A Smile a Day... Rather, for a Consistent 46 Hours....

This past weekend, I attended my first THON. My sorority had made LionShrine the previous year, meaning we had earned enough money to have 5 girl dancers and 5 boy dancers on the floor this year. I'll have to admit that I didn't know the dancers (seniors) very well, nor did I have any idea what THON would really be like, though I had spent hours upon hours soliciting funds in various ways. The whole weekend, I got 8 hours of sleep, ate 8 subway sandwiches, an entire pizza, 4 soft pretzels, and too many large dippin' dots to count (yeah, I don't really have any meal points left) and lost my voice from so much excited screaming. Sounds like a bad weekend? Not at all. One of the best of my life. I'm not going to go into detail about what I learned at THON or what it is about. I'm just going to tell you how my screaming radiant positivity kept the dancers going, or so they say.

One of our dancers, when I went down to the floor, told me that every time she looked up, I had the biggest smile on my face and was dancing like an idiot in the stands, and that it kept her going even when she was about to stop. She told me to keep it up, it would really make a difference in how our dancers survived. I did. I really honestly don't think I wiped that smile off my face, even amidst my delirium and slowly approaching laringitis. It's crazy that a smiling, dancing supporter can keep someone awake and on their feet for 46 hours so that they can help kids fight cancer. My smile helped keep our dancers going with an energy derived from all of the positive support. Keep smiling, and you might help pull someone through the roughest, and longest, of hours.

In case you're fancying a visual of my overwhelming positivity:

A Smile a Day... Always Draws Attention

This past Tuesday, I dragged myself to Penn State's Career Fair at the Bryce Jordan Center, despite my persistent belief that no employer would be interested in a freshman. But I wanted the experience, and it couldn't hurt to be rejected a few times, right? A few of the employers dismissed me right away, some of them quite rudely, which I didn't find surprising. I was dragging my feet and allowing my naturally angry facial structure to glare at all onlookers when my luck turned around upon receiving a text from my dad saying "Smile! They'll love you!", and immediately my confident smile seemed to attract more positive attention. The employers suddenly seemed much more interested in me, saying that they usually don't give internships to freshmen, but they admired my drive and ambition and so decided to accept my resume and application. I did feel quite cheesy giving my 30 second introduction with my overly ambitious pearly whites popping out at employers, but it seemed to work. I had so many valuable conversations with company representatives, and I was invited to a couple of special employer events and I was even offered a co-op that is usually only for sophomores and juniors! I honestly think that it was the rhetoric of my smile and the confident aura that the smile bestowed upon my personality that helped these employers to see me as an attractive candidate for an internship, despite my young age. Through this experience, I learned that a simple smile can mean success. The rhetoric of positive body language can enhance professional experiences to their full potential, making those who manipulate rhetoric in this manner the most successful in the survival of the fittest.

A Smile a Day... From an Animal?

Meet Rags. My cat. He's smiling, because he's so unbelievably happy. The September of my senior year in high school, my dad and I discovered Rags, abandoned and near death, hovering under our backyard deck. We saved him, and now he lives with us (except outside, because my dad's allergic). Rags was the runt of his litter, but he was the most optimistic of all the kittens- he pulled through and survived his abandonment, and now he's the happiest cat to walk the face of the earth. You'd think Rags's constant happiness and kitty smiley face wouldn't really make a difference in my everyday life, but it makes all the difference. Now that I'm in college and I can't see Rags everyday (which slightly depresses me), my brother sends me a picture of Rags smiling almost every day. The picture above is from when Rags and I first united when I came home from school for winter break- of course that was the happiest he had been in a while. Everyone knows that animals spread joy. But when animals smile, it makes life so much more joyful. I don't know what I'd do without my smiling cat- but can animal body language be a form of rhetoric? I think so. If people have rhetoric, so do animals, and perhaps theirs is even more interesting because they can't articulate the way humans can. Maybe this is food for future thought.....

A Smile a Day...A Form of Consumerism?

Commercials. No matter how willing you are to admit it, they influence you. Some of us more than others- some of us are avid television watchers, and others may only see a few commercials a week. Nonetheless, the majority of the American population is familiar with ads from companies such as Geico and Subway. Perhaps some of us are familiar with this Pepsi advertisement, aired during the World Cup games this past summer:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p9sE4GaFekI

This advertisement spreads a feeling of togetherness and joy through many elements of the commercial: the music, the screen shots, but most importantly, the acting, or the radiance of the people. You know where I'm headed- because these people are smiling, it spreads a feeling of happiness throughout the community. But why are these people smiling? Not only because of soccer, but because they are bursting with bubbly joy from their refreshing cola beverage of choice: Pepsi. Through eliciting a feeling of togetherness and joy, the Pepsi marketing team has successfully convinced consumers to buy its product, whether directly or indirectly. Not many viewers think to themselves, "Pepsi has made their product appealing by making the people in this commercial happy. If I drink Pepsi, I will be happy and will help spread joy to my fellow citizens." If consumers even contemplate the commercial at all, it will be more like, "That looks refreshing. I want one."

How does rhetoric play into this? Again, body language is rhetoric, and the Pepsi marketing team has achieved an excellent portrayal of happiness through body language in this particular advertisement, which is an extremely convincing way to produce a positive response in consumers. In this world cup advertisement, then, Pepsi has successfully marketed the smile to attract consumers to buying their refreshing smile-inducing beverage.