Project 5

For Project 5, I did a remediation of the Al Pacino speech in “Any Given Sunday” about inches. Al Pacino’s goal of the speech was to motivate his losing team at half time to go back out there and battle like warriors in the fight of their lives. This speech is considered one of the best and most motivational speeches in cinema history. Al Pacino delivers the speech with a passion you would only see in a real life, truly passionate coach, like Dabo Swinney here at Clemson University. I took this speech and remixed it to mean that people need to fight for that extra inch when it comes to taking care of their friends. At one point, Pacino says, “When you look into the eyes of the man next to you, go that extra inch, because you know that he’d go that extra inch for you”. In my video I stress that quote very much, talking about how sometimes you are going to have to take care of your buddy, because you know if it was the other way around, they’d do the same for you.

Project 5 was a really fun time. I was able to make my friends do some free, and terrible acting for the pleasure of my classmates and I had the freedom to edit the video however I pleased. A lot of the making process of the video was so much fun. I was able to apply my own soundtrack and my own photos and videos aligned with my favorite songs. Some of the editing in this video though was a severe challenge. Sometimes with the drag and drop process in iMovie, the music and videos would get pushed back or unaligned with the songs they were supposed to match up with. Although I did experience some challenges with this project, it was a lot of fun to do.

Project 4 Reflection

Project Four was definitely the most challenging project to date. Up to this point, our projects consisted of shorter , more specific topics. For this project, it was more of a “you’re on your own, go at it” type of project. Sometimes choosing your own topic can be more difficult than being granted one from your professor. For instance, some of my friends picked topics like the issues with social security or the advances of cancer. I couldn’t imagine having to write about 2000 words concerning these subjects. In my experience, the only way a person is going to enjoy writing something is if they are writing about a topic they are truly passionate about. I, in no way shape or form, would I be able to write eight pages about the issues with social security and how changes need to be made in order to reflect the changes in the health of the country as well as the wealth of the country. Snore. For this paper I chose to write about something I am truly passionate about; sports. The paper basically wrote itself to be honest. The tough part of this project was finding sources and incorporating them into my paper. If you remember, my first paper didn’t have any sources even though it was supposed to have 2-3. I love writing my own papers. Having to incorporate other peoples work into my paper is hard for me. Harder then blasting out 10 pages of my own words. Thats why, for the majority of my sources, i did a lot of paraphrasing and referencing instead of direct quoting. I feel as though incorporating quotes never exactly gets my point across or it doesn’t actually say what I would have liked to say. Project four was a good project that challenged me as a writer, not because of the length of the assignment, more because of the need to incorporate so many of other people’s thoughts or ideas.

Paying College Athletes (Other side of Argument)

Every single year, college athletes among all sports, more specifically basketball and football, bring in billions of dollars to their respective universities. Do they get compensated for these benefits? Some would say, “Yes. Of course they do. They are receiving a free college educations as well as meal plan and books”. Others would say, “Absolutely not, the scholarship money does not even come close to equating to the amount they deserve to be making”. One argument that has the NCAA in some water though is the question, “Should college athletes be paid for the use of their name, image or likeness?”. College athletes are amateurs, its as simple as that. They sign on to play at a certain university, accepting that they will do a service and in return they will receive one of the best deals ever. They get the best facilities for body enhancement the world has ever seen, a full staff of medical personal to care for them twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, and most of the time, they are placed in the nicest dorms on campus, or their off campus apartment is paid for by the university. Another sport, which you never hear about people complaining about their “lack of reimbursement” is the gentleman’s game known as golf. Millions of amateurs play golf at all levels, some even competing with full fledge professionals. Now, not once have I ever heard about amateur golf players complaining about the funds “They Deserve!”. One perfect example of this is the life of the greatest golfer of all time, Bobby Jones. Bobby Jones went to Georgia Tech and Harvard Business school at the same time receiving an engineering degree and law degree from those universities respectively. At the same time, he won the US Amateur Tournament, British Amateur Tournament, The US Open, and the British Open. Receiving zero dollars for his wins or even for signing autographs, because those are the rules. If Bobby Jones couldn’t get paid even though he was playing with professionals, college athletes can live with the benefits they are getting.

Project 3 Reflection

Writing a cover letter and resume was definitely an form of essay that I have never had to do before. To be truly honest, its pretty boring to do and definitely not a writing assignment that I could sit down and enjoy writing. Its boring and bland but it’s something that I recognize I will have to do. Writing a resume is one of the most important skills a writer can have. I say this because it is one of the few opportunities a writer or any other person has at trying to impress someone “higher up”. Another important skill that a person develops when writing a cover letter and resume is that you learn structure. My style is pretty free flowing and pretty unconventional. When writing for this project, I had to really hold back on my sarcasm as well as tone in order to appear professional and intelligent in order to come off as a guy someone would want to hire.

In the previous two writing assignments, I was able to really be very authentic. I was not held back by conventions and organizations that would “look better”, or “present better” to my audience. There is nothing like being handed the keys to a Lamborghini and an empty straightaway ahead of you. However, the cover letter and resume was not at all like driving a Lamborghini. More like driving a sprinter van through the middle of Boston, hard and congested. You try to cram every single thing you can think of about yourself into an 8 1/2 by 11 inch sheet of paper, making sure you listed every experience, club, or leadership position you held in college. I do not like being inauthentic when writing papers. I do not want to produce a run of the mill essay. I feel as though the resume and cover letter made me do just that.

5 Opening Sentences

“My heart thump not from being nervous
Sometimes I’m thinking God made me special here on purpose
So all the while ’til I’m gone make my words important so
If I slip away, if I die today the last thing you remember won’t
Be about some apple bottom jeans with the boots with the fur” -Kid Cudi (The Prayer)

Kid Cudi’s “The Prayer” has got to be one of the greatest songs ever produced. Its tremendous lyricism mixed with a tremendous beat places it in that highly established category. However, I have taken some of the best lyrics out of this song that just happen to be the part that Kid Cudi begins with. A lot of rappers these days write songs about some of the dumbest things ever. For example, a rapper named Dorrough decided to write and produce a song about getting a “Ice Cream Paintjob” on his “new whip with the suicide doors”. Another rapper named “Flo Rida”, who Kid Cudi calls out in this song wrote the song “Apple Bottom Jeans”. This song is really stupid and brings absolutely nothing to society. Kid Cudi believes that what he’s doing and the songs he produces actually can help people emotionally and/or physically through things, or that just his presence alone has a purpose and that he is called to do something special.

One of the most famous and well known opening sentences to a novel is, “Call me Ishmael”. This of course is from the novel “Moby Dick”. I actually hate this opening sentence. It gives me nothing to grasp onto to, nothing that tells me that this could be a great read. Another novel, on the other hand, really captured my attention with every new thought bubble. I say thought bubble because it was a comic book. “V For Vendetta” is one of the most famous comic books ever and was even made into a film after quite a while. One of the most famous’ speeches in the novel begins with, “Beneath this mask there is more than flesh Mr Creedy. Beneath this mask there is an idea. And ideas are bulletproof”. What a powerful line, no? So much thought in one sentence it can drive the reader into a thousand different directions thinking about all the ideas that are alive and how difficult it i to destroy even one. Next, I’d like to call on Ernest Hemingway and his wonderful novel “The Sun Also Rises”. At one point in the novel, two men meet for coffee in Europe and one of them starts the conversation by saying, “You know it makes one feel rather good deciding not to be a bitch”. This is truly hilarious and makes me want to listen to every single word this man has to say. Such an edgy phrase that I can’t wait to here what this guy has to say next. Lastly, in this Hobbit, we are introduced to the novel with the quote, “In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit. Not a nasty, dirty, wet hole, filled with the ends of worms and an oozy smell, nor yet a dry, bare, sandy hole with nothing in it to sit down on or to eat: it was a hobbit-hole, and that means comfort”. I think this is kind of boring. Nothing really captures me and makes me say, “Wow, I’d really love to read more of this novel. Nope, just a relatively specific definition of a hole in the ground. Lucky for me the novel got better with time and I didn’t stop reading it after one sentence.

There are millions of opening sentences to novels, conversations, and songs all over the world and in all different languages. The good one’s make the reader dive into the novel, they can’t stop turing the page. On the other hand, some make me close the book right up and place it right back where I found it. The way I think, if its an edgy, people will read on.

Project 1 Refection

T.J. Foley

Kristen Gay

English 1030

09/11/14

Project 1 Reflection

                Project one was definitely a challenge to me and I’m sure it was a challenge to my fellow peers. What was different about this assignment that made it such a struggle was that we were not necessarily talking about objects and how we used them, we had to describe how an object had an effect on us or how it used us. This is no easy task to accomplish. I mean, how often can you recognize or feel in the moment when an object is having a rhetorical effect on you. However, I did think the assignment made me think, which, in my opinion, makes it a good assignment. Any person can throw together a run of the mill essay on a topic that has been given to them every year of their writing life and just run on and on until they reach the word limit. This project challenged me to be a better writer. I thought, “Hey, first assignment, this should be a piece of cake. I mean how hard could it be? Just writing about some object I pulled out of my hat and writing a paper I have wrote a thousand times before”. At first I did this. I made a pretty crappy essay for my very rough draft and presented it to my classmates. They pointed out my flaws and weaknesses as well as my strengths and interesting uses of language. However, I kind of missed the entire point of the essay. Not really at any point in the essay, other than the introduction and the conclusion paragraph did I mention how the objects were rhetorical and had an effect on me. I was shocked that I had just thrown the prompt in the trash and wrote my own essay. Through this essay, by being challenged to be a better writer, I think I have emerged on a higher level of writing mastery.

How I Write

T.J. Foley

Kristen Gay

English 1030

09/2/14

Meet the Writer

Most English professors or teachers would hate to see me write. Generally, I’ll just sit down, at my computer, bang out a nice crisp essay on some warm printer paper and hand it in the next day. Sounds awful,l right? My setting consists of plenty of distractions like the music of Mac Miller or ASAP Ferg, a TV on in the background playing some sort of baseball game, and I generally surround myself with my friends or family. This setting, either consciously or sub-consciously, can definitely be seen in my papers and essays throughout high school. I tend to jump around from thought to thought but somehow in the end connect it all together to make it work for my thesis. What I can take from all of these distractions are ideas, quotes, or simple words that I would have never used before. They allow me to change up my essay and do something that I have never done before. I love to take risks or do something unconventional in my writing. I hate producing the simple regurgitated essay that I am sure professors and teachers have read thousands of times. I want something original, something authentic, something that brings out an emotion in the reader. Basically, if I am bored writing it, I can absolutely guarantee that the reader is going to be bored reading it. I’m going to produce quality stuff, because doing something half-assed is just not my thing. I’m a risk taker, I’m not afraid to fail, and I’m going to have fun writing what I write. 

Biography

Timothy (T.J.) Foley

Kristen Gay

English 1030

8/28/14

About Me

I come from Norwell, Massachusetts, a small town about thirty minutes from Boston on the weekend, but about an hour to an hour and a half during the week due to traffic. My commute to high school was ranked top five worst in the entire country, so that was an absolute blast. Throughout my entire life I have played baseball and hockey, with baseball being my favorite sport without a doubt. Today, I really love to play frisbee and pick-up football games, nothing to serious. In school, I have always loved to build or create, therefore, I loved science. However, I also love to write. To be honest, I’d rather write than read. I have always liked giving my papers a voice that is original to me, one that is very satirical yet intelligent. This semester I really want to improve on my lack of an extensive vocabulary in my work and not to drag on on certain subjects so much.