LOOK I DID MY HOMEWORK

1) Chris Tiefel here, a senior Professional Writing major with minors in Literature and History. I am proudly from the fine state of New Jersey, which I find many a Pennsy-folk has not enough respect for. New Jersey is, as one of my good friends says, "the entire world on a smaller scale." Sure we have oil refineries in Linden and the city with one of the highest crime rates in the country (Camden) but we are called the Garden State for a reason because we do indeed have a healthy farming industry in the rural Western part of the state. And do not forget the miles of white sand beaches, Down the Shore as any Jersian would call that area, and of course Great Adventure, the theme park with the largest fastest roller coaster in the world. So, I am from there.
In closing of my "introduce myself and beyond" section I would like to give a shameless PR plug to the on campus literary journal I am an editor for, Shoofly: http://faculty.kutztown.edu/hthomas/shoofly/index.htm

2) Rhetoric A User's Guide is the first academic reading I have done since the closure of last semester and it brings me back to the days when I took the same philosophy course twice. The reading utilized scathing extended metaphor which I got lost in at times and the informal voice of the author made it possible for him to jump here and there and it seemed like he said a lot of the same things twice but quite often differently. It is hard to pin down exactly what was said, despite abundant highlighted marginalia, though the reading was entertaining. At times I felt like I was conversing with a Greek Surfer on LSD downloading information from the great net of past and futures ever around him. Poetry, religion, Football, Law, and Fast Food (or Slow-Food backlash) were all examples that helped to show what rhetoric is, rather than simply telling in a straightforward definition. Ahh how proud Doc Thomas and Professor Blomain would be.