Extra #3- Three days later

Hello all...it's been weird not posting for the past three days...I had gotten into a habit. Here's a Nicole life update from the world with the phone and FB access fully restored.

The night I turned my phone on, I was terribly disappointed after being text bombed 10 minutes before I turned it on, and the fact I only received messages from the 26th to the 30th because of some server holding thing that Verizon has on all text messages. So that was kind of a let down. I really did miss my phone. My text count was down by almost 6,000 messages on our last bill (February 20-March 20). I've been hittin the number pad on my little phone faster than people can reply. It's definitely nice to have that back. Facebook on the other hand, I could go another couple months without. I realized that it's a place for whining about your life...here's an actual status from one of my FB friends, "Ugh should not have stayed up so late cause I feel like a zombie and just wanna go back to my bed and pass out and not wake up til rehearsal." It didn't better my life any to know that he stayed up all night and now posted it for everyone to pity him. Yeah...that's what a month without Facebook did to me...made me realize I should censor what I post. Funny and important only. Stupid statuses are virtually worthless.

Goodbye fellow blog readers! Nicole is over and out :)

March 30th- DAY THIRTY

Today's the last day...the day I've been awaiting for thirty entire days. It's 10:41 now and now I just sit and count down the minutes until midnight. Morgan and I lived out our days together without Facebook and our phones. Her day went a lot how I predicted that it would. I asked Morgan how her day went and what her thoughts were about going an entire month without both, "I had a very peaceful day because my friends with phones are super annoying. I honestly think what I would miss most about my phone is my constant access to the time. Facebook's no big deal, but my phone is my security blanket." I'm ready to see who's missed me over the course of this month. I'll be writing one more post tomorrow and that's it. No more blogging for me. It's hard to believe that this month flew by so quickly and even more than that, that this semester is virtually gone!

March 29th- DAY TWENTY NINE

Hi blog readers :) Meet one of my bestest friends in the entire world, Morgan. As you all know from keeping up with my blog, tomorrow is the final day of this immersion project. I've only been whining for 29 days now how boring my life is. Well tomorrow, Morgan is being a trooper and giving up her phone and Facebook to live out my final moments with me. Tonight at midnight, she's gonna turn off her social technology and experience one day without it. Although this is only a very small portion of what I've gone through this month, I think that she will find her day peaceful without the distraction of others. Don't worry, I'll let you know how she feels about it and what her feelings are about going a whole month.

Now. Daily Nicole update. Today was surprisingly good. Tuesdays and Thursdays are the bad, busy, long days but everything went pretty smoothly. I went to the Students' Composers Forum with Morgan tonight for her music history class, so that took up and hourish of our night, came back, showered, dealt with some homework, doing this blog, and what do ya know, it's bed time! I like days like today. I think tomorrow will either drag on so slowly or go by really quickly. Morgan's returning my key to my lock on my desk drawer tomorrow. I plan to get my phone out early to charge it (not turn it on...don't worry), since it was dead when I turned it off. My roommate, Melissa, agreed to stay up til midnight with me and party on our futon until I get my phone back. Only 26 hours and 8 minutes until I'm texting my life away! I'll give you more of and update tomorrow! Good night!

March 28th- DAY TWENTY EIGHT

Before I get to the real blogging about boring stuff...

HAPPY BIRTHDAY HANNAH!


I know she's out there, reading my blog to keep up with my life and the world needs to know it's her birthday! Now to my daily update. People are getting kinda funny. Everyone is counting down the days for me now and it makes me feel super loved, like they've missed me during my immersion project. March has flown by and I'm really glad for that. Today was an alright day to live without Facebook and my phone. I love Mondays. Only two classes and being done by 11 is what I'm talking about. I got to take a nap today and continue putting off the reading of The Communist Manifesto for my history test coming up too soon. I'll get it done, just not now. I've been warned by my roommate that she's gonna spam my phone and Facebook wall with lots of messages right before I turn everything back on, just to be annoying. Gotta love her. Anyway. Tomorrow is what I'm considering my last full day of this immersion. From then on out, I will be counting down the hours. Goodnight blog readers!

March 27th- DAY TWENTY SEVEN

There's not much to report, it seems like I've been having a lot of these kind of days lately, although I guess that's a good thing. It was just a lazy Sunday in my room. Finished up my math homework that's not due for seven million years, laid around and watching five episodes of Law & Order: SVU, and really that's it. I'm ready for Wednesday to get here. On the inside, I'm so secretly excited about getting my phone back and then get to go home on top of that to watch my little sister go to prom. It's back to classes tomorrow, thank goodness I was smart and only scheduled two classes on Monday so I'm done by 11. It should be a relatively easy day. 3 more days. Let's get it done.

March 26th- DAY TWENTY SIX

The count down is going fast; only four days left. I'm getting really excited. I talked to Morgan today and she agreed to give my lock key back to me Wednesday and at midnight I will be home free. I am willing to bet that on that Thursday I will be a grumpy lady from staying up all night catching up on my texting. On top of that Thursday is Seth's birthday and I'm going home after classes. It'll be like the best day ever. It's hard to believe that almost an entire month has past.

Enough future planning and reminiscing of the past; today was a decent day as far as the immersion project goes. I was reunited with my friends and that alone makes everything better. I've also come to a realization: my weekends seem exponentially longer when I don't have a phone or Facebook to waste my days away on. I guess it's both a good thing and a bad thing. Good because who doesn't love weekends, bad because I don't have anything better to do. Tomorrow's Sunday so we'll see how the end to my weekend is.

March 25th- DAY TWENTY FIVE

Today was THE ABSOLUTE worst day of this immersion project so far. You would think that with only five days left, things would be easy. No matter how often I tell myself there's only a little bit of time left, the more people seem to tempt me. I only had one class today, my 8 am math class, and afterwards I just came back to my room and slept until lunch. After lunch, I usually hang out with my other half, Morgan. However, she went on a field trip to Missouri so I was all alone all day. My room never felt so boring. My computer felt worthless. There was nothing worth watching on TV and my roommate was busy having a life. I watched so many episodes of Confessions: Animal Hoarding, I could predict that nearly every show would show someone with lots of cats and another with lots of dogs. There was a rare episode where a man hoarded chickens; that was considerably more interesting. I accidentally did my math homework that's not due until April 8th. Even worse than that, I didn't have any meal swipes left for the week and it is during Lent now, so eating a filling inexpensive meal downstairs became near impossible.

Finally after sitting around bored for eight straight hours, I talked Patrick into going to IHOP with me for some pancakes. It was nice after all that time alone with nothing to do to go out with a friend. We took it one step further and stopped at Dairy Queen for some blizzards. Really that alone made my whole day worthwhile. Lots of calories, but I didn't care. To show really how desperate I was for something to do, after IHOP and Dairy Queen, we came back to Patrick's apartment and I volunteered to clean his room and fold his roommate's clothes. Most people would say that this is a terrible way to spend a Friday night on a college campus, but it was just nice to have some company and not be alone. I'm ready for Thursday night...well really Wednesday to come so I can count down the hours and be able to cradle my cell phone between my two hands and let my thumbs dance across the keyboard. And really, I would like to see all the disgusting pictures of myself that people have put on Facebook and tagged me in so I couldn't untag them. We'll see how embarrassing that is when I get that back. As it is a little after midnight now, I guess there's officially four days left. :)

March 24th- DAY TWENTY FOUR

Only six days left and there's bad news on the horizon. I'm getting really anxious. I was super tempted to ask Morgan for my key to my lock back today, but I for sure know that if I did, that drawer would be open. I miss my phone. I miss my friends. I miss my family. You know times are getting desperate when a college kid wants to talk to their parents (haha just kidding Mom and Dad, you know I love you). But for real, I decided that I could easily give up Facebook, presumably forever, if I could just have my phone. The days aren't that bad without it, but especially at night when I sit in my room and have nothing to do except watch TV and watch Melissa slave, reading status updates and posting things on her friends' walls. I'm ready for this immersion to be over. Even though I've said that at least a million times in my blog posts, I'm getting pretty serious now. Every time I see someone with the same phone as me I get so excited because I have less than a week left!

March 23rd- DAY TWENTY THREE

In exactly 69 hours and 53 minutes, I will be turning on my cell phone for the first time in exactly one month. I'm getting really excited. About a week to go and all I can think about is who will be the first person that I will call or text? What will I do first on Facebook? Who even cared enough to miss me? These are all questions that I cannot answer until next week, but this immersion is so close to ending that I can taste it!

Today was exponentially better than yesterday. I got to see my best friend, Patrick, who goes here (but we never see each other), for the first time in quite a while. It was nice to sit down and really catch up with life. I think the rest of this immersion will play itself out smoothly, except this Friday, Morgan, my other half, is going to St. Louis for a field trip to Build-a-Bear headquarters and I'm gonna be alone all day. I'm hoping that I can be productive and either get my book for history read, write my immersion report draft (haha), or maybe even take the day off and have myself a One Tree Hill marathon. Personally, the last one sounds the best. That could be a day of withdrawal, so we'll see how that goes. Also. I've realized that I'm really happy when I farm on my Farmville. I know it sounds dumb, but yesterday I didn't get to play and I was in a terrible mood. Although the correlation is weak, I think there's something there. I'm an addict I guess. Tomorrow's Thursday. The good news, it's close to the weekend, the bad news, I hate Tuesdays and Thursdays. Too many classes, half of which (Philosophy and Computer Science) I hate. But it'll be alright. Overall, a good day without the technologies that I love.

RR #9- Modern Hunter-Gatherer

"The Modern Hunter-Gatherer" by Michael Pollan is a short story in which the main character decides he wants to hunt and prepare an entire meal. He had never had the urge to hunt before, but he wanted to hunt a boar and prepare it for his meal. At the beginning of article, the author gave a very detailed description of being out in the woods and what it's like to be a hunter. He called this "hunter porn". I feel that the parts of the story that he describes in detail every aspect of hunting is an example of ethos. All of the details gives him credibility that he was actually there experiencing the hunt. I also feel like the fact that he comes out and says that he's not a normal hunter gives him some credibility; although he's not a hunting expert, he goes out of his way to document the details that others used to hunting may miss due to familiarity of the woods. Throughout the story he spends a lot of time being descriptive of all of the narrative parts that take place. Although his first hunt turned up unsuccessful, he caught his boar on his second hunt. Following that he gathered other greens and beans so that he could create his perfect meal; having no debts to enjoy a meal.

The author does a fantastic job at being so descriptive and painting vivid pictures for his audience. I could picture being in the woods with him, watching for the pigs to appear, it felt real with all of his great detail. To some degree this story reminds of The Scarlet Letter, where the whole first chapter describes the door, only this story kept my interest a lot better. I feel like whenever I try to write like this, my description sounds corny and overdone. With more practice, I may be able to accomplish something like this.

March 22nd- DAY TWENTY TWO

It's safe to say that this picture clearly describes my day, although it might not be the most attractive picture. Regardless, today was a long long long day. After lunch, I felt beyond terrible and took a good two and a half hour nap, even went to far as to put off dinner with my friends; that never happens. I'm not sure this is considered cheating, but I sent some texts via email tonight. I really should've thought of this sooner. It's a loophole, but takes considerably longer when waiting for the reply text. I texted Morgan to let her know I wasn't up for dinner and my sister because I haven't talked to her in way too long. I also shot Seth a text, but he either got weirded out by the email that popped up on his phone, or he got his phone taken away (which happens a lot). It's pretty sad that it's only 9:30 and I'm ready for bed. Oh the excitement that I call my life. Even before lunch today, I was in a mood though. I'm gonna go ahead and blame it on the fact that I'm withdrawing; once a chronic texter, always a chronic texter I guess. Today's the first day that I really felt down in the dumps, even now after my stomach is feeling better. I guess it's a good thing that we've entered the single day count down. It's supposed to rain tomorrow...I'm not sure that will help brighten my mood at all... I guess we can only hope that tomorrow is better.

March 21st- DAY TWENTY ONE

One thing that I've noticed since the beginning of this immersion is that my blog posts appear to be getting shorter. To my surprise, the month of March has flown by and some of these past couple of days have all felt the same...get up, go to class, go to lunch, lay around, go to dinner, lay around, finish up homework, go to bed, repeat. I see the same people every day here, Morgan, Zak, Kimmie, and Melissa. If I wanna see someone else I have to make a Skype date and then make plans to meet up. It's exciting that there are only 9 days left of this immersion; I'm ready to resume my life of luxury.

Today my friend, Patrick (who was completely against this immersion in the beginning and for the most part, still is), asked me, "so, did you learn a lesson from all of this?" I was confused. He went on to ask, "would you do this project if you had to do something/give something up for thirty days?" I really had to think. I don't regret giving up my phone and Facebook, but I definitely am not a fan of this immersion. I've said it before and I'll say it again, it sucks without my phone (more than Facebook). I don't think, if given the choice, that I would do this immersion for another month. Some people have suggested that I carry on this project for the rest of Lent, but I don't think I can make it all the way until April 24th. There's no way I'm even considering that.

RR #8

In chapter 11 of the Wadsworth reading, the authors discuss how to arrange your argument and sewing all of the research found, together. According to the authors, there are four types of arguments: evaluations, where people judge an object against a specific set of criteria, definitions, the author makes a claim about how a specific object fits into a category, proposals, making a plan for action that will solve a problem, and finally cause-and-effect, describing why something has happened.

After the authors go over those points for arguments, they emphasize methods of delivery. For academic essays, which is what one primarily writes in college courses, it was suggested to used the IMRAD format. This stands for Introduction, Methodology, Results, Analysis, and Discussion. There are other ways to deliver to the audience and what a writer uses is heavily dependent upon the rhetorical situation, mostly who is the audience.

This chapter is extremely important when putting together a paper, especially when trying to make the information within the writing cohesive.

March 20th- DAY TWENTY

One thing that's for sure is that without Facebook and my phone, I have so much free time. I realize I've posted about this many many times, but today I nearly completed a group project by myself that's not even due for another two weeks. My productivity is getting out of hand. I guess this whole month of being productive is making up for the fact that I won't be next month, or even all of the past months where I've been constantly distracted by this technology. I'm definitely past the point of missing my phone or Facebook, it barely bothers me when people texts and browse Facebook while I'm sitting there. I've really surprised myself by how well I've taken to this immersion project. Regardless of how much I deal without my phone, it's no lie that I cannot wait to get it back.

March 19th- DAY NINETEEN

Another day without my phone and Facebook complete. Not much to report again today. I slept a lot; there's not much else to do on a boring weekend. I went out with my friend Morgan tonight and decided to go off campus to see a movie; Red Riding Hood. I thoroughly enjoyed getting off campus having fun. I've been thinking a lot about texts I'll receive when I turn on my phone, trying to guess who will have texted me and how many I will get. I feel like a lot of people know I'm going this month without my phone, but I still wanna feel needed when I'm gone. I guess I like the attention. We'll see how tomorrow goes.

March 18- DAY EIGHTEEN

This post is a little delayed from my experiences yesterday. My two besties Katie and Hannah came up to finish their spring break off with a bang. There wasn't much to report other than Morgan gave me her phone while she had class in order to stay in contact with Hannah and Katie in case they got lost, but other than that, it was a pretty good day. They were a good distraction from not having my phone or Facebook, although I have to say I was a little jealous when they got on Facebook or could text whoever they wanted :(

March 17th- DAY SEVENTEEN

Only thirteen more days left, I'm getting pretty excited. Today was actually a really great day. After Skyping my sister for two hours after a day full of classes, I went to dinner with some friends and ending up running into more people there. After dinner we decided to go out to the playground by Burris and I didn't even really think about not having my phone. I had my alarm phone with me and I took lots of pictures to upload in April to Facebook... gotta make good memories in college and take lots of pictures to cherish them.

After we played on the playground like five year olds, we went and climbed in a tree in the quad and laid there until it got dark, just talking about life and relaxing. This nice weather is making me in a great mood and being outside with friends is the perfect cure for the life without Facebook/cell phone boredom. To top it all off, Katie and Hannah are coming up tomorrow and I'm sure that can only add to the greatness of the last half of this immersion project. After my major withdrawals yesterday, I'm glad to see that was just a temporary thing!

March 16th- DAY SIXTEEN

Good news: only 14 days left. This immersion is starting to get to me. After the first half of the month, I never thought my thumbs would be craving to send a text. Tonight I made a couple of calls from my friends' phones. Once to call Seth back at home, who I hadn't talked to for a week (something that never ever happens). Once to call my best friend Patrick who lives right off campus, but without my phone I rarely have talked to him since before the immersion. And finally to call one of my friend's from IU who has been visiting BSU for the last couple of days, in order to meet up with him. None of the phone calls were very long, just the freedom to call my people without having to memorize numbers is greatly missed! It's funny because I've always been extremely awesome at memorizing phone numbers, but now I've been able to come up with words to put to the numbers in order to memorize even more numbers. I'm not sure how my brain stores anything else other than numbers!

Also, an update from Melissa's one-day no Facebook immersion. Last night at 11:45 she was begging to get back on. I told her I wasn't forcing her to hold off until midnight, but yet again she impressed me. She waited until the clock struck midnight and Facebooked. Today she was online considerably less than she usually is. When I walked back into the room while she was in classes, I was so surprised to see her Mac laying dormant on the futon. I'm impressed with her! I just can't wait to be able to chose when I can be online again!

RR #7

In Chapter 9 of the Wadsworth reading, the topic most discussed was argument. The authors covered argument versus reporting, the steps to develop an argument, and ways to support the argument. Surprisingly this chapter was very familiar to me because in high school in my discussion and debate class, my teacher hammered into our brains how to properly conduct an argument. He presented us with a lot of the same ideas that the Wadsworth authors did. An argument all stems from the research question. From there a thesis must be developed and when presenting an argument, one must include appeal to the audience, through ethos (credibility), pathos (emotions), and logos (logic). Finally, another way to add to your argument is to identify counterarguments that opposing teams or people could possibly attack your argument with. This helps to prepare you to have something to say when they attack your argument.

Chapter 10 then discusses how to properly choose evidence. One thing that the authors emphasize is the impact the audience should have when choosing evidence. Relevance and timeliness are two other factors that must be included in the evidence searching process. Just finding evidence isn't enough; a writer must match reasons for using evidence found. Just throwing random facts that may or may not be relevant to an argument is not effective writing.

Extra #2

I know this post is quite a bit after we watched King Corn, but recently I've caught myself checking ingredients in my food to see if they have corn in them. That documentary really made me realize how much corn is really used. Growing up in a farming family, I never really knew what exactly the corn my grandparents grew would be made into. I always thought the corn was just sold to be made into animal feed since it was so hard and didn't appear to be edible. The movie definitely was an eye opener to see just how much corn we consume!

March 15th- DAY FIFTEEN

Well...good news! This immersion project is officially half way complete. To add to the good news, I made a break through last night. At the beginning of this immersion, my roommate, Melissa, said that she would give up just Facebook for one whole day after we got back from spring break. Well, I happened to set it on my calendar in my alarm phone (don't worry, it isn't activated so I can't get texts or make calls), and last night at 11:45, the alarm went off saying that Melissa was to give up Facebook. We both completely forgot about this deal we made, but Melissa surprisingly held up her end of the deal.

Going an entire day without Facebook is a big feat for my roommate. In her classes that she finds boring, she spends the entire time online, at night before she goes to bed she spends a good two hours online, in fact she's one of my only friends that is online the majority of the time. I even wrote her a note before I went to class this morning to inspire her not to cheat. When I came back from class, Melissa was sitting on the futon, studying for one of her tests later this week. Now to normal people, that sounds like a normal thing, but if you knew my roommate, you'd know that she NEVER sits down and studies or does homework (at least that I've seen after living with her a semester and a half). I'm really proud of her for going today without her beloved social networking site. I asked her how she felt without Facebook and she said, "I'm good, I don't really feel left out...it hasn't been a living nightmare like I thought it would. I kind of feel like I don't know what's going on with everyone else, but I could do this for a couple more days. But if I did this on a day where I didn't have a lot of classes, I probably would've went absolutely insane." I plan to get more people to try it out just for one day in order for them to realize just how much time is spent online.

According to http://www.facebook.com/press/info.php?statistics, there are over 500 million active users in the Facebook community. At any given time of the day, at least 50% of those 500 million are online. Even more baffling than that, there are over 700 billion minutes per month spend on Facebook. That's 8,400,000,000,000 minutes per year spend on Facebook. Taking all of that data one step further, everyone's compiled Facebook is time makes up 15,981,735.16 years worth of time, spent on Facebook. Be baffled.

March 14th- DAY FOURTEEN

Oh how I've missed Muncie and classes...not! All jokes aside, today was a pretty chill day with only two classes and not much to do in either one. One thing that I can say is for sure is that without Facebook and my phone, I have been able to catch up on sleep. I can only take so many reruns of the same old Law and Orders before I end up falling asleep. I guess that's a good benefit that has come out of these fourteen days. I've been happier and more alert over this immersion, but staying up later because I know I can sleep during the day may not necessarily be a good thing.

While being at home, I definitely forgot how much crap I get from people, especially my roommate, rubbing it in my face that they're on Facebook and such. Lately it's been really funny to people when they tell me that they just posted on my wall or sent me a text, and knowing I won't be able to get it for 16 more days. Believe me, I'm counting down. Last night while laying in bed, I made a decision on how I'm going to spend March 31st when the clock strikes midnight. I've decided that I will immediately turn on my phone, in fact I'll probably have it in my hands a good hour or so before my immersion project will be over, counting down the seconds until I can turn it on. However, I decided that I will only get on Facebook to reinitiate the 13 or so poke wars that I am in with people. Over the past six months, I've referred to myself as the poke war master and I really really hated having to lose a temporary poke battle. Even though I'll have many notifications and friend requests, I'm going to hold off on those until the day of March 31st or maybe even April 1st when I go home and can take the full day catching up on all the statuses and pictures I've missed out on the month of March. Yes, this is what I do while I lay in bed at night waiting to fall asleep. Normally, I would be texting, but now I've resorted to thinking about crazy things. Like last night, for example, I was trying to figure out all of the puppets' names from Mister Rogers's Neighborhood from when I was a kid. At the beginning of these thoughts all I could remember was Elaine Fairchild, but after some intense thinking I figured out King Friday, Queen Saturday, and Prince Tuesday. I'm not sure how productive that all was, but reliving my childhood was fun.

March 13th- DAY THIRTEEN

So at 5:00 pm, I officially arrived back in Muncie. Nothing has changed, as expected, but I am looking forward to these final seventeen days. It's getting a little old being the one not on Facebook or without a cell phone. It's not even that I have had any mood changes or have been so tempted to cheat that I finally broke, I just miss talking to people. My friends back home or even here on the other side of campus, posting funny pictures on friends' walls, and talking to some others at different colleges through Facebook. Skype only gets a girl so far. It's nice to be back, hopefully the boredom factor will be cut down. We'll see how my first full official week on campus without my phone and Facebook goes!

March 12th- DAY TWELVE

Today I did a bad bad bad bad bad thing. Yesterday one of my friends told me that when you search for me on Google images that my picture is on the first page of image results. Obviously I knew this picture would be connected back to my Facebook page because the picture happens to be one of my old profile pictures, yet I clicked the picture anyway. Well. Somehow, it took me back to my page and I was logged in! I hit the little "x" button so quickly but I still feel like I cheated. I officially know that I have one friend request and 24 notifications. With some further investigation, I was not still logged into Facebook anything so I have no idea how all of my information on my home page popped up. A huge feeling of guilt rushed over me and I decided that I was gonna have to blog about this, not as cheating but that it definitely happened.

Anyway, happy last Saturday of spring break. It's been by far the most boring day of my break, especially because my mom and sister went to Avon for a percussion competition and my dad's not exactly in good health to go out and do anything. I've been watching reruns on TV, finishing up homework not due until Friday, and sitting on Skype waiting for someone to talk to me (I felt if I initiate, I would look a little desperate). Even though spring break ending will suck, it will be nice to be back in Muncie to have something to do and see my roommate. Believe it or not, I do miss you Melissa! Although the night isn't over, I plan to go out with some friends so I shouldn't be tempted to phone or Facebook.

March 11th- DAY ELEVEN

Sadly my spring break is winding down, however this immersion project is still going strong. Today, my best friend asked me, "have you noticed anything different about your hands or your thumbs from not texting and being on the computer?" The question kind of threw me for a loop. I never really thought about how much my thumb use has been cut down over these past eleven days. After I got to thinking, I cut down my thumb nails (something I rarely do because i hate the way the top of my thumb feels against my buttons on my phone) at the beginning of this immersion and it hadn't occurred to me until today that my short nails don't bother me. Maybe this project will save my hands from future potential carpal tunnel symptoms.

On a bit of a different note, the one thing that I absolutely hate about this month without my phone and Facebook, is the fact that every time I need to call my parents to check in or my friends to meet up in places. I feel almost embarrassed to ask someone else, "hey...could I borrow your phone." If nothing else, this immersion has really taught me that I really take my luxuries for granted. Living without communication easily in my pocket really just sucks and I cannot wait until I get my phone and Facebook access back.

March 10th- DAY TEN

Today was an interesting day of my immersion. My land line at my house was put to a lot of use for the first time. Tomorrow I have some plans to go to UC to visit with Jackie along with Hannah and Maria and since I don't have my phone, they both called my house looking for me. I just so happened to be at my grandma's house at the time so my dad called my sister and she just handed her phone over to me to make the call to them.

After only the first phone call, I looked at my mom and said, "thank you...I never realized how much of a luxury my phone was." Although I've realized that social networking and texting make up a huge chunk of my life, I'm not sure at this point in the immersion that I can expect things to change when I get my luxuries back, but I have noticed a huge difference in my life. Now I listen pretty intently to what people have to say and rarely have to ask people to repeat things. Also, since I'm a speech pathology major, I've really started listening how other people talk and speak. It's funny how much time I've gained from this immersion and although many I've talked to have said, "I WOULD NEVER GIVE UP MY PHONE," I think that this was a good choice for me.

March 9th- DAY NINE

Today was a good day. I'm happy to see that throughout this immersion living without my phone and Facebook is getting exponentially easier. There's not too much to report today other than people have been calling and texting my sister to get a hold of me and she's probably getting annoyed of it. My spring break is going very well and being able to communicate with people isn't as hard as I originally thought it would.

Today I went back to my high school to run an errand for my sister, and my band teacher, who I'm friends with on Facebook, made a huge point to make fun of me. He went around the whole band class and asked if they'd heard from me. For some reason he thought this was hilarious. In a way it's funny, but at the same time, for as attached to my phone as I was, I'm so surprised I haven't become this mean person that I expected to become. As always, we'll see what challenges tomorrow brings.

March 8th- DAY EIGHT

Today was a pretty boring day in my life without a cell phone or Facebook.

In the dentist's office and the doctor's office following that, not having a cell phone made time pass by extremely slow. My mom actually gave me hers so that I could call her when my dad's doctor appointment was over and I was so tempted to send out a couple of texts...however...I didn't.

Other than that, I Skyped my best friend, Katie who goes to IU, and caught up on life stuff. My other friend Tim came over to see me after I got to use the land line for the first time during my immersion project. Tomorrow I'm sending my roommate a letter using real mail, mostly because she told me I wouldn't, not because I miss her. (haha just kidding Melissa if you ever read this)

I also am proud to report that I have some other followers outside of people in our English class. A lot of my friends are following my blog to know how this immersion is going. Tomorrow will be another long day home alone, hopefully I won't give into the Facebook temptation.

March 7th- DAY SEVEN

Home alone. Bored.
I found out today that I am my own worst enemy.

Although I left my phone 2 hours away, locked in that same desk drawer in Muncie, my computer stared me down today. Today was the first time in a week that I've truly missed Facebook and my phone.

However, I overcame the urge to open up my computer and check out what's going on on Facebook. Instead I found myself watching episode after episode of One Tree Hill and making bracelets out of string for my friends and myself. I'm not so sure how these next 23 days are gonna go, but I'm hoping I won't have too many days of pure boredom where I am tempted to get on my computer.

March 6th- DAY SIX

There's not much to report today.

I went bridesmaid dress shopping and my cousin gave me some junk about how she doesn't think I'll be able to make it to the end of march.

Didn't really make any phone calls, emails, Skype, or anything else today, just took today easy.

March 5th- DAY FIVE

152.4 Billion


That's how many texts the United States alone sends per month. This month, I guess I can proudly say that number will be down a couple thousand without my constant texting. So today, day five, I've started finding humor in small things. Today my mom asked me to add some numbers up, normally I would whip out my phone and add it up, but today she had to do it herself. Yesterday my sister and I were Krogering and we had a question for mom, so she said, "hey call mom," and i just started laughing.


Spring break is definitely treating me well. I haven't really even been that bored without the technologies and separation from my Ball State friends. However, today, I may've accidentally gotten myself into a cheating situation.  While I was Skyping my friend, Jackie (who goes to University of Cincinnati), decided that she wanted to show me all the boys that she talks to at college. Well, she shared her screen and it was my first official access to Facebook since the beginning of this immersion. Luckily she didn't find it humorous to let me peek at my page. As much as I would've loved to see who has been creepin' on my wall, I really want to complete this immersion project with as little cheating as possible. I want to feel like I've accomplished something and so far I feel like I'm doing something not many other teens would ever be willing to do. By the end of this immersion project, my goal is to persuade someone else to try it for just one day.  

March 4th- DAY FOUR

There's not too much to report today.

I'm home. Spending time with my family. My sister's being a pretty good trooper about letting me be a nuisance in letting me make phone calls and answer texts from people asking about me.

On the bright side, there's only 26 more days of this immersion left. I've been pretty curious about who's texted me and left comments on my Facebook wall...everyone is keeping my wall a secret. I ask and they just laugh at me and hide their screens. We'll have to see how I cope with a day alone at home tomorrow.

March 3rd- DAY THREE

Today, I discovered a loophole!

I'm not gonna lie, this is hard, as you've probably discovered from day one and two of my immersion. Today wasn't too much different than the past two days, however I have been e-mailing quite a bit.

But. Back to the loophole. Morgan and I have been discussing if I would be allowed to use Farmville.com to access farmville, a game usually accessed through Facebook. Although you must use your Facebook log in information to access your farm, there is none of the social networking attached to this. So, we decided that it would be okay for me to get on. I'll be the first to admit that I'm a Facebook farm addict and I had been debating whether or not to give in and get on and take care of my farm. Last night when I Skyped my sister she told me they were offering double mastery for two days, something that probably doesn't mean much to a non-Farmviller, but it doesn't happen very often. It was an offer I couldn't pass up. So today, I gave in and planted pumpkins. Farmville.com may be my link to sanity.

On the other hand, one of my besties who goes to college at Bradley University in Peoria, Illinois has been e-mailing me like clockwork and it's definitely helping me keep me focused on things other than my boredom. She even goes as far as to attach pictures of people she would normally have me Facebook creep on. I love it! I can't wait to meet up with her over break!

Also... spring break starts tomorrow at 11:00 am for me. This break is overdue.

March 2nd- DAY TWO

Today was day two of my phoneless and Facebookless life. Quite frankly, it kinda sucks.

Today instead of laying around doing nothing, I went and volunteered at ARF (Animal Rescue Foundation) with a couple of my friends who regularly go. Since all of the rain and storms on Sunday flooded all of the animal storage facilities and basically ruined a lot of the doghouses, stocked up food, and other things, we spent a lot of time cleaning things up while all of the animals were out in foster homes so they could stay in a dry, safe places. With all the hard work and getting very dirty, my mind was kept occupied for a couple of hours.

However, as soon as we got back on campus I was reminded how much it sucks being a minority in a campus full of social networkers and Verizon consumers. After dinner, my friends and I watched a TV show in a lounge and all three of them ended up getting on Facebook or their computers during the whole show. I felt alone and left out of the group.

Today I also used Morgan's phone to call Seth. It put reality into perspective how much my life is impacted by my texting and Facebook. We talked for about ten minutes, but of course it wasn't nearly equivalent to the hours of texting every day. I also took advantage of Skype today. I video chatted with Brittany and my parents. It was nice to hear from people that aren't on campus. A little break from the past two months of everyone here. 2 more days til Spring Break.

I'm really looking forward to this month being over.
Hopefully tomorrow I can keep myself busy with something!

March 1st: DAY ONE

212

That is the number of students I counted walking to and from class today with cell phones out. Life without a phone or Facebook is boring. I don't know how my parents and grandparents did it!

Last night at 11:59 pm when I turned off my phone, I almost cried. The item that I have been so attached to for at least the past six years of my life now lies in the bottom of my desk drawer, locked away to prevent cheating. This morning I gave my best friend, Morgan the key. I trust her not to lose it.

My day actually went pretty well and the only times I really realized I didn't have a phone or Facebook was during lunch and dinner I didn't have a calculator to spend my whole $7.55, around 7:30 pm when Morgan asked if I wanted to call my boy, Seth, back home (which I said no to, however since in my rules I can use other people's phones, I will probably do that tomorrow..I miss him), and now as I write this while my roommate rubs in my face the fact that she's on Facebook.

I am going to try not to abuse the using other people's phone rule, but it's really hard to go from talking to people like Seth, as well as my sister, Brittany, every day and then all of a sudden it becomes impossible to get instant connection to them. All I can say is that I cannot wait for spring break!

We'll see what challenges tomorrow brings me!

Extra #1- Phase 1

Last night around 11pm, I decided to enter into my first phase my my immersion project.

Not that I have a super cool iPhone or Droid, but I had Facebook updates texted to my phone. Last night, I deactivated the texts to my mobile phone until further notice. It was my first taste of limiting my communication. After the past seven months receiving all my status comments, pokes, wall posts, and messages instantly to my phone, it's tempting not to get on the computer to see if anyone's talked to me.

The bad news is, this is nothing in the grand scheme of things. Next month is gonna suck... only seven more days until my life as I know it will be turned upside down.

RR #6- Self Made Man

To put it bluntly, the ending of Chapter 7 completely blew my mind;  Norah ended up going to into a mental hospital!?

Ok. I'm ready to rewind. As a whole, I am not sure that I can take a clear stance on whether or not I liked the book overall. I think I am a huge fan of the idea of a woman dressing as a man for an entire year and then some to see the reactions of others, but I'm not sure the author completely won me over with this novel. One of the biggest cheats that I think the author used in her immersion was the fact that she did not go a complete year as a complete male. Often she ended up coming out to her comrades that she was actually a woman and went on with her relationships with them. Also, the fact that she is a lesbian I find a little biased. If any "average" woman immersed herself in a man's world, it is highly likely that she would not have quite the same experiences (particularly in chapters 3 and 4).

My biggest complaint about the book is how the author set up the chapters. Everything was so divided and I didn't ever get a sense of flow throughout the book. I would've preferred a monthly set up or some other clever way to mesh all of her experiences together. On the contrary, what I did like about the book was how raw some of the experiences Ned had. The chapter in the strip clubs, the author didn't hold back the promiscuity of the girls or the slimy characteristics in describing the men indulging themselves there. Or in the self chapter when she was sharing her experiences at the men's group as well as the other pure emotions of men.

Overall, I can't say I would never recommend this book to anyone or possibly read it again, but I will admit that it has its flaws.

RR #5

Chapters six and seven from the Wadsworth reading focus primarily on identifying if research you are using is legit or not. Chapter six emphasized rhetorically reading and research over passively reading and researching. The authors point out website bias and to consider the context of the article or web page. They go into more detail on how to annotate resources and later be able to summarize and paraphrase without the possibilities of plagiarism. Chapter seven goes on to being able to track and evaluate data. To track the data, the authors require four steps: verify, copy, respond, and fill gaps. The authors go further on to explain how evaluate how valid the data is by looking into the internal structure of the information and then external comparison.

The information within these two chapters of the Wadsworth reading will make future research, especially for college, much easily handled. Last semester in psychology sifting through all of the online journal articles for a decent one that would actually be beneficial for my actual paper was not easy. However with the new techniques that the authors present will hopefully help for future effective researching.

RR #4- Self Made Man- Chapters 1-4

When we were picking which book clubs we wanted to be assigned in, I knew immediately that I wanted to read Self Made Man. Not to be one of those students that are always trying to make people believe that they love everything to stay on a teacher's good side, but the nature of men has always intrigued me, not just because I am attracted to them, but because they have a mind set-up completely different than the mind of a woman.

During the first four chapters, the author covers basically how the overall experience treated her and then went into detail about the more significant parts, friends, sex, and dating. My favorite chapter had to be the chapter where the author focuses solely on dating and how other women reacted to her in a man's body. It was fascinating to me how idiotic some of the women Ned dated seemed, like they had almost no respect for him or their date. What blew my mind even more about this chapter was how women, even after they found out the truth about Ned, still pursued sexual ventures with Norah even though they claimed negative stances on lesbianism. In fact, even the men on the bowling league accepted Ned as woman exceptionally better than I would've ever expected.

In the chapter where Ned made trips to nearby strip clubs, I was confused as to why if he hated it so much why he kept returning. For an activity that seemed so repulsive to Ned, he was sure willing to spend endless amounts of money to tip the strippers on a weekly basis. So far this book has kept my interested and I am curious to see how the rest of Norah's journey as Ned will unfold.

RR #3

Chapters four and five of the Wadsworth reading covered the bases of researching. It covered the differences between primary and secondary research and ways to keep your research organized. A very important aspect of chapter four was going to the right place to get the good, valid, reliable research. Most students will admit that when they are assigned a research assignment, the Google tab will butt its ugly head at some point during the project. I feel that this is the most important part of any research project, knowing where to go. Although Google or Yahoo! will always produce hundreds, even thousands of results, it's nearly impossible to sift through the worthless information with the truly good research. Throughout the chapter, many alternative researching techniques and places to turn to find truly legit research to prove or disprove your research topic. 

Throughout the reading, it was somewhat easy to answer the questions posed by the author when thinking into the future about my writing project. Doing part of the immersive learning project will allow me to gather research from a primary source, myself. Not only that, but for the writing part of my paper, it would be possible to add in other forms of research like surveys and interviews about students and how often they rely on technology in their daily lives.

RR #2

As anyone can imagine, reading a book about writing sounds like a boring task. Most books say the same old thing about the proper way to write and how one must follow a sequence of steps in order to have good writing. However, the authors of this textbook toss the cookie cutter standards to the side and emphasize how writing is basically open to the interpretation of the writer. The Wadsworth really pushed the idea that steps to the writing process can virtually happen in any order, can happen more than once, or even simultaneously. Furthermore, it emphasized that not all steps are equally important, a feature of this book I particularly enjoyed.

Another part of the Wadsworth reading attempted to explain the way to pick a topic for a research paper. This chapter I enjoyed less than the first because when I compared their thoughts to mine, I found we different very much. Not that I am a writing expert, but I feel like topics come best when they spontaneously pop into your head like your little lightbulb that turns on as if you've thought of something brilliant. Wadsworth suggests that you should thoroughly research your topic to make sure it's a good one. 

As for me as a writer, I have never really sat down and formalized my process. Truthfully, I have never even considered myself a decent writer. I've always been the kind of writer that would get an idea, sit down, and write the entire paper in one sitting and usually ended up with few revisions. After reading, I hope that my writing for this semester and further into the future can be more carefully perfected and revised by others, but mostly by myself. I always end up with careless mistakes like having written chose instead of choose.

1/11/2011 Research Post

Last year in high school, I was in a discussion and debate class and we were required to do some outside research on every discussion/debate topic our teacher had chosen. One particular topic had me so entranced by the research that I read far more about it than necessary. That topic was cults.

We looked at famous cults, more locally based cults, where they originated, and much more information about this topic I formerly knew little about. First we talked about Jim Jones and the Guyana tragedy and I was blown away by the ability for a once good man and pastor, Jim Jones, to turn hundreds of people into obedient blind followers. We followed our discussion with Charlie Manson and other well known families and cults.

After the actual class discussion, a friend of mine and I went home and casually searched Google for cults and browsed some of the thousands of results. The one most disturbing and fascinating to me was a cult based on cannibalism. The "sermons" the leader gave were disgusting on many levels, describing how to properly cook baby flesh and when a child turned too old for desirable consumption. This same cult was obsessed with terrorism and pornography and its promotional video was too graphic and disgusting for any sane human being to watch.

Looking back on it now, I realize that the research I did back then was not enough to subdue my fascination with cults. In fact, obedience and conformity of people has always and probably will always strike my interest.