ePortfolio

The very first thing in class we learned in class was how to make a blog. Making a blog was completely new to me and a new experience for me. I am not very good with technology so creating this account was definitely a interesting process. I was thrown for a curve ball with still having open my blackboard account and lewis email, but when I was able to get accustomed to it, it became much easier. I was able to let out any concerns that I had throughout the semester with anything. One of the most memorable blogs that I wrote was the one about Colin Kaepernick. I still feel very strong about my views against Mr. Karpernick but it was also great going into class and hearing the opposite. I think the best think about your class, Dr. Kyburz, was how we could voice our own opinion. In most of my college classes if a student was to voice their own opinion, he/she would get backlash on their grade for saying what they did in class. Hearing others opinion's especially in class was crucial for me to hear because it opened up my mind to how others viewed different subjects. I almost think that is most important thing that I have learned in college thus far. Being open-minded to different people's opinion's and ways of thinking differently of how to solve situations have helped me open up my mind quite a bit. Especially in your class, when Bara the one class day said his opinion about Mr. Kaepernick. Although at the time I did not necessarily agree, I still listened to what he had to say. I think hearing others opinion's in your class not only helped me open up my mind, but also helped me with other classes. It made me realize that the reason why a problem is occurring may not be just the one I am thinking of but other reasons as well. We also were able to discuss how we feel about the presidential elections and why we support one candidate over the other. I thought it was interesting here Dr. Kyburz's thoughts about Hilary Clinton and how to see things in a different way. Hearing this from a supporter of another party was intriguing because I was able to take things from a different view point an experience in an educative manner how others think and how I could be wrong in certain scenarios. We went on to do a documentary project which was interesting to write about because it as my first time writing something like this. Although, I did struggle with this paper, I learned form my mistakes and moved on. Then we moved on to our micro theme. At first I thought writing a one page paper for a college writing class was going to be easy but in the end it was probably was one of the more difficult papers that I have written for the class. It made me review every sentence that I wrote and try to make it more applicable to the reader. The most difficult part was trying to compress the paper into one page. It really tested my writing abilities to be able to compress well developed sentences. Then we were able to create a multimodal project. The multimodal was the first time I dealt with making a movie. It took me many tries and videos, but I finally came out with something that I believe described the fear of flying very well to some of the common travelers. Then we were able to do a persuasive essay and the topic I picked was the same as my micro theme. It was interesting to find out more information concerning why travelers are afraid to take planes as their most efficient form of transportation. I would like to end with the link to the post that I posted about Colin Kapernick and how crucial that was to me discussing that topic in class.

http://patrickfmccloskey.blogspot.com/2016/10/blog-day-friday.html

 

The week before Finals

Finals week. Man. It sure has been a roller coaster this semester. I've had good days and bad days but, haven't we all. These last couple weeks have probably been the most stressful couple of weeks of my semester due to the fact that every single one of my teachers either has a project/paper/or speech due. In total I have a written examination for the FAA, 4 papers, 3 projects, and a speech to give. I have never had this much work due all at the same time in my life. Unlike my prior habits, I usually procrastinate things until the last minute. I started working on these projects about two weeks ago when I knew I was going to be swamped with work. I would like to talk about how stressed students get and why they sometimes commit suicide during this stressful week. Suicide is a very serious topic  that all faculty and students should be aware of and try to find early signs of it especially during the most stressful week of students lives. I found a statistic online saying that there are more than 1,000 suicides per year on college campus. We as students need to know that our lives do not depend on getting an A in that one paper for the class or project. So, take  a step back, take a breath, DON'T PROCRASTINATE, and get the work done.

Argumentative Paper

For our final essay we have to do a final argumentative  project we have to choose a topic that interests us enough to make at least 2-3 summaries about our topic as well as do a 5 page paper for the actual argumentative paper. All this is actually very stressful for me because I have ben extremely busy these past few months due to flight and other projects due at all around the same time. Although I did not know that we had a summary due today, it just adds more works for me to do as well as the blogs. I have been overloaded with homework it seems like but there are no finals for all my classes except one for the most part. So I just have to buckle down and start getting it done. The argumentative essay does seem very intriguing because it is something that I truly enjoy and do not mind researching it. I'm going to knock these to summaries out tonight and then continue to research the reasons why some people have such a difficult time and fear of flying.

The Eagles

The Philadelphia Eagles are a team that is hard to love but I was born and raised to love them. The "Birds" as we in Philly call them have definitely had some good seasons but also many, many bad seasons. Our slogan in Philadelphia is "there's always next year." Unfortunately, most Philly sports aren't the prettiest thing to watch. The Eagles this year are not looking too promising either. Their record as of right now is 5-5 and we are the worst team in the division. Being and Eagles fan and going to the games is one heck of an experience. Two years ago my roommate came to visit Philadelphia with me and he was able to attend an Eagles pre-season game. Although he was a Bears fan, he was forced to wear Eagles attire because if he was in a bears jersey because Lord knows what would have happened to him if he would wear it. He was in good caring hands when we went to the game but the opposing fans unfortunately were not. My brother and his friends were cheers and boasting about how greta the Eagles were gonna do but look where we are now. Very ironic.

Women's Volleyball team

At Lewis, I help coach the Women's volleyball team. Over this past summer, I was able to play with some of the girls at the sand courts. Although we were somewhat messing around, I was asked by the captain if I would be willing to practcie with them throughout the rest of their season. I accepted the offer because I love the sport so much and would be willing to help the girls out if it meant they would get better. Although I had to go through pages and pages of signing paperwork with the NCAA, and lewis; at the end it was all worth itSome of my concerns is the net being about seven inches lower than normal and questioning if they are able to handle a guy playing with them. Needless to say they kicked my butt the first day and I learned how out of shape I was compared to these women. I was sweating so much the first day of their practice, sweat was literally dripping off my fingertips. They have gotten so much better throughout their season and seeing each one of them improve was a pleasure to see. Ever since I was about 12, I have been helping my dad coach volleyball learn how to coach the correct way. I had a really great time helping these ladies and I hope they got something out of me being there. I'd like to thank the coach for setting me up and captain for this opportunity.

Thanksgiving break

For this Thanksgiving I will be traveling back to Philadelphia. I am very excited to travel back and enjoy the short holiday with my family. My sister and her finance just got enganged as of two weeks ago which is very exciting news. My sister's finance proposed to her and she said yes and the next day he wanted both family's to come together the next day and celebrate their day.  Unfortunately, I was unable to travel back that weekend due to a prior commitment. So, it should be nice being able to see them together and ask about how every went. The enjoyable part about going back home for thanksgiving break is having fun in the nice weather, visiting old friends, and go bike riding. Philly is my home and no one should ever forget their roots of where they came from.

Iowa tournament.

This weekend my volleyball team and I went to a tournament at Iowa state university. The drive there as very flat for the most part. There were just a lot of fat rolling hills. Especially this time of year the drive was beautiful and filled with color because of the leaves. When we got to Iowa state we just slept at the hotel because we were all exhausted after a 5 1/2 hour drive. The next morning we woke up at 6:50 and left the hotel by 730. There was a lot of good competition at the tournament. We faced a lot of great players from around the midwest as well as some teams from D3 programs. I play the left front hitter and needless to say I am very sore today. A lot of swinging and jumping but all in all it was a fun trip. I am looking forward to many more tournaments with my team and many more memories.

What I learned this semester

This semester in college writing class I learned a few new things. I learned how to write a summary and be very specific with regards to citing people and their thoughts. It taught me how to be very precise about certain scenes and how to use pathos to connect with your audience. The other task that I had to pick up was learning how to blog. Blogging was a very different and unique concept to get down because there is no real direction on what we have to write about. Which is the fun of it as well. I enjoy picking my own topics because it makes it much interesting to write about. One other thing that I learned in class is how to write a micro theme. At first I thought this was going to be a very easy assignment because it was only one page long. In fact, dissecting every line of a one page paper is much more difficult than I thought it was. I did my micro theme on a topic that I enjoyed as well which made it a lot easier. I also was able to experiment on youtube editing videos. This was good because sometime in the future I would like become a moto-vlogger. I learned a lot this year that not only applies to my writing skills but also hobbies that I would like to do in the future.

Blog day friday

I think the whole situation regarding Colin Kaepernick is an absolute disgrace. Mr. Kaepernick's message was trying to make a point about the black lives in America have been getting oppressed by police. If this man doesn't understand what it means behind standing up for the National anthem, then I think he is very under educated. He doesn't care about all the men and women overseas that have fought and are still currently fighting for our freedom. America is a great country and if he doesn't like it, then he can leave. America has given him the opportunity to play on the NFL and this is how he repays the American people for that. This is what younger generations see and think it's ok to disrespect police and military by taking a knee or not standing. Colin, be proud of the country you live in. I agree there is always going to be good situations in police forces around the country but BLM and Colin are just focusing on them. BLM stated the they want to defund the police force. How is that going to help? When you are a hard working man and you have earned things through working countless hours, then someone tries to steal it or destroy it; who are you going to call? Better not be the police because they are most likely going to be busy with hundreds of other callers asking for their help or simply do not have the means and resources to help you. What changed within the past 6 years to make Colin all of a sudden take a knee. Colin does have the right to do so because of his freedom of speech. That is also what is so great about this country, Freedom of speech. Colin along with the rest of the NFL must wear American Flags on the back of their helmets, so if he was so up hauled about the idea of wearing and standing by the American Flag, why doesn't he take his helmet off when he plays. I feel very strongly about this topic and today especially it seems like some people are too afraid to voice their opinion because they may offend someone by doing so. Thats what makes everyone unique and special is each and every person voicing their opinion about something. If Colin wants to make a statement, why doesn't he start help funding the school system, and help change the way the younger generations think because thats who will be leading this country next.

What to fix for next video

In class we were given the choice of either doing a picture frame slide or a video to describe our micro theme paper. I thought I was truly able express my feelings towards how regular passengers view the everyday commercial planes. It was tough coming from a my view being a pilot and knowing what is going on throughout the flight. The biggest hurdle that I had to overcome was seeing it from a different point of view. Dr. Kyburz gave me some insight on this. It was interesting, even after my presentations that something that may seem elementary to me, may be vary complex to someone whom isn't educated with aviation. It really took me back and made me realize I was in their shoes and scared at one time as well. Some things I should have changed was to figure out out to use Youtube editor more effectively. I could not figure out how to remove the text from the first slide. Other than that, I thought for my first time creating a video it wasn't a complete disaster. This was a very fun project because it brought my creative side to the table which, in aviation, I rarely get to use.

Night Flight

Last night, my friend Leigh and I went on a flight to Quad cities. It was such a gorgeous night when we departed and the air aloft was very smooth. When we got to our cruising altitude of 6500 feet, I engaged auto-pilot to our destination. When we were 25 miles away from our airport, I called up the approach controller. I said, our position, altitude, confirmed that we had obtained the current weather, and what we intended to do when we got there. The approach controller than cleared us to enter into his airspace and we then contacted tower. Tower then cleared us for the option to either d a stop and go or touch and go. When we landed, we stopped and took off again. We were told to fly the run way heading until further advised. After about a minute, we turned to a heading of 310, another minute 040, then proceeded on course. Climbing up to 5500 feet this time did not take us as long and we had a tailwind on the way back so that pushed us along as well. It was a lot of fun getting back in the air with an old friend and hopefully we will be able to fly again soon

Omaha

This weekend was very fun. My roommate Mitch and I went to his hometown of Omaha, Nebraska. I was thinking Nebraska was very flat and nothing out there. Parts of the state was definitely like that but in other ways it was urban as well. Unlike Philadelphia, you have to drive everywhere! It takes about 20 mins to get to wherever you need to go. If you need to go to the store, it takes 20 mins. Mitch's family is very Italian. The first night we were there his mother invited his family over to celebrate Mitch's 21 birthday. We had pasta and meatballs the first night and it was so authentic and delicious. The next day we went downtown Omaha and explored. Not many people were there because it was Saturday morning but the streets were still quite filled with tourists. The city looked old and rustic but had a modern day twist to it which made it very fun to explore. When we got back we had steaks for dinner which was incredible as well. His family is very welcoming and friendly and I was able to have another great night with them. Overall, I really enjoyed my stay at his home and would love to go back sometime.

What I fixed

I handed in my paper today. I made multiple changes to my paper. The changes that I made were a whole new introduction paragraph, refining verbs, correcting to MLA format, adding information about the film, as well as making my conclusion stronger. The peer evaluations seemed to help me a lot because we had more than thirty minutes to critique people on what they should fix and amend. I did enjoy this because it showed how much other students can help as well as Dr. Kyburz's notes. All in all, I believe my final draft was much improved from previous drafts. I did learn a lot from this assignment and will improve on future assignments.

What to fix

I know for my summary entry I need to fix a few things. First thing I need to change is to extend my  actual paper. Make everything more in detail and extend the summarization of my paragraphs. Explain what is happening in each scene in more detail. Another thing that I need to work on is trying to not give my own opinion. I find this quiet difficult sometimes because I am always trying to say what I think about everything I write.  Making sure my tense is correct. I need to make sure that I am always in the present tense instead of switching back and forth from present to past or vice versa. The last ting that I should focus on is making sure my verbs are precise to what scene I am trying to portray. This is extremely important to the reader because verbs pretty much describe what the message is you're trying to get across. Transition between paragraphs would be big as well. Make sure my paragraphs are easily flowing from one to the next. Other than that just making sure that my summary makes sense when reading it allowed!

NeruoFuse

About two weeks ago I started watching a new series on Netflix called Limitless. The show is based off the movie with Bradley Cooper in it. To summarize a man by the name of Brian Finch is struggling in his life and he comes upon this drug called NZT. What the drug does is instead of only allowing our minds to use only 10% of our brains it enables us to use 100%. So, Brian, becomes incredibly knowledgeable about anything he seems to remember from his past and whatever he reads he remembers. As i was scrolling through some news articles I found something called Neurofuse. Neruofuse is a type of medicine that is similar to NZT but it does not give you the ability to remember everything. The drug just helps you stay more aware of your surroundings, focus on tasks, and be attentive to detail. I thought it was very interesting to see because I just watched a whole film about a drug similar to this. I did some research and the bottle costs about 60 dollars per thirty capsules. Some people said that it helped them a lot and others not so much. I think in the future I would be interested in trying this just to see if it would help me as well.

Mountain biking experience

I had many greta things happen to me this week. One being my mountain bike ride that I took on Tuesday afternoon. It was a gorgeous day so I decided to go for a ride. I went our to discover some new trials that I researched a few weeks back and I finally found the time to go. I started out my ride and the trials were really fun straight from the start. The two best things that I look forward to about mountain biking is 1- going through the tails so fast that I know I could get hurt pretty bad if I make a wrong decision. 2 if getting lost in the woods and trying to figure my way back. The first thirty seconds of my ride both of those things happened and I knew it was gonna be a great ride. Throughout my ride I only went down once and it was because I took a turn too quickly but the a positive thing is that I didn't come out with any serious injuries. I love mountain biking and can' wait for the weekend to come to go for another ride.

Social media's impact

Why is social media such a crucial role in everything we do today? Everything in this world virtually revolves around social media. Politics is a great example. If a candidate see's that a large group of people are pushing for something, the candidate tends to explore his possibilities he/ she has to pass a bill in order to please the people. Social media sways people's opinion severely. This is both parties in this presidential debate have been utilizing it and monitoring it so closely unlike any other race before. Airliners, fast food, supermarkets, any company that you can think of utilize social media for feed back for their current product and input from consumers for future products. Social media has its ups and downs just like everything but I think it has helped the whole world feel just a bit closer together.

Figuring out how to blog

Blogging is a very simple but very complex idea. Blogging enables people express themselves and share their ideas with the rest of the world. Setting up the blog was very difficult for me because I was still logged into my lewis account and was having trouble with creating a new blog. Coming up with a design will be interesting trying to navigate through the blogging website but it's all a learning experience. I am excited to start blogging and trying to get my ideas out to the class and the world.