NEEDS CRITICISM

Here's an email I wrote to a college coach earlier today. I just wanted some criticism on it, anything I really could've done better.
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Hello Coach McMenemy:

My name is Daniel Qin. I am a student-athlete from the class of 2017, playing CM/DCM/ACM (in no particular order); number 79 at the UMich ID camp earlier today. I was wearing a black long-sleeve shirt, white shorts, and white socks. My hair was in a topknot (if you still have trouble matching the name and the face: stereotypical Asian, talked about grades at the end of the camp).

I just wanted to shoot you a friendly email letting you know I am extremely interested in not only studying at the University of Michigan, but--if possible--playing under its amazing coaching staff as well. Beyond winning the Big Bear Trophy against cross-state rival MSU for two years (and running), multiple UMich soccer alumni have been called into not only national team camps, but MLS combines as well. Knowing this--its an undeniable fact that the staff supervising the University of Michigan Men's Soccer Program is among the top in the nation (if not the best). However, the best coaches in the nation--need to bring in players of equal or even greater quality to maintain its greatness, right? Realistically speaking I am not quite up to par with your boys--at this moment. However, I am confident in the near future, I will have what it takes to wear the maize and blue uniform on the pitch with Pride.  

I have big dreams, Coach McMenemy.

Now onto the important "stuff."

I know you just love questions, so here are a few.

1. When we talked, you said that you had wanted to see me play outside of the "ID Camp Environment" and see me active in a more realistic setting. Beyond guest playing for another team, what other possibilities would you suggest?

2. Would attending another one of UMich's soccer camps (I'm talking summer), also help the staff get a better grasp of my personality as a human, ethics as a student, and abilities as a player?

3. I mentioned to you that I was with "Next Level Training" by Aaron Byrd. One of your players, Yamman (also trained with Aaron Byrd), stated that he would likely be back at "Next Level" during this summer. If you get a chance, do you think it'd be possible for you to come to one of the training sessions in that time period, or maybe even one earlier? 

We train at 799 Denison Ct. Bloomfield Hills, Michigan. 

Current Spring Schedule for the next eight weeks (3/3 to 5/1) is:

Thursdays @ 8:00 pm; Saturdays @ 1:00 pm; Sundays @ 1:30 pm

4. Let's assume I decided to play my freshman year at another college solely for college-level in-game experience, a college where I'd play a majority of the games. How would the transfer process look, and could I still stay in touch with you, and how?

Obviously, I still have more questions to ask, however, like most human beings, I don't particularly enjoy answering seven pages of questions on a daily basis, wouldn't you agree?

Thanks again for having me at the ID Camp earlier today. Hope to hear back from you soon.

Sincerely,

Daniel Qin

Troy, Mi (2017)

Next Level Training

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TO MS. VALENTINO: 

Sorry again that this post isn't directed related to anything we did in class this past week. However, I tried to create some comic relief to the serious nature of the email by injecting sarcasm and irony. I also tried to create "voice" in this email, using some colloquial terms like "stuff." 

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P.S. ALL RELEVANT INFORMATION OF THE PERSONNEL RELATED TO THIS CLOSED DISCUSSION IS WITHHELD DUE TO LACK OF PERMISSION TO SPEAK OF OR ON BEHALF OF THESE INDIVIDUALS

Plants+cooking=people?

Junior year is almost over already and I still have no idea what college I would want to go to, nor do I know what I really want to major in. My friends all seem pretty oriented at this point and I honestly feel quite low because of my undecided choices. My friends said I should talk to my counselor. She said, "...in the future You should be doing what You love to do." What do I enjoy doing?* Writing is pretty cool I guess. "Maybe she meant hobbies" is what my friends said.

The study of plants is botany. Botany has been around just as long as there were humans. The very first records of plant-based studies date all the way back to the Neolithic Revolution (at this
point writing had just begun to develop). These rudimentary studies done at that time were driven more by curiosity rather than need or benefit. However, the various health benefits humans know of today could not stay veiled forever. Research done for actual purpose appeared through Theophratus' (student of Aristotle) teachings in Ancient Athens, 350 B.C; most consider this the origin of modern botany.

The study of preparing food are culinary arts. Likewise, the need for food has always been around just as long as there were human. But the very first records of cooking date all the was back to the Middle Paleolithic Era (at this point hearths or stone ovens had just been created). Unlike botany, cooking has always been a luxury, hence the reason it is referred to as the arts. Art  is human expression; beyond defining a man for who he is.

The studies of human interaction is sociology. People have been doing this as soon as they pop out of the womb. The very first records logically would have appeared after Adam and his wife/gal-pal realized they were naked. Sociology is both like botany and culinary arts. To an individual some others are significant, while others appear to be just there. Like botany, a child doesn't realized the need for friends. The child creates relationships out of pure interest. The peer group the kid develops begins defining who he is. Eventually the kid becomes a teen, then a man, and all throughout the process of aging, the boy now adult, realizes friends are in fact like plants and Theopratus was right. He is now matured--a realized demand for and importance of others.

Sociology, culinary arts, and botany all sound pretty awesome to me. Its just too bad that you can't triple major in college. I think I'll just double major in culinary arts and botany--or maybe just music and botany. Eh, I think I'm just going to ask my friends, tomorrow.



*not active reading and Cornell notes

How it Feels to Be Perfect Me

It all started on the day I was born. I was a perfect baby, perfect length, perfect weight, and perfect health. It was then when my parents declared I would become the world’s greatest lawyer, because I was perfect.
When I was four years old, I loved watching Teletubbies, the perfect show for the perfect toddler. My favorite episode was when the kids for hermit crabs. I remember it because it was one of the few full episodes of the show I ever actually watched. Whenever I tried to watch my show, my parents would sit me down and make me endure the presidential debates that were broadcasted on television around the time. Both candidates were idiots. George W. Bush even created a word for the idiotic linguistics he stated on live television, bushism, and Kerry would not stop discussing a war that ended three years ago. If it wasn’t for all the people who had realized the fallacy of having an absolute moron returning to the hot seat, John Kerry probably would have only gotten two votes. These idiots did not compare to Perfect Me, the Perfect Me who could barely add or subtract and had no idea what words such as “unrealistic” and “superstitious” meant.
After another year of dealing with my older siblings’ mistakes and failures, my parents deemed me to become the perfect son. The weight of those words never really struck me until I was eight or nine, but it was alright because I was perfect so I could handle it. At eight years old, Perfect Me could describe the basic skeletal structure of a humanoid and at nine years old, Perfect Me had memorized the multiplication and division table and was reading at a sixth grade level. At eight years old, I would be the last pick for every game at recess due to my size and at nine years I stopped going out for recess and sat inside, surrounding myself with books and knowledge whilst the other children wasted their time smiling, laughing and enjoying childhood. At ten years old, Perfect Me would help out the teacher, grading papers and tutoring other students. Perfect Me was universally sought out for my wisdom by my peers, asking him, “what would be the best way to deal with a friend who I don’t like” and “how should I tell my friend I broke his transformer.” It was almost as if Perfect Me was child Dalai Lama, giving the perfect answer to all the lost sheep in the world. At ten years old, I began to run away from home after my parents whipped me for bring home any grade below an A+. This was perfectly understandable as the perfect son must obtain the perfect grade. Running away from my problems was the perfect solution as well, as you should never voice your opinion and should always avoid confrontation if you want to live the perfect life. I know this because I was born as Perfect Me so I can tell you anything about being perfect.
During middle school, Perfect Me had perfect grades, had found perfect “friends” (who, by the way, were perfect as well, but not as perfect as Perfect Me), Perfect Me had moved into an elite soccer club that travelled the nation, the perfect soccer team. Perfect me was also on the school’s MathCounts first team, placing fourth in regional’s, as well as on team gold for four events in Science Olympiad, winning two first places, one second and one third during the state competition. Perfect Me even became first chair for his violin section for a short period of time.
During middle school, I would be up until midnight. Every day I had to stay after school to finish seventy-five math problems, headed to a speed training and weightlifting class, had a science Olympiad meeting, had violin class or practiced violin, then headed off to soccer practice, before returning home around 10 pm to finish up homework. If I finished my homework early, I would spend the rest of my time before 12 continuing my job as dalai lama for at the time, only a few students. As I laid in bed every night, I was in a cold sweat not only because I was still afraid of the dark, but because I didn’t know what was in it. I could hear the shouts of my classmates asking me for help on a worksheet, my teachers asking me to explain in class how the carbon cycle works, my “friends” consulting me about a conflict with one of their friends and my parents’ statement, “You are going to be our perfect son.”
When I did fall asleep it always started the same. I would have visions of myself in an ash gray suit with a navy blue tie holding a mahogany brown briefcase, standing inches away from a door in a white room. The settings would then change almost like a flipbook, a soccer field would flip by, then a classroom, a cubicle, and even a forensics lab. Regardless of how the order pages would change each night, the last page always remained constant. I was in lying in a chaise longue, still in the ash gray suit with the navy blue tie and gripping a mahogany briefcase. I would look around the room only to realize there weren’t any walls or flooring just jet blackness, only to find a sanguine red spinning chair in front a desk that was cut from a bleeding oak tree. The chair would then swivel, only to reveal a boy wearing an ash grey suit and a blue tie wearing a bauta mask with a pair of thick rusted chains crossing his chest and over the chair. The bauta mask would then fall off, revealing short lengths of black hair hanging over a shattered mirror for a face. Perfect Me would then look at myself in the chaise longue for a few minutes, shrug off the rusted chains, put the bauta mask back on, then walk out door that stayed throughout the settings. I would then wake up shaking with tears in the contours of my eyes, which was then followed by a search for the topography of my nose and my mouth. I wanted to make sure I was still there.

Sincerity

Let's analyze these passages/scenarios and "dig deeper" in each.

1.  What behavior (attitude etc.) does the artist want to convey or reveal?
2. How does the artist clarify the truth of his/her intended purpose?
3.  What is his/her true opinion?

A) IT is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife. However little known the feelings or views of such a man may be on his first entering a neighborhood, this truth is  so well fixed in the minds of the surrounding families, that he is considered as the rightful property of some one or other of their daughters." ...Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice

A)  1. behavior: Women are absolutely better than men
      2. clarification: complex sentence structure to show intelligence, capitalization to      emphasize  
      3. true opinion: Austen commentates on definitive societal standards that have established            through American History with extreme intelligence and a foolish truth. 

Sarcasm

B)  1. behavior: people are dogs to the government
      2. clarification: anthropomorphic dog receives orders from government official
      3. true opinion: humans are controlled by the government 

(over-analyze) Satire 

C) 1. behavior: women are silly for trying to step up 
         onto the same platform men exist  
     2. clarification: woman is silent, and submissive 
         just as it God designated
     3. true opinion: men will forever reign as the 
         dominant gender; woman should remain 
         behind or beneath His greatness where she 
         belongs

     Epithet

 D) From The Onion: 2005 Free Response Question 2
But while other insoles have used magnets and reflexology as keys to their appearance of usefulness MagnaSoles go several steps further. According to the product's Web site, "Only MagnaSoles utilize the healing power of crystals to restimulate dead foot cells with vibrational biofeedback...a process similar to that by which medicine makes people better."                                    In addition, MagnaSoles employs a brand-new, cutting-edge form of pseudoscience known as Terranometry, developed specially for Integrated Products by some of the nation's top pseudoscientists.  D) 1. behavior: This review is complete blasphemy, holding no purpose or meaning whatsoever       2. clarification: The onion is the worst vegetable. Seemingly sweet and bright, in actuality is layered in sharp bitterness and kick which is very well known for making children cry. Similarly, any publication from The Onion is stringent and  exposes others' imperfections to attempt to overshadow its own ineligibility as a substantial provider of viable criticisms                              3. true opinion: (From The Onion POV)- "I am worthless and disgusting. I provide bogus            information to my gullible audience. I am miserable and try to cover my insignificant sugar-      honey-iced-tea with sardonic commentary. I should donate my brain to science. But even if I       did, they'd likely throw it in the composter due to how much waste it's filled with."Sardonic
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Note: This post doesn't state my true beliefs; it was created as a parody to the worksheet given as homework over the weekend