And just like that spring break is over and I'm back on my grind getting work done and creating blog posts...  I've been requested by my vast audience to include images in my post so...  Let's talk about memes for a minute.



I love memes.  They're hilarious.  I especially dig this one above because I can heavily relate to it.  So can most of the people who look at it.  What really makes memes so great is that they're easy to understand and relate to.  It could be argued that memes are a great advancement in human communications.  But I'd like to analyze this concept further.

Now let's hypothetically say I was working my job one fine day and it just so happened that day that there was absolutely no work which needed to be done.  After leaving my work I post a selfie on Instagram of myself in my work polo with a nice smile on my face.  I accompany the photo with text which basically says, "Today at work I did absolutely nothing.  I just sat around.  This is me leaving work." Except with more descriptive words.

That would be dumb.  Nobody does that.  As soon as I see someone post that I'm going to wonder, "Why are you telling the world you did nothing at work today?  Was the selfie really necessary?"

But when I see the baby face in the meme accompanied by the text it clicks.  It makes perfect sense and of course I know what the creator of the meme was getting to.  Not because I worked the exact same job he or she did and was there that day when he or she did nothing.  Rather because I've had a similar experience which I relate to.  Did my face actually look like the baby's face? No.  But it felt like that and that's all that matters.

But it's odd that something as vague, impersonal, and crude as a meme is so effective.  Memes seem to be a really efficient way of expressing an idea.  While I've established my love for memes, I believe that older media is much more powerful and deeper in meaning.

In the past people looked to literature such as Shakespeare to find concepts which they could relate to and which represent the human condition.  Artists (I'm not going to pretend I know an example for this) could paint pictures which did the same thing.  And even today I'd say that many music artists (especially hip hop) capture the essence of the human struggles and triumphs through their lyrics.

I just think it's crazy how an image with a virtually anonymous creator can accomplish or even come close to representing the phenomena of the human condition in ways which other artist spend years attempting to convey through their given medium.  

That took more words than I expected... Now on to the good stuff about English 301.

Chapter 18 of the Markel text book changed how I think about lab reports.  Don't get me wrong I still hate doing them but I think I respect them more now.  I never thought of a lab report as a persuasive argument (Markel 491),  The entire chapter really informs the reader of the importance of a lab report and also how to effectively compose one.  I really wish I had read this chapter when I was taking that Physics class the other year...  But now I know how to plan for creating a lab report if I ever decide to do research on something.

I suppose the project I'm working on now (the report on the Institute for Humanities) is kind of a lab report like document.  I'm creating a document which illustrates and describes my findings from conducting primary research on the organization's website.  So I think I can actually use this new found instruction right away.

There's a lot of information in chapter 8 which one might find interesting.  I've always liked writing persuasively rather than informatively.  I feel the need to convince people of something through examples.  I might not be the best at it but I guess that's why I'm reading this chapter.

I thought that it was interesting to learn the how claims should be presented (Markel 192).  There are different styles and patterns of presentation and how the persuasion goes down that differ between cultures.  I'm curious to see more examples of this and compare it to my own personal styles of persuasion.

What's really great are the logical fallacies which Markel brings up.  I'm sure I'm guilty of these on a regular basis and but I'm glad that these were brought to my attention.  I'll be on the lookout to see that I don't fall victim to one of the blunders.

That's all for now.  Have a wonderful day, World.