peer editing

I have found peer editing particularly helpful this past project. It has really let me know if I am on track with what  I am trying to accomplish with it.I realize that most people wont actually put what they think on there, but still it helps with the overall process of perfecting the project. I myself try to be as honest as possible when filling out peer editing forms. I try to give the person constructive criticism if necessary. I do this because in the long run it will help them out. Even if they choose to do nothing about it, it still gives them the option to change things if they so choose.

project 4 progress

So far I have done a considerable amount of the work on project 4. I have completely finished the research section and visual as well. I am currently working on the letter to an authority but that is almost finished as well. I have actually enjoyed this project so far, it has allowed me to be creative and pick something I am truly interested in. I am doing my topic on brain injuries and concussions in college sports specifically soccer and football. I am looking at these because I feel in college, they are the sports where concussions are most common. According to some research I have done, it is said that not enough is being done by the NCAA to stop brain related injuries.

August osage county

The Thursday before break started I went to the August Osage county play. I enjoyed it very much and it was definitely  worth going. The story was about an old man who had a drinking problem and his wife who had an addiction to pills, dysfunctional to say the least. Then the old man goes missing and so his whole family comes back to search for him. The whole family under one roof brings a lot of drama including one of the daughters coming with her husband who she had been separated from, and whom had been cheating on her with a younger woman.The most surprising part was when another one of the daughter's new husband tried to make a move on his niece. I would definitely recommend this play for anyone, the cast did a great job.

Project 3 overview

Overall, I thought my presentation went well. Although I had a few mishaps with the projector, which interrupted my flow, I was still able to present my information in the way I desired.I used visual aids in my presentation, a lot of them in fact. I did this so that I did not bore my audience. Everyone would much rather I show a video of a funny commercial than have me sit up their and describe it. I also used visual aids in the commercials I created myself, which was much better than just reading the script word for word.

Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving break was a lot of fun. I got to see family that came in from out of town who I see very rarely.I also got to see all my friends who I haven't seen since the beginning of august. It was also nice to be home seeing as I had only been home one time prior. Our family does not celebrate thanksgiving in the traditional way. Since I am from England, it is tradition to have turkey on Christmas, seeing as thanksgiving does not exist their.So instead we have another kind of meat. This year we had prime rib with mashed potatoes, steamed carrots and stuffing just to give it that thanksgiving feel.

project 3

This project overall was the most difficult by far. It required us to do a lot more research than the second project which  even then was quite a bit. I wrote my presentation on how to write a TV advertisement. I looked at how other companies have made effective techniques and took those ideas and formed some generalizations about commercials and their content.I also looked at how you need to go about making it, what things you must do and things you must not do in order for your commercial to be successful.I also wrote my own commercial and included all of the aspects that were needed for an effective commercial of that genre.

Fantasy story transformation

Transforming my fairy tale into a teen vampire story was actually not very easy. The whole plot line of a fairy tale differs completely from that of a teen vampire one.The teen vampire series does not have a moral lesson for one, and does not have nearly as much substance in my opinion. However, the setting of a fairy tale can be altered to pretty much anything so that aspect wasn't too difficult to change.The characters were not either, I simply changed the main character of the fairy tale to a vampire. The story did have to be completely re written and only slightly resembles the fairy tale overall.

Vampires

The discussion in class about the teen vampire stage was quite interesting to me. After watching the two clips in class I noticed that the similarities between the two were quite obvious. For starters, they music in both clips were very similar.It was very mysterious in parts, where as in others it was more up beat but still had an mysterious twist to it.Another similarity that was very apparent was the setting. They both take place in small towns and both take place a majority of the time inside a high school.I believe they did this because they wanted to emphasize the teen aspect of the film or series.

Poetry Reading

Last week I attended the poetry reading located in Brown hall. The man reading the poetry actually had some interesting inspirations for his poetry, including having one poem about his elderly neighbours who he said never left the house. He also had an interesting poem about ice fishing and all of its aspects. He then related ice fishing to life in general which I thought was quite interesting. His next poem had to do with being out on the lake, which he also related to many other things in life. Overall I enjoyed the reading and will definatly be attending the next one.

Child hood stories

After reading the stories, I gathered a few things that were different than the versions I had heard. First off, the story text itself was translated from German. Second, they were a lot more gruesome with their details, especially because these were meant for young children. For example at the end of Rumpelstiltskin he ripped himself in half and pulled off his let foot. This detail was a little too much for young children. Also, they use religious terms, like in Hansel and Gretel where they said that god would guide them back to their fathers house.In the versions I heard, the stories had been a bit simpler, and contained less detail about events that weren't appropriate for younger children.

research

So far, research for my Literary analysis paper has been pretty difficult. My analysis is going to be on a character from the film The Shawshank Redemption named Red. I will be looking into why the director chose Andy as the main character, yet also showed Red as almost more of a main character. It is hard to find information on this because I don't think anyone else has noticed this in the film, or if they have they haven't published that information. I have been able to find some information on the character that is relevant, but a lot of the substance for this essay I feel will have to come from me.

Glen Frostic reading

I attended the reading last week, and I have to say I was pleasantly surprised with the experience. When I arrived, there was food and refreshments available for free, not a bad start. I didn't really know what to expect before going there. I thought maybe it was a poetic reading of some kind but it turned out to be a pretty well known author from Florida reading the first chapter or so of his book. I listened attentively to the story, and I have to admit it seemed like quite a good book. It was about a high school football hazing incident gone wrong. Overall I enjoyed the experience, it was interesting and I am considering attending another one.

myspace

Not many people today use myspace like they used to. The people in the story we read called the Friend game: Behind the Online Hoax that Led to a Girl's Suicide. The use of myspace was kind of significant seeing as today many people use facebook, which is safer and harder to make fake profiles. Also, Facebook allows most of the things you say to people to be public, other than of course private messages and such. Also, in order to make a profile you need more info, and a more realistic amount of pictures for people to believe you are and actual person. Another thing is the fact that it shows your mutual friends. If you do not have mutual friends with a person you are less likely to accept them as a friend.

movie analysis

The assignment we have just received seems to be interesting. I feel that after watching Carrie and discussing different aspects in class I am fully prepared to write the paper. I feel I will enjoy the paper because it allows us to pick any sort of media we want and analyze it. I also feel that because I can do that verbally pretty well, putting it down on paper shouldn't be too difficult. The analysis itself will require some work, and writing it all down will be as well, but I don’t think I will have any shortage of ideas. 

Carrie

The movie Carrie was quite an interesting film. It showed how different film making was in the 70s, and how it has evolved today.In those days, that film was actually considered a horror film. By today's standards, that would barely touch the genre of horror. For starters, it wasn't scary in the slightest. Nothing popped out at you. Nothing was gruesome enough to make you cringe even the slightest bit. In order for a film to be considered horror in this day and age it must have both of those things, along with it being more realistic.It just goes to show how horror movies have developed over time.

writing a narrative

I actually quite enjoyed writing my narrative. It allowed me to tell the story in which most influenced my writing. I also was very grateful for the comments that were given back to me after I turned my rough draft in. These comments allowed me to better edit my paper, and it also helped to know that I was on the right track as far as substance went. Just some grammatical errors needed correcting and that was really it. The only thing I really had trouble with was the length of the story. The story itself wasn't a long one so stretching it out to make it 5 pages was kind of hard at times. There were certain details I wanted to put in the paper to bulk it out, but I felt they were a bit too off topic and would distract from the story itself. Other than this, the paper went quite smoothly.

Learning english

I think the fact that Engkent's mother didn't learn English only hurt her. For example, she had to rely solely on her husband to do any communicating in Canada.Also, it impedes her from communicating with other people, which can isolate her socially. Overall it makes things quite difficult. I spent a summer playing soccer in Brazil. At fist i knew little to no Portuguese, and it made life very tough.It can wear on you mentally not being able to communicate with people. Even though in the story she could communicate with family, its not always enough.It is possible that a positive could come from it however. She may like not having to communicate with the "fan gwei", so therefore not being able to might not bother her all that much.

the reading

I personally enjoyed the reading that we did last week. I found it interesting they way she looked at her life and community. Often times we miss interpret things things in societies that are not our own, and she cleared up a lot of stereo types that exist. She also looks at her community from a very real perspective. She went into depth about how things are in the rougher areas of country, and was able to do so in an interesting way. I often find myself looking at life in a similar way. I try read life's experiences more objectively, as to not judge other people but try and understand why people do things.

Poem to Narrative

Transforming my poem into a narrative was a relatively easy process, all that I had to do was add details in where they were needed, and there it was. Although, some of the memories in the poem were hard to come up with enough detail, so I had to add some extra memories into the story to fill it out. I actually quite enjoyed the transformation. It allowed me to actually describe the details thoroughly as opposed to being very vague in the poem itself. It also allowed me to write freely and not as precise and short like in the poem. Overall it was a good assignment.

Where I am from

Where I am from

I am from sea breeze, salty yet sweet

I am from motors, swiftly moving through air, graceful as can be

I am from people, good hearted and true,

Where the light shines brightly through and through.

I am from the corner store, whose name does not correspond with its actual location

I am from weather, slightly colder than normal, but still warm enough for fun.

I am from the cider mill, where donuts are plenty, and cider is warm but never stays that way.

I am from Stoney Creek, where drama blossoms and fades on the daily.

And in these ten verses, I explain myself.

Hoping they’ve explained where I am from

Intro

Hi, my name is aaron, This blog is for my Thought and Writing class and I will be discussing mainly things talked about in class. Some of my interests are music and sports. I also enjoy hanging out with my friends and stuff like that.