11/26/07

I started by knowing exactly what I wanted to write about, sat down where there was no one around, and was playing Age of Mythology since I get distracted too easily if I'm only doing one thing.

My focus seemed to come while I was writing.

What I left out are some things that are too personal for me. I don't remember changing anything.

The only time I got stuck is when I had other things on my mind and got unstuck by either getting a snack, walking my dog, or just doing something else for a while.

I write my best when I'm home during late at night.

Some writing rituals I have is grabbing a blanket, grabbing a snack, and either playing some music or putting the tv on.

I don't even considered myself finsihed because I know my final version would be very long.

Blog 14

School hasn't changed that much for me over the years. It has always been very difficult for me and taken up most of my daily life. I'm a junior in college and it doesn't seem like things have changed but only getting harder as time passes.

It seems like a daily routine now. Five days out of the week I wake up and get ready for school. I would be so tired sometimes from staying up the night before either studying or doing my homework that I'd forget to have breakfast and even take anything for lunch. After six hours of school and work I'm exhausted and hungry but my day isn't over. By the time I get out of school I have enough homework to keep me up the rest of the night.
By the time I get home my dog hasn't been walked for almost eight hours. When I get
back from the walk I notice my sister, who is a junior in high school, has all of her homework pilled on the couches and floor in the livingroom.
"That much?" I'd ask her.
She looks up at me and says a simple, "Yes."
My mother would then come into the room and say, "She's been like this since she got
home. It's ridiculous with the amount of homework they give them."
By then it would have been around six o'clock in the evening and my sister gets home at
two o'clock in the afternoon. She is also an honor student and has five AP and Honor classes out
of the seven classes she takes at her school. I would then leave my sister for her to continue her work and for me to have my dinner.

At the dinner table I would half the time have my homework with me. I wouldn't really be able to pay attention to the people sitting down with me because I'd have to concentrate on the homework that I would be doing. By the time I'm done with my dinner I would leave to go to my boyfriend's house just to be able to spend a little time with him otherwise I wouldn't be able to see him other than the weekends.
When I arrive at his house I'd either pull out my books or my laptop and start doing my
homework. We'd sit down together on the couch and he would either watch tv or play a game.
After a few hours I would start having headaches and falling asleep.
"I think you should take a break for a bit." he would tell me.
"No, I'll be fine. I just got to finish this." I would tell him.
If I start falling asleep again he'd say, "I really think you should take a break. You're
stressing yourself too much."
It's then I'd agree, put my books away and ask him how much work he had.
"I have two papers due this week." he told me.
"I'd love to only have two papers to do." I'd tell him.
By that time I would start getting very worried and upset that I wouldn't be able to finish
my work in time and fall behind.
He would then say, "Don't worry yourself so much. You'll get through it like always."
After that I would start feeling a little better and we would talk and watch a movie
together. I would then soon have to go home and still have work to do. I would feel bad about my boyfriend because I felt I would spend so little time with him but I would just be so busy.

I would finally arrive back at home around eleven o'clock in the evening and would find my sister still doing her homework.
"How much do you have left?" I would ask her.
"Got this art project to finish." she'd say.
"Due tomorrow?" I'd ask her seeing that she had just started it.
"Yes." she'd say.
I would stay downstairs helping her out with what I could while doing my work as well.
By the time we would be finished it would be between midnight and one o'clock in the
morning. She also explained to me how her school dropped the passing grade from 70 to 65 which ended up lowering her GPA on her report card and since they didn't do the same for the Honors List which made her be in the second honor roll when she should've been on the first honor roll. She was very disappointed and frustrated that she'll have to work even harder if she wants to be in the first honor roll.

School's has been very difficult and it's only getting harder. I have almost no time for myself unless I force myself to have that time and the same goes for my sister. With almost anyone I ask have the same problem and it only seems to be getting worse.

11/19/07

RHETORICAL ANALYSIS OF PUBLICATION VENUES


1. Analysis of the editorial description of essays accepted
See http://www.freshyarn.com/submit.htm
Does not mention any boundaries.
Accepts short personal essays of up to 3,000 words max

Reading dates: monthly
.
2. Description of several representative essays published in your venue;
sample essays= http://www.freshyarn.com/submit.htm
“Ninth-Level Dork” by Ali Davis
“Losing Your Mother … Find Yourself” by Beverly Kopf
“You Think You’re So Special” by Dana Gould

Subject matter: "While there are also excellent literary outlets in print and online, I found that personal essays are not the focus. Typically they're buried amongst fiction, poetry, reviews and articles. There was no home, print publication or website, dedicated to this important genre."
Voice: no voice mentioned
Depth of discussion: "to elevate the art of the personal essay"
Length: up to 3,000 words

3. Niche
Audience - literary and writers interested in personal narrative essays
Purpose – “My mission is to elevate the art form of the personal essay, and to promote the voices currently kicking it into higher gear. It is also to continue to build the community of listeners and readers who are the real reason this genre is coming to the fore.”

4. Other
Must send by e-mail only with no attachments
Replies with “GOT IT” via e-mail
Publish six essays each month
No mention of pay.

11/18/07

My journalism essay will be about the difficulties of students today of different ages and the similarities they possess. I will also be using myself as an example for my topic.

Nature Essay

For as long as I have known him I've seen the wild spirit within him. I see it in him with the way that he acts and even his looks. I am frequently asked "Is he a wolf?" as he shows them an intimidating fanged but yet friendly smile. By the way he acts and appears I often want to say yes but I always answer "No, he isn't." I can understand how people can be mistaken since he looks so much like one. From what I've learned and observed he does share many of the characteristics of a wolf.
I watch him as something in the bushes catches his attention. And when he sees it's a small animal he is fully alert. His body language and position is almost exactly as a wolf stalking his prey. His ears are perked up straight carefully listening for any sound he and his prey would make while being careful enough not to make any sounds himself that will startle his prey. His eyes are in complete focus and fixed on the small animal. His long tail is lowered as not to give himself away. He controls his breathing to a minimum so he won't be heard. He slowly stalks the small animal and silently moves in closer when it's looking away. He will use any coverage that would be available to him. His coat is mostly a dark black and brown and is perfect for camouflage but the whites of his fur gives him away and even with the short chase his prey escapes. I can see the momentary disappointment in his face as he looks in the direction where his prey escaped but soon trots off as if his failed attempt was nothing.
I see him as his is gracefully running across the grass almost unheard. I can see the joy and feel of freedom his has when he's running. He seems his happiest when he is running with the wind running through his fur, the wide smile on his face, and the fact that he would never stop running if he could. And when I'd go back to see the trail of paw prints that he had left it would almost be identical to a wolf's tracks. The only difference is that his paw tracks are smaller.
I watch him as he patrols his territory as a wolf would. He carefully searches for anything that could be strange or a possible threat to him. He sniffs close to the ground with his nose almost touching the ground. And whenever he does find a strange smell possibly of something invading his territory he marks and reclaims it. Then he proudly trots away and continues his patrolling.
I see him without a care in the world as he lays down on his back, exposing his stomach and rolls around in the dirt. I think he'd be happier being dirty all the time. He will even jump into a pill of leaves just for fun and playing with whatever he finds.
I see him when he's being assertive, wanting to be the alpha as any wolf would want to fight his way to the top. He would harshly growl at the other to show his dominance. He will stare down the other and make sure that the other does not make any form of eye contact. And if all else failed and the other did not submit he would pin the other down to the ground and rap his mouth against their snout or throat but without hurting them either.
I see him when he becomes submissive. His ears fold back against his head. He lowers his head half way to the ground. He will avoid any eye contact. He will hunch his body over making it appear that he is smaller. He will place his tail between his legs. And sometimes he will roll on his back and expose his stomach, his most vulnerable area. He would also cry to make himself sound like a pup to make it seem that he doesn't know any better.
I hear him when he is howling his beautiful song. His song can be hear from a distance at times. It can send a chill through many people's hearts and others' a warmth.

I see the wolf in him and I feel a sadness in my heart because I know that no matter what he is just a tamed wolf. It can possibly be thought that he is a wolf in dogs clothing.

Lost Memories of a Forgotten Life

Summer vacation is usually an uneventful time for me. I would usually be found doing homework or studying throughout the rest of the year and stressing myself out. Summer vacation is really the only time I have to relax and would end up being bored out of my mind most of the time. One hot summer day with nothing to do I decided to do a little late spring cleaning that I never got to. The hot summer weather seemed to be more unbearable since my room is a small room in the attic. The central air didn’t help much unless I turned the rest of the house into a giant cooler. My mother is never happy when I’d turn up the air complaining that the rest of the house was too cold and of the bill she would get later that month. The thought of my dad telling me "Always make your mother happy" darted through my mind. In my mind that meant to make her happy no matter what, even if it meant sacrificing my own happiness. That day it felt as if my room had reached the nineties. My room got very hot and muggy to the point that it was starting to become difficult to breath. Trying to ignore the discomfort of the heat I started to rip though my room pulling out everything I could find. Within minutes my small bedroom floor was covered with boxes, junk, papers, old toys, clothes, drawing pads, and only God knows what else. After a while I came across one of my old journals. I then decided to search for the rest. After what seemed to be a scavanger hunt I found of my old journals, four in all. I was bored and didn’t think I had anything else better to do. I was encircled by all the things I had collected over the years when I grabbed my first journal and opened it up.

I was shocked by what I had found. I was about ten years old when I had written that journal. Sections of the journal were only of scores of basketball games and how the games had went. That part of the journal wasn’t what surprised me. It was of the returning memories I had of those days. Memories I had long made myself forget and of why I put the journals away in the first place. I mostly spoke of how miserable I was with school and life in general. I was always the quiet kid in class and tried to keep to myself because I hated how I was treated by being teased or left out. That's just how I felt back then.
I hate them but I know I shouldn’t because that’s not what God would want.
I now even remember writing that down in my old room with pink walls and unicorn borders and sitting in the center of the floor making sure no one was near. The memories of being scared, teased, being called ugly and stupid overwhelmed me. I did hate many of the people I knew back then but not all. I did have a few people I considered friends at the time but as the years went by I discovered that most of them were either backstabbers or we just didn’t really have anything in common and grew apart. No matter what back then r how much I wanted to I didn't think anything would change because I didn't feel that I could do anything about it. In another entry I mention is that I thought that the only friends I could rely on were my pets since they would never do anything to hurt me. My pets were the only company that I really enjoyed. They were what made me happy. I complained in my journal of the people I hated such as my friends who I felt didn't care at times, my father who was hardly ever home and always working, my mother with her smoking and seeming that it didn't really matter how my sister and I felt, and my younger sister who I felt would always hate me and would never get along with. I soon noticed that it felt as if my throat was closing up and my vision was getting blurry. I was crying; which was something I had always tried to hide so that no one would worry about me or call me a baby.

I didn’t want to read anymore of that journal and so I moved onto the next one. I was graduating the eighth grade when I kept that journal. It’s not as if that journal was any better I soon found out. If not then it was worse than the first. One of the first pages was of a beloved pet that had died. I flipped through the pages as fast as I could so that I wouldn’t linger on those pages. If I did I knew it wouldn’t do me any good. Further on in the journal I had written of my first boyfriend. Some of it was good but mostly of me being stupid.
He didn’t show up to the movies again. This has to be the third time this month I think. I don’t understand why he doesn’t just call to say he can’t come or ever apologize. He does this all the time.
I remember always waiting outside of the movie theater for him hoping I would see him coming from around the corner until two minutes before the movie started. I always brought a friend with me. My parents always made me bring someone back then but now I think it’s because they knew that my boyfriend back then wouldn’t show up. Those four months were filled with heartache because I was with someone who I started to think didn’t really care about me all that much. Even though he was the one to break up with me, thinking he got bored of me, I figure I won in the end. Not only was I free from further heartache but since I was so angry and frustrated at him all the time he never got so much as a simple kiss out of me. I knew that got to him because there was another entry in my journal.
I was at Kami’s house when out of nowhere he IMed her online. He asked if I was with her and she said no. She asked him why he broke up with me and he said ‘because there was no kissing and stuff.’ Not like I didn’t expect it but it still really hurt to hear it.
I felt so stupid for not leaving him in the first place. That relationship was mostly disappointment and heartache. Even when I knew I should have left him I didn't because I didn't want to hurt him. He on the other hand didn't feel the same since he broke up with me a few minutes after telling me 'Happy four month anniversary.' But in the end I was glad that it was over for the most part. I was still really hurt from it all though.

I remembered that day as well. It was the beginning of our freshman year in high school and I decided to visit her since I knew we wouldn’t have the time to later on. That was also the same year I got my lifelong dream, my first dog, so all the heartaches I had didn’t seem as bad. That was really the first sign of happiness written in that journal. I was volunteering at an animal shelter at first to complete my Confirmation hours but decided to stay since I enjoyed it so much. That was something I looked forward to every Monday.
It’s mid June and I found my dream dog! He’s this beautiful black and white Siberian husky with the most gorgeous blue eyes I’ve ever seen. He’s also very big, the size of a wolf which I love. He’s so friendly and gentle and I know I have to get him no matter what. There’s only one problem, my mom. She’s not an animal lover like my dad and I. Knowing her she’ll make me wait until I’m fifteen to get a dog as part of our deal. What am I going to do?
Eventually I pulled through. I managed to convince my parents to see him and actually have him! I remember the first time my mother saw him. It was so funny. He was in a little dog house but I managed to call him out. By the time he was fully out of the little dog house all I heard my mom say was ‘Oh my God. It’s Cujo!’
For that reason I almost named him Cujo but he was too sweet so I named him Ckukchi, (see-koo-chee), for the original Indian tribe in Siberia who breed the dogs. It was then that I flipped through some more pages and when I found a page I looked at the pictures of Ckukchi next to his ashes and started to cry. It was of the day after my birthday when he died.
It was my seventeenth birthday and everything was so perfect. My mom even let me skip school and just stay home that day. It was even snowing like how I wished it would. Ckukchi had been sick for a long time but was better that day until the evening. We were starting to have dinner. My mom made one of my favorites, steak with egg noodles and green beans, when all of a sudden I heard something fall. I knew exactly what the sound was and raced into the next room. Ckukchi was on his back having a seizure and choking on his food. Dad grabbed him, took him outside, and managed to revive him. We took him to an all-night emergency vets office and thought he’d be fine. Soon after we brought him back home he started up again. We were all crying including my mom I saw. When we brought him back to the vets we knew we couldn’t save him. He was very old and sick for a long time now. I sat right next to him, petting and talking to him until the light faded from his eyes and I knew he was gone. 12:37am.
I didn’t go to school for the next two days and kind of got in trouble for it from the vice principle but I didn’t care. I was doing nothing but crying and wasn’t speaking to anyone. I’d gone into a deep depression during that time and didn’t get any better until weeks later. I threw the journal aside not wanting to read anymore of it.

I’d remembered the following pages of another boyfriend who’d was no better than the last and had left me because I had questioned him of the rumors I had been hearing of him cheating on me. I was heartbroken once more but didn’t care as much that time because I just decided to give up on dating at that point and not suffer like that anymore.
I moved onto the next journal that I had kept from high school to the beginning of college. Half of it was just of me complaining of the people around me. I hated most of the people I went to school with. Every year there would be a different guy whose only goal would be to make my life miserable. It got that I wanted to leave the school because I would be poked, had spit balls shot at me, be called a bitch and an asshole, and I don’t even want to mention the rest. I did nothing to these people. I just wanted to be left alone like I always had and do my work. My parents couldn’t believe what was going on and for the fact that the teachers would see it happening. High school was better than grade school I must say. I did have a few friends then but not many. I’d tried to choose my friends carefully at that point in my life. I had come across one page in my journal of a weekend class trip.
I was lying down on the couch next to the fire place curled up in a ball. It’s always so cold on these Esopus trips and always had to try and keep warm. I was half asleep and would sometimes overhear bits of what the people were saying around me. I heard my one friend say ‘Don’t do that!’ I later found out someone was apparently making faces at me and was going to do other things but I didn’t want to know at that point. I later woke up alone, discovering I’d missed the mass and my friend’s coat on top of me. I had it returned and thanked him for it.

I skimmed through the rest of the pages to my senior prom. For some reason I was really excited about that day. I didn’t have a date but didn’t care. I still didn’t want to date at that point which made it all that harder for me with this one guy I met who was in the limo with us. We started to talk but I tried to keep it as short as possible because I was really starting to like him and enjoyed talking to him. It didn’t get any easier for me once we got to the hall and sat down. I started to feel bad because he was asking why I wasn’t talking much and I just said I wasn’t much of a talker as a cover-up. It wasn’t until one of my friends came up and asked to sit at their table that I’d left. I wanted to go back to the table and sit with the guy for the rest of the prom but I didn’t want to chance being heartbroken again. I then started to laugh because the funny thing is a year and a half later I met up with this guy I met at prom again and we’re now engaged. I looked at the rest of my journal, which was only few pages, and saw that the rest of it was of him and that I was actually happy. I didn’t really realize it until then of how he’d really turned my life around for the better. I’d looked over at the journal on my shelf that I was currently keeping and realized the difference between that one and the others I’d kept, how much better my life was. It was then that I decided to throw out my old journals as a way to let go of my old life because I’m not that person anymore and be able to live my new life.

11/03/07

Three descriptions I intend to use in my essay writing is the qualities of a wolf my dog has, how I see these qualities, and how he's just a tamed wolf in the end. I'm going to write about me observing my dog and the wold within him. I'm also going to compare him to wolves in the wild by describing physical features, hunting qualities, behavior, ect. And finally going to write of how he is just a tamed wolf by describing the evolution of dogs and wolves.