Thursday, June 17, 2010

The Conclusion

I feel like most of my blogs were written about what I know. Most of that very vague. I never really went into detail about anything. A couple of blogs made me think. Especially the blog about Romeo and dreams. That was probably the most fun I had had writing a blog all year long. I don't enjoy blogging because I don't like giving people the chance to critique my bad writing. I know if I really applied myself to writing I could do awesome, but it just seems like too much effort. A lot of people I know call me an over acheiver, but I will never see myself as one. I usually try to do the minimum amount of work to get myself at least a B. Next year I plan on applying myself more to my writing. I don't want to be embarrassed of my writing anymore. While looking back at my blogs I noticed that many of them are about how bad my writing is and how I wish I could fix it. (Blah, blah,blah) I think so many things over ride my need for school. In the blogs where I write about how bad a writer I am, I seem so clueless and I didn't find that it truely helped me at all like it was supposed to. Sometimes I think it's harder for me to write because the topics are always to dull and I never really want to think about the subject. It's so much easier to write about things I know and fully understand. For instance, writing about our summer reading list was a blast. I love to read and knew exactly what to say. Just thinking about that blog makes me excited to get every single one of those books and read them. If I was asked to write an essay on one of those books I could write a lot because they really interest me. I think the commentary for an essay like that would be a lot easier because, trust me, I have much to say about the books I read. I always drive my sister crazy telling her about the books I read...I also love talking to her about the books when we have both read them. One day I hope I can be a great writer and I can really look back and be thankful I took this class even though I never really wanted to... It was my most dreaded class and still is. The challenge of this class drives me crazy, but it also makes me want to suceed and be like "WOW! I can do anything!" Next year I will get an A in honors english. That would be a great confidence booster. I'm glad I took the challege with this class and as of now when I think of this class it's going to make me think of how I really could have done better on things I didn't do so great on, but it only motivates me to do better next year. "Men's best successess come after their dissapointments." Henry Ward Beecher. I may have dissapointed myself this year, but I will not let that happen again.

Friday, May 21, 2010

Essay Writing

Even though we have been writing essays all year long I am still not confindent in my writing. I am much better at writing a good thesis, but thinking of good commentary is hard for me. I always want to use concrete detail; probably because it is so much easier. Annalyzing is also easier, but putting it into an essay is tough. I think I might take a writing class over the summer to help me next year with honors english 10.

When writing my essay I hardly ever have very good transitioning sentences, which breaks the flow of reading it. Like I said, I also have a hard time writing commentary. I could also improve on my hooks. I am sure there are other things I could improve on that would take my "B" essay to and "A" essay, but I dont know what all the other problems are.

Friday, May 14, 2010

Summer Reading List

The two books that are at the top of my summer reading list are Burned by P.C cast and kristen cast and Mockingjay by Suzanne collins. The first book listed as been out for a while and I have been meaning to buy it. I think it is the 5th book in Marked series. The series in about vampyres(That's how it is spelled in the book.)When I bought the first book it was meant as a present for Ahlora, but after she finished it, it was just collecting dust on her shelf, so I decided to borrow it from her. After the first book I was hooked, but not as much as I am hooked to the Hunger Game series. After I read the first book I had a deep desire to read the next. It was like torture waiting for the next novel to be released. I am really looking forward to Mockingjay to be released.(It comes out in August!!! YAY!!) I would try to explain the story line myself, but it is way to confusing. I wouldn't know where to start. I also plan on reading many other books because reading is my favorite hobby.

Friday, May 7, 2010

Theme and Motif: dreams

The dreams that I usually have that could actually have an affect on my reality is my mom getting mad at me for not telling her something. Just this week I dreamt that I hadn't told my mom that there was a half day and a meet on Saturday, so of course she starts yelling at me and telling me how I never tell her anything in advance. Dreams like these feel so real to me that when I actually thought about telling my mom the next day I thought I had, but later on remember that, no I had not informed her. To avoid the confrentation in my dream I told my mom in advance things that were going on in my life that week. Sometimes I have other dreams about boys or just weird things that make no sense, but I still think they all have some sort of impact on my life.


Romeo and I are alike in this way. No matter what kind of dream I have I think it has something to do with my actual life. One time I had a dream about this guy, so I thought well maybe I subcounsiouly like him and I don't know it or maybe he likes me and I should be avoiding it. Kind of how my dreams are my fate, in a way. Like Romeo thinks his dream about the party will eventually cause his death.


Friday, April 30, 2010

culture shock


This movie takes a more modern twist on Rome and Juliet by refering back to the play. Juliet is now sought for advice, through a wall. I think that this modern twist makes the story of Romeo and Juliet's love more interesting and romantic. If their really is a wall in Italy where people write letters to Juilet that would also show the timelessness of Romeo and Juliet's love.

Monday, April 12, 2010

English

English, what used to be one of my favorite classes has turned into a challenge for me. I knew it was going to be tough, but not my hardest class, besides science that is. I've almost never heard any of the terms like annotating and motif before I was in this class. And DGP is a whole other story. The writing part of it can be fun if it is on my own terms, I wish we did more creative writing instead of writing about how we feel about so and so novel/play. I am not the greatest writer. I still haven't fully grasped the concept of commentary. Maybe it's because I can be lazy at times and it's just easier to right a summary. I worked really hard on my last essay though. It was probably the hardest to right because I felt like the reading was held out to long making it hard for me to remember all of the symbols, motifs, and themes. I can still enjoy the class because the people are very interesting and a good group overall. I know this class will help me in the long run and thats why I am taking it. My future is important to me and any time I hear the word honors or AP in front of a class it just makes me think: FUTURE LIFE.

Friday, March 26, 2010

skit prep

Three parts of the book that stick out to me the most is the first time Pip meets Miss Havisham, when Biddy and Pip walk through the garden, and when Miss Havisham takes the blame for the way Estella is.
The first scene is Pip walking into a room with a creepy old lady all dressed in white, for a wedding, with candles all around. The clocks are stopped and there is no natural light. This would be an interesting skit because it would be entertaining seeing the emotion that Pip has towards Miss Havisham. It is also an important part of the book. It goes with the theme of "first times." The theme is present through out the whole book, making this an important scene.
Another scene I would want to see is Pip and Biddy walking through the garden and Biddy totally seeing through Pip. Biddy reads Pip like a book. She knows him that well. I think it would be a good scene because Biddy portrays another side of herself by being rude to Pip, even if it is just telling him the truth.
The last scene would scene shoes another side of Miss Havisham because she gets on her knees crying out to Pip about how she knows what she has done. I think she feels shame in what she has done and feels bad for Pip.
There are also other interesting scenes, but those are the few I could remember off the top of my head.

Friday, March 19, 2010

question 2

"You acted nobly, my boy," said he. "Noble Pip! And I have never forgot it." (317) 39
Why did something that happened so long ago effect the convict so much that he had to return the favor by giving up his life and actually working?

Friday, March 12, 2010

question

(246) ch. 30 "Casting my eyes along the street at a certain point in my progress, I beheld Trabb's boy approaching, lashing himself with an empty blue bag. Deeming that a serene and unconscious contemplation of him would be best beseen me, I advanced with the expression of countenance, and was rather congratulating myself on my seccess, when suddently the knees of Trabb's boy smote together, his hair uprose, his cap fell off, he trembled violently in every limb, staggered out into the rod and crying to the populace, "Hold me! I'm so frightened!" feigned to be in paroxysm of terror and contrition, occasioned by the dignity of my appereance. As I every mark of extreme humiliation, he prostrated himself in the dust." The Trabb boy continues to follow Pip and do the same with, but next time he yells out, "Don't know yah, don't know yah, 'pon my soul, don't know yah."

Why was Trabb's boy making fun of Pip?

Friday, March 5, 2010

picture


I chose this photo to signify the new friendship between Pip and Herbert. This friendship is very important for Pip to have because he had lost Joe as a friend and Biddy as someone to confide in. Joe was his best friend and Biddy was like his personal shrink and teacher. Herbert can help Pip accept his new life easier by being his new friend to confide in but he does not completely filling the roll of Biddy. The friendship between the two also brings Pip to Matthew Pocket, who is to be Pip's new teacher and Herbert's dad. This new friendship is also a motif of life changing days.

Friday, February 26, 2010

Great Expectations

Pip's experience at Ms. Havishams change his life. It was the first link. She changed his life by bringing Estella into Pip's life. Estella made him feel like crud for being who he was. It is not his fault that he is of lower class than her, but she sure makes him feel bad for it. It may have also given Pip reason to try to be of a higher class so that he can impress Estella to win her over. Also, even if Pip does not realize it, Ms. Havisham showed him that he has more than just Joe, Ms. Havisham cares about him. This day changed his life because he found an interest in Estella and he refuses to forget her. It is easy to understand that just one day can change your life forever.

The day that changed my life was when I started at Holy Family. I went in there with a lazy attitude. I didn't care about school at all. But as soon as I walked in the classroom door everyone was busy with work. Everyone cared. It made me feel pressured to care, as if it was weird not to care. Peer pressure won me over and from that day since I have been pressured to get good grades and do the best work I can.

Sunday, February 14, 2010

Importance of Being Earnest paragraph

Coming up with something to write for my paragraph has been very difficult. Our body paragraphs are high, medium, and low dishonesty and it is very hard to find much about medium dishonesty. I want to make the point of why the levels of dishonesty are so important and why Wilde uses them in his play. In my paragraph I am going to use several lines from the play as a concrete details to describe the medium level of dishonesty. After that I want to state some of my opinions on the medium level of dishonesty. I do not have enough detail for my paragraph yet and some ideas would be great.

Friday, January 29, 2010

Victorian Research

As I read the play, The Importance of Being Earnest I notice many similarites between the play and my research on the vitorian era. Woman in the Victorian Era had one goal in life and that was marriage to a man with a good social class. Cecily and Gwendolen are following that victorian stereotype because they are both looking for marriages. Cecily is having such a hard time finding a marriage that she makes one up in her diary. Gwedolen, on the other had is having a hard time finding someone because her the man she marries has to live up to her mothers expectations. The fact that Gwedolen's mother is taking the duty of finding her daughter a husband was also common in the Victorian Era. Most marriages in the higher classes were not out of love, but out of the social class and the amount of money the man has. In Gwendolen's place she is not aloud to marry "Ernest" because he was found in a leather bag as a baby, and that does not live up to Lady Bracknell's standards.

It is also stereotypical for higher class people to be snobby in the Victorian Era. Algeron is a great example in the book of someone of such a high class that he is rude. He is so rich that he thinks he can just rip up his bills and nothing will happen to him. He also thinks that he can say what ever he wants to say and do whatever he wants to do. He often comments Jack's outfits and does whatever he wants by going to Jack's house without his permission. Those are only two bits of information that I have learned and compared to the Victorian Era. There are many more examples in the book.

Monday, January 4, 2010

New Year's resolutions

This year my biggest focus is school. My new year resolution is to focus more on school than my social life. My inspiration is the realisation that school is everything. It's my future. I want to keep my grades up. I want all A's. The highest A I can get in each class. I plan on trying my hardest for put school first. For me that is really hard to do because my social life is pretty much everything for me, but I know school is more important in the long run.

My plan is to get an organizer and write down all of my homework and the classes that I could work on. I also plan on informing my friends about what I am going to do and my plans, so that they understand that I still want to hang out but I want to get my school work done because it is much more important to me than anything else.