ukfantdav

Yitbos - @ukfantdav- #webstagram

Mon, 16 Apr 2012 22:32:54 -0400

Yitbos - @ukfantdav- #webstagram

Video Project

Thu, 29 Mar 2012 22:10:00 -0400

Prospective roles/parts for each person in our group and video

Introduction (Taylor Mullins) - :30 to :45

Issue/Research/Both Sides/Stakeholders/Positions (Tyler Davoren) - 1:00 to 1:15

Initial Thoughts (Austin Barnett) - :45 to 1:00

How our opinions have changed (Sam Burton) - :30 to :45

Conclusion (Chris Best) - :30 to :45

No english on Wed/Fri...

Tue, 20 Mar 2012 12:54:18 -0400

Bien! Bon! Good! I’ll get to sleep in but I’ll continue my research for our project. I’m leaning towards making the video through iMovie since I used the program last semester and it served me well.

Reports on Collegiate Athletes

Tue, 06 Mar 2012 11:26:45 -0500

Crazy stuff.. used it in my essay. I had no idea that the “full” scholarships players receive don’t cover all expenses. The fact that these athletes who earn millions for their school still have to pay to go there is ridiculous.

http://assets.usw.org/ncpa/Findings.pdf

In related news, I think I finished my rhetorical analysis this morning. The bibliography’s done, the pictures flow nicely with the text, and I added the above point into the writing. Feelin’ pretty good bout this one.

Photo

Fri, 02 Mar 2012 16:00:13 -0500

Stumbled upon this..

Fri, 02 Mar 2012 15:27:39 -0500

Was doing some reading just for pure enjoyment and stumbled upon a quote about paying NCAA athletes a stipend of +$2,000..

“And if I was at the table negotiating, here is what I would say:

These kids get a stipend — and more than $2,000.

Their insurance, which they have to pay for right now, would be covered by either the universities or the NCAA. (Update: To clarify, I am talking about the NCAA’s Exceptional Student-Athlete Disability Program.)

If they do stay in school, their families get to tap into a loan program after the first year that is capped.

Lastly, on the NBA side, if a young man stays in school, he can renegotiate his rookie deal faster than someone who comes out sooner, plus the pay scale goes up the longer he stays in school.”

- CALIPARI himself

http://espn.go.com/blog/collegebasketballnation/post/_/id/50769/john-calipari-explains-uks-great-myth

Basketball research

Wed, 29 Feb 2012 19:11:23 -0500

The case for paying college athletes - http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424053111904060604576572752351110850.html

UK Men’s Basketball page (Anthony Davis and Michael Kidd-Gilchrist nominated…)

- http://www.ukathletics.com/sports/m-baskbl/spec-rel/022912aad.html

Looooove map

Thu, 23 Feb 2012 10:52:59 -0500

Hey y’all. I interviewed My good friend Austin, his girlfriend Alex, and his roommate Jeston. They all spend a ton of time with each other so it came as no surprise that Austin got high scores when it came to knowing Alex and Jeston well. Alex scored higher since she knew the answers to more deep philosophical questions, compared to the simple, concrete ones that both of them scored well on. For example, both answered correctly what his favorite color was. Jeston was incorrect, however, in answering Austin’s favorite childhood experience and what his fondest unrealized dream was. Alex was much more close to hitting the pin on the head for both of those “deeper” questions, whereas Jeston only knew the concrete ones. Since I know both Alex and Austin well I know that they spend a lot of time together, but this exercise really confirms it; she knows a lot of stuff about him that you figure would only come out in relationships once a couple spends a lot of time together. They consider each other to be best friends and it shows. Alex also knew of Austin’s stressors whereas Jeston had no idea. Alex knew of the tests Austin has coming up and she knows that sometime he gets stressed out about being so far away from his family. Jeston, as a friend, is more just there in good times (whereas Alex is there in good times and bad)

Basketball, fights, and love.

Tue, 21 Feb 2012 00:57:59 -0500

This week’s blog post covers Gottman’s seven principles for making marriage work. In class this past week, we talked about the four horsemen of apocalypse: criticism, contempt, defensiveness, and stonewalling. I’m only human so I find myself at fault for any and all of these on every day occasions. Today, I nearly got into a fight with someone on the basketball court. It was completely uncharacteristic of me as I always pride myself on being a good teammate and an even better competitor. But I was having one of the least productive games I’ve had in as long as I can remember, I’ve had a very long week, I was tired, and felt physically sick. The man who I was guarding kept pulling at my jersey and throwing elbows because he knew he could get away with it; the referees were letting us play physically, which I dished right back at him (in which case I would typically let it go), but got even more angered as he got away with plays I thought to be dirty. I held my temper and didn’t end up doing anything because one of my teammates picked up on my overly aggressive demeanor and stepped in at just the right time. I was, at one point, only an elbow or another jersey grab from throwing a punch. The defensiveness with which I carried myself is something I need to take notice of in future situations to make sure I maintain my cool and don’t anything rash that I wouldn’t do with a level head.

The one horseman that I often and consistently struggle with is stonewalling. There are several people in my life, people I’d say are very close to me, that I often want to stonewall. One person isn’t as good with communication as I’d like and it’s necessary to talk to them because they’re so far away and are important to me. I try my best, but I feel the effort is one-sided. On the other hand, someone else very close to me is very argumentative and is convinced they’re right 100% of the time, despite being very naïve. I say this because it was only recently that I was in their shoes; I know what they’re going through, and they don’t realize it. Instead, they insist that what they think they know is concrete knowledge and that they’re correct. Time and time again they are proven wrong, and won’t admit to being wrong to my being right (even though I do everything in my power to work with them and to not punish them for being wrong) in matters that aren’t of opinion but rather of fact. A final person that I’m very close with has a problem with abusing substances that I will keep unnamed. It only bugs me because I know that they’re not reaching their potential and I hesitate to tell them otherwise for fear of losing their friendship. Their abuse problem isn’t ruining their life; if that were the case, I honestly would have stepped in weeks ago. It is merely holding them back from all that I know they are capable of doing and I am disappointed to see it slowly develop into something that will hold them back from life goals. How easy it would be to stonewall these people and “cut my losses” is two-fold; I love these people to death, and stonewalling them would inevitably lead to weakened friendships that could potentially be lost. These people help to hold me up when I need them and define the person I’ve come to be since I’ve been at college. They figure to be major parts of my short-term and long-term future, as well. Because of this, I make the effort to not stonewall them and if I feel backed into a corner and have no other way to react, I’ll simply suck it up for the duration of the conversation, do my own thing for a few hours or a day or so, then resume where we left off. I take a step back to concentrate on how I’m going to handle the situation then execute my plan.

Going back to the reading we did this week, it centered on entering into, developing, and maintaining healthy relationships. I like to think the relationship I has could be only marginally approved; distance aside, there are no major problems that my girlfriend and I have had to deal with and we are very happy together. We can attribute this to maintaining a consistent level of interest in what each other has to say (or so it seems! (kidding)) and we always make time to talk - especially when we are five hours away at college. I can attribute much, if not all, of the success of our relationship to knowing each other better than we know probably anyone else. We make an effort to ask about the days each other are having and talk often about our plans for later in the day, tomorrow, the weekend, etc.

In the friendships I’ve developed with some of the people I’m closest to in my life, I can attribute the close bonds we share to the genuine interest I’ve taken in hearing about their lives. In adopting my family as an example for this point, I love talking to them and make an effort to talk to them on a daily basis; in particular, I really try to make an effort to sound extremely enthusiastic about anything my brother tells me. He’s only 9 years old and I know that having me as his older brother to tell him that I’m his number one fan positively encourages and reinforces all the good things that he’s doing this year. With my sister, I tell her how I’m happy that she’s doing well in school and needs to continue to keep up the good work and maintain her good grades. With my parents, I tell them everything I’m doing and thank them for all that they’ve provided me with.

Chris Anderson speech

Mon, 30 Jan 2012 11:31:31 -0500

He talks about the work they have to put in for the magazine to appeal to us in the sense that he deserves, as a merit of the work he does, our attention.
He uses graphs and pictures to illustrate his points, though the aforementioned tools have numbers that are hard to read.
His awkward pauses and stops throughout his speech make it somewhat difficult to watch.
His organization is thorough; he uses 4 points to better show what he’s trying to say, then expands on it.
He jokes once or twice to appeal to audiences and slowly goes from more complex examples (stocks) to easier ones (cars).
He ends his speech talking about money. People like money.

Blog Post #2

Sun, 29 Jan 2012 12:43:23 -0500

I’ve been reading a lot of the kindle version of Dale Carnegie’s book “How to win friends and influence people,” and I can honestly say that I’ve fallen in love with it. I’m currently on part three because I was so interested one night that I read the assigned section and continued ahead, but I digress; back to chapter two. As some of you may know, this past week was rush week for the guys. You have to do “guy flirting” as my girlfriend called it – making a good impression on whatever fraternity or fraternities that you found yourself most interested in joining. I checked out several, guy flirting all the way. In some instances, awkward small talk was all that would arise. It was a hit or miss type thing in terms of actually being able to relate well with someone. All of the brothers in the fraternities were supposed to do their best to make a good impression on the potential pledgees in hopes of the latter becoming pledges and eventually joining the fraternity. It was refreshing to find guys that would cut to the chase and didn’t seem to be putting on an act; every now and then I would find someone who was from my neck of the woods, or someone who played basketball, or someone who shared a major with me. Those were the type of people that really made the best impression on me and I highly doubt any of them have read Dale Carnegie’s book yet they used the techniques he preaches about to maintain my interest and make a good impression. I’m currently a pledge within the fraternity that I felt made the most sincere attempt at getting to know me. Many of the guys who ended up selling me on the fraternity were the ones who said very little about themselves, and seldom used the words “I” without me prompting to; they asked what my name was, where I was from, how I’m liking UK, what I think of the success of our basketball team, and so on, and so forth. We maintained fluent conversations and I enjoyed talking to these guys even if only because it gave me an opportunity to preach about myself. By the same token, I was genuinely interested in these “Greek peeps” because each one of them had the potential to be a brother of mine in the future. Having read Carnegie’s book, I asked each of them the same questions they asked me and threw in a handful of pre-meditated questions I had thought up earlier about the fraternity for some good measure. Towards the end of the night and not until I became thoroughly interested in one fraternity in particular and knew I would accept a bid from it should I be offered one, I began to talk to some of the guys in a tone that would be more appealing to them (and one that Dale Carnegie would be proud of). I made the guys in the fraternity sure of the fact that I would be a successful member of the fraternity, and that I would make a difference within it. I made them want me in the fraternity. In addition to being very interested in what they had to say and making them want me to join the fraternity, I made an effort to remember the names of each brother I met; this is no easy task considering I can honestly say I met damn near a hundred people this past week, and many of them had the same first name. Needless to say I’ve tried my best to associate their name with something about them I remember to ensure that I don’t draw a blank when approaching them.

Stakeholder speech.

Sun, 29 Jan 2012 12:16:19 -0500

The stakeholder I will be holding my speech about is the college players themselves. Players are at the thick of things in the controversy regarding whether or not we should pay college athletes (above the money that pays for their tuition) for their services to their respective schools. To best demonstrate my points, I’ll use the specific examples of the controversies surrounding O.J. Mayo (USC), Albert Means (Alabama), and the University of Michigan Men’s Basketball team scandal. The players often are paid regardless of the legality of it, in one way or another. The recruitment violations are often related to “improper” or “excessive” benefits, as well as “loans”. Violations have taken back Heisman trophies, wiped victories off of the record books, fired coaches and destroyed well-respected programs.

WRD111 post

Sun, 22 Jan 2012 17:44:54 -0500

The group of Sam, Taylor, Austin and myself plans to research on the controversy regarding paying college athletes. We feel that, especially for this topic, there is a surplus of information that’s just waiting to be compiled. All four of us are large fans of the NCAA, be it as followers of NCAAF, NCAAB, or both. We have read countless ESPN and FoxSports news stories about top football recruits that attended big name schools such as OSU and USC taking benefits, and the same goes for the basketball programs in past years at schools such as USC and Memphis, while current UK-coach John Calipari was in control of the show. The controversies regarding players being given unfair benefits, be it financial or other, in return for their services and because of the immense profits that the most highly recruited and touted players and teams draw in. As fans of the games of NCAAF and NCAAB and as students researching a topic for a class project alike, we are excited to begin the study.

WRD

Wed, 18 Jan 2012 15:24:00 -0500

I can think of many controversial issues that I (along with my group) would be able to cover and take information from. At first, in class, I thought immediately to do something about drugs or gay rights. Then I thought that it may step on someone’s toes in class, and some of the material might be too risky to try to tackle in a classroom setting. I began to think of the question of the drinking age. I remember having a heated debate in AP Government regarding whether the age to enlist should be raised or the age to drink should be lowered, or whether it should be a combination of both, with the real debate saying that we live in a country where a man potentially die for his home before drinking a beer legally. Now, if it were because of his own choice, that would be one thing. But the thought here is that if the country doesn’t trust said man enough to allow him a sip of alcohol, then why should the man sacrifice his life for that same country? It’s essentially the prospect of age vs. responsibility vs. duty vs. maturity, or some combination of the like. It’s just an idea.

Blog post for #WRD111

Tue, 17 Jan 2012 18:58:45 -0500

Not sure if they’re starting up yet, but I’d rather be safe than sorry. We have WRD in the morning, our third of the young semester. I grabbed a spot in the middle of a few friends during the first two classes, and that always makes the pill that is class easier to swallow. I had 5 hours worth of classes today.. not fun, but something I expected when I signed up for 20 hours. If I’m not extra busy, I lose focus. So I’m keeping my schedule clogged up.

Photo

Mon, 16 Jan 2012 17:58:56 -0500

Outline

Tue, 29 Nov 2011 12:48:00 -0500

I. The assimilation of a soldier back into what we call a “normal” life is much more difficult than one would assume.

II. The difficulties a soldier faces.

A. Developing a post-war identity.

1. Some soldiers never had one before they left.

2. Other soldiers left kids, a wife, a job, family, friends - everything.

3. There are added difficulties for those who return to school.

B. A lack of purpose.

1. No more adrenaline rush like during combat.

2. Back to a “normal” life; can be viewed by soldiers as boring.

C. Making everyday decisions.

1. Simple everyday decisions/actions can be difficult because of altered perceptions from war.

2. Emotional triggers are painful reminders of the horrors of combat.

D. PTSD and other mental illnesses.

1. Can wholly alter thought processes.

2. The soldier’s fear of sudden death often keeps them from getting married or having children.

E. Emotional trauma.

1. Trauma- Victim was unprepared and the trauma was unexpected.

2. Emotional triggers can be horrific.

3. Simple decisions can trigger flashbacks.

F. Physical disabilities.

1. Being crippled —> in a wheelchair

2. Loss of hearing/sight or becoming completely blind or deaf.

3. Amputation/ Prosthetics

G. The frustration of credits not transferring

1. Credits earned by the soldiers in preparation for the

war don’t always transfer properly.

III. The seriousness of these problems.

A. They suffer through them for the rest of their lives.

B. Often times counseling and physical therapy won’t heal them.

C. Even more often, they aren’t provided with adequate counseling/therapy.

Topical Organization.

Introduction

Tue, 15 Nov 2011 13:43:18 -0500

What would your reaction be if one of the most important people in the world to you called you to say they would be gone for several years and you wouldn’t be able to see them? Assuming they come back alive (which is all but assured), they would more than likely be disabled in some way, be it mental, physical or both. While gone, they would face atrocities no one should have to see and would be subject to horrific living conditions. Why would anyone willingly exposed themselves to the trauma just described? Thus is the case for the parent(s) of a soldier when they receive that dreaded call from their son telling them he has just enlisted in the armed forces. Upon their return home from war, should they return, these men deal with traumas that a civilian will never see in their lives. Soldiers struggle with post-war identity and find a lack of purpose in life. Even the smallest events, like going to the grocery or standing in a large crowd, can trigger a flashback to the war zone - an extremely difficult time to recollect for veterans. The psychological effects of living and fighting in a war zone have life long effects that don’t go away.

The project video for Liz and I

Tue, 08 Nov 2011 12:23:58 -0500

The project video for Liz and I

Interview Questions

Thu, 03 Nov 2011 12:06:00 -0400

Describe for me, as much as you’re allowed, your deployment location, living conditions, jobs, and duties.

Describe for me a normal day in the U.S. before deployment, during deployment, and after deployment.

Did you experience any major triggers since returning to the United States?

What was the first thing you did when you got home and why?

Has anyone or any specific routine helped you to deal with stress? Or was there any stress?