Blogging is HARD.

Really, it shouldn't be. BUT it is. 
We have officially hit the halfway mark in the semester and my blog is lacking in the posts department.
It's not that my life is so boring, or my classes so dull, or my existence so devoid of meaning that there is simply nothing to write about. Sitting down and writing about my day-to-day for my peers to read and judge might be a little intimidating, but even that doesn't factor much into the problem.  Simply put, I'm lazy and a procrastinator.  Making the effort to post on this blog spot is going to take a lot more discipline than I've had.
That being said, I don't think it will be hard once I just start. I love writing, and I love words, and although i'm a little old fashioned about writing I am slowly warming to the idea of a blog. With all the technology swarming society my particular generation is very plugged in. Technology is everywhere; I attend Brigham Young University so I have access to computers almost all day long, as well as my laptop and my three roommate's laptops at home in my apartment. I have an iPhone (not to endorse Apple because they honestly don't need my help, but the iPhone is very sweet) which means I can access the internet literally anywhere, meaning theoretically I could blog from anywhere.
Finding a medium isn't the challenge.I'm the challenge. 
Deep, huh? And yet so true.
The biggest obstacle I have on my road to becoming a better writer is myself.


And so to end I thought I would quote Nephi, who says it simply and yet so well:
"I will go and do."

Research Topic

I'm pretty glad I needed to take Writing 150 this year, if only because I was forced to sit down and learn how to use the library. As much as I would never have admitted it, this is a valuable skill. I would never have made it all the way through my collegiate years without having to write a research paper, for which I would have had to sit down and either ask a librarian for help, taught myself how to research on the library database, or given up in frustration and resorted to searching through Google in hopes that that would help get my paper written.

Therefore, my class day spent in the bowels of the library learning all the secrets of the HBLL search database has been educational and actually somewhat productive. I qualify that with  a somewhat because there is so much information to go through, it's been hard to choose a topic for my research paper.

I think what I've settled on is Facebook and the effect it has on social skills. It's a pretty interesting topic for me because in my Communications class we've been studying media and how it affects people, and the results have been more scary than surprising. Following this train of thought, I wanted to look at something in media that just about everyone I know uses and could have real effects on. The solution? Facebook. I know only one college student who doesn't use the book of faces, and for those who do use it there's a pretty constant connection with it. Everyone opens their computer, gets on the internet, and checks Facebook, even if just for a minute. So this is the topic I want to look at and research for my paper.

reflecting on a rhetorical analysis.

In high school, my favorite kind of paper to write was a rhetorical analysis paper. I wrote them at least weekly my senior year, in response to novels, speeches, poems, and memoirs. I honestly loved writing this sort of paper.
However,  that was over a year ago and I hadn't written anything even vaguely rhetorical until this paper came along. I thought I remembered all the strategies and techniques I had learned perfectly, and had complete confidence in myself about writing a rhetorical analysis paper.
I was wrong.
Although it wasn't the worst paper I have ever written, it was definitely not my best. I hadn't realized how bad you can get (technically) in your writing if you just stop doing it for over a year. It made me a little sad, and I really regret not writing for so long. Maybe, although I don't like it much at all, there is a useful reason to blog: it could help  me keep writing consistently.

My favorite General Conference talk.

This year the weekend of general conference I working both Saturday and Sunday, so I only got to see the Saturday morning session as it was being broadcast. I was grateful that this is the session I saw when I got to hear the announcement of the new temples and especially the new Provo temple. As I watched this session, Elder Deider F. Uchtdorf’s talk entitled “You Matter to Him” became my favorite, and despite having watched or listened to most of conference since this talk has remained my favorite. In this talk, Elder Uchtdorf lovingly conveys his powerful message through the three rhetorical appeals: ethos, pathos, and logos.

                President Uchtdorf is a member of the twelve apostles in the Church, and therefore goes into his talk with a sense of ethos already established, at least for members of the Church. Rather than build up his credibility, which is already established by his mere identity, he tries to make himself relatable to his audience. By telling personal stories, particularly the one about his training as a pilot at school in Texas, he becomes much more of a real person who has had his own struggles and experiences. When he talks about his struggle to learn English or his misgivings about school, the audience can relate to him from having similar experiences. Through stories, President Uchtdorf makes himself a regular person like everyone else, and therefore is able to engage an audience.

                The strongest rhetorical appeal that President Uchtdork uses, however, is the rhetorical appeal of pathos. The very title of his talk is meant to build up the audience’s sense of self-worth and let them know that individually, they each matter to the divine. Throughout his talk, he makes the point that man is insignificant, yet not to God. This resonates with people emotionally, because at some point everyone has questioned how much they really matter; yet here he is telling people that they matter a great deal, and to the most important and powerful being in the universe. By using emotions most people have felt and then giving them the promise of love that most people seek, President Uchtdorf powerfully uses pathos in his statements.

                Logos is the final appeal that President Uctdorf uses in his talk to appeal to the audience. He does this by using scriptures mixed with his words to give them weight that scriptural references hold. Much of the world has read the bible and most religions have some scriptural text they use, so scriptures appeal to people’s logic. They are generally accepted and therefore using them in an address like this one makes it appeal logically to an audience.

                Through the uses of these three appeals, ethos, pathos and logos, President Uchtdorf builds a compelling talk that resonates powerfully with his audience.