The Honda Family

When my brother, Jared, was seven years old, he wanted to get a dirtbike. Of course, he wasn’t very tall yet and he had to settle for the smallest size of dirtbike, commonly referred to as a “minibike”. When my family went looking for minibikes, we found that Honda made a 50cc minibike called the Z50. It was the perfect size for Jared and so we bought one on the spot.

Fast forward eleven years and Jared had just gotten his motorcycle license. Looking to buy a streetbike, he looked at Hondas first, eventually settling on their 1000cc flagship bike. The next year, I wanted to buy a dirtbike like Jared. However, I had my eyes on a Suzuki and not a Honda, much to the shock of Jared and my dad, who also had a Honda motorcycle. Looking back, I think this was because I wanted to be different and not just follow everything that Jared did. In the end, though, I settled on a Honda dirtbike. Despite being very similar to the Suzuki in terms of cost, performance, and styling, there was something about the Honda that drew me to it. I think that being able to say that I was part of the “Honda family”, so to speak, was more important that making a statement about how different I was.

After buying my first Honda, my parents and I bought a Honda Civic for me a few years later. Why did we buy the Honda? Well, it’s like walking into a class on the first day and knowing only one person in the class. Where do you sit? Next to that person, of course. They already know you and you know them, just like when you buy something from Honda.

- Joel

My Media Habits

To obtain my daily media, I usually watch CNN and parts of the nightly news. The stories that I pay attention to the most are the ones that deal with national and world news. I find that local news often covers depressing stories that I can’t do anything about, like murders, fires, or other disasters, so I tend to avoid those stories. I also don’t follow news about celebrities and their lives because they don’t affect me. My media habits have been influenced mostly by my parents. My mother always watches the nightly news when she gets home from work, but my father rarely keeps up with the news, preferring to relax when he gets home from work. I think that this has led me to try to keep up with the news, but only if I have time. I also watch CNN from time to time to keep up with national stories.
I think that one of the best aspects of my media habits is that I don’t focus on one particular news station to get my news. I try to get it from a variety of places so that I can form my own opinions about stories. However, because I get almost all of my news from TV, I don’t always get the insight that newspapers and blogs can offer. Also, I only watch the news when I have time or if I’m following a particular story. To improve my media habits, I could try to read daily newspapers and use the internet to get more points of view on stories.

Introductory Post

Hi, my name is Joel Nave and I'm a junior here at UMBC. I'm majoring in sociology and minoring in English. I like playing football, videogames, listening to music, and hanging out with my friends.