Finally

When I first began this class my level on independent reading varied. I would not by any means call myself a persistant reader. I would read books that my friends had recommended and said were good but I would not read on a dailey basis. I read alot more during the summer than I do during the school year because I have so many other things going on. With having this class it made me become more of an independent reader at first. At first I was really excited about all the reading and blogging but after so much of it I was a bit burnt out with all of it. I never really had much trouble meeting the amount of page numbers required, but I did find myself struggling to blog 600 words EVERY week. THis class gave me more of a respect for reading and realizing that if you dont like a book once you're about 50 pages into it then it is in fact ok to not finish it. Just pick up another book in its place. I find myself liking any type of book that can relate to reality situations. I also like there to be some kind of romance going on throughout the plot of a book. I do not like books with action as much because I would rather see that type of thing on a movie instead of trying to picture it in my head. I also like book with factual information to a certain extent. I am in AP U.S history and we have to read our books for homework most nights and that is too much information to have to try and take in all at once. I like to pace myself when learning facts from my own reading. It also helps if the facts are interesting and keep my attention or could some how help my future.

close reading bingo

weakness # 9
"This character doesn’t actually believe that his parents are “nice” he is just saying it to please his parents."
Kyle Lake

weakness # 1
"He also uses dull sarcasm like when he describes his parents as "nice". "
Noodles

weakness # 6
"The careful diction used to describe the setting escalates an image in the readers mind."
the lost message of words

weakness # 6
 "shows the way he is able to control his writing."
back of the napkin


strongest blog: inside out

Practice Diction Analysis

The crisp words that are used in Catcher in the Rye depict that his emotions are like a closed box, not wanting to deal with issues that seem non-important to him. The elevated amount of diction infers that there is a sarcastic kind of tone that is being expressed throught the excerpt. The language is easy to comprehend and the imagery is hard to picture. The lack of detail gives the excerpt a low sense of exhuberance.

currently

pages read this week: 177

amanda
The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas, is a high level reading book, and reads very scholarly.

the chief
The bluntness of a troting horse through the western plains shows the low diction and connotative somberness and the harsh night silence leaves you wondering about the lone cowboy in Blood Medidian by Cormac McCarthy.

Mariah
The narrator talks in a low blunt and course way which conveys straightforward and literal.  Words are used such as "colic" and "chilluns." Chilluns is a slang term for children.  This is an example of why this excerpt is not a denotative tone. 

style mapping

The language I observed in Stardust has high elevated descriptiveness. " The houses of Wall are sqaure and old, built of grey stone, with dark slate roofs and high chimneys." This excerpt uses words that most people can relate to yet also has a poise about it. The descriptive words help set a good sense of imagery. It is very easy to picture what is being described. The excerpt of Blood Meridian has a medium level of poetic fanciness. "Now come days of begging, days of theft. Days of riding where there rode no soul save he." There is a good sense of imagry in this as well along with personification. From Alice Seabold's book Lucky there is low and vulgar when describing events that happened throughout the book. It is also blunt and straightforward when giving you details. The author also uses familiar tactics to try and relate to her audiance.

Quarterly

So far this semester I have been reading a lot less than I normally do because it is hard to find time with all the work I have going on this year. Reading is something that I enjoy doing and I wish I had more time for it. Even though I have not had as much time as i would like, I have still read some really good books. This quarter I have read close to 5 books. I am a bit disappointed in how little time I have to put forward in reading. I am the type of person who gets scared to try a new book because I am afraid that I won't like it and then I will not be able to put it down because once I start a book regaurdless of If it is good or not I have to finish it. It is earier to read books when people have recommended to me books that they have read and liked. The rest of this semester I plan to read as much as I can. Even if I have a ton of other work I will make sure to set aside time to read, even if it might only be for a half hour or so at least I would be getting something accomplished.

Lucky

I've spent some time annotating Lucky and trying to comprehend things a little better. I'm at the point in the book where she returns home and explains how it feels to try and live up to her parents standards. This is a point in the book where I feel as if a lot of people can relate to this situation. I have a friend for example that always feels like she has to be better than her older brother and she feels like he is the favorite child and so she feels like she can never meet those expectations.In reality though, parents will love you no matter in most cases. This girl had low self esteem before because her parents would always make comments about her weight and her appearance, he mom would always buy her clothes 3 sizes too big. Her mom said it was better that way so it keeps people guessing. Now that this girl has been raped, her self esteem has been sent in to an all time low and her friends are trying there best to help her get through this.

currently

pages read this week: 115

Favorite lines of this week:
"His face fell into the recesses reserved for the pure confusion one expresses when there is nothing on this earth that he or she can do to make something better."

"Resented how attention always forcused on the weakest ones."

lucky

The way that Alice Seabold portrays this girl and her stoy is really intreaging to me. Throughout the book the main character goes through a great deal of pain and trying to discover her attacker. It's almost impossible to try and comprehend what she is feelings.

LUCKY

This week i have been reading more and more into the story of Lucky and how the main Character of this book deals with being raped. At first she doesn't want to tell her mom because she is afraid that her mom will judge her or be mad. However though, she ends up telling her mom because in all realism there is no possible she could have hidden the truth from her mother. This book has kept my attention from the very first lines. I havent been able to put the book down since i picked it up. My friend Mallory introduced me to this book and many others. Her taste in books always pleases my reading cravings. This book can relate to just about everyones life. Not in the sense of being raped but the sense that we all go through stuggles that seem impossible to get through, or we have moments where we don;t think we'll live to see tomorrow. When in the end we find some comfort and we make it through only to find that we go back to that unhappy place time and time again. however, everything will be ok in the end and if it's not ok then it is infact not the end.

currently

The book Lucky by Alice Seabold
Pages read this week: 100

Sentences of the month:
"I was beautiful, if fat. I was smart, if loud. I was good, if ruined."
" I would die by pieces to save myself from real death."
" No one can pull anyone back from anywhere. You save yourself or you remain unsaved."

claims

Claim
In this scene you see Blake Griffin dunking a basketball, his expressions show his immense, powerful, and colossal body floating in the air, putting the extravagant crown into a short time of faint, quiet, and peaceful time before they erupted into a thundering and noisy crowd.

Homesteads winter guard performance, Breakbeats Pulse of the Underground, uses bright energetic performance, aggressive clean movement, intensive strong upbeat dance, and confident clean posture to woo the audience watching. 

The interior decorator's use of strange, modern furniture, simple color, a careful use of space, and distinct, quirky architecture express an energetic confidence and absurd frivolousness of the inhabitant.  

Link: That Peruvian Chick
Mariah

In Fighting Gravity’s final Performance on America’s Got Talent, the voiceless and light dancers use graceful, upbeat, and a unique technique that expresses a new and an explosive futuristic type of dance.

Claim: In this video clip Corgi Stampede, the puppies running towards the camera demonstrate a brief and eager excitement,  an adorable, cute, graceful, and cuddly appearance,  a loud, repetitive sound, and a fast paced, wild, and out of control energy, which exposes a sense of sweet docility, animated enthusiasm, friendly excitement, ecstatic playfulness, joyful giddiness, and frantic silliness.
 

Bleeding Love - Hip-Hop

Observe:

Posture: loose, big
Space: Wide range of space, open
Setting: stage
Sound(song): intimate, sincere
Facial expression: intense, hurt, passionate
Choreography: swift, dramatic, exuberant

ATTIRE:
In this clip from so you think you can dance, Mark and Chelsie use a wide range of intimate and passionate activity to show the swift and dramatic sincerity of the song lyrics. They use their choreography to show the compassion of the dance.

Infer:

Passionate

Explosive

Serious

Exuberance

Whimsical

Fluent

Harsh

Heartache

(becoming one with the song)

poems of my intersest!

"Dust" by Dorianne Laux, "Surprised by Evening" by Rober Bly, and "A Passing Glimpse" by Robert Frost

My favorite one is "A Passing Glimpse"

I really like these poems because they puzzle me and require a numerous amount of thought. That is what i love about them. I really like "A Passing Glimpse" because it's a really pretty poem and it speaks to me in a different way. It has me thinking about the lines afterwards.

"A Passing Glimpse" by Robert Frost

I often see flowers from a passing car
That are gone before i can tell what they are.

I want to get out of the train and go back
To see what they were beside the track.

I name all the flowers i am sure they weren't: not fireweed
loving where woods have burnt-

Not bluebells gracing a tunnel mouth-
Not lupine living on sand and drouth.

Was something brushed across my mind
That no one on earth will ever find?

Heaven gives its glimpses only to those
Not in position to look too close.

Currently

Favorite line : "I would die by pieces to save myself from real death."

Pages read this week: 100

Books i'm reading: The Happiness Project, Lucky, and Eat, Pray, Love

Lucky

Over Labor day weekend I was in Ohio and i forgot to bring with me the book i was reading for etymology. When i told my grandma that i needed something to read she gave me a book called Eat, Pray, Love. I had been reading that over the course of my weekend and the book is so simlilar to the book i had forgotten. Both books had the same concept and I got kind of burnt out on the subject. I did not want to lose interest so i took a break from both book for awhile. I do plan on finishing both of them eventually. I started a new book that has a more interesting genre. The book i am reading is called Lucky by Alice Sebold. This book has caught my attention from the very first line. The first sentence of this book says, "In the tunnel where i was raped, a tunnel that was once an underground entry to an amphitheatre, a place where actors burst forth from underneath the seats of a crowd, a girl was been murdered and dismembered." After reading those lines i was automatically hooked on readign this book. I have not be able to put it down since. This book goes into detail about how this horrible action occured and how she is lucky to be alive. I can say that i am very excited to read and blog about this book.

QUOTES OF THE WEEK

1.)  A citizen of America will cross the ocean to fight for democracy, but won't cross the street to vote in a national election.

2.) Make the most of your life today, and repeat that day by day.

Puns of the week

1.) I finally found a spotter at the gym, it's like a huge weight has been lifted off my shoulders.

2.) The new weed whacker is cutting-hedge technology.

3.) He kept an alarm clock in the back window of his car. He was always ahead of his time.

4.) The shareholders of a compass manufacturer were concerned that the company wasn't heading in the right direction.

5.) Two astronauts who were dating put an end to it because they both needed their space.

TGIF

Quote of the Week: Keep calm and carry on.
Have a good Labor Day weekend

Currently

Pages read this week: 100
Last week: 180

Sentence of the week: " Some disagreement is inevitable and even valuable. "

The Happiness Project in relation to my life

This book relates to my life in a few different aspects. One of the things that Gretchen is looking to fix or control is her constant nagging. In the past i have found myself to be a bit of a nagger. I've been told that a number of times. I'ts not so much that i'm an uptight person but it has just become a habbit. throughout the years though i have become more hesitant to instigate certain fights if it hasn't been worth it or to let the little things go that didn't matter. The major thing i had to do though was not take things to heart when someone said something to me that may have rubbed me the wrong way. Gretchen does this during her project and it has a positive effect. I'm not so sure that everything that Gretchen has done would exactly work for me but a number of the things could if i actually attempted them. She has done her reashearch throught this book and i'm very impressed with the knowledge that she has presented. Learning about her family and her life has been very interesting. When she tells stories about how her husband acts and then how problems and fights get resolved between them it also gives me insight of how someone else with the same personalit may react to a certain situation. This book is not at all means boring but it isn;t exactly thrilling either. I haven;t had much time to read this week with much other homework but i still made time to read anyways. Over the labor day weekend i plan to try and finish the book or at least get as far into it as i possibly can. I will have more insight then.

my view on the happiness project so far

My view on The Happiness Project at this point is that Gretchen has made herself happier by changing herself in the aspects that make her day to day life unenjoyable. She slowly overcomes her nagging and nit picking that annoys her husband and when he is happier that makes her happier. She learns to lighten up and not take things so seriously. With that mind set she has been able to accomplish many things without argument and it has made her happier. Many people have asked me if this is a good book. My response to their question is that it is an interesting read but it's not something that keeps you on your toes so if you're into those types of books then i wouldn't recommend this book for you. If you are looking for ways to be happier though and more alert and energetic then you might consider reading it.

Currently

Pages read this week: 180

Sentence of the Week: " I had come to understand one critical fact about my happiness project: I couldn't change anyone else."

The Happiness Project (secrets of adulthood)

SECRETS OF ADULTHOOD:
 People don't notice your mistakes as much as you think.
It's okay to ask for help.
Most decisions don't require extensive research.
Do good, feel good.
It's important to be nice to EVERYONE.
Bring a sweater.
By doing a little bit each day, you can get a lot accomplished.
Soap and water remove most stains.
Turning the computer on and off a few times often fixes a glitch.
If you can't find something, clean up.
You can choose what you do, you can't choose what you like to do.
Happiness doesn't always make you feel happy.
What you do everyday matters more than what you do once in a while.
You don't have to be good at everything.
If you're not failing, you're not trying hard enough.
Over- the -counter medicines are very effective.
Don't let the perfect be the enemy of good.
What's fun for other people may not be fun for you/ vise versa
People actually prefer that you buy wedding gifts off their registry.
You can't profoundly change your chiildrens nature by nagging them or signing them up for classes.
No deposite, no return.

The Happiness Project part 2

While continuing on my reading journey I have discovered more about Gretchen's happiness journey. Something that seems so simple can be so complicated. Just the simple act of being nicer to someone can make you feel better about yourself, which can lead to being happy. Throughout this book, each chapter has Gretchen tackling another part of her happiness search. The chapter I am reading right now is about her trying to make her marriage more enjoyable. She say's that after the first kid your marriage tends to hit a rough point. Even though Gretchen does not have a bad marriage she is trying to find ways to make it better. Some of the things that make me happy consist of: family, friends, music, self confidence and kind people. My happiness Project would be much different than Gretchen's. The further I get into this book the more interesting it gets. I've learned so much because while doing her research for this project she found a lot of interesting facts that she shares. Here are some of my favorite lines: " I wanted to think about myself so I could forget about myself." To me this line is saying you have to know who you are and  you have to know what makes you happy in order for you not to be involved in paying so much attention to yourself and why you're not happy. " Everything important has been said before." I like this line because it's food for thought.

The Happiness Project

I have recently started reading The Happiness Project for my etymology class that I'm taking this semester.Gretchen Rubin a New York Times BESTSELLER wrote this book to create a journey in which she spends a year of her life trying to figure out or understand the basis in which it means to really be happy. The thing I find most interesting about Gretchen is that going into this project she was not a depressed or unhappy person. She actually states in the book that she in fact is a happy person, but she says that she's not as happy as she could be. Reading this book has sparked many thoughts in my mind about happiness. Gretchen is also on a quest to find out if happiness even really exists. Thinking about the aspect of happiness can throw you for a loop. While taking some time to really understand what Gretchen had said about happiness makes me  reconsider the meaning. What is happiness really? Throughout this book I have realized that happiness is one of the many words that cannot be defined accurately. The general idea of happiness has multiple meanings. Throughout this book she gives you ways in which you can enhance your happiness. The problem with that though is that each person is different. What happiness means to one person may be completely different for another. It's safe to say that most people have lived and grown up in varieties of different life styles. Having a family that maybe wasn't as fortunate as anothers, or a family that had more wealth than anothers probably have a whole other take on what happiness really is. What really makes people happy anyways? Is it money? power? relationships? There is no definite answer because all the answeres vary. I hope that while i'm reading this I can learn more about my happiness.

happy place

This has become my favorite place to enjoy a good book.

Olive Garden (favorite restaurant)