bossypants

So i really like this book, its very entertaining. I feel like I'm not reading a book, more like she is telling a story and I'm just listening. She has a humorous way of writing that is not really intricate with crazy big words, but more down-to-earth diction. I usually don't read funny books, more sad books, not because I want to be sad, but because it just happens that way. I find a book and I like it and it turns out to be sad. I haven't gotten too far into it because I haven't had the time to read lately, but I'll get on that tonight so it's whatever. Well I'm going to get to reading so see ya later.
-call me page me if you wanna reach me,
                             Kim Possible

Close-Reading Bingo

This is kinda odd, I feel like I'm singling people out and criticizing them, which i am...it isn't really critquing, because we aren't saying anything good. oh well i guess. sorry if i offend anyone for pointing out your flaws.

1. http://twilightlover2.blogspot.com/ This blog's post was weak in the fact that most of it was quotes from the excerpt. It had little content. This would be a #2 common weakness.

2. http://thinking-anonymous.blogspot.com/ This blog's post was weak because it was short, and not very descriptive. It also included a full quotation that just sat on it's own. It was a "quote island". This would be a #5 common weakness.

3. http://skullandglossbones3.blogspot.com/ This blog's post was weak because of punctuation. They need to put the period inside teh quotation marks. This is a class #8 weakness.

4. http://estella-havisham.blogspot.com/ This blog's post was weak because of the #1 common weakness. They used the "he says" tactic...not literally but they used similar words such as "briefly discusses". I find it along the same lines.

BEST RESPONSE.
http://jimmehftw.blogspot.com/

The colloquial, coarse, and somewhat unmannerly diction in "Catcher in the Rye" exemplifies the narrator's down-to-earth, pissed off at the world personality. His defiant and thick skinned nature jumps out when he explains that all the background information about his life is just "David Copperfield kind of crap" that bores him. As the passage goes on, the author uses phrases like "He's got a lot of dough" and "they're also touchy as hell" to make it feel as though the narrator is just another regular kid who is telling you a story. The terse and all together informal nature of the narrator echoes through the entire passage in this excerpt from "Catcher in the Rye."

practice diction analysis

so i didn't think we had to post it in a blog since we were doing it in class together, so here it is...

      In the excerpt from Nicholas Baker's The Merranine, his slightly elevated, intricately formal diction dipicts cold metaphoric language. Baker describes the escalators he is on as "a pair of integral signs swooping upward between the two floors". This clinical dipiction of the moving stairs suggests a businesslike mood. From what he is carrying to the structures he is upon, he describes in great detail the surroundings.

long poem

Poem by Lucie Thesee

Handsome, like those foam-topped tidal waves breaking high, in little crystal globes.

Handsome, like the breeze that lifts a little tuft of tulle. If tulle were life.

Handsome, like a frozen face, tear-tracked, when the sun hammers down.

Handsome. Like fire.

Handsome, like the bottomless sky, with that one proud penetrating star.

But handsome, too, like a sky that’s an arching ocean, and an earth prone as an ocean’s floor.

Handsome ocean-sky, and earth-sea floor.

The big question is: where’s the man in a scene like this?

Handsome: the man asleep. And the night sky swarms, tropic and wide.

Handsome, in some ornamental, muggy midnight caught between cat’s paws. Sharp-nailed:

they prick.

Handsome: the firefly swarms around you.

Handsome, like a soap bubble grazing a little black dress. Like a soap-bubble pricked with a pin.

Handsomeness a rainbow, a rainbow an arrow, an arrow in my chest.

Handsome, like shadows slow-rolling on a Japanese screen.

Handsome motion.

Handsome as life and poison.

Sun-blood handsome. Bleeding sun.

currently

WEEKLY READING LOG
this week: 133
last week: 125
last last week: 132
semester: 1386

Sentences I enjoyed from other peoples style mapping blogs...
From Hoosier XC 3366
1.  "The Mud Below" has a poetic, imagistic connotation, a common, familiar elevation with a country twang, and a sweet, musical sound that creates an overall sense  of contentment.
From The New Zealander
2. The language is rough and coarse in order to portray the common colloquialisms of southern Texas.
From T-REX
3.The musical sounds generated by these love poems convey a harmonious and melodious tone to the book that adds to the fragile yet helpless attitude of the teenagers in love.
From For Lack Of a Better Name
4.He writes as he speaks and thinks, producing a style more compatible with leisure readers and lower intellects, rather than very well educated readers who are looking for a challenging read.
From Hog Smog Blog
5. His grating talk on life and drugs captures you into the book as its prey even though the content of his words [are] suggestive.

I liked these blogs because they all used neat adjectives that caught my attention. They set themselves apart from the normal adjectives such as "exciting" and "dull" or "harsh". I liked how Hoosier XC 3366 decided to comment on the authors diction and described it as a "twang", I enjoyed The New Zealander's choice of the word "colloquialisms", T-REX used a unique approach on describing the teenager's love, For Lack of a Better Name decided to give an array of adjectives that made his sentence interesting, and Hog Smog Blog used a good simile, "captures you into the book like it's prey".
good job ya'll. you did great.

Woman, you stank

Your smell is like acid burning in my nose, it makes me cringe to my toes. It's like I can almost see it swirling to get me, going up my nostrils, and then to kill me. Take a step back would you please? I am now falling to my knees. Is it a perfume of a meat or have you not showered in a week? Whatever it is I can't complete because your stinch is the ultimate defeat.

I got bored at work...

The Virgin Suicides

I started this book last week and I really like it. It's by Jeffrey Eugdnfijganobr (however you spell it). Its about these sisters who all kill themselves, and the boys in the town are all obsessed and intrigued by this. The book is narrated by one of the boys who grew up with the girls, well the girls didn't actually grow up. If that makes since? The girls are pretty much portrayed as angels or perfect to the boys, so the boys are all pretty confused, as am I at the moment, as to why they would kill themselves. Just like any other book I find interesting there is a movie, so yes there is a movie that coincides with the book. It has Kirstin Dunst in it I think. Well that is pretty much it for that book, I'm still working on it so ta ta for now. Kim Possible out. call me, page me, if you wanna reach me.

Style Mapping

The excerpts from Stardust by Neil Gaiman, Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy, and The Virgin Suicides by Jeffrey Eugenides all display different styles of diction. In Neil's excerpt he writes in a style that is dull and archaic as he describes that stoney features of the town of Wall. McCarthy's excerpt displays a coarse, dreary style that is accented with a grinding rhythm.  Different from the others, Eugenides conducts a style that is scholarly yet gloomy while the reader stumbles on the cacophonous language.

POEM TIME WITH LAUREN

I picked up a book
the cover has a great look
Its call "The Virgin Suicides"
no wonder it caught my eye!

We have a substitute
he read some poem about a boot
the class listened in awe
of the words that were so raw.

Blogging is a blast
I'm going to save it for last
poems are super fun
but right now I've gotta run.

currently

I totz forgot to do a currently from last week, probably because we usually all do them as a class but we were all working on our essays. Oh well, so here is my stuff.

WEEKLY READING LOG
this week: 132 pages
last week: 202 pages
semester: 1132 pages
GET AT THIS. thats a lot of pages...

anywhoo...fav sentences??

1. The purpose to life is to live it, to taste experience to the utmost, to reach out eagerly and without fear for newer and richer experience. -Eleanor Roosevelt
2. “Mom says it's because she has PMS."
"Do you even know what that means?"
"I'm not a little kid anymore. It means pissed-at- men syndrome”
-Nicholas Sparks The Last Song

october fifth

today is october fifth
this class makes me wanna throw a fit
yesterday was my brother's birthday
on facebook i gave him a hey
tonight i gotta go to my job
i don't want to i want to sob
i wish i could go to catchphrase club
at lunch i think i might get a sub
my neighb lauren is typing away
and isn't listening to what i say
the people in my class have their niches
but thats because they are all good people
i don't really like to write
and think of words that are "out of sight"
not many things bother me
but right now its hard to breathe
one thing i know and thats
you don't wear socks with flats

my shoes glitter

My shoes are like gold, they shimmer and glitter all over the floor.
The sparkles reflect light that may blind your sight if you look at them any more
"Lauren! Stop looking at my shoes!", I say as she stares towards the floor.
"I can't help it!", she says as she hides and runs out the door.
Man oh man my shoes are my best friend.
I'm going to wear them again again and again.
THE END.

math is bad

I can't do math because it is bad.
It has nothing to do with english, so sad.
I've got my work done and I've blogged a bit,
but that doesn't help my case so i'll sit.
I was told to get a book
I searched and i looked
I picked one out but it doesn't interest me
I don't want to read it, it seems boring
I'm going to write this ugly poem because i'm mad.
I feel like doing my math homework but its bad.

sitting next to one of my best friends

I'm sitting next to one of my best friends.
Her name in cursive is beautiful with all its bends.
This class is annoying because the lights are off.
The blinds are closed too, I'm completely blocked off.
I get frustrated because I have to go different places to find assignments.
I want to go to one specific place to find it.
Call me conventional but put it on the website,
but Lauren is sitting next to me saying it's going to be alright.
I have my assignment done, so I've got nothing to do right now.
I might just do my math, since that class is the cat's meow (not).