Listing Subjects 

People  

Arber Grezda

Rasim Shehu

Stefan Gregori

 Places  

Royal Crown- Bakery Shop

Richie’s Gym

The Writing Center

St. John’s University

Onderdonk Medical Clinic

First Free Evangelical Church

 Activities  

Breast Cancer Walk

Customizing Cars

 Listing subjects related to Identity and Community 

People  

Stefan Gregori- Pastor

Rasim Shehu

Arber Grezda

 Places Onderdonk Medical Clinic 

Salvation Army

 Activities 

Soccer

 Listing Subjects related to Work and Career  

People 

Rasim Shehu

 Places 

APD Restoration office

The Peter J. Tobin College of Business

 Choosing a Subject 

The subject I have chosen for the profile is customizing cars. I think that this subject is a good idea for me as well as my readers because customizing cars is a growing trend amongst many people. The readers and I will come to learn about what kind of activities take place in this particular group of hobbyist.

 Checking on Accessibility 

For this particular hobby, I can interview my fiancée because customizing cars is his biggest hobby. He will be available for me to interview him and ask question whenever I might need to and he also has his friends who are also in the same group of hobbyist that can also help me with this particular subject. Just my luck, my fiancée is customizing his car and I can observe as he does for better understanding of what goes on into this hobby.

 Exploring your Preconceptions 

What do I know about this subject?

Already I know about customizing cars is that it is costly and it is time consuming. Customizing cars is about being unique and building something that no one else has. When I think of this subject, I automatically think of my fiancée and his car. Customizing cars involves different types competitions.

My attitude towards this subject?

I find customizing cars intriguing because it takes a lot of work and dedication. It requires a certain level of intellect and knowledge to involve yourself in all aspects of “customizing your ride.” I like this subject because it shows a persons taste and have respect those who are willing to take matters into their own hands and not just sending it to a mechanic.

My own and my classmates’ expectations?

I think that my classmates also have the same preconceptions on this matter. They probably think the same as I with the level of intelligence that a person needs to have in order to do the work that they do. In the media there are two different aspects shown. On one hand you have all these unique cars illegally racing and creating all sorts of mayhem such as running from the police and on the other hand you have educational shows informing the viewer how to customize their cars. They also have shows televising show competitions where cars are evaluated for looks and performance.

 Testing your Choice 

Are you confident enough about your choice of subject?

As I look back on list of subjects, I think that I have made the right decision. Overall, I think that customizing cars is an interesting hobby and I would like to know more of what goes into it.

Do you care enough about your choice of subject?

I am very curious in this particular hobby which is customizing cars. I want to learn more and I would like to observe the work being done so I can better understand therefore create a well described profile for my readers.

 Planning Your Project 

Until I have to write the discovery draft I have time to interview my fiancée and his friends if need be while I observe the work being performed this week.

 Posing Some Preliminary Questions 

-          What influenced you to customize cars?

-          How long have you been doing this for?

-          Are there any groups that you belong to based on this hobby?

-          How complicated is it to actually customize your car without being a mechanic?

-          Have you ever had an incident or heard about an incident on where a hobbyist of customizing cars have ruined the cars they were doing work on?

-          What comes to mind first when the subject comes up?

  Discovering a Perspective 

I still haven’t done the interview or the observation so at this time, I have nothing to write based on those two experiences.

During this profile, I will be a participant observer.

My readers for this profile would be my classmates and young adults. My profile would probably be in Car and Driver Magazine, Motor Trends, Auto World Magazine and many others. I want the readers to learn that customizing cars is not a light activity which requires finesse and style.

 Formulating a Tentative Thesis Statement 

Customizing cars is a hobby that takes great pleasure in creating something so unique which requires a certain level of intellect.

 Designing Your Document 

For the document, I might put pictures of my fiancée’s current project.

     Customizing cars is a hobby that has become quite popular in the past few years. There are people who have such a tremendous passion when it comes to cars. They want to be able to change anything that they can to make their car as unique as possible. From having done work to the car and making it unique gives satisfaction to the owner that no one else has the same car because it would be customized personally by the driver. Unique covers two aspects, appearance and performance. One of the aspects of  customizing is when the vehicles appearance is customized to such an extent where at times you can’t even recognize the make and model of the car. Such changes take place inside, outside and even under the hood. The other aspect of these changes is performance upgrades which are pretty radical. Cars which have been modified to make so much power you would require a driver with superior skills.

     Having a hobby such as customizing cars is very costly and time consuming. An average price of a car is roughly 30K, yet if you were to buy the same car in parts, the price of the car doubles. So when car customizers buy parts to upgrade their car, they wind up spending a lot more than the actual value of the car. Another setback is the fact that customizing a car is very time consuming. Everything has to be done with such care and style or else the car will be just another car. When some customize their engines, it takes even longer because the smallest miscalculation could very well end up a disaster. Not only can every single mechanical part within the engine become damaged but then you lose the time and money that was put into customizing in the first place. Then it will take more money and dedication to fix what when wrong.

     Understanding how a car works is very complicated. A person has to understand the mechanics and physics of a car. You also need understanding of a pretty complicated electrical system. There is so much thinking involved and putting the pieces together. Car customizers also have to have a visual sense of how the parts work with one another. The engine of the car is like a power plant or human heart producing kinetic energy and the transmission also known as trans-axle, is like the muscles executing motor functions. Both engine and transmission are controlled by an ECM (Electrical Computer Management) through low voltage currents. Being a car customizer means you need to know how to modify every single part including the ones mentioned above. Customizing is not an easy thing to do. People that have that hobby have a full passion of cars in order to dedicate countless hours to a machine.

     Even though customizing a car sounds like a horrible math equation, it has its fun sides. Making the appearance of the car more appealing can be fun and that is when a persons creativity takes over. Its almost like being a home designer, only for cars. When improving the appearance of the car, customizers try to balance out looks versus aerodynamics. They change bumpers , hoods, panels, tires, rims and even lights to best suit both categories.

     Customizing takes great intellect as I see it in my fiancee. The way that he understands the concepts seem to amaze me just as it would others. It is a great hobby and gift to be able to customize cars. To this day, all the changes that he has made have only made the car better looking and faster. His car is unique and it has become more him with every change that he has made.