My Thoughts Made Public

The biggest difference in which I have noticed in looking over my blog is the confidence in my writing. This was the very first blog I have ever done so I was really not sure what to expect. At first, the thought that everyone could read what I was writing really scared me. I wanted to go through and read what other people had written before I wrote my first blog to make sure I wasn’t sounding too strange on my blog. For my first blog assignment which was the introduction of ourselves, I wrote a very limited response. I did not want to put that much information about myself on the internet that everyone could see. Then, I soon realized the information about myself that I put on Facebook is way more information than I would ever put on this blog. Also more people will probably look at my Facebook page than on my English 308J Blog. Still, however I was timid about what I posted to my blog. This was mainly because I had never met most of the people in my class and I knew they were going to be reading it so I didn’t want to come off as that “weird kid in the class”. The biggest difference between my earlier and my later blogs was the content and purpose of the blogs. My first few blogs were more about me and my personal opinion about the topic in which we were discussing. The later blogs which I had posted were more academic and had to do more with the project and paper I was working on. The biggest difference between my first and last blogs, however, was the change in my view about the environment. When I first came into this class, I would have considered myself the opposite of an environmentalist. I am not saying that I hate the environment, but environmental issues were not really all that important to me when thinking about the issues in my life. Now, I would not consider myself a hardcore tree hugger, but I am absolutely more aware of the environmental issues facing our planet, and especially the local community in which we live. I believe the cause of this was because of all the literature on the environment which I had read and the research I had done on so many topics which we discussed in the class. It makes sense that the more you know about the topic, the more it will matter to you. As I began to know more about our environment and the problems facing it, the more interested I became in learning about these topics as a whole.

I would consider my strongest posts to be about the reading on Food Inc. I believe these were my strongest arguments because the book Food Inc. was so fascinating to me. It makes sense to me that the better writing I did would be about a topic which interests me. I would have more to write about because I would have more to say about the issue in which we are discussing. The topic of the food we eat as Americans and the way we consume it had never really crossed my mind before reading this book. I had so much to say about this topic because this was a topic that really hit home with me. All the negative things about food consumption that Americans do, I was guilty of, and most likely still am. I thought it was so interesting for the different authors to take a topic so specified as eating, and apply it to so many different aspects of our lives. My weaker posts were the responses to the speaker we had and the movies we watched (besides Food Inc.). I think these were not my strongest posts because they were not topics that truly interested me.

At first, I was very hesitant to post blogs about my personal thoughts on my blog because they were just that: personal. I did not want to offend anyone with my personal beliefs and have them ripped apart by someone else who felt very strongly about that same issue. I soon realized though, the blog was a venue for our ideas to be shared with the class and everyone was supportive of our arguments. If anyone did have an objection to our posts, they were constructive and not offensive. Overall I thought the blog was a very good aspect of this class because it was easily accessible and it was a very good way for everyone is both classes to share ideas, comments, and interact with other students in the class.