The Final Blogpost of English 102

                Seeing as we only need 10 blog posts, it seems as if I am on my last one. Post number 10 and I really do not have much to say but I am glad I am done with my blogs. I have blogged about my two outside events and multiple classroom topics. This week we read more poems, which is boring. So, this post is going to be about me. I work part-time at Bath & Body Works.  I am 18 years old and I am part of the High School College program that my school has with Bland. This means that I am still in high school and I am a senior. I will be graduating on June 7^th with an advanced diploma and with honors. I cannot wait! J I have less than 70 days! I loved doing my senior year here at Bland and I think it was the best choice for me. I felt a lot more free and enjoyed being able to actually pick my schedule. I am looking forward to returning to Bland in the fall of 2014 and spring of 2015 to finish up my degree here then transferring to a four year college where I can obtain my Master’s in Chemistry. I love science and math, which chemistry is pretty much a combination of the two.

On a separate good note, this school year is starting to come to a close as well. It has been a good semester, but I am indeed ready for a break! I loved being in Sweeney’s class because he is a great teacher and pretty laidback. Overall, Bland is a great school and I am glad that I got to go here this year.

Finishing Up the Glass and on to the next thing.

                This week in class was not too bad. We turned in our rough drafts and discussed the topics of our papers. Even though Sweeney tries and tries to get us into groups, we will never truly be accepting of this idea. I really enjoyed the way that we did do it in class on Monday. Everyone, that was actually there, participated, which would probably not happen if we would have dispersed into groups. I feel that I got better feedback doing that then I would have if we were in groups, especially because Sweeney gave me some things to think about and things that I should add to my paper to make it better. I know that Sweeney means well with his groups and counting off numbers, but I feel like it is never going to go as smoothly as he wants it to go because we have quite the group of personalities in that room. On another note, I was able to take what Sweeney told me and add it to my paper and I feel that it is much better than it was before. It is definitely a lot longer than I thought it would be, but I am glad that I am finally finished. We did start poetry this week and I am not too thrilled about that. I am not a big fan of poetry, I do not hate it but I do not like it at the same time. I am rather indifferent actually. I guess we will just have to see how it goes. But thank goodness tomorrow is FRIDAY! J

Spring Break with the ACC !

This week, we did not have class due to being off for Spring Break. It was quite the blessing because I was ready to take a break from classes and have time to just relax. However, I really had no time to relax because I spent my vacation in Greensboro, North Carolina for the ACC Men's Basketball Tournament. It was so much fun and I cannot wait to go back next year and do it all again! My team is The Duke Blue Devils and will always be. Duke is my dream school and I am so proud that they went all the way to the championship game. Do not even get me started on the actual game because I will not have very nice things to say. I will say that you know there is a tad bit of a problem when Duke has only 11 foul shots and Virginia has about 38. Plus the fact that ESPN even said that there should have been fouls called that were not. To be completely honest, I hate UVa. I think it’s a school full of rich snobs that wear stuff like dress pants and button ups to basketball games. Overall, I had the BEST time. I just love sports and college basketball is one of my favorites.  

The Glass Menagerie Part II

                This is the third week, I think, that we have been discussing The Glass Menagerie. Overall, it is not a bad story, but I sure am glad that it is over. Well, it is almost over. I have almost finished my rough draft of my paper. I chose to use the topic about each character’s escape. I found that this essay was a lot easier than I thought it would be. I was a little hesitant at first, but once I got started, everything just started to roll out. All I have to do now is to just add the info from a different source. I am unsure of what to use and what to look up, but I am sure I will find something and the fact that the rough draft is not due until after spring break definitely helps. I am ready to get this essay over with and just turn it in! I actually feel that I would like to really do the peer review for this paper because I am pretty proud of it. Hopefully, when we do peer reviews for this essay after the break, people in my group will want to participate. However, the class actually contributed to the somewhat type of lecture that we had in class today, so maybe we are becoming more comfortable with each other.  Just a little step at a time, I guess! J

The Glass Menagerie Part I

This week in class we began watching the Glass Menagerie. I would rather go to Luca’s than write this blog post.  However, this is a grade so I suppose I will follow through with it. I haven’t actually begun to read the story yet because it looks too long and unappealing to me. The movie is rather interesting, but the mother pisses me off. Her voice just makes me angry. I feel bad for Laura because she is treated like a baby. We tried to have a class discussion on the story, but with our class, this is not a very easy thing to do. I would help a little if we did not have to get put into groups that we do not like to be in. Even though we have been in class for a good while now, we are still not very comfortable being with people we do not know.  But anyways, so far the movie is great and I hope the story is as good as the movie. I have not begun to write to write my paper and I am a bit anxious about it because I am not sure what I want to write about. Hopefully, once I get started on it, it will not too difficult to finish.

A Night at the Ballet

Beyond Class Event #2:

I attended Cinderella at the Carpenter Theater on February 15^th. It was done by the Richmond Ballet. It was a surprise for me from my boyfriend.  I do not celebrate Valentine’s Day because I think it is dumb and I have always hated it even though I have had a “valentine” for three years now. So he always does things for me a day or so after. He is the sweetest. But always, the ballet was great! I cannot dance to save my life so I enjoy watching people who actually can dance and do it gracefully. It was a beautiful production. As I said before, it was a ballet of the well-known story of Cinderella. It was pretty close to Disney’s rendition of Cinderella but there were some random things in the ballet version that I do not recall in the movie. One thing that stood out the most was that one of Cinderella’s step sisters was a dude. Yes, it was a guy dressed as a girl. At first, I was just like “wow she has huge arm muscles and broad shoulders!” But then I looked at the cast list and one of the names was Matthew. It may seem weird, but I think one of the sisters being a guy actually made their part because of how well he performed it. All of the guys wearing tights kind of freaked me out because it looked like they were painted on and you could see every crevice and muscle. Yet, it was very enjoyable. All of the dancers looked beautiful and looked like they had legs for days. I could only wish that I was that graceful.

Uneventful, snow-filled week!

This week was rather uneventful because we only had one class. On Monday, Sweeney was sick and he canceled class, which was good because I got a lot of stuff done during my break between classes.  The on Wednesday, we actually had class and were supposed to do a peer review but no one really got anything done. To say the least, we are rather a rambunctious class. The whole not getting to pick our own groups things does not make things any easier either.  We all just kind of talked amongst ourselves and then left. Yes, we are in college but that does not mean that we are automatically comfortable sharing and reading our papers with people we do not really know. However, it snowed on Wednesday night through Thursday night so Bland canceled class on both Thursday and Friday (HOORAY!), which was rather surprising to me given the situation last time it snowed.  On Friday, we were supposed to have a peer review for the second time and bring two copies of our rough draft, but we did not have class. I am guessing we will do this on Monday now. In all honesty, I am glad that we finally got a break and we did not have to risk our lives to come to class in all the ice and snow.

VCU v UoR Game

I love sports, watching and playing them. I recently attended a sporting event for one of my “beyond class” events. On February first at eleven in the morning (yes that is really early for a basketball game), I attended the Bank of America Capitol City Classic. If you do not know what that is, it is the Virginia Commonwealth University game against the University of Richmond that takes place at the Segal Center.  U of R and VCU are extreme rivals. U of R thinks that they are the school of Richmond when in reality, they are not. The game was a black out game, so everyone in the audience got a free black VCU shirt to wear during the game. It was never a really close game, but the intensity kept everyone’s heart racing. There were only like 10 University of Richmond fans, which was how it should be because Havoc runs Richmond. It was a great game and definitely fun to watch. By the end of the game, both teams had over 10 fouls. But VCU still dominated the game and took the win. The end score was eighty-one to seventy, VCU. I love attending VCU games and this one will definitely not be the last one that I attend. I love the atmosphere that surrounds these games and this one was one that no one should have missed out on.  

Boring Week, Blog #2

It is the second blog and there really is not much to talk about. We pretty much have only had once class because Monday was honestly a waste of time and then we did not have class on Wednesday due to the snow. I would have rather attended class on Monday then do what we did. I know how to use the library and for those who do not, they could go on a little self-adventure for themselves and discover the library. I also enjoyed the story that we had to read for that day also and was pretty upset that we did not have the chance to discuss it. The Chrysanthemums was so much better than the other stories that we had to read this week. I actually understood it. The flower was a symbol of the main character because they are both strong and when you step back and look at them, they are both beautiful. She was sexually frustrated, obviously, because she was going after the tinker guy while her husband was off. But overall, the story was not that bad to read. The other two stories, “Everything That Rises Must Converge” and “Good Country People,” were awful, to say the least. They were extremely boring and I really do not know what even happened in the stories. The only thing I got from the “Converge” story was that a racist, white woman got punched in the face by a big, black woman and then keeled over. I really did not get anything from “Good Country People”. It was rather confusing. Hopefully the discussion today helps out with that. I really hope that next week’s stories do no suck like these did.

**this blog post is pretty irrelevant because I read two of the wrong stories...oops! At least I read! 

Blog Post #1: Week 2

Well, I suppose it is time to begin. Syllabus week is over and now the hard work is starting and the reality of spring semester is setting in. We have already read a few short stories in English and they all were rather unconventional to say the least. Being in a new class with almost all new faces does not really help the discussions of these short stories when they are already difficult to analyze in the beginning but that is expected in most situations like ours.

To begin, I guess I will discuss the first short story we had to read for class. This poor woman just wants to become a writer and tries to enlighten her readers on how to do the same. However, we learn nothing and she still has no sense of plot just as in all of the rest of her stories. The only thing that I really gathered from this story is that she is struggling to find herself and what she wants to do with the rest of her life. I guess most college students could relate to this because college is usually the time where you find out what you want in life and begin the process of striving to achieve it.

The second short story really made no sense to me because the time frames of the story were all over the place and it kind of confused me. The title just made the story all the more confusing. The class discussion made everything a little easier to understand though. After that I guess I can see how the story is a big allusion to race and them trying to work together as one but it is just not in my top favorite short stories.

The latest of the short stories was one that I had read last year in eleventh grade. The Yellow Wallpaper is full of confusion, if I do say so myself. I feel like I have the most to say about this short story because I have read it before and have analyzed it to death. I feel that the whole woman in the wallpaper thing is an allusion to her being trapped inside herself because she is being forced to do things she does not want to do and becomes trapped in her own imagination. The discussion could have been better but I feel like the activity we did helped us understand the story a little more.

Overall, it was a great first week. Hopefully, the stories become a little easier to understand but I guess that is just a part of the joyous ride of English 102.