My Review of Writing

After viewing my peer review of my classmates, I determined that my main focus revolves around content. For example, with the research based argumentative paper I looked for a lot of proven facts. After the facts were explained, I was looking for a point of view from the writer that explained their facts effectively. Also, I looked for the tone of the paper; while reading I like to feel the emotion of the writer to have an interpretation of how they felt while writing their work. If a paper does not have any emotion, a writer will not be able to prove their point effectively. In the review, I asked simple questions that seem the need to be answer, such as what caused this affect and how did you feel in the situation. I like to suggest things that the writer can do to make the paper better so I suggest items that they can add to have a more effective paper. My comments speak to the situation of the paper because every paper is different, which means a different audience for each one of them. I liked focusing on the situation so the writer has a better understanding of how to edit the paper for he/her self. I feel that my comments shows a pattern of looking for sentenced that can be built upon and comments of the good and bad items of the paper. As a writer, I have learned that a reader wants detailed descriptions and a lot of elaboration. After writing my own peer review that was given to me I learned that if two people or more people highlighted the same sentence then that was a problem. That problem would have to be fixed before the second draft of writing given to the teacher because to keep the sentence and to have to teacher comment on the same issue is not good for the writer.

Blog 9

MTV is one of my favorite websites in the world. The website is filled music, tv shows, and etc. The main function of the MTV website is to promote music and showcase music videos from different artists. The website mainly is for entertainment so you will not hear a lot of political news on this site. It is not limited to only music though; MTV has hit shows that they stream on their website in case you missed an episode or want to watch bonus footage. The website allows you to stay up to date with the latest news happening in the entertainment industry. The audience is targeted to mostly young adults, but there are plenty of people no matter the age that visits the website every day. The site is using tools such as links and categories to lead you to where you need to go. The categories at the top of the page lead you to different aspects that MTV is involved, such as the music link taking you to the music artists’ page that list every music artist out in the world. After click on the artist that you want it takes you to their homepage filled with all of the music that they have done. The categories and links are meant to help you find what you need they fastest way possible. Also, it has the schedule for what going to be on TV that day because the website is based on the MTV channel. The website is well organized and is easy to navigate, which are important factors to a website. It has the right colors not to take away from the important aspects of the website. It serves its purpose for a entrainment website with the latest news. It is perfect for a music website.

http://www.mtv.com/

My Blogging Experience

Blogging is my freedom. It kind of feels like the movie, Freedom Writers, in a way. I feel that blogging as taken my writing to a whole new level. At first, I would hate when teachers in high school would tell us it was time to pull out our pencils and write that long five paragraph essay. It was hard for me to come up with the sentences to write in those essays. Those essays just felt like a hassle.

Writing and reading were the two thing that I probably hated most in life. That changed when I found books that I liked to read and when we started writing these blogs. I exactly like writing more now from my blogging experience. I enjoy just writing how I feel and lessons that I have learned in my life. The blog has improved my writing in the sense of content because when I write now I care more about the words that I am saying instead of grammatical errors. I believe that grammatical errors are important to fix, but the message is what really matters.

The limitation with writing the blog is that the public is viewing your post so you have to watch what you say, such as terms that the average person would not know of. I do struggle with think of what to write sometimes, but I just take a break from the computer until a topic pops into my head then I start writing. What I enjoy most about blogging is putting my own words out there for the world to see. Blogging is away for me to escape and get my situations off of my chest.

My Review of Peer Review

I actually enjoyed the peer review process. At first, I thought that this was a crazy idea to read the work of other class members because at my high school we did not really do any type of peer review. When we did do it mostly involved sitting in a group pretending to listen to your classmates’ work and not really give any feedback. You always felt that only the teacher was allow to judge your writing since the teacher was suppose to by the writing expert at the time, and you felt like your peers where not able to give any significant feedback that would help your paper.

With the peer review this week it was really a struggle to get the nerves to read my work out loud to my group. I was never the one in school who raised their hand to read a paragraph out of a book or I would try to duck from the teacher so he or she would not call on me. But reading out loud did help me catch my own mistakes in my paper.

I was happy that with this peer review that we actually had to give our opinion on the papers we had. It wasn’t sugar and spice and everything nice. It was the truth on how your peers felt about what they were reading and what they believed that you should considering doing to make the paper better. I learned that my peers like details a lot. Also, I learned from reading and my own writing that it is not the better idea to jump from topic to topic because it is confusing to the reader. Overall, great experience.

Trapped

So for the last two days I have been kind of down. You know how your mind should be your sanctuary, a place to store and hide a way your secrets and thoughts. Well for me it is my worst enemy.

It is my enemy for so many reasons. My mind jumps to multiply places at once. It goes to same old situations of my life and replays over and over again. Thinking about every single detail of my life since I remember everything. And lately everything that has happened has all came back at once. My fear is that my mind will not allow me to escape from what haunts me in the past because unless I get amnesiac I will never forget.

What triggers me the worst is blanking out. I go into deep thought. You may be thinking that’s the best time to catch up with life, but this can go two ways with me. Happy and thinking about all of that good stuff or feeling stupid about myself.

 I blame it on my sign and if you know anything about Cancers then you know what I’m talking about. We are deep emotion creatures and  blah blah blah. I would say that my emotions can get in the way sometimes, but am I bipolar like other Cancers that I know then no. I try to control them for the most part.

This is why I laugh and smile a lot to hide from myself in a way. I find when I stay busy by talking and interacting with others so I can take a vacation for a little while. Not to fall back into the same pattern, but then my dreams trigger my past reminding me again why I hate thinking at all.

So today’s point is that I am stuck in my own mind and I never going to escape. That’s just great.

That's Just Me

If I had to describe my language I would most likely have to say that it is more northern then southern, but when I did travel further up north to New York from DC on a college tour, our class was told that we had Southern accents. Now with that said it is an insult to say that someone from DC sounds southern because that is not what we categorized ourselves with. I think that comes from us defining the south with these thick country accents that we know for a fact that we not have.

In my opinion, North Carolina it is a mix of different accents. Some with thick country accents, others with slim to medium accents, and lastly a few with none. I feel that the way that you talk comes from how your parents talked to you as a child.

I know personally I was outcast from others at school simply because of the way that I talked. I know pretty dumb right. In school, by my fellow classmates I was told that I talked proper or white or like a valley girl or a 10 year old kid. Hey you can disagree with me, but that is what I was told. I was soft spoken and didn’t yell at the top of my lungs like many of the other people at my school. I think I was out casted because I didn’t talk like most of my peers.

The thing with me was that I did not want to talk like many of the other people living in the same neighborhoods as me. I wanted to be understood by the world not put into a category as she’s ghetto or hood because let’s be honest that’s how we categorize black people (uneducated, poor, and ignorant). My classmates did not understand that I didn’t want to be stuck in a bubble my whole unable to get a job and provide for myself. My speech was away for me to escape all of that.

Well for my light young voice there isn’t much I can do about that. I guess I will just have to live with it. It’s just the way I talk.

Unsettled Business

While in class, there was some talk about how literacy should be written in a way for the English consumer to understand after giving our opinions on an excerpt,” To Tame A Wild Tongue.”  I believe that the writer should think about the consumer when writing a book, but I believe is the writer’s job to write for his or her self.

I mean the book name is”To Tame a Wild Tongue.” The writer is making her point that while she is learning English, you cannot control her native tongue by the show of examples that she gives where she jumps from English to Spanish to Mexican in two seconds. It is her story so let her tell it. It is the view of the world through her eyes not mines and not yours.

This woman was beaten as a kid for speaking her native language is school, which is ridiculous. If I traveled to another country and I did not speak the language I would not want to happen to me, but that does mean I have to conform to that country’s spoken tongue. It means that I will embrace mine while learning the second language, which at the end of may give me the chance at a better job.

So my point today is that it is not the job of this writer to subject to the American way of writing just because she lives here. American just need to stop being in their own little world because the world is bigger than they want to believe with 6,700 languages floating around. Literacy is meant to push limit and the buttons of people so however that writer chooses to do so be my guest.

Snow Storm

Well as usual when I turn on my computer and get on to the internet I start my journey on Yahoo. Today when I looked at the topic box, I saw that the Northeast was going to get a major snow storm this week and all I have to say is that I am completely jealous.

I’m jealous only because I love the snow. I’ve loved it every since I was a little girl and to know that during my time here in North Carolina, I may not see one flake fall from the sky is really disappointing. See I’m from Washington D.C and living there I know I will see a flake or two during the winter season.

Don’t get me wrong I like being here for school, but I know that most people will agree that they would love to receive a snow day. Is that so wrong to ask for or is it?

Let’s turn the tables a little bit, while reading the story it claims that this is Seattle’s worst snow storm since 1985. Now that is a long time and the only thing that I can think about after reading this is global warming. The Earth is unstable and it is quickly trying to adjust to changes, which means we are facing more snow or hotter summer.

The good new is that when you hear global warming people think the world is going to be destroyed, but that is not the case. The Earth is only trying to fix itself, simply and plain. Now looking back I should not be jealous at all because due to the world evolving I might be seeing that snow I was looking forward to all along.

Be Careful

                                                      WATCH THE VIDEO FIRST

So recently, I was thinking about a video that really caught my eye and I thought of this one. This video features a so-called brave father trying to capture this huge spider on the ceiling with a food container while his young daughter video tapes the whole event. When the father slowly reaches up to trap the spider, it moves and falls on him. Leaving him and his daughter (who dropped the camera) running for dear life.  

 First of all, where do these people LIVE to have spiders like this? Second, if he did capture the spider with the container, how did he plan to close the other side once the spider was inside? Lastly, did he leave a window open? I mean how to these things get into a house in the first place. This situation was destined for disaster.

After watching the video, at first glance I wasn’t sure if I should have been afraid or if I should have laughed at the father for doing something really stupid in my opinion. The father put himself and his daughter at risk of being bitten by the spider and having to make a trip to the emergence room.

The funny thing is that the video does not stop there. The father posted more videos of him trying to catches these enormous creatures. Yeah, crazy, huh? Maybe, he should consider moving somewhere else for a while.

I know that I am terrified of spiders and if I was in that house I would have been long gone as soon as I saw it. I have learned two valuable lesson after watching this video though. Embrace my fear of spiders and to listen to little kids have to say because obviously they’re always right. At the end of the day, we all do go onto YouTube to watch people make a fool out of themselves and have a good laugh about it later.