Tom's Blog

Dear Dr. Kyburz, I just want to thank you for a fantastic year both first semester and second semester. This class has made me thoroughly enjoy writing so much more than I ever have. You have introduced many different new techniques of finding research, summarizing articles and documentaries, using narrative glue, and especially rhetorically analyzing. With using the concept of writing early and revising often helped me earn the grade I desired. I look forward to using the skills that I have developed the past two semesters for my future classes and later in life. Thank you Dr. Kyburz for everything!! This is my presentation video that depicts how progress has affected me throughout the year. I posted this with my e-Portfolio because I was not sure if I would get the opportunity to present this to my classmates.  This image signifies process . Throughout the last two semesters I feel like I have made lots of progess with the projects I created. The project's goa

Siblings are so important in life for many reasons. They provide support, company, love, and most importantly, criticism. I could not imagine being an only child because I feel that I would be lonely without my little brother. He is so much like me and follows the path that I go down. Moving away from home and to college gave me this new perspective on how important they can be. My roommate this semester was an only child and he was not used to living with other people. He apparently complained to my other friends about how terrible I was sometimes. I've lived in the same room as my little brother for almost my entire life and I kept myself cleaner than ever this semester. This is why I believe that living with siblings from youth to young adulthood can develop those skills that can allow you to stand to live with someone. This is why I will always be thankful to God for my brother and we will have a special bond forever. 

Is this it? This year has absolutely flown past. The amount of experiences that I have experienced this year is enormous. It is extremely hard to believe that I will be able to go through this extraordinary year three more times. Until me, my friends are dumped out into the real world. It can be vey scary. At least when I deeply think about how soon graduation will be coming. However, I have learned so much this year. It feels like that I have learned more things this year, than my whole career in high school. Of course I began studying something I am so passionate about which is the main reason, but there's something unique that I love about college that points my excitement for what's next to come.

Okay, so I decided to write about a high school prom as a college student because I am going to one more prom with my girfriend, Emma, who is a senior. Last year prom was great. We went to two proms, which cost a forture, but they were both a lot of fun. However, during my school's prom my senior year in high school, the dance the music choice was very upbeat and roudy most of the time. This what definately okay since it was basically a party, but what about the slow dances? I thought prom was dedicated to taking your buddies or special someone to a dance to have a great night. Even though I enjoyed the modern music of today and dancing to it like a weirdo, I wanted to dance to a few slow songs because I thought that was what prom was all about. At my prom, only two slow songs were played throughout the entire evening. At Emma's prom there was a whopping total of one slow one. This was very surprising to me and it kinda disappointed me a bit. Is high school prom changing or has

This past year at Lewis, I decided to live on-campus. Many people thought I was foolish for this reason mainly because I currently live only 25 minutes away. I was able to afford it and the curiosity of experiencing college for real made me want to live on-campus for my freshman year. Overall, it was one hundred percent worth it. I made many friends that I hope to be friends with for life, slept at least 3 times a week, learned to take care of myself, did whatever the heck I wanted to do. Living on campus may seem not completely worth it for people who are looking for the college experience of partying all the time. However, if you are that person, which I am not, it is what you make of it. I was looking for the college experience of being under my own room. Coming home right from class and laying in bed or doing homework, feeding myself etc. There are many opportunities and skills you build living on campus and I feel that the pros definately outweighed the cons. I'm exhilirated f

Recently, I had my first solo flight in the airplane. It was very nerve wracking when my instructor stepped foot out of the airplane, endorsed me to solo, and hearing his final words to me before he closed the door. "Don't die". These were the words that absolutely NO mother would want to hear, especially mine. So I started the airplane up and taxiied to the runway as carefully as I could because I was so nervous for this moment. I went through my last checklist and was airborne in no time. Flying alone for the first time surprsingly was not much different than having an instructor in the cockpit next to you. I was feeling a lot better once I successfully completed my first out three landings soon after. This experience was surreal. Having an airplane under my complete control is something so cool that is just something special to remember forever.

So in college writing 2 for this final project, I am writing about student-athletes and if they should receieve additional compensation ontop or instead of their scholarships they already obtain from the school every academic semester. The main reason being behind choosing such a controversial topic is because I believe it is one that I have no bias towards, and quite frankly, I do not have a stance at all. As I have researched for articles and summarized a number of them, the decision of what side to take is still very hard for me.If you're reading this, how do you feel about this idea of a student-athlete getting paid a salary just like the professional athletes? Did you know that these student-athletes generate over billions of dollars for the school in tickets in sales and do not receieve any of that profit? That is basically exploitation in some people's eyes. However, why should student-athletes get paid more money on top of their tuition? Receiving scholarship money is e

Throughout the second semester I have been taking flying lessons. As an air traffic control major, I only planned to earn my private pilot License just because it has always been a dream of mine. However, after flying for over two months so far, I have fallen in love with flying. My instructor even mentioned to me that I should consider switching my focus from being an air traffic controller to being a pilot. I have continued to do reasearch on the matter and the decision of which path to take will be one if not the biggest decision of my life. My family thinks that I have a lot of time to think and decide which one is for me. But the reality is, there is not much more time left to decide. This reason is because after I earn my private pilot license, which will be around mid-summer, I will be working to get my Instrument rating. After my sophomore year I will have obtained my instrument rating, the decision to either continue flight training to work on my commerical rating or to stop f

The advertisment that speaks to me the most is the short story made by Apple during the Christmas season. The theme of the short story is acceptance. Frankenstein is shown recording a wind-up music box that plays the song, "Theres no place like home for the holidays". He walks into a little town similar to who-ville and walks into a crowd of people with his iPhone and starts to sing along with his recording. He sings nervously as he looks around everyone, frightened of him. Frankentstein pauses singing when he is embarresed that no one wanted to join in with him. Then a little girl waves over to him and starts to sing along with him. As she sings with him, he joins back in and then eventually the rest of the croud. The message of this short advertisment is to remind everyone to accept everyone for who they are and be happy especially around the holidays. Apple was able to excelently implement their iPhone product with the voice memos application that Frankenstein used. 

Every resident on campus knows about the conversial Sodexo food company. "They're too expensive", "The food is terrible", "They don't make the food properly." I have a similar opinion on the company as well because they are the primary food source here at Lewis University. However, I actually feel as if Sodexo has a lot of positives that could match the negatives. They have made a comeback over the past couple years with providing new different kinds of food choices such as the Fry station, where they make egg omletes for breakfast, pasta bowls, stir fries, tacos and many more that change every day. The fact that residents have to pay for over $3,900 in food for an entire year. That is just absurd. Lewis claims they force this much money upon students because it "encourages students to eat no matter what." This is not an accurate statement because it is almost IMPOSSIBLE to keep a consistent busy college schedule intact while trying to fi

One of the first shows I watched on Netflix when I bought a subscription was Prison Break. The show came out in 2005 and only lasted until 2009. It was my favorite show throughout high school and I have watched it all the way through about 4 total times. My obsession comes from the main fact that it was filmed here in Joliet at the old prison right off of Collins street. The t.v. show is very thrilling and has an interesting story-line that makes you question your own government and how they run operations. Even though it is fiction, this hit t.v. series shows a great deal of compassion, love, and dedication to love and family. The show is about how Lincoln Burrows (Dominic Purcell), was framed against the United States secret service for committing a crime he did not commit for the purpose of revenge and cover-up. Michael Scofield (Wentworth Miller), Lincoln's brother, sets out on a mastermind plan to break his brother out of Fox River State Penitentiary (Old Joliet Prison) in a w

My Aunt Gina, Uncle Sloan and their family decided to host a child from the Ukraine over Christmas break for 3 long weeks. Her name is Dasha and she is 13 years old. She is an orphan and also a dancer. My Aunt Gina's family are Ukrainian Orthodox and they were inspired to host a child who was fortunate enough to have one of their own. The biggest stuggle for my family was communication with her. Dasha speaks Russian and Urkranian fluently, but not a lick of English. She was extremely shy with using a translator and prefereed to point at the things she was talking about or needed. An interesting fact about these orphanages like the one Dasha stays at; the girls are kicked out at age 16. Yes, kicked out. Without anything but the clothes they own and the very few things they have. I thought to myself, where in the world do these young girls go if they aren't adopted by 16 years old? My mother and I did some research and found that the majority of the girls are kidnapped and the gi

1)    One scene that got to me was when Tom Seeberg, the father of Lizzy Seeberg, shared the terrible news of how she took her own life. Lizzie was assaulted and raped by a football player at Notre Dame. She filed a complaint report to the University the next morning, but they never attempted to locate him for questioning. The school claimed they simply “could not locate the individual. Only to know that he was a starting football player for the team, so they knew exactly where he was. Tom explains how no one from the University attempted to help her or investigate her case, which inadvertently led to her suicide. This boils my blood. I was in awe watching this scene. I felt anger and sever empathy for Tom. Watching how political and corrupt college campuses are for protecting student athletes because of money over students’ lives is just extremely unacceptable. If this were to occur in the Middle Ages, perpetrators would be hung in the middle of a town for everyone to see. 2)