Ashley Pfaff

     Take time to think about the daily conversations that take place in your life, whether you chose to converse in them or strictly listen. How many topics brought up in these conversations can you place a finger on? Probably more than half, if not all of them. We gain our understanding of the world around us by conversing with others; by listening to their ideas, and by sharing ideas of our own. By sharing our ideas with others, we are collaborating. 

     In Fontaine and Hunters' "Collaborative writing in Composition Studies" many ideas regarding collaboration are expressed, including a few that I was not already familiar with. One that interested me was the fact that as a learner you must be open to new ideas in order to be successful in collaboration. If you are close-minded, there is a great chance that you will not open up to group work and the ideas that are out there other than your own. I find sometimes myself that there are days where I just want to work on my own, and because of this I do not take in a lot of the things that happen around me. One type of collaboration that I am familiar with is the idea of splitting up and then reforming into groups. This way, everyone can come up with their own opinions without being influenced by others, and then share there knowledge and come up with common agreements or disagreements.

     Although I am often not a fan of "group work", collaboration in the classroom happens often, and it is beneficial when it comes to research projects like the one that I am partaking in right now with my WRT class. If I were to complete the assignment on my own, I now realize that I would have adifficult time, because it took my entire groups ideas to form both a topic and a person that we would choose to interview. Overall, sometimes its better to have others to lean on, rather than just yourself.

     Before reading this weeks peice by Qualley, I automatically assumed that both Refective and Reflexive meant the same thing. I often assume, which can get me in trouble, but because these two words are so closely related to eachother, they have to be the same, right? Well, I was totally wrong! In fact, these words can be considered complete opposites from eachother, practically strangers. Like every student I was familiar with being reflective, but I had never comes across the term reflexive until now. When you get past their looks and read into the deeper meanings, you realize that in all honesty, the only comparison between the two are that they start with the leture "R" and they are closely related when it comes to their spellings. 

     To be a reflective researcher, you focus on your own thoughts, your own past, and what you already know. It is an undirectional thought process brough about by your opinions, nothing else is involved in this type of researching process. Although it sounds a bit self-centered, you focus on yourself and base your observations on things such as your own accomplishments. For instance; think back to highschool, or even now if you are in college and focus on your writings. Has a professor ever told you to write another paragraph after a writing was finished? Did it include the things you thought you did well and the things you could have worked on? If so, that is part of being a reflective student/researcher.

     On the other hand, to be reflexive, you rely on engagements with others to trigger your thoughts and research information. Reflexivity is a response triggered by a dialectical engagement with the other- whether it be an idea, person, theory, or culture. (Qualley) Being reflexive doesn't mean basing information on things that come solely from your mind, but observing and listening to others in order to grasp a concept. You must pull away from the information that you already know in order to gain an understanding and be open to new information, perspectives, and ideas. In my opinion, to be reflexive is a much better approach to researching. This is because you will be open to more ideas rather than ending up with a biased opinion based solely on your own reasonings.

     After watching food ink, and reading over The Omnivore's Dilemma and The pleasures of eating, I have come to the conclusion that if we do not make the smart choices when it comes to the food that is placed into our body, our food has the ability to control us. I look at it as if no matter what we do, we are going to fill our bodies with harmful substances, half the time without meaning to. It's hard to keep our lives full of organic foods because of the economy, but after educating myself on this topic, I realized that that may be the only full proof way to keep myself healthy.

     For me, it has officially been one week since the last slice of meat was put into my body. It is not that I am making the decision to become a full fledged vegetarian, it is just that after watching Food Inc. I cannot put meat to my mouth without feeling the urge to gag. On campus, it is a tough task to accomplish because there are not  many non meat choices that are healthy, but so far I have succeeded.

     The only thing that I do dread is going home, where my parents are indeed infected by this idea of the Omnivore Dilemma. I do not believe that any of them could give up eating meat, well chicken that is. Who knows, I may get up the urge to indulge in chicken by then, but as of right now they can keep on clucking their way into someone else's stomach.

In preparation for our oral history/collaborated research project, Professor Mangini had us watch Food Inc. during our classroom time. To get our minds thinking, we were to pick three different questions that sparked our thoughts and write about them in this blog post. The following are the questions that I chose to answer:

Do you think eating healthy should be a right, a responsibility, or a privilege?
     Before beginning my college years, during my senior year, my eating habits got the best of me, and I gained a significant amount of weight. Freshman year brought changes, and instead of gaining my freshman fifteen, I decided to lose it. Because of this, eating healthy should be a responsibility, because like many other things in life, if you want something, you need to have the discipline to work for it. Because eating healthy is more expensive, it gives someone the iniciative to work hard for their health, to make money to feed their family. Also, living long means fueling your body with the correct things, it is your responsibility and your choice to do such a thing. Not everyone needs to choose to do such a thing, but I see it as we are responsible for our choices and our lifestyles.

There is a lot of research showing that healthful food makes people feel better, have more energy, and stay well. Do you think if more people knew about this research, they would make different choices? 
     Yes, I strongly believe in this theory. I know that ever since I began eating healthier I have had a higher amount of self-esteem, and my body feels as if it can accomplish anything. If I fall off the healthy band wagon and start to eat tons of junk, I find myself becoming more tired, and I have less of a motivation to go to the gym which I usually do on a regular basis. I know from experience that being sick effects everything in my life and it makes me miserable, as I am sure that everyone else feels the same way. To avoid this would make the days that we speand on earth more enjoyable.

Whose responsibility do you think it is to inform us about what is in our food?
In my opinion, I believe that it is the producer's responsibility tp inform us about the food that they are supplying to us, which we are putting into our bodies. If something is harmful, I want to know, and if they are the ones to tell me, there is a less of a chance that I will be dissapointed with their products. Also, if a producer is having an issue with their products, it should be featured on the news, whether on TV or in a paper, so that we are aware of what we are going to be eating in the future.

     When I found out that I was not going to be able to present my Twitterive in class, I was both excited and dissapointed all at once. It would have been nice to explain the meaning of my twitterive, but at the same time I liked that my readers got to read it and make their own interpretations. Plus, I often have trouble with speaking alloud and explaining myself to others, especially my peers. Overall, the feedback of both my classmates and Professor Mangini helped me out a lot. I was already confident in my draft, but with their opinions I know that a few tweeks will be able to make my story a little better. 

     Almost everyone pointed out the addition of the "Once upon a time", most enjoyed it, said it added depth but Samantha C stated that is made everything seem like a fairytale, which is usually more upbeat. In my opinion, my story does have a happy ending, therefore it is something that I am confident works in my peice. Alexa told me to maybe state how I found out about his cheating, which may give more of a background on my story.

     Both Rebecca and Michael Y pointed out things regarding my pictures, which I really appreciated because I wasn't sure if their additions were relevent. I really enjoyed Michaels comment about my dissapearing picture of kyle and I and how it represented my depression. He then recomended maybe doing the opposite at the end, a picture coming into light. This is a brilliant idea, and may deffinately be a good possibility.

     Finally, I liked the fact the Professor Mangini sent me a well written out critique of my twitterive, it better helped me sort out my thoughts and my plans for its future. Constructive criticism always helps me, and I am thankful for the help of my peers. Without their opinions I would have been stuck at a dead end.