Blog #1

“We want more.”

— AHMO Iron, 2020

As a junior in high school, I don’t know much. I don’t know what the bigger picture of life looks like, and I don’t know where I’ll be in a year. With that being said, I want to learn more. This semester in English 1302, I want to learn more about things I can apply to the real world around me. I want to learn how to create a resume and how I can apply rhetoric to my life. I want to go into marketing, so learning more about rhetoric will help me in the long run. When I say I want to learn about rhetoric, I don’t just mean looking for ethos, pathos, and logos. I mean I want to learn about the subtle things, like colors and logos.

This past week, I drove a lot. I drove to Sadler, TX by myself to support the junior varsity powerlifting team at their meet. Sadler is about an hour away from Wylie. I drove about 50 miles on the highway. That means I saw a lot of billboards; however, the most prominent one I saw was the Buc-ee’s billboard. When I was in Allen getting on US-75 North, I saw a billboard telling me that there was a Buc-ee’s ten miles away. As I drove, the billboards became more apparent. When I arrived in Sadler, one of our coaches was talking about stopping at Buc-ee’s on the way home. I didn’t think much of it and asked if it was the one ten miles out of Allen, to which he replied yes. Looking back, I realize their billboards actually work. Their investment in billboards advertising their products is what persuades and attracts their customers, including me and my coaches.

As a junior in powerlifting, I have to take on the role of a leader. In that, I have to help out freshman and get them comfortable with failing lifts. At our home meet yesterday, there was a girl upset because she didn’t get two out of her three attempts and was about to be disqualified. I pulled her aside and used my experience in powerlifting to assure her that I was credible. Furthermore, I used my personal failures to let her know that I understand how she feels emotionally. Finally, I motivated her by telling her, “your brain is powerful. By believing you will not get this lift, you are already setting yourself up for failure. You need to tell yourself that you will not fail, and you won’t.” My logical response allowed her to stop thinking negatively, which resulted in her successfully squatting.