Theme 8

"I can't imagine being anywhere but here! I mean the late night surfing, the boardwalk fries, and the warm breeze. Who wouldn't want to live here?" Ryan said to her best friend Kelsey.

"Yea, I no what you mean! But don't you want to do something more with your life."

"I guess eventually yeah, but for right now I just want to enjoy life for what it is, theirs no rush!" Ryan said.

"You are almost eighteen, and everybody is going to college and getting jobs. It's time to get on with your life!"

"You sound like my mom, you just need to lighten up!" Ryan said, chuckling.

Kyle their friend from school walks up to them, "Hey Ryan ready to go surfing?"

"I’ll be right there!" Ryan said. "You coming?" she asked Kelsey.

"No. I’m good I gotta be home for dinner. See ya!"

Kyle waited for Ryan to catch up and they walked to go get her board and then down to the beach. Ryan loved surfing; she loved the feeling of the wind in her face and the thrill of riding a wave. And she loved that you never knew what was coming next! After they were done surfing they walked back to Ryan's house. 

"So Kyle, what are you doing next year?" Ryan asked him, still thinking about the conversation she had with Kelsey.

"I’m going to UCLA! Sorry, gonna leave you here all alone." Kyle replied.

"What makes you think that I’m not going anywhere?" Ryan said sarcastically.

"C'mon Ryan, it's you!?!" "No offense or anything."

Ryan laughed, "Yea I guess I know what you mean." But on the inside even though Ryan put on the act that nothing mattered she didn't like the fact that nobody thought she was going anywhere in life. She was getting tired of hearing it from everybody.

Ryan was kind of upset so she went home, grabbed some chips and a soda and plopped down on the couch. Nothing was really on though; nothing was on MTV and on E! it was Brad Pitt which she had already seen. As she was sitting there, she had a revelation. She was going to prove to everyone that she could do something with her life. She decided that instead of going to boring college that she wanted to travel. But Ryan didn't want to go to France or Greece, those places seemed so over rated. She was thinking of something more extravagant. More like...Africa! Ryan went on her Mac and started looking up places to go, she wanted to help children in need, go in one of the Peace Corps or helping things. After an hour or so of looking surfing the net, Ryan found exactly what she wanted to do.

“Mom, mom!” Ryan yelled while running down the stairs. “I have something I need to talk to you about!”

“What is it honey?” Her mom asked, a little shocked that Ryan was excited to talk to her.

“Okay so I have this idea, and I think you are really going to like it!”

 So Ryan explained to her mom that she wants to join a group and go to Ethiopia to help feed the poor, build houses, and schools. Her mom was surprised by the idea, but she didn’t say no. So Ryan went to go start packing! The group she wanted to go with was leaving in only two weeks! She had so much to do before then.

Even though Ryan’s mom didn’t give a definite yes, Ryan went and told everybody what she was going to do. She was going to show that the unreliable, lazy girl could do something good with her life.

 When Ryan told Kelsey she freaked out!

 “You are going where? To do what? I can’t believe it! You actually do listen to some things that I say I guess.” Kelsey said.

 “It’s not just you, I am just tired of everybody telling me that I won’t do anything with my life.”

 “Awww, well I am going to miss you so much! How long are you going for?” Kelsey asked.

 “It is going to be a couple months I think, I still need to finalize the whole thing with my parents.”

 “Oh I see! Well then I think we need to go shopping! You do not have a lot of time!”

 “Yea you know me, always spur of the moment!” they laughed. “Not everything has changed about me!” Ryan said.

 They walked off together to go shopping and get all of Ryan’s stuff together.

 In the two weeks leading up to the trip Ryan had so much to do! It kept her busy and not too anxious about the whole thing. Until the night before, she started having second thoughts.

 “She went to her mom, “I don’t know if I can do this, I mean who am I kidding, I am still the same person who doesn’t carry through with things and is lazy and-

 “No, no honey stop it, this is the most excited I have seen you in a while, and you will be doing a great thing and helping a lot of people. And everybody here supports you!”

“Yea you are right,” Ryan said getting a little more encouraged and excited again.

 “Now go finish packing and get to bed, you have an awfully long day ahead of you.”

 The next morning Ryan was sitting on a plane to Ethiopia! She finally had made a good decision! She still knew that the hardest part was ahead of her, but she showed everybody that she could be hardworking when she wants to be and is not going to do nothing with her life.

Interpreter of Maladies

Interpreter of Maladies pg. 47 and 48

We are in the car on the way to the next stop of our tour of India!

“Monkeys!” Ronny shrieked. “Wow!”           

Finally something exciting is happening on this trip! I lean over my mom and look out the window to get a better look, and all these groups of monkeys are hanging on the trees!

“We call them hanuman,” Mr. Kapasi says. “There are quite common in the area.”

All of the sudden one monkeys jumps in front of the car and the screeches to a stop! I almost fly into the seat in front of me. Then another monkey jumps on the hood of the car, I look out excitedly! I can’t believe that monkeys are actually allowed to roam alone; I thought they were only in zoos! I don’t think Mr. Kapasi likes them very much because he is honking his horn and yelling at them to get out of the way. Then my dad asks if he can get out and take some pictures. Mr. Kapasi unlocks the car and my dad gets out. The rest of us stay in the car. My mom doesn’t really like animals that much so she starts to paint her nails. I love getting my nails done!

“Mine too. Mommy, do mine too.” 

“Leave me alone,” she says.

I don’t know why she is being so mean. I decide to get out my doll and start playing with her outfit; I like the buttons on her pinafore the best! 

"All set," my dad says as he comes back into the car. 

Finally we start to drive again! The road is very bumpy and I keep popping out of my seat. It feels like a ride at an amusement park!

Theme 7 and Reflection

As I was looking through my writer’s notebook, I realized that I didn’t really write about anything too important. Mostly, I complained. I complained about writing the journal entries, and I complained about Mr. Juliani’s class. I also complained about school in general. So I thought I would take this opportunity to complain a little more.

I think Mr. Juliani’s class has been a great learning experience for me in that I have definitely learned I do not like analyzing poems and quotes that I personally feel do not need to be analyzed. I feel, sometimes people just say what they mean, and there is nothing else to it. Yes, people can talk about what they said and debate about what the hidden meaning could be, but what’s the point; you will never know what they really did mean unless you personally ask them.

Another thing I learned from Mr. Juliani’s class was, I am not a good writer. I have tried very hard to write very strong papers and yet they all seem to come back with C’s as a grade. I no longer fight him about these grades but have learned to except the fact that language arts is not my subject and I am not a great writer.

The next thing I learned from Mr. Juliani was that I am a very slow writer. Despite how long he said our tests should take, I would never finish. I have not finished one of Mr. Juliani’s tests this year, and am fairly confident that I never will. I write as fast as I can and I usually know most of the answers but I cannot figure out a way to get all my thoughts down in forty minutes. But apparently there is a way to finish these tests because, most people in the class find a way to, which further proves to me that I am a slow writer.

Mr. Juliani’s class has also allowed me to learn that I am not very creative. With all the different projects, free writes and fun activities we have done in his class, mine have all been boring. I always thought that some cool, creative idea would come to me, but none ever did. No matter how much I thought about it, my ideas were always kind of boring.

The next thing I learned from Mr. Juliani’s class was that there are two types of reading, the first I was always aware of, just reading to read. But the second kind of reading also included interpreting. I was never aware that interpretation of every character’s actions was an expected thing to do when reading. When it came to the tests and discussions on the book they were never about what happened in the book, they were always about the interpretations of the characters and their actions. I learned very quickly that simply reading was not enough.

Mr. Juliani also likes to change his due dates and requirements for projects a lot, which I think is unfair. I am not usually the type of person who does things in advance but the few times I went out of my way to do so for Mr. Juliani’s class I ended up having to change something, due to a requirement change or the due date was changed and I could’ve had more time. This has taught me that waiting till the last minute to do things is actually better.

The last thing I am going to complain about is the word requirements for our blogs. First of all, I do not truly believe that Mr. Juliani really counts all the words or reads everyone’s blogs, but I still try to make them the correct amount of words. I do not see how achieving a certain word requirement can help my writing in any way. I always thought writing was not supposed to be forced. For example, right now I would be done with this paper if not for the word requirement making me feel the need to add this paragraph. I have been wrong about most other things in this class and apparently I am wrong about this too.

Mr. Juliani’s class has been quite the experience for me so far this year and I cannot wait to see what is still to come. I think that I have actually discovered a lot of information from this class whether I enjoyed it or not. And I am sure that one-day be I will be thanking you, Mr. Juliani, for teaching me all that you have.

Reflection

I think that this theme was very fun because you got to write about whatever you wanted and didn't have to write about something you don't really care about. 

I changed my conventions the most because in my rough draft I got all my ideas on paper in an organized way. But I didn’t really worry too much about the grammar and spelling. For my final draft I went through and changed all the spelling mistakes. I also went through and changed any sentences that didn’t flow very well. I tried to make sure that all my conventions were correct. 

I felt that I had an excellent focus in my rough draft so I didn’t really change too much in that area. I only wrote about what I disliked about the class and nothing else. 

My style was strong in my rough draft because I wrote about something I care about but I still had some places that needed help. 

I also thought that my structure did not need any changing from my rough draft because I spit it into paragraphs with an intro, conclusion, and body paragraphs with one idea in each paragraph. 

The content of my paper needed some changing because some things I wrote about tin my rough draft I did not feel as necessary anymore when I went to revise it. I took out a point that seemed redundant. 

Overall my paper did not need too much editing and revising from the rough draft to the final because I worked hard on my rough draft.

Theme #7:RD

So as I was looking through my writer’s notebook I realized that I didn’t really write about anything too important. Mostly I complained. I complained about writing the journal entries, and I complained about Mr. Juliani’s class, also I complained about school in general. So I thought I would take this opportunity to complain a little more.

I think that Mr. Juliani’s class has been a great learning experience for me in the way that I have definitely learned I do not like analyzing poems and quotes that I personally feel do not need to be analyzed. Sometimes people just say what they mean, and there is nothing else to it. Yes, people can talk about what they said and debate about what the hidden meaning could be, but what’s the point; you will never know what they really did mean unless you personally ask them.

Another thing I learned from Mr. Juliani’s class was that I am not a good writer. I have tried very hard on many of my papers and yet they all seem to come back with C’s as a grade. I no longer fight him with these grades but just except the fact that language arts is not my subject and am not a great writer.

The next thing I learned from Mr. Juliani was that I am a very slow writer. Despite how long he said our tests should take, I would never finish. I have not finished one of Mr. Juliani’s test this year, and do not plan on it. I write as fast as I can and usually know most of the answers but cannot figure out a way to get all my thoughts down in forty minutes. Most people in the class find a way to finish, which must mean that I am a slow writer.

Mr. Juliani’s class has also allowed me to learn that I am not very creative. With all the different projects and free writes and fun activities we have done in his class, mine have all been boring. I always thought that some cool, creative idea would come to me, but none ever did. No matter how much I thought about it, my ideas were always kind of boring.

The next thing I learned from Mr. Juliani’s class was that there are two types of reading, the first I was always aware of, just reading to read. But the second kind of reading also included interpreting. I was never aware that interpretation of every character’s actions was an expected thing to do when reading. But the tests and discussions on the book were never about what happened in the book, they were always about the interpretations of the characters and their actions. I learned very quickly that simply reading was not enough.

Mr. Juliani also likes to change his requirements for projects and due dates a lot, which I think isn’t fair. I am not usually the type of person who does things in advance but the few times I went out of my way to do so for Mr. Juliani’s class I ended up having to change something, or the due date was changed and I would’ve had more time. This has taught me that waiting till the last minute to do things is actually better.

And the last thing that I am going to complain about is the word requirements for our blogs. First of all, I do not think that Mr. Juliani really counts all the words or reads everyone’s blogs, but I still try to make them the correct amount of words. I do not see how making word requirements helps my writing in any way. I always thought writing was not supposed to be forced. For example right now, I would be done this paper but it was not long enough so I decided to add this paragraph. I was wrong about most other things and apparently this one too.

So Mr. Juliani’s class has been quite the experience for me so far this year and I cannot wait to see what is still coming. I guess I have actually gotten a lot of information out of this class whether I enjoyed it or not. And I am sure I will one day be thanking you Mr. Juliani for teaching me all that you have.