Corporate America Can't Build Sentences

I read an article, "What Corporate America Can't Build: A Sentence" that criticized the writing skills of the successful buisness men and women of America. Not only does the article criticize the unclear, informal messages of buisness people, but also of students. Students contact their teachers in the same informal manner as they do with their friends. This is a problem I have heard from many professors at SMU when I came to orientation. The teachers expressed to the incoming students the importance of writing formally to a teacher even in an email. Using shortened versions of words, not addressing the professor at the beginning of the email, etc. Students need to learn when to seperate their school life with their social life when contacting professors.

College

I commented on Powerades blog, "Is college a crucial part of success?" I think that it is not a requirement for someone to go to college. As cec stated on her coment, some people need to take some time off to figure out what they want to do. The only dissapointment to me if someone does that is they would miss out on the experience of college. As a freshman with everyone my age, I have met so many great people and would not have chosen do anything else for the next four years. People who go to school later, do not get the same experience. Although, if you are going to go to school and not accomphish anything, there is no point. In the long run, college is not crucial, as long as you are doing something with your life that you love, you are good to go.

Paper Outline

The Claim in my outline is that people need to approach the things they do by engaging their minds and being more satisfied instead of spending the majority of their time on passive leisure activities. My first reason is that people should do more activities that they get flow. By doing so, they will be happier. While it may take longer for them to get up and start the activity, in the long run they will benefit from it more. As Csikszentimalyi states, “the typical teenager admits that biking, or playing basketball, or playing the piano are more enjoyable than roaming through the mall or watching TV. But, they say to get organized for a basketball game takes time” (Csikzzentimalyi 67). The reason many people do not start doing physical activities is because they are too lazy. Although, they will get more enjoyment out of it. My second reason is that people are wasting their life away doing activities doing activities with no benefits, such as watching TV or playing on the computer. My third reason is that people do not know how to spend their leisure time. As Csikszentimihalyi stated, "free time is more difficult to enhoy than work. Having leisure at one's disposal does not improve the quality of life unless one know how to use it effectively, and it is by no means something one learns automatically.

Why are people so lazy?

For my paper, I was inspired by the chapter in Finding Flow was about leisure. A big idea that I found interest in was how people choose to do passive activities in their free time rather than activities that would produce more flow. Activities that involve flow involve the mind. They could include athletics, art, reading, etc. Finding Flow has concluded that while the more active activities may be more satisfying, they require a lot more work. People are too lazy to get everything together to do the activity. They think they will be more content watching tv, or doing something that will not require them to put as much effort in to it. So people should be putting in that extra effort to be getting the better satisfatction.

Cell Phones

Lately, I have been getting annoyed with people on their cell phones. I think the rudest thing someone can do is wipe out their cell phone at a meal. It is disrespectful and appears that the person they are talking to is more important than you. Not only at meals but if you are hanging out with someone and they continuously talk on their phone the whole time your together, it is very boring for you. There are few conversations that must be had that the person cant wait to talk about.
It amazes me how much people depend on their cell phones now. Im not complaining, i use my all the time. One day when I lost my phone, I did not know what to do. I couldn't call any of my friends. I felt like I was missing out on what they were doing. I honestly wonder what people did to get in touch when they didnt have cell phones.
While they are very convinient, people make it seem that every conversation they have on their phone must be had immediately and can not wait especially till more appropriate times.

Drinking at the Age of 18

On many people's blogs there has been a lot of discussion about the drinking age of 21 in the U.S. Americans should be aloud to drink at the age of 18. How can we be adults and not aloud to drink? The common complaint is that Americans can go fight in war and not have a drink. While a big worry about allowing 18 year olds to drink is that unlike a lot of other cultures, the American culture tends to abuse alcohol more. If you look at the Europeans, alcohol is so common and introduced at such a young age that it is not a big a deal to drink. Children drink wine with meals. When alcohol is not allowed and resisted from young adults, there is a higher tendency to want to try it. A good law that some states have, such as Texas, is that kids are aloud to drink with their parents. This is a good way to introduce alcohol to kids. It teaches them to learn how to drink responsibly. If a parent never lets their kid take a sip of alcohol and then sends them off to college, the kid will go crazy. So, it would make our culture more responsible to start drinking at younger ages.

The Search for an Apartment

Recently, there has been a high demand to find an apartment. Everyone I talk to has either found a place or is looking for one. University Park is not the easiest place to find a reasonably priced, good location, correct number of bedrooms, etc. As my two roommates for next year and I go driving and walking around the area we struggle to find a three bedroom place that is not $4000 a month to rent. If we were at many other college campuses, it would be so much easier to find a decent, well-priced place to live. Not only are the places to live so expensive, but they are also are requiring 1 year leases starting in may. We have to pay to have the apartment for the whole summer we are not there. I do not want to live in a dorm next year because i want to be able to freely have a kitchen and living room. I am sure a lot of other bloggers are struggling with this problem.