Final Blog

I feel like I have improved in many aspects of my writing since the beginning of the semester.  I feel like I do a better job with organizing my ideas.  I do not have as much trouble with writer's block this semester, because I was taught many brainstorming tricks that have helped me a lot.  The brainstorming strategies have been the most helpful because once I have the idea; I do not have trouble finding things to go along with it.  The paper that was the easiest to complete was the paper about "The Little Mermaid" because I was writing the paper about a topic I thoroughly enjoyed.  I think it was the easiest because it was the most fun.  Both the gists and the vocab were the most beneficial lessons for me.  The gists because it helped me apply what I have learned and read so I was actually absorbing the information.  The vocabulary lessons were beneficial as well because now there are a lot of fun new words I can use in conversation if I feel like sounding smart.  I absolutely feel like I am more prepared with my college-level papers.

Poetry Packet

The poem or song that stood out the most to me was the song "Sold" John Michael Montgomery.  The reason this song stuck out to me, was because it was one of my favorite songs from my childhood.  I did not realize it was the song until after I heard it.  When I was little my older sister and I would dance or do gymnastics to this song and perform it for my parents.  Of course, I did not know the correct name for the song.  I always called the blonde hair blue eye song because that is the line that always stuck out to me.  I loved it when the part came up because I had blonde hair and blue eyes and I just thought it was so cool that it mentioned that in the song.

So when listening to the song, I knew it sounded familiar, but I was not sure why.  As soon as I heard him sing "She's got Ruby red lips blonde hair blue eyes and I'm about to bid my heart goodbye" I suddenly remembered dancing and putting on a show for my parents.  I actually got really excited because I just loved that part of my childhood.  At that time it was just my older sister and me, no little brother or sister.  And I loved that.  After hearing the song, I actually had to call my dad to make sure it was the right one and it was.  So of course, I get something a little different out of the song that others might not get.

"The Flea"

When I read "The Flea", I was a little confused to what the meaning was exactly, but the way I interpret it, it says that marriage is evil and it can suck the life out of a person.  I get this from many lines in the text.  "Me it sucked first, and now sucks thee" and "The flea is you and I" are two quotes that make me think this.  The first quote is saying that marriage sucks the life out of both of the people.  And the second one is saying that each person is the flea in the relationship; not necessarily the marriage itself.

Poetry

In high school, we had a poetry unit every year; Freshman through Senior year.  Each year we would learn more diverse and complex poems.  I actually enjoy poetry, I think it is a nice way to express feelings in a deep way.

In high school I was in Oral Interp and I actually did poetry for my sophomore and junior year and placed numerous times and even placed first in a tournament.  I feel like I have a pretty good idea of what poetry is and how to interpret it.

In Class Discussion 3-23

I enjoy the view thing that we do, it helps me understand the material more.  In class on Wednesday, we actually talked about a lot of different things.   But the one thing that stood out to me was the idea of a falling of a person precedes their damnation.  This is very interesting to me, not necessarily because this is what happens to Faustus, but also this is shown in a lot of other literature.  It works well with this story because Faustus was very high up and well known, but once he sold his soul to the devil, that is when he began to fall and this helped lead him to his damnation.

Class Discussion

With the in class discussion, the thing I found very interesting was the idea of the internal and external conflict with Faustus.  Right away in the beginning, Faustus seems dead set with this is what I want!  But then over the course of the play, you can see that internally he is having a struggle and at times it seems to drive him a little crazy.  The angels help with this internal conflict.  With the external conflict, it is not as noticeable, but there are many people that warn Faustus, which kind of start the internal conflict as well.

Scene 5

I had to read scene five a few times in order to finally understand what was going on.  At least, I have a feeling I now know what is going on.  I am aware that Faustus signed his soul over to the devil.  I find it really weird that this does not haze him.  It does not bother him by any means.  I don't know about Mephistopheles, I have a feeling he tries to warn Faustus, but Faustus will not really listen.

Compared to other scenes, I feel this one was not too difficult.  I was a little confused on something in my book.  I have the older book, and on page 23 it says, "What? walking, disputing, &c."  What does that mean exactly?

Dr. Faustus

So far in this play I do not know what is going on.  The old fashion language confuses me at times, but once it is explained to me I understand how they pulled that translation out of the text.

I feel like something bad will happen.  I am not trying to be vague.  I predict that Dr. Faustus will use black magic and his spell will turn out wrong and either he will be effected or it will unleash a lot of horrible and evil things.

English so far

So far this semester, Intro Lit has gone very well.  It is a lot of hard work, which is not a compliant.  I actually like it.  It has helped me apply myself to the best of my abilities.  When I get something accomplished it makes me feel good about myself.  I feel like I am getting a lot out of this course than I intended and I am getting a lot out of this class then a lot of the classes I took last semester.  In the beginning of the semester, i thought all of the work was kind of annoying, and still do sometimes, but once I get it done it is not as bad as I thought it was originally.  I am enjoying this class this semester.

The Little Mermaid

Omniscient narrator is the point of view in the Little Mermaid, meaning the narrator takes us inside all of the characters thoughts and what happens to them.  The setting, of course, is under the ocean and on land.

Comparing and Contrasting

The stories the Birthmark and Bartleby have many similarities when it comes to the characters.  Each story have a diverse character that changes through out the story. The diverse character in the Birthmark would be the wife, Georgina, because she goes through a change.  The diverse character in the story Bartleby, I believe is Bartleby himself, because he originally was  hard worker and then he just stopped working hard and ended up just doing nothing.  As for a foil character, I feel that in the Birthmark it was Aminadab because he gave a different perspective of Georgina than her husband.  In Bartleby, he too is the  foil character because he brings so many different perspectives to people with out even talking to them.  He does this by his presence.

In Class Discussion

Yesterday's discussion really made me think and question if I am racist.  I feel that every one is a little bit racist, if not racist, at least stereotypical.  After all, that is where racism comes from, stereotypes.  During the discussion I was using to stereotypes to decide whether Twyla or Roberta was black.  I did not know that I was one to use stereotypes.  I am a very friendly person and will talk to absolutely any body, not matter what race.  All of them are the same to me.  After all, I am very firm to the belief that it matters what is on the inside.  I do not use stereotypes in my daily life when I see people from other races, but I am aware of the stereotypes, which was shown yesterday in class.  I am not trying to defend myself by any means.  After class I thought about the discussion and I was kind of ashamed of the way I acted.  I was not purposefully being stereotypical, but I was indeed using stereotypes.  Stereotypes happen every day.  I do not like racism it angers me and what people do not really know is that racism is just ignorance.  People need to become educated.  People have tried educating others about racism a lot, but if they are ignorant, they are probably also stubborn and will not listen.

Fake Twitter Accounts

This article was interesting to me.  If somebody can make a fake twitter account and have people believe that it is the person they are portraying to be, just think of all of the other types of fraud that are more serious.  It is not just twitter where people are making fake accounts, but face book and myspace too.  It is something that we cannot really control or prevent.  But if fake twitter accounts scare people, then they should be focusing on the real problem; fraud.

First Paper

I feel relieved now that my first paper in this class is done.  It was a long and tedious process, but I hope, will all work out in my favor.  I was absent for the peer review so I did not have a chance to experience what it was like.  I did like, however, the conference with you.  It really help me figure out my priorities with my paper and what went with the thesis and what did not.  I tried to get as much feedback from others as possible to make my paper the best it could be!  After, the conference I was very disappointed in my paper, but with help from you and from friends, I feel way better with how my paper turned out!

Metamorphosis

Metamorphosis is  a short story by Franz Kafka.  Kafka is from Germany and uses a lot of twists in his writing.  This was my third time reading this story after rereading it for this class.  I read this story in my German class my senior year.  I had to read it essentially in German.  In the original language I noticed that there was a little more detail shown in the story than when it was translated into English.  I did understand it more in English though.

This story, though weird, has a good meaning behind it.  Basically, the meaning is you should not take things for granted.  His parents took Gregor for granted and when he was turned into a bug his parents could not handle it and ended up resenting him for it.

Citations

Novel:
Zamyatin, Yevgeny. We, 1884-1937. New York: Modern Library, 2006. Print.


Source One:
George, Robert. "What Marriage Is- And What It Isn't." First Things 195 (2009): 35-38. ProQuest. Web. 30     January 2011.


Source Two:
Myers, Alan. "Zamiatin in Newcastle: The Greenwall and The Pink Ticket." The Slavonic and East European Review 71 (1993): 417-427. JSTOR. Web. 30 January 2011.

Paper Topic

For my paper topic, I decided to discuss the pink ticket.  I am a strong Catholic so a lot of my views when it comes to sex go along with the Catholic Church.  Some of the arguments I will be making will be pertaining to the ways the pink ticket degrades the meaning of sex and how it takes away a person's choice.  I will also be arguing about how sex should be procreative and lead to a family.

Talk about the book

For the assigned reading, I finished the book.  I am not sure how I feel about this book.  It was not a boring book to read, but it was a book that was confusing.  I found myself several times having to re-read a sentence, a paragraph, or even a page, to make sure that I fully comprehend what is being said.

A part in the book I found interesting, was when the benefactor told D-503 that I-330 was using him because he was the builder.  The way that D-503 reacts to the situation and news is written very descriptively and shows the readers a picture.

Sate of the Union Extra Credit

Tonight was the first time that I have actually sat down and watched the whole State of the Union Address.  At first, I thought it would be quite boring and did not quite understand why I needed to waste my time.  But watching it tonight, has made me more informed and has made me actually feel smarter.  I have decided that every year from now on I will be watching it.

Obama had mentioned something that did not necessarily make me feel uneasy, because I did not really know what to think about it, but I do know I did not necessarily agree with what he said.  Obama said that America should take away illegal immigration because there have been illegal immigrants that go to college and get a great education and then they are being deported  back to their original country which means we are creating more competition.  It is true that the smart illegal immigrants being deported creates competition, but I do not think that we should get away of limiting and deporting illegal immigrants because first of all, Obama has already made it clear that there are not enough jobs for everyone, hence the reason why he wants to create new jobs.  So it confuses me why he would want to let them stay.  Citizens and political persons have been concerned about this, for at least five years.  They have said that America has been becoming over populated and with jobs running out, Americans feel that illegal immigrants are the people taking some of the jobs that true American citizens could be working.  When listening and watching that part of the address I could tell that some of the members of the congress were not necessarily happy about that.

Obama covered as much as he possibly could in an hour.  The things he covered had a lot to do with how America is now and how it can be improved to be the best.  He also mentioned different ways to make our school systems better.  Obama wants us to be the best.  He wants us to be the smartest, the most technologically advanced, and pretty much the most innovative country.  He also mentioned how he wanted to create new jobs so every person can prosper.  He emphasized the importance that Republicans and Democrats should work together to improve the country because their goals for the citizens should be similar.  Their jobs are to make America the best it can be for us, to protect us.

Obama had many good ideas in his speech and some ideas I believe will not necessarily go through all the way.  His reasoning behind all of his ideas are comprehendible, but that does not mean that it will help us.

Dislike of the One State

The main thing that I would strongly dislike about being a part of the One State is not being able to have a family.  This dislike is broad because to me having a family is having a spouse, children, parents, brothers and sisters, aunts and uncles, cousins, etc.  I know it would be very hard for me as a member of One State to grow up with out a family and not to being able to start one.  It is odd that something as simple as having a family is not acceptable in One State.

Historical Strategies

The strategy I chose to discuss was the Historical Strategy.  I chose this because I feel like the story is very relevant to what was taking place in the 1920's, when this book was written.  This book takes place in the future hundreds of years since the 1920's.  This book also tends to reference some of the events that happened in the 1920's.  The author uses his knowledge about his country and about what was going on at the time this book was written and tries to tell a story that will show how corrupt and bad things could get if people continued the things they were doing.  I believe the author did very well with the use of this strategy.

Terms!

Style: The writer has interesting diction that is very descriptive and helps us readers create a picture.  An example of this is Page 62 when D-503 describes the fog.

Tone:  On page 55 R-13 discusses with D-503 about Adam and Eve and how they chose freedom and how ridiculous all of that was.  His tone seems to be very strong and sarcastic.  He felt that freedom was stupid and he had a strong view on that.

Irony: The whole story, as of now, is ironic because the citizens of One State are obviously being treated unfairly, but they believe that the way their life is now is the right way.

Plot:  As of now the plot is not completely clear.  

Characterization: I-330 is a great example of characterization.  She is a very mysterious person.  An example of this is page 25 when she was taking D-503 to the hotel and she would not let him know where they were going.

Setting: The setting of the book WE takes place in One State

Point of View: D-503 seems to have a very interesting point of view.  And it seems that throughout the book his view is changing.

Symbol: A symbol in this book is very obvious.  The symbol I am thinking about is the pink ticket because it symbolizes sex.

Theme: The theme in this book so far is the fact that the citizens have absolutely no freedom and the government had convinced the members that this is the best way.

About Me

My name is Wendy Nelson and I am freshman at USD and majoring in Elementary Education.  I don't really know of anything interesting people would like to know about me.  I enjoying eating and talking!  I'm a pretty outgoing person.  I am really excited for this semester!

Okay, Bye!

Wendy Nelson