My Thoughts on Comments

People were very angry about the Miss Universe beauty pageant this year, and not only did they take to Twitter to express their anger, but they also left some comments on the article that Us Weekly published shortly after the competition ended. (The article can be found by clicking here)

Us Weekly is a weekly magazine that focuses on celebrity news and entertainment. In the article, the winner of the competition, Miss Colombia Paulina Vega celebrates her win humbly while praising the other contestants. She focuses a lot of her praise on fourth runner-up and fan favorite, Miss Jamaica Kaci Fennell.

Even with Miss Colombia's congratulations, people still took to the comments to lash out not only at the article and the competition, but also each other.

Screenshot from my computer, 8/28/2015.

The first comment that I thought was credible was by a man named Daniel. He was very calm, did not seem very biased and was very articulate in his thoughts. Instead of lashing out at Miss Colombia like many of the other commenters, he pointed out that it was more likely the judges fault than hers. It didn't seem like it really mattered to him which contestant he wanted to win, thereby not expressing any fantasy/wishes or fear/anxiety and instead was just commenting from a non-partisan viewpoint.

Screenshot from my computer, 8/28/2015.

The second comment that drew my attention was by a user named Jello. I went to this person's twitter and saw that he/she was a very avid reality TV show watcher, as evidenced by the several retweets of news of the Kardashians. Even so, I thought this person's comment was credible. What I liked the most about this comment was that they pointed out that there will always be "winners and losers" and like Daniel, the winner must score high in a multitude of categories. Jello does make a comment in the opening saying how the short do will not look good on Miss Colombia but doesn't express any anger over her winning the competition.

Screenshot from my computer, 8/28/2015.

Then there were the non-credible comments... User jcal focused a lot on the looks of the contestants of his pageants and even went as far to bash the women that had long hair that the winner Miss Colombia had. He then went on to say how he preferred Miss Jamaica. At the end, he made some pretty racist remarks about South American countries and how they "train them from birth for pageants." Clearly, he really wished Miss Jamaica had won instead of Miss Colombia. So I would deem jcal's comment as non-credible. I would also deem user ThewholeTROOF as non-credible as well as he seems to just be adding fuel to the fire by mocking jcal.

Screenshot from my computer, 8/28/2015.

The last comment I saw that I thought was non-credible was by user ladynai. Clearly, she was very upset that Miss Colombia won by her rude and racist remarks about the country's exports. This was not a very well constructed argument at all, as all she does is insult Miss Colombia's country.

Reading these comments was kind of sad because of how angry people got, which in turn caused them to make some pretty nasty remarks about the contestants and their country of origin.

EDIT:
After reading Chelsea's and Jacob's blog there seems to be a very common trend among commenters. Either they're too angry enough to make a coherent sentence and usually just write whatever with terrible grammar and vulgar language, or they have actually done their research and can provide useful feedback. There seems to only ever be two opposites which is kind of add. While it is very entertaining to read the outraged comments, it would be better if people could actually contribute meaningful conversation so that change can actually be made.

My Controversy

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2926211/The-ravishing-brunette-Colombia-takes-Miss-Universe-crown-Paulina-Vega-beats-finalists-USA-Jamaica-Ukraine-Netherlands-2015-crown.html

When I was in middle school, I rode the same bus as Miss Universe. I never really talked to her, but I was really good friends with her sister and we used to carpool home from track practice. It was so shocking to me when I was scrolling through the news one day and saw that she had been crowned Miss USA, and then eventually Miss Universe.

Searching through Google I was drawn to this article on Daily Mail about the controversial Miss Universe pageant that happened earlier this year. People had gone to Twitter to express their outrage over Miss Jamaica being crowned fifth place. They believed she had been robbed of first place for her short haircut, compared to the long, glossy hair of first-place winner, Miss Colombia. In fact, people were so upset that they started booing when Miss Colombia was being crowned.

I don't think beauty pageants are necessarily stupid, but I do believe there is a lot of bias and planning that goes into the competition that might not be always clear to the viewer. It's important that we celebrate women of all races, backgrounds and body types. But the Miss Universe competition has direct ties to not-so-good forces, such as Donald Trump. Trump made headlines about his immigration comments earlier this year, which prompted Miss Universe 2012 (the same one that was on my bus) to withdraw from judging the competition.

Calendar Reflection

Filling out the calendar was surprisingly nice. In college you have a lot more freedom which is reflected in the amount of free time I have now. I blocked things in large chunks because I like doing one thing at a time and finishing them, instead of starting multiple things and finishing them later. One reason why I didn't like the SAT was because they had you start a section, go to another section, and then come back to that section. The ACT was much more reflective of my studying style. I don't know if I'll be able to follow my calendar exactly, but I will try my best.

Houk, Justin. "Just in Time for the Holidays: Social Media Time Management."
11/23/09 via Flickr. Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic License.

EDIT:

Reading through people's calendar reflections it was interesting to see how people budgeted their time compared to me. I don't have a job or anything write now so I have more free time compared to say, Hallye who has to work around her job schedule to complete her homework. Then there is Laurence who color coded his calendar and appears to be very organized with his time. Like me, he also realized how much time we have in college compared to high school. I'm thankful that I don't have the pressure of a job schedule anymore so I can be fully committed to my studies. I realized with the excess of time I have to make sure to actually budget my time carefully and commit to doing something within that allotted amount of time.

My Writing Process

I used to live really far from my high school, so I would spend a lot of time thinking on the drive there and back. With an excessive amount of stagnant time, I think this contributed to me becoming a Heavy Planner.

In a way, I am almost a combination of a Heavy Planner and Procrastinator. It's hard for me to sit down and write what I want to say unless I've spent a considerable amount of time thinking. As such, I usually end up writing everything relatively close to the deadline (Procrastinator) but finally have something I am confident and interested in writing. (Heavy Planner)

I think the advantages of my writing process is that I spend far less time revising than some of my peers. Usually before I move on to the next paragraph I have already revised a couple of my sentences so when I do a final read over I have far less to change.

I don't think this is a successful approach at all. I wish I was someone who could make an outline, research everything ahead of time, make small bullet points or topic sentences - but I could never do that. Everything I want to write must be carefully thought out before my fingers even touch the keyboard otherwise I just end up sitting there for hours on end. "Sequential Composers" seems like the most efficient way of writing. I mean it follows the most traditional writing and revision process that middle school English teachers tried to impose on us. I applaud those who are able to consider this their writing process.

If I was to compare my writing process to anything, it would probably be "Word Vomit." I first heard this term in the movie Mean Girls when Cady Heron was talking to Janice Ian. I think about my words so much ahead of time that when I finally feel ready to sit down and write that it all just comes out at once and my typing can't keep up with my thoughts.

I typed in clocks to Google Images because I thought that would be representative of my writing process, but then this picture came up and I thought it actually fit a lot better. So many dandelions. So many thoughts.

F, Andy. "Dandelion clocks near Long Itchington." 5/15/09 via geograph.org.uk.
Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic License.

EDIT:

After reading some other people's blogs it was interesting to see their writing process and their thoughts on it. I read Namratha's blog who has the same writing process as me and Evan, who is the complete opposite of me. It made me realize that there are other ways of going about writing and people have various styles. Reading these blogs shows that you can change if you want to, but it may take awhile and a lot of effort and I'm not sure if I want to change. Like when people know something is bad for them, but they do it anyways? Probably sums up my writing process. I like writing but when you have a set rhythm, as evidenced by my own writing tactics and those of my peers, it's really hard to change that.