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.