List of Complaints

Since Thanksgiving is over, I feel like I need to bring an adequate balance to my life after giving so much thanks, so I will now create a list of complaints for which no solutions will be presented... obviously.
1: Airplanes that do not have tv screens in the back of the headrest
2: Hamburgers are too greasy
3: Mountains are too tall
4: The Y is too hard to climb
5: College
6: School
7: Schoolwork
8: Homework
9: Paper
10: My computer screen is dusty
11: Things are too far away on campus
12: Walking
13: The Sun is too bright
14: Iclickers
15: The floor is uncomfortable to sit on
16: Things cost money
17: Energy Drinks
18: Bros
19: Bros with Energy Drinks
20: The English Language
21: Dirty Socks
22: Chewing Gum
23: Loud People
24: Things that annoy me
25: People who walk slow
26: Two weeks of school
27: Writing papers
28: Not being able to think of complaints

Merry Christmas! Now we are all in balance for the holidays...

Dis Research Paper

Hey People! Well I haven't exactly started this paper yet... but I am planning on a 12-hour writing blitz on Saturday... so that is really fun. I have several great sources lined up and a very in-depth argument stewing on the brain so I am really excited to write about my opinion of the energy crisis. I like to write papers all at once so I am excited for Saturday! Alright...

Why Write? (I still don't really know)

I really enjoyed reading these pages of Why Write? for this blog post (mostly because of the Monty Python references). It was interesting to learn all about the science of argument, as I have always understood how to argue, but never have quantified the elements that I have always used in argument. The allegory of the peanut butter and jelly sandwich really helped me understand how to organize the piece and I will reference back to these articles while writing my paper. I am now going to discuss the example arguments contained in our reading starting with “Native Americans and Archeologists: Who Owns the Past?”. Going back to the sandwich, I really enjoyed the background information that was provided at the beginning of the article and its ability to answer the reader’s question of “so what?”. The author effectively brought the audience up to speed on the issue at hand concerning Native American (author wisely avoids the politically incorrect use of Indian) artifacts and who has possession of them. The author continues to be objective and provide background information by stating both sides argument about the issue, ultimately providing more credible sources to establish ethos before the author gives the audience her view on the issue. Also, the author had already established the pros and cons of the current act concerning Native American artifact rights, leaving her room to end her argument with her own ideas that make sense in terms of the rest of the facts presented. The next argument article concerns preventative prenatal care for undocumented immigrants. Like the pervious article, the argument begins with an overview of the situation and the problem that the author believes needs addressing. However, this article uses case studies and other examples of how prenatal care has improved public health and lessened the cost on healthcare to show that the same techniques can be used in Utah. The author then reviews the points made in an effective conclusion. Both articles are extremely based in logic and help to progress their arguments in an effective manner.

Back on Schedule- Issue Paper Topic

For my issue paper I am going to discuss a complex issue, whether or not alternative energy can effectively replace fossil fuels. What makes this paper complex is the view I personally have on this energy issue, as I believe that in the short-term, we need to continue the use of fossil fuels and focus on using them responsibly. However, I believe the use of fossil fuels should only be maintained for enough time to launch a massive research and development campaign into areas such as solar, wind, and nuclear power (hydroelectric dams are already on every major waterway, making this technology less important for my proposal for advancement). The topics I will be covering are the advancement of nuclear power as safe and reliable source, a rebuilding of infrastructure and advancement of an energy grid that eliminates waste in electrical power, and my main point (that can separate out into sub points as well) is my plan that we should undergo a massive excavation of our available resources to expand the energy economy and allow enough time for technologies such as hydrogen, wind, and solar to become effective enough and have the infrastructure to replace our current form of energy. We have a small window before our natural resources are exhausted, and as a person who is skeptical of climate change, I believe that we should use our natural resources until we have connected our advancements in alternative energy technologies to a brand new energy infrastructure that will enhance the use of these alternative energy sources to cover the progressive waning of natural resources. Overall, I am for the use of alternative energy, but I believe that a use of natural resources in the short term is the only way for us to create a strong, unified effort that will utilize the newly developed technologies to their fullest potential. We cannot haphazardly begin putting out unready alternative energy that disjointedly work with each other and therefore become inadequate. Nuclear, wind, hydrogen, and other forms should be developed into infrastructure in one unified act instead of the inefficient and slow manner that is not leading us on the road to energy independence. The development of these new technologies that are funded by the continued use of natural resources will also provide a new technology sector for America that other countries will go to for “green technologies” and could be a major export for the United States and boost the economy. 

Narrative Done!

Yeah! The narrative is done (it has been for awhile) but I am going to celebrate on this blog because I am so happy to get rid of that assignment. I might need a transfusion from all hard work and blood that went into thinking up all my analysis. It was a rough time, but it is now time to move onto the next paper.

Narrative Progress

This is a silly post as I have neglected to see the new syllabus and my paper has long ben finished, but if I were to say something about the analysis, I would say that it was quite hard to get all the words down on my first draft. It was a "bleeder" paper... that was for sure and I can't wait to have it turned in (although it is turned in)... yeah.

Letters from B-Jail

Genre: Persuasive Essay

Purpose: To gain support of the white “silent majority” that is neutral in their opinion of the civil rights movement and to establish the peaceful motives behind their civil disobedience.

Central Message: Martin Luther King is relying a message that the African-American population has long been denied basic human rights and dignity and that the time for action is now; though he believes this change can occur through non-violent measures.

World-View and Assumptions: King assumes that Americans believe in the principles of liberty and equality, but most of all human dignity. He speaks on a highly religious level with many references to Christian doctrine, indicating that he believes that most Americans have some connection to Christianity in the United States. He also addresses the point that he essentially believes that most Whites are not extremists as seen in the South, but can relate to the plight of the African-Americans and see their humanity.

Use of Tools and Evidences:

Martin Luther King is writing not only to White moderates, but also to clergymen like King himself was. For this audience, King tries to connect to his fellow believers by referencing a higher moral code, The Bible, in order to appeal for the Whites to follow the counsel of Jesus to “do unto others as you would have them do unto you” (however it goes). Essentially, King uses his ethos by use of his collegiate writing style along with his position as minister to appeal to his audience’s spiritual enlightenment through the pathos associated with Biblical texts. The spirit of the pathos from the quoting of scripture leads into the overall logos of the piece, which is essentially that we as humans believe in a sense of morals that should transcend any abusive law set forth by misguided individuals. Pathos is also seen in King’s attempts to display the lack of dignity caused by segregation as he describes how parents must explain to children why they cannot participate in the same benefits as White children, outlining the injustice and negative effects of segregation on the Black community. 

C.S Lewis

Genre: Persuasive Essay

Purpose: To address critics of Christianity and affirm its legitimacy as a truthful belief system through open-minded logic.

Central Message: Christianity is not for close-minded individuals and, like many things of this world, is complex and full of essential truths when one thinks about it rationally.

World View and Assumptions: C.S Lewis addresses a universal audience of all religious beliefs in his piece, but mainly addresses critics and atheists. Lewis writes his pieced like he is talking to the most hyper rational group imaginable who will not fall for clichés we normally use in our church (just have faith, use the spirit) to convince ourselves that Jesus is the Christ. Lewis takes for granted he is talking to a mature audience and explains Christianity in terms that display the actual complexity of the religion, insomuch that an educated person might even be lost in his progression. He also shows that a majority of people has some sort of belief system as Atheism is blasted in the article.

Use of Tools and Evidence: Since the article is primarily based in logos, C.S Lewis immediately establishes his open-mindedness and legitimacy as a writer by declaring that he once was an atheist. In order to further validate his ethos to the hard line unbelievers, he does not say he was “born again” or fall into the religious fervor of pathos, as such talk would alienate his skeptics. He uses the logical approach that atheists claim to be the basis of their beliefs, and shows that atheism is in fact, much less complex and is the simplest belief system known to mankind. Although his approach is primarily in logos, C.S Lewis uses pathos by his simple word choices. In order to avoid further complicating the already complex notions of Christianity, he uses simple words like “good” “evil” and other words that establishes his writing in a way that the audience can either accept or not accept, there is no middle ground in his pathos or logos. Ultimately, I believe this piece shows how important the Spirit is for legitimizing truths. If the Spirit were not present in our lives then imagine trying to explain to your children why they should believe in Christ in this logical manner. 

Veil of Fears

Genre: Persuasive Essay

Purpose: To look at the traditional Muslim practice of veiling woman from a perspective of tolerance in order to convince the Western world not to force feminist reforms onto people that may not want these reforms all at once.

Central Message: Forcing Western feminist values on the Middle Eastern Muslim population might prove more harmful than beneficial as veiling helps promote the ideal of family ties and honor in Muslim society.

World View and Assumptions: The author presents himself as a wise and educated person who can consider the other side of the argument on forced veiling. He realizes that different cultures have long lasting traditions and influences that cause societies to look upon certain ideas in different lights. Kurtz does no fall into the trap that many Americans tend to do, which is to be ignorant towards that fact that different peoples do not look upon values in a similar light and hold the same moral code. The author is non-judgmental of the Muslim tradition and one can tell that he keeps an open mind towards strange ideals instead of falling on the side of extremism and declaring his opinion before all facts are presented.

Use of Tools and Evidence: Kurtz uses a basic manner of logical reasoning to point out his argument against Western countries forcing their opinions on the Muslim world. At the beginning, he slyly uses phrases and sources given by Western feminists (Quoting an author who wrote the laughably slanted title Vagina Monologues) to point out to the average, moderate thinking American how ridiculously ignorant news media and members of the vocal extremists are towards the wearing of veils. The beginning of the essay proves how easily we are being manipulated to paint this Muslim value in black while we believe Western ideals are essentially white, or good. Kurtz’s following background information allows a refreshing departure from the “us versus them” philosophy that bombards us from vocal extremists and allows the reader to see veiling from the Muslim perspective. This background information not only gives useful information that feminist most likely ignore, but adds a little gray to the situation so the audience does not take blindly believe our ideals are inherently good while Muslim ideals are dark and evil. He finally is wise to include examples from history (U.S rebuilding of Japan) in which a “hands-off” approach towards societal values ended up creating a harmonious environment in which progress could be achieved. I personally appreciated the fact that Kurtz’s writing was similar to his argument; he did not force his opinion on his audience but merely reminded Americans that we are a people of tolerance and forcing our values on a fundamental society like the Muslim world would only result in backlash. 

That Took a While

Am I sad that our personal narrative assignment has come to a conclusion? I can't say I am, but at the same time, it was a boatload of fun to be able to write in a creative manner. My four years of high school consisted of not only eight hour school days that started before the sun came over the horizon, but also endless amounts of analytical papers dealing with subjects that were excessively bland. This assignment brought a refreshing change of pace to the monotony of my writing career and, even though I am quite glad to see that paper vanish from my sight, I will look upon the hours we spent together in a favorable light. It surprised me how much time careful revision actually took. I can remember in middle school that our writing teachers tried to organize the class into peer-editing groups before papers were due, but nobody had the skills to edit or place any useful input. I then proceeded to my normal "one-draft and turn that sucker in" method that easily carried me through all of my high school English classes. Now  realize how much refinement one can achieve through a careful revision. I must've spent twice as much time revising my paper than it took to slap it all down into writing, but I can say now that all the revision was well worth it... especially since I caught three misspelled words the hour before the assignment was due.

Personal Narrative

Hey sorry if this is a day late (my blog had a really weird thing happen and I could not post for the entire day, but magically it allowed me to post today... weird). I guess some of us are still having to work out some bugs. The personal narrative is going along well because I have a subject that requires a lot of detail and description (I could even be lacking in description) because of all the activities and experiences that happened in this one particular day, which was my first day in Russia. It could actually entail twenty pages if I really wanted to accurately depicted every single detail and person I remember from that day, but I believe I am adding the amount of detail necessary to facilitate my message (but I guess we will see right?) I was able to finish two pages yesterday and went to post about it before repeatedly getting booted off the blog homepage, but the two pages went pretty smooth and I am enjoying writing about Russian who don't smile, my initial impression of the city, and the once experience that changed my view on tolerance, prejudice, etc. (no spoilers on this page). Once again I apologize for the late post, but as always you need to blame technology. I am excited to finish my first draft and I know I will be able to fix some mistakes and add more detail in certain spots to really make it shine. Overall I have the main points I want to cover in my mind and that is the most important part I believe.

That One Death Story

I know the actual title, but it's fun to be course sometimes... it's my blog so lay off! (None of this counts for my 250 words). On Natural Death by Lewis Thomas, the New England educated neurologist, peeked my interest as I had just recently been thinking about the notion of death in the eternal perspective. (I'm not dark or am attracted to macabre settings and death so don't worry) Anyway, I began to realize just how ridiculous our society's fear of death is when taken into the scope of the gospel. Obviously we have a natural will to survive and carry out our mission here on Earth, if we didn't have this will then we would be doing irrational and dangerous acts that could potentially maim or kill us at any moment (oh wait, some of us do that regularly). In all seriousness, we as humans aren't waiting in lines at the mortuary, waiting for our moment to eventually die and also aren't committing suicide as soon as we are forced to endure something particularly nasty... like watching Mama Mia (though many people actually had to be talked down shortly after opening credits) side note: jk for all those who believe I am serious about this movie and its effects on suicidal thoughts, no offense implied. Anyway, I believe our fear of death is a little overblown at times and may be due to the increasing belief in... nothing. What I mean by this is that many members of society have chosen to believe in uncertainty after death purely for the sake of removing the concept of agency from their lives. They choose the path of agency without consequence, which then allows these unfortunate people to feel as though they can live their lives exactly how they please without eternal repercussion. However, what I implied from this man of science and reasoning is that death was made to be a natural part of life, insomuch that all living creatures' bodies know exactly how to die the right way when their time comes. I realize not all death is painless; there are many diseases that take their victims slowly and painfully, but nevertheless, we are naturally equipped with the knowledge of how to die. This concept brings me back to a story I read on how people should have the right to die over being kept alive and enduring further pain by means of modern medicine. A man in the story was constantly being kept alive through medicine and repeated resuscitations, even though he had pleaded to exercise his natural right to die. Eventually a nurse chose to allow the man to die and not exert further effort towards keeping his mortal body alive. Although modern medicine is a wonderful achievement of man and should be used in order to prolong life; there are some situations in which I feel like we might be holding an individual back from progressing to his next estate and exercising his natural ability to die painlessly. That is what I believe the author is trying to convey about death; that at the appointed time, nature will tell us how we are supposed to die with the least pain. This fact shows to me that we as framers of this mortal world understood the benefit of pain as an avoidance measure, but likewise knew that we will all would desire death and return to claim our estate. With this knowledge, we created a world that allowed for a painless death that would make the cycle of life and death a little more humane.

Love Story Fades to Black

I know what you’re thinking… and the answer is no, I do not believe in male superiority (because that the piece is written by a guy is not why I chose it... get the first sentence now?). This piece actually spoke to me the most because, despite what many women feel, men actually are intelligent life forms as well with the ability to conjure up these emotions. Believe me, I have had a somewhat similar experience concerning a friend this last summer. I had met a girl about a year and a half ago at some social gathering near my home in Cincinnati. She was friendly and I really did enjoy her company and attention, even though she was from xxx (location undefined for security purpose). True it wasn’t the same “deep” relationship that the novelist describes with the melodramatic, mushy love scene on the practice football field tower, but it was genuine attraction and friendship. After many months in which we kept regular contact, she was able to go on a “date” (if your definition of date is the interaction in the narrative) with me. Basically it was a walk around the BYU campus at eight in the morning… romantic. We talked normally and nothing terribly embarrassing happened, but it just felt wooden, fake. I kept trying to steer the date towards my predetermined vision, but I might as well have been directing a movie and trying to coax out emotion from the world’s most monotone actors. The narrator was just as unpleased and disillusioned with his “friend” in the story and what was, seemed like just that, was. There are differences in our stories however; his friend seems to have lost the spark that once existed and moved on to the preverbal “green pastures” while my friend and I never had that awkward past and spark in the first place. In my estimation, the guy is doomed and should scrap his “first draft” of life after a mission… clearly things have changed. There still is hope to salvage my friendship (knock on wood) as we both have not emotionally invested much into our long distance friendship, hopefully allowing it to survive long stretches of time without the awkwardness displayed in the story.

In my opinion, this narrative is essentially further evidence towards my thinking on long distance relationships and the principle of "out of sight, out of mind."  Personally, I do not have hope for this unfortunate missionary who fell into the traps that our mischievous female counterparts continually set in order to exert their wrath, but can only hope him the best in life. (This last part does not necessarily reflect the view of Jake Nelson... it is purely meant to be humorous.)

Me in 100 Words

Call me Ishmael… No not really, but Moby Dick was a good read (Cough). Call me Jake actually. I was born/raised in Cincinnati to goodly parents. I enjoy Cincinnati favorites like Skyline Chili, humidity, brown rivers, and losing sports teams. I like sports… Football, Hockey, Basketball, Bowling, Lacrosse… all kinds of ‘dem. I made the BYU Hockey squad and am actually in the university, imagine that. I enjoy reading when the lighting is right and eating in the Cannon Center. If you would desire to know more… (Ladies)…go to Helaman and ask for Jake. They’ll fit you into the schedule.