When I was younger my Uncle owned an electric bike that he manufactured himself.  I was always fascinated with how he was able to add a motor to his bike which pedaled for him.  I remember his bike was very bully and looked awkward so I think it is very interesting that today there are companies we are manufacturing electric or e-bikes that look like motorcycles.  I want to learn more about how these companies came up with the idea of making a bike that models a motorcycle and also how they make this bike and also how they produce this bike so it is a able to run on a battery which only takes four hours to charge.

To find out more about this topic I will research the bikes further and visit the website on which they are sold.  On the website I will look through the customer reviews and also see what the company has to say in the “About Us” section.  I will also look on the internet to see if there are anymore news reports about these bikes and if there have been any accidents concerning these bikes.  I would also like to look into the legal side of the issue and investigate why you do not need a license to opperate these bikes even though they do reach the speed of 20 MPH.

On Saturday I decided to take a walk to Haight off of Masonic.  I walked down Haight Street toward Ashbury and observed a few things.  The street is pretty narrow and the all the parking spots on the street are taken up.  There were not that many bikes and I think that is due to the street being so narrow it would be hard and probably dangerous to maneuver the street on a bike.  When I was there I did see many people getting into ride sharing vehicles such as Lyfts or Ubers.  As Zimmer states in his article the amount of ride sharing has increased in the past few years and will continue to increase due to the costly upkeep required to own a car.  On my trip I saw this was evident as I’ve said I saw many people getting into ride sharing vehicles.  As I mentioned Haight Street was full of cars and as Zimmer states cars aren’t the problem it’s how we use them.  Cars are parked about 95% of the time and this seems like a bad use of space that could be used for more bike lanes or bigger sidewalks for pedestrians.  On Haight this would probably help with the congested street and help to improve the flow of traffic on the very narrow street.

Since I was little I thought I knew what I wanted to do with my life.  I wanted to be a first grade teacher for as long as I could remember and then when I started high school I realized that was not what I wanted to do for the rest of my life.  I so badly wanted to know what career was right for me but I could never figure it out.  My mom suggested that I should think about becoming a book publisher because I like to read and that seemed like a good enough reason to me.  For all of high school when anyone would ask me what I wanted to do I would say book publisher but every time those words came out of my mouth they felt wrong.  I knew I did not need to know what I wanted to do because I had time, but really I knew that wasn’t true.  College is when you’re supposed to figure out what you want to do right?  But this isn’t actually true.  When people start college they usually have an idea at least which field they want to go into and I knew I had to figure out what I wanted to do and quickly.  During my senior year I decided to attend Harvard Model Congress in Boston with about 15 other people from my school.  For five days in February we traveled to Boston and got to participate in a mock Congress where we were assigned Congressmen or House Representative.  We were also assigned a committee and had meetings all day for four days.  I loved being able to experience the law making process and have my ideas heard.  This is when I decided that I wanted to be a lawyer and go into some field of law pertaining to politics.  I am so thankful for deciding to attend HMC but I am also thankful that my parents allowed me to go and have always supported me in whatever I do.

My speech was narrative because throughout I made Karol a character and in stories characters are used to move people or inspire them which is what Karol does.  Instead of talking about Karol as a person I could have talked more about his journey traveling around the world on his bike.  To make my speech spatial I could have shown a map of all the places he has traveled to and mapped his route.

To structure a speech I usually write it like I would a paper.  I write exactly what I want to say not just an outline.  I think I usually start with some background information because I think it would be more helpful for the audience to know a little bit about the topic I am speaking on.  In my opening paragraph I also usually like to include a rhetorical question relating to my thesis which will be answered throughout my speech.  Other than that I kind of just wing it.  By this I mean that I write my speech but as I write I let the ideas come to me naturally and then write them down.  Usually my speech will make sense in the order I think of it but sometimes it doesn’t so then i just have to rearrange some of the sentences to make it flow better.  At the end I usually like to end my speeches or even papers with a line that brings the topic back to the audience or the world as a whole.  For example when I was talking about Karol traveling the world on his bike I ended saying that we may not want to travel the world on our bike but Karol’s story teaches us to slow down and see our own world in a new light.  I think that at the end of any type of presentation or paper it is always good to end with something that is relatable to the audience and therefore illustrates to them why they should remember the message of my speech even if they only remember the very last line.

After the warm up we participated in class I felt more confident about myself and my speech but as my turn for presenting slowly approached I became more nervous, probably even more nervous than before we did the warm up.  When I’m nervous I start to stutter my words and usually forget the presentation I prepared.  This started happening to me when I began my presentation.  Once I started talking about my topic I realized that I remembered more than I anticipated and I do not remember looking at my notecards very often or even at all.  After my presentation I felt relieved and confident in what I said and I believed I did an alright job.  I do not think by any means that I am a good public speaker but I do believe that by practicing, thanks Professor Hunt for making us do those rehearsal videos, I learned my content without even realizing it.  I know I have to work on not fidgeting or moving when I am speaking because to me this seems unprofessional and tells the audience that you are nervous or unconfident.  I think everyone in the class had their own way of remembering the content which specifically worked for them.  Some people such as Ariel took her whole presentation up to the front which I think is helpful in case there is a specific line they wrote and want to make sure to say it in exactly the correct way.  Even though KoKo’s presentation did not revolve around bicycles I think that topic was a very good choice for him because he was so passionate and I believed it helped to improve the quality of his presentation.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ea715F1FZRQ

There are many amazing people in the world who do even more amazing things.  I never thought and I still cannot believe that there are people so committed to their bikes that they bike around the world.  With all the new technology today it seems unnecessary to me to use such a simple form of transportation to travel to new places.  But even in this technological world we live in one man, among others I’m sure, has decided to embark on one of the most interesting and ultimately challenging travels of his life.

Karol Voltemar was born during socialism in Czechoslovakia under Soviet supremacy.  Even since a young age Karol has been interested in computers and technology.  He believed that computers were like his teachers, telling him everything he needed to know about the world outside his own hometown.  Even though Karol was interested in computers he was also fascinated by the beauty of nature.  At about the age of 15 Karol saved up enough money to buy his first bike and then would ride around regularly with his friends.

As Karol got older he accepted jobs from Adobe and Microsoft as a lecturer who was paid to talk highly and encourage people to buy their products.  After 9 years he eventually realized he wanted to be a developer which lead him into the field of marketing.  He believed combining his knowledge for tech and his people skills marketing was the job for him.  Karol was living a comfortable life when he got into a terrible skiing accident.  After about 2 years of rehabilitation he was ready to get back on a bike.

Karol’s time in the hospital changed him, he decided to stop wasting his life and to do what he really wants to do now.  In 2010 he decided to do his first bike tour of Turkey and had an amazing time.  Karol is currently on his first solo trip around the world which he began in 2013 and is due to return this fall.

Credibility is the quality of being trusted or believed in.  Karol claims he travels around the world on his bike but how can we know for sure if he is telling the truth?  Horner states that to be creditable a writer must exhibit intelligence, virtue, and goodwill; Karol expresses all three.  Karol is a very intelligent man who for many years worked with computers but soon discovered he wanted more out of life, a choice only an intelligent man who knows what he wants could have made.  Intelligence can also be defined or molded through experience and Karol has extensive experience with bicycles because he has been riding them around the world for years.  To be virtuous and have goodwill Horner stats that an author must identify with the values and interests of the audience.  Karol’s audience is one which values bikes and thinks they are an amazing mode of transportation that can be used for travel to far and near places.  Virtue can also be defined as showing high moral standards or the way one treats another.  Karol often stops on his journey’s to help those in developing countries that are not as well off as his.  One example of this is when he is biking through Nepal and sees a small man carry a very large and heavy bag.  When he approaches the man Karol graciously gives him a few hundreds of Nepali Ruppies.  Karol is a virtuous man who care about those who are not as fortunate as him.

Karol travels the world by bike because he can truly immerse himself in the culture.  Karol is like a part time anthropologist who travels to a certain place and lives among the people.  Karol does not stay for as long as an anthropologist would be it’s the same idea he wants to learn as much as he can about a certain culture before he has to move onto the next.  Karol and his experiences are creditable because he expresses all of Horner’s qualities for creditability.  Karol and his experiences are valuable resources for those of us who may not want to travel the world on a bike but maybe just want to see the world around us in a new light.