Ode: To my dear cell phone

Dear My Cell Phone,




Hello, my dear cell phone. You might be in my pocket waiting for me, curious as to when I’ll check whether or not there is a new message while I'm writing this letter to you. However, as of this moment, I want you to read this letter - and get the messages I'm trying to send to you through this writing. I think that you might be curious about the reason why I write a letter to you, which I usually won't do to others. The reason is because I really want to appreciate you, for all of your help - and to say sorry for mistreating you. 


You really are one of my best friends. Though you are not a human being, you are almost the same as them, and even better than the others in some aspects. You’ve provided me with lots of entertainment, so that I can relieve stress easily, and you listen to my complaints however ridiculous and unreasonable they are. Moreover, you were always with me. You wake me up in the morning so that I’m not late for school. You are with me when I’m alone while waiting for a bus, and you help me manage my schedules by telling me what the current time is. You help me apologize to my friends, talk to my parents whom I am not staying with due to my dormitory life, and you sustain the friendships I’ve had with my friends from elementary and middle school. All the help you give me, as my friend, makes me enjoy my life all the better. You’re also not jealous of the intimate relationships I have with my human friends, and in fact you bring them to life. That really makes me happy. If I were without you, I’d be without them. How can I thank you? 


As well, I really want to express an apology for all the mistakes I've made since we met. Although you are my best friend, I’ve often treated you as something I can easily purchase, use, and throw away. I haven't cleaned you regularly, and have often exposed you to dirty, dangerous, and even public places where I could lose or damage you. I’ve often dropped you, even on a wet road on a rainy day. You were damaged, scratched, and your body and your soul, which normal people refer to as 'software', was damaged and became dysfunctional. However, you’re spark of life endured, and you haven't let me down. You always respond to me as politely as possible, even after you’ve been abused – you always turn on however hungry you are – until, starved of battery, you have no choice but to fade. Moreover, you are still with me, even though I’ve recently grown closer to a new friend - my ipod touch. You remain just the same, even though I care less about you, and I sometimes consider you inferior to the ipod I have now. I am sorry my friend, and I hope you can forgive me and let us become the best of friends like we used to be.


My dear cell phone, I know that you might find it difficult to forgive me by just reading an incredulous letter that might not be that sincere. Perhaps I’m belittling your feelings of anger, and I am shameless. You know what? I really love you my friend, and I hope you can understand my feelings with your deepest mind of sympathy and love. 




Sincerely yours, 
Daniel

In and of Ourselves We Trust

     Last night I was driving from Harrisburg to Lewisburg, Pa., a distance of about 80miles. It was late, I was late, and if anyone asked me how fast I was driving, I'd have to plead the Fifth Amendment to avoid self-incrimination.

     At one point along an open highway, I came to a crossroads with a traffic light. I was alone on the road by now, but as I approached the light, it turned red, and I braked to a halt. I looked left, right, and behind me. Nothing. Not a car, no suggestion of headlights, but there I sat, waiting for the light to change, the only human being, for at least a mile in any direction. 


     I started wondering why I refused to run the light. I was not afraid of being arrested, because there was obviously no cop anywhere around and there certainly would have been no danger in going through it. 


     Much later that night, after I'd met with group in Lewisburg and had climbed into bed near midnight, the question of why I'd stopped for that light came back to me. I think I stopped because it's part of a contract we all have with each other. It's not only the law, but it's an agreement we have, and we trust each other to honor it: We don't go through red lights. Like most of us, I'm more apt to be restrained from doing something bad by the social convention that disapproves of it than by any law against it. 


     It's amazing that we ever trust each other to do the right thing, isn't it? And we do, too. Trust is our first inclination. We have to make a deliberate decision to mistrust someone or to be suspicious or skeptical. 


     It's a darn good thing, too, because the whole structure of our society depends on mutual trust, not distrust. This whole thing we have going for us would fall apart if we didn't trust each other most of the time. In Italy they have an awful time getting any money for the government because many people just plain don't pay their income tax. Here, the Internal Revenue Service makes some gestures toward enforcing the law, but mostly they just have to trust that we'll pay whatever we owe. There has often been talk of a tax revolt in this country , most recently among unemployed auto workers in Michigan, and our government pretty much admits that if there were a widespread tax revolt here, they wouldn't be able to do any thing about it.


     We do what we say we'll do. We show up when we say we'll show up. I was so proud of myself for stopping for that red light. And inasmuch as no one would ever have known what a good person I was on the road from Harrisburg to Lewisburg, I had to tell someone. 


Written by Andy Rooney (From Patterns of Exposition)

Welcome to the Gym: a community of worriers

     As I stepped up to the door of the filed house, I saw my reflection in the glass, and I started worrying. I had chosen mesh shorts, a white V-necked T-shirt, and tattered old sneakers in hopes of fitting in with the community I planned to observe: people exercising for fitness inside the gym. I was worrying about how well I would fit in. After my visit, I realized I fit in quite well. Not only had I dressed appropriately, but I was also worried, and worrying about appearance seemed to be one trait everybody at the gym shared. It seems to be the attribute that defines this community and ties its members together. 

     As I stepped inside the training room I heard heavy breathing and strenuous shouts of  "One! Two! Three!" Weightlifters, mostly men, were grunting, screaming, moaning, and yelling, and yelling in agony as they tried to lift weights two, three times more than they could handle. Their heads turned tomato red, and they looked as if they were about to explode. I'm neither a man nor a weightlifter, and I had no idea why they were trying to overexert themselves, or so it seemed to me. 

     When I spoke with several of the weightlifters, they admitted that for many people who spend time lifting weights, appearance is a primary concern. They claimed that many male weightlifters begin exercising because they fell inferior about their physical appearance or because they want to get that "He-man" or "Caveman" look that they consider an ideal for men. Though the men I talked to said that they, personally, weren't that anxious about the way they looked, they also admitted that they felt that potential dates pay more attention to a man who has "bulked up." I asked why they felt it was important to have a muscular and masculine appearance in today's society, especially when a lot of people (women especially) talk about the need for men to be "sensitive." I was surprised by the answers because they seemed to reveal worry and insecurity--which was surprising coming from a group of very well-muscled college men. The weightlifters said they thought sensitivity was a good thing, and they claimed to work toward it in their relationships. They also said that sensitivity grows out of self-confidence, and that for men self-confidence often comes through physical fitness and athletic ability. 

     Though the weightlifters seemed sincere, as a woman I felt rather awed by their appearance and kept waiting for one of them to knock one of the female exercisers over the head and drag her back to his cave. This thought made me shift my attention to the women, most of whom were working on machines like Stair Masters, stationary bicycles, or Nautilus. To enter into the women's part of this community, I squirmed my way through the machines and people, and I found a spot on one of their Stair Masters. I stared curiously at the screen in front of me. Blinking letters zoomed across the screen asking me to enter my weight. "Enter my weight," I thought. "That's a lot to ask of a girl." I even thought about lying, but then I got embarrassed about lying to a machine. Later, when I shared this worry with some of women at the gym, I realized they shared my apprehension and a lot of my other worries.

     Like the men, the women shared many concerns about their appearance, especially about their attractiveness and about the relationship of appearance to self-confidence. They spoke of how the Baywatch girls are the ideals of appearance for women in our society, and of how they felt a need to compete with the "Barbies" of this world, even though such an appearance is unrealistic for the average women. They also talked about having a kind of balance scale in their heads. As their weight increases, they feel less attractive, and as their weight decreases, they feel more attractive. They pointed out how magazines, TV programs, and movies seem to equate thinness with attractiveness and link attractiveness to self-confidence. Though they admitted that working women with responsibilities as wives and mothers might not have time or energy to work out in a gym, they worried about how their self-confidence might suffer if they didn't have the opportunity to exercise to control their weight. 

     After my time on the Stair Master came to an end and I had finished talking to the members of the gym community, I left, feeling as though I fit in. I was a worrier and I had dressed like many of the women. On my way out, however, I passed a woman dressed in a daring pink and black outfit who began turning heads as soon as she walked in the door. I started worrying again, and I knew the people in this gym were now worrying even more about their looks. 


Topic: write about a community of some sort, taking the perspective of an outsider trying to understand how the community and what kinds of relationships people in the community form.

Written by Sarah Lake (from Patterns of Exposition)

3 Interesting Things About Me

1. The date of my birthday is the same with that of my brother's birthday. 

2. I have been to more than 20 different nations 

3. I can speak five languages: Korean, English, French, Spanish, and Chinese