Matthew's Blog

      I have been watching soccer since I was in fourth grade.       The first team I ever watched on TV was Arsenal, a team from London, England. They won the game and had cool jerseys so I decided to become an Arsenal fan. To this day I still support them but it has been a difficult ride.           Arsenal has historically been one of the best teams in the world. They used to be regulars in big competitions such as the Champions League and competed for the English Premier League title almost every single year, but things haven't been the same in a while. Since 2015, Arsenal has shown very poor performances and have struggled way more. It has been a disappointing 8 or so years with very little accomplished, but that could possibly change in a month.     Currently, Arsenal are sitting first place in the English Premier League. If they see it through, this will be their first Premier League title since the ye...

       The class discussion we had on freedom of speech today was intriguing.       From my own experiences in the past as well as from talking to friends and family members, I have noticed that in classes involving general debate or argument (english, history, etc.), a heavy bias is pushed towards one side of the argument with a lack of tolerance or even recognition for the other side. The "other side" oftentimes tends to be my side and it can be difficult to share that.      Certain views sound terrible when first presented (ex: we need to lower the minimum wage), but there is legitimate logic behind views like these. I don't want to "make people poor", but without discussing the rationale behind my view it may seem like this to some people.  This isn't what happened in my case, but I have seen it happen to other people in other classes with other topics and it isn't right. Automatically shooting down certain statements witho...

      I decided to do my rational argument essay on why minimum wage should be lowered. I had a difficult time coming up with a topic at first but this idea came to me during a lecture in my economics class. I went with it because it's an interesting issue that not a lot of people understand the complexity of. Here is my intro paragraph so far:           Let’s face it, earning money is on everyone’s mind. Whether it’s for buying basic necessities or free spending, money provides security and freedom to all who own it . To an extent, how much someone makes is a big driving factor in th eir flexibility, stability, and long-term well-being , so a n increase in minimum wage must be a great thing for everyone, right? Be careful what you wish for. Earning more sounds great until you’ re earning nothing. Having a high minimum wage doesn’t benefit society but instead detriments it due to increased business costs and decreased employment , sugge...

       Today in class I found the discussions we had about paintball very interesting. Here are my thoughts on the matter:     There is nothing wrong with paintball. Many will say it promotes violence or is dangerous but both of these can be debunked with simple lines of logic. Paintball typically involves two teams with an objective, whether that is to retrieve an object from the other team, protect someone/something, or be the last person standing (all without getting hit). All three of these objectives can be compared to other games. Retrieving an object from the other team without getting caught is pretty much the same thing as capture the flag, protecting something can easily be compared to the objectives of sports like soccer, basketball, and football, and being the last person standing is simply dodgeball. There is a referee, clear rules, and clear objectives that aren't just to "hit other people" in paintball, so it is no different than th...

      Major League Soccer is the most successful soccer league in the history of the United States. Founded in 1996 as a direct result of the US hosting the 1994 World Cup, MLS has stuck around quite well and has become well established as the first division in the American soccer league system. In recent years it has gained lots of popularity due to newly introduced expansion teams and big name players coming to the league, but it is going to suffer at the hands of a foolish, money-hungry decision by the league: to put almost of all the games behind a paywall.     This offseason, the league announced that it would be partnering with AppleTV. Their deal specified that AppleTV had the rights to all but 1 or 2 matches a week (Fox Sports has the rights to those), and that MLS fans would have to pay $14.99 a month to view these games. Previously, 2 to 3 games would be televised on Fox Sports and the rest would be behind an ESPN+ paywall that was much cheaper and inc...

      Completing my rhetorical analysis piece ended up being a lot easier than writing my summary in the first place.  At first, I had a lot of details towards the beginning of the story but not many towards the end so I had to change that quite a bit. When writing the summary, I didn't know how long I was going to explore each scene or how many details I was going to include, so it ended up being very skewed by the time I was done. I had to revise it multiple times before it ended up fitting requirements and telling the whole story equally.      After I finished my summary, doing the rhetorical analysis was easy. I already had established a theme for the film through my objective summary and just expanded certain scenes more in-depth in order to analyze rhetorical appeals. I analyzed lots of pathos and some logos as well because of how prevalent they are in the film and how firmly they established the theme. Overall my piece flows very well now and I ...