After a long semester of Comp 2, I can say there is a lot about me and what I thought I knew that has changed.  First off, who I am has changed.  Through the assignments that we have done in the class, I have become more aware of who I am as a person and how technology has influenced that.

In my very first blog, for example, I reflected on the use of my iPhone and realized how much it has consumed me and how much time I invest into it whether it is actually productive or just to kill some time.  I never knew how much time that I am on my phone instead of interacting with the world around me. 

Second, when I was writing my paper over the visual arguments and propaganda, I never realized how much I was interested in politics.  A year ago, I would have told you that I have absolutely no interest in politics but now after writing the paper, I found myself thinking more about how politics affect my life.  It has made me realize that I am actually growing up (kind of a scary thought) and beginning to make decisions that not only affect me but everyone.  Furthermore, the assignment made me more conscious of my own beliefs instead of just agreeing with what my family and friends and how important it is to for my own ideology.

What else has changed is my own thoughts on ethos, which is what a lot of our class focused on.  Ethos, in short, is the credibility an author has when writing something.  I used to think that it was all about being learned in the subject that you are writing on such as trusting a person with a PhD in medicine writing an article about health instead of trusting your next door neighbor’s thoughts on what is ailing you.  I had never realized how much more ethos encompasses than just that basic definition.  Ethos, according to Nedra Reynolds in an article she wrote, “…encompasses the individual agent as well as the location or position from which that person speaks or writes” (Reynolds 326).  Learning that ethos also included who I am as a person and where I am from, was very surprising.  I had always known that when a person wrote a song or created some other kind of work of art such as a painting or sculpture, they are expressing themselves and their lives through it, but it never occurred to me that the same is true whenever I write something.  I have always taken my writing assignments throughout high school and college very lightly and never put much work into it.  Now thinking back, I wish that I had put more work into them because it shows so much about who I am as a person.

Now that the semester is over, I am kind of sad that the class is ending.  That is definitely a weird feeling.  I have made some good friends and learned a lot of new things about writing and myself.  This whole class had definitely been an eye opener about how I use technology, how I write, and many other things.  I can say that this has been one of my favorite classes and I am going to miss it.