Thursday Night Football

Tonight I am sitting in my dorm room watching the Chicago Bears play the Dallas Cowboys. This season has been a struggle for the Bears and I am hoping with this game that they will be able to turn it around. The Dallas Cowboys are coming into this game with a record of 8-4 and the Bears are sitting at 5-7. While it would be extremely difficult the Bears still do have a chance to make the playoffs with a victory tonight against the Cowboys. Hopefully this will be a good game and I am looking forward to seeing the outcome.

Performing our Plays

This past week in class for those of us that were in attendance we had the privilege of being able to listen to everyones plays that were written. Overall I felt that this was a very interesting experience. Many of the plays written by our classmates were interesting and much different than what I expected. It was a cool experience to be able to witness some of the creativity that our classmates have and it was also cool to be able to see some of our classmates perform. It was evident immediately which classmates had prior experience in plays or musicals by the way that they acted in front of the class. I felt that this was a very productive assignment overall.

Snow

It is amazing to me the amount of snow that we have gotten this past week. Being from Chicago I am used to the large amounts of snowfall but the amount that we have gotten this year before Thanksgiving is quite astonishing. Going outside of my dorm hall yesterday was a brutal experience as I was forced to ride in the back of a pickup truck all the way to baseball practice. I still believe that my ears are cold from that car ride. Hopefully the snow will be able to slow down by next week so that everyone is able to have a safe trip home for the holidays. Speaking of the holidays I am very excited for Thanksgiving and Winter break and am counting down the days until their arrival.

Writing Plays

This past Friday in class we further discussed our research papers and some of the finishing touches that would need to be put into place so we could finish writing them. I think that it will be very helpful to have some of our peers read our papers and make helpful suggestions on them. For our newest assignment we were told that we were going to have to write our own play that would be due this Friday. Personally for me I feel that this will be difficult because I struggle when it comes to narrative writing. I am very much more so an analytical writer as opposed to a narrative one. Regardless I am looking forward to the challenge but not looking forward to the idea of reading our plays in front of the class.

Notre Dame vs. Arizona State

I think that any Notre Dame football fan would become very upset if you brought up their game this past weekend against Arizona State. The Fighting Irish had one of their worst performances this season racking up a season high six turnovers. Five of those six turnovers came form none other than Everett Golson who threw four interceptions and one fumble. The loss to the Sun Devils destroyed the Irish's chance to make it to the first ever college football playoffs. Being the huge Notre Dame football fan that I am it was a very painful game to watch and I am hoping that they will be able to bounce back this week.

Previous Class

This past week unfortunately I was sick and not able to attend class. From what I have heard from my classmates we continued our fallacies talks and were also introduced to our research papers. I am also aware that we must write another annotated bib for this Friday's class on a topic of our choice. Personally I am excited to write a research paper because I enjoy writing analytical papers as opposed to narratives. I personally have a few options for research paper choices and I am looking to finalize that decision within the next couple of days.

Chicago Cubs

Being that I am from Chicago there are either two baseball teams that we can root for. Personally I am a fan of the Chicago White Sox but recently the team on the north side of the city has found out some exciting news. Chicago Cubs fans have been looking for a sign of hope ever since the Bartman incident and they may have finally received some of their best news in awhile. The hiring of Joe Maddon is a huge addition to the Cubs organization and may finally push them to being a contender in the division. Time will only tell if this decision will be able to save the Cubs and finally bring fans the team that they have been waiting to have for years. I am skeptical as to whether or not this decision will turn the Cubs franchise around but I am still anxious to see how the hiring of such a respectable Coach will affect the North Siders.

Winning a Debate

Prior to last Friday's class I had no idea that there were so many different ways to prove someone wrong in an argument. I always thought that whoever came up with the best argument overall was the one most likely to win the argument. Little did I know that you could completely prove someone's argument wrong simply by using some of the false argument techniques that we learned in class. Most interesting about learning these different techniques is how many times my parents have used these techniques on me to attempt to prove my arguments wrong. Unfortunately for them they will not be able to use these techniques on me anymore as I plan on from now on calling them out when they attempt to do so.

San Francisco Giants

Not many teams in any professional sport can say that they are true dynasty's. That is the case when it  comes to the San Francisco Giants. With there recent win of the 2014 World Series it is their third World Series victory in the past five years. They are hands down the greatest franchise in sports and arguably have some of the most valuable players in the MLB. Madison Bumgarner set records in the World Series by winning three games for the Giants and posting the lowest ERA in World Series history. It will be very interesting to see if the Giants are able to keep up their streak of postseason performances as many critics feel that they are the favorites to win the World Series again next year.

Picking Themes

This past Friday in class was very beneficial to everyone that was present. One of the main activities of the class was to get in pairs and help narrow down themes for our analytical papers that we have been writing. Overall I felt that this exercise was very beneficial because it helped students pick an overall number one important theme to focus on for their papers. It also helped in choosing a theme that was specific and not necessarily to broad of a topic. After walking out of the class on Friday I feel that I will now be able to go back and make my papers even stronger because of this activity in class.

Chicago Bears

Being that I am from the Chicago land area I can not help but be disappointed in the start of the Chicago Bears season. Prior to the start of the season they were considered a favorite to win the division but now it is being questioned whether or not they will even finish .500. Much of the blame for the season thus far is falling upon starting quarterback Jay Cutler. Everyone knows that Cutler has always been somewhat of a hot head but this season he has been severely struggling. The Bears with one of the best receiving cores in the NFL are struggling to put up points week in and week out. Could it be that defensive coordinators have finally figured out the schemes of 2nd year head coach Marc Trestman. Whatever the case may be I really hope that the bears will be able to turn things around before it is to late.

Class Cancelled

For the second time this year we had our class get cancelled. This eek was actually very nice to not have class because I had a scrimmage this past friday. Asides from class getting cancelled I decided to write my paper on the theme present in the Yellow Wallpaper. I also c\hose to analyze the song Gravity by John Mayer. Overall I thought that these papers were interesting because we were allowed to examine a theme of our choice from a story. I also enjoyed analyzing the song lyrics of a song of our choice in an attempt to find out the meaning of the song.

Kansas City Royals

Many sports critics around the country are now making the argument that the Kansas City Royals have become America's favorite team. In my opinion I would have to agree. As Americans we always seem to embrace the under dogs and cheer for them. That is exactly what the Kansas City Royals are. Going into this season nobody would have guessed that they would be playing in the World Series and on top of that have not lost in the playoffs. To say that the Royals are not America's favorite team at this moment would be an entirely wrong statement. The Kansas City Royals are without a doubt the best team in baseball at this time and arguably the best team in the country.

Previous Class Lack of Doing Homework

In last week's class it seemed that we all forgot to read the story that was due for class. Because of that lack of being able to do homework we now have to write three papers for this Friday's class. In my mind that is a lot of paper writing and is going to be pretty tough on top of the already heavy load of homework that I have for other classes. Asides from forgetting to do our homework as a class we also analyzed some more popular songs in the media today. The most interesting part about these exercises is the way that each person has completely different interpretations of each song. Personally I feel that writing the analytical papers is much easier than writing narrative papers too.

Highschool Football

In high school along with playing baseball I also enjoyed playing football for four years. This year my brother is the starting quarterback taking over my position from last year. Nazareth Academy this year is ranked top ten in the state of Illinois and has a very high number of Division 1 recruits for a small catholic school located in a fairly small suburb. The hype around the team this year has been very exciting as they are predicted to win the state championship for class 6a. Going into week seven the team has started out 6-0 and has one of their toughest challenges of the season this week facing Joliet Catholic. The game this week will be featured as the Comcast Game of the Week and will be aired on TV in the Chicagoland area. I am hoping to make it home this weekend to watch my former high school take on our conference rival Joliet Catholic.

Previous Class: Reflecting on Music

By far the most interesting aspect of our class last week was the exercise in which we analyzed different songs. I really enjoyed trying to dig deeper into the meaning of some of the songs that we listened. For some of the songs it was actually quite difficult to decipher what some of them were trying to get at. I did also enjoy discussing some of the different themes of the movie Carrie and I feel that the discussion helped give me a better idea of what to write about for this weeks writing assignment. In fact I am actually looking forward to writing about one of my favorite movies and analyzing a theme from that movie.

Notre Dame Football

To much of the dislike of my family I have to admit that I am a huge Notre Dame football fan. I would have to say that most of all this stems from Grandmothers strong passion for Notre Dame football as well. On the other hand the rest of my family does not enjoy Notre Dame football near as much as I do. In fact most of the time my family will root against Notre Dame simply to annoy me. My real purpose for writing this post is that this year there is much excitement for Notre Dame football. Everett Golson has returned from a season of not playing for the Irish and has looked better than ever this season so far. The Fighting Irish are off to a 4-0 start and are currently ranked ninth in the AP top twenty poll. This week is there biggest game so far this season as the Irish look to take on Stanford in South Bend. Be sure to tune in to CBS at 3:30 for the game.

Carrie

After leaving class last Friday I couldn't help but think about the movie that we had just watched. In all honesty that was one of the weirdest movies that I have ever seen. Overall I thought that the plot was very interesting but some of the camera angles really forced me to have trouble watching the movie. I would also have to say that I think that the overall oldness of the movie also contributed to the movie being sub par to me. I know that they recently released a remake and I would be interested to see how the remake compares to the older version that we watched in class. Asides from the movie I did enjoy the activities that we did in class. I most of all enjoyed trying to guess information about people simply by reading their papers.

Derek Jeters Departure

The 2014 Major League Baseball season will go down in the record books as one of the most memorable seasons of our generation. This year marks the final season of the twenty year career of Derek Jeter. Regarded as one of the greatest shortstops to ever play the game and one of the most iconic athletes of his era Jeter will be greatly missed by fans worldwide. Jeter was born and raised in the Kalamazoo area and has played his entire career with the New York Yankees. The Yankee captain is a five time world series champion, has been selected to the all-star team fourteen times, recipient of  five gold glove awards, five silver slugger awards, and is a member of the three thousand hit club. Jeter will be a unanimous hall of fame inductee and will always be remembered as one of the greatest players to ever put on a uniform. In the words of Jeter "I thank the good lord everyday for making me a Yankee".

This past Friday for one of our stories we were supposed to read Cultural Baggage. Overall I felt that this story was very interesting and offered a very different viewpoint on cultural identity. The narrator feels that America today is very much so immersed in the idea of our roots. On one hand he describes the people who state that they know exactly what their ancestors were doing while he sits back and says that he does not have any roots. The narrator discusses how growing up his parents did not force him/her to follow any type of guidelines but instead let him make his own decisions when it came to religion and ethnic choices. The narrator suggests that parents are in a way forcing their children to follow their own beliefs instead allowing them to make decisions of their own hence the title Cultural Baggage. Personally I would have to agree with the narrators assumptions on the concept of cultural baggage. For last Friday's class we were also supposed to read a story entitled Pet Milk. Personally I enjoyed this story a lot more than Cultural Baggage. I felt that the descriptive nature of the story gave a much more realistic feel to the characters and what they were doing. While reading the story I could almost feel the characters and could to a certain extent envision what they were doing. For example while reading the part of them on the train I could picture in my head a couple kissing on the train as they raced through Chicago. This story in my opinion is a perfect example of what can happen when detail is added to the setting of the story.

Past Class

This past class I'm not going to lie I was extremely confused about this whole blogger idea and to be quite honest I still am confused. Regardless of my confusion I am still attempting to write this blog so here's hoping that it will go well. So far I have enjoyed our creative writing class, asides from the fact that it is three hours. I have most of all enjoyed reading the stories and am very intrigued by the fact that poems can contain multiple different meanings. It was also nice to be able to have an in depth discussion about each of the stories that we read in class. Usually at my high school class discussions consisted of awkward silence for twenty minutes. Looking forward to class again this Friday.

My name is Jake Bartels and I am freshman living in Valley 1 Shilling. I am from Chicago Illinois and I am a huge fan of sports. My blog is going to mainly contain sports related topics. I am also planning on majoring in business finance with a law minor.