Speech Review

Watching yourself speak in a video is a very painful experience. You realize how annoying your own voice sounds, and all you can notice is the flaws in your presentation and think, "Great, do I really look and act this awkward on a day to day basis?". Although it is a little painful to watch, it is very helpful to see exactly how you present. As i watched my video i noticed i did a few things positively, and a few things negatively. On a positive note, i think i did a good job with making it a conversational proposal. I wasn't just trying to thrust information upon the class, i tried to make it more laid back. When i give speeches i always worry so much about remembering the information, so i ended up writing a lot of unnecessary information on the cards, and i found myself looking down a lot. I think that that could be easily fixed by writing less, and practicing more. You said i was engaging when i looked up, but that i didn't look up enough, so i think that could be easily fixed by just knowing my information better. Looking back i did like how i decided to talk about other presentations, but honestly they did help me with my own. I wish i had the ability to just say a 3 minute speech without any notecards like a lot of classmates did, but that would take a lot of practice for me. I do believe that practice really is the key to giving a good speech.

Questions i hate answering

I am going to talk about three annoying questions that i get often. The first one is "How do you pronounce your last name" GOUGH. It is pronounced like "Cough" but with a G. I don't think it is that hard to think of. People often pronounce it like Vincent Van Gogh, which is guess is understandable. It's just frustrating having to explain it when it looks so similar to a common word.

 Another question is hate being asked is when i'm at a party and a guy immediately asks me what sorority i'm in. I don't mind being asked what sorority i'm in in general, i just hate when people, especially drunk frat guys, act like it is the only thing that matters. Like if i say a sorority that they aren't very fond of, are you just going to stop talking to me? One time at a party i got asked what sorority i was in before i was asked what my NAME was. I think that is just ridiculous. I understand that greek life is huge at UK, and i love my sorority and everything that it involves, but there is more to me than my sorority.

My final question that i hate being asked is, "If you're from Lexington, why do you live in the dorms?" Ask anyone, the dorms do suck but it is all apart of the college experience. I love all the friends i have made in my dorm, i love being able to wake up 30 minutes before class and walk there, i love having a meal plan and being able to save money that i would normally spend on food, and i love not having to drive from my home to campus everyday. My house is a solid 20 minutes away from campus and you never know how bad lexington traffic is going to be. I love my parents to death and i enjoy visiting them occasionally, but i am an adult and want to learn how to live on my own. And do people expect me to live at home for all four years of college since i'm from here? I sure hope not because i do not want to live with my parents when i'm 21 years old, i want my own place. College is when you grow up and move out and that is why i don't still live at home. Yes it would save a lot of money, but even my parents agree that they want me to have the dorm experience. They are from Lexington and went to UK, and they lived at home and the regret it a lot.

 This is how far the drive is from my house to campus, would you like to drive that everyday just to go to class?

Jessie Gough- TED talk

http://www.ted.com/talks/juan_enriquez_how_to_think_about_digital_tattoos.html

I chose the Ted talk "Your Online Life, Permanent as a Tattoo". I picked this speech because all high school and college students ever hear from adults about social media is "be careful what you post, it will never go away, it will come back to haunt you, etc". It wasn't surprising to me at all that the speaker was an older man. Young adults and teenagers think that when they post something, only their friends or followers can see it. But adults know that employers and college admissions workers look at people's social media to see the types of things they post. So that's why it wasn't surprising to me that an old man was giving this speech. His audience was to anyone who uses social media. He did a great job during his speech, he was confident with what he said, he had multiple examples of why you have to be careful on social media. My favorite was the tattoo comparison, because it really is true, anything you ever post is permanent, like a tattoo. He had great usage of visuals saying that yes, tattoos can be beautiful if you get something that is beautiful. But if you get something that is ridiculous you have to live with it, like if you post something ridiculous you have to deal with the repercussions. Overall this speech was great because you could tell he was passionate about the topic, he never stuttered and always had information to back up his argument.

Being from Kentucky, I have never really been concerned with the city of Detroit since it is a northern city and doesn't really concern me. So I learned a lot from this article. I always kind of knew that Detroit had a lot of crime, but that is about it. I didn't know that the city was bankrupt and apparently that was a huge deal. The article points out how when Detroit was on the cover of every newspaper with the story of how they were bankrupt, all the newspapers talked about was negativity and how bad the situation was. They never pointed out an positive point or talked about how Detroit could bounce back from it. This is just a prime example of how the media always makes us look at the negative things. You rarely hear a happy enlightening story on the news, it is almost always bad. The author of the article visited Detroit and saw the run down city, had been told to not be alarmed if he heard explosions, and so he instantly formed his opinion that Detroit was a bad place. And then he overheard two people talking about how Mark Wahlberg was in town and he immediately felt bad for assuming things. The main part of the article that grabbed my attention was when he was talking about the good things, like the Heidelberg project, Kendrick Lamar concert, Belle Isle park, and the Hart Plaza Amphitheater.  This grabbed my attention because he would act all excited about these great things, and then talk about how deserted they were and how people weren’t actually using them. The Belle Isle park is huge and he said it was completely empty. The said the Hart Plaza Amphitheater was virtually empty except for a homeless man sleeping in it. Then he saw the vandalism and definitely felt discouraged. He talked about how the Kendrick concert was awesome, everyone was singing and having a great time and they all forgot about the horrible things happening in the city outside of the concert. It really took a famous person to come to this city to get people to go out and enjoy themselves. Basically what I got from this article is that people let the bad things overpower the good things in life.

My Bodies of the Year Response

My Bodies of the Year was a pretty typical article about body image. Body image is a very controversial topic these days. People are always writing articles and talking about how people, women especially, are very revealed in the media. In advertisements for things that relate to partying and fun, such as cigarettes and alcohol, the people in the advertisements are normally skinny, tan, and hot. When in reality, over usage of alcohol and cigarettes will eventually deteriorate your look, but companies don’t want people to know about that. So body image is definitely important to companies that are trying to sell products that appeal to people. 

The article points out that it seems like every celebrity nowadays is getting naked, and thinks nothing of it. I think that’s because once one person does it, and they get all that attention, everyone thinks that it is acceptable to be half naked up on stage for the whole world to see. People have somewhat lost the importance of actual music, because as long as some sexy naked person is singing the song, they will be attracted to it, which is also why I think music these days is going downhill.

 Wesley did mention how movie stars have to look a certain way physically in order to fully achieve the look for a certain character. I believe that how you look is very important in this world. It shouldn’t be the top priority, and it shouldn’t make or break you, but if I was interviewing someone for a job and they were clean and well kept, it shows a lot about their personality, it shows that they care about how the look to people and that they want to look good. 

But there is a fine line between putting effort into your appearance like cleaning yourself, wearing a little bit of makeup and doing your hair. But when people get excessive spray tans, plastic surgery, and crazy hair dyes, that is when, to me, it gets to be too much. I don’t think there is such thing as the perfect looking person, I feel that if everyone put a little bit of effort into their appearance, but not over-the-top, everyone would look and feel great about themselves.