Nicoleisms

The title of my article is “The Secret Benefits of Fandom” by Drake Bennett. Bennett capitalizes the first the words of the article, “SPORTS, WE KNOW”. The next three words in the sentence are “are big businesses”. The large title catches the readers attention and provides contrast to the next three words. Yet, it also shows irony because the “big business” that the article is talking about is actually in small, lower-case letters.

The importance of sports as a business is found throughout the piece. Bennett makes the idea of sports seem like a universal theme to the reader. He does this introduction by mention sports in Boston, talking about the Boston Red Sox baseball team and then going across the world mentioning the sports during the Olympics in China.

Bennet also uses the idea of sports as a long-time event through his word choice. He says that fandom in Boston that “fandom has for years been imbued with a certain nobility”. He even mentions Boston fans in conjunction with their “bards” and uses the word “laughingstock”, both terms associated with medieval times. Bennet more directly talks about the competitiveness of sports teams as feuds and. He more directly mentions the Puritan ancestry of the Patriots, further referencing sports as a history, a legacy.

The article is not just about sports though. It also mentions how when sports teams win, their fans are more likely to become happier. This happiness means that people are more willing to spend money and more open to dating. After an entire paragraph, with several points about how people spend more money, Bennet says in once sentence that “economists are generally skeptical of these claims.” This brevity directly shows the article is not meant to show being a fan directly correlates to the economy or a better sex-life, but it certainly does suggest that a winning sports team may have beneficial affects. It also shows humor in Bennett’s evidence because it is skeptical.

So my Nicoleism is awesome...Do you guys think sports are awesome? Do they really reap the befits that Bennet talks about? Should my fandom for the Patriots and Yankees really make me go on a shopping-spree or try and outbet Dan?

Bottom line: Sports are awesome, but their benefits still are unpredicatable.

Posted in: on Thursday, February 5, 2009 at at 4:58 AM 4 comments  

Awkward. That was my day in Spanish yesterday. Mrs. Ward asked what we did during the weekend. I said it was my “name day”. The room went silent. No one had any idea what a “name day” was. I felt like a total idiot. Once again, Nicole is shouting to the whole world that she is Greek. How cliché. While that is true, I also know the value of culture.

This OpEd describes the life of a woman who was Irish but brought up by her Puerto Rican aunt and grandmother. The author, Suzanne Vega effectively uses rhetorical strategy and argumentation to talk about her race. She says, “I learned that my birth father was actually English-Scottish-Irish. Or white, as we used to say in my old neighborhood.” She uses the term “old neighborhood” to give the reader an idea of where she grew up. This demonstrates who the author is and the lens we should view her opinion through when the reader examines the article.

Vega further uses dialogue to illustrate her point. However, her dialogue acts as an ad homonym in a unique way. Instead of having quoting something she said, she quotes her daugheter saying, “Mom! Why are you wearing all black?” Vega’s original point is that she wears black because that’s the way she was raised; it became apart of her culture to dress in black. However, when Vega uses this quote she also highlights her relationship between her and her daughter. She isn’t offended by her daughters question, rather she embraces it and explains the cultural relevance to her daughter. Vega also laughs at herself for wearing all black, humanizing her and showing that her article isn’t a social commentary, but a personal opinion.

This makes me question whether or not I should have been embarrassed when the entire Spanish classroom went silent. The tradition of a “name day” is just celebrating the name of your patron saint, or who you were named after. Vega just laughed at everyone, including herself. So maybe I should come into school wearing all black. We can see if the whole room goes silent again. Or maybe like Vega, I should laugh at how much we, as people, stil don’t know about each other.

 http://measureformeasure.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/12/03/which-side-are-you-on/?ref=opinion

Posted in: on Monday, December 15, 2008 at at 8:46 PM 0 comments  

It seems like I am constantly day dreaming about holiday break. I want to be at starbucks drinking a latte, skiing with friends, or throwing snowballs at my brothers. When I read this article, I thought about how my constant day dreaming is never ending. Yet the article presented a lot more scientific research to back up its lengthy discussion on daydreaming; this made the language in the piece very different. When Lehrer (the author) quotes different people he uses the word “said”, there is no descriptive analysis about how people say things, for example the phrase, Schooler “says”. 

However, Lehrer uses imagery to offset any scientific research that may appear dry to the reader. He calls the content of a dreams a “soap opera” and claims that in the world of “make believe…We can leave behind the world as it is and start imagining the world as it might be, if only we hadn’t lost our temper of had superpowers, or were sipping a daiquiri on a Caribbean beach”. The reference of taking a vacation or sitting on a beach is appropriate for the situation because it makes you daydream while reading the article. I stopped for a second and thought: The day is warm and I am sitting on the beach with a book and my virgin-frozen-strawberry-daiquiri. Yum. So everyone- what are you daydreaming about?

http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/articles/2008/08/31/daydream_achiever/

Posted in: on at at 8:26 PM 0 comments  

http://www.racheltoor.com/Godandjerk.html-

God and Jerk
So I thought’d it be interesting to critique the use of language of my author (who critiques another author Deresiewicz), primarily because it was awesomly funny. Calling a liberal, well known, ivy-leaguer “plumber averse” was “awesome” (Nicoleism). And, after brushing into Ivy Students and feeling their sparkly glory reign down upon me, I thought Toor’s article provided an interesting view on the elite. She starts off her article highlighting her intended audience underneath the headline of her article, “parents and students take note: a controversial article misses the point”. This is awesomely unique because it shows that Toor’s main point isn’t to criticize Deresiewicz’s article or point out her own shortcomings of the ivy-bound. Instead, Toor’s message is meant to show people my age that we shouldn’t stereotype Ivy League schools at all because there are so many different types of people. The message also is a breather to high school students. College certainly does not define who you are: it is an experience. So my question for you guys: What does college mean to you? What do you think about college competition?

Toor uses the stereotypes and clichés about the ivy leagues to her own advantage in her article. She begins with Deresiewicz’s stereotype in her own article, that the Ivy League alumni have trouble identifying with those with less of an education, like a plumber. She inverts Deresiewicz’s stereotype calling him “plumber averse” and explains that he stops “just shy of complaining about but cracks”. This reveals that Deresiewicz projected a self-made archetype for the so-called “Jerk” at Yale”. Toor doesn’t stop there though. She reveals Deresiewicz’s assumption of the elite being “package people” or those blessed with perfect life until she got to know and understand them. I certainly wish I had the perfect life. My question to you guys? How much do you want that perfect package life? Certainly, watching on Gossip Girls is awesomely entertaining for me (Nicoleism). But a lot of times in our highschool hallways, the ethnic minorities are either laughed at or awed at for their work ethic; is it something worth noting? Moreover, is it something we should be noting at all? Toor, however, concluded that students of any family have their own problems that they have to deal with. It seems as though life doesn’t give anyone a break. She uses a cliché phrase to illustrate that to cliché Ivy students, the world isn’t always their “pearl studded oyster”.

Past clichés, Toor continues to emphasize the differences of all of those trying to get a college education. She uses a hyphen to emphasize two main points in her article. Toor says, “I try not to make assumption about them that lead me to view – at teach – them in limiting ways” and that she “resented the kids who’s parents bought their way in, until I got to know them”. She also asks a lot of questions in the article, hoping to open up the reader’s eyes. In an interview with a Yale student, Toor reports back that the Yale student actually learned more from the non-professional staff at Yale, including the lunch ladies. She asks, “What if parents understood that the people who teach their children disdain them and what they assume to be their values – whether the sons of plumbers of the daughters of the captains of industry?” Again, Toor provides scope to the college experience. She points out that what we learn from in college isn’t always in the classroom. Instead, we gain life experience from those around us. It goes back to the idea college is apart of an overall experience. I’m not saying we should go spend time with our lunch ladies at the high school, but there is certainly something to be said about who can be a mentor. How does this change your opinion on higher education? Who is a mentor in your life? Why? Do you really think the professors at yale, who consider themselves God, are jerks?

Posted in: on Sunday, October 19, 2008 at at 8:32 AM 1 comments  

Hey guys,

This is nicole speaking. Welcome to my blog in period 2 journalism. Enjoy reading my stuff filled with many nicoleisms and feel free to comment.

Nicole

Posted in: on Monday, October 6, 2008 at at 7:51 AM 1 comments