Matthew's Blog

                                       The main purpose of working out is to better one's physical health and this is my priority in exercising, however I very much enjoy pushing myself to the extreme. This means either lifting heavy or running far/fast most days of the week. I enjoy hitting new prs and this drives a different sort of motivation for me to exercise, but how exactly should I balance all of this to be most effective? I have been asking myself this question for a long time now and have a hard time coming up with a solid answer. Coming from a cardio heavy background of track/cross country/soccer, I feel naturally inclined to pursue more of running, but in developing a passion for lifting weights in recent years it becomes difficult to figure out the marginal benefit of one versus the other. This is my weekly schedule right now: Monday: 3-4 mile run Tuesday: Upper body lift (li...

    The film Deep Water tells the true story of Donald Crowhurst, a British man with no sailing experience, who enters a nonstop boat race around the world in 1968. The documentary mainly utilizes pathos to develop a sorrowful viewpoint regarding Crowhurst's mindset in competing in the race as well as how he "finishes" the race. 1.)  The scene that really got to me was when Crowhurst started faking his position in the race to the British media in order to give them hope that he was overcoming the odds against him when in reality he wasn't. This ended up crushing him because he created a false expectation for himself which ultimately drove him into insanity. This scene made me angry and sad because he started to lose his mind obsessing over the race and trying to cheat his way out and sad because he had a family at home and had completely disregarded them in order to try and prove that he could do the extreme. Essentially he was giving everyone (including himself) fals...

 Before Revision: I love striving for the best . Whether it’s i n school, fitness, or anything in between , I enjoy accomplishing goals and finding out what I am capable of in the process . There is a natural inclination that I feel to achieve greatness , yet I balance this with other things that bring me happiness such as relaxing and enjoying time with family and friends . I have always wonder ed: why do some people spend a large portion of their lives working towards the unattainable rather than balancing it with the simple ?   The purpose of life is an age-old question , but it is probable that e veryone wants to be both happy and satisfied with their lives . Despite this, i t is difficult to figure out how to balance both happiness and satisfaction , which could potentially cause one to be perfectionistic in their overall approach to life . A nother potential cause is that we as humans live out of curiosity. There are endless opportunities in ev...

            The microtheme paper is way different that any other paper I've written before. The structure involves wandering around and speculating about a question you have but not directly answering it, which is really difficult because I'm used to writing essays by picking a view and sticking with it. I redid my rough draft multiple times because I kept having to change the question or seemed biased towards a specific viewpoint. Critical thinking is an important part of developing this assignment but too much of it makes it difficult to stay focused on the question posed at the start of the paper.          I eventually got a final rough draft in place after I reframed my question to be more neutral and took approaches from all sides of the question to develop my second paragraph. It was hard to fit all of these approaches into one page so I had to get rid of extra details that weren't having much effect. I have always been g...