Free Choice- No Place Like Home

I recently took a trip out West to San Diego California, to go visit one of my good friends. So recently in fact, that I just got back today. For the past few weeks I have doing nothing but look forward to being away from my two kids, away from my job, away from school...away from it all. Being on vacation in the wonderful world of California, and beautiful town of San Diego seemed like just what I needed to help ease my mind and "escape my own reality." The funny this is, that as soon as I landed down in San Diego...I wished that my kids were with me. Although I had a lot of fun camping and drinking in the dessert with my friends, or hiking up mountains...and of course I loved shopping without one of my kids pulling on the bottom of my shirt begging "Mommy...can I PLEASE have this", but in all reality, I think that most of us try to escape reality, only to realize that where we are in life, is exactly where we are meant to be. As much as I thought that a break or time away from everything and everyone was what I needed to "zen" and re-group...I realized that my kids help me re-group and keep me positive. As much as I loved sittin on the beach, with only myself, I would much rather be at home with my kids, or have them with me. Instead of being out at a club with my friends in San Diego, I would have much rather been at a museum, or at a park with my kids. Although vacation should be for relaxation and require no thought at all, I found myself more anxious as each day passed to get home, and thought constantly about my kids, what they were doing, how their day at school went, etc. I guess long story short, vacations are great...people do need time to relax and escape their own reality...but maybe instead of trying to escape reality, we should embrace it. Instead of running off to an expensive place to try to "find" our answers to our lifes problems, maybe we should stay at home and try to make peace within our place of living...learn to apprecaite what is around us, and who is around us. In the words of Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz, there truely is "no place like home", and I am happy to be here!

Free Choice Blog

Out of the Woods: Today's Kids Can't See the Forest for the MTV

In the column titled "Out of the Woods: Today's Kids Can't see the Forest for the MTV" of the Washington Post, writer Joel Achenbach brings up the idea that today's children "stay indoors too much, are alienated from nature, and are going a little crazy."  With the new technology that has surfaced society, Joel claims that it is hard for parents, or care givers to expect children to want to go outside and be "bored", or stay inside and play with their awesome new Nintendo game. Joel recalls his life as a child and how like most kids we were forced to be outside, simply because there was nothing else to do. He claims that children who grew up before the Internet Phase were more "in tune with nature" than children of the 21st century. Joel makes funny comments regarding how intense some parents can be with trying to get their children to drop their cool new video games and toys and go outside. Joel also says that as parents, "at some point, you'll deliver the entire canned speech how, as a child, you were always building forts, exploring Forrest trails, roasting squirrels over a fire and so on, the classic Huck Finn sort of existence." - when maybe we exaggerate a bit. I believe that Joel does a great job using comedy to explain to parents that it is okay if our children can't or don't enjoy ALL the things we did as children, but also does a horrible job really explaining in depth reasons why children may enjoy staying inside. He also seems to be all fore nature, but makes fun of being outdoors so much that it becomes unclear at times what his stance truly is. Also, he starts the paper off talking about how our children are "going a little crazy" from staying indoors but delivers no facts about perhaps children with attention disorders, or learning disorders from being over exposed to digital media/games/television. I think that with less jokes and more facts, and fully sticking to his argument on why children need nature, this article would have been not only more effective, but not taken as just some lazy guy writing about how he doesn't seem to mind his children sitting on their butts all day. Hopefully Joel will let his children go outdoors and establish some exercise, because their father had a hard time exercising his ability to present a good argument.

Mac vs Pc

As I was reading through my Argument text book, I stumbled across a picture of a man in a wheel chair, who had clearly been beaten up, and had broken bones in casts. Next to the beat up man in the wheel chair was a younger, attractive looking actor who appeared perfectly fine and uninjured. The man in the wheel chair was to represent a P.C. and the attractive not beaten up man was to represent an Apple Mac Book. The commercials claim was insisting that consumers who wanted a computer should buy an Apple Mac, instead of a P.C.

                The commercial itself was an excellent idea for advertisement. I believe that it would be difficult to have a billboard or still photo that was realistically portrayed in its normal setting that would make consumers go purchase the Mac. Using a video commercial gave Apple a great opportunity to quickly boast about reasons why Mac is better than P.C, taking it a step further by giving consumers more than a typical reason to purchase the Mac. The commercial is showing a P.C. as an unattractive, beat up, clumsy machine that would only cause problems. One of those problems comes straight from the man in the wheel chair the P.C. claiming that he “tripped over” the large cords that came with a P.C. In response to the danger that the P.C. cords can cause, the Mac responds back stating that they have a power cord that is slim and magnetic and will “pop out” in case anyone was to trip over the cord.  Therefore, hinting that the Mac is more safe and user friendly. Although using a beat up man compared to an attractive and in shape man, and using their looks as a metaphor for the overall products themselves, I believe that there should have been more addressed concerning the Mac and what it has to offer. I am sure that there are plenty other computers out there, and having only used the argument that the Mac cords are less likely to cause you to trip, probably will not be the deciding factor in the buyers decision wither to go with a P.C. or a Mac.

                I do like the fact that the P.C. is blatantly represented and made to look as a “bad” idea, and that the Mac is cooler, and the more safe way to go; but I think that more could have been used to express legitimate reasons why to choose the Mac over the P.C. I want to hear about the price difference or the performance difference…not that the power cord is smaller. There could have been much more support for the argument that going with a Mac is better; because having a power cord come off as one of the only reasons why to buy makes Mac seem less credible and that they are reaching for a reason to top the P.C. I do have to say though, that we live in a society where we value how attractive something is, and we are drawn to things that look “better” than others. In the end, the Mac does seem to come off as the better buy using metaphoric characters and looking beyond every day questions about which to buy and humor to make you want to tell a friend. Looks like I am going home with the man standing up, and telling the guy in the wheel chair to “roll” about his business!  

Free Choice- Boxing; believe it and achieve it

Ever since I was in Jr High School, I always wanted to be a boxer. Not because I was a person who got picked on and felt the need to fight a bully and not because I was the bully that felt I needed to fight everyone; but boxing to me was the one sport that I wanted to master. I felt the sport of boxing would help make my reflexes quick and strong and put me into the best shape of my life.  Getting back into shape to fight through boxing would prove not only to myself, but to my family and friends how much dedication I really have, and how athletic I still am. I am all about bettering myself and making all of my dreams into a reality…and if I can do it…anyone can do it; achieve their dreams.

                To this day, I am still the only girl in my group of friends, fellow college students, or co-workers that I know who is training to be a successful, competitive boxer.  In order for me to get into the shape I need to fight there have been many life style changes that I have made in order to help this process further move along more quickly. A first step that I took to training to box was completely changing my eating habits. I dropped the cigarettes that killed my muscles, and drained my wallet. I also tried to inform others around me of my goals to quit smoking and to start getting into shape. I put down my cans of Mt. Dew, and picked up water bottles. The soda intake was not only going to start decaying my teeth, but also was giving me high amounts of sodium and caffeine, but also increased my daily sugar and calorie intake. Trust me, cutting out cigarettes and soda was difficult; but for me it was mind over matter, and getting into shape came first. Along with a few bad habits like cigarettes and drinking mass amounts of soda, I also changed the food I ate. I never was into fast food, but I did like starch foods and red meat. I had to change from red meat to mostly lean, white meat protein such as chicken, turkey and different types of fish. With the change of main meat dishes, I had to change the side dishes I ate as well. I went from pasta noodles or bread with honey to fresh cut steamed vegetables. Let me tell you, my hair and nails have never grown so quickly since I started eating all of those vegetables.  Not only has the food and drinks I consume made me feel 100% better, I have been losing weight consistently since early November. I am down 89 pounds as of this day, compared to November of 2010.

                Not only was I changing the way I eat and drink, and spent my time socializing, I had to obviously get into the gym and work out. I had to change the way my body felt and looked. I knew that getting into shape after years of eating some-what okay, and years of smoking would put my body at a huge disadvantage. I started with doing mostly cardio. Work outs that consisted of brisk walking for at least 35 min, 3 times a week; to doing Zumba Dance for 45 min a day, 5 times a week. Between my brisk walks and Zumba Dance classes, I had got myself moving, made my muscles a little more limber and flexible, and had done enough cardio to get my heart rate up and burning calories. After doing Zumba for a few months, and starting to build stamina and finally seeing pounds come off of my body, I knew that before I would plateau off on the scale, I would have to increase my intensity that I brought into every work out.
                The past two months I have incorporated strength training, with cardio and core work. Strength training consists of dead weight lifting, working small and large muscle groups at the same time, and focusing on breathing. My cardio has increased to plyometric training (jump training) that mixes cardio with various jumping exercises. And on top of the weight lifting and cardio, I also engage myself in core work. By core I mean my stomach, hip and back muscles.  This mixture of strength training, cardio and core work will further help my body build muscles, gain stamina, become lean and able to respond quickly. I have been attending MMA (Mixed Martial Arts) classes to teach me defensive reflexes, and how to pick up on where someone may attack you and the basic moves that are seen in boxing matches. I am as of now, one of the only girls in the gym that I train in that are actively training to box. Although I am 20 pounds over my weight class that I am hoping to fight in, and I am still in the beginning of learning tactical moves, I have thus far proven to myself and my peers how much dedication, heart and persistence can get someone  closer to achieving their goals.  I have many things in my life that I could use as an excuse as to why I can’t train, or don’t train harder, or why maybe I shouldn’t even fight in the first place; but my drive makes me believe otherwise. Through hard work and determination, I will achieve my long set goal of boxing…and if you use your hard work and determination, you can make your goals/dreams come true as well!!

Guitar Hero

                In the article “Why the Music Industry Hates Guitar Hero”, writer Jeff Howe makes clear that if business men want to spend all their time dealing with the worry of how much money they are going to make off of certain artists and their songs from video games such as Guitar Hero, then money is more than likely going to be lost. If big time record label CEO’s like Warner Music Group CEO Edgar Bronfman keep attempting to deny video games of releasing songs, it is only going to hurt the record label in the end. By giving more songs and artists to these games which produce mass amounts of money per year, then more money would be generated towards that record label in the end. It shouldn’t matter what the overall amount the video game makes, considering it is enormously larger in profit than album sales. Album sales have fallen due to pirating and other cheap sources to buy albums; and having songs from a certain label on these games just further help generate more money back to the label company. By boycotting certain artists or games would be foolish on both ends. The more songs label companies release, the more money they are likely to make due to the rise in video game purchasing. Whereas if the label decides not to release any artists/songs to video games then they are relying strictly upon album sales; which has drastically went down.

                I agree with Jeff Howe, that the record label companies should continue to release songs to the video game companies as long as the demand for the games is so high. It would be a win-win-win situation for all people. The record labels will profit over the game, the game will do well because of the mass selection of songs; and the consumer will be happy that they have such a selection and not limited to what they could play or purchase.