Figurative Language Analysis- Overstatement

Emily Matchar's "Why I can't stop reading Mormon housewife blogs," employs effective figurative language in order to get the audience onto the same page.  Her use of overstatement is extremely effective on the audience when she says, "And don’t even get me started on the Mommy Blogs, which make parenthood seem like a vale of judgment and anxiety, full of words like 'guilt' and 'chaos' and 'BPA-free' and 'episiotomy.'  Read enough of these, and you’ll be ready to remove your own ovaries with a butter knife." (Italics added in by me.)  Matchar makes this bold statement in order to shock the audience.  Of course she does not mean the sentence literally, but she it trying to get the point across that Mommy Blogs by other people other than Mormons tend to be depressing and stressful.  When Matchar states, "... you'll be ready to remove your own ovaries with a butter knife," she simply means that after reading those depressing blogs, the idea of having children  will seem like a nightmare.  her crude manner of putting that sentence also makes it more abrupt for the audience to read, making them ultimately reject the idea of reading the non-Mormon Mommy blogs; thus, fulfilling the goal of Emily Matchar in supporting the reading of Mormon blogs.

Rhetorical Analysis Thesis

Emily Matchar's "Why I can’t stop reading Mormon housewife blogs" effectively advocates the reading of Mormon blogs to people who may or may not have similar backgrounds or interests to those of the LDS (Mormon) religion by use of vivid imagery, heavy allusions, and various settings and perspectives in order for the reader to not only feel enamored with, but also logically put together the benefits of reading blogs that support a domestic lifestyle.

Girls! PFFT!

So, normally I write about random "blobs" and stuff ("blobs" is equivalent to blogs for new readers), but today I will focus on something a little bit different. Why do girls fantasize about things that they would never in actuality want in their life? Take for instance, the Twilight Series: with the new movie on its way to hit the theaters, I think it is a relevant reference. Anyways, back to the point.  I was just thinking about male stars and why girls like them so much.  I am in no way hating on Stephanie Meyers books, of course; in fact, I read the books and I liked them very much. Plus, I really appreciated the way Stephanie Meyers developed the characters so well; however, the movies and the fans are a bit ridiculous to me. 

Everytime one of the new Twilight Series movies comes out, I find myself dreading the audience and posters and everything that I find surrounding me.  I hear girls fighting about "Team Edward" or "Team Jacob" and I cannot help thinking, "hey, that's kind of super lame."  I mean, for one thing, they are not real people: they are fictional characters. For another thing, the actors are just regular people and definitely nothing to be oogling at.  Taylor Lautner, for example: sure, he's built and everything, but-- he was sharkboy and will forever be just that. 

(My best friend and I happened upon a free poster of Taylor Lautner.  Gaze upon the Splendour! GAZE.)

What's more is the fact that girls always fantasize about some man who will sweep them off their feet and whisk them away to happily ever after land. Girls-- you do not want a guy who sneaks into your room while you are sleeping just to hear you talk while you sleep; you would definitely think it creepy of them. 

Anyways, I have no idea why I wanted to write on this subject. I think I just wanted to draw the picture at the top of the page and expound on it. Thanks for reading this rant! :)

Blobbing about Blogs?

I love to rhetorically analyze things; thus, I have decided to do a rhetorical analysis on this blog post http://www.salon.com/life/feature/2011/01/15/feminist_obsessed_with_mormon_blogs
The rhetoric situation of this blog is focusing on why mormon "mommy blogs" are so uplifting for everyday people who may or may not have religious focuses in their lives. 
1.The author is trying to show that even though her ideas of faith (or lack thereof) are inherently different from mormons, they do not seem to diminish her fascination with the messages that mormons present in their  blogs, and she appreciates their positive attitude; she wants to share her experience to persuade others to read them.
2. The author uses several different tools of logic (logos) to strengthen her argument.  For instance, she says that mormons are so good at blogging because "Church elders have long encouraged members to keep regular journals for the dual purposes of historical record-keeping and promoting spiritual insight, and as a result Mormons are champion journalers and scrapbookers," which only makes sense. The author also uses emotional connection to improve her argument through examples of her personal experience in reading mormon mommy blogs.
3. These tools that the author uses in this blog helps the audience believe that since she has had such a positive outcome with reading mormon blogs, that they too can feel the "uplifting" experience that she has.  Also, the author helps the audience think that in a general sense, people do not have to have the same beliefs, to raise each other up and encourage good morals.
4. The author needs the audience/reader to think, feel, and believe in her blog because she feels so strongly about the subject of being a feminist-athiest, but that she is able to read something by someone of completely opposite beliefs; she just wants to help others know that they can fall into the same category.

All in all, I think this blog is very interesting.  Mostly because I, myself, am a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormon religion), and I think it intriguing that this woman has been so affected from reading from members of my same faith and feels the obligation to share that with others.  I just think that that is a pretty cool trend of blogging about others blogs-- kind of weird, but still cool. (I'm a hypocrite, obviously. hahaha!)

Opinion Editorial Process Evaluation

I'm not particularly sure if I have any real genuine thoughts on creating my opinion editorial concerning the subject of awkardness.  It was interesting to see how much a paper could develop with each round it went through and how much each level required for input.  I mean, the rough draft was REALLY rough and I did not take any time to edit it at all, because that is what instigates a quality rough draft paper, right? So, editing that definitely took most of the work. It was nice to get feedback on how to make the paper much more appealing, as well as how to be more specific. I enjoyed the comments people would make as they read the paper each time, so I could fix it as well. However, I have always enjoyed writing; it just seems to be a good way to spend time, so I do not know if I would say that I felt out of sorts when writing about something that I wanted to write about.  Then, the polished rough draft was nice just to get in some cleaner editing and revision.  I enjoy taking the time to get all almost all of the spelling errors or punctuation corrections, as well as getting other people to read it so I can fix any unanswered counterarguments that they might see and I had never thought of.  I tend to notice that other people have good advice because they all think completely differently, so if I want to appeal to a large audience, it's good to get their opinions beforehand.  Any who, by the time I got to the final draft of my opinion editorial, I only had to focus on minor punctuation corrections and sprinkling in better wording for the "Awkward Blob."  My favorite part of this process was the pictures, though; they were just hilarious to make and I think they really help the argument I'm trying to portray.  Plus, they add humor, which is always good. I want people to think I'm funny!

The Awkward Blob

People are an interesting sort of specimen. In all my years of wisdom and learning (18 years, if you really want to know), I have never met another species as intriguing and as complex as humans. They are able to express so many emotions, develop so many sets of skills,  make advances in all the world’s innovations, and so on and so forth.  In all the successes of the Homo sapien, however, I find the most fascinating one to be the natural, yet somehow unnatural, capability of people to take any situation and make it exceedingly more awkward than it has to be by means of stiff silence, inappropriate moments of speech, or the making of gestures that are--well, just odd in the sight of others. However, it has been my understanding that people do not have to excel in the expertise of gawky behavior; in fact, it would be beneficial if more people would not allow themselves to participate in it.

There are several different locations and groups in order to find oneself in a situation of exemplified awkwardness.  College is a particularly good place to recognize these perfected moments of discomfort. (*Note that I mention college because that is where I am in life right now.)  Alright, so imagine going to class (especially the first day of school.) 

You want to make friends so you take a seat in a pretty good location--just in the middle of everything--in hopes that someone will sit beside you.

In a few short minutes you realize class has started and the closest people to sit next to you are exactly one seat away in distance.  Since they are not directly beside you, no initiating conversation has been made nor introductions placed; and as you look around the room during the class discussion, you are constantly reminded that you feel weird about the glances you are making with those two people that you never really got to meet.

This is a typical situation for any gathering amongst strangers in an auditorium-like setting; in fact, it is very similar to my first day of college.  The situation provided, however, is not necessarily the first person’s fault ( the one who sat down and found themselves with a radius of empty seats surrounding them).  While that person could have taken initiative and said, “Hey, come sit by me! No need to be shy,” the people coming in and taking seats exactly one seat away seem more responsible.  Their thought process, no doubt, is concerned that by asking to sit by someone, they would magically cause some worse situation, than sitting next to a stranger. Now, I understand that in reality people are not perfect, and some even like their space when it comes to sitting in a crowded room, but that is certainly no excuse for negligence.  Of course, we find ourselves on both sides of the awkward situation: sometimes we’re the one making it awkward, other times the opposite party is making it awkward, and in really great situations--it is a group effort! My question is, what’s so hard about just talking to people and being friendly? It really is not that difficult, and I am positive the results would only be beneficial. Of course, not every single person chooses the shy route when found in potentially disastrous atmospheres.


While shyness definitely plays a role in the transpiration of clumsy events, the results of people who have no filter for when things are appropriate or not seem to provide much stronger cases of repulsion and disbelief amongst an audience.  What I mean by this, is that there are many times that people talk because they do not want things to be weird. So, they give away more knowledge than what people actually want to hear, leaving their listeners in a perturbed state. I once experienced this in group function at church, and I am not going to lie to you, I am amazed at the amount of information people will share with others.  So, my church group was having an activity one night and we were at the part where one group of people have “the spotlight,” which basically means that they present something to everyone else so we get to know a little bit more about them.  This particular group consisted of 3 girls asking 3 boys several general questions about themselves (like one of those old, lame game shows). Everything had gone alright, you know, questions about what their best date was or whatever other marriage-related topics they could think about, until the last question came up. One of the girls spoke up, “What is your most embarrassing moment?” DOOM.  The first two boys had decently bad experiences, but nothing too terrible, and then “Patchy” answered (his name is not really “Patchy,” of course. I’m just protecting his identity). Of course, he felt inclined to tell us his actual most embarrassing moment: him eating some foreign food that inevitably did not agree with him, resulting in him having an explosion of diarrhea while cooking dinner the next night.  That’s right--no filter whatsoever with “Patchy...” and I’m not just referring to his toilet.
Besides the challenge of one-sided awkwardness, I think it is safe to say that awkwardness can come equally from both sides.  Whether it is a date where you quickly discover that you share no interests at all with the person, or a situation I’m sure I have experienced: walking into someone, muttering some unidentifiable words because you were caught off guard, and both of you confusingly make movements you had no idea your body could make, in order to move out of each other’s way and get back onto the path to your destination. These moments are pretty common, though, and while we may not put much thought into them, they are still very apparent (and very uncomfortable). All in all, classic, bumpy, inescapable routes of the common person. 

(Check out this site for more REAL awkward moments from REAL PEOPLE! Include your own moments, if you would like as well!) http://www.theawkwardmoment.com/

There are those of us, however, who can break the bonds of social entrapment; whether it is a natural gift or the product of self-motivation, I do not know, but it is possible. I have witnessed the talent of several people, who simply are immune to shyness or overbearance.   They go to a party and completely open themselves up to people they have never met before, they go to school their first day and initiate conversation with whomever they feel like talking to at that moment; however, most importantly, they talk, and they do it without saying something out of term.  The leading cause for socially awkward situations can most often be pointed out specifically to a lack of conversation.  Now, there are also plenty of cases where people say too much (we’ve all had that experience on one side or the other); but for the most part, this is true.  Whether we, as people, are afraid of receiving judgement from others or just feeling inadequate, our efforts at avoiding awkwardness fail us with every word of silence we do not take the courage to break.  


So, why continue in pointless attempts at a graceful facade, if they are not working? Take a chance and sit next to someone you have never met before.  If you are afraid of human contact with strangers, pretend like you have never felt afraid a day in your life.  You have immeasurable capabilities. When walking by someone, just smile and say, “hi.” There’s no doubt about it; the human race will find itself stumbling less on the path of life when the people stop looking at their own two feet, and look up from the ground to talk with each other.  

The Conceited Porpoise (This Title has No Relation to the Topic)

Ever find yourself getting paranoid over things? (Please, do not respond to that question.) Let me expound on that thought, though. I notice, sometimes, that I haven't had something happen in awhile, and then that topic/thing starts popping up everywhere. For instance, this summer I went with some friends to go on a river float and one of them mentioned the fact that they bruise easily.  I had thought about it for a second.  "I don't really bruise that often," I proceeded to comment.  Little did I know, then, that I was later going to fall in the river and get several bruises on my leg, as well as, get 2 huge bruises on my arm the next day from climbing up a stairwell (long story, but there's one of the two bruises below). 

Needless to say, I was surprised after receiving so many apparent injurious bruises, that nobody called me out for being a "bruise-easy hypocrite."  Of course, I am not sure if people want to point out bruises on a person, especially if they are to the point that they look as if someone was beating them (touchy subject, I won't expound on.) 

BUT IT DID NOT END THERE! Yeah, I thought that it was kind of weird to get bruises after thinking that I rarely get them, but seriously. Now, it seems like I cannot go an entire week without getting a new bruise to replace the last one to start fading. I honestly believe I have had about 17 bruises in the last 2 months, not even joking. I just got my newest one from volleyball last Friday. 

I think it might continue on forever at this rate. It is actually a VERY big deal.  (Actually, it really isn't.)  Anyways! So, enough about my silly little bruises and observations. I would like to hear about YOU.  Have you ever had a similar situation to this? Not necessarily the bruises thing, but just something that involved you noticing some particular object that kept appearing in your life? Maybe you would always run into a certain cat every day or end up parking next to the same type of car all the time... who knows! Just, SHARE IT! :D