America's Soliders

After looking at Army of Dude's blog, I am filled with both a feeling of sentiment and respect for the soldiers overseas. I do not think that they get enough credit for the work they do. The picture he has posted on his blog are that not only of great photography, but they actually pull the reader/ viewer into his world. These pictures are not ones you see in the papers caught on film by an outsider looking in, but those of an actual soldier that lives his life this way. Each day these soldiers are filled with both courage and fear of what is to come, risking their lives for their fellow American citizens, most of which they do not actually know. War is depicted by movies, television specials, and books, but none of us civilians really actually know what it is like to live in a world filled with terror. America mostly fights all it's wars overseas with the exception of a couple of terrorist attacks over the past couple of years. Those days instated a great amount of suffering and loss- a loss that the people of the Middle East have to face everyday. I could not ever imaging living in that kind of world. Having the freedom that America has does not come easy. We have these great soldiers to thank for risking our lives so we can live ours without punishment and persecution.

When blogging was first introduced as a way of writing in our English class, I was shocked. Blogging was a totally new and different way of writing for me; what would I write about? I was used to formal papers, even journal entries covering the books we read, but not blogs. I always thought of blogs as the Emo Rants people who took pictures of themselves in the mirror wrote on Xanga in Middle School. But, after writing my first couple blogs, I soon realized that they were not like this at all; you could blog about a wide variety of topics. Some of the blogs our English class looked at were written on some very serious subjects, but there were also several relating to current events or even more relaxed subjects such as celebrities, gossip, or events happening around campus. As a result of these blogs, I was more in tune to the news and even checked top news stories on the television or online. I started to pay more attention to what was going on around me both at SMU, in Dallas, around the country, or around the world. It forced me to see things more critically, and made me put more effort and research into specific issues. At first, it was hard for me to think about what to write about, but after awhile it got easier. Sometimes it was easier to just write a summary of the events that happened, but then I realized that you had to give your opinions or raise questions that people could respond to.

Usually when I write papers, my main audience is an older, mature English teacher. What is nice about blogging is that your target audience can be people of any age. You can receive opinions, comparisons, judgements, and suggestions from all different people which helps you to critique your own work in a new light you would not normally if you were writing a paper in an English class enviroment. I realized that if you wanted an older, more mature audience to focus their attention on your blog, then you have to use correct grammar and style as opposed to a more juvenile age group that you could talk about subjects with less gravity. Another important rule of blogging is to present yourself and what you have to say well or else people will not take it seriously. If you talk about how Britney Spears’ new haircut really, deeply affected you, people probably think you are a very shallow person and do not take things with much thought. Right! On the other hand, if you talk about more current issues that are seen on the news or current events, people will probably have more respect for you and your opinions.