ENGL 1A Blog

To me, a hero is a person who has to help make the world a better place while inspiring others to impact themselves or their community positively. This means that a hero not only has to do good but encourage others to do good as well.

Mike Boyd has been named the “Learner of Things” and can be considered a hero to many of his followers.  He is a person who inspires people to try new things and has the support of over 1 million people on YouTube.  Mike Boyd repeatedly shows that he is brave, determined, and open-minded towards difficult problems that he wants to solve.  Some of his conditions include swimming a mile in open water, learning to ride a unicycle, and solving a Rubik’s cube blindfolded.   Mike Boyd is a hero because of the positive traits he shows throughout his life. However, in the majority of the public’s eyes, heroes are seen only as heroes if they have done something of extreme importance, like saving a life. Because of this, Mike Boyd may not be seen as a hero to the masses.  However, I believe that it is important to realize that there are big heroes that save people’s lives and small heroes that inspire people and do something meaningful in their life. Most importantly, every hero, big or small, matters in the ongoing journey in making the world a better place.

Mike Boyd shows that he is a hero by positively influencing his community through his tutorial videos.    He creates video tutorials that help people learn guitar, solve Rubik’s cubes, and other demanding tasks. While this isn’t at the same level of rescuing people from burning buildings or creating cures to diseases, his tutorials still help others out.  If someone’s lifelong goal were to learn to play the guitar, Boyd’s videos would help the viewer achieve their goal.

In addition to spreading his knowledge about various talents, Mike Boyd has also done charity work.  He auctioned off a skateboard signed by Tony Hawk raising over £3400 for Muscular Dystrophy UK which directly helps people who are suffering and in need.  He is a hero because of his continuous efforts to make both his local and global community a better place.

Mike Boyd is one of my heroes because he has helped me change and improve my mentality.   Throughout all his videos, he shows that he is a person with a growth mindset. He goes through constant struggles while learning new things and rarely ever gives up.  His videos and positivity have inspired me to practice any skill I am interested in for an hour each day. So far, I have learned many skills with the inspiration from his videos.  This goal I have has allowed me to work on new things and has let me go through more processes that include struggle before success.

However, I do concede the fact that there are people who have done a lot more for the world than him, but heroes don’t have to save a life to make the world a better place.  To me, anyone who makes the world a better place and inspired others to do the same, famous or not, is a person worth recognizing.

Works Cited

Boyd, Mike. “1 Mile in Cold Water || Part 2.” YouTube, 26 Sep. 2018, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lMe-MSFNOcQ

—.“Learn to Unicycle in 2 Hours and 38 Minutes” YouTube, 9 Dec. 2015, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ncjFqrXj0_Y

—. “How I Learned to Solve the Rubik’s Cube Blindfolded” YouTube, 7 Jan. 2019, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vFhujAn5b8U

—.”Tony Hawk Signed Skateboard Raffle” 27 Mar. 2017. 5 Mar. 2019https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/mikeboydvideo?utm_campaign=20160221_49140&utm_medium=email&utm_source=ExactTarget

My group chose to write about the topic of littering while putting some notice in the Keep America Beautiful organization.

This picture shows our infographic on Reddit. The post totaled four likes and five comments in the first 24 hours of the posting. It is now at seven likes and comments. The perceived outcome was overall low because we only got six comments on the post. However, the comments were positive for the most part with one of the commentators saying they would look into the website more to see if any volunteering opportunities were near them. One Redditor stated “I go to car parks to put loose cans in the rubbish bins. I may look into this site and see if they have any events near me. Cheers.”Because of this, I believe that our infographic helped some people get introduced to Keep America Beautiful and possibly spark an interest in volunteering for this cause.

This picture shows our poster hanging up on a wall in The Flip (Xavier RLC Dorms). Although we haven’t been able to keep full surveillance over this infographic like our Reddit post, we did see a few students looking at our poster. We didn’t notice anyone taking a picture of it to share, however. The perceived outcome was low from what we observed but could have been higher since we couldn’t determine the full traffic the infographic got.

We also put our infographic on a Discord for a Pokemon Club recognized by SCU. Most of the reactions that were received were polite saying that they thought the infographic looked nice and the information on the infographic was good. One student said that it “looks great” and that Joshua and I “did a good job”.  We additionally got some people to take our survey through the QR code which was helpful. The perceived outcome from posting on the discord went well. We got a lot of good feedback and some people even did our surveys.

Finally, I posed the infographic in a friend group on messenger. From analyzing the data, this is where most of the survey response came in from and the overall feedback from my friends was good. Some of my friends said they never heard of Keep America Beautiful but the organization sounded interesting.

In addition to the infographic, we also sent out a survey or participants to complete. Most of the answers were predictable like people don’t litter consciously, people throw away their garbage for the most part, and feel like litter is very detrimental to the environment. However, the question “In a public place, who is responsible for picking up litter”, 64% of people believed it to be the workers’ job to clean up after people, and 27% of people thought it was everyone’s responsibility. I think to help reduce litter significantly, these percentages will have to flip. If more people believe that it was everyone responsibilities, social pressure would make people want to clean up after themselves.

Overall, I believe our campaign to spread awareness about littering was successful. Posting our information in multiple areas both on campus and online helped us reach a wider audience and gain a better sense of what people thought about our issue and how informative our infographic was.  Finally, our posteres helped inform people of what Keep America Beautiful was and how they could help the cause to help reduce litter in the environment.

Other Survey Responses

Henneke, author of How to Cherish Your Shitty First Drafts (And Get More Writing Done), writes about how she gets through her rough draft process.  She draws on the ideas of Lamotte in the sense that the first draft doesn’t have to be good.  She even goes as far as to stating that quantity may be better than quality when writing a first draft.  She also goes through the same type of writer’s block Lamott goes through.

When talking about bad first drafts, Henneke describes a common tactic to avoid writing: “Perhaps you find excuses and do your household chores first. The kitchen still needs cleaning. The Christmas shopping list is waiting. And weren’t you going to call your friend” (Henneke 7).  In this quote, Henneke talks about procrastinating because she doesn’t want to start writing. However, her procrastination is still productive as she spends the time cleaning and doing other chores

People probably tend to fall into “productive procrastination” because they feel like their time isn’t being wasted.  Instead of being on social media, you are doing work (not the important work but work nonetheless). I feel like there’s something in your brain that makes you justify this type of procrastination over the “lazy procrastination” because you still feel like you are being useful.

In my own experiences, I have also found to be the victim of “productive procrastination”.  Sometimes, I find myself working on easier homework that is due in a few weeks rather than working on homework that may be due in a few days.  In addition, I find myself sometimes doing some homework that I could be spending less effort in while still getting good results instead of studying for a midterm that is happening within the week.  I usually work on whatever bit of work I need to do that’s quick and easy because it makes me feel like I have done more than I actually have. Unfortunately this leaves me with the hard homework until the very end.

I think that this type of procrastination is fairly common among other people and I would like to know why it is such a common practice that people default to.

My group chose to write about the topic of littering with an emphasis on the Keep America Beautiful organization.

When raising awareness about littering, we decided that we wanted to use a website called Canva to create our infographic.  This website gave us a template to work with which allowed us to get the infographic to look visually appealing.

When deciding on the information to put onto the infographic, we initially just dumped any information that we found useful onto one document.  Once we collected enough information, we decided what to use and where to put it on the infographic. We separated different ideas into different lines so the reader had an easy time understanding different components of what our organization did. After that, we added some images that had some connection to what each topic was talking about.

In order to increase our credibility, we wanted a way for people to check our sources if the chose to do so.  We didn’t want to use a link since people would have to manually write it in their search bar. Because of this, we decided that a QR code would be an appropriate solution.  In addition, we added a QR code to our survey to see what the viewers thought about littering as a problem.

This picture shows our infographic on reddit.  The post totaled 4 likes and 5 comments in the first 24 hours of the posting.  It is now at 7 likes and comments. The perceived outcome was overall low because we only got 6 comments on the post.  However, the comments were positive for the most part with one of the commentators saying they would look into the website more to see if any volunteering opportunities were near them.  Because of this, I believe that our infographic helped some people get introduced to Keep America Beautiful and possibly spark an interest in volunteering for this cause.

This picture shows our poser hanging up on a wall in The Flip.  Although we haven’t been able to keep a full surveillance over this  infographic like our reddit post, we did see a few students looking at our poster.  We didn’t notice anyone taking a picture of it to share, however. The perceived outcome was low from what we observed, but could have been higher since we couldn’t determine the full trafic the infographic got.

We also put our infographic on a Discord for a Pokemon Club recognized by SCU.  Most of the reactions that were received were polite saying that they thought the infographic looked nice and the information on the infographic was good.  We additionally got some people to take our survey through the QR code which was helpful. The perceived outcome from posting on the discord went well. We got a lot of good feedback and some people even did our surveys.

Finally, I posed the infographic in a friend group on messenger.  From analyzing the data, this is where most of the survey response came in from and the overall feedback from my friends was good.  Some of my friends said they never heard of Keep America Beautiful but the organization sounded interesting.

Overall, I believe our campaign to spread awareness about littering was successful.  Posting our information in multiple areas both on campus and online helped us reach a wider audience and gain a better sense of what people thought about our issue and how informative our infographic was.

In The Hunger Games, Katniss is seen as a character rooted in the survival mindset.  

This is seen in her District 12 life when she tried drowning her cat so she didn’t have to feed it and when she goes out hunting for food despite the possibility of facing punishment if caught.  

While at the capitol, she shows her survival instincts, with the help of Cinna, by playing to the crowd in hopes of winning some sponsorships.

During the games, Katniss’s trait of self preservation is also seen.  At the beginning of the game, she is seen to run away from the cornucopia instead of trying to find weapons and supplies located here.  She takes the safe option of running away from people in order to survive, instead of getting weapons that could help her win the game.

However, the games have an effect on Katniss and she becomes an aggressor instead of a passive survivor.  The high stress of The Hunger Games has resulted in Katniss into developing a lethal plan to the careers: “ A plan that isn’t motivated by the need for flight and evasion. An offensive plan.” (287)

I think that high levels of stress can also change people in real life.  This is shown in the long workdays many people have. In fact, some studies have shown that a four day work week have been just as productive as a five day week.   This shows that the stressful 5 day work week can make people less productive since the same amount of work can be done in a 4 day work week.

In Chapter 9 of They Say, I Say, the authors discuss how a writer should mix in both a formal and informal voice into their writing.  One of their main points in favor of using relaxed language is that it helps connect with the reader: “ Such informal language also helps you connect with readers in a personal as well as an intellectual way” (122).

I agree with statement for the most part.  In addition to it, I think that it is important to evaluate what kind of writing assignment you are doing.  If it is a research paper, I think that the writing should almost exclusively use a formal tone. However, if the writing is a story or narrative, I think that informal language should be emphasized.  I think that if a writer follows the same generic plan for everything, most of their writing would feel a bit off tone wise.

Despite this, I would find it interesting to see if scientific studies became more popular if the authors switched to a more informal writing style.  This switch would allow for a wider audience as more people would be able to understand what the scientists are trying to communicate. In addition, a more casual tone will allow non experts a chance to follow breakthroughs from sciences and technology from primary sources rather than a news company.  This would allow for people to be more informed as they would have better access to new information. One downside I see to academic papers becoming more informal is that there can be new articles that spread misinformation and can hide behind casual writing.

When reading the Knight of the Cart, Lancelot gets deceived by a dwarf. While imprisoned, he becomes aware of when his tournament. After hearing this, he begs to be released for his tournament and then he’ll return: “My lady if you are afraid that I will not return at once to your keeping after the tourney, I shall take an oath that I will never break and shal swear that nothing will ever keep me from returning to imprisonment here as soon as true tournament has ended.” (274) Lancelot is finally released after on his word.

This shows how heavy someone’s word was back then. Lancelot was able to be realized based off of his word and shows how trusting people were during the time.  

In today’s world, people’s word means a lot less. Most people wouldn’t even trust a stranger if they asked to borrow their phone, in fear of having it stolen.  

The media has also taken to the practice of lying for their own benefit and not caring about how accurate their journalism is.  Some articles are titled “7 Foods to Never Eat, #3 Surprised Me and my Doctor Hates It” just to try and get more people to click on their webpage.

Other journals try to get their articles out on important events first in order to reach the biggest audience possible, often skipping the editing process of journalism. This leads to hard to read articles and are filled with spelling and grammatical errors.

It would be interesting to see if media has shaped our society into lying, or if the media adopted society’s practices by observing what the public does in their day to day life.

The Knight of the cart is shown to have an extreme love towards the Queen. This amount of love is shown when he doesn’t hear the guardian of the ford’s warning, resulting in him getting knocked off his horse. Blinding love was also seen when a knight wanted to fight the main hero for a girl even though he was much weaker than him. This would have lead to the challenging knight’s severe injury or possibly even death. A third example was when a girl wanted to sleep with the knight from the cart. She became distracted and didn’t realize other men had come into her house. All three of these examples from the text show the downsides of extreme passion towards someone else. Even though they may seem like they are in heaven, their judgement becomes unclear and their reasoning becomes distorted.

To add on to the text, I find the “blinded by love” interesting.  The blindness that love can cause will distort one’s reasoning. It can also make someone do questionable or foolish acts.  One modern day example of this is when a Azaria sold stolen jewelry to get money for her boyfriend. I think that in order to keep a level head and stay away from blinded behavior, that one has to try to look upon their actions from an outside perspective, possibly conversing with their friends.

In What Makes a Hero?  By Mather Winkler, he connects the hero’s journey seen in many fictional books and movies to the events that unfold into ordinary people.  While I can see his overarching point that people will improve themselves from overcoming the adversary, I dispute the notion that the hero’s journey is a mirror to the real world heroes.

   The first point I will dispute is that the hero’s journey mimics what happens in real life.  Winkler concedes the point that people won’t fight dragons or other monsters, but they will confront problems that may be mentally or physically challenging.  I agree with him on this point, but I still see flaws in the hero’s journey.

One of the bigger plot holes in the hero’s journey, when applied to real life, is the crisis portion.  Winkler states that the hero is at its darkest hour, and will be resurrected into something stronger if they die.  However, in real life, heroes that die while doing their “quest” will not be resurrected. Of course, there is the argument that their spirit is resurrected into movements, monuments, or memories.  This argument is one that I agree with to an extent. In some cases, the hero is remembered and honored appropriately after they die. However, in many cases, the hero is talked about for a week or so and then forgotten by everyone except the hero’s family.

This can be seen with the oversaturation of heroes in media.  There are so many heroes that are mentioned on websites that it is impossible for people to remember all of them.  In this sense, even though the heroes are remembered for a week, I do not consider their spirits to be resurrected.  Unfortunately, in my eyes, some heroes have their journey ends at the crisis and not complete the full circle that is seen so often in movies.

I find how Lamott describes the reality of writing a little unnerving. She describes her version of the writing process as “you can either type, or kill yourself. We all often feel like we are pulling teeth” (2). While her feelings towards the writing process are probably exaggerated and ironically probably took her a long time to come up with, she does bring up an interesting point. It brings up the question about if writers feel so much dread from writing, why do they still do it?

There’s an obvious answer in which writers enjoy their final product and the process after writing the first draft more than they hate writing the first draft.

However, there can also be the grass is greener on the other side effect happening to writers. Writers may see that the authors look up to have everything they could want;  a distinguished name, a comfortable life, and appearances on talk shows. These writers may use their heroes to set goals and aspirations they want to achieve when they are still writing.  This chance at fame and fortune probably helps some of the writers push through the agony of writing the first draft.

Another that she may feel like she has to continue as a writer is of their ego.   In Lamott’s case, she had been a writer most of her life. If she stopped now, she may feel like a failure because she couldn’t write for her entire life. Some people would only see the end as the destination because of their mindset.  For example, in if a 50-year marriage ended in divorce, society and scientific studies would see it as a failure. Both groups wouldn’t see that this marriage was successful for 50 years and only attribute the ending to the marriage. If a writer has this mindset, they may keep on writing so they don’t feel like a failure, even if they had significant successes as an author.

I believe that passion, dreams, and ego are the three main factors for authors to continue writing despite the horrors of the first draft that Lamott mentions.  Also, if one of these traits is strong enough in a writer, they will write for as long as they can.