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I commented on Ivan's post this week.

Speech Review

For my demonstration speech, I chose the topic of stringing a lacrosse goalie stick. I realized right before my speech that it is not something everyone would be interested in. Not everyone plays lacrosse so most of the people listening didn’t really care, but it was something I was good at so it was a good topic for me. Basically the steps involved in stringing a lacrosse stick included: gathering the materials, stringing the top of the stick, stringing the sides of the stick, closing up the bottom of the stick, putting in the shooting strings, and then pounding the pocket to give you a nice channel.
I thought my energy and enthusiasm for this speech was good. Lacrosse is something I am very passionate about so I was really excited to give a speech about stringing a stick. I thought my volume was pretty good as well. Sometimes I have a tendency to get too loud when I give speeches but I felt that I controlled this well. My eye contact was poor but I think this was due mainly to my topic and use of visual aid. Stringing a stick requires you to look down at the holes and string a lot and to have a lot of concentration on what you do with your hands. Because of this, I wasn’t able to make eye contact with my audience very much.
I thought my visual aid was pretty effective. There really isn’t any other visual aid you can bring in besides a lacrosse stick when you are doing this topic. One thing I wish I could change was to have a screen projector to magnify what I was doing with my hands. This would’ve made the steps easier for my audience to see.
Overall, I don’t think I would choose this topic again. I liked it a lot and it is something I’m really good at, but it is very difficult to teach and for people to understand. Plus, it isn’t really relevant to many people so next time I would probably choose something that everyone can enjoy. As for the speech itself, I would make more eye contact, but overall I thought my voice and energy were very good.

Tigerade (aka Post 4)

Tiger Woods is ultimately the greatest athlete of all time. Putting aside his recent misconduct off the golf course for now, the man has been dominant. For this dominance he has been rewarded with a number of endorsements including one from Gatorade for Gatorade Tiger. Basically it is your standard sports beverage that is supposed to help you "work harder" at being dominant. I think this was a great move for Gatorade. Not only do they have a great athlete posted on all of their drink bottles, but they can basically put his face on the same product they've been selling for years and pull in extra revenue because of it. I mean lets face it, who doesn't want to be like Tiger? And if being like Tiger means I have to drink Gatorade Tiger, then so be it. It's been a good choice for Tiger too who gets to endorse and represent a sound company with a great product. Pepsi, the makers of gatorade have been a staple in the beverage industry for a long time.

Now, we must discuss the recent decision by Pepsi to end their endorsement of Tiger. As of the end of February, Pepsi/Gatorade decided that they disagreed with my opinion that Gatorade Tiger was a good thing. They ended their sponsorship of Tiger Woods as noted in this article by CNN Money. I feel like this is an incredible mistake. Tiger Woods may have had a few mishaps in judgement off the golf course recently, but he is a man who is known to bounce back. And I think Tiger is going to bounce back big from this one. I think Gatorade should have stuck this one out until after Tiger makes his return at the Masters. If Tiger comes to the Masters and is dominant yet again, everyone is going to want to a piece of him and everything will be back to normal. Had Gatorade continued their sponsorship, they could've cashed in on Tiger's revival and made a fortune. I guess though, time will tell whether the great Tiger Woods can recover and return to his dominant form yet again.

My first comments!

I commented on Mark's Blog

and also on Zac's Blog

Post 2

For this weeks blog post I decided to prepare a delicious meal of chicken, rice, and steamed vegetables. I know its simple but hey, I'm a broke college kid with no culinary experience and a tight budget. There were a lot of steps really to preparing the meal. The first part was finding a way to the grocery store. This is key because unless I get there, I'm not eating. I decided to try out the new grocery store under the Lucky Apartments. After picking up my box of white rice and bag of frozen assorted vegetables, I headed to the poultry section. They had all kinds of chicken: cajun, jerk, barbecue, and even lemon marinated chicken. I decided I was in the mood for something spicy so I went with the cajun. I took it back to my place and began to boil water for the rice. I put the chicken on my George Foreman (a lifesaver for people who can't use an oven) and let it cook. I threw the frozen vegetables in a skillet with some oil and let them heat up. Once everything was hot and cooked all the way threw, I put it on a plate, grabbed a spotted cow and dove in. It was all really good and I actually felt a sense of accomplishment for creating this simple, yet satisfying masterpiece of a meal. When you look at In Defense of Food, Pollen argues that Americans don't savor food anymore. He claims that we have more of a tendency to "eat and run rather then eat and savor." This is very true. In our fast paced society we are constantly running around and I think merely from lack of time we do not take the time to enjoy food. When I prepared my meal, I had all the time in the world. I made it a special point to not plan anything for that night so that I could cook and enjoy my meal in peace. It was a very different feeling then what I was used to. I was actually able to taste my food instead of having to horde it down in order to be on time for lacrosse practice or a midterm. This blog titled: The Vegan Good Life shares my opinion that American's eat more out of convenience then taste. It also focuses on how our choice of eating quickly is causing damage to the environment. When we order take-out for example, we are using up plastic utensils and containers that are going to end up in landfills, long after the food is gone. The blog makes a valid point. We as Americans need to take the time to actually sit down and savor our food.