Personal Literacy Narrative

 Can also be found in my ePortfolio.
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ePortfolio

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Homework Stuff

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Presentation

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My Recent Visit to Downtown Oakland

         This February, my mother and I had to drive my sister and her friend to a Panic At The Disco concert in downtown Oakland. Since driving back home and driving to a friend’s house were both unavailable to us, my mother and I were granted with the opportunity to explore downtown Oakland around midnight while my sister and her friend attended the concert.

         Oakland isn’t exactly the best of neighborhoods to begin with. According to numerous polls and surveys, Oakland has gained the distinction of being one of the most dangerous cities in the United States. Luckily, nobody in our group ran into any trouble during our visit.

         After dropping off my sister and her friend, my mother and I began to look for places to eat. My cousin (who attends college not too far from Oakland) recommended we try a place called Forge Pizza, in Jack London Square, right by the bay. After having to wait in the wind and rain, we finally got seated and got our food. The place was designed sort of like an off-the-beach style pizza place, and if I recall correctly, even had seafood options as toppings for your pizza. Overall, I liked the food and the laid-back atmosphere at the Forge

         After we left, we found one of those telescopes where you have to put money in them to work. We put some of our parking meter change in and began to look for stuff across the bay. I found the new span of the Bay Bridge, as well as AT&T Park, home of the San Francisco Giants. However, we were unable to locate Candlestick Park, the now former home of the San Francisco 49ers.

         When it was finally time to leave, we were surprised that there was very little traffic for how big of an event the concert was. My mother and I found my sister and her friend within 10 minutes of the concert ending, and quickly got back on the road. The freeway system in the Bay Area is already very confusing, but when rain and idiots who can’t drive in it are added to the equation, it becomes a much more frustrating experience. Eventually, we made it through the maze of freeways and got ourselves home in one piece.

         Overall, I would say the experience wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be. On first thought, downtown Oakland late at night sounds like a very shady place to go. After going down there, it still is, but as long as you keep yourself out of trouble, you should be fine. I still wouldn’t go back there late at night, maybe if it were earlier in the day I could be convinced to go back. If I were given a ticket to anywhere in the world, I would probably use it to go to North Carolina or Indianapolis, because there is a lot of racing history in both places. Indianapolis is one of my choices because of the Indianapolis 500, one of the most prestigious IndyCar events, is held every year at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. North Carolina is my other choice because it is basically where NASCAR began, and there are many NASCAR race teams as well as NHRA race teams that call North Carolina home.

Should College Athletes Be Paid-3D Object Presentation

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ELtFuB0BNJs96zf--BHO18AqYQfLtD7xVqOgh-Jy6DE/edit

Genre Analysis-Final Draft

Should College Athletes Be Paid?

Introduction

            Every year, thousands of student-athletes will graduate from high school, some that feel they are ready to jump immediately into the pros and start making money. However, most professional sport organizations have banned them from going straight to the pros out of high school. With these kinds of rules in place, these student-athletes are given a decision; they can either sit out until they are eligible, or they can continue to play sports in college. Most chose the latter, to keep their skills fresh and intact, instead of sitting for two or more years of not doing anything to preserve their skills. Colleges make millions, sometimes billions of dollars off of these athletes, by way of merchandise sales, television license deals, endorsements with uniform suppliers, and many other forms of income, with approximately 0% of that income going to the players that make the income possible, which leaves many people asking, “Should college athletes be paid?” For this report, I read and analyzed three different genres: A report from a college law school, a cartoon from an online website, and a video from a sports television show.

Genre 1: Report from Washington Law School

            The first article, called The Myth of the Student-Athlete: The College Athlete as Employee, is a report by Robert and Amy McCormick, and was published by the University of Washington Law School. The report starts off by explaining that the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA, the governing body of college sports) has referred to the athletes that play their sports as ‘student-athletes’ instead of ‘employee-athletes,’ to give the illusion that “that these young men and women are learning important life lessons by engaging in intercollegiate athletics.” (McCormick, College Athlete as Employee 73) By labeling the athletes as students rather than employees, McCormick explains that this “[has] enabled them (the colleges) to reap a fantastic surfeit of riches…and related benefits of the athletes’ talents, time, and energy—that is, their labor—while severely curtailing the costs associated with such labor.” (College Athlete as Employee, 74) Later on, McCormick notes “many students… even graduate assistants... who are enrolled in classes and… teach and perform services… for their universities,” (College Athlete as Employee, 96) are employed by the college, and these students which perform these services receive payment. McCormick even lists common laws, as well as National Labor Relations Act legal standards which would qualify athletes at colleges and universities as employees, which would make them eligible for payment. McCormick sort-of concludes the report by makes the point that “Employee-athletes are not primarily students and their relationship with their universities is an economic one,” (College Athlete as Employee, 130) stating that the colleges earn large amounts of money from the athletes’ work in sports, rather than their work in the classroom.

Genre 2: A cartoon from a website

            The next genre is a cartoon from The Week website. The cartoon depicts two athletes carrying the NCAA and professional sports, which are represented as a limousine. One of the athletes asks the other, “No money, no gifts, no cars, no endorsement deals… tell me again, why are we doing this?” (The Week) The other student-athlete responds with “For an education, but I’m not feeling too smart” (The Week). The cartoon is referring to the rules that many professional sports organizations have put in place, which requires athletes to either attend college or sit out for a couple years before they can become professional. Most students choose to go to college, and are offered scholarships from different colleges. However, this cartoon shows that many athletes are feeling dumb for missing out on the ability to go professional and earn all the money, endorsements, cars, and gifts since they have been forced to go to college so they can ‘earn an education.’ In fact, many feel that they are being forced to work for free, much like slaves, to carry the load of colleges and professional sports, and earn them money.

Genre 3: A video clip from ESPN

            The final genre is a segment from ESPN’s Recruiting Nation. In this particular segment, Dave Telep, Craig Haubert and Paul Biancardi are the three analysts that are presented with Kansas coach Bill Self’s comments that players should be paid. Dave Telep starts off by saying that there is enough money generated from colleges through media deals and conference alignment that colleges now have the ability to pay athletes. He says that “it’s the right thing to do, but… it’s not gonna happen” (Telep, RecruitingNation). Then, Craig Haubert argues that “People under-value the expense of a college education” (Haubert, RecruitingNation RecruitingNation). He argues that many people are forced to take out a loan just to be able to go to college, and once they graduate, they are stuck with a huge amount of money that they have to pay off. He says that student-athletes are able to bypass having to take out a loan because all of their college expenses are paid for by the college. Finally, Paul Biancardi starts his piece off by listing all the people affiliated with college athletics that get paid, and says that all the athletes get is their education is paid for by the college. He says that since the athletes are the ones earning the money that colleges get from the athletics, that they should get some of that money.

Similarities

            All three of the genres were made to provide an opinion on the subject, since it has been in the news more and more, and has become almost a national debate subject, like gay marriage or legalizing marijuana. Two of the three of the genres use an image, whether it be moving, like the video, or static, like the cartoon. All three of the articles take on a serious tone, and don’t stray far from the topic of whether or not athletes should be paid. I feel that the analysts in the ESPN video and the Doctor and the author of the Washington Law school report are the most credible to speak on the subject. Even if they work in the field of law, where they would know the rules on this type of stuff, or they analyze college sports and everything associated with it, they are still more credible than a cartoon drawer who is just throwing in his two cents drawing for a website.

Differences

Of the three genres, I felt that the ESPN video had the best format or layout. They used a quote from a college coach, and then had three college sports analysts debate the topic. The cartoon is just an image format, so you click on the link and you see the image. The report was an 87-page long pdf document, which used literally hundreds of sources to create. The three genres also are designed for different viewers. The ESPN video is designed for someone who looks mostly at the sports side of the subject. Although it doesn't stick to one side of the argument, it does provide evidence that supports either side. The cartoon pertains more to someone who would perhaps be reading about the subject, and then decided to do a Google search for more information about the subject. The law school report is aimed more towards anyone who is doing some sort of research on the subject, as well as lawyers who are trying to build a case if they were to get the NCAA to change the rules.

Analysis

            Of the three genres, I think the ESPN video was most effective at getting their message out. Even though the analysts didn't all pick one opinion, they still presented their opinion, gave supporting evidence, and stood by their opinion. Yes, they weren't all on the same side of the argument, but that is really the nature of a debate; there are going to be people on both sides of an argument. The least effective genre was the cartoon, mainly because the writer didn't back up their opinion with supporting evidence. However, with a cartoon, the artist is going to be limited to what they can fit into the space they are given, so I don’t think a cartoon or an image would be the best genre to use for this subject, or really with any subject which would require supporting evidence to be presented. The law school report was somewhat effective, as it utilized a large amount of evidence to back up the writers’ opinion that student-athletes are employees, and therefore, should be paid. The one problem is that it is an 87-page long report. Not many people have the time and/or the patience to read through a whole 87-page document. However, most college reports must be very lengthy, and have pages and pages of supporting evidence in order to prove their point to the professor, and receive a passing grade.

Conclusion

            To conclude, there are dozens of articles which can be found that discuss the topic of college athletics and payment. It seems extremely unfair that these student-athletes spend hours upon hours training for these sports. Then, to go out and be the product for a billion-dollar industry, these student-athletes are not legally able to see a penny of it. The main counterpoint is that the athletes are also students, and it would be unfair to the other students attending the college/university if these athletes were to receive something in return, besides a higher education. Many writers have gone out and argued for each side, presenting great evidence as to why or why not these student-athletes should be paid.

Works Cited

Bagley, Pat. "College Athletes' Heavy Load." Cartoon. The Week. N.P., 2011. Web. 1 Mar. 2014.

McCormick, Robert A., and Amy Christian McCormick. The Myth of the Student-Athlete: The College Athlete as Employee. Vol. 81:71. Washington Law Review Association, 2006. Web. 9 Mar. 2014.

RecruitingNation: NCAA Athletes Payment Debate. Prod. ESPN. Perf. Dave Telep, Craig Haubert, and Paul Biancardi. YouTube. N.P., 25 Oct. 2012. Web. 1 Mar. 2014.

Genre Analysis-2nd Draft

Genre Analysis Rough Draft #2-Should College Athletes Be Paid?

Introduction

            Every year, thousands of student-athletes will graduate from high school, some that feel they are ready to jump immediately into the pros and start making money. However, most professional sport organizations have banned them from going straight to the pros out of high school. With these kinds of rules in place, these student-athletes are given a decision; they can either sit out until they are eligible, or they can continue to play sports in college. Most chose the latter, to keep their skills fresh and intact, instead of sitting for two or more years of not doing anything to preserve their skills. Colleges make millions, sometimes billions of dollars off of these athletes, by way of merchandise sales, television license deals, endorsements with uniform suppliers, and many other forms of income, with approximately 0% of that income going to the players that make the income possible, which leaves many people asking, “Should college athletes be paid?”

Genre 1: Blog post from a Ph. D. and Chair of Sports Management at Rice

            The first genre is an article called Should college athletes get paid? by Clark D. Haptonstall, Ph.D. and chair of the Department of Sport Management at Rice University. He starts off his article by posting a link to an interview he did earlier that morning, and then says that he is going more in-depth in the article, since he wasn’t able to in the interview. He then provides some basic facts, such as the number of colleges in the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA, the governing body of college sports), the fact that “Most of America only cares about the 340 colleges competing at the Division I level” and “Most of America’s casual fans only care about the 120 college that compete in the ‘Football Bowl Subdivision’ (FBS)” (Haptonstall, Should college athletes get paid?). He then moves on to the money side of the topic, by stating that “The national media devotes most of their time and attention to the colleges that play in the FBS that are part of the five major conferences” (Haptonstall, Should college athletes get paid?) which control most of the TV money. Then, instead of really taking a side on whether or not athletes should be paid, he offers four solutions to the problem, two of which would involve the colleges paying the students directly.

Breaking the first article down

The first solution would be allowing the athletes to be able to profit off of their own names, by selling their autographs, signing endorsement deals, and collecting royalties from the sales of jerseys with their name on them. By taking this path, the universities wouldn’t be paying the athletes directly, but the universities would be losing money from uniform manufacturers, since the athletes would be able to do that on their own.

The second option would be to create a 16-team tournament-style playoff system for college football, instead of the current Bowl Series, which automatically puts the Number 1 and Number 2 teams in the National Championship game. Haptonstall believes that a tournament-style playoff system would generate $1 billion in revenue for the NCAA, which could then be used to pay all of the athletes from all of the universities minimum wage, which Haptonstall calculated the cost to come out to $912 million, so the NCAA would still be making a profit.

The third option would involve the five power conferences forming a new division in the NCAA, where the main objective would be to change the way athletes are compensated. Since half of the schools in the five conferences generate a profit from sports, the money could be shared between the schools. One of the flaws with this solution would be that only the athletes in the new division would be compensated.

            The fourth and final option is similar to the third, in that it involves the five power conferences. In this scenario, the schools would break away completely from the NCAA and create their own collegiate athletic association. Then, the schools could cut out the sports that don’t make as much money as football and basketball. The schools would have to have an equal number of female athletes as male athletes. With a football team of 100 males and a men’s basketball team of 15 students, which would make 230 student-athletes each university would have to pay, which is easier to do than the 500 student-athletes for universities in the NCAA. The drawbacks would be that without the money from the five major conferences, the NCAA would lose 80% of their revenue, and probably cease to exist. Like the third option, only athletes playing for schools in the five major conferences would be getting paid.

Genre 2: A cartoon from a website

            The next genre is a cartoon from The Week website. The cartoon depicts two athletes carrying the NCAA and professional sports, which are represented as a limousine. One of the athletes asks the other, “No money, no gifts, no cars, no endorsement deals… tell me again, why are we doing this?” (The Week) The other student-athlete responds with “For an education, but I’m not feeling too smart” (The Week). The cartoon is referring to the rules that many professional sports organizations have put in place, which requires athletes to either attend college or sit out for a couple years before they can become professional. Most students choose to go to college, and are offered scholarships from different colleges. However, this cartoon shows that many athletes are feeling dumb for missing out on the ability to go professional and earn all the money, endorsements, cars, and gifts since they have been forced to go to college so they can ‘earn an education.’ In fact, many feel that they are being forced to work for free, much like slaves, to carry the load of colleges and professional sports, and earn them money.

Genre 3: A video clip from ESPN

            The final genre is a segment from ESPN’s Recruiting Nation. In this particular segment, Dave Telep, Craig Haubert and Paul Biancardi are the three analysts that are presented with Kansas coach Bill Self’s comments that players should be paid. Dave Telep starts off by saying that there is enough money generated from colleges through media deals and conference alignment that colleges now have the ability to pay athletes. He says that “it’s the right thing to do, but… it’s not gonna happen” (Telep, RecruitingNation). Then, Craig Haubert argues that “People under-value the expense of a college education” (Haubert, RecruitingNation RecruitingNation). He argues that many people are forced to take out a loan just to be able to go to college, and once they graduate, they are stuck with a huge amount of money that they have to pay off. He says that student-athletes are able to bypass having to take out a loan because all of their college expenses are paid for by the college. Finally, Paul Biancardi starts his piece off by listing all the people affiliated with college athletics that get paid, and says that all the athletes get is their education is paid for by the college. He says that since the athletes are the ones earning the money that colleges get from the athletics, that they should get some of that money.

Similarities

            All three of the genres were made to provide an opinion on the subject, since it has been in the news more and more, and has become almost a national debate subject, like gay marriage or legalizing marijuana. All three of the genres use an image, whether it be moving (which would be a video) or static, like the cartoon. All three of the articles take on a serious tone, and don’t stray far from the topic of whether or not athletes should be paid. I feel that the analysts in the ESPN video and the Doctor and Chair of Sports Management at Rice University are the most credible to speak on the subject, as they actually work in the field of college athletics. Even if they are overseeing it (like the Chair of Sports Management) or they analyze it (like the analysts on ESPN), they are still more credible than a cartoon drawer who is just throwing in his two cents drawing for a website.

Differences

Of the three genres, I felt that the ESPN video had the best format or layout. They used a quote from a college coach, and then had three college sports analysts debate the topic. The cartoon is just an image format, so you click on the link and you see the image. The blog post from the doctor at Rice University provided a link to an interview, and then he went further in depth in the post, providing possible solutions to the problem, then providing some pros and cons to each solution, as well as if he could see the each solution happening in real life. The three genres also are designed for different viewers. The ESPN video is designed for someone who looks mostly at the sports side of the subject. Although it doesn’t stick to one side of the argument, it does provide evidence that supports either side. The cartoon pertains more to someone who would perhaps be reading about the subject, and then decided to do a Google search for more information about the subject. The blog post is aimed more towards people who saw the interview live, or students who are doing research on the subject.

Analysis

            Of the three genres, I think the ESPN video was most effective at getting their message out. Even though the analysts didn’t all pick one opinion, they still presented their opinion, gave supporting evidence, and stood by their opinion. Yes, they weren’t all on the same side of the argument, but that is really the nature of a debate; there are going to be people on both sides of an argument. The least effective genre was the cartoon, mainly because the writer didn’t back up their opinion with supporting evidence. However, with a cartoon, the artist is going to be limited to what they can fit into the space they are given, so I don’t think a cartoon or an image would be the best genre to use for this subject, or really with any subject which would require supporting evidence to be presented. The blog posting was somewhat effective; the biggest mark against it is that the writer didn’t pick one side of the argument. With blog postings, though, that can be a problem, since the writer can really slant their opinion towards one side of an argument by presenting evidence that will make their side look good or the opposing side look bad. So, in terms of bias, I think the writer of the blog did a good job not presenting any bias.

Works Cited

Bagley, Pat. "College Athletes' Heavy Load." Cartoon. The Week. N.P., 2011. Web. 1 Mar. 2014.

RecruitingNation: NCAA Athletes Payment Debate. Prod. ESPN. Perf. Dave Telep, Craig Haubert, and Paul Biancardi. YouTube. N.P., 25 Oct. 2012. Web. 1 Mar. 2014.

Haptonstall, Clark D., Ph. D. "Should College Athletes Get Paid?" Web log post. Haptonstall-Rice. Rice University, 10 Sept. 2013. Web. 5 Mar. 2014.

Response #1

Response Paper #1

            The most recent movie that I watched was Rush, which was directed by Ron Howard. The movie follows two Formula 1 drivers, James Hunt and Niki Lauda, from their rookie years in 1970 all the way up to the 1976 Formula 1 season, and watches as a rivalry unfolds between the two drivers, who have very contrasting personalities. James Hunt is more obsessed with the fame, going out to party, do drugs, sleep with women, etc. His personality is also reflected in his racing style, as he will give the car 100% to either win the race or crash/blow up the car trying. On the other hand, Niki Lauda is more of the mechanical type. He knows his way around a race car; how to make it faster; He is the first one into the race shop and the last one out. Out on the track, he races very conservative, preferring to come home with the car in one piece rather than on the trailer with a DNF (Did Not Finish).

            The main event of the movie is the two drivers racing for the 1976 Formula 1 world championship. James Hunt, who had just bankrupted his previous race team, finds a ride at the last minute at McLaren, where he is the top contender to Niki Lauda, who won the 1975 championship with Ferrari. The two drivers are pretty much neck and neck in points up until the German Grand Prix. At the race, Lauda forces the racing committee and the drivers to cancel the race due to rain. However, his pleas fall on deaf ears, and the race goes on. In the race, Lauda crashes his car and is taken to the hospital. He ends up sitting out for 6 weeks while Hunt dominates and takes over the points lead. Lauda does eventually return to the car, and makes a serious run at the championship.

I can relate this movie to many different events that I’ve seen, where the person placed in that position can either choose to be aggressive or to be more conservative. For example, during my senior season of high school football, we had a really good team, and we often would be leading our opponents by 20 to 30 points at halftime. In these situations, our head coach was forced to make a choice between an aggressive approach and a conservative approach. If he went aggressive, our team would win by about 40 points or so, and we would get a huge jump in the rankings. However, he would risk losing his best players to injury by keeping them in the entire game. By going conservative, he could avoid losing his players by putting in the backups. We would still end up with a win, but we wouldn’t get as big a bump in rankings as we would if we destroyed our opponents.

I think that the main message the movie was trying to tell is that you are often presented with a choice of either going all-out for something or holding back a bit, maybe to keep yourself out of harm’s way. I like the way that the movie presents this choice by using racing, a topic I can really relate to.

Personal Literacy-Final Draft

            "With just under 40 laps to go, Andrew Mibach is running way back in the pack. Throughout this race, he's constantly been on the radio with his pit crew, reminding them to stick to his track notes for this race. They have done so, and as a result, he's got nearly the same setup he had from earlier in the season when he won here. However, he was spun earlier by another driver, who didn't quite make the turn correctly. As a result, he's stuck back in 27th as the laps tick away. He's really going to need to communicate with his spotter, so he can navigate his way through this cluster of cars. This is where his reading and communication skills are going to be put to the test, as we close in on the end of the race."

           As a kid, I was always fascinated with cars. Maybe it was because my father worked on them for a living, or maybe it was because of all the little Hot Wheels cars I had lying around in my room, I’m not sure. As I got older, I connected my interest in cars with my ability to do math somewhat well and my want to know how things worked, and decided that I wanted to work on cars for a living, like my dad. So, I declared as a Mechanical Engineering major for college.

            I am also a really big sports fan, particularly the big 4 sports in the US (Football, Baseball, Basketball, and Hockey). Being a little kid in San Francisco, I gravitated towards the 49ers for football, the Giants for baseball, and the Sharks for hockey. It wasn’t until I moved up to Sacramento that I became interested in basketball. I remember when I moved up here in 2002, the Sacramento Kings were serious contenders for the championship that year, so I jumped onto the bandwagon. But, I would have to say my favorite sport is Auto Racing. Whether it is NASCAR, Indy Car, Drag Racing, or some endurance race, it doesn’t matter; if there's some racing going on somewhere, I will try to find a way to watch it.

           My love of sports drove me to join my high school's football team in my sophomore year. At the time, I was really getting in to watching and playing football with friends. A few of my friends were actually on the team, which made me want to join, too. I also remember playing Madden Football on the Playstation, and winning games easily, which gave me the thought that actually playing football couldn't be too hard. Boy, was I wrong. I was trying out for quarterback, and one of the drills involved handing off the ball to the running back. When it was my turn, I wound up getting our biggest guy. Since I really had no idea what to do, I hiked the ball and turned around to hand it off. But, I had turned the wrong way, and ended up getting run over. Yeah, not as easy as I had originally thought.

           Still, I stuck with it for the rest of high school, and I'm glad that I did. I got to know a lot of people around school, since football was really big because our teams were really good. As the years passed, I became more confident communicating with others. Before, I really wasn't very social at all, instead preferring to sit inside and play video games. After football, I was spending more time hanging out with friends. I was still kind of shy, and I still am today, but not nearly as bad as I was before I joined the football team.

            As far as reading and writing go, I was always a good reader, since the time I was just a little kid. I would come home with great marks in the reading categories on tests, and my parents would always be so proud. I didn't really have a favorite kind of book to read until I was in the middle school to high school age. I had always known as a kid that I wasn't interested in the really fictional stuff, like the Harry Potter series. But it wasn't until I had read Band of Brothers by Stephen Ambrose and The Art of Racing in the Rain by Garth Stein that I realized what I was actually interested in, which would be historical biographies/accounts, or fictional stories that aren't too far from being reality.

            The first book I can really remember being interested in was Band of Brothers. The story follows the story of the members of Easy Company, a group of paratroopers during World War II, from their military training all the way to the end of the war and their lives after the war. My interest in the book came from the TV miniseries of the same name came out.  My parents would try to set up the VCR to record all of the episodes when they first came out in 2001, but because recording stuff from TV used to be a lot more complicated than it is today, we wound up missing one or two episodes. My parents would look for the episode they had missed before whenever there was a marathon of all the episodes on, so I sat down to watch with them one time. When I saw that we had the book, I took it off the shelf, blew the dust off, and sat down to start reading the book, and the more I read it, the more interested became in it. By the time I had finished the book, I had decided to keep it in my room, and it became mine.

            In High School English, one of our assignments was to have a book to read throughout the semester, and write about it at the end of the semester. I picked up The Art of Racing in the Rain, since I thought from the title that it would actually be about racing. Instead, it follows one man’s struggle with his racing career and a custody battle, comparing his life to the difficulty of racing in the rain. Although it isn’t what I expected to be reading about when I picked it up, it has also found its way onto my shelf.

            Reading these books hasn’t really impacted the way that I communicate too much. I feel that I am really straightforward when I communicate an idea, much like Ambrose is when he recounts the many tales of the soldiers in Band of Brothers. I will usually give some background information though, before I communicate the point. Occasionally I will try to mix in some humor, like Stein does in The Art of Racing in the Rain. But these books did change my perception of the world. By putting it into racing terms, I learned from The Art of Racing in the Rain that if you stay focused and don’t let outside happenings get under your skin and distract you , you can get through the difficult parts of life. From Band of Brothers, I gathered a similar idea; that to get to a goal, you will have to overcome many different obstacles that will come your way.

            I still see reading playing a significant part in my future, both short-term and long-term. For my college education, being able to read and understand formulas and equations will be just as important as reading specifications and dimensions for designing and manufacturing a part if I want to graduate in Mechanical Engineering. If I were to get into the auto racing industry, there would definitely be a lot of reading to do. For example, reading track notes and setups from previous years and similar tracks would be an important factor in being able to set up a race car to have the best chance to win a race.

            To conclude, reading, writing, and communicating all play a very important role in a mechanical engineer's life, as well as a race car driver's. Knowing how to get something done, and being able to analyze how something is done, take notes on it, and then communicate to others about it while being straightforward will help you to ultimately get the job done. I have learned these skills through playing high school football, and by reading books that didn't give anything unimportant to the plot. I am going to need to be able to use these skills in order to set myself up with the best opportunity to achieve a goal.

Personal Literacy Narrative-2nd Draft

            As a kid, I was always fascinated with cars. Maybe it was because my father worked on them for a living, or maybe it was because of all the little Hot Wheels cars I had lying around in my room, I’m not sure. As I got older, I connected my interest in cars with my ability to do math somewhat well and my want to know how things worked, and decided that I wanted to work on cars for a living, like my dad. So, I declared as a Mechanical Engineering major for college.

            I am also a really big sports fan, particularly the big 4 sports in the US (Football, Baseball, Basketball, and Hockey). Being a little kid in San Francisco, I gravitated towards the 49ers for football, the Giants for baseball, and the Sharks for hockey. It wasn’t until I moved up to Sacramento that I became interested in basketball. I remember when I moved up here in 2002, the Sacramento Kings were serious contenders for the championship that year, so I jumped onto the bandwagon. But, I would have to say my favorite sport is Auto Racing. Whether it is NASCAR, Indy Car, Drag Racing, or some endurance race, it doesn’t matter; if it’s on television, I will find a way to watch it.

            As far as reading goes, I’ll constantly be on ESPN or Sports Illustrated, catching up on my favorite sports teams or race car drivers. However, I do read more than sports articles. Aside from important college papers and not-as-important social media posts from Facebook or whatever, I do have a few kinds of books I can read without falling asleep. I like reading biographies or fiction that isn’t too far from reality. For example, I was never a big fan of the Harry Potter series because it was too far from being a real event. Perhaps it is no coincidence that my two favorite books, Band of Brothers by Stephen Ambrose and The Art of Racing in the Rain by Garth Stein both fall into categories of books that I can read without falling asleep.

            The first book I can really remember being interested in was Band of Brothers. The story follows the story of the members of Easy Company, a group of paratroopers during World War II, from their military training all the way to the end of the war and their lives after the war. My interest in the book came from the TV miniseries of the same name came out.  My parents would try to set up the VCR to record all of the episodes when they first came out in 2001, but because recording stuff from TV used to be a lot more complicated than it is today, we wound up missing one or two episodes. My parents would look for the episode they had missed before whenever there was a marathon of all the episodes on, so I sat down to watch with them one time. When I saw that we had the book, I took it off the shelf, blew the dust off, and sat down to start reading the book. The more I read it, the more interested became in it, and after I had finished the book, I kept it in my room, and it became mine.

            In High School English, one of our assignments was to have a book to read throughout the semester, and write about it at the end of the semester. I picked up The Art of Racing in the Rain, since I thought from the title that it would actually be about racing. Instead, it follows one man’s struggle with his racing career and a custody battle, comparing his life to the difficulty of racing in the rain. Although it isn’t what I expected to be reading about when I picked it up, it has also found its way onto my shelf.

            Reading these books hasn’t really impacted the way that I write or communicate too much. I feel that I am really straightforward when I communicate an idea. I will usually give some background information though, before I communicate the point. But these books did sort of change my perception of the world. By putting it into racing terms, I learned from The Art of Racing in the Rain that if you stay focused and don’t let in outside distractions, you can get through the difficult parts of life. From Band of Brothers, I gathered a similar idea; that to get to a goal, you will have to overcome many different obstacles that will come your way.

            I still see reading playing a significant part in my future, both short-term and long-term. For my college education, being able to read and understand formulas and equations will be just as important as reading specifications and dimensions for designing and manufacturing a part if I want to graduate in Mechanical Engineering. If I were to get into the auto racing industry, there would definitely be a lot of reading to do. For example, reading track notes and setups from previous years and similar tracks would be an important factor in being able to set up a race car to have the best chance to win a race.