Final Blog

Blogging has been helpful to me this past semester. It was a way for me to write or type my thoughs out and Lindsey could comment on them so I knew what would work for my  papers and what wouldn't. Alot of the blogging we did kind of forced me to really think about the reading we did which I probably wouldn't have done any other way. All together it seems that it was a good thing for the class to do and a good way for the TA to follow our thoughts.

Workshop.

The workshop we did in class on Tuesday was very effective. The first exercise was helpful because reading my piece outloud and actually hearing it helped me figure out where my organization worked and where it didn't. Also, it was easier to spot wording mistakes I made in my paper. The second exercise was also very helpful. The questions asked of where things were in my paragraphmade me realize that I didn't have alot of th information I needed in my paragraph. I have alot of revising to do on my Proposal Essay and the workshop helped me alot on what I should do to make my paper better.

FREE BLOG!!!

I would like to use this blog to tell you all about my own "Series of Unfortunate Events", I'm not whining but you all deserve a good laugh before you head home for Thanksgiving.

It all started Sunday morning, I was leaving my boyfriends house to go to work at 10am. As I got to my car I realized that it was just one big ice cube! I got in and started to thaw itout so it was drivable but all of the sudden it just quit running, this is when I realized I was out of gas. I go back in and get the keys to my boyfriend's car and begin to now thaw his. He is a tall individual so his seat was pretty far back and I'm a short individual so I had to put it forward to drive, but it would not go forward. So here I am, driving down Cherry Street, in a half frozen car and the only way I can see over the steering wheel is if I pull myself forward using the steering wheel. It must have been a comical sight.

I finally make it back to my dorm to change and I am running incredibly late. I walk over to the MUC and attempt to go in the door, but since I am opening and the janitorial staff on weekends aren't on top of things, all of the doors are locked. I begin to walk around the building to the door the kitchen staff goes in and I slip on the ice, off a ledge and land in a weird position. I quickly got up and hoped nobody saw that, I began walking and felt this intense pain in my foot. I held in my tears, got in the building and continued y work of unlocking the doors and opening the building. Once I had a minute to spare I look for my cell phone to call my friend to come look at my foot, which is now throbbing! Unfortunaltely I couldn't find my phone. It turns out it fell out of my pocket when i slipped and has been laying in the wet grass for about an hour.

To sum up the ending, I spent around thirty minutes drying out my phone, thirty dollars to buy a gas can and put gas in my car and the afternnon at Student Health to treat my foot. I now am walking in a boot and keeping my car full of gas at all times :).

Happy Thanksgiving!

Outline

I really liked the outline for our literary analysis paper. It was so helpful in the organization of my paper and by going through it in class. One of the most inportant things I didn't know that I do know, thanks to the outline, is the idea that the first body paragraph should be mostly background information of you thesis. Also, I liked all of the comments on ways to do new things with my conclusion. But, I have to say my favorite part was the title of the outline itself: Mission Inconvienent! :)

thesis statements

I would like to write my literary analysis paper on David Sedaris's "Me Talk Pretty One Day". I will analyze the idea of old age in the story and the idea of trying to have a fulfilling life. My thesis statement is proving itself difficult to write though. This is what I came up with.

In "Me Talk Pretty One Day" David Sedaris suggests how the fulfillment of life drives a person to do more to feel that accomplishment.

Reading Critically

This whole process of reading critically has been very interesting. It is so fun to look at a group of words, a paragraph, and just see what you can find in them. Some meanings are so deep in a story you can read it several times before you can actually understand what some things symbolize. I was really intrigued to learn about the whole seasons idea, that a time period in a year can mean so many things. It really connected back to my idea in my analysis of  "Me Talk Pretty One Day". The author talks of October, which is a fall season and fall stands for old age. My whole idea of "Me Talk Pretty One Day" is that he is searching for more fulfillment in his life at an old age, he just wants to be accepted. The whole process of reading and thinking crotical I feel will make me a better student and by learning these unseen messages in stories I can see the unhidden messages in life.

Symbolism

"The White Heron"
* Symbol- the color white of the heron.
* Meaning- I think that the color white of the heron is this story symbolizes the innocence of the girl and the fact that her and the heron have that innocence in common. She is "araid" of people and would rather stay in her own little world, and the same goes for the heron. But, while they are both enjoying being alone they are at the same time being pursued by the hunter.
*Symbol- the old pine tree
*Meaning- To me the pine tree has the meaning of being old fashioned and a classic, just like the girl and her grandmother live. It is the last tree that was left by the lumberjacks and it still lives in it's own way among the rest of the newer trees. The same thing goes for Sylvy and her grandmother, they could be living a more modern life in the city, like Sylvy's mother but they choose to keep it old fashioned, simple and classic.

"The Yellow Wall-Paper"
*Symbol- the torn wallpaper
*Meaning- In this story I think that the torn wallpaper can be compared to the life of the woman in the story. It is torn and old and needs to be renewed, I feel that the same thing applies to the woman. She is not old but her attitude towards life is withered. She needs a better outlook on life but she just needs someones help to do it, like the wallpaper, that can't be changed itself.
*Symbol- the creeping woman behind the wallpaper
*Meaning- I feel that the woman behind the wallpaper is the woman in the story. It symbolizes her life of trying to creep her condition around her husband and in the end when she has to let the woman behind the wallpaper out she is really freeing herself from the secrecy of keeping her condition under wraps.