What drew me to want to go to Iowa State University is the great campus, great education, and many of my family and friends telling me how great of a university they think it is. I hope the stereotype of the large diversity on campus is true. I have not heard any bad stereotypes, really, so I do not think I need to avoid them. I’m looking forward to the great education system that they have; I am nervous about going from small town Gowrie, Iowa, to the big college city of Ames. I think it will be very easy to make friends because of the large number of students and the classes of people with similar interests. I know quite a few people who attend Iowa State who graduated last year, the year before, and I have two cousin who are going to graduate this year. I do not plan on participating in any sports while attending the school, but I may want to join a club or two to find people with similar interests. College sports just seem way too overkill for me. I’m excited to be living on my own once I get there, but I am super nervous about being able to cook for myself. I may be eating quite a few raman noodles.

The reason I buy what I buy is because I either trust the brand and the products they make, or it has been recommended to me by a close friend or family member whom I trust. For example, when I go to Village Inn for breakfast, it’s because I trust the food they make, and because I’ve experienced it before so I know what I’m getting into. I chose Iowa State University as my college because I have many friends and family members who’ve gone and loved the experience, and I chose ISU because it is closer to my home, so I can visit on the weekends, or whenever I choose. My shampoo, that I use everyday, was given to me by my grandma, who is a hairdresser, so I fully trust her recommendations when it comes to hair products. She’s also the only one I trust to cut or style my hair for any kind of event.

A false dilemma is a situation in which it is presented as either/or, but there always is at least one more additional option. Having a false dilemma in your argument only serves to weaken your argument by showing you either do not have all the facts, or you just do not want the other side to see that other option. For example, when a child says this to a parent: “Either buy me this book, or you’re deciding that reading isn’t important at all.” It weakens the argument 1. because the parent will no longer want to buy the book for child and 2. because it doesn’t show the other option involved in the argument. The parent still thinks that reading is good for their child, but they don’t have to buy the book to show it is.

A controversial topic that I am passionate about is the deportation of illegal aliens. I am passionate about it because people who are in America illegally use up the resources American citizens need, and many times they live off the welfare of the government. I do not have any personal connections to this topic, but I think it is very important to talk about. I believe that illegals should be sent back to their country of origin with some sort of compensation to pay back to America. Yes, the government probably does not need that money, but, theoretically, if all illegal immigrants were sent back to their original country with a fee, the American government would be compensated very well, and it would help with a lot of the debt.

The thing about writing my proposal essay that surprised me is the amount of teenagers who have contracted an STD or become pregnant. I discovered the benefits of a comprehensive sex education program, and the downfalls of an abstinence-only program in the school curriculum. I would have looked more into the rates of how much the spread of STDs has grown in the past few years and the pattern of growth or decay of teen pregnancies. It was not easy to come up with a problem that had a solution that was wasy to come up with. I went through tons of ideas to come up with one that would work. I wasn’t exactly happy with it in the end, but I did come up with more information with this topic than any of the other ideas I would have done. None of the solutions, either, would have been easy to come up with, and it would have been very difficult to do.

Watching that video, I heard four different takeaways: pursue your dreams, many people close to death regreted the things they didn’t do, “. . . every person was built to live out the dream they had inside,” and there’s no way to get through life without a sort of struggle. The video is about how many people do not live their lives the way they want to, and they regret it only when it’s too late. Many people don’t pursue the dreams that they have, and because of that, they suffer. His solution is to fight for what you want to do, and to live out your dreams the way you want to.

When writing my autoethnography, I learned that Bohemianism helped to shaped the art of today and the modern Bohemian lifestyle. I learned that I’m not a traditioinal Bohemian, but I live as one. The most important part of the autoethnography is that without Bohemianism is a way of life little pursue, but they enjoy it greatly. I was not a fan of writing the autoethnography.

I’ve never really researched subcultures up until this point, so I never realized I was a part of the bohemian subculture until a week ago. I got into this subculture when I decided I wanted to be a writer or editor once I graduate college. Bohemianism is considered an unconventional lifestyle, including musical, artistic, literary, etc. persuits. I haven’t really had any experiences with this subculture, so I don’t understand what it’s like to be an “insider”. What I would like to teach people about bohemianism is that not everyone in this subculture is an adventurer, vagabond, or wanderer. And people in this subculture enjoy the more artistic aspects of life.

The aspect that I enjoy most about writing is being able to express myself creatively with my own ideas. The sorts of challenges I have while writing, though, is consistently having that creativity and writer’s block. What scares me most about writing is the fact that not everyone will like what I write. My goals as a writer this trimester are to learn how to write better and more grammatically correct, as well as learning how to write in different ways.

As a frequent reader, I love to read science fiction, fantasy, and historical fiction. My favorite books have been the Harry Potter series, The Mortal Instruments series, The Nightengale, and The Hunger Games series. I like to read series, but I also really love a good book with a satisfying ending. I love all of them because of the creativity involved, and how dedicated the author was to making the books as interesting as they could.

Everyone has a trip or a day that they will always remember-  either the trip was really fun, or, on the other end of the spectrum, was a total disaster. When I was about thirteen years old, I had the opportunity to take the trip of a lifetime: I was going to Switzerland! I will always remember the trip, of course, because I was able to go to Europe and the complications along the way.

My mom, Nana, and I were going to fly to Switzerland to see my cousins Justina and Jillian graduate from The American School in Switzerland (TASIS). Their dad Leon had a job breeding/genetically modifying sunflower seeds and soybeans (primarily), and his employer sent him  to Switzerland for five years to do further research. Leon moved his whole family halfway across the globe, and they loved it there. The sights were beautiful. But once the five years was up, it was time for his daughters to graduate before moving back to the states. Mom, Nana, and I all wanted to go to Switzerland but we didn’t have anyone to help up along the way. So the three of us packed our bags, booked our flight, and we were on our way! Just smooth sailing from here . . . right?

At four o’clock in the morning, we woke up, got ready to leave, and by 6:30,  we were at the airport in Des Moines, relaxing while we waited for our plane. Getting to Minnesota was no problem: no delays, no maintenance, nothing! The three of us were relaxing, waiting for our plane from Minnesota to JFK airport, when our flight had a delay. No big deal, we had plenty of time between our flights. About an hour later, another delay was called. At this point, we started getting a little more nervous. In total, after about four delays, and a six hours wait, our plane was ready to leave. Because of the delay, the airline company had to book tickets for us on a different flight from JFK. We had to race across the airport in order to make our flight, and, once we made it to our terminal, people were boarding the plane, but we did make it.

After a thirteen hour flight, being crammed in the middle seats and hardly being able to move, we made it to our airport in Italy. At this point, we were exhausted, especially after sleeping for only three hours, and we were ready to sleep properly. We waited to pick up our luggage . . . and waited . . . and waited. Turns out, even though we got transferred to a new flight, all of our luggage did not. We were stuck in Switzerland for about two days without any of our own possessions.

After all of the problems on the way, eventually everything was perfect. Nothing else went wrong for the rest of the trip, and it will always been one to remember. Having the opportunity to go to Switzerland is enough of an amazing story, but, thankfully, we can tell stories about how funny it was to lose all of our luggage. Though, of course, at the time it wasn’t funny at all, but I look back upon these memories with fondness.