The finale

Reviewing my ePortfolio and remembering the time I put into it, the progression of my digital writing ability seemed very clear. From the first round of blogs to this reflection, I went from not understanding the boundaries the defined a blog post, to being comfortable in expressing my ideas and thoughts in the first person format, which I am not used to since we do not typically write in that fashion.

In terms of my portfolio's contents, I am only missing one of the assigned posts (which I forgot about during in the midst of the second common exam period), so for that I feel that I deserve a B grade on my portfolio. However, the progression of my research paper is very clear, thanks to the help of Professor Kein making the objectives easy to see, so I believe I have earned an A grade for that category. 

In terms of both the personal and reading reflections, I feel I have earned an A grade in those categories as well. Looking through my blog posts, I know that I put my honest opinions and thoughts into the posts, and I can see that as well stepping out of my own shoes and looking at it as an outsider. The same goes for my personal reflection on my research process, because I did not mince words with myself and tried to criticize myself by picking out my weakest points during the research process.

Though during the semester, through the workload of every class I did not think so, the experience in HUM102 improved my abilities as student, writer, and a researcher. The sheer amount of reading assignments and reflections taught me how to churn out work of the highest quality I could produce as efficiently as possible, which is an invaluable skill both in the English classroom, and in any. Annotated bibliographies and thorough research for this project in conjunction with the showcase taught me how to really utilize databases and sources that I find are applicable to my thesis statements.

Though I complained about it during the course of the semester, looking back now, all of the times I spent grinding through work for not in vain, as they helped turn me into a student that a younger version of myself didn't know he could become.

Showcase and Improv Program Reflections

As Freshman year winds down, and the Showcase and Improv programs have been completed, I have a better understanding of what those two were trying to accomplish, and with that, can offer an insightful reflection.

Though the Showcase was useful and quite fun for presenting to an audience outside our usual classmates, specifically for Chemical Engineers, I believe the showcase was nothing more than an empty assignment. It is difficult for freshman students who have just started their college career in a major as broad as chemical engineering to come up with methods within the discipline to better the planet, especially when 90% of our courses are general university requirements, and no seriously applicable ChE courses taken yet.

Improv was a lot of fun. It offered a way to decompress during stressful times of the week, and provided an alternative way to exercise the mind so we could handle the rest of our day with heightened focus.

Economic Mobility and Happiness

After reading Arthur C. Brooks' "The Left's 'Inequality' Obsession", I am only further convinced that the amount of money a person has does not affect his or her way of life nearly as much as his or her quality of life. In the article, Brooks uses reported results of surveys of people claiming how happy they were in given circumstances.

Reading this article also strengthened Charles Murray's argument in his piece "What's so Bad about Being Poor?", where he compares the happiness of poor people in America to those living in huts in the ricelands of Thailand. Those in Thailand had a higher quality of life, so despite having much less money than the poor people of America, they were almost all much happier than those living in poverty here. And in the surveys conducted, a majority of the participants said they were much happier knowing that their families had a chance to move up economic ranks in this country. So with that information, the most positive and useful piece of help I can leave everyone with is:

Serving in Florida

The fact that poverty is a problem in America is common knowledge. However, simply just talking about it doesn't help, which is why Barbara Ehrenreich's social experiment where she spends a month living from check to check in her piece, "Nickled and Dimed". She documents all of her experiences within the month, from looking for living quarters with the cheapest rent, to working two jobs and eventually cracking under pressure.

Through just her writing alone, the stresses and pressures of being a low-wage worker in America are incredibly clear. She begins by writing about the ideas behind her decision to perform this experiment, to frantically describing all of the work she does in a short work-shift, to closing out by briefly describing the state of her coworkers as she ended the experiment. To see a change like that is truly disheartening, but one thing that stuck out to me was Barbara's and her coworkers' ability to help each other and the customers out whenever they could, whether it meant giving them extra food, or taking money out of their own tips to pay for a meal. Despite poor living standards, they seem to be able to be selfless regardless of that fact. Perhaps the awareness of all of their situations produces a sense of humility that people who are used to higher salaries take for granted.

Reverse Outline

I annotated this through the eyes of another reader. 

Conclusion

     As we continue to advance as a species, we will continue to create great things that require our whole focus, thereby forgetting about the footprint we leave behind. Trash may not be a delightful thought, but its derivatives are even less so. Understanding the different types of waste and what they can do to us should drive us to consider our footprint a little more heavily, and do the world and everyone in it a favor by treating trash a little more seriously than just trash.

-       Must fix the first-person speech

-       Wraps up thesis of the essay?

Body paragraphs + ideas

-       Body Paragraph 1

o   Waste exists because we create it.

§  Breaks down different types of waste

-       Body Paragraph 2

o   The extent of the waste process that the normal American sees usually does not go far beyond putting the trash bin on the curb, and knowing the a garbage truck will pick it up to dump it in a landfill somewhere

§  Mentions what it would take to improve air quality

§  Does not go very deep into the current quality of air or how badly waste affects us now

-       Body Paragraphs 3 and 4

o   Rather than dispose of waste more efficiently, people have tried using excessive amounts of waste as a resource instead.

§  Introduces two successful methods that have been used to manage/utilize trash

o   These two methods are successful examples of what efficiency in waste treatment can achieve

§  Breaks down the ideas introduced in the previous paragraph, and author shares his own ideas

Thesis

Trash is very harmful to our environment, therefore it is in our best interest to understand the types of waste we produce, how it affects us, and explore methods to treat solid waste as efficiently as possible.

Peer Review I Received

Dear Mr. Akdemir, 

Overall this paper was great. I really liked how you stayed on topic on each paragraph. However, I noticed that you didn't really explain why this should receive more attention or what we can do to help reduce the problem of solid wastes. Furthermore, everything else is good and i really liked how you started your introduction.

Sincerely, 

Review to Gianni from Me

Gianni,

I just finished reading your paper. Aside from mechanical errors (speaking in 1st person, in text citations which you mentioned, and other minor things), the main thing that I saw that needs fixing was expanding on your own ideas, rather than just listing studies that agree with you. If you just further expand on your thoughts and fix the grammatical errors, this can be a great paper.

Best of luck,

Steven

Pinto Madness

Everything I've discussed on this page up to this point has involved the affect of money on people and their relationships with other people, but never have I even considered that business in our country would be conducted with a dollar cost on a human's life. A human life, tagged with monetary value.


I've never been more appalled with American big business until I finished reading Mark Dowie's "Pinto Madness", where the Mother Jones writer breaks down the controversy surrounding the Ford Pinto models from the early to mid-1970's. In the 70's assigned human life the price of $200,000 in order to figure out how cost-effective certain safety precautions would be if they adopted federal safety standards. Dowie presents (in great detail) how hard Ford fought to present the danger of the Ford Pinto as a fault of anyone and anything but the company's fault. I've been pretty understanding in how people might let money affect their relationships, but this is a line that cannot be crossed. It boggles my mind that Ford willingly let people burn to death in the interest of their own profits. Not only that, but even when they were ordered to pay out settlements to people who were injured because of the car's engineering flaws, they only continued to do so because it would've been more cost-effective rather than just fixing the cars to make sure no one died in a fiery car crash. This is quite literally the most preposterous thing I've ever heard in my entire life. Lee Iacocca's hand in this could not have been guided by anyone else but Lucifer's; the fact that he knew people were losing limbs, having their faces melted off, and losing family members in one of the most painful ways fathomable, but was okay with it because his profits would still be soaring makes me sick to my stomach. Sometimes, you have to stop for a second and think about what the cost of a dollar really is. 

'Til Debt do us Apart

After reflecting on the last reading I blogged about, I read Mary Loftus' "Till Debt do us Apart". She brings the topic of cash in close relationships to the intimacy of marriage, and reports how many marriages value their money over their marital bond.

Though it is not a pleasant thought, I was not surprised when I read about the marriages that were either built on or destroyed by the financial situation of that person's significant other. As I mentioned last time, the money we have defines our social status. It allows us to purchase the newest technologies, thereby gaining more respect in the eyes of our peers for being on top of the latest trends. As technology continues to grow exponentially, I feel as though people get more caught up in achieving the status that owning these things brings, and view marriage as an easy way to get it; in short: marriage is becoming more selfish. It is a shame to see a bond so sacred which we associate with deep understanding and forgiveness, be forced to make room for heated confrontations between shallow love that Rihanna puts best:

Two more citations

 "What Is Biomass." ReEnergy Holdings. Web. 08 Mar. 2016.

-http://www.reenergyholdings.com/renewable-energy/what-is-biomass/ 

 Avila, Nelson. "Managing Municipal Wastes for Energy Generation in Nigeria." Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews. ScienceDirect. Web. 8 Mar. 2016.

 

What's a Little Money Between Friends?

Money is never something we like to think of as an important factor in our relationships. I just finished reading David Amsden's "What's a little Money between Friends?", which illustrates just how much cashflow can affect our friendships. In the article, Amsden serves kind of as a mediator between five friends who are each a part of very different financial situations, ranging from very well to do, to living off of frozen dinners in a student housing at age 26. As Damsden continued conversing with them about their monetary situations and how they each feel about it, it seems that he hastens the end of their friendships.

Though it meant damaging a few friendships, documenting this was very eye-opening for me (and other readers too, I bet). Money is a driving factor in everything that we do, even in circumstances where we aren't even buying things. "Oh you still have the old iPhone?" or "When are you going to get a car, dude?" aren't uncommon questions I've heard, unfortunately. Everyone wants to show that they are affluent and can have nice things by purchasing flashy, pricey gadgets that anyone would know about. Though it is a bummer to realize, we can't expect much else, especially in New York or its suburbs, where "Cash Rules Everything Around Me".

Outline

• How do excessive amounts of solid waste/landfill space affect Americans and how can we treat it more effectively?
• 
  

The Story of Stuff (and Triangulation of Information)

I just watched Bright Enlightenment's "Story of Stuff", and ended the 20-minute video with wider-open eyes than when I started. Being trapped in this cycle of consumerism feels so natural that I could never realize it as a problem on my own.

Though this trap of buying things and throwing them out seems to be without end, it does not need to remain negative. The writer, Annie Leonard, discusses how we can add hope to this cycle simply by recycling. Doing this lightens the load on the end and the beginning of the cycle: rather than adding mass to currently existing landfills, or removing more resources from nature, we take material from products that consumers are done using, and put them right back into the production part of the cycle. There is a lot of room in this circle of resource-mining, producing, selling, buying, and throwing out, for improvement, and a lot of it involves little things that we can control as consumers.

However, just watching a video of a woman I've never heard of before made me question the validity of some of the information she reported. One thing I couldn't believe was that we spend 3-4 times as many hours shopping as people in Europe. Do we really spend THAT much time at the mall? Well, according to the following sources, we do. The Huffington Post tells us that the average American (as of 2011) spends roughly 43 minutes a day shopping. Becoming Minimalist reports that the average American spends nearly 12 hours a month shopping. The Financial Press Gazette claims roughly the same information, reporting that the average American spends about one week a year shopping.

On Dumpster Diving

Most of the ideas from texts I've been discussing here have involved money, and compared and contrasted situations where would and would not have it. This time, I read Lars Eighner's essay, "On Dumpster Diving", which he wrote when he became homeless in 1988 and began his scavenger lifestyle by diving into dumpsters to find life's necessities.
Eighner's point of view in this essay comes mainly from his time as a homeless person, however he does mentions that he would scavenge around dumpsters even when he was still employed. Though most of the essay is spent explaining what it is like to actually dumpster dive, I feel that this is instrumental in the essay's power. There is such a gaping natural divide in how we interpret life with and without money, that it is shocking to think an employed person could partake in something that is typically reserved for someone without a job or a home, and even call it "surprisingly pleasant". I find this quite refreshing, actually. Eighner's open-mindedness on ways to remove stress from his life through abnormal means eventually translated to a skill that kept him alive for a very long time as he lived on the streets. Despite it coming from a need-based origin, it eventually became something he enjoyed and needed to know how to do. He went from doing it to alleviate the cost of bills, to doing it for the same reason villagers might hunt. I believe that this open-mindedness is crucial to unlocking our potential success, and we should all adopt it.

Short Personal Q&A Session with Steven Akdemir on himself as a writer

                  How did you learn to write, Steven?

English classes have always been a struggle for me, until I took English as a freshman and sophomore in high school. The sheer difficulty and volume (for me, not so much for everyone else) of the work at the time eventually drove me to put every single thing in my mind down onto the paper and just pick out what was good from that, and eventually I just started filtering out the pointless things from my mind before even writing it down.

What kind of writer are you?

I like to think of myself as a sprint-writer. A sprinter in any sport (namely track and swimming) works out by doing shorter, very intense work with a lot of rest, and that is how I write. I can put down a lot of ideas and get a lot done in a very short time, but can't do that for more than 30 minutes or so at a time. Rest is important! 

 

Narrow Your Topic

1. lWhat is the general topic area you are considering?

   I plan on researching the problems excessive waste and landfills cause and possible solutions.

2. Why? Are you truly fascinated/curious/passionate about the topic? (If your answer is no, explain why, and then move on to another topic without answering any more questions.) How did you become interested in this topic?

   I am not passionate about this topic, however, with recent thinking and research, I realized how serious of a threat excessive waste can pose to our planet and way of life.

3. What surprising facts have you gathered so far about your topic? What further questions do you have that you need answered with data? And what sources are you thinking of using?

   I learned that the US alone produces over 220 million tons of waste. I wonder if this includes waste other than solid (liquid, nuclear, etc.)? I will search for annual waste reports from the government to answer this. -

4. Do reasonable people disagree about the topic? (If your answer is no, explain why and then move on to another topic without answering any more questions.) If so, what aspects of the topic to they disagree about? Who disagrees with whom? Name names. Articulate at least three positions you have found.

   Plenty of people disagree with this topic. Republican candidate Donald Trump even said altogether, "Cut the EPA".

   
   

   Republican Governor Bobby Jindal  voted YES on barring a website that was promoting Yucca Mountain (a place to safely store nuclear waste).

   
   

   Democrat Martin O'Malley, however, supported the idea that it is important to take care of waste in America by upgrading water waste treatment plants. 

   
   
   
5. Is the topic researchable in the time you have?

   Definitely.

6. What are some subtopics that have emerged in your research?

   Pollution, the expense of reducing waste, and wasting food.

7. What questions might you pursue in further research, based on what you’ve discovered during preliminary research?

   Perhaps ways to make America more food-efficient, since a majority of the trash we throw out is food.

8. What are some key terms that keep coming up in relation to this topic?

Landfills, Pollution, expensive, solid waste, and wasted food.

Wasted

One of the biggest problems on our planet is one that we rarely encounter firsthand: trash. For a problem that we only personally know to the extent of, "Ugh I gotta take the trash out now", we are truly in a dire situation. The Toxic Actions Center reports that Americans have thrown out 570 billion pounds of solid waste. This is a size we literally cannot fathom. Though we only make up 4% of the world's population, we produce 30% of the world's waste! What could possibly comprise this monstrous amount of trash?
Another statistic that might help us figure out the source of all the waste is from the National Resource Defense Council, which states that Americans throw out $165 billion in food each year. For a country where roughly 16% of its citizens were struggling to afford food for their families just last year, this is a frightening statistic. Just thinking about the amount of land dedicated to holding this wasted food, responsible for a lot of pollution we have as well is a depressing thought.
Luckily for us though, this is a problem we can try to fix with a collective effort. Farm to Freezer offers a very green solution in their article, "Food Waste: We are the Problem and the Solution" in which they mention a company called the Compost Crew which picks up your house's food waste to turn it into compost, which can be used to feed animals or as nutrients for fields that we use to plant crops. This provides such a large outlet to a greener planet while being more efficient with our food and garbage, and with little to no effort on our part aside from actually taking the trash out for the Compost Crew to pick up. And this is only one possible solution to a crisis. This is an opportunity for us to show the world what Americans do best, by coming together and turning a bad situation into a great triumph.

Mo' Money Mo' Problems?

Though this is a cliché phrase, money really cannot buy happiness, and we have statistical proof for it. Based on my praise of Charles Murray’s thought experiments in “What’s so bad about Being Poor?” last week, my satisfaction with David G. Myers’ “The Funds, Friends, and Faith of Happy People” does not come as a surprise. In this piece, Myers (who is a distinguished psychology professor at Hope College) and his department conducted nationwide polls to find out how happy the people of America are and what that happiness could be related to. Most people who took the poll said they consider themselves as “pretty happy”.

This part of the experiment is the most interesting part. When asked whether a little more money would make that person a little happier, they said yes, but they never said it was one of their main dissatisfactions in life. This is surprising, considering many of us often fantasize about living a life of wealth some day. Following this question in the poll, people talked about whether or not they were married, and the strength of faith in their religion and their friendships. The results showed strong correlations between the strength of faith, friendships, and marriages with peoples’ overall happiness.

These results are astounding to me: people aren’t as driven by money as I originally thought. I started thinking about the people in my life and whether I’d choose success over them, then decided to use these results as justification to play Super Smash Brothers with my little brother instead of doing my Calculus homework. Okay maybe Myers’ findings can’t be held true for such a specific instance, but the fact that there is statistical proof correlating happiness to things that money cannot buy is really eye opening, and should act as a notion for us to reconsider the things we prioritize in our lives.
RETHINK THE VALUE OF CASH!!!