From Pasadena to San Fran

For my S3 presentation I felt very uneasy for the days leading up to Thursday.  Throughout the whole weekend and on Monday I was concerned with nothing but Halloween so I didn’t really start working on my speech until Tuesday.  I think this was my favorite speech so far because I was the most interested in this topic especially because the speech had to be addressing a certain decision making body of people.  As I have mentioned before I am really interested in law and am hopefully on my way to become a lawyer.  More that that I am interesting in politics as my major is political science.  I think this is because during my senior year of high school I took a school trip to Boston with about 15 other girls from my school.  In Boston we participated in a program called Harvard Model Congress.  We were all appointed a House Representative or Senator and we had to act as them creating and voting laws in our separate individualized committees.  I learned so much about the way the government is ran and it really helped me to visualize what we had learned in the government class.  I used  this experience in my speech and it helped me to formulate what to say so the class would understand who I was talking to.  I think that this was the best speech i have done so far.  I felt very confident even though I did forget to change my slide and also I did forget to say some important information but it was in my slide show so I feel like the class was able to read it off the slide and did not necessarily need me to say it.  Overall I felt really good about my speech and I think that having my notecards helps me but looking back I didn’t really use them and I think that this shows how much I’ve improved and am now able to remember my speech for the most part.

Review: In my third practice video I feel like I know my information better than I did during my first two practices but I still do not feel confident about preforming in class.  I know I need to run through my speech a few more times with my flashcards so I will be confident about my knowledge of the information in my speech and also about using my powerpoint

Review: In this video I tried to preform my speech and only look at my write out when I needed help which I believed helped me to learn my speech a little more but I know I still need more practice to be able to preform my speech confidently in class

Review: In this video I am just reading off my speech and I think I should try working on preforming my speech without looking at my write out

Hello fellow Senators my name is Ashley Rice and for those who do not know me I am one of the Senators from California. My permanent residence is in the wonderful and innovative city of San Francisco and as many of you know this city is known for its large and fearless bike culture.  Let me ask you a question.  How many of you here have ever ridden a bike, don’t be shy Senator please raise your hands.  As I suspected most of you have ridden a bike and I’m sure a lot of you have experienced firsthand the need for change of the classification of bikes.

Just to refresh your memories today we are presenting the bills that passed in our committees.  In my committee the committee of housing, transportation, and community development we passed the bill “Reclassification of Bicycles.”  If you do not already know right now bikes are classified as motor vehicles and therefore cyclists are required to follow all the rules of the road and if they break a law such as running a stop sign they are subject to the same fine that a motor vehicle driver would be subject to if they committed the same traffic violation.

In our committee we proposed that bicycles should no longer be considered motor vehicles but their own separate classification of transportation.  They should not be considered pedestrian but they should also not be classified as motor vehicles.  We believe that since bikes travel at a significantly slower speed approximately 10 MPH and because of this they cannot cause as much damage to pedestrians or property as cars can traveling just 10 MPH faster.

Stating this in our proposed bill we do not believe that bikes should not have to follow the rules of the road we just believe that bikes should have laws tailored just to them and fines or jail time accompanying the specific crime.  We understand that this could be costly to implement including the increased number of police force that is needed to regulate the newly improved bike law but we believe that bikers especially in urban cities should be protected and not subject to the same punishments as drivers of cars.  Many cyclists do not believe they need to fully stop at stop signs and as law makers we believe that not stopping at a stop sign or red lights could be potentially dangerous and cause accidents involving cars.  But with this being said there should be exceptions to the rules.  We believe that there is no need for a cyclist to come to a complete stop at a stop sign when there are no other cars or pedestrians around.  This means if the cyclists deems it safe to cross without stopping we believe that should be their right and they should not be forced to make an unnecessary stop.

Bikes are not cars but they can still cause significant damage to property or even death to pedestrians if they are not used correctly.  We believe that with the implantation of this law cyclists will be happier with the notion of not having to do things that seem unnecessary and trivial. Senators I urge you to vote yes to implement this law to create better and more harmonious roads all over the country.

After watching “My Drunk Kitchen: Thanksgiving Turkey” and “Performance” I realized that youtube voice is not possible in all youtube videos.  In “My Drunk Kitchen” she uses youtube voice by emphasizing her words but in “Performance” MC Spandx isn’t using youtube voice because he’s rapping for most of the video.  For me I feel like emphasizing my words and syllables more would be a good idea so everyone in the class would be able to understand what I am saying.  I feel like over stressing my words too much might just seem weird and make my classmates (or anyone I’m going my speech to) think I speak weird and that might distract them from the message of my speech.

The Legality of Riding a Bike

For my S3 presentation I want to speak about the consideration of bikes and how they are subject to the same laws concerning motor powered vehicles.  I believe this type of consideration should be changed based on the fact that to ride a bike one does not need to go through any testing or be a certain age.  Therefore bike riders should not be subject to the same laws and fines that apply to motor vehicles.

In “If Kant Were a New York Cyclist” talks about how he believes that cyclists should not obey the traffic because they are not predestines and are not motor vehicles.  I think that in the cases Randy Cohen describes where he only breaks the traffic laws when there are no pedestrians or cars in the area that could case harm to himself or that he could cause harm to.  If this is the case I do not think someone should receive a ticket if they do not hurt anyone.  In “Is It OK to Kill Cyclists” Daniel Duane expresses his concerns with the help of facts show casing the alarming rates which cyclists are being killed.  Both articles contradict because one tells cyclists to break the rules of the road and the other tells cyclists to be care and watch out because at any moment they could unexpectedly be hit by a car.  Cohen talks about how in Amsterdam there are many bikes and they have their own set of rules.  I visited Amsterdam this summer and there is an extremely big bike culture.  When i traveled all throughout the city everywhere we went there were people riding bikes and also hundreds of bikes chained up on the sidewalks.  I don’t know which author i agree with on one hand I don’t think bikes should have to stop at stop signs but also I wouldn’t want to get killed by a bike.

David Byrne in his chapter about San Francisco in reality does not really talk all that much about the city itself.  He touches on the landscape of the city describing the hills and how a cyclist could potentially get almost anywhere in the city without going up a super intense hill.  This is an important fact for him because he is riding his bike and personally I would not want to be biking up some of the steep hills I have unfortunately had to walk up with great difficulty I might add.  Byrne is detailed oriented but not on the topics that a reader might expect.  His chapter is supposed to be about San Francisco but he spends a majority of the chapter describing San Francisco and the Bay area as the place where start up companies come to expand and become successful.  He talks about the Silicon Valley and the garage where HP was started.  I felt like he writes in a similar way that he thinks.  His sentences and the way he describes things seem like they are not said in a very academic way but instead just any thought that comes to his head.  In this way his chapter makes connections to things that a reader may not have though of on their own.

He describes a few places he visits throughout the city and the Bay area including Taqueria Cancún located in the Mission District which is known for its great mexican food.  It seems that because his chapter is titled San Francisco he should go into detail describing the area surround the restaurant and then go into detail about their food and the atmosphere but instead he writes two short sentences that barely give the reader and idea of the place he is talking about.  I think that the whole point of him riding his bike around the city, and to other places, is to slow down and take in the sights that he wouldn’t be able to see from a car or any other motorized mode of transportation.  He should spend his time describing the taqueria but instead he just skips over the place like it didn’t matter.  This type of writing again focusing on mostly the way Byrne thinks shows the reader just a taste of San Francisco and makes them want to dig more and research more about the city to find out what they missed by just reading Byrne’s chapter

.

For the S2 presentation I like how we had a separate presentation to express to the class what we were going to present the next week.  I was unfortunately absent from the class where we were informed about the presentation presenting what were were going to present (thats confusing isn’t it?)  I had no idea what Professor Hunt expected but I tried my best to find a topic I was interested in and also concerned bikes.  When I stumbled on this super cool company which produced retro electric bikes I was interested and intrigued.  After I made my presentation and presented to the class I felt pretty confident on my topic.  It was a different take on bikes and I felt like my presentation presenting what we were going to present was successful and I would have no problem making my real presentation for the following week.  Fast forward to Monday night when I was doing my homework for day 13 of class.  As I was reading one of the assigned readings I suddenly realized that my topic on stylish electric bikes might be interesting to me but it was not enough to be able to talk about these bikes for four minuets.  I suddenly changed my topic and I really didn’t know what I was going to do to be able to finish with my speech in time.

I realized I still wanted to talk about electric bikes but instead of some very random company I wanted to talk about the law aspect of the situation.  I researched and created a speech that I believed was a great representation of my view on bikes.  For those of you who do not really know anything about me I want to be a lawyer and am even involved in one of the undergrad law programs offered by USF, because of this I realized this topic was better suited for me.

After I gave my presentation on Thursday I actually felt like I did horribly.  When I wrote out and rehearsed my speech I felt great.  I believed I knew the material very well and it was something I was super interested in.  When I stood up and gave my presentation for some reason I became very nervous, more than I usually do.  I was stumbling on my words and did not look at my notecards once which probably wasn’t the best idea.  I do not remember everything I said but I know I left out major parts of my presentation and information that I spent time researching and learning.  I know most people are posting on their blogs that they felt they did better during this presentation but I felt or actually know I did worse.  I think that as time goes by and I learn more about everyone who I am in class with I become more nervous.  I think that it is easier to make speeches to groups of people that you do not know, in this case there is no emotional connection and therefore easier to concentrate on a presentation.

When Brianna was speaking about how Uber is training their drivers to be more bike conscious and be able to share the road especially in a bike derived city like San Francisco.  Even though I talked about electric bikes and the laws concerning these modes of transportation I believe both me and Brianna talked about how vehicles other than manual powered bikes need to learn how to share the road and also how people themselves need to be accountable for their actions.

For my next speech I want to be even more prepared than i have been for my last two speeches.  I want S3 to go so smooth that when I get up to talk I do not even need to make notecards because I know the information so well.  In conclusion I know I did not do a great job on my speech but for next time I know what I need to work on.