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.

Women in the Early 1990's

Women in the early 1990's were treated like children. If I were ever to be treated this way I would not put up with it. I see men and women as equals and for a man to treat his wife as John did in "The Yellow Wall-Paper" it would be completely innapropriate. A wife is a person to love and cherish yes, but not looked down upon and riduculed like a child. The 1990's were definately not a place I would have fit in.

The Most Dangerous Game

This is a great story, it really gets and keeps my attention. I read this story in high school but I didn't remember it until the General was brought into the story. I think that is because he is the character that really intrigues me and I want to know more about him. He is such an interesting man in a really strange way but those are the kind of characters in stories that I like. The end of this story has to be my favorite part, as weird as it may be I think it is hilarious, well at least the way I interpret it it is. In my idea of the ending, the general dies, I don't know of that is the way everybody sees it or not but it adds some humor to the story for me.

"The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas"

Wow, this short story is amazing, the way the author writes keeps my interested and the moral of the story makes me think. In the beginning Le Guin makes this place sound like a utopia of some sorts, where nobody is judged and hapiness is seen everyday in the faces of everybody. As the story goes on and they all head to The Festival of Summer it just makes the communityof Omelas seem well put together and gives you the picture of a "perfect" community. Le Guin says guilt means nothing in this town but I think he is mistaken. Guilt is the look on all the faces ofter they see what the young child goes through in the cellar so that they may all live in this utopia. Guilt is what runs through the minds of the people who walk away from Omelas and go to the undescribable place because they know that staying will only cause more harm to the young child in the cellar. To me, this story makes me think alot about other people's suffering. We live our lives day to day and try to make things as "perfect" as they can be for us, but what we don't think about is what we could be doing for the "young children locked in a cellar" of our society. If we could take time out of our search fpr perfection and "leave Omelas" we could be helping an uncountable number of people in the world that need us.

Writing Process

My writing process for my RBAA paper has been going well so far. In order to even start writing I have to have an outline of how I am even going to layout my paper. For the RBAA paper I am using the Toulimin Model and it has been working out so far. My first draft is not my full essay so my later drafts wil be much longer and explain things more in depth.

Evaluation of the Semester

So far this semester has been very productive in English 101. Lindsey has a no tolerance attitude and it makes me do my papes right the first time and have them ready to turn in on time, I think this is a great quality of the class. Also, I find it really helpful when we blog about our topics and Lindsey comments on them and answers our questions, the same thing goes for our second draft papers that Lindsey goes over. I really enjoy and come out ahead of the class periods when we just sit in a circle and discuss topics, it really helps me brainstorm what I want to write about. Recently when we went over a powerpoint presentation in class I found out that I understand what I read alot better when we go over it as a group. There are few, if any, things I dislike about this class. Lindsey has a very strong personality and sometimes she can come off as intimidating, whic I think is why we sometimes don't speak up in class. But other than that small detail this course is very helpful and I wil come out of it as a better writer.

RBAA Topic

I'm still not quite sure but I think I am going to write about depression in teens. I'm not sure how to focus in on the topic though, maybe how some people overlook it and the suicide rate, or treatments. Some of the questions I asked when I was blitz writing were: Is it a problem? Treatments? Who is affected? What is th ebackground like of teens with depression, and do they have some common ground? What brings on depression?
I'm just looking for a litt le input on how to narrow it down and write a good report because this topic interests me and I wouldn't get bored writing about it.

Discussion Topics

Thursday's class period was not only entertaining but very helpful. The class discussions really got me thinking about what other people find important and how passionate someone can be about their beliefs. I left class Thursday with two very interesting ideas to write my next paper about, either depression in teens and how it is not regarded as a problem or the different types of religion and how they conflict each other. Each of these issues are important to me and I would be very interested in researching them, but I can't choose.

Thursday's Class

Thursday's class was interesting. I enjoyed seeing all of the revision strategies and how everybody used  them in there papers. Alot of them gave me ideas on what to do with the second draft of  my proposal paper. The aspect of group work was a nice change for once also, we had to meet out of class but it was still a break from the same old same old. My group divided the owrk equally and I feel that we did a good job bringing the information together and we conveyed it ti the class well.

CLASS!!

Ohh what should I even blog about class? I liked this peer review worksheet better than the last one we did, I feel like the questions helped the reviewer give more feedback on the layout of the paper. I thought the grammer lesson was alittle pointless, who doesn't know how to use commas? On the other hand, maybe I'm being biased, maybe I flunked my comma quiz...I don't know. Anyway, class was just another class nothing stuck out to me. So this blog was kind of pointless today. Have a great night everyone!!

Product Testing: What is it Worth to You?

Thesis: Product testing on animals is unnecessary and inhumane.

Point 1: Immorality of the way labanimals are treated.

Point 2: Product testing on animals produces invalid results.

Point 3: There are many alternatives to product testing on animals.

Jesse Jackson

I loved the chapter in this excerpt about how Jesse Jackson is one of the people screwing up America. I completely agree that minorities should be treated fairly and everything but when you run down other groups of people doesn't that make you kind of hypocritical? If I was searching for equality I would use the old saying "treat others as you want to be treated", in myopinion you have to give respect to gain repsect. I know that the civil rights movement was a igger deal than this but still at least some of the same concepts should have been involved. Martin Luther King Jr. was a respectable man and he made positive impact on America without singling out certain groups and comparing them to the Nazi' Party. All in all Jesse Jackson went just a little overboard in his search for equality.

Peer Review

I really enjoyed the chance to read Terrance's paper in class today. He is a realy good writer and his paper really caught my attention. It also gave me a look inti the life of someone else and made me realize al the struggles others go through too. I think that the Peer Review was a useful and entertaining way to get others opinions and give yours on the paper. It really helped me with my question about my intorduction, I decided now to take pieces out of my first paragraph to make an introduction and also to work more with expanding my ideas.

You are going nowhere in life.

Where am I going to be in 10 years? Who am i going to be? These are the questions I don't have the answer to, but that's ok. I know where I am right now and I am happy with me. I have been to the point where I thought I was going nowhere in life and that it was ridiculous for me to even be alive but my path has taken a turn for the better. During that "rough patch" I had no idea where to turn, I was so unhappy because I didn't have a path, didn't know where I was going. I learned while getting through all of this that I don't need a plan. I am who I am and my family loves me and my friends love me and most importantly I love myself. I know wherever or whoever I turn out to be down the road as long as I have the solid support system I do now and as long as I stay true to myself I will be happy. So when I hear the words "you will go nowhere in life" I laugh because you have no idea how far I've come and neither of us have any idea how far I will go, and I wouldn;t have it any other way.

Battle of the Sexes.

In class the other day I think we described the opposite sex fairly well, but only the stereotype of the opposite sex. People are completely unique, boy or girl and they all don't fit the stereotypical form we made. If I was to live a day as a guy I can't even imagine how I would be. Maybe, I would try to fit that stereotype because I think some men think they don't need an excuse to be gross becasue it's just assumed. I would take advantage of that assumption for a day because I would want to see the reactions it would get from other people. I don't feel that being a male would be any harder or easier than being a female, we all face the same societal issues that form us although we may see them, or deal with them differently.

The Notebook pg. 2

"The romantics would call it a love story, the cynics would call it a tragedy. In my mind it's a little bit of both.", Nicholas Sparks writes on page 2 of "The Notebook". This really stands out to me because it makes me think of my view of the story, I personally think it's a love story so I guess I'm a romantic. I think that it is really great that one thing, even the smallest thing, can mean so many different things to different people. Without this concept life would be completely boring, there would be no conflict and to differences among people. It blows my mind how such little ideas like this make the world what it is.

Curious Writer pg. 11

"There are no boring topics, only boring questions." This quote from a section of "The Curious Writer" really made me think. The paragraph continued to tell me to think of familiar things in new ways, and to always have a sense of wonder and curiosity. All of this advice from a book really hits home, it makes me wonder about all the new and exciting things I am missing out on in the everyday things I see. I want to question more things now and to explore all the old and boring things I've done in a new way. This lesson also goes along with writing, it tells me to start with questions, not answers and to make the familiar strange. It expands my writing on certain topics and can really make me think more about what it really is I am writing about.

Jessica Marie Wulf

      Well, my name is Jessica Marie Wulf. I was born in Watertown, SD but was raised in rural Estelline until about Kindergarten when I moved into town and remained there until now. Some fun facts about myself are that I was a cheerleader in high school and even joined a competition cheer team. I love my family and friends, they are the most important thing to me, I wouldn't be who I am today without them. In my family I have 2 siblings, a sister and a brother, my mother and my stepdad, and finally my biological dad.
     Also, I love animals! My dad lives on a farm and I helped out alot, so I wasn't your stereotypical cheerleader. Being outside is a neccesity for me, without being able to go outdoors I would go crazy! I see myself as a major people person who can talk way too much, but that's not always a bad thing.
    Well, that's all you need to know for now. Talk to ya"ll later. :)