tuesday. The first thing I did was turn off my phone. Right after I turned it off, I felt nervous and worried at same time. I was never away from my phone. My worries were what if there is an emergency call or someone really needs my help? After 5 minutes, I got really bored so I turned on the T.V. and watched it for about 30 minutes. Then I realized T.V. is a type of technology. So I could not watch T.V. anymore. After I turned it off, I got really bored again. I decided to do some homework and other academic things. While I was doing this, I thought, wait, pens, paper, textbooks, and ink are also technology. So I stopped studying. After paying too much attention to academia, I was starving. I went to the kitchen and started cooking some food. As soon as I cooked, I realized that the things I used to cook, pots, pans, my stove, all were technology. I still ate my food, because I may have cooked these meals using technology, but they were still meals. After 25 minutes of eating, I ended up at my friend’s house. Of course, I drove my car to my friend’s house. I used technology again without noticing. Without the technology that we have now, we cannot live in this world. Technology is for people to live better and easier. Without technology this is impossible.

the north face backpack

If you are attending school, you need a backpack to put your school stuff into. Some may not use their backpack to carry their stuff, but they have their backpack somewhere at their house, probably their parents bought their backpack at some point in past. It is hard if you are attending college and do not use the backpack. May be some class, you do not really need it, like my high school year. I personally never took my backpack to high school. At my high school, they provided a locker to each student, and high school students really do not need to bring their stuff to their school, however I always have had a backpack while I was attending high school.
The north face backpack is my first backpack that I bought with my own money when I was freshman in high school. Believe me or not I am still using that north face backpack and it is still in good condition. I have not often seen my backpack during my high school years, but now I see that old same style backpack every day. College is not providing textbooks for the students and students have a responsibility to buy their textbooks depend on their professor or teacher. Without the textbook it is hard to follow the lectures with professor or teacher. The lecture seems to go faster than ever if you do not read, some may do not need their textbook because they believe all they need is their professors’ or teachers’ notes. Last semester I tried just not to study with the notes for some classes I took and believe me my last semester’s grade was horrible. For my easy walking to the next class, I need to use my backpack to put all my textbooks into my backpack.
Fall freshman semester I put my textbooks in the backpack that I bought four years ago for all my classes. The backpack was always with me while I was on campus. If you see people who are walking to class in OU campus, you will see a lot of students with their backpack or bigger size backpack. You might see some other people walking without the backpack, it will be faculty, staff, or someone who does not walking to the class to get educated. The backpack identifies me as a student who has textbooks and note books to carry for classes. The brand the north face also identifies me as person who loves travel, even though I hardly have traveled for past three years. The north face backpack is still in good condition like the first time I bought it; maybe the colors have turned a little bit darker. Still it is my backpack that I use daily.
The post that I found for the north face, it has only one sentence “Never stop exploring” on middle of the post with the red and white logo of the north face on left upper side. The actual title of the post is “climb for a cause expedition”. There four guys are claiming mountain Everest, of course the creator is the north face company. I like the view of their background, not the north face products that they are wearing to climb the mountain Everest. The north face brand is for an outdoor product company specializing in outerwear, fleece, footwear, and equipment such as backpacks, tents, and sleeping bags. It is obvious that they are using nature background and guys are wearing heavy duty equipment to show what the north face products are for. The north face backpack has been popular for students not just by nature travelers. Still, the north face company is for outdoor products.
The text on the post “never stop exploring” and the background does not match the student. If you just see a student with the north face backpack on campus, you will think that that student is just who wears the north face backpack for his/her purpose to put their textbooks and notebooks. Just looking at the post that is not the why I bought the north face backpack. The north face backpack was just for purpose to put my school materials to carry my stuffs easily during my school schedule not just go out and explore nature with the north face backpack, which many people use their the north face backpack for its primary purpose, explore the nature. I am not saying that I do not like to explore the nature. My reason for buying the north face backpack was not to go out to nature with it; it was to use for my academic purposes. If you see the text by itself “Never stop exploring”, and the background, the mountain, fits me very well. I love traveling the world, and I have been several countries so far. One of my top five bucket lists is to travel the whole world. I guess I got lucky from the purchasing the north face backpack, because I do not need to buy other backpack to use for traveling the world, since my backpack’s primary purpose is to use for outdoors. Thinking of different way, I am traveling every day, every time I walked outside from my door with my outdoor backpack; I could feel I am going out to travel the world. “Never stop exploring” is such a good motivate slogan to me. It will keep me from not failing to forget my dream.