My E-Portfolio

My Name is Torri Yeargins and I am an Undergraduate student at the end of my first year of college. I am an Anthropology major at Penn State University Park. This year has so far been very eventful. I have learned so much over these past two semesters.  All together my first year has been filled with lots of new experiences and some old horrors have also been revisited. I had the pleasure of being enrolled in Stat 100 and Poli Sci 003 my first semester. Needless to say that these classes quickly changed my mind about what I wanted to do. I also took Italian Comedy and History, these classes were by far my favorites, that is until second semester came around and I met Nina Jablonski, who taught Evolution of Human Communication. She reaffirmed why I had come into college as and Anthropology major. I loved her class like no other before, includng High school classes. Unfortunately, my semester would not be complete until  took La101h and Ben Henderson tore into my papers for the first time. Until that point I had considered myself a great but undisiplined writer. My teachers had always said that I wrote great papers. It was not until Ben handed me my paper with a grade that was not an A and intructions to go to the writing center for tutoring , that I actually considered that their maybe something for me to learn in the class and that I had better pay attention!
Through the course of my journey through La101H  have had my views turned upside down. Be it about public speackng, or font, he showed me what I thought I knew was mostly wrong. I had not even considered that so much thought went into presenting things to the public. We learned how to take different approaches to get the best receptions by how we present things. This course really opened my eyes and the eportfolio is just a glimpse of everything that we did in it!. I hope you enjoy my work!


Here is the link: Torri's E-Portfolio

Rhetoric of Rhetoric and Civic Life

Hey guys as the semester comes to a close so too does my blog. This is officially the last blog post that I have to write and I have decided to write it on the wonders of taking rhetoric and civic Life.  This class has opened my eyes to all the aspects of rhetoric that there is, and it has taught me how to better my writing and how to make my speeches more efficient. It explained what the main points people looked for   are, and how they best learn, so why is it that we trust this class so much, what makes it so trustworthy?

Ethos:  The first thing Ben Henderson did when we finally settled down for class was introducing himself. He basically gave us his whole life story, told us his qualifications, his likes and dislikes and what he does in his spare time. He did this at the start, and has continued to do so over the past 15 weeks. He has supplied us with countless random facts, some about rhetoric and some not.  This has allowed me to come to the conclusion that he is Einstein and knows the answer to any question we ask him. His knowledge about the rhetoric of human interaction is what allows us to trust him and what he teaches us. We trust him enough that we have taken his knowledge and passed it on, so that others and learn all the interesting things that we have learned in his class.

So that’s it in a nutshell. The reason that rhetoric and civic life is so successful and that we take so much from it is because of our teacher. Every day in class he has us answer a random question, just to make sure we are there. He takes these answers, he listens, and he responds to them. He remembers them and he answers them himself. If he did not make this connection with us and teach the way he does, then I know without a doubt, that the class would just be another of the one we have to struggle to go to. That we resent, and moan about what we have to do in it. Instead, Rhetoric and Civic Life, is a class that we actually learn and discuss what we learn and apply it, instead of letting our knowledge stagnate.

Well……Its been Fun J

Its the End of the World As We Know It

Since the human race began there have been prophesies of it ending. Every civilization has had its guess at what the end of the world will be. The Bible, Koran, and other religious books all agree upon the coming of an end of days. This of course has a lot of relevance because the agrees upon day is approaching very quickly. So why is it that we believe in our own ending? Why are we so quick to believe that the world can not go on forever, and n fact will end this very year?  It is because of a nice little civilization that we call the Mayans.

The Mayans were a genius society in their own right, years ahead of their time. When we think of Mayans we tend to think of their “barbaric” practice of human sacrifice, which they did every day to appease their Gods in order to make the sun rise. We tend to over look the groundbreaking invention in math science and astronomy that they have contributed to our species. They are considered the first to come up with the concept of zero.  They also were the first to attempt brain and other surgeries. All of the inventions’ that they have come up with are what establishes their ethos, and allow us to trust their word about things. This is because their “beliefs” are based in science and can be proven, rather than mythology. This leads us to their most talked about invention, the Mayan Calendar.

The Mayan Calendar is so talked about, not only because it led to our basic calendar, which follows the moon and other stars based around positions of the sun, but because it has a definitive end. Many people believe that the Mayans new when the world was going to end, and because they were right about so much other stuff, people believe that they are right about this too. They have such strong belief because there are so many stories about the world ending, and prophesies being right, so being given an actual date relieves some people, and sends others into denial. This calendar feeds into societies own belief that it will end soon. People use the established ethos of the Mayans and the pathos of society to lend credibility to this theory of the end. Personally, I am a wait and see what happens kind of person, I won’t know if it is true until it happens, so like the rest of the world, I will be holding my breath in December.

To learn more visit this link: http://www.exitmundi.nl/Maya.htm

The Unlikely Hero

Ever since J.K wrote them, the Harry Potter books have taken the world by storm. They are among the best selling books in the world. Every book was made into a successful movie franchise, because of how many people are in love with them. What makes Harry Potter so Popular. Why is the story of an abused child who overcame much to become the hero of an undiscovered world, the one that touched billions of people’s hearts? Is it because we can identify with the character, or is it because we naturally root for the underdog in any situation. Maybe it is because we secretly wish that we had some undiscovered power and want someone to rescue us from our lives and transport us to a magical world of the likes we have never seen.

Harry Potter is surprisingly popular in that it was started in a time where reality based books were more popular. Science fiction was popular to some but it was not mainstream. Harry Potter changed that. The books selling as they did allowed for other writers to try their hand at fantasy, and it led to books like Twilight, and Eragon being written. Americans tend to side with the underdogs, because we ourselves feel like we are the underdogs who triumphed over the controlling England. So when we see a boy, orphaned and made to act like a servant to abusive relatives, we can identify and hope for the best for him. J.K. took us on the adventure of a life time, following Harry through school, and overcoming every obstacle with him. I believe that the Harry Potter books worked so well because both Harry and the population reading him were new to the magic world, so as he experienced new things, so did we.


J.K. really used pathos to make us fall in love with her characters. I am sure people will still be reading these books and watching the movies years from now. I’ve got my box set…Do You!

What are our Kids really learning from Disney?

I recently had to do a movie project for class. My group and I chose to do Disney for it. Not just any Disney, but the effect that it had on children. During this project we had to dissect many of my childhood favorites. Needless to say I came out very disappointed in the company I believed made magic.

We found out that not only are the majority of the songs and storylines sexist and borderline racist, but they are also very offensive to more than just one race. Disney portrays its characters in such a way that children are left with the thought that to be a good wife you must cook and clean and sing and wait on your husbands. They are also left with the insinuation that all Indians are savages, all Latinos steal cars, all black people are jazz talking cool Daddy-os’. When Disney’s songs and movies are dissected it is astounding how much they are influencing are children’s thoughts.

When we look at it seems obvious what they are doing, but when you are in the heat of the moment watching the movie with your giggling child who seems to experience every seen as if it were happening to them, we tend to over look the obvious. We tend to trust Disney so well because of their established ethos. Disney created the first animated cartoons, and they have followed us through the years. We trust them because they are the same cartoons that we watched when we were younger.  The make you empathize with every character in the movie until you are able to quote their lines. They make catchy timeless rhyming songs that are so fun to sing. So it is no wonder that we are blind to their faults, when they seem to create such joy. Even though it is false.

Forgive and Forget

Forgive but never forget this is one of my best friends’ life motto. She even went as far as getting it tattooed on to her body. She lives by this motto, and yet I don’t think she truly understands it. How can we say we forgive someone and yet not forget their past actions? IF we forgive them doesn't it mean we are willing to look pass their misdeeds or whatever they did to us. Yet if we don’t forget that is like saying we will hold a grudge forever. There will always be that one black spot in the friendship. One friend will never fully trust the other. It will always be a voice in the back of their minds reminding them of all the things this friend may have done. When life goes on the things will begin to pile up, as we are human and it is the human condition that allows us our mistakes. Ii know my friend is already starting as she continues to bring up something that happened in the seventh grade.

I am an easy going person, once I consider something done that usually settles it. So, her continuously bringing up something that I have already put behind me is grating. I feel as if once a situation is solved to the best of one’s ability we should then put that situation behind us and move on. Life has too many bumps in the road to be caught up in something that, on a large scale, doesn’t really matter. I believe the saying should be forgive and forget, because if it is something you are willing to forgive a person for, then there is no reason to remember it. If you’re not willing to forget then don’t pretend to forgive.

Know The Code

Every time I sit down in the bathroom and look up I am faced with a colorful eight by eleven sheet of paper. This paper just happens to be Stall Stories, a weekly news sheet with about eight articles on it that is placed in the Penn State bathroom stalls. One such article is the Know Your Code section.

In The Know Your Code article, the code of the Pennsylvania State School is discussed in such a way that is easy to understand. Not only is it easy to understand but it is given in pieces so that you are not overwhelmed all at once with the stories. They give it to you in parts so that you can contemplate more on what is being read then on just reading it. I believe that Kairos plays a huge part in the know your code articles. When people are sitting on a toilet there is little there to distract them. Most of us are not getting up anytime soon. The article is also placed at eye level from where you sit down, so it is directly in front of our gazes. We have little else to do in a bathroom but read the paper in front of us. I know that my eyes are immediately drawn to. The paper also has ethos as it is a paper given by the school, not something random that a student printed and taped to the door, we can trust what they are saying.

Stall Stories is a smart way to keep the students informed about what is happening that week, and the Know The Code section is a brilliant way to help students know when they are doing something they are not supposed to be doing. It teaches them the code that is otherwise unknown seeing as its normal appearance is in a large book that is written in an archaic language that is hard to decipher. I know I leave the bathroom with more knowledge than what I came in with. 

Sucky Video For Class

This is just a video we made for class its the best video ever!  ;)

Legals Only

Everyone has an opinion about the immigration issue. Either we are for allowing illegal immigrant into the country or we are against it. Personally I don’t mind either way. To me, there is no such thing as immigration. Who are we to put up borders on the Earth? I believe that no one can own land and that it should be open to any who want to settle. Humans are nomadic creatures by nature; it is what made us leave Africa in the first place. Just because most of the world is known colonized does not mean that we should stop.  Unfortunately not everyone believes the same as me.  In fact people go so far as to create ads to pull people over to their point of view, which is that immigration is bad.

The Rhetoric of these ads tends to focus more on evoking pathos then the logos. If we were to focus on the logos of these commercials then we would find that they do not make sense. They are usually filled with false information, or they do not give all the information. They make general statements and apply them to the whole of the population. The sad thing is that people believe this. They hear that someone is coming over and taking their money and jobs and they freak out. They forget that the only people who can claim the land is the Native Americans and everyone else are immigrants!

The problem is not that they are coming over and stealing the jobs that we do not want. The problem is that we are sending the jobs that we need overseas, because it is cheaper. All of these politicians who say that immigration is a huge problem and they are stealing our jobs, they are the primary ones who send the jobs away because it is cheaper.  The hypocrisy of our nation is truly astounding.

Horror #1: Public Speaking

Early this week in class we gave presentations on our analysis of certain consumer advertisements. During this presentation we were to give a speech that lasted longer than four minutes.  I chose the Old Spice ad: The Man Your Man Could Smell Like. Now I did the research and I connected what happened in the ad to what we learned in class, and I felt like I had a pretty good handle on what the ad was trying to say, and how they were getting their information across. However as soon as I stood in front of the class it was like all my knowledge fled out the window. I became an instant epileptic with how much I was shaking. My whole body was vibrating and because I was standing in front of the podium, everyone saw it. When all their eyes focused on me it was like I froze and all my smoothness went out the window. Now normally I am, while not very calm, a smooth talker, with fast ideas and even faster words. I like to get my ideas out there and have people tell me I am right. But as soon as I am put in front of a class all of my smoothness goes out of the window. It only happens when I stand up in front of the class, if I could do the presentation sitting down I would be fine.

When we are publicly speaking we are putting ourselves on display, leaving ourselves open to the criticism of others. When we are just talking to others in our peer group on less serious occasions we do not think on the judgment they are paying to us only what we are saying. But when we are told we are being graded on what we say and how we say it, it adds a level of stress that is not there normally. This is because we put so much weight on how people speak. When learning other languages we first learn that there is a formal and informal version. When we are talking to friends we unknowingly use the informal version of English, but when we publicly speak we are forced to use the formal version.  We get so stressed out because this is not a version that we use often and so it does not come as naturally.

Bottom line, I think either we should began learning about publicly speaking in second grade so that by the time it matters we are desensitized to it; or we should just get rid of it all together.

Stick to papers people!

Gone but Never Forgotten

The past five years have been ones of loss. It seems as if all the greats are dropping one by one, but this post is not to comment on their loss, but more the public’s reaction to their loss. This past week we have lost Whitney Houston, a devastating blow to the R&B genre. With 475 awards she has won more accolades for her voice than any other artist. She has gone on free tours for the troops so that for just an hour they could forget about the fighting and death. She has sold over 175 million albums, and overcame many hardships in her life, including drugs and domestic abuse. She was on her way back to the limelight when she passed away.

Despite the accomplishments that she has made in her life people still only focus on the negative. They only see that she used to be a crack addict, they don’t see that she overcame her addiction, or raised a beautiful daughter. They only see the bad and none of the good. Why is it that in times when we are supposed to come together, do we stand apart the most? When her death was announced many people put up facebook statuses saying RIP or “gone but not forgotten”. These are the people who want their grief acknowledge, or want to show that they have respect for the lost person. Then you have the facebook statuses saying about how they don’t care, or how they are sick of people posting about the subject. Just tonight I read a status about how someone thinks it’s disgusting that Jersey is putting their flags at half mast for her, how they don’t think she deserves it because she was just a “crack head” and how the troops die all the time and nobody cares. I thought this statement was very uninformed. Whitney Houston did plenty for America; even if it was just helping people get through their day with her music. Everyone that dies for their country be it a police officer or a soldier is given their due and are honored accordingly. We even have whole national holidays for them! It is the people who help their countries in less obvious ways that get ignored, and I believe that they should be remembered as well; like Whitney Houston.

So for all those unsung heroes out there, even if the only thing they ever did was put a smile on someone else’s face, remember: You May Be Gone, But You Will Never Be Forgotten. 

No Offence But....

“No offence but", “I don't mean to be rude" etc.... These are just some of the sayings that we attach to the heads of our sentences before we say something that is in fact very rude or offensive. We say them to somehow head off the retribution that whatever we are saying incurs. We refuse to own up the hurt and offense that what we say incurs. This line of thought goes against rhetoric’s logos and ethos, and is almost purely pathological. We have something rude to say, we don’t want to be perceived as rude, so we then we make a statement that is a contradiction to what we are going to say; as if saying I don’t mean to be rude stops you from being rude.

“Anything said via vocal communication, is public information”. This means that anytime we speak to be heard, whatever we say is no longer just between you and whoever you are talking to. It becomes public property, so that anyone who can hear it is now privy to that knowledge. To countermand that we have created a host of social niceties and norm so that we can use our voices in privacy: “Its rude to eavesdrop”, “whisper it to me”, or the famous “no offense but”, or we add “lol” to make a serious comment not so serious. All of these things that we have created for one reason only, to save our reputations. No one wants to be known as the “bitch” or the person who is always talking about others. So we enact punishments on those who are listening, we call them “nosy”, or “eavesdroppers”. Anything that we can do to save the way people look upon us and still be popular.

The moral of this story is, if you don’t have anything nice to say, then don’t say it out loud.

This I Believe....

Oh The Places We Go

Language is Arbitrary

Today in my Anthropology class, it was my turn to present a chapter of the Origin of Communication by Tomasello. My part of the chapter had to do with the development of language in infants. Basically infants can communicate but until they develop the mental facilities to understand that other people have goals and intentions different from themselves that they can share, they can’t put their thoughts and actions into a legible language. They can only point, gesture, and pantomime. Tomasello also said that “If association or “mapping” were all that is involved in acquiring a linguistic convention, the language would be everywhere in the animal kingdom, and it would start at three months of age in humans instead of nine. The reason is that arbitrary linguistic conventions can be acquired only in the context of some kind of conceptual common ground with mature speakers.”

 This stood out to me because it made me realize that we only have spoken word because as individual persons we all agree that words mean what they do. Words themselves have no meaning, they are only empty puffs of air, but because we associate them with a material object and agree that the word means the object, we have language. That’s why there are so many different languages because different “cultures” of people agreed on a different set of sounds. It just amazed me because the thing that separates us from the rest of the animal kingdom, our ability to work together as a group to make the best of situations, depends completely upon the majority ruling of meanings. If I decided that I wanted to call cats dogs, and created a following and we petitioned and got the words switched, I could. It doesn’t stop the cats from being cats or turn them into dogs; I just changed what the animal is called. It just drove home the fact that words themselves are empty. It shocked me.

“Language is a social art. In acquiring it we have to depend entirely on Intersubjectively available cues as to what to say and when.” (Quine)

I Invite You to Share in My Knowledgeable Ignorance

Early this week, during my Rhetoric and Civic life class, we were shown a video that really sparked my interest.  The video was an act performed on Def Comedy Jam by an English teacher. He was speaking about how we use declarative sentences that sound like questions and put "like" in places where it is not needed. Something that really stood out to me was when he said "it is as if I am inviting you to share in my ignorance".
He was speaking of course about how we speak about a topic that we know a lot about, but at the last minute add "I don't know" somewhere. It is as if we are avoiding committing ourselves to sharing the knowledge of a subject that we know much about. This stood out to me because I find myself doing it more often then not. I consider myself a well read person, and can speak well about any number of subjects that happen to pop up during conversation. Yet I do not commit myself to my knowledge. When a question is asked to me, and I know the answer, "I don't know" still finds itself in my sentence. I could be commenting on something that I read verbatim and yet I still would add that little blurb on the off chance that I might be wrong.  It is not our fault that we add uncertainty into our sentences. It is the fault of an education system that strikes fear into those who get wrong answers, to the point that they feel its is better off not to answer the question on the off chance that they might get it wrong. I feel that if you add that you might not be right, and it turns out that your not, it is infinitely better in the long run. You still end up looking ignorant, but you already informed them that you might be wrong. No one counts how many right answers you give, but get one question or fact wrong and its joke fuel for weeks.
Knowledge is power. We as humans have a curiosity that is matched by no other species in that we want to know everything and work to find it out. Why then are we afraid to share our discoveries. To be rejoice in the fact that we know something that others might not be aware of. Why must I start a sentence of fact with "I'm not really sure" when I know exactly what I'm talking about. Ignorance is not bliss when the ignorance is a fabrication to hide the true knowledge of knowing more than those around you. Ignorance is nothing to laugh at especially when it is simply a lack of knowledge that is easily corrected. No longer will I start facts off with "I don't really know, but I think", I will be secure in my knowledge because I truly know what I'm talking about. Though there's always room to learn more. No longer do I invite you to share in my ignorance,

I invite you to share in my knowledge.

Blame It on The Accent

Potato Potato, Tomato Tomato, they all look the same but the way we and our English neighbors pronounce them differ greatly. While we stress the "a" in our words, the English tend to ease off it a little. We accept the difference that our two cultures place on our pronunciations of the same words, Why then do we not accept the differences in speech that come not from across the "pond" but from down the high way. I am a proud member of the city of Philadelphia, however I work with a girl from New York. Today when we went on break I asked her to pass me something very common and she acted as if I had said something outrageous, a water bottle. She repeatedly asked me what I was saying as if I was speaking a foreign language. " A what bottle", I would reply water, this went on for several minutes until finally she said do you mean wa-ter. I replied that that was what I said.  "No, you said wa-der". This comment set me off.
Why is it that we ostracize the way others from our own country speak when they say words different then we are used to, yet we fantasize over foreign accents. Why is my accent considered ruff and uneducated, where as a British accent is acceptable and looked on fondly. She made a fuss about the way I was speaking, even though she knew exactly what I meant. I didn't say pass me a  marijuana bottle. She just did it to point out that I was saying something out of her norm. In my city we all say water the same way, we don't correct each other, and our more likely to make fun if you say it different. The bottom line is that language is alive and subject to change, that is why we have so many dialects in the world today, because humans don't have a uniform language. Why now in modern times do we allow it to stagnate.  I believe that pronunciation is a regional ideal and there is no set way to pronounce any one word. As long as their is a common understanding to what is being said then there should be no problem.  I hold out hope that the next time I ask her to pass me a bottle of water, she just does it, and saves the inquisition for something else of supposed import.