ordinarily bright

The object that I will be reviewing will be the hot new thing known as a light bulb. It merits evaluation for the sheer widespread use that it harbors from the population that needs light, be it day or night. Light bulbs have been around for many years and, yet, they may have lost a bit of their original flair due to being just as widespread as they are now. While it may not be new or exotic, let alone controversial(unless you're Amish), the light bulb is popular, although not in the most obvious of ways. When someone turns on the lights, they may not realize it, or verbalize their pleasure, but they do feel the joy of being bathed in the glow of the artificial sunshine. Categories would be hard, but household utilities might be a good one. Those common things that people tend to take for granted might be a slightly more efficient subcategory within the household as well, to give more meaning to what types of things we are comparing this light bulb with. Its functionality is also a huge category for the light bulb to be placed under, considering it's the majority reason that I chose to go with something so plain and bland. For that very plain and blandness, a certain functionality achievement is vaguely ignored in light(no-pun intended) of whatever else is going on. Yet, more often than not, light bulbs are necessary to keep whatever is going on, going on. That being said, categorically, light-emitting objects would also be a good category to put the light bulb under. The typical incandescent light bulbs are referred to as 'light bulbs,' while others are given more specific names such as LEDs or Halogen Light Bulbs. Every type of light object there is, excluding the sun, has some sort connection to the original light bulb design. The criteria for the light bulb are both quantitative and qualitative, because a good mixture of both helps to build a concrete foundation for a story. Comparing the light bulb to other bulbs, possible criteria include comparing the light bulb's visible light output. Also another criteria, perhaps more suited to the 'now' section of the paper, is the energy efficiency compared to the competition. It's been said that light bulbs are terribly inefficient and, as a result, waste electricity for the same level of output light in public. Another easy comparison in the fiscal requirements for the light bulb, and how it compares to other bulbs. Other light bulbs tend to appear more expensive, but why? I'm truthfully kind of curious myself. It seems like it should be a normal light bulb, but apparently glass is more expensive for them for some reason. Comparing conventional usage though, some qualitative data includes how widespread light bulbs really make it. The demographics of light bulbs(what a weird thing to say...) have much to say about which bulb is more positively reflected in the consumer's eyes. And, last but not least, where the light bulbs are used the most. Recently I saw a picture of the entire world in a silent glow of a thousand beams of light pouring from certain areas more than others. Spilling the light and allowing it to flow into the small countries so that everyone can have the warmth of the light.

Who said that?

To wake up in the morning to the smell of fresh roses in the air is a wonderful thing. To wake up in the morning and find out that you don't have anywhere to live, that's quite the opposite. The student's frightened expression did not belie the fact that they did not expect such an outcome. The quick fingers upon the keyboard sent an email to schedule the nearest appointment with the housing staff that they could manage around their busy Monday. They ran out of their dorm and through the ice covered ground later that day to make the appointment to discover what could have possibly gone wrong with their living arrangements for the following year. The foreboding lights were dimmed in the housing section of the commons. The student slowed and caught his breath as he pushed open the door to the busy department. He walked up to the counter so they could tell him that they were expecting him and to take a seat as they got the respective woman in housing that he had emailed. The thumbs he held in his lap played a game of tag as he waited along with three other students. He leaned over and asked the girl next to him what she was there for. "Oh, it sucks, I didn't get housing next year..." she said while pursing her lips.

Although she was attractive, his attention didn't focus for too long on the girl as he realized she had the same problem that he did. Finally a woman came out and looked at him and asked, "Jacob?"

"Yeah," he responded and with a sigh, got up out of his chair to be ushered by the woman to her office only to be told in a droll voice that, like so many others, there was nothing that could be done to get him on campus the next semester.

"Sorry..." is all that could really be said in this situation.

Q: "Did you get housing next year?"

A: "Yeah, I did, it's really nice"

Q: "Did you know that apparently there's a large number of students this year who didn't get housing?"

A: "Wow, that really sucks. I can't even imagine not having housing given to you. I mean, what are they even going to have to do now?"

Jonathan - freshman student - ~19

Q: "You're a senior, when did you stop living on campus?"

A: "Actually, this is my first year off campus. I thought I should try living on my own now because it's my last year and some freshman or someone would probably like my room more than trying to find one themselves I guess."

Peter - senior student - ~22

Q: "What would you do if you didn't get on-campus housing?"

A: "Well...probably run around in circles trying to find a place."

Anonymous - female freshman -~19

*Anonymous because she just didn't want her name posted simply

"5169 students applied for housing contracts, 3887 received them." (Anselmo, and Glossner )

Anselmo, Julia, and Joshua Glossner. "Lack of Housing Contracts Disappoint." Collegian Feb. 2011, Print.

"Freshman Acceptance & Retention

Total applicants: 40714

Total applicants who are accepted: 21017

Total of accepted students who enroll: 6540

% Undergraduates Living on Campus: 37.00" ("Princeton Review")

"Pennsylvania State University--University Park." Princeton Review (2008): n. pag. Web. 13 Feb 2011. .

"Student LivingFirst-time Room / Board Required

Dorm Capacity 13,399

Meals per Week N/A

Room Fee $3,820

Board Fee $3,930"

"Pennsylvania State University-Main Campus Academics, History, Financial Aid, Alumni, Campus, Students, Faculty, Address, and Tuition." stateuniversity.com. stateuniversity.com, 2010. Web. 13 Feb 2011. .

I still have to meet and greet with some people in the department of housing to get the numbers and statistics that don't seem to be posted online anywhere. They just didn't happen to be open over the weekend so there wasn't much I could do to meet and interview someone there. However, I did find it interesting that Jonathan, the student I interviewed on a bus of all places, got his housing through the honors college and he really seemed to be living the good life as a result and I found that quite interesting. I might interview someone who's in charge of that to get some numbers from them and in a way inspect what can go right if you play your cards right in the smart game possibly. The only other thing that I might like to research is the average cost of an apartment around the area and place the numbers against housing on campus and check if people thrown off campus are getting beat up financially as well, in a sort of adding salt to the wound type approach.

Penny for your thoughts?

"Frank Sinatra has a Cold," by Gay Talese, is considered the best profile that there is, and I can see why. The infinite yet specific scope of the piece gives an almost perfect rendition of the man called Frank Sinatra. I think the author assumes some previous knowledge of who Frank Sinatra is, but truthfully the real definition of how important he is comes from the bar scene where his position is made clear as nobody who knows something wants to get him mad. His interesting behavior thereafter and how he reacts to the situation at hand also makes him someone who the reader wants to learn about. The title of the piece pulls about that, when Sinatra has a cold, it really hits home for him as a singer. The moments where Sinatra cannot pull together his act because of his illness shows picture perfect the seriousness Sinatra puts into his singing. The descriptions honestly couldn't be enumerated to speak of how clearly the reader can visualize Sinatra by his personality without ever really physically describing him. It's slightly hard to grasp the motivation beyond for Sinatra to work other than the fact that Sinatra just wants to live a dream and, when that dream is taken from him by any cold, he is destroyed on the inside. The other aides to this lay with how his parents were under oppression by Irish. Although his mother never let it get to her, the pull of being free and letting go seems to be very important to him. The writer has drawn on so many sources, likely some that nobody would ever have thought about, to get their information. The depth of information seems incredible, and although I doubt that all of it is word for word truth, I feel like it should be. The author puts such an incredible amount of information in his piece, that it's unimaginable to think that there couldn't be a focus on the truth of who Frank Sinatra is.

In the interview, I was surprised at how old the man Gay Talese was. Of course to do the profile on Sinatra he had to have been around during Sinatra's prime, but to still be doing profiling at his age is amazing. It's interesting to see how well he enjoys what he does to be truthful. He really knows how to make the audience interested in what he's talking about. He also really knew what his interviewer was going to ask as well, which I guess just comes from the job. His description of what a profile should be was much more in-depth than I thought it could be. First he starts by talking that you really need curiosity in the subject and you need to portray that curiosity in your piece of literature. It surprised me by how far his curiosity would lead him when he stated that many of his 'interviews' would last from one to two years, which seems ridiculous (I won't, though, in light of this new information ask for a one to two year extension on my paper so it can be thorough enough; no worries). As a result of this, obviously, his pieces tended to be longer, but he really enjoyed that. It surprised me when he talked badly about newer journalism that tends to be focused solely on celebrities and only short bits of information at that. I can easily see his angle, considering how much of the news is only focused on the trivial outer appearance of something and doesn't ever go into a static neutral zone where the interviewee is a person; no more, no less. I found the fact that his upbringing was so similar to Sinatra's, where it was an Italian upbringing with a strong mother figure. I personally attribute then his success with "Frank Sinatra has a Cold" to a little bit of a personal connection. Talese mentions how he manages to stay in contact with the people he interviews because, obviously after a few years of research, he is able to become friends. The things about trust that he learned from his mother was an insanely interesting idea in that you really just want to learn about the person, paper or not. In that sense the idea of polite questioning was a very blunt hit as to the directives of an interview. I found it hilarious, in this sense, when the interviewer of Talese, who really couldn't ask many questions, seemed to cut Talese off at one point. The fact that Talese never used tape recorders or open notes threw me for a loop a bit, but I can fully understand the fact that if you want to get a completely calm person to interview, taking notes on everything they say can be overwhelmingly distracting. I really loved the way that Talese seemed like he was just teaching these newer journalists at how to do their job, while at the same time being interviewed himself. It seemed almost ironic, but truly enlightening at how this man, influenced by pure storytelling, could create such masterpieces of non-fiction.

Number One School, period.

The author of the report, "#1 Party School," takes an interesting approach to explaining the drinking 'issue' at Penn State. The author defines drinking in a way for the audience to understand easily by doing the sort of 'in-cognito' approach to both define the issue and make the audience understand what the problem actually is. The reasons are also defined in the undercover work in which it shows the investigative necessity of the alcoholism in State College. The way the report describes the different viewpoints of multiple different types of people such as the home owners, business owners, and police all give the best way the issue affects multiple groups of people. The author is using a radio talk show, so to be quoting someone is irrelevant when the majority of the show is the audio interview of the multiple different perspectives. However, one quote with Graham Spanier when he tried to say that drinking isn't for Penn State and the reactions thereof really showed how serious drinking is for Penn State. The students are interviewed in the beginning, so their opinions are included. However, only those students who are in the worst case scenarios are interviewed and so only a part of the population is considered in the report. I hate to say it, but this is obviously only a negative light on the drinking here at Penn State, with the only positive light being placed on what the business owners say in that they actually enjoy to see the students have fun. Obviously the author wants to get across the message of how intense drinking is at Penn State. The negative light on Penn State drinking is obviously inherent in the entire report with every situation being the greatest negative possible. Overall, I think this report is too widely biased to only one side of the issue and, as a result, seems almost unfair for a report of this length. As in the cases with the pizza man, there's obviously a reason why he STILL works the job he does. He never once really said he hated the job, he just stated that, yes, absolutely crazy things happen when you're a pizza driver. Not to mention the inability to be tipped if you deliver wings. I felt that this was strangely and funnily realistic. The only house owners interviewed seemed to be the most drastic of people, who clearly dislike the place they live in. I highly doubt that most people can't choose where they live if they bought a house in one of the biggest party areas in State College. It seems to me that it would be their fault if they didn't have any idea of where they were buying a house, which is not a light decision to make. All in all, there's a reason why Penn State has the biggest alumni association in the world. People loved what they did in Penn State, and most people drank, even from ages past. That being said, I can personally say I don't drink, but I love to see how lively my college is. The fact that people can have so much fun here is a great thing that other colleges don't offer. Penn State IS unlike any other school, but I wouldn't say it's in a bad way in the slightest.