Entry #1: Cooking

Cooking is a very important skill to have when you are older, because food is something you need

to have in order to survive. Being able to learn how to cook is a very useful skill for everyone to have because it is healthier to have home cooked meals instead of eating fast food or take out. You are able to choose what you eat and you could make your favorite foods and also make sure that it's good for you. Also, cooking is a great skill to have because it can also help you if you are going to have people over and you want them to eat a good home cooked meal. According to Reporter Linker "More than one-third of Americans [36%] say they cook at home daily." I believe that more people should learn how to cook, it doesn't have to be complicated meals, it can be as easily as mac and cheese or even noodles.

    One of my favorite hobbies is cooking, because I like to cook for me and my family, I like to make

all kinds of food, from Seafood to Salads. I like how it brings my family closer together when we eat together as a family. I also like knowing and exploring different cultures through food, for example I learned about a West African recipe called Fufu. I love eating it, it's one of my favorite things to both cook and eat. I also learned that making food at home saves a lot of money because I like saving money since I have 4 kids. I also noticed that making food at home saves me about $150 a day from the people that live in my house.

    People that like to cook say that it helps with their anxiety and their time management skills, it makes sense that people like to cook because it has multiple pros to it, it also helps with people's mental health. According to National Library of Medicine "...inpatient and community-based cooking interventions yielded positive influences on socialization, self-esteem, quality of life, and affect." I believe that cooking can possibly help people's mental health because it's an activity that can be done with other people. And mental health can be helped by being with other people and talking and just being with other people. According to Mentalhealth.org "Friendship is a crucial element in protecting our mental health. Our friends can keep us grounded, help us get things in perspective, and help us manage life's problems." Mental health is something that everyone should be careful for and everyone should be taking care of themselves and I like to cook because it helps me feel good about being able to give my family what they want and need. And if they need food, then I'll give that to them. I'm sure other people feel the exact same way about their family members.

I also like to make home cooked meals, because some of my family members don't eat meat, are allergic to some foods, or have specific food preferences. So, I like to make a variety of foods for my entire family instead of driving around to get fast food from different places, or ordering from different places for my entire family to eat.

Cooking can also boost confidence; it can help make people feel better about being able to provide for others. Cooking is a useful tool that can help other people with their confidence by showing that you are

important and are able to contribute to the family or household. According to National Library of Medicine "Cooking confidence and healthy eating self-efficacy were positively associated with F&V intake. Perceived stress, healthy eating social support, and perceived food environment were not associated with F&V intake. When all the independent variables were analyzed simultaneously, only healthy eating self-efficacy remained positively associated with F&V intake." Which means that it helps people's confidence whether that be from feeling valid and important or even useful in your family or household to you just like to cook and be able to feel healthier by eating healthier and healthy food.

Overall, my favorite hobby is cooking, and I believe that people should cook at homes more because I believe that it's a useful tool to be anywhere. Like when you're at an Airbnb and you don't want to order food. Also, when you just feel like eating a home cooked meal because you are just tired of eating fast food or take out. In conclusion, try to eat as many home cooked meals, because it is better for your mental health and your body.

Blogs: NME & Fast Company

Blogs are a great way to get your voice out there and to inform people about different things and also to get to know people that you’ve never met before. Blogs can be professional, personal, or corporate, so that they can be enjoyed by different people that like different things. I read two blogs, NME (https://www.nme.com/) and Fast Company (https://www.fastcompany.com/). I believe that the two blogs are different but at the same time are fairly similar. One blog (NME) reports on Music, TV, and Celebrities while the other (Fast Company) reports on the recent news, technology, and work life.

Let me begin by explaining different blogs and what each of them do. There’s a variety of different blogs, but for right now, I’ll just explain 3 types of blogs. Professional, personal and corporate.

 The first example of blog types I’ll be discussing is professional blogs, which are blogs that are seen as professional and informational to the readers. Professional blogs are usually seen not to entertain the reader but to get the reader to learn about things going on in the real world. Some examples of professional blogs are, Fast Company, New York Times, Wired, and many others.

Professional blogs also
may include professional
workplaces

The second example of blog types I’ll be discussing is personal blogs, which are blogs that are there to talk about yourself and your life and to keep others informed of what you’re doing in your day-to-day life. Personal blogs can be about posting what you eat in your day or to even post about what you do every day. People with person blogs usually talk about their own experiences/stories they have or just talk about their day to keep their family and friends updated on their life. Personal blogs can also be used to just talk about your opinion on things such as movies/tv shows or even music.

Personal blogs are most of time to let

others know about your day-in-a-life

or your family updates

The third and final example of blog types I’ll be discussing is corporate/music blogs, which are blogs that are made to talk about music and different artists or tv shows/movies. An example of this is NME, Rolling Stone, Hot New Hip Hop, Pitchfork, Louder, Loudwire, Far Out Magazine, and many more. They are simply there to inform/entrain the readers, the readers are entertained reading about the new music coming out, while it’s also informing the reader about new artist and about new tv shows coming out. All these blogs have differences and similarities to each other.

The Beatles performing, photo
taken by Rolling Stone

All the blog types are great because of the diversity and the different options for readers to be able to read about, that can range from personal stories to the news. Two blog sites that I think highlight about how I believe blog sites are great for different readers is NME and Fast Company.

I’ll start by first talking about NME, the blog site NME reports about the music industry and celebrities and the next moves in their careers. What I like about this blog is that their accurate and fast with their information and what they post, they also seem to make sure that peoples voices are heard so they get people to make statements about the situation/problem that’s happening. Although, something that I don’t like about this blog is that they don’t really talk about underground artists or more unknown artists. I just personally like when music magazine talk about underground/not well-known artists and talk about their music and basically interview them. I like how Bomb Magazine (https://bombmagazine.org/) does that very well, they professionally interview underground artists about not only their music but the artists as well.

I’ll end with talking about Fast Company, the blog site Fast Company reports about the news, technology, and work life. What I like about this blog is that they seem to be up-to-date on the issues going on with people. Also, they seem to interview people the article is talking about, its not only the opinion of the writer, but it also starts to be about the opinion of others. For example, they did a post about what’s going on in the world and they talked to the CEO of the company that the article is about. They like to know the truth and like to quote reliable people that work at said places.

I believe that blogs are great for people to learn new things and to inform others. I also think that they are a way to entrain people. Also know that there are always good/bad things about a blog but that doesn’t mean you should discourage them.