Popularity

  I chose to write about popularity. Being popular to some people means the world. While others could care less about who is around them and what’s going on.

   I plan to take this back a few years to the high school days in which being popular was “everything”. I want to compare the popularity factor to the gender roles as well. In other words I want to explain and provide examples of a guy’s vision of popularity vs. a girl’s vision of popularity (from a guy’s perception).

  I decided to write about this topic because it’s a wide subject that can provide a lot of personal but also known issues and examples in the high school world. Everyone remembers going through high school trying to figure out who they were and what crowd they wanted to kick it with. Some people chose the wrong path and haven’t gone anywhere with their lives, while others continue to strive and make something out of life. Either way I want to provide examples through my personal stories of my friends making the “correct” and “incorrect” decisions.

  As I continue through my essay I want to bring up other questions that have a somewhat answer. I plan on brining up the issue of popularity and how it affects the education system. Does education loose value when and individual only tries to be popular? Are kids now a day more into the party and entertainment scene than school? What factors are apparent in these issues but how can they be taken a step further? 

  Hopefully I will discussion these issues and include more with great detail and moving stories. 

Writerly Roles I Play...

I find myself with most notes in the “student of…” section. Since this was our first week back to school I honestly did not do that much internet talking with anyone in any form (facebook, myspace, e-mail, aim). So basically most of my notes were writing lists of “things to do…” or in class notes.
I had one facebook that I thought was interesting. My friend from about a year ago died and someone set up a RIP Daniel Avery group on facebook. I got a message from the group asking if I was going to attend his one year service that his friends would be letting go of balloons in his memory. It kind of freaked me out that this project would happen to involve someone that I cared about so much. I responded to the group message saying “That I could sadly not attend because I was at school and to wish him the best and watch over my friends and myself.” It makes me sad that I could not attend this and it will probably bother me for a few weeks. He was a great kid and to die at such a young age (16) was a tragedy, he had so much to do and see in the world. When writing on Facebook, I tend to type relaxed and mostly in slang.
My friends are the most important thing in the world to me. They are the maker of who I am, both inside and out, but not in bad ways. I am strong enough to keep and know my values, but friends always keep you on that level path in life.
Another few other notes I had were “things to do…”. These included, Best Buy, so I could get my computer fixed that crashed the NIGHT before my English final project was due. Horrible event, don’t really want to get into too much detail. Basically, it crashed; I had to scramble something together that should have taken me about three days in one night. Lists for me always work the best. I feel like I accomplish something when I make lists and get to cross things out. That feeling of my red marker crossing out “Best Buy”, “sell back books”, or “put up posters” is awesome. I like lists because they make me feel organized, and I’m a very organized person.
As a student in, English Freshman Composition, in Professor Patrick’s class I enjoyed writing our first blog. I have never done blog writing before but find it interesting. I told about how I plan on trying my best and the things I hope to accomplish out of her class. Blogging is an interesting way of “forcing” students to write, but in a relaxed and easy way. Since almost everyone is on the internet, it only seems right to write blogs as an English activity.
Computer would be my favorite source of communication. I enjoy writing on others “walls” or sending them messages thru the internet. It is fast and easy. Almost everyone and everything has switched to the internet now a’ days.

I believe that I can learn to write well...

I believe that I can learn to write well after years of practice. Writing, just like any other human knowledge skill involves massive amounts of practice. No author just one day picked up a pin and wrote out a book.
First they had to learn how to write the alphabet, the start of the practicing to write well and the start of gaining confidence. After that most young children attend elementary school to learn the basics of making a sentence. You know the first time you could write my name is (blank) was probably one of the coolest things ever. From there you go to middle and high school where you learn how to write various types of basic papers, also known as AIM, Facebook, and MySpace. On these websites you gain practice by writing on others walls or just chatting back and forth. You gain more confidence by teaching yourself to type quickly. You also discover which papers you enjoy writing more and by liking these more you have a better confidence about your paper and the information you put into it. Then in college you learn much more in depth styles of writings and if you wish you can major in English and practice large amounts of writing.
In college its a different style of writing that I enjoy very much. Teachers seem to be much more open to a personal style of writing here at TCU. It tells that the teachers enjoy reading into the lives of interesting students like ourselves, while doing the thing they learned as their professions, but loving everyday of their jobs. Once an author has graduated from college they continue to practice writing by either getting a job involving writing or continuing their personal files. The author continues to gain more confidence if they attracted an audience because they will hopefully receive good reviews. But they could receive bad reviews that could cut them down. One day they might be able to produce a well written article or book that could do amazingly well, or they could practice writing forever.
Either way I think its important that people practice writing if they want to get better and teach themselves. The other important part of practicing is having other peoples opinions or views. Others comments or help can aid in your paper from something simple to something dramatic. They are just a good backup audience or guinea-pig-test subjects. Practice makes perfect!

First Entry

My name is Mason Moss. I am currently a freshman (nineteen years old) striving to major in International Communications with a minor in Spanish. My aunt owns a highly-thought-of mortgage company in Holland that I hopefully, one day, will end up owning.
I have one brother named Morgan who goes to UT Austin and is a film/television major. He is an amazing artist and photographer as well. You can even see some of his work in Skateboard Mag. and others. While I have a more outgoing personality, my brother seems to be much more introverted, but it makes sense because he is an artist. He twenty-two and will be twenty-three next August. All in all, he is the local, scruffy, hippy Austin-ite.
My parents have been divorced since I was three, although it doesn’t affect me that much. I’m from Houston, Texas, home to the greatest down south rappers (RIP Pimp C). My mom and I moved last semester to the Memorial side of Houston in a big and awesome new home. I have the whole upstairs to myself and it’s a GREAT party house! My mom sells textbooks to elementary schools throughout the Texas region. She is one of those moms you see driving around with her XM satellite radio jamming, talking on her phone, while looking at a map, and trying to understand her GPS unit. My dad is also living in Houston, now just a few minutes from my new house. He was re-married for about 6 years but got another divorce a couple years ago. My dad works for Penn Well Oil Corporation. He is the Vice President of digital and online media. Penn Well has been my dad’s best job of his life, both amount of work and amount of pay. I’m glad my dad is finally happy and has a firm standing job that he will run for many years. Over the break he recently bought a new Infinity M35, one of the coolest cars I have ever seen my dad buy. It is a silver metallic with a bronze tone color, grey leather interior, sunroof, sports package, navigation system with Bluetooth calling and live traffic update, and a fourteen speaker Bose sound system. My dad tries to be young like my brother and I, so he is an easier person to talk to than my mom.
I am interested in taking this class to improve my writing style and form. I took a freshman seminar (the Harry Potter course) and extremely disliked it. I guess I thought it would be a fun class but turned out not too fun at all. Anyways I hope to gain new knowledge from English writing courses because I feel almost everyone’s writings could be somewhat better.
If I had a choice of what kind of writing I would like to choose I would prefer poetry. Poetry to me is an easy subject matter because it allows many important things to be said in a short series of sentences. These sentences usually have powerful words and meaningful subjects. Poetry is liked by many people and it tends to be a hit-or-miss style of writing when it comes to your audience’s.
I have read, understand, and agree to the terms of the course syllabus and plan on following its instructions. – Mason Moss