Jon's Bio post

Hey everybody!

Great posts so far. I am really glad to see that many of you are able to upload pictures and create links with ease. If you didn’t do that this go around, please start with at least one or the other in the next post. I am wondering why a few of you didn’t post anything though… Oh yeah! Feel free to comment on other's posts as you see fit. It is not a requirement for the class, it's just fun to get a comment when you are the blog author.

As promised, here is a little about myself:

As I mentioned in class, I moved here last August from Phoenix, Arizona. It’s pretty hot there. Our summers are usually in the triple digits, and sometimes it gets as hot as 120 degrees. “But it is a dry heat” is what people usually say when they talk about how they stand it. Admittedly, I never knew what they meant by this until we moved here. Champaign in August, in all its humidity-glory was quite the shock. We weren’t used to things like sweating in the house and never being dry. So that was quite the adjustment.

I have been married to my childhood sweetheart for 7 years (8 this July) and have three kids. My oldest boy is almost 5, my daughter is 2 and my youngest boy is almost a year old. They are pretty cool. Being a dad is a really wild ride. In case you are wondering, I got married when I was 22. Pretty young, I know--but it was the best decision I ever made.

I am at UIUC pursuing a PhD in English with an emphasis in Writing Studies (which is the reason that I am teaching a rhetoric section…). The school, as you know, is awesome. We are glad to be here even on days when it is colder outside than in my fridge (something that never happens in AZ).

I am really into music and am always looking for new stuff. I play guitar and was in a band on and off for about 10 years. We never got famous, which is why I am in grad school. J I was in high school at the height of the “grunge” era, so I was really into bands like Nirvana, Smashing Pumpkins, and Soundgarden back then. Other old favorites include Weezer, the Cure, and Ben Folds. Lately I have really been getting into more mellow stuff. The resent upsurge in great indie folk musicians has got my interest and I have been expanding my interests to include bluegrass and Americana music as well.

I am really into writing in all of its forms. I love street art and will be showing off some of it this year in class. I am also interested in looking at all writing from a rhetorical perspective—which is why we are doing this blog this semester. I hope you guys will have fun with it. I already am.