Critical Issues Writing

Journal Post 1/20-1/26

Tuesday 1/20

Notes: Walking outside of Whitehall after class I noticed a group of people smoking cigarettes. They were talking about a video game called World of Warcraft. The group of people were made up of 4 males and 1 female. The female was the only one in this group that was not smoking a cigarette.

Reflection: I understand the point of cigarettes calming you down, but with all the new scientific evidence that relate it to cancer why do people still harm their bodies like this? There are different supplements that these people can use to rid themselves of cigarettes and make their lives healthier. It’s not my place to tell them what to do, but I would hope that they get rid of this habit for their own good.

Wednesday 1/21

Notes: Wednesdays are the best days: mac and cheese day at ovids. I was waiting in line for my mac and cheese when I overheard a couple (I think) in front of me bashing the mac and cheese. They were using foul language saying how they don’t give enough portions and that it isn’t nearly as good as it was last year. I don’t know how good it was last year since this is my first year on campus

Reflection: I didn’t really understand why they were in the mac and cheese line if they disliked it so much. I respect other people’s opinions, but these two were just wrong. The mac and cheese is just too yummy to dislike. At first glance I feel that these two are just negative people. I don’t see the need to complain so blatantly about something so simple as mac and cheese.

Thursday 1/22

Notes: I am in the student center talking with the dining office about my plan. I overhear two girls talking about how they are planning to switching to the 85 meal plans for the semester and two guys talking about how they are going to increase to the unlimited meal plan. Each of the pairs of people talked about the pros and cons of each meal plan they were going to purchase. Why they needed more meals, or why they need less meals.

Reflection: The main thing I took away from these two conversations were that both pairs waited til the last minute to change their meal plan. What made them want to switch it this semester and not last semester. What could’ve happened that they needed change. Did they need to spend less money because tuition is so expensive, or were they always hungry and needed more food than they already had. It was very cool that I got to “eavesdrop” on two sets of people that had different intentions about changing their meal plan.

Friday 1/23

Notes: I went to the JC after class on Friday to play some basketball. While I was waiting to play I overheard a conversation between two friends arguing about whether Lebron or MJ was a better basketball. They were using factual information on the topic and other different ways of expressing their view on the subject.

Reflection: I was really intrigued in this conversation because its a debate you hear often as an NBA basketball fan. I thought the guy that was talking about Lebron being better was 100% right. I did have some speculation on the facts he was using. He kept trying to boost Lebron’s stats by a couple percentage points. It was one of the more interesting conversations I heard doing this journal since I was somewhat interested in the subject.

Sunday 1/25

Notes: I went to Tin Roof during the day with my roommate and a couple friends to watch the Duke game, since Coack K was going for win 1000. We were at a booth and the UK fans behind us were bashing on Duke and Coach K. They obviously still had some resentment from the famous Christian Laettner shot.

Reflection: I thought what they were saying about Coach K was uncalled for. He is the greatest coach in College Basketball history and most people have the utmost respect for him. I do love UK basketball, but there are times when the UK fans need to learn that Duke is a good and legitimate program ran by one of the greatest coaches in all of sports.

Sunday 1/25

Notes: Once I got home from Tin Roof, I started to do homework and went to the library to meet my study group for my history class. During our study session there was a group of girls that were being extremely loud and obnoxious. They kept talking about their night and how awful it was at whatever party they went to. This complaining was directed towards other girls at the party. It got old real quick and we soon moved to a new location.

Reflection: The library is a place where people can go and talk and hang out, but there are times when people need to turn their volume down. It seemed as if these girls had had this problem once before. I want to know why they went to this party if they had known that this other group of girls was going to be there. They had said they talked about it before the party but ended up going anyway. Isn’t it just easier to avoid conflict than to get involved with it directly?

Monday 1/26

Notes: We had a s’mores night in the basement of our dorm tonight and there were quite a bit of people there. A conversation I heard was between two of the RAs in the dorm. They were arguing about whether water or milk was better in hot chocolate. They both said positive things about their own preference, but some of those positive things could be seen as negatives to the other side.

Reflection: How did these two RAs get their preference for hot chocolate. Was it what their moms made after a cold day in the snow, or did they learn to have a specific preference by what was made at their school and such. What sparked this debate in the basement tonight?

In Class Coffee Free Write

In Class Free Writing

Behind The Noose Short Film

I think this documentary was really good. I enjoyed it because it had the reality of what police officers could face in situations like these. Yes I know, these situations don't happen often, but it is a possibility. I thought that the music that was paired with short was very fitting. The music gave the short a little more suspense than it already had. There were a few points that I thought were a little unrealistic about the short I had watched. When he was searching through the buildings there was a body hanging but he somehow missed it, which I don't understand. They could've put the body in a more secluded place where it would've been understandable that he missed the body. The short went from very sunny day to a pitch black night within a matter of two minutes. I think the short was overall very good and entertaining, but it could've been more realistic at a few points.


 Link to Article

Primary Research Survey

For my primary research I decided to do the survey I submitted on blackboard. I handed out the survey to various members in my dorm. I didn’t know what to expect when handing this survey out. I thought I’d receive various different answers about the survey and what students knew about Wildcat Service Dogs. I had 37 participants in this survey The survey questions I asked were:

1. Do you have pets at home?
1. Yes
2. No
2. Do you know anything about wildcat service dogs?
1. Yes
2. No
3. If your answer was yes to question 2, please explain what you know.

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

4. Would you like to learn more information about the program?
1. Yes
2. No
5. Would you consider joining the Wildcat Service Dog Program?
1. Yes
2. No
3. Don’t have enough information
6. Do you know anybody who is a part of the program?
1. Yes
2. No

For the 1st question I received 29 “yes” answers and 8 “no” answers. I asked this question to see if it would relate to question number 5 in determining if there is any relation in people that have pets wanting to be a service dog trainer or not.  

The second question I received all “Yes” answers form the 37 participants.

The third question I had a lot of similar answers. The three most common answers were; “They are trained by students here at UK”, “They are dogs that help students with disabilities”, and “Anybody can become a trainer”.

The fourth question I was surprised about. Only 19 of the 37 participants wanted to know more about the Wildcat Service Dog program. I think they said “no” because the figured I’d send them emails about it and be that annoying survey guy nobody likes.

The fifth question was what I had expected. I had 31 students say “yes”. I thought that those who had pets would be more likely to want to become a part of the Wildcat Service Dog program. Of the 29 students who had pets, 25 of them would want to join the program.  There were also 6 students who didn’t have pets that also wanted to join the program. I did not have any students say they “did not have enough information”.

The sixth question I only received one “yes” answer. The girl said she knew somebody from her hometown that was a part of the program. I think many of the “no” answers are because many of the students in my dorm are freshmen and don’t know too many upperclassmen here at UK.

Reflection on the Blog Posts

When we were first assigned the blog posts I was very uninterested in them. I thought they were a waste of time and given to us for busy work. I would write them just for the sake of the grade and not really care what the information I was looking up actually was. It was hard choosing a topic that I actually wanted to learn about, but once we were put into groups I instantly loved the topic. The Wildcat Service Dogs and service dogs in general are so fascinating. I actually enjoy doing the research (to an extent). I have learned so much from the 3 blog posts a week. The blog posts are a great idea. Like I said earlier I didn’t understand what the point of doing them was, but now that we are actually starting to get into writing and directing our documentary, they are a great source and easy reference. I don’t need to keep looking up different items to put into the documentary. Everything I have already researched is summed up into a nice little paragraph or two. If I need more information from a specific source, I know where to find it. I can also use my group member’s blog post to retrieve and look for information I didn’t find. Overall I am pretty happy on how the blog posts have helped in terms of research. What I wasn’t a fan of was how repetitive some blog posts got to be. The information I was finding was very similar to other blog posts I had done. It was tough finding new information that wasn’t completely boring. These blog posts will be a big help to me when doing the documentary in the near future.