Extended Defitnion

I tweaked a few things and added a lot more.

Extended Definition of the Word Healthy

            Throughout my life, for as long as I can remember, I have tried to live a healthy lifestyle. When I was younger, I was always active, running around the yard or neighborhood. I ate right, although not necessarily because I wanted to but because it was the food my parents provided. I have since carried these values with me into college; getting a chance to run on the cross country and track teams has given me even more values that I will take with me to continue to be healthy as I grow older. But wait, what exactly is healthy?

            It is a word that we throw around loosely a lot. Everyone has their idea of what healthy is but according to the dictionary, healthy is possessing or enjoying good health or a sound and vigorous mentality. This definition circles around the word health too much. Health in the dictionary is the condition of being sound in body, mind, or spirit; especially free from physical disease or pain. There is more to being healthy than just possessing a sound body, mind, and spirit. I have learned that healthy is all about balance. The saying of too much of a good thing is a bad thing can be applied here.

            Too much exercise or eating too many vegetables, things that we often consider to be healthy, is actually unhealthy. We need rest to recover and other food groups to have a properly functioning body. I have found this out the hard way. As a runner in college, there is more emphasis on higher volume of training along with faster repetitions; all to make us better at what we do: running. However, when our bodies cannot keep up with the amount we stress them, they begin to break down. Running injuries are very common and I have had my fair share of them. I know what is like to be sidelined. Being in that situation gives you a lot of time to think. My biggest complaint about college running is that we take gambles too much with our health by stressing them so much. There is a never medium between training. It is run, run, run, or be sidelined for an extended period of time. This is not healthy, this is not balance.

            The same goes true for those that strive to be healthy by making sure that they exercise everyday, eating only the right foods and cutting out all “bad” ones. It eventually becomes an obsession, or an addiction all the while sacrificing their sanity and the relationships with those around them. In no way is that healthy. Healthy deals with more than just physical health; but instead mental and social health as well. In order to be healthy, someone cannot have one without the others.

Rough Rough Draft of Extended Definition

I changed the topic last minute so here is what I have so far...

Throughout my life, for as long as I can remember, I have tried to live a healthy lifestyle. But wait, what exactly is healthy? It is a word that we throw around loosely a lot. Everyone has their idea of what healthy is but according to the dictionary, healthy is possessing or enjoying good health or a sound and vigorous mentality. This definition circles around the word health too much. Health in the dictionary is the condition of being sound in body, mind, or spirit; especially free from physical disease or pain. There is more to being healthy than just possessing a sound body, mind, and spirit. Healthy is all about balance. The saying of too much of a good thing is a bad thing can be applied here. Too much exercise or eating too many vegetables, things that we often consider to be healthy, is unhealthy. We need rest to recover and other food groups to have a properly functioning body.

Diaz Lunch and Lecture

I really enjoyed having Junot Diaz on our campus last week. He is an incredibly smart man with a lot of insight to many more topics than just writing and art. His story of immigration to the United States and how he and his family made it in America is very interesting. I could listen to the guy for hours. I can't believe that I did not have any idea who he was before this class. He provokes me to think in different ways and see things in new lights. I plan to buy his collection of short stories, "Drown", in the near future.

Part One of "The Brief and Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao"

Diaz's novel is very innovative. I have never read a novel with such a format, it provides multiple narrators, thus different points of view. The story is good but I also think a big reason he won the Pulitzer Prize is because of his innovation. There is no other novel like it. This would have to be a big strength. Despite the multiple narrators, it is unclear in the first part is exactly who is narrating. It takes away from the story because Yunior is contradicted once Lola narrates. As a reader, we question what Yunior says is legitimate and actually happened. The narrators set up the story for us and give us a lot of background on the characters. With this we can foreshadow what is going to happen. Diaz does not use quotations or italicize the Spanish words which adds more authenticity to the stories being told. Some of his sentences are written differently than others. Some do not have complete subjects or predicates but it works because the reader still understands what is going on.

Walcott's Poem

Derek Walcott's poem prior to Diaz's novel was put in place for a reason. After reading the first part of the book, I have more insight to it's significance. In the novel, Oscar is not well liked. He carries with him his Dominican heritage and seems to be discriminated because of it. Walcott's poem also talks about the different backgrounds of America and that without a nation backing him, he is nothing. Both the poem and Diaz are trying to say that we need to come together and accept each others backgrounds.

My Writing Thus Far...

I think my writing skills for the class are just plain average right now. Like every writer, I have a lot of room for improvement. In order to improve my writing, I first need to spend more time with it. I need to read things over more than once or twice. Another thing I need to work on to improve my writing is to make sure I'm connecting with the reader when I'm writing. I need to make sure that as I read my work, the reader will be able to understand what I'm trying to say. I can't leave them hanging. I can do this by being more descriptive and elaborating more and making sure I have proper pronoun usage. However, more than anything, I just need to simply find more time to sit down, write, and review what I have written.

Editorial Idea

I want to talk about higher education and the high cost of it. Like I talked about on the community blog, I think there are flaws in the system. It seems of more of a business and less like a place to get a good education sometimes. I understand the universities need to make money but both faculty and students get shafted equally. However, I know I can't just complain the whole time throughout the editorial, I need to have an argument and solutions for the high cost of tuition. I haven't narrowed anything down yet. It is important to me though just because I feel there needs to be some kind of overhaul. I wish someone would step in to fix some of the problems. The students don't have any say either. Everyone is affected by the high costs of education, including all the students and staff. I, like mostly everyone else, will leave college with a high debt while at the same time facing a tough job market.