Month: March 2019

In Julie Beck’s article, there were many points she touched on that caught my eye and grabbed my attention. One of those moments was when she stated, “Stories are life, life is stories.” This quote made me really think about how people talk about their live. People explain their lives by telling stories so, in a way, life is a never-ending story that contains many short stories within in. If you think about all the times in your life you have to explain an event you always a use a story to explain who you are and how you got to this point.

Another moment in Beck’s article that I connected with when she mentioned how humans have a tendency to try and predict the future even when they have no reason to. My mom and I tend to watch a lot of crime shows and we always try to predict how the show will proceed (who killed the person and why they did it). When I thought about how I try to predict the ending of a show, it made me realize that we, as humans, have a need to know every detail about life. We want to know what will happen next because it makes us feel more comfortable because we are prepared for the outcome. However, that is not how life works. Life is full of surprises and twists, just like TV shows, and those twists are what makes life exciting and different. By guessing what will happen in the future, the excitement disappears and we may become let down by the actual outcome.

Lastly, I also connected with Beck’s quote about overthinking, “If you’re prone to overthinking, and playing out every possibly scenario in your head in advance, you can see foreshadowing in everything.” Sometimes when I am unsure about a decision I made, I overthink the possibly repercussions of my choice and I dive into those thoughts until I start to believe it is actually happening and I have to revert myself back to the reality of the situation. Most of the time, my worst thoughts never actually happen, but in the moments following my decision I feel like it is the only possible outcome.  These thoughts are like a train that never stops because more thoughts build and build upon them until I arrive at a very unlikely outcome.

I chose to read through my first draft of my first paper in this course. I felt it would give me a better understanding of my habits because a lot of editing and polishing of the paper takes place. As I read through the first few paragraphs I could already notice patterns in my writing. I used the word metaphor a lot which could be considered a key term since the topic of my paper was metaphors in medicine. However, I felt like I repeated the word “metaphor” too often in my paper to a point that the repetition was not helping advance my paper. I also used pointing words quite frequently. Most of the time I used them in a proper way that the reader would still understand what I was talking about. However,  a few times I did not do so. For example, In the second paragraph I said “this is not how the researchers thought the audience would understand the metaphor but it does show how everyone can comprehend the same subject or idea in a different way than someone may have intended.” The use of the word “this” in the beginning of the sentence makes the meaning of the sentence very vague and can cause the reader to become confused about what “this” is. I do use transition words when needed but I stick to a select few including, “for example”, “nevertheless”, and “therefore”. I would say I rely on pointing words more than any other device. I found myself underlining pointing words more often than transition words or key words. I would say a passage/sentence that is confusing and I could make clearer would be the sentence above. I would replace the word this and state, “The researchers did not intend for the audience to interpret the metaphor differently but this interpretation does show how everyone can comprehend the same subject or idea in a different way than someone may have planned.”  I feel the wording of the second sentence makes the intent of the sentence more clear to the audience. I would not add a device into this sentence because I do not believe it needs another.

Brief outline of upcoming paper for Prompt 2. This includes ideas for my claims and thesis. Also a possible idea for a naysayer paragraph in the essay.

Interview of my mom, Lisa Cacciola, about how the death of her father impacted her view on her church and religion.