What I Want

           Hmmmm... I've never really thought about this in great detail. I guess I would want something pretty big if it was anything I wanted. I think I would, if we're talking about an opportunity or something like that, choose a chance to be a professional baseball player. This has been my dream since I can remember and would be absolutely amazing. I would give a lot, but probably not anything considering that I have an awesome family and I wouldn't give them up for anything. Anything else is pretty much on the table for discussion though. Also, when I say chance at it, I mean have the skills necessary and be drafted and go through the whole process, not just ceremonially be on a team or something.
            In the books we've read I think that one obvious choice is Tambu because she gave up her home life and went through a lot of tough things to get an education because this is what she wanted most in the world. Another character that I think goes through this kind of thing in their book is Ralph. He'll give anything to go home and fights for his chance against the savages who want to kill him at the end. What he wants most is to get home.

My Favorite

I call him Gizz.
Born five years ago
He is my favorite

He is small, cute, fun,
annoying, whiny, and mean.
He is my favorite

My brother of less years than many trees
His mind like buzzing bees
He is my favorite

He has done many things,
like running free
flying without wings
He is my favorite

William Garrett
The greatest Gizzard of all
He is my favorite



I used repetition throughout the poem of one line. I also used end rhyme mixed in there a little bit. I used a little bit of alliteration in the last stanza, and also have a little bit of enjambment.

Reading Times
4/11 I, Alex Cross by: James Patterson 75 pgs. 1 hr. 20 mins
4/14 The Mark of Athena by: Rick Riordan 50 pgs 40 mins
4/15 Writing Center Meeting 30 mins

Reading Response

I, Alex Cross by: James Patterson  150 pgs 2 hrs 4/3  30 mins 4/8

            I am really enjoying this book. When my mom recommended it to me I was a little skeptical because I kind of thought that James Patterson wrote books geared more towards women, but I guess anybody can read them after getting a ways into this one. It is really a page turner and as the plot thickens, it is becoming very interesting. I am finding that the short chapters have helped me to read more of it because It gives me motivation to "just read one more chapter". This has actually helped a lot with reading it quickly.

            I haven't ever really delved into the genre of mystery and police work kind of books before, because I'm more of an adventure and fantasy kind of reader. This one is great though. I'll definitely be reading more of these kinds of stories because they are such page-turners. I enjoy the suspense of a good book, and with all the twists and turns that this one has in it it makes it great. I also like the way that Patterson uses lots of vivid detail and descriptive words, especially in important scenes. This puts a great picture in my mind with what's going on and is one of my favorite parts about his writing. I'm loving this book so far, can't wait to get to the end.

Song Analysis

            So, for this one I couldn't really think of a good song so I decided to go with one of the examples and I ended up choosing Rihanna's "Umbrella". It seemed to look a lot like the poems we have been looking at in class and I did end up finding some poetic techniques in it when I looked at the lyrics in the link. One obvious one is the repetition of the word "umbrella" and the line, "you can stand under my umbrella". I don't personally think that Rihanna has a very big umbrella and is more likely using this as a metaphor to mean something like she'll protect or be there for who she's talking to even when things go bad, kind of like rain. There are more literal explanations of this idea in some of the verses that help make this more clear.
            I didn't really see a specific meter in this, but I might've just missed it. I do think that overall this song has a lot of rhythm like a song should, and this works well to convey the message that is in the words. The tone throughout the song is evident when you listen to how it is sung and it creates a little bit of an uplifting feeling and this is like the words and connects to the message being sent. The audience or who she is talking to is interesting because we aren't sure if she is talking to the rapper who opens the song or if it is aimed at a totally different person. This switching of speaker is also important because it is a turning point because the two different artists present different things and this aspect of the song is a turning point. This song has many poetic devices working in it and is interesting to look at in this way.
           
           

Goodall Plagiarism

           Wow! I cannot believe this. From what I about Jane Goodall she is a very upstanding individual and definitely does no seem like the kind of person to do something like this. But on the other hand, I know a thing or two about the importance of not plagiarizing since we hear it almost everyday at school. This is a very serious act of plagiarism because it is so blatant. If you literally copy a paragraph from somebody else's writing it is a big deal. Some of the things that we might need to know is whether or not she specifically wrote that in on purpose. It could be some sort of thing where she left the citation and credit giving to her editors and they didn't do it. It may be an honest mistake on the part of Jane and her co-author, but it is still unacceptable and a very serious case of plagiarism.
            A few of the things mentioned in the article make this seem like it may have been a mistake. Her statement about it kind of suggests that she just found the sources and didn't specifically write them into the book, which leaves her co-author probably to blame. This doesn't excuse any part of this act, but is just something to consider. I think that they should definitely make it well known through the media in order to fix the problem. This article, for example, now tells me where her information comes from and gives the sites much more credit in people's eyes than they would've gotten had they been cited correctly. People don't really care about the citations when they read a book, except when they are done incorrectly. As long as they fix the new editions and make their mistake well known and available so that people with the book can see it, I think that it will go pretty well and will mend the issue. Although it is plagiarism for sure, it can be made up for and I think that they will.

Portfolio Revision

I, Alex Cross by: James Patterson 3/20  1 hr. 3/23 15 mins 3/24 1 hr.  125 pgs.
Blogging reading 15 mins

            When I looked at my papers, I didn't really see any glaring and recurring mistakes throughout them in the comments on them except for citation issues, which I guess would be format. For my second trait I looked specifically at the paper that I am choosing, which is my research paper. I found that I probably could've used better words throughout that one, especially because it was in a formal voice. This is something that I could improve on in this paper and think that it will be a way to make this paper much better overall.
            As I said before, I will be revising my research paper because it is probably the paper that I was least confident about when it was said and done and I really just didn't feel good about the whole thing. This was one of the reasons and I also thought that it might be more effective to do this one because I am still familiar with it. I also found that this one had the most problems with citations to fix. I think that this one needs the most work so that's basically why I chose to revise it for my portfolio.

Reading Details

Worked on Playlist 3/13 45 mins. 3/17 1 hour
Worked on Film Study 3/17 2 hours

Nervous Conditions???

            Personally, I think that Nervous Conditions is a great book and fits the course perfectly. Although I did not enjoy the layered project I thought that the book itself was a great story and also that it was definitely a good fit for our course question involving how culture and community affect people. This question is answered and addressed in multiple ways and this is one of the reasons that I think it is a good fit for the class considering this is the one question that guides the course.
            There are many reasons that this book is worth reading in this class including the fact that it makes us aware of a little bit of history because of its post colonial nature. It gives us a sort of history lesson and makes us aware of the issues that are in Africa. It brings up many tough conflicts like eating disorders, sexism, and poverty, which are relevant in our world today and aren't just things that are far off in this book. The post colonialism in this book makes the book a good fit as well.
            I think that our class did accomplish its goals in reading this book in that we learned about the background of the book and history of Rhodesia and Zimbabwe. We went over many things during this book and it was a pretty good experience because of this knowledge. We learned many things related to the book as well as understanding the ideas that are directly present in the text, and this made it a pretty good experience, minus the layered projects.
            Overall, I think that this novel is a great fit for our class because it has a great storyline that is enjoyable, but isn't overwhelming with tough words and language, and because it comes along with the other things that we did with it by relating it to the real world. This book should be used next year for sure because of all of these reasons and others.
           

Search Inside This Book: Car

         In Nervous Conditions, I thought that the word car was meaningful throughout. It was used many different times and I used Search Inside This Book to help see the ways that it was used and how it affected the story. I found that in most of the uses of the word it obviously involved driving somewhere, which was a pretty big deal in Rhodesia back then. It normally meant that something new was coming or something was leaving. It was also involved in most of the passages during the book where large events happened. In the case of Nhamo's death, Babamukuru breaks the news by driving up to the homestead. When Tambu goes to Sacred Heart in the final chapter to begin her educated life and continue her journey, she talks about the long car ride and how all the cars in the parking lot showed how sophisticated the school was. These instances give us an idea of the importance of cars in this story and what they led to for the characters.
         Tambu loved car rides throughout the story, beginning with her first ride to Umtali with Mr. Matimba and how she discovered the city's lights and saw many new things in the city, and ending with  her about to go to her new school of Sacred Heart and going to learn many new things there. Whenever Tambu rode in a car it usually meant that she was going to learn something new or have a new experience. Cars were status symbols as well. Babamukuru had two cars and this gave him status and was one of the reasons he was looked up to by the family. Dangaremba normally uses cars to transition between events. People arrive in cars which cause major events. People go to new places in cars. People meet people and see things like the sorry homestead when Tambu goes home for christmas and the bulimic Nyasha when she visits the mission after school. Throughout the story the word car was used in many interesting ways to show change and progressiveness. This word was used in many effective ways throughout this book.

Free Post

         It's a miracle!! The JV baseball team has won a game. It is strictly an act of God that it happened because this event hasn't occurred for a whole year. All last year on the JV we would come so close to winning, but we ended up going 0-26. We were planning to break this record this season, but we slipped up and won a game. It was against Denham Springs too, so it wasn't some garbage team. I think we've passed a turning point (too bad we're 0-6 after our one victory, haha) and we might win more than just one this year.
         It really was divine intervention that allowed us to win because when we played Denham Springs' 9th grade team, apparently they forgot how to play baseball. I swear to you that they had at least 8 errors in that game, and we still only scored 6 runs. Hey, I'll take it though. Clayton Talbot pitched really well for us and we hit better than average, so it wasn't all their miscues that put the W on the schedule for us. We weren't knocking the ball all around, but, like I mentioned, they made some mistakes to help us out and we pulled it out 6-3 after I made probably the best play of my life at third in the last inning. I was pretty excited after that one. It was a fantastic game and hopefully we can do it a few more times before the end of the year.

Expectations

Nervous Conditions ch. 7  3/6/13  45 mins
Ch.8-10 3/10/13  2 hrs 15 mins
         I think that this is a very good thing to think about, especially in this story because although Tambu is the same person througout the story, she definitely has multiple identities. I think that I am pretty similar in that I am involved in many different things and I identify differently with each one. At school I am pretty smart, but also a little bit odd with my querks and things. This identity creates the expectation for some people that I am supposed to be able to help them with anything school related, like assignments and stuff. I'm also sometimes expected to be weird all the time and energetic all the time. I think that school can create a lot of expectations from people especially when they don't really know you and sort of classify you as this type of person. This isn't really a bad thing; it kind of just is what it is.
        I think that at my camp there is another identity that I take on. I kind of act different when I'm there. I kind of let my country side out and I wear my cowboy boots and shoot guns and hunt and eat home cooked meals. This is a little different than how I act when Im at home and it is another identity that I take on. Some of the expectations are that I'll be rugged and dirty at the camp and I'll kill a bunch of stuff and that I'll stay up too late and I'll go mud-riding and all sorts of other things like that. These are just a few instances in which I take on an identity, but there are others.

Babamukuru

Worked on c layer 1: 2/28  3 hours

Read chs. 4-6 in Nervous Conditions: 2 hours 2/27

           I'm home everyone, and I've come to take care of everyone. It's a little bit odd how much Jeremiah praises me. I know that his family is the poorest and that is why I'm here to help again. I will take Nhamo to the mission with me, and the bright pupil that he is, he will bring his family out of poverty just like I did. I've sent money to Jeremiah and he's told me a few fishy stories about why he couldn't use it to educate Tambu. I will try to make his children not like him. I will educate them and they will do good things in this world.

            

          It makes me so frustrated. Why can Nyasha not act correctly, like the good girl that there once was. I've worked so hard to get my education and to help this family, and she thanks me like this. I'll kill her!! She acts so loose and it makes me so mad. She won't even admit it after I have a serious conversation with her. Ever since we got back from England she has been acting so disrespectful and treating me and her mother terribly. I can't take it anymore. I think I will just stay away for a few weeks. I'll throw myself into my work and try not to think about my terrible daughter.

C Layer 1

          I found this process with the C layers very interesting. It was hard to know what to choose with so many options, but I think I made some pretty good choices. I found that the reading guides, while more involved and tougher than they were with LOTF, helped my understanding quite a bit and gives me confidence going forward to stay with them for the next five chapters. I also thought that the character bookmark was helpful to be able to have it on one sheet and see how the relationships interconnect and really look at the story as a whole so far. Although we had kind of already done this in class, it was still helpful.
          I found that the vocabulary test was helpful, although it didn't really help with the book so much as just improving vocabulary. The other two things definitely helped with overall understanding much more. I think I might try a different assignment than this test in the next c layer to help with the book itself more. I found the c layer assignment difficult, in that if you don't manage your time wisely and get things done in class, then there is an issue in turning everything in. I never like the Friday due dates because if the choice had to be made, I'd rather have the whole weekend to work on something than just weekdays. This is really the part that gave me the most problems, but overall it was interesting, and I learned how to approach the next layers better.

Paper Reflection

            I found this writing experience probably the most difficult so far this year. I found that once we actually began doing the paper it went much faster than I thought it would. I felt like the due dates were very close together and that I definitely should've worked on my paper a lot more during the break. The break in the middle was probably my least favorite part of this process because it made me a little bit unfamiliar with where I was headed and specific things that I needed to change. The most difficult part was definitely the detailed outline, but it was also probably the most helpful thing. It's difficult when you have to do it, but it makes quotes and ideas much easier to organize and was very helpful during the drafting process. There aren't any major things to change next year.
           I received a lot of helpful feedback during the course of writing this paper from Dr. D and from my peers, but some of the things that really influenced my paper were comments about my citations that I used to get the formatting correct. I also used Dr. D's comment that I needed more information about the impact of planes and technologies to influence my revising process in which I incorporated some of these specifics into existing paragraphs. I think that the strongest aspects of my paper are probably the sentence fluency and the ideas present. Some of the weaker aspects were probably word choice and organization as far as transitions and connections. I feel okay about the paper as a whole though, and hope that it is received well.

Reading Details

Nervous Conditions 2/15 60 mins 

Worked on paper 2/16  1 hr

Theodore Boone: The Abduction

by: John Grisham  2/15 30 mins

Research+Reading

Worked on outline 1 hr. 30 mins. 1/28     

Theodore Boone: The Abduction by: John Grisham   1 hr. 66 pgs.    2/2

Reading Times

Annotated 3 Articles 1/24   50 mins      
Theodore Boone: The Abduction by: John Grisham 1/27 1hr. 45 min  114 pgs.

Research Topic

          In my research I'm trying to figure out how planes affected World War 2. I'm also looking at the technologies and weapons that were used by planes that affected it too. I think that this topic is pretty cool because it's about World War 2, which makes it awesome to begin with, and because this was the first war where aerial fighting was such a big part of it. I've found that this was the first war where the planes were made of metal instead of wood and that there were many civilian and commercial planes that were adapted to fit the military's needs. The U.S. used the strategy of strategic bombing which helped them to get an edge and wasn't used before because the bombers were not as good. There are also some awesome weapons and inventions involved with planes that were used during the war like guided missiles, radar, and bombsights. The evolution of planes and their weapons affected World War 2 in a major way by making most of the battles be in the air and this changed the way the war was fought.
          During my research I am analyzing how aircraft affected the way that World War 2 was fought and also how they ultimately affected the outcome of the war. I am also looking at how the advanced weapons and technologies involving these planes affected the war as well. This topic interests me because I think that World War 2 is a very interesting milestone in our world's history and definitely allowed for the development of these planes and technologies. I have found that there are many ways that these planes affected the war. This was the first war fought with metal aircraft instead of the wooden ones of World War 1. There were many different advances in the mechanics of the aircraft as well including stronger engines and state of the art designs. These features allowed for new military strategies to be implemented including strategic bombing and many others. Many new technologies and weapons involving planes were developed and implemented during the war as well. Some of these were guided missiles, radar, and bombsights. The planes and their weapons that were used during World War 2 impacted the war in a huge way and changed the way that the war was fought.  

Weekly Reading

Read and annotated 2 articles 1/16  45 mins   Annotated 3 sources  1/17  55 mins    
Zombie Island 74 pgs. 1 hr. 1/20

Free Post

       Hunting is one of my favorite things to do and unfortunately the season is coming to a close. I hunt in Mississippi near Woodville and I am mostly a deer hunter. My final weekend is coming up, but sadly I won't be able to go because my dad is working. This kind of sucks because I didn't kill a buck this year. That's not really a big deal, but I was really itching to get one last weekend and I wasn't able to.
       I had a good year I guess. I killed a few does and my new 30-06 (a type of gun) was dead on all year. We were able to do a bit more duck hunting at our camp as well this year, even though the water was a little high. I also enjoyed being able to explore some new areas that we hadn't really hunted before this year. We killed some deer from some different stands and instead of being mostly on box stands as my dad and I had been on for the past few years, we were able to get up in the woods more and try a relatively different kind of hunting. Overall it was a pretty good hunting season and hopefully I'll get a buck next year.

Research Update

          I have been researching pretty well. My topic is about how planes and their weapons impacted World War 2. I have been doing pretty well with it even though I am still flip-flopping between looking at all the countries involved in the war and looking only at the allies or even just the americans. I haven't found very much country specific information so far, but I guess if I do I will use my second idea and if not just use the more general topic.
          My research has been going pretty well so far, but I have been having a little bit of difficulty with specifics and it also seems like I get a lot of lists of planes instead of general information about them. This problem has been solved a little bit by using the databases, and I didn't even know that there was such a thing as google scholar (Thanks Dr. D). These have helped me to get some good sources, but I still need two for Friday. I am also having trouble finding a primary source and am wondering if anyone else has had luck with a certain website or type of search. Overall my research is coming together pretty well.

Reading Response

The Kill Order by: James Dashner 35 mins 1/12/13        
Zombie Island by: Samantha Hoffman 2 hrs. 1/13/13
pgs. 182

          I finally finished The Kill Order after a while without reading it. It had a pretty predictable ending, (probably because it was a prequel to a series I already read) but was still good. I kind of figured out that I like post-apocaulyptic books which is kind of morbid, but whatever. I have read two series like that and Zombie Island also falls into this category. Dashner has an interesting way of writing and that is why I think I have stuck with his whole series. He describes action scenes in such vivid detail that I think I am there fighting the flare and it really captures your attention. I loved the whole series and am sad to see it go.
         Zombie Island is a single book I think, but it has a great plot so far. I have never really read a zombie book before, but I guess they probably all have the same general idea to them. This one breaks the cliché a little bit I think because it adds a sort of romance factor, which action or survival books sometimes lack. I have read a pretty good bit of it and it is very exciting. It keeps you turning the pages because you want to see how the characters will react to certain foreshadowed events. One thing that I have noticed that I haven't really seen before is that there are a lot of typos and other mistakes that you don't expect in a professional novel. It doesn't really retract from the story though and the book is very good.

Free Post

           Baseball work has begun!!!! The best season of the year is nearly upon us. I love baseball and my favorite time of the year is almost here. We have been working out in the offseason and our first day of practice is January 21. It's going to be a great day (If it ever quits raining before then). We have been working out everyday for the past few weeks, but that isn't official practice. These workouts haven't been easy either. I'm so glad when it's only a Monday or Wednesday because then I only have to hit and then I get to go home. The other days are a bit tougher. We condition on the other days and it is tough. It involves lots of pushups and various other things that make your body feel like it got hit by a truck. Hopefully it'll all pay off in the end, because they are hard.
           Today and the past couple days the rain has saved us from these sessions (maybe the rain isn't so bad). We have been meeting instead in the locker room. These meetings can be very informative, but also end up being repetitive and boring, especially when it's only managerial type stuff and not really talking about baseball. Our preseason stuff has been good, but I'm ready to finally start up the season. It should be a good year of baseball.