Yes, I did mention Tina Fey

I am most proud of the way I developed my writing and myself at the same time.  I learned how to incorperate myself into the writing through humor, my interests and opinions.  I branched out a little just by not being afraid of showing my personality (read more in the blog from 6/11/11). As one of my heros, Tina Fey said, "Do what you want and don't care what they think." This is the spirit I tried to incorperate into my blogs even though a grand total of three people read them.  This quote can easily carry over to my daily life and this was a great place to try it out. I can always expand my writing and this gave me more practice with writing besides just essays and questions about the books. 

After looking over all my old blogs, I realized that writing doesn't have to be all high diction novels and essays.  My blogs incorperated many of my favorite things and interests into a collection of greatness, without being stuffy. I am proud of these blogs because were a significant part of my English expirience and though they were interesting, I'm glad they're done.



See the resemblance?



From the first blog on, I found a way to incorperate my love of comedy into the blogs.  They weren't like comedy scripts or anything, I just added a little bit of Emma humor (weirdness) into them.  This helped me bridge the distinction between comedy writing and school-type writing.  It is a good example of how things can be two different things at once. Most things aren't either one or the other, they have a little of both. Such as people (multiple characteristics, friends and interests), food (my mom's frozen enchilada things-mexican, but still gross) and music (rap with violins or something like that).



Because writing has never been my thing, I used to not put as much energy or feeling into it.  One thing I liked about the blogs was mixing my other interests.  I talked about ballet, my family, Parks and Recreation, my childhood and development to what I am now and other media interests (books, TV shows and music). This made writing the blogs more fun because I could relate and add emotion much more than in other writing. 

As the year winds down, I have looked back over all my old projects and assignments.  This is one of my best accomplishments because it spanned the whole year and required more responsibility and creativity from me.  I had to remember each week and take the extra time to finish them without many reminders. These were easy to forget because I would put it off until Friday or Saturday and get distracted and not do them.  I only missed a few...  Though I enjoyed the time I spent with my computer on these, I'm glad they're finished and I can enjoy my summer, almost burden free!

Turtles and Watermelon (late)

The expirience I remember most with poetry was in sixth grade.  In two of my classes we were writing haikus.  This wasn't my first expirience with haikus but it was getting close to summer and I was ready to be free.  In English we were supposed to write five or so haikus, maybe about summer or maybe about whatever we wanted but anyway, I was ecstastic about summer I wrote about that.  I found haiku writing incredibly easy and rewarding because they were short and rhymy.  Later that day in science we were supposed to write poems about the sea animal we had picked and because of my sucess with haikus earlier in the day, I decided to continue my pattern. After whipping out an excellent specimen in under five minutes, I continued onto my friends and helped them write their poems about turtles and sea cucumbers and such. It is one of my greatest sucess stories.

I've always enjoyed writing poetry.  I find it easy to write my feelings into shorter pieces while still hiding them. Even if I don't include emotion, I always find a way to turn my expiriences, dreams and loves into masterful short poems.  They are a lot like essays where as long as I'm passionate about the subject, they turn out fine.  I also enjoy reading poems written by my friends and family, especially my sister.  I have nothing against poetry, I think its really pretty but like everything else, I hate analyzing it.  If I go too deep into the poem, it ruins the magic for me. I like to appreciate it at face value, nothing to change my opinion.

Me me me me me!

The easiest and most memorable assignment I did this year was the very first one we wrote about ourselves.  I'm not much of a writer and I find it easiest to write when I feel passionate about the subject. Its not that I love myself so much thats the only one I liked, its the one I related to the most.  A lot of the assignments I didn't connect with most of the books and I know myself well enough to write about me.  I felt more obligated to put feeling into something that gives a first look at myself to someone I would work with every day than writing a paper about a book that's four hundred years old.


One of my random, indescribable acts


 I am proud of this project because I think it was a good portrayal of me.  Through writing this I showed my true inner nerd. without making a fool of myself in front of a bunch of strangers.  In most of my classes, I am quiet and reserved because some people just don't accept my creativity. By describing myself through a letter, I expand my awesomeness without putting myself at such a risk of unacceptedness.  Once the teacher knows me, I tend to come out of my shell a little more which is what happened in English this year. I'm really proud of how I pushed myself to show my characteristics through the project and of what it resulted in. Hopefully this will challenge me to be more outgoing when I meet new people.

Problems of Parentals

"That God had lent us but this only child, but now I see this one is too much, and that we have a curse in having her."  (3.5.173)  In an ancient argument of parents and children, Capulet shows his disgust for Juliet's rebellion.  Juliet refuses to marry Paris because she loves Romeo.  Capulet is appalled at her disobediance and becomes very angry.  This reaction increases as the feud between the famillies grows.  Romeo and Juliet realize that nothing will settle their parent's anger and the only way to solve their desire to be with eachother is death.

All families go through the arguing and defiance.  As much as parents want, they cannot control everything.  Some mistakes just have to be learned and you can guide them, but you can't protect them from everything forever.  Another argument cause that I'm familliar with is the generation gap.  Though my mother isn't old, she doesnt understand the differences in society these days.  Many parents and kids have different opinions and this is another thing parents don't control.  I have tons of arguments with my mom, from small critisisms to fights that last days.  Everyone, even Juliet, goes through this.

Knope and Wyatt

One example of forbidden love is the relationship between Leslie Knope and Ben Wyatt on the televison show Parks and Recreation.  These two loveable characters are first enimies when Ben (Adam Scott) comes in to cut the budget of Leslie's (Amy Poehler) government department.  She is very angry because she feels her work is very important and yells at him.  He realizes how hard she works for others and donates to one of her charity events and they become friends.  During their time together, Leslie creates an internet profile on a dating site and ends up with a 98% match with Tom Haverford, their coworker and friend.  To get him to shut up, Leslie kisses him and their supervisor, Chris, sees them and tells Leslie that he doesn't approve of work relationships, which Ben also knows.  By this point, it is obvious both Ben and Leslie like eachother but when Leslie asks him out to dinner, he turns her down.  Later, either in the same episode or the next one, he accepts her invitation and that is where we leave off.  The show will return again next season so who knows what will happen between Knope and Wyatt...

Mercutio and Me

Out of all the characters, I like and can relate to Mercutio the most.  Romeo is too moody and depressed and always busy chasing around some girl.  Juliet is too young and naiive to do anything exciting or risky.  Mercutio is the guy who resides on the fine line between visionary genious and schizophrenic.  We have only seen him once, but that was my favorite part.  I loved his story about Queen Mab and how he completely disappeared into his tale.  One of his best traits (or possibly his worst) is how he can ignore reality and live in his own, better world. He seems like the outsider of the group, the weird one, which I can relate too.  If everyone let critisisms and problems go that easily, the world would be a lot happier.  This could also be bad when there is a conflict that shouldn't be ignored, but Mercutio would leave it to someone else.

Reading and discussing the text in class has been very helpful.  I can decipher most of the book at home but reading it in class gives me a chance to find deeper things like figurative language, character development and conflict.  I haven't been using any extra resources to help me understand the text.

Message to All!

I think the main theme in Great Expectations that I can relate to is to care for the people that love you.  One group of people that will love you no matter what, is family.  Friends will come and go but your family will always be there for you.  They have seen you through good and bad and suffered through some of the same things as you have.  They aren't afraid to tell you when you are wrong and they help shape you into a better person. They trust you and you trust them.  They will welcome you because they know you would do the same for them.  Families have their ups and downs but ultimately stick together.  Though family is important, having good friendships is also vital.  Friends will listen to your problems, give you advice and stick up for you.  They understand what you are going through and teach you through their mistakes.  You can learn to be a better person by their example.  They can be your role model or show you how not to be a friend by their actions towards you and others.  Even if they were only in your life for short time, they still make an impact on you and are hard to forget.