To The Future Students Of English 304:

Dear Future Students of English 304,

First of all, I just want to say that this class is a blast, if you take the time to enjoy it. You will learn a lot of things that are extremely applicable to your future endeavors. The skills I learned in this class about writing resumes, cover letters, memos, and all sorts of business documents will follow me from now until I retire from my business career. To be successful in the class you must be open minded, creative, and ready to work with your fellow classmates. For the client project, really listen to the client to fully engulf what they want for their organization. You must come up with an idea that not only satisfies the client's needs, but is creative enough to satiate your audience. Be open-minded, as you will be working with your colleagues, but I have nothing but positive things to say about this project. Not only was it fun, but it taught us important skills about dealing with a client and working together to create something fabulous for them. The blogs and portfolios are kind of overwhelming at first, but when you get the hang of it, they are fun to create, and they are a great way to showcase who you really are to your teacher and your classmates. To make the most of this class you should, first, obviously, go to class, and second, pay attention and participate. I have learned things about my classmates, that were, before, strangers, that I would have never learned if it wasn't for the activities that we did in this class. Lastly, Business Writing is one of the most successful classes that I have ever taken because I learned a lot of pertinent information while still having a good time and learning in a friendly environment.

Good luck & have fun!!

Client Project

My groups name is Lend-A-Paw, and we redesigned Helping Hands' brochure. I really enjoyed this project and the my group members and I got along very well, and I look forward to working with them again in the future. The best thing about this project was, first, the people that I worked with, and, second, our end product. I am very happy with the way that our final brochure turned out. It is much more appealing to the eye, and we edited the information to make the brochure have more white space. The biggest challenge that we faced during this project is that one of our group members pretty much just dropped off the face of the Earth, and she was the one that did the brochure on her Apple computer, which none of the rest of us have. So this has posed as a challenge, but we have since overcome it. Next time I do a group project, I will make sure that we have all the same documents on the same operating system, because this has been our biggest problem.

Dual Coding Theory

I was not in class for the Dual Coding Theory lecture, but I have researched it and looked at our class PowerPoint. What I can conclude is that the brain processes visual images and textual images at different rates and then smushes them together so that the observer can put 2 and 2 together and come up with a conclusion as to what the picture (or in this case AD) is about. When I first saw this image, I read the words first, just like the Dual Coding Theory said I would. Then I saw that this picture is obviously in some sort of gymnasium, or locker room for a sports team. When I was in high school, I played Varsity soccer, and our locker room had a message above the door that said "Play Like Champions Today" on it...or something like that I don't really remember. Anyway, although I did read the words first, I did realize that it had to do with sports, not only because the words are in a locker room, but because they are motivational and clique of any sports team. This is an effective ad for Nike I think. It got the message across to me.

Miscommunication...

I can think of many instances when miscommunication occurred in my past workplaces. But I'll just name a few...first, for 6 years before I came to college I worked in my family's business, so one day when I was running the register and taking people's orders in the coffee bar, my brother called on the store's phone and was yelling about something. Well it was really busy and I was swamped with customers, and I yelled back on the phone "HOLD ON A SECOND!!" The poor little lady at the register waiting to place an order thought I was talking to her and got really upset and left. I have never felt so bad before. I tried to tell her that I was only talking to my brother on the phone, but she was long gone by then. If I would have controlled my temper and just hung up, or maybe if he wouldn't have called inthe first place, it wouldn't have happened. Oh well.
When I was a Junior in high school, one afternoon, it was just me and my mom working at the store, because some one had called in sick. Well apparently the City was doing a smoke test in all of the pipes and failed to alert any of the downtown restaurants. My Mom and I thought that the refridgerator was on fire and expelled an entire fire extinguisher all over the restaurant. It took about a month to clean that place absolutely spotless from all of the extinguisher residue. If the city would have alerted the downtown business we wouldn't have had to close the business down (because we did and lost 7 hours of business), and wouldn't have had to deal with all of the mess that we accidentally made.
Thos are just a couple of my work miscommunications!

Mock Interview

On Friday I had my mock interview, and I was not nervous at all. The one question that really threw me off guard was "What is the biggest accomplishment?" I wasn't sure how to answer this because I have never really thought of that before. So I just kinda went by the seat of my pants and made a quick answer, which I don't think made a lot of sense, but it was all that I could think of at the time. If I could do this interview again, I would not have gone out the night before, because I was feeling rough at 9 in the morning. Also, I would have practiced some answers to regular interview questions so that i would have been more prepared for my interviewers questions. I learned a lot from this experience because I thought that it was going to be a lot tougher than it was. Although, during the "real" thing I'm sure that I will be very nervous, but I realized that the most important thing is to just be confident and take the questions all in stride.

Presentations

This week I really enjoyed the presentations by Margaret, Chelsey, and Ashleigh. Margaret's presentation was very original and I learned something new! Chelsey's presentation was very fun because it was interesting to learn more about South Africa and her pictures and stories were very funny! Ashleigh's presentation was also one of favorites because it was about Spanish and I obviously appreciated that. It was also original. I enjoyed all of the presentations in class but these were my three favorites!

The Economy

Obviously, in the past couple of days, everyone has been talking about the lingering Armageddon and Great Depression that America will surely suffer within the coming weeks. Wrong. But, you and I both know that Americans love to panic...and love even more to create mass hysteria.

I just wanted to say a couple of things about the presidential campaign being (maybe) postponed. I think that this is a wonderful idea. First of all, let me just put it out there that John McCain doesn't want to hold this debate, while Obama still does.

McCain told his campaign guys that he was going to Washington to do his REAL job, which he still holds, as Senator of Arizona. Congress needed him and Arizona needed him, to go do his job, and aid in Congress's decision on this 700 billion dollar ordeal.

John McCain said, "with so much on the line, for America and the world, the debate that matters most right now is taking place in the United States Capitol — and I intend to join it," after addressing former President Clinton's Global Initiative in New York on Thursday before heading to Washington.

Obama still argues that the debate should proceed because a president needs to be able to handle more than one issue at a time. Well, first of all, you aren't the President of the United States--you might be soon--but as of right this minute you are not. In case you forgot---you are a Junior Senator, so despite your "junior" status--maybe you should go to Washington with your elder (and wiser) opponent and do the job that you hold right now. This is an unpreccedented time in American history--and if I were running for President, and still holding a Sentate job, I would surely go to Washington the second my state and my country needed me to solve the problem that was at hand.