The Last Blog

One huge aspect I noticed throughout all my writing is that everything I read seemed to instantly bore me. There was something annoying in reading my words over and over and over again. Other than that I'd have to admit there are certain characteristics of my writing such as my over-adjectivednever ending sentencesare extremely apparent.Also, I've noticed that I use silly catchy phrases like "such as" and "before I knew it" that I guess I can't resist. Not only that, but I also seem to add and build in my witting, something that tires me when I read it now, but something I guess I never noticed when I was writing that way. My paragraphs are often flooded with "also"'s and "as well as"'s that by the time I read ALL my passed blogs i was getting REALLY tired of myself. Noticing things in MY writing that actually bothers Me, makes me think that I must have learned a lot this year and really grown as a writer. Or at least I hope so.

One other thing I noticed, that didn't really surprise me, was that I was most interested an attentive to the writing I actually enjoyed writing. When I read a poem I wrote for Animal Farm, I was truly interested. It's been so long that each phrase surprised me, but also pleased me. If I read something I liked, I'd think "wow that's good" then think "jeez, I wrote that." It actually made this assignment really fun. well REALLY fun, but that was diffidently a fun part of it. I did NOT enjoy reading things that I'd not enjoyed writing. To be honest, it was just boring. I'd made it boring by embellishing it with fancy words and phrases, but leaving out any excess energy that could of actually made it nice to read. A theory I'm developing right now is that if i enjoy writing it, someone else might actually enjoy reading it. Just a theory, but at least it keeps ME interested in my writing.

I hope I've grown as a writer. I hope my writing is becoming at least a little more interesting to read, and it's easy for me to see the distinct traits that mark MY writing, even if I may start trying to fix them.

Essay Writing

Throughout 9th grade Honors English, I've received a huge amount of of tips, instructions and guidance that I think have greatly improved my writing as well as enhanced my knowledge of essay's and how they're built. I do understand the purpose of literary analysis, and how discussing and sharing interpretations can help to build a clearer understanding of the general plot and small nuances of a piece of writing.

One of the main challenges I have with essay writing is to come up with original ideas or interpretations of the text we're writing about. To write an essay, well supported, with clear distinctions of every part, and to also connect each piece of commentary to a specific line, while bringing up totally original ideas, has me struggling. However I think that that skill might be easier for me as I become more confident and sure of what is reasonable in a essay, often I work hard on making sure I get everything all polished and nice and end up turning in a perfectly ordered essay that's really boring. Sometime along the way I hope I can start writing essays that are just as orderly and polished, but with interesting concepts and thoughts that someone would actually want to read.

Summer Reading Books

First I'm definitely going to read The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins. my friend just finished reading it and has been telling me everyday since she started that i had to read it too. so of course i will.

The second book I'm planning on reading over the summer is probably the sequel to The Hunger Games, because you know, that's how it works. If i was gonna read a third book though i might try reading The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy series again. Again because i tried once and got to the part where the whale falls out of the spaceship and turns into a flower pot before it hits the ground, and then i don't really know what happened after that. I think I watched the movie one time but i still just blank right after that part. I'm kinda bummed though because some girl in my Spanish class told me everyone dies at the end, so yeah, that was really lame.

astrology thing

I sort of actually love astrology. it's a thing me and my mom do on rare nights where my brother and dad are gone. Total girl time. I'm a Pisces for starters, but my rising sign is in Scorpio, my moon is in Aquarius and my Venus is in Capricorn. The Pisces sign is all emotional and jazz, supposedly relating to the fluidity of water or something, and it's also dramatic and creative and expressive. Fun stuff. Now my rising sign, Scorpio, is intense, and stubborn and very opinionated giving a boost I guess to all the dramatic emotional stuff from Pisces. Then there's my moon sign, Aquarius, which is supposedly to be a humanitarian sign, all about seeing the big picture and different sides of situations which is pretty cool. and lastly, there's my Venus sign, Capricorn. so Capricorn is not exactly that fun for the planet of love and jazz because it basically says that I'm cautious and practical and like "conservative" or something.

those are the only parts of my chart that i know about, or at least the one's I remember

Romeo & Juliet

The Reflections, "just like Romeo and Juliet"


"Findin' a job tomorrow mornin'
Got a little somethin' I wanna do
Gonna buy (gonna buy) somethin' I could ride in
a-Take my girl (take my girl) datin' at the drive-in
Our love's gonna be written down in history
a-Just like Romeo and Juliet

I'm gonna buy her pretty presents
Just like the ones in a catalog
Gonna show (gonna show) how much I love
Let 'er know (let 'er know) one way or the other
Our love's gonna be written down in history
a-Just like Romeo and Juliet"


in the song they're saying that their love is going to be as tremendous and awesome as Romeo and Juliet's, and therefore also written down in history. Romeo and Juliet are obviously still huge icons for romantic relationships.

Skits

One scene I think would be good would be the one of pip's first visit to Jagger's house where he's accompanied by Herbert, Startop and Drummle. Specifically I think the part about Molly's wrist would be really cool because for one it was really intense and creepy the way jaggers talked about them, and secondly, it's a pretty important part in the plot foreshadowing all this stuff revealed about Estella and her parents.

Another scene I think would be cool is the one where magwich arrives at pips place and reveals himself as pips benefactor. The dialogue with which magwich revels his identity is really funny and clever and I think the contrast in attitudes (pip's and magwich's) would play out really clearly when acted out.


One more scene I think would be interesting to preform is the one at the blue bore where pip runs into Drummle on his way to visit Miss Havisham and Estella and they have a stand off regarding their space at the fire. This scene seems important because it seems to stand for more than just fire space. It ties into their pride and feeling of special connection to Estella. And the brief dialogue they do have just spells out the dislike they have for one another.

Another question about a passage

In chapter 49 on page 404 pip walks back into Miss Havishams house peeks through the door, and all of a sudden she jumps up all on fire and runs at him! there are a lot of things i don't get about this scene, for one, how does that effect the plot? why would that add anything to the plot, especially since she's all OK and everything, and secondly, how did she even catch fire? was she just too close to the hearth?

Question About a Passage

In chapter 34 on page 273 Pip mentions the way his lavish habits have affected the Pocket family, and Herbert especially, saying "My lavish habits led (Herbert's) easy nature into expenses that he could not afford, corrupted the simplicities of his life, and disturbed his peace with anxieties and regrets." But follows on the next page to say that "as an infallible way of making little ease great ease, I began to contract a quantity of dept. I could hardly begin but Herbert must begin, too, so he soon followed."

My question is why does Pip get himself and Herbert into further dept in response to realizing it's negative affects on his friend? And how is contracting more dept a way to make "little ease great ease"?

The Importance of Being Earnest paragraph

For my first point I used Algernon's quotes on the unromantic and business like qualities of marriage to show how the social standards and expectation of the time demanded so much self repression regarding love and romance, making the pursuit of pleasure a rule breaking endeavor from the start. i also took the chance to show how Wilde's life experiences provided him with the personal knowledge necessary to portray such an accurate account of Victorian marriage. For my second point i used quotes from both Miss Prism and Chasuble to not only reinforce the business like quality to marriage, but also showing how loveless marriage really is and how that's excepted, or even expected in their society. for my last point i bring up two different quotes, one from Aunt Augusta and one from a conversation between Cecily and Algernon. these quotes allude to the idea that breaking the rules, chasing your passions, and doing all those other things that are taboo, is fun and exciting. the more oppressive and strict the laws of social conduct become, the more exhilarating it is to break them. Being bad is fun. For transitioning into the next paragraph talk about the previously mentioned ways the pursuit of pleasure was portrayed, relating it back to our main overall ideas, and sum up all three point of my paragraph.

Muy importante para mi grupo!

ok so instead of me talking about both marriage and just random things other people say throughout the play, I'm thinking it can be more focused on direct opinions that the characters have, or exact things they say. that way satire of marriage and things like 'behaving well and feeling well are very different things" can go together under the same topic. yeah? good? so then because this topic is about direct quotes while both of yours are about big underlying themes, then i was wondering if i should still be in the middle? whatcha think?

The Importance of Being Ernest/Victorian Research

My research on the Victorian era regarding marriage especially, has given me a more accurate vision of Victorian social life. Far more accurate than I would have had without such prior knowledge. Knowing the extent to which women were basically bought and sold under the pretense of marriage has helped me to catch the small truths that Wilde exposes through the use of his caviler characters. In one instance Algernon expresses his thoughts on marriage by saying that "it is very romantic to be in love. But there is nothing romantic about a diffident proposal" referring to the business like aspect of marriage regarding property and money. On another occasion he actually comes out and says quite plainly that proposing is a matter of business, not of pleasure. knowing the truth behind these words makes them so much more than playful jabs at the institution of marriage, but like a political statement, addressing the flaws in the society of the time.

Likewise, the research I did on the polarized gender roles of the Victorian era gave me a very different background with which to analyze the piece. The stereotypes of women portrayed throughout Wilde's play, though very different, all share key traits that tie into the general view of women at the time. Traits such as being irrational and self absorbed. Cecily is a perfect example of the self absorbed nature I'm referring to. When Gwendolyn asks if she can view her through her glasses, Cecily replies that she wouldn't mind at all and is "very fond of being looked at. Also, Cecily's obsession with her diary and her own thoughts just accentuate how absorbed with herself she really is. on the other hand, the way both Gwendolyn and Cecily describe their fondness for the name Ernest, and how it accounts for so much of the affection they feel for the guys they like, displays how very irrational the young girls are.The same with Lady Bracknell's "suitable gentleman" list, judging how suitable a man is by not only his fortune, but also the location of his homes, his parentage and whether or not he has healthy habits like smoking. Knowing beforehand the fairly low standing of woman in society and their place in it as being one of only passion and emotion, makes understanding the construction of Wilde's characters and the weight of the stereotypes he portrays all the more interesting.