Blog Post #6: Sucked Beneath the Tunnels of Las Vegas

After listening to Adam Burke's "Sucked Beneath the Tunnels of Las Vegas" story, it provides an eye opening experience for the average listener. When most people think of Las Vegas, the city is best known for interesting buildings and sights as well as thriving casinos with millions of dollars being spent on slot machines daily. Many are hoping with every gambling move that is made, it will be a step closer to someday striking the jackpot that will make all of their dreams come true and live the “good life”. Not too far underneath these bustling casinos, it is a parallel world in which some are just trying to survive through the day. What we call the “good life” is excess, but the struggling population will give anything to live a life with a warm plate of food and a place to stay. As the story progresses to identify Matt O’Brian, a man who searches the underground storm tunnels unknown to most visitors walking the streets above, I became amazed to think how curiosity lead him to explore these. After identifying the overlooked homeless living in them, he continues to show compassion and selflessness while providing meals for some. The amount of unawareness of what takes place beneath the streets continues to stand out to me. The fact that the homeless silver mine the slot machines for left over credits is depressing to think about when others are around, too busy to even notice.”You can be in the Hard Rock Café watching people betting thousands of dollars per hand, and right underneath Hard Rock is one of the worst areas in the tunnels I’ve ever seen in my life,” states O’Brian. Matt O’Brian is truly someone who makes an effort to take notice of the details out of the larger picture. Hopefully more can do the same and continue to aid those who suffer in a city with so much excess.

Blog Post #5 - Speech Reflection

Reflecting on my proposal speech after watching it on the class website, I feel like it went pretty well. Based off of the content section on the rubric, my speech seemed to fall under the proper time restraint using a correct format through my purpose to persuade with supporting details. In the macrostructure, I hit most of the main parts including the introduction, body and conclusion, but probably needed to speak with more transitions to create a better flow. In the delivery, my conversational tone added more emotion that the audience could relate to while imagining a visit to the Johnson Center Gym. However, there were times when I had several pauses using filler words such as "uh", adding unnecessary space that slightly disrupted the flow of the speech. I appeared to use some facial expressions and gestured at my presentation on the board at appropriate times. Eye contact appeared to be good with the audience, but could be improved from the occasional glances at my notecards. If I could work on my speech anxiety, I could improve my delivery with fewer pauses and filler words and make use of the space around me by moving around more. Less movement did identify some anxiety since it showed I was not comfortable walking around. Overall, I am satisfied with the outcome of my speech.