Exercise 1.1

Step 1:
Places- Fairbury, Bloomington, Wrigley Field, Soldier Field, New York, Chicago, Eiffel Tower, Uppsala Sweden, Illinois State, Stockholm, England, St. Andrews, Turkey, Istanbul, Texas, Oklahoma

Jobs- Football player, Ceo, actor, comedian, telemarketer, teacher, cook, chef, contractor, lawyer, journalist, sports reporter, television host, governor, city clerk, policeman, fireman

Trends- P90X, facebook, entourage, big brother, myspace, HDTV, underage drinking, smoking, comedy tv shows, food network, xbox, baseball, football, ESPN

Things- Baseball, football, soccer ball, tv, lamps, electricity, gatorade, cereal, xbox, stop sign, poster, air purifier, air conditioning, apartment, airplane, cars, trains, bears, lions, tigers, dogs, HDTV, lemons, apples

Technologies-TV, cellphone,internet, wireless internet, lamps, cars, trains, airplanes, computers, doorbells, watches, clocks, printers, fax machines, water purifiers, fridge, microwave, coffee pot, pizza pizzaz, alarms clocks

People- Bob brenly, len kasper, Tony Dungey, Jason Aldean, Barack Obama, John Mccain, Dan Patrick, Keith Obberman, Lisa Salters, Ben Afflick, Jason Bourne, Matt Damon, Chris Cagle

Controversies- Moon Landing, Vietnam, President election, steroids, 9/11, mosque in new york, glen beck rally, roger clemens, p.c. hawks football team party, bank heist,


History-World Wars, Korean War, Ronald Reagan berlin wall, falling of communism in russia, olympics, olympic bombing, olympic massacre at 72 munich games, abe lincoln, civil war, revolutionary war, Benedict Arnold, george washington

Habits-biting nails, facebooking, watching tv, eating midnight snacks, eating fastfood even when knowing it is bad for you, book collecting, stamp collecting, rock collecting, reading while a thunderstorm is going on

Hobbies-reading, watching tv, golfing, playing baseball, playing slow pitch softball, writing novels, writing poems, reading the newspaper, collecting quarters with states on them, watching sports on tv, going to class

Step 2:
Falling of Communism and Berlin wall

I think there are many potential good research projects in this category. There are so many things that happened during this time to write about and learn about. I think this will open many doors because as a political science major this is something that is very interesting to me.

Step 3:
Why did the wall stay up so long?
What did Reagan do to bring the wall down?
Did this help ties with Russia?
Since the fall of communism has it made the world a better place?
What is the biggest impact on people since this fall of the red army?
How many people were displaced while being under this communist regime?
What has Russia done to help countries that are now independent and are they allies now?

Narrative on Social Diversity....

     Social diversity is essential in nearly all aspects of life. In my opinion it is defined as people from different races,gender, or religion. However, it does not stop there, it can also be people in different groups such as a sports team or the band. There are many different meanings for social diversity. Multiculturalism though similar to social diversity has its own meaning as well. I would define Multiculturalism as people from different cultures, such as England and the United States, being accepting of each other and cooperating, though having different ways of life. Furthermore, social diversity is important in my life. I believe you should except all people from different diversities regardless if you think that may be weird or unusual. Last, many issues of diversity play important parts of my life, but if I had to pick one it would be race.
     Race has played a very important part in realizing the different social diversities of people. My freshman year I had the opportunity to be a manager on The University of Oklahoma mens basketball team. This managing job gave me the chance to see life from a different social diversity. Many of the players on our team were black so it was different for me coming from a small central Illinois town. However, though tough at first i would not trade that year spent in Oklahoma for anything. I learned a lot about how these players grew up and became acceptance of things that I thought differently when I started the job.  This job showed me how important social diversity is in life to be successful.
     Looking ahead in the semester, I am most looking forward to writing about educational equality. Having a father who is a teacher has taught me to believe that equality in school is just as important as equality in any other aspect of life. It is an important subject because people have fought for this right for years and it is our duty to go through on what they have fought for. This doesn't relate to my major but it does somewhat relate to the law.  After I graduate I plan on attending law school so this topic will relate somewhat to that.

Free Write #1

1. Reading and writing has been very benificial in my life. I believe reading and writing force you to think and ultimately helps you gain as much knowledge as you can. The types of writing I do outside of school are facebook post, an occasional message board post, and emails.
2. My most difficult writing aspect is getting started and grammar. I have struggled with grammar in my work since and I can remember. Getting started is tough for me because it always seems like I have a million ideas spiriling through my head. I find it tough to grasp that one idea and run with it. If there was one thing to improve it would be my grammar.
3. I like biographies and some novels. Sports biographies in general are the one genre that I find most appealing. However, a good mystery novel such as a recent favorite The Lost Symbol by Dan Brown is a book I found to be very good. There is a big connection between reading and writing. Without reading you can't have writing and vice versa, they go hand in hand.
4. Whenever it comes to research all that comes to mind is sitting at a library or a computer and slaving for hours upon hours to find one measley source. However, after reading the introduction of our text, I found that research does not have to be "boring" it can involve story telling and exciting ties to the real world.
5.Social class is one thing that I found interesting out of the ideas that were given. Being a political science major social class can involve nearly anything and I would like to somehow tie that to my political science major. Though a specific idea has not come to mind, social class seems like an interesting topic relating to many things.
6.One way I find that gets people interested is simply getting them involved. If you ask questions whether that is in a sit down interview or random people on the street. If you get people involved it makes the topic much more interesting.

Boomer Sooner,

Matthew R. Dever

Getting to know me

First blog post oh boy! Well, I grew up in a small town just north of Bloomington. I enjoy playing sports and watching them as well. In highschool I played golf,basketball, and baseball. In writing I strongley dislike commas as you can probably tell already! I attended the University of Oklahoma my first year serving as a basketball manger for the mens team. Though I thouroughly enjoyed my freshman year there, I wanted to be closer to home. That is all for now and always remember Seeing is Believing.

Boomer Sooner,

Matt