oh please not another obesity paper

For my research paper I am going to write about obesity, but not just the standard paper on how it is a huge problem it todays society. I am going to talk about how individuals should be held accountable for their choices on the food they choose to eat and not be able to sew food companies such as McDonalds. As a food science major with an interest in becoming a dietitian I am interested about how what you put into your body affects so many aspects of your life. The biggest aspect would be a persons overall health, and even with just a basic understanding of food or caloric intake individuals should be able to understand the types of foods they need to take in. Everyone makes the conscious decision about what they put into their body and the food we choose to put ingest can have giant effects on our bodies. For my research I am going to look into some previous reasons that people have sewed food companies, and from there I will further research each of the reasons. For example, a group of overweight students from New York filed a lawsuit against McDonalds and sought compensation for their obesity related health problems and wanted improved labeling of McDonalds products. I am not arguing that McDonalds serves healthy food in anyway, but they cannot be blamed for the children constantly eating the fast food and becoming obese. Deep-fried anything is never beneficial to your health and choosing to eat these types of greasy products is the choice of consumer. Blaming a company that serves unhealthy food for your increased risk of heart disease and increased blood pressure is illogical. They do not force anyone to eat their products, people choose to and thereby choose to increase their risk for health problems. For my scholarly sources I will look up old lawsuits and case studies of the health related topics and for my rhetorical sources I will look up cartoons that imply fast food companies are to blame for obesity. I think this is an important topic for people to understand because obesity is rapidly turning into Americas number one health concern and every overweight person cannot decide to blame their poor decision making on fast food companies. 

Conspiracies Theories Are Fun

I am still looking at some options for my research topic, but I know that I want to write a research paper on a conspiracy theory. More specifically I want to write this paper on a conspiracy that deals with the United States Government. This interests me because we, as Americans, tend to take everything we hear on the news at face value. I believe that in some cases, the media is not telling us the whole story. I am interested in digging deeper in to a specific story and really looking at the evidence at face value.

            I will be questioning the given evidence throughout my paper and whether or not I think there is something missing. I will look at what the media says, the government says, but more importantly what the eyewitnesses have to say. I will compare the three, see if they line up, and continue from there. There are times when after the fact, other people come out and make a statement about an incident, but no one notices them, or the media decides not to air it. My hypothesis is that in most incidents the news is correct, but I believe that there are some sketchy issues that have happened that the government is not telling the people the whole truth on.

            I know that there will be a significant amount of articles on whatever conspiracy theory. There will be lots of people who want answers who are willing to write on their stance on a topic.

            This essay is very relevant to society. Every American is under the same authority, the government. If the government is lying to the people, than the people need to know. The people have the right to know what is going on in their country. They deserve unbiased, uncut news. This essay will also inform the readers to look at the evidence and not to take everything they hear as truth. They have to look themselves and if the facts don’t line up then they need to do something about it.

Constitutional Rights

For my Research Argument Assignment, I have decided to research and report the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution and write about how it is important that the rights of American's to own and bear arms remains a necessary and vital part of our lives. I have decided to write on this topic for a few reasons. The biggest reason is that owning and exercising my second amendment right has been a huge part of my life up until now. I am sure it will be an even bigger part in the near future as gun-control debates continue to arise and talks of infringing on the second amendment become a part of everyday life. Throughout my research I want to be sure I present my argument in a clear and well defined way with my points made strongly yet respectfully. I am going to need to research not only the Bill of Rights but also some of the modern gun legislation and other important factors. If I was to write my thesis today, it would probably sound something like this: "For over 200 years, the Second Amendment has protected the civil liberties of American's by allowing them to possess guns and I want to ensure that this is something that will never change by revealing to people that this amendment is constitutional and essential for survival." While rough on the surface, this thesis will eventually embody my reasoning for writing this paper in a way that shows to people that the second amendment must not be tampered with or infringed upon. I believe this is an important topic to cover because it is definitely a huge political issue today. People are being told that guns are evil, that they are responsible for crimes and many other twisted lies. I want those to read my paper and understand that guns are a wonderful privilege to have and gun rights are essential to surviving.

Emily Kalshoven - Monotasking

Although I had somewhat of a difficult time understanding Paolo Cardini, he makes some excellent points. Normally when I do my homework, I will have my headphones in and listen to some sort of music without any words or pitchy tones – normally smooth jazz. The thought process behind listening to this sort of music is that if I put on a playlist that overall has nothing I can sing along to and nothing that will break my train of thought (like high pitched tones) I will be able to tune out background noises like air-conditioning vents, people talking, etc. So yesterday, while I was studying for my Chemistry exam, I turned off my jazz music and took out my headphones. I had to keep my computer open to look at the Periodic Table, but other than that, I was cut off from all technology and distractions. I felt like I was so much more focused on everything that I was reading. I didn’t think I would be able to, but when I was focused on reading, I was able to tune out the noises of the other people flipping pages around me and the air vents that are way too loud in the library. After realizing that the jazz music was hindering me instead of helping me, I tried to think about why. I realized that because I had a playlist of jazz music up that I did not create, there are always random songs that don’t meet my criteria – they are either too pitchy or have words. I then break my train of thought and have to change the song or find a new playlist. That little bit of time consumed sets me back immensely. I believe that in today’s world, it is hard for people to even consider the idea of monotasking. We have so much to do and so many things to explore within the world of technology that it is hard for people to sit down and have a nice dinner with their friends without immersing themselves in a world of their own within their phone.

Monotasking is hard

After a busy week as well as procrastination, I applied Cardini’s idea of “monotasking” to getting ready for bed the night before this blog post was due. For me, getting ready for bed tonight included changing into pajamas, taking out my contacts, brushing my teeth, washing my face, putting on my glasses, brushing my hair, and curling my hair (just so I wouldn’t have to do it in the morning). I was doing well monotasking until I went to the bathroom to brush my teeth. As I was brushing my teeth, my friend Cory passed by the bathroom to say hello before she went up to her dorm room. Of course, I couldn’t just ignore her so I talked to her and told her about how she was interrupting my monotasking experience… I told her it was okay, because now she got to be in my blog post! After she left my dorm room, I pretty much stayed on task without much trouble. It took me about 10 minutes tonight, where as getting ready for bed usually takes me about 20 or 25 minutes, simply because of distractions and piddling around. It was difficult for me to eliminate distractions. Usually when I am getting ready, I listen to music from my computer, constantly have my phone with me, and am talking to my roommate all at the same time. Without music playing and my roommate out of the room, it was oddly quiet in my dorm room. That also made me clearly hear my phone vibrating on my futon whenever I would get a new text message, which made it tempting to check my cell phone. In the world we live in now, where we have access to practically anything in seconds, it is extremely difficult to monotask. One thing that my friend and I have started to do (that is sort of monotasking) is phone stacking. When we are out to eat or even eating in Schilletter, we will all stack our phones on top of each other face down. If someone picks up their phone before we are all ready to leave the table, they get to pay for everyone’s meal! It is a really good way to focus on and enjoy the time we have with each other whenever we are simply hanging out, instead of studying! Monotasking is definitely hard in today’s world, but when it can be done, it is definitely rewarding. 

monotasking

The task I decided to complete today was focusing on a reading I needed to complete for class. When doing any sort of homework, it is easy to get distracted by my phone, the computer, or even talking to my roommate. It is an easy out when something becomes difficult or boring and I want to take a break. I began the reading and slowly lost my concentration after completing the second page. Instead of picking up my phone to check Twitter, Facebook, my email, text messages, or GroupMe (a group texting app which is ridiculously distracting at any point in the day), I cleared my mind and began reading again. Monotasking seemed to work well in the beginning, but I soon forgot my mission of only focusing on one thing at a time. I forgot I hid my phone and found myself reaching for it mindlessly several times. Instead of distracting myself via smartphone, my mind decided to wander aimlessly while I was in the middle of an extremely boring paragraph. This is something I remember doing in elementary school and middle school when trying to complete homework or an assignment I had no interest in doing. So there I went, daydreaming about daydreaming. Monotasking did help me finish the reading faster than I normally would have, but it made me realize my inability to stay focused for very long. I think that we have so become addicted to focusing on multiple things at once that we have a hard time doing one thing at a time, even when the distraction is not staring us right in the face. I wish I were able to monotask because I feel like I could focus more on the task at hand and better understand what I need to do. But in today’s society, it is almost impossible to not multitask because our lives are so fast-paced.

Monotasking- John Perrow

In today’s world, people are always trying to accomplish more than one thing at a time, which in reality can cause lots of distractions. After watching this video, I realized that I do this way too much during my typical day at school. Throughout the day, I usually pull out my cell phone during class to see what time it is, and then next thing I know is that I am checking Facebook, Twitter, the news, or just playing games when I should be paying attention to the class lecture. I have found that the biggest distraction that I have is texting when I am trying to accomplish a job. For this assignment, I decided to turn off my cell phone while I was trying to do some homework this afternoon. I was able to concentrate better and I was able to finish the homework much faster than I would have been able to if I had had my cell phone next to me. While I began to work on another assignment for another class, I remembered that I was supposed to put a load of clothes in the washing machine because I was running out of clothes to wear. When I finished putting the clothes in the washing machine, I remembered that I needed to take the clothes out the drier and fold them so that they wouldn’t get wrinkled. After doing that, I came back to my desk and sat down to finish my homework, and I had completely forgotten where I had left off working out the problem. I then realized that the whole point of this blog assignment was to monotask, and that I had completely failed. I proceeded to finish my homework without any distractions. Monotasking is a hard thing to do when you are used to multitasking, but it is definitely more efficient.