Campus Safety

Hello all! Throughout my time here at NIU, I have noticed an issue involving the safety of students attending the university. I am constantly receiving emails from the university about the most recent act of crime in the Dekalb area. With that being said, I have decided to investigate this issue for one of my projects in another class. I will be researching about the issue of campus safety in general, and how it impacts students. Then, I will be applying that knowledge and comparing it to the students here at NIU. To help develop my ideas I have created a survey open to all NIU students to complete. Please take a few minutes out of your day to complete my 10 question survey on campus safety at NIU. The bigger the sample size I am able to gather, the better! The survey link is attached below, as well as a QR code.

Happy Winter!

https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/ZJFMGZZ

The perfect imperfect situation

This past weekend my family said their last goodbyes to my Papa. Although this was a very difficult time for all of us, it is important to find the beauties in the situation. When reminiscing on his final days, I noticed that despite the circumstances, the situation was quite perfect. It was Thanksgiving day, and nearly all of the 8 grandkids and other family members were in town for the holidays. Normally, there are only a few of us in Illinois at one time, and it isn't often we can all get together considering our busy and hectic lives. However, this holiday season, we were all there together; and while my Papa was struggling in the hospital, we were all there by his side and shared a beautiful moment together. As my Papa was finally accepting defeat, he had one request. He wanted to go home to his cozy condo in Barrington and spend his last moments in the home he loved with the people he loved. We all had a very hard time watching him lay there, knowing what was about to come. Me and my brother especially had a hard time, since it was the first grandparent we were about to lose. Having all of our family there, sharing stories and remembering the good times we have had was what kept us all together. It's what kept us at peace. Yes, there were tears. Yes, there were countless prayers. Yes, there was grief. But having the family all there together was what Papa wanted, and it was the perfect situation. Thanksgiving wasn't what we all expected, but it was a special moment that I will never forget. Papa lived a great life, attending the first super bowl, serving the country in the United States Coast Guard, surviving cancer, and watching his favorite team in the world win the world series, the Chicago Cubs. So for that we say farewell and we will meet again.. Love you Papa.

Vote!

Jim Carrey is known for displaying his political views through unique artwork and emotionally filled captions. Here is an image of one of his tweets regarding this years midterm election. Jim Carrey is known for his liberal views and he describes here that he believes the current president does not support the ideas in his caption.

Reflection on Procedural Rhetoric

After completing and presenting my procedural rhetoric assignment, there were a few main points I learned. The first point is that relating to your audience is a key factor in gaining their full interest during your presentation. In the beginning of my presentation, I abruptly started explaining that our presentation was on how to change a car tire and proceeded in describing the first step. Instead, I could have started with a brief introduction to set the scene of why knowing how to change a car tire is so important. I could have asked the audience if any of them have done the task before and if they struggled with it or not. Doing this would attempt to relate to the audience on a more personal level and keep them interested. If I were to do this assignment again, I would add a little bit of personality to my portion of the presentation to lighten up the environment. Another thing I learned from this assignment is that writing clear, precise, and effective instructions can be more difficult than you expect! It is sometimes hard to decide what information is essential and what is unnecessary. To help solve this problem, it is a good idea to rehearse the presentation ahead of time because sometimes you don't notice issues until you present aloud. Including pictures and graphics was a great tool in this assignment and helped give the audience a better idea of the process.