Reading Times

The Cold Sassy Tree-
4/16: 30 min
4/21: 60 min

Portfolio:
4/15: 60 min
4/21: 60 min

Total: 210 min

What I Want

            Woah. What do I want most in the world? That's some deep stuff. I can honestly say this question got me thinking. If we look back at some of the characters in Nervous Conditions, I see that Tambu had a very distinct goal. She wanted an education because that would allow her to look onto a positive future. Otherwise, she would become just like every other girl in her town; a housewife. Another character who knew what he wanted was Piggy from Lord of the Flies. Piggy wanted order and shelter. Although he didn't always know how to get it, he keeps the same mindset unlike the other boys who didn't really know what side they were on and what they thought.
    So when I look at myself and wonder what I want, I feel like one of the young boys in Lord of the Flies. I don't really think that I know what I want to be completely honest. I guess that everything I work towards is to get me to a college out of state. Ideally I want to go to a college somewhere much farther north; North Carolina, Colorado, ect. I play soccer so that hopefully I can get a scholarship. Plus, I try to get the best grades I can. So, if I could ask for anything it would be a full scholarship to a collage somewhere up north. What would I be willing to do to get this scholarship? Well, I already play soccer ALL THE TIME. I am in a hotel right now for a tournament in north Alabama. I guess that I would kick it up a notch and practice everyday of the week rather than just five. I think that I could take harder classes in school so that my transcript would look better. I wouldn't go to extreme measures like cheating on the ACT or stealing an exam though, thats to far for me.

Reading Details:
Crank:
4/9: 2 hours
The Cold Sassy Tree
4/12: 1 hour

Total: 180 min

*I am skipping the poem post this week. I went to the Crank reading disscussion.

Cough Syrup

I chose the song Cough Syrup by Young the Giant. This song is easy to analyze because it is all a metaphor, it has mood, and rhymes. The song has a slightly depressing but more overcoming difficulties mood. The song has movements of the mood where the speaker is hopeful but that is immediately followed by a drop in the mood. However, the music and the tone that the singer uses is very calm throughout the whole song.
      The whole song is a very unspecific metephor. So it can be interpreted differently depending on the person. I think that the speaker is referring to the cough syrup being a remedy (or way) of dealing with whatever is troubling you. The singer talks about "fishes in the sea their staring at me" and "zombies in the park their looking for my heart" are both metaphors for people who have bothered/hurt the singer in the past.
 

Reading Response

      All this week I have been reading Crank by Ellen Hopkins, for Diamond's reading discussion.  So far, it is about a girl named Kristina but she has another side she named Bree. Kristina was an outstanding student, a great singer, and had great friends. This gave her so much to lose. When she went to stay with her drug-addict dad, she became one herself. She did loose it all.
     What I didn't know about Crank before I started reading it is that it is all written in a way that the pictures portray a shape or a mood. For example, if the mood in the book was choppy and tense the words would be scattered. I have noticed that someone who truly loves and cares about her will call her Kristina, but someone who just wants to crank or use her will call her Bree. It really is like she has two different lives, with different people and places. I haven't finished the book but I think that it is going to take a big mess up on her part for her to get her life back on track.

Research Paper

The paper I have chosen to redo is my research paper. I would like to start off by saying that this research paper is a continuing problem for me. I think that this is because third quarter was a funky time for me as far as my grades went, so I didn't put my full effort into that paper. I also chose this paper because it reflects what I haven't yet learned this year and in a last effort I am going to try to conquer my habitual writing mistakes.

   My largest problem is sentence fluency. I think that I can work on the fluency not only between my sentences but also my paragraphs. Also, specific to my research paper, my quotes were not integrated into my paper well. My next problem is my word choice. I think that if I used some new words it would benefit my sentence fluency also. I think that the topic that I chose has much more potential than was reflected in my paper. This time around I hope to give more to this paper.

Goodall's Writing Mistakes

       Plagiarism is a serious offense that regards taking other people's work and claiming it as one's own. Considering all of what Goodall has taken, her offense is major for she took quotes, barely rewording or rearranging their structure. Earlier in the year when we were writing our research papers, we discussed how plagiarism is serious from the stand point of a student. This article shows how plagiarism is still a serious crime and is a major crime even when you leave school. Although Goodall's book has not been released, she will never be respected as an author in the scientific community again.
       Next time Goodall writes a book she needs to pay more attention to plagiarizing rules. There is only two ways that she could have so profusely plagiarized; either she doesn't know how not to or she decided not to cite her sources. The way to fix this is to teach her how to correctly write a research based book and show her how to cite and paraphrase. However, if she does know how to avoid plagiarism then I do not think she has a true passion for writing. Either way Goodall needs to take some time off from writing and re-evaluate her writing career.

Nervous Conditions Thoughts

    Our class question discusses how culture and community affect an individual. Nervous Conditions by Tsitsi Dangarembga fits this description perfectly. The title alone refers how the physiological state of characters in the book are affected by colonization. That leaves the whole book to answer our class discussion question. Even though this book probably has all of the  qualificationst that makes it a perfect book to go along with our class focus I think that, personally, there were still some faults
   The reason that I don't think Nervous Conditions is going to a book that will stick with me is that I couldn't connect with it. Lord of the Flies and Nation  both had non-specific plots, so I could read it and  get the deeper meaning easily. For example, it is fairly obvious that I cannot connect with a bunch of little boys stranded on an island. However, the message is a broad one that I could understand so I will probably remember Lord of the Flies for a very long time. Nervous Conditions, on the other hand, has a plot and theme that neither one really connect with my life.
   This is not to completely discredit Dangarembga for writing a great book. I think that she developed the characters and used them to portray her theme perfectly. I just think that this book would be a better outside reading book or summer reading because it is hard to write papers and takes tests on it.
  As for books that would fill the spot of Nervous Conditions, I don't think that there is one. That is why I think that freshmen should continue to read it (maybe for summer reading though). Although I personally could not relate to the plot that doesn't mean that other students wouldn't be able to.