this is the new one!
… http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ijWfQ7hibIc
and this is the old one!
… http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ozThKRsJTtk&feature=channel
I apologize but you may have to copy and paste to URL…I couldn’t get the hyperlink to work
Enjoy!
Final Writers Memo
Nightingale 1
Aaron Nightingale
Dominick Ashby
English 111
10 December 2009
Final Writers Memo
I expected English 111 to be a lot more on strict writing and very structured high quality work without flaw. This was not the case and I think I learned a lot more because it wasn’t. Since junior year in high school, I have been going over rhetoric appeals as far as: ethos, pathos, and logos. So to cover this early on in the class I was not surprised. The difference between my experience in high school, to this class, was the amount of practical use. I will take away knowledge of how to apply rhetoric appeals, whether it is in future speeches, business letters, or job interviews. Also, I will take away a new way to construct my papers.
With English 111, I learned how to apply rhetorical analysis, by making videos, writing essays, in class on-the-spot writing, and group projects. But one main thing I learned how to do is how to begin my essays. Ever since I can remember, I have always had trouble knowing how to start a paper. I would think that the first time I wrote everything, it had to be perfect; every sentence. Naturally, I never made any progress. It would take hours to write like this, but in this class, I was taught to approach it in a different way. For our rough draft, my professor asked just for a structured two pages of notes on our current topic. Since I started just writing notes, I would have much more ideas and my papers became easier and easier to write.
Now, for the two pieces, I chose to edit my very first piece, the ethnography. And for the second, I chose to remake my Wal-Mart video in the opposite light. I chose the ethnography
Nightingale 2
because it was my first piece and I felt as if it were the only piece I truly hadn’t completely finished. And I chose the Walmart video because the whole time I was making the original one, I was thinking about how it would look from the other side.
My original ethnography was about my current life and how looking at certain objects and scenes, would remind me of my past and how my past is what is making my present. With the new one I added about four pages and talked about the future and how I want to combine the past and present. I want to utilize all the sources that have been provided to me and trying to predict my future is not the key. It was a realization that I have to accept myself as I am and that I am striving to be all that I can be. I just wanted to play with the message I was sending and that if we live thinking about our futures, we will die from missing out on our lives. I think this piece improved drastically from the first because I am sending a very strong message and with the addition of future events, the piece now seems complete.
The original Wal-Mart video portrayed it as a good store that made everyone happy and jump for joy. I wanted to make this video about the oppression of Wal-Mart and how it is suppressing small business and other competitors. I wanted to exaggerate it and comically go about making them look extremely egotistical and snobby, but at the same time, keep a little truth behind it all. I believe this piece improved from the first because the first was very one sided and was all about joy. This time it is comical but at least sends a message.
This is the link to my second final…The reconstruction of my Walmart video… click the following link
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ijWfQ7hibIc
enjoy!
CHANGES MADE
Nightingale 1
Aaron Nightingale
Dominick Ashby
English 111
2 September, 2009
The Squad Bay
Directions to Recognition
I must have hit my head because I can’t stop remembering. I can’t stay focused because I keep getting interrupted by the games my mind seems to be playing on me.
The second I assumed the position of attention on Perris Island, was the second of my life that seemed almost motionless. It felt like hours, even days standing on the bright yellow, but clearly worn out footprints that each and every soul steps on before they embark on an unknown journey; a journey that few are crazy enough to follow through with until the end. The footprints are aligned in pairs, four pairs side by side, about fifteen rows back. By stepping in these footprints, it created a level -playing -field, and set aside any differences that anyone may have had. Regardless though, there is one feeling, emotion, and phrase that comes to each and every individual standing on those footprints. The thought arises as soon as hell is unleashed. It arises as soon as the drill instructors make their way toward you; whether it was a steady pace, as they would creep, without making a sound with a look of shear destruction, or a violent attack, in which there would be no way you could expect it coming, because of the shock of seeing
Nightingale 2
another human move so fast. But the phrase nonetheless was always the same, “What in the hell, did I sign up for?”
Nightingale 2
I sit here, stunned, by a mental glitch. There is a brief moment, where I feel as if I am watching my life on a reel and living it over again. I am alone, yet surrounded. I am standing in front of a red brick building with all of my things, just
waiting. I am in college and I’m lost. Inside, I begin to ask myself, “where am I? Why am I here? Is this really my life?” I begin to ask myself questions I would’ve never thought I needed answers to. I am at the bottom of the totem pole again, and this time, I am contemplating whether it’s worth the climb to the top.
My mind begins to wander again. This has happened before. I’ve been here. I have stood in front of these red brick buildings. I have had these feelings before. They were unforgettable; the smell, the stench, the sight, the antique red brick building staring down at everything, just waiting for its chance to kill. And at the base of this predator, were two eight inch thick solid steel doors. It was the hatch to hell and the opening to a new “place”, and I mean that in every aspect of the word.
Voices down the hall; I could hear them mention the organization. But the whisper which had first caught my attention grew into a high volume conversation, droning out everything else around. And then, there was nothing. I reached my room and it was just like Perris Island, except this time I was the one doing the silencing., just my presence. I just stood in the doorway and everything went still.
Nightingale 3
Walking through those thick silver steel doors is like getting hit with a wind of silence that church mice couldn’t even compete with. And once you get the glimpse of possibly adjusting to the stillness, you are sent on your way. You are sent to the squad bay, and for the next three months, you will know it as your home, your life, and your job.
Nightingale 3
The room had two windows and was bigger than the others. It took one sniff, as my left foot steadily took the first confident, but hesitant, step onto the tile beyond the doorway which read, 201, to react. My mind is now being told that room
201, Havighurst Hall at Miami University will be my new home and so it started the process. My brain was trying to flush the old smell, life, and memory of the squad bay in order to assume the new, but for the first time, was unable to.
It was unforgettable; the reek, wounds, blood, sweat, and build. The minute you observe something in the squad bay is the minute it is ingrained in your brain for life. It is a place where history is created, lived, and never forgotten. It is a place where I went, where I am, and where I will be. It is always changing, and as it changes, so do we. We, the organization, the brotherhood, which it has sprung from almost nothing, 235 years ago, change together.
It’s my first day of college classes and the word, “observant,” doesn’t even describe what I was. I was aware of everything and took it even further by analyzing every situation, interaction, and social activity, which was within sight. The first thing happened to come about three feet outside of my dorm, freshman
Nightingale 4
and seniors. It was the show of height on the totem pole and the freshman were crushed down even lower than there already given height at ground level. The seniors, only treating them how they, themselves were treated upon arrival. It is the initiation and hazing, if you will, that tradition has provided in making one earn their membership in college.
“Hey recruit, put your cover on your grape,” you would hear from the third phase recruits to the forming day, brand new members.constituents. This merely meant to put their hat on their head and to do it quickly because they had probably forgotten, due to just arriving on “Paradise Island.” The equal playing field that was established by the yellow
Nightingale 4
footprints diminished through time in grade. There is a thirst for power when first becoming. It lasts as long as basic training, because after each member would face the challenge and show their worthiness by conquering the crucible (the final test and rite of
passage into, the few, the proud, the Marines). Once earning the title, each and every member is entitled to and awarded his/her respect.
It’s week two of college, Wednesday morning, eight a.m. and I find myself as alert as I’ve been trained to be. One second’s stare is all it took to realize how realistic yet, altered the confrontation was. It took place in front of one of the hundreds of one inch thick glass windows, which gave off the setting of a classroom in the distance. It was a student complaining about a project to his professor. He was dressed in sweats, black top with a hood and red bottoms sagging below his hips giving off a portion of his plaid undergarments. He had no respect. All I could think
Nightingale 5
of was the rank structure that was taught in the squad bay, and how we would have to talk with our superiors, but there was one difference. We always show respect.
“Hey, Corporal Johnson, can you get the platoon formed up? It’s about time.”
“Sure thing sergeant,” he would reply, or he might just start to give the command to form up.
Upon, advancing in the rank structure, any member can comprehend that the level of comfort in the military and in their platoon drastically increases. With time and promotion comes not only responsibility, but experience and that sheds comfort.
Nightingale 5
Sitting here, Indian style, just waiting for my toes, feet, calves, thighs, hips, anything lower body, to fall asleep because sitting in this position was never meant to be comfortable. Trying to stray from the pain and change focus, I avert my attention to the nearby statues, otherwise known as NCO’s. They are the definition of confidence and as
they demonstrate all of the values and rules they preach, they become somewhat of idols. At the very least, we look up to them, as we do the past. Respect is without question going to be given to them, as respect should be given to any superiority over someone. But we as people of such a selfish and egotistical society, lose sight of the respect which should be granted to our teachers and elders, who have put in their time in making our lives easier. They helped form many of our traditions in which we continue to idolize today.
Pictures fall from my cork board almost in slow motion seeming to ask for someone to grab them mid-flight. Their existence provided proof and the beauty of homecoming. This is a common event in the United States in which teens attend a school -funded dance with a date of their choice. It is a formal dress occasion which creates anticipation and a desire for the setting, almost as much as the passion of the wantdesire to dance. It is tradition. and we sometimes forget the ones before us who started it.
November 10th, 1775, otherwise referred to as the birth date of the Marine Corps, is a day that is celebrated every year by the members within. WithIt is the comraderyMarine Corps
Nightingale 6
birthday and with the camaraderie between ranks, units, platoons and squads, everyone goes to a sponsored Ball, in memory of its’ history. Heroes of our past, present, and future, walk among us and help to form the culture of our idolizing society and the brotherhood which has been born. We honor those before us who started our traditions and the organization which has brought so many people closer together. And that’s how every tradition should be.
The soft but prickly texture makes its’ way across my hand, or vice versa.. It stopped; the palm sits on the top in the extreme center. The chilled finger tips get warmer as they lead back towards the base, but along the way, they are sprawled out like ropes across the back of my head as if searching for something. It is my
Nightingale 6
hand and it was searching. I was reassuring myself that I was not hallucinating and that I hadn’t hit my head.
My flashes of an old life were in fact, a current one. What seemed like my life, became the life of my organization. And finally, the organization that created a culture, made it permanent and established qualities within its’ members that can’t be replaced. We It is permanent and we are where we are, because our past forms our present, and stays with us in order to make a future.
“Lights, lights, lights! Ten, nin, eigh, sev, si, fi, fo, thre, two, ONE!” The numbers would blend together because of how fast they would roll off the drill instructors tongue. I would hear this and know that I better have my ass out of bed, off the top bunk, and on the black line (which is in a sped up process of fading, from its constant use). These
Nightingale 7
hypothetical ten seconds are counted so quickly, there is no way it is realistically over four seconds. Immediately after rushing to the “head” or restroom, we are ordered back to the black line, which borders the front side of our “racks” (beds). Then it was time for the most meticulous, seemingly pointless, part of my day. Over and over again we would make our racks, despite how perfect they were, they would never meet the standard. No wrinkle, no extra material showing. Ninety degree angle folds on all corners. Tight and crisp. We worked diligently, but fast, in utter trepidation that we might get tossed in the
sand pit. And I’ll be damned if I would voluntarily go to the sand pit, only to walk away with a new sandy layer caked on top of my skin, unable to wash it away or get rid of until the following day.
As I sit on my college dorm bed, I cringe at the sight of every wrinkle that ripples out from where my body slowly forces the underlying springs down into uncomfortable positions. They creak as my pressure makes them work to support
my weight. That is all it takes to get my mind wandering. I instantly think of Marines and my obligations in the years to come. And right alongside my military life, I ponder my second life. I brood over all the possibilities of my college life and job opportunities that may present themselves. I think of classes to take, internships, and co-op positions. But they must collaborate with my training schedule which is demanding, to say the least. With COMM training in twenty-nine psalms California this summer and MCT (military combat training) next summer in North Carolina, I find myself wondering how to brings both worlds together.
Nightingale 8
I struggle to concoct a plan which intertwines both military and college, and then it hits me. I realize that my planning is my demise and I have blinded myself from reality. I keep trying to pinpoint my exact location and lifestyle, at every turn in my future. The problem with this, is that I am stuck living in fear of what my life will eventually become, instead of living the life that I am blessed with every day.
I am thinking of how to combine my two lifestyles, when I already have. Since the day I graduated boot camp and left the virtual hell which consumed my life, I have utilized my training in my civilian lifestyle. My military life has brought several
qualities into my everyday life. Physical fitness and confidence are the two predominant traits that I have found carried over the most. I still work out every other day and now I would say that I go into any situation with complete confidence in myself. Before the Marines, I would question myself sometimes, but that rarely happens now. For example, if a guy twice my size was seeking trouble with me or someone else around me, I wouldn’t think twice about saying something to him. I now have no problem standing up to anyone or expressing my opinion. A few months ago I would be hesitant, and unsure if I would actually be able to affect the situation.
On the other hand, college and my life outside the Marines, brings a lot to my military lifestyle. While attending college I have taken away two major assets: responsibility and time management. I have to be responsible every time I set foot on base and continue to make good choices outside of school. College has helped me to learn to fight temptation. The amount of exposure to alcohol and drugs is almost
Nightingale 9
unbearable, but since I have learned to say, “No,” at school, it is no problem when I’m off the books.
So as much as I have a desire to predict my future, doing so will only hinder my quality of life in present day. I have found that as much as my two lifestyles seem separate from one another, they actually coincide and interact with one another. I now realize that I didn’t hit my head, and that my past is not a flashback. My past is my current day, and my current day is my future. The United States Marine Corps has merged with my civilian life, to form my character and I live both worlds as one. My future is unpredictable, which makes my existence possible. I realize now that I am all that I can be.
FINAL PROJECT
Nightingale 1
Aaron Nightingale
Dominick Ashby
English 111
2 September, 2009
Directions to Recognition
I must have hit my head because I can’t stop remembering. I can’t stay focused because I keep getting interrupted by the games my mind seems to be playing on me.
The second I assumed the position of attention on Perris Island, was the second of my life that seemed almost motionless. It felt like hours, even days standing on the bright yellow, but clearly worn out footprints that each and every soul steps on before they embark on an unknown journey; a journey that few are crazy enough to follow through with until the end. The footprints are aligned in pairs, four pairs side by side, about fifteen rows back. By stepping in these footprints, it created a level-playing-field, and set aside any differences that anyone may have had. Regardless though, there is one feeling, emotion, and phrase that comes to each and every individual standing on those footprints. The thought arises as soon as hell is unleashed. It arises as soon as the drill instructors make their way toward you; whether it was a steady pace, as they would creep, without making a sound with a look of shear destruction, or a violent attack, in which there would be no way you could expect it coming, because of the shock of seeing
Nightingale 2
another human move so fast. But the phrase nonetheless was always the same, “What in the hell, did I sign up for?”
I sit here, stunned, by a mental glitch. There is a brief moment, where I feel as if I am watching my life on a reel and living it over again. I am alone, yet surrounded. I am standing in front of a red brick building with all of my things, just
waiting. I am in college and I’m lost. Inside, I begin to ask myself, “where am I? Why am I here? Is this really my life?” I begin to ask myself questions I would’ve never thought I needed answers to. I am at the bottom of the totem pole again, and this time, I am contemplating whether it’s worth the climb to the top.
My mind begins to wander again. This has happened before. I’ve been here. I have stood in front of these red brick buildings. I have had these feelings before. They were unforgettable; the smell, the stench, the sight, the antique red brick building staring down at everything, just waiting for its chance to kill. And at the base of this predator, were two eight inch thick solid steel doors. It was the hatch to hell and the opening to a new “place”, and I mean that in every aspect of the word.
Voices down the hall; I could hear them mention the organization. But the whisper which had first caught my attention grew into a high volume conversation, droning out everything else around. And then, there was nothing. I reached my room and it was just like Perris Island, except this time I was the one doing the silencing, just my presence. I just stood in the doorway and everything went still.
Nightingale 3
Walking through those thick silver steel doors is like getting hit with a wind of silence that church mice couldn’t even compete with. And once you get the glimpse of possibly adjusting to the stillness, you are sent on your way. You are sent to the squad bay, and for the next three months, you will know it as your home, your life, and your job.
The room had two windows and was bigger than the others. It took one sniff, as my left foot steadily took the first confident, but hesitant, step onto the tile beyond the doorway which read, 201, to react. My mind is now being told that room
201, Havighurst Hall at Miami University will be my new home and so it started the process. My brain was trying to flush the old smell, life, and memory of the squad bay in order to assume the new, but for the first time, was unable to.
It was unforgettable; the reek, wounds, blood, sweat, and build. The minute you observe something in the squad bay is the minute it is ingrained in your brain for life. It is a place where history is created, lived, and never forgotten. It is a place where I went, where I am, and where I will be. It is always changing, and as it changes, so do we. We, the organization, the brotherhood, which it has sprung from almost nothing, 235 years ago, change together.
It’s my first day of college classes and the word, “observant,” doesn’t even describe what I was. I was aware of everything and took it even further by analyzing every situation, interaction, and social activity, which was within sight. The first thing happened to come about three feet outside of my dorm, freshman
Nightingale 4
and seniors. It was the show of height on the totem pole and the freshman were crushed down even lower than there already given height at ground level. The seniors, only treating them how they, themselves were treated upon arrival. It is the initiation and hazing, if you will, that tradition has provided in making one earn their membership in college.
“Hey recruit, put your cover on your grape,” you would hear from the third phase recruits to the forming day, brand new constituents. This merely meant to put their hat on their head and to do it quickly because they had probably forgotten, due to just arriving on “Paradise Island.” The equal playing field that was established by the yellow
footprints diminished through time in grade. There is a thirst for power when first becoming. It lasts as long as basic training, because after each member would face the challenge and show their worthiness by conquering the crucible (the final test and rite of
passage into, the few, the proud, the Marines). Once earning the title, each and every member is entitled to and awarded his/her respect.
It’s week two of college, Wednesday morning, eight a.m. and I find myself as alert as I’ve been trained to be. One second’s stare is all it took to realize how realistic yet, altered the confrontation was. It took place in front of one of the hundreds of one inch thick glass windows, which gave off the setting of a classroom in the distance. It was a student complaining about a project to his professor. He was dressed in sweats, black top with a hood and red bottoms sagging below his hips giving off a portion of his plaid undergarments. He had no respect. All I could think
Nightingale 5
of was the rank structure that was taught in the squad bay, and how we would have to talk with our superiors, but there was one difference. We always show respect.
Sitting here, Indian style, just waiting for my toes, feet, calves, thighs, hips, anything lower body, to fall asleep because sitting in this position was never meant to be comfortable. Trying to stray from the pain and change focus, I avert my attention to the nearby statues, otherwise known as NCO’s. They are the definition of confidence and as
they demonstrate all of the values and rules they preach, they become somewhat of idols. At the very least, we look up to them, as we do the past. Respect is without question going to be given to them, as respect should be given to any superiority over someone. But we as people of such a selfish and egotistical society, lose sight of the respect which should be granted to our teachers and elders, who have put in their time in making our lives easier. They helped form many of our traditions in which we continue to idolize today.
Pictures fall from my cork board almost in slow motion seeming to ask for someone to grab them mid-flight. Their existence provided proof and the beauty of homecoming. This is a common event in the United States in which teens attend a school-funded dance with a date of their choice. It is a formal dress occasion which creates anticipation and a desire for the setting, almost as much as the passion of the desire to dance. It is tradition and we sometimes forget the ones before us who started it.
November 10th, 1775, otherwise referred to as the birth date of the Marine Corps, is a day that is celebrated every year by the members within. It is the Marine Corps
Nightingale 6
birthday and with the camaraderie between ranks, units, platoons and squads, everyone goes to a sponsored Ball, in memory of its’ history. Heroes of our past, present, and future, walk among us and help to form the culture of our idolizing society and the brotherhood which has been born. We honor those before us who started our traditions and the organization which has brought so many people closer together. And that’s how every tradition should be.
The soft but prickly texture makes its’ way across my hand. It stopped; the palm sits on the top in the extreme center. The chilled finger tips get warmer as they lead back towards the base, but along the way, they are sprawled out like ropes across the back of my head as if searching for something. It is my hand and it was searching. I was reassuring myself that I was not hallucinating and that I hadn’t hit my head.
My flashes of an old life were in fact, a current one. What seemed like my life, became the life of my organization. And finally, the organization that created a culture, established qualities within its’ members that can’t be replaced. It is permanent and we are where we are, because our past forms our present, and stays with us in order to make a future.
“Lights, lights, lights! Ten, nin, eigh, sev, si, fi, fo, thre, two, ONE!” The numbers would blend together because of how fast they would roll off the drill instructors tongue. I would hear this and know that I better have my ass out of bed, off the top bunk, and on the black line (which is in a sped up process of fading, from its constant use). These
Nightingale 7
hypothetical ten seconds are counted so quickly, there is no way it is realistically over four seconds. Immediately after rushing to the “head” or restroom, we are ordered back to the black line, which borders the front side of our “racks” (beds). Then it was time for the most meticulous, seemingly pointless, part of my day. Over and over again we would make our racks, despite how perfect they were, they would never meet the standard. No wrinkle, no extra material showing. Ninety degree angle folds on all corners. Tight and crisp. We worked diligently, but fast, in utter trepidation that we might get tossed in the
sand pit. And I’ll be damned if I would voluntarily go to the sand pit, only to walk away with a new sandy layer caked on top of my skin, unable to wash it away or get rid of until the following day.
As I sit on my college dorm bed, I cringe at the sight of every wrinkle that ripples out from where my body slowly forces the underlying springs down into uncomfortable positions. They creak as my pressure makes them work to support
my weight. That is all it takes to get my mind wandering. I instantly think of Marines and my obligations in the years to come. And right alongside my military life, I ponder my second life. I brood over all the possibilities of my college life and job opportunities that may present themselves. I think of classes to take, internships, and co-op positions. But they must collaborate with my training schedule which is demanding, to say the least. With COMM training in twenty-nine psalms California this summer and MCT (military combat training) next summer in North Carolina, I find myself wondering how to brings both worlds together.
Nightingale 8
I struggle to concoct a plan which intertwines both military and college, and then it hits me. I realize that my planning is my demise and I have blinded myself from reality. I keep trying to pinpoint my exact location and lifestyle, at every turn in my future. The problem with this, is that I am stuck living in fear of what my life will eventually become, instead of living the life that I am blessed with every day.
I am thinking of how to combine my two lifestyles, when I already have. Since the day I graduated boot camp and left the virtual hell which consumed my life, I have utilized my training in my civilian lifestyle. My military life has brought several
qualities into my everyday life. Physical fitness and confidence are the two predominant traits that I have found carried over the most. I still work out every other day and now I would say that I go into any situation with complete confidence in myself. Before the Marines, I would question myself sometimes, but that rarely happens now. For example, if a guy twice my size was seeking trouble with me or someone else around me, I wouldn’t think twice about saying something to him. I now have no problem standing up to anyone or expressing my opinion. A few months ago I would be hesitant, and unsure if I would actually be able to affect the situation.
On the other hand, college and my life outside the Marines, brings a lot to my military lifestyle. While attending college I have taken away two major assets: responsibility and time management. I have to be responsible every time I set foot on base and continue to make good choices outside of school. College has helped me to learn to fight temptation. The amount of exposure to alcohol and drugs is almost
Nightingale 9
unbearable, but since I have learned to say, “No,” at school, it is no problem when I’m off the books.
So as much as I have a desire to predict my future, doing so will only hinder my quality of life in present day. I have found that as much as my two lifestyles seem separate from one another, they actually coincide and interact with one another. I now realize that I didn’t hit my head, and that my past is not a flashback. My past is my current day, and my current day is my future. The United States Marine Corps has merged with my civilian life, to form my character and I live both worlds as one. My future is unpredictable, which makes my existence possible. I realize now that I am all that I can be.
