Multimodal

Microtheme (Sweet Seducement)

I don't know how it happened but ever since I was little, I’ve had a huge sweet tooth. I've been through the health classes--I’ve taken the nutrition tests and done the dietary projects over the years. Everyone keeps telling me someday soon all these bad eating habits are going to catch up to me, and I still have yet to change my lifestyle. So why are sweet treats still so alluring?

One possible attraction to junk food is the incredible variety. Walk into any grocery store, Walgreens or gas station, and the first thing in the front is a rack of snacks. Nowadays there's every flavor of junk food under the sun--Doritos at one point even offered a yogurt and mint flavored chip. This wild section probably reaches out to everyone’s taste buds in some kind of way. Another possible alluring factor is the advertising behind all the yummy treats. I mean, hey, if that stunning actress in slow motion is enjoying that chocolate bar that much, it has to be good, right? Where there's the Internet or tv, there's ads. The expertly designed ads broadcast the idea that everyone should be eating these amazing snacks that are also amazingly bad for them. However, what if there's a chance it's not the worst thing in the world to eat? Stomachs tend to reject bad foods or poisons that could make us sick, but many people have no troubles eating tons of treats. If junk food is really 100% bad for us, our bodies would reject it somehow; there might be a benefit to eating something bad every once in awhile.

Maybe we just need to find something just as tasty to replace these treats. Maybe junk food should vanish all together. Maybe each person should decide for themself.

October So Far

I love fall. I love hot cocoa and beanies and scarves and bonfires. Autumn is my favorite season, and I'm so excited for the upcoming holidays.


That being said, I am quite stressed.


I wish I just had more time. I need time to do school work and readings and I wanted to actually read books for fun again; but I'm also a video game lover, and I want to start working on my own game; and I have online games with things I need/want to do in those; I also have a job, in which I really need to start building up more hours--school isn't cheap, and video games aren't free. I also have a cat to take care of, chores to do, and I need to keep up maintaining myself.


Hahahaaa.... What's a social life?


In reality, I do have a boyfriend I adore, and he's also busy with a full-time job, so we both try really hard to find every opportunity to see each other.


I also have really good friends whom I miss dearly and can't wait to see again, but they all have jobs and/or are in school.


I'm also pretty close to my family. I have a sister I get along really well with, and my mom and I bond frequently over music, funny videos, movies, and TV shows. So it's not like I'm alone....


I'm just busy. Both my father and I have birthdays this month, and everyone in my household loves Halloween, so things are pretty chaotic. 
It could also have to do with 2 pre-teens, a college student, 2 dogs, a cat, a dad that works odd hours, and a mom that likes to have fun.


I would LOVE to take up yoga to deal with stress. Anyone know a studio that's open 24/7?

Anxiety Struggles

So, our rhetoricity paper is the 3rd assignment I have done this year that has actually caused me to have an anxiety attack.

Wait wait, calm down. I'm fine. I don't need a hospital or anything. I've been dealing with this for a while. I have this under control. No need for anyone to panic.
It's not writing that makes me anxious, it's the subjects. I'm hoping these assignments will eventually turn into some weird version of exposure therapy, but so far, no such luck.
That being said, it's not like I want to make myself anxious. My anxiety attacks aren't obvious to most, but that doesn't mean they're in any way pleasant. My typical instinct is to avoid the things that make me anxious. Maybe, since I've avoided them for such a long time, they're hitting me harder than if I had exposed myself to them in small bits consistently.
Now I know we weren't supposed to make ourselves uncomfortable, but this event changed me as a person, and it's something I can write about for a long enough time in enough detail to satisfy the requirements of the assignments.
Or maybe I'm doing this wrong. Maybe I'm doing this whole assignment the wrong way. Who knows. Hopefully I'm doing it correctly, because I already have so much of it written.
I'm also.... self-conscious about others reading about this experience. I'm worried people will look at me differently, or pity me.
I don't need pity. I would appreciate understanding, or that someone learn from my mistakes so they don't ever have to go through the same thing, or anything similar.

I guess the point of this is to show I'm putting a lot into my paper, and I don't want the subject to be taken lightly. And I don't want to be taken lightly. I don't know. Maybe I'm making a bigger deal out of this than I should, but this paper touches a sensitive subject for me, and every word I write is true.

Don't worry, I'll get past this. I've handled worse. Hopefully this doesn't stop me from writing my paper well.

Sam Speaks (more like a rant)

Hi, hi.
Sam here!
Quick word from the mind of a retail worker:
Please, for the love of whatever you think is good in this world, be kind to cashiers, waiters/waitresses, fast food workers, and retail workers. We can't control the prices. Rarely do we have full control of the products or services we are providing. We're doing our best. We're not paid very well.
Please do not try to get us to bend rules for you; we can risk our jobs doing that, and we have bills to pay, too. Please forgive us if we aren't 100% sure on some information; we have to remember a lot of things. Please do not get mad at us when computers or systems stop working or malfunction or go down; often times these machines are outdated and we can't afford to upgrade.
Above all, please don't get mad at us. Personally speaking, angry people make me more frazzled and I make more mistakes. I do my best to do everything I can, and you trying to make me go faster or purposely making messes doesn't make my minimum wage job easier or more fun.

I'm just trying to pay off college costs, man.

I Don't Want to Live in Public

I'll be honest, Josh Harris's "experiments" in the documentary "We Live in Public" disturbed me--specifically "Quiet" and "We Live in Public." I don't understand what could have possibly gone on in his head to drive him to do these things. I don't understand how someone could want to collect so much video footage of other people not only during their more private moments, but eventually of them changing and devolving into something almost animal-like. Then, when he streamed his entire life with his girlfriend 24/7, I wasn't surprised when she seemed to get tired of never having a private moment. Sure, it's an interesting way to interact with others, but only in short bursts. Doing that all day every day is a huge invasion of privacy and Josh didn't seem to care about baring himself to his audience. Knowing full well that cameras were on them and people were watching, he still wanted to be intimate with his girlfriend. He even put a camera in his toilet. Everyone could see everything. The cameras never turned off. I'm a shy person when I meet new people and I like my privacy, so this entire concept seems incredibly bizarre to me, and the extent Josh takes it to is disturbing. There were several times I almost stopped watching.
I was also shocked by the response people had to the Quiet project. People seemed a little nervous about being on camera 24/7 at first, but after a while, not only did they not care, but they weren't acting like themselves. People walked around naked, waved guns around, openly used the bathroom and didn't care about people watching them in the shower. They didn't have any shame and were incredibly careless. I don't know how people could have changed that much over such a short period of time.
Now, I know last we heard, Josh is on an apple farm by himself. He's doing the complete opposite of what he did with the "We Live in Public" project. He barely talks to people and he just farms apples. I want to know what he's up to now and his thoughts on how people stream on Twitch and YouTube and how people make money for it--but they only show glimpses of their lives. I'd also ask him what made him think of doing his "experiments."
However his projects definitely made me reevaluate why I want to film myself on trips or at cool places. This is my life; why would I want to share it? Maybe Josh Harris' story should be taken as a cautionary tale. People (myself included) should be careful with how much of ourselves we post online and make sure we keep our humanity and decency. With internet privacy becoming an ever-increasing concern, maybe we should cut back on how much we live in public.

I would sell my soul...

One interesting fact about me: I HATE BEING SICK.
I am so, so sorry for all the times I've coughed and sneezed in class. I've been sick for almost two weeks and this dumb @$$ cold won't go away, no matter what I do. It's only getting worse.
I swear, I usually rarely get sick. I'm pretty proud of that. BUT. When I DO get sick, it kicks my butt.
I've told my friends before how much I hate it, and recently in a conversation with one friend, I blurted out that I would sell my soul just to never be sick again.
She started laughing at me and I said, "No, seriously. Never be sick again? I'd sell my soul for that."
Now I actually want to know, what would you sell your soul for? What's something you want badly enough that, theoretically speaking, you would "sell your soul." 
I don't mean to be dark, or morbid. That's just kind of my sense of humor.
Anyway, my stupid cold was so bad, I didn't even go to my classes on Monday. I was up all night coughing and sneezing, and when I woke up from the 2 hours of sleep I did get, I felt much like a zombie. I normally don't like missing school, but I made the call, knowing I wouldn't get any work done at school in my condition. Hopefully, I didn't miss too much.

Alright, one last thing:
If you have any tips or suggestions for the design/layout of my blog, I would still very much love to see it. Lemme know. I can handle criticism.

The only thing I can't handle IS THIS STUPID COLD. UGH. Wish me luck at getting this thing to go away.

Post #1. Oh boy, here we go.

Lower your expectations, friends. I'm a casual person, and while I love writing, I view blogs as being more casual. Therefore, this will be pretty informal most of the time unless otherwise specified. I may try different formats, different fonts, different blog layouts. I like changing things up, making them look nice.
HOWEVER--If anyone reading this notices something I should change to make things nicer or easier to read, I would very much appreciate any advice you may have for me. I don't mind taking criticism. I'm a big girl. I can handle it. I'd love some input. This was created for a class; it's not going to be perfect.
Next up, if I can, I'm probably not going to solely post the required blog posts for class. I am more than college class projects. Expect pictures of cats, random videos, and probably links to cool songs that gave me inspiration. I like sharing things I find interesting, because chances are someone else out there might like it, too.
So to start this off with a bang, I'm going to share a song that I think is very uplifting.
This song is featured in a cute cartoon movie called Rock Dog. Its a little odd, but the song at the end is actually really good. It's called "Glorious" and I'm going to add it to this post so if anyone would like, they can easily check it out.

Alright, I think that does it for now. Catch you later, gators!