Reading and Working Times

Wednesday - Wintergirls by Laurie Halse Anderson - 60 mins
Sunday- Wintergirls by Laurie Halse Anderson - 45 mins
Monday- Studying for poetry test - 60 mins

Poem

I wish that I had endless money,

buy anything that I could want.

I wish that I didn't have so many responsibilities,

school work, practice, chores.

I wish that I wasn't always so nervous,

walking past a person and having thoughts racing through my head.

I wish that I was perfect,

and be a model, walking down the runway.

I wish that I could make great grades

without even trying.

I wish that could sing,

and be able to perform notes like a bird.

I wish that I would stop worrying

about all the things that I am not,

and begin to be happy about the things that I am.

In this poem, I used anaphora, consonance, stanza of mostly the same lengths, and a simile.

Reading Times:

Monday: 20 minutes - Wintergirls - Laurie Halse Anderson
Tuesday: 40 minutes - Wintergirls - Laurie Halse Anderson
Thursday: 20 minutes - Wintergirls - Laurie Halse Anderson
Saturday: 60 minutes- Wintergirls - Laurie Halse Anderson
Sunday: 120 minutes - Wintergirls - Laurie Halse Anderson

Song Analysis

Obsessions - Marina and the Diamonds

http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/marinathediamonds/obsessions.html

In this song by Marina and the Diamonds, many techniques are used such as cacophony, sibilance, assonance, and personification.  For example, a cacophony is used when the song says, "Supermarket, oh what packet of crackers to pick?" This helps portray to the listener that the person asking this question is sort of mad and annoyed. The way that Marina sings it, she sounds annoyed. In order to understand why it is supposed to sound mad, you will have to read the lyrics, but basically it is about trying to be absolutely perfect and how impossible it is. You can get obsessive about it, hence the name Obsessions. She portrays this pressure through a person in a supermarket who has to pick the perfect pack of crackers. Another technique used is assonance. For example, the song says "Silk sheet... sweetheart," and later in the song repeats "week...weak." I think that this sort of shows a calm and more relaxed point in the song. Lastly, personification is used in the song. The phrases "nasty thought" and "sick ideas" are used multiple times throughout the song. These help tell the story in the song and describe the thoughts and ideas.

Using SOAPSTone, I analyzed this song. The speaker of the song is the character that has an obsession with being perfect, to the extent where she has to pick the perfect pack of crackers. The occasion of this song may have been because Marina suffers with the obsession to be perfect. However, Marina is known for writing and singing about different mental challenges and illnesses. The audience may be general listeners or people suffering from the same problem. The purpose may be to let people know that trying to be absolutely perfect can be bad, and potentially dangerous. The subject is the obsession to be perfect and the consequences that come along with it. The tone of this song is sad and sort of downgrading perfection. Overall, this song has lots of deeper meaning than the lyrics look, along with the rest of Marina's songs, and I recommend listening to all of her songs.

Working Times

Tuesday- Research Draft- 30 mins

Wednesday- Research Draft- 45 mins

Thursday- 4 ATD posts- 1.5 hours

Reading and Working Times

Tuesday- I started working at about 1:00. I watched the video on drafting. I then began to work on the introduction to my paper. For about 30 minutes I worked on the introduction, which was the first two paragraphs. I had trouble with this part. I then looked at my detailed outline and changed the order of it a little because I realized that the order would not work well. That took about 10 minutes. For about 25 minutes more I just continued on with my paper and wrote the third paragraph, the first body paragraph.

Wednesday- At about 2:30 I  began to work on my paper. I started off with reading what I had already written from the day before and I changed a few things. That took about 10 minutes. I then began to work on my fourth and fifth paragraphs. These paragraphs were very long because they were the main part of my paper. Those two paragraphs took an hour on their own.

Thursday- I started to work at about 10:00 in the morning. I read the example in Norton. Then I began to work on my paper by reading what I had already done and editing a few things. That took about 15 minutes. I then realized that the order of my paper was not working well, so I switched it. This took about 20 minutes because I had to change lots of the transitions. After I did all of that I began to continue where I had left off the day before and wrote my sixth paragraph.

Research Paper

On my research paper, I am feeling pretty confident about it.  I think that the way that I am ordering my paragraphs are going to be effective in getting my point across. Also, as I was writing the draft, I modified my thesis statement to better fit the information that I am giving. I think that writing the body paragraphs were easy because of the detailed outline that we did, but writing the introduction was difficult. I didn't know how to introduce my thesis statement.

The things in my paper that I don't feel very confident are the way that I am quoting the information. I'm not sure if I'm doing it correctly. Also, I'm having trouble transitioning my paragraphs. I feel that they don't transition well into each other. When you read my paper, I would focus on if the information supports my thesis statement and small details about quotations.

Snow Days

This past week has been exciting because we were off of school for three days for "snow". On Tuesday night it sort of snowed at my house. It really wasn't snow, it was just slushy ice, but we were able to make snowballs and snowmen with it. On Wednesday it didn't snow anymore, but none of the ice melted because it was so cold. On Thursday, I don't really know why we were off of school because most of the ice was gone. However, I'm grateful that we didn't.

On Tuesday night, my brother and I went outside to play in the slush. Our neighbors came outside and we had a snowball fight with the little snow that we could find. We also made small snowmen that were about two feet tall. It was very fun because it never snows in Louisiana and it was something different. Overall, the whole week was very fun and exciting.