Rhetorical Analysis of Place

For this blog post, I chose to analyze the bus stop at Blackburn house. Recently, I have been spending a lot of time at this stop, because it is where I wait for the bus to go to my job at CABS. It is a very interesting place to be, and often quite entertaining. It is a major stop for the students on north campus, and is along the route of 5 out of the 7 CABS loops, as well as a few COTA loops. Needless to say, this is a very busy place on campus, especially at about 5 o'clock, when I usually wait there.

The place itself is nothing too special. Just a wide sidewalk intersection, a crosswalk across Woody Hayes Drive, and a fairly large covered bus stop, with a bench capable of seating 10ish people. But this bus stop is a pretty neat place to be. Personally, I really enjoy "people watching". This is prime location for this. There are so many people coming and going in each direction, whether they are walking by or waiting for a bus. Each person with their own agenda. Some may be headed out to west campus to get in their cars and head home, others are going out to Buckeye village, others may be going to class. But no matter where they are going, each of these commuters passes through this bus stop. This is one thing that all of these people have in common.

I like to think of this on a bigger scale. We can imagine The Ohio State University to be one big bus stop. Just a place where people are temporarily, to help them get to where they are going. People come from other states, other countries, or just right down the road. They come here, stay for a while, then move on with their life. OSU is just a big stepping stone in peoples lives, much like a bus stop is just a stepping stone in a commuter's travels. But no matter where these people are from, or where they plan on going, they have this one thing in common; they are at The Ohio State University. OSU can be pictured as one big bus stop.

Experiences: The Roots of Place and Identity

What makes up a person? As far as I can tell, a person can be broken up into two basic things. The first is their physical being. It is quite obvious what makes this up; arms, legs, eyes, ears, things like that. The second ingredient in the human recipe is far more vague. This thing, I can only define as their "experiences". The other stuff, the stuff that can't directly observed.

Imagine humans like a used automobile.  When you look at a used automobile, you first thing you see and the first thing you think about is the model type of the car. The thing that rolled off the assembly line however many years ago. This is like a person's physical being. It's the first thing people see, but really is unimportant. What is more important when looking at a used car is the details. The good and the bad things that have happened to the vehicle since the day it was created. Maybe there's a dent in the fender, maybe a crack in the windshield. Maybe it's got a little rust around the doors, maybe the engine smokes a little. But maybe, the car has a fresh coat of wax on it. Maybe somebody put in a sweet stereo in it, or maybe a set of chrome rims. This can be compared to to the "experiences" of a human being. It's what has happened since it was created. These dents, chips, scratches in the car can be compared to the hurt that a human has experienced. They're just negative things that have happened during their time here on Earth. The fresh coat of wax, the stereo, these can be compared to the good things that have happened to somebody. When looking at a used car, the type of car, the brand, these things don't really matter. What you have to look at is what has happened to the car, what made it what it is today. The exact same thing is true for human beings.

In this class, we are studying place and identity. I think that the biggest thing that makes up a person's identity is the experiences they have had. All a person's fears, all their insecurities, all their faults, can be traced to events in their past. All of these things are direct results of things that have happened to them earlier in their life. The same is true about good qualities. Let's say a person is very honest. This might be because their mother or father really stressed the virtue of honesty when they were growing up. Or perhaps, at some point in their past, they were punished for being dishonest. Either way, these experiences shaped the way this person is now.

In this class, I hope to study origins. I hope to pull apart something that somebody has created, be it a book or a song or something, and see what I can find out about that author's experiences. I want to find out what events in their past led to them writing how they do. By doing this, I want to learn more about their place and identity.