I Coulda Been Somebody

The Wrong Version
(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Got my big paper back yesterday, and as soon as I looked at it, I realized that I should have talked to the prof after I had a revision going.  I knew something was wrong with it, but I couldn't tell what it was, and by then I was sick of looking at it, so I let it slide.  Big mistake.  Turns out it was my tone.  As soon as I read her comment about the tone, I knew where I went wrong. 

Waaaaaaahhhh!  I could have had an A! 

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Something I Wish I Had Read-- Facebook Makes You Fat!

Facebook=a fatter you? (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I saw this story on AOL this morning; it was one of their unlabeled videos.  These always irritate me, because I wouldn't bother clicking on them if I knew they were videos.  I haven't got the time to sit through an ad and a bunch of small talk before they get to the point.  Not to mention that they are always superficial.  Gimme the written word.  I can read at least 3 times as fast as they can talk.

Anyway, this story caught my eye:  "Social Media Related to Weight Gain?"  A recent study has made this connection, which I have been suspecting for a while.  My friends who spend a lot of time on Facebook (especially Facebook!) all seem to be gaining weight, and this started in high school, so it's not the freshman fifteen thing.

I've been avoiding Facebook because it's so boring (aren't other people's ego trips always boring?).  Looks like I got out while the getting was good!

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Lillian Hellman's Montserrat

English: Statue of Simon Bolivar in Washington DC, USA (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Over the weekend I read a play ("an important cultural product") for my poli-sci class.  My first reaction is that Lillian Hellman's Montserrat would be really hard to watch, because it's about psychological torture.  On the other hand, I'd love to see it on stage, because just reading it gave me chills.  The story isn't original to Hellman; she adapted it from a French play back in the 1940s, but it feels like it could have been written now, especially considering all of the horrible things going on in the world.
The play is about a military officer in Venezuela who is hiding Simon Bolivar (if you don't know who he was, look it up like I did).  His superiors know that he knows where Bolivar is, and they also know that physical torture won't get him to give Bolivar away (I'm not sure that's true in real life, but you have to go with it for the sake of the plot), so they devise a diabolical plan:  they grab some innocent passersby at random and threaten to kill them if Montserrat doesn't talk.  Spoiler alert:  he doesn't talk, and they do kill them, one by one.  The suspense is terrific.  The ending is overwhelming (I'm not going to spoil that!). 
It sure beat the hell out of reading the textbook.

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Where am I going?

Resume Design (Photo credit: CharlotWest)

My résumé and application letter are ready to turn in this week, and I don't have much to say about them.  This was an easy assignment (for once!), but now I'm thinking about the kind of writing I'm going to have to do after I finish college.  I still don't have any idea of what I want to do.  I have no career plans yet.  I know I don't want to do anything just for a paycheck, but so far nothing is jumping out at me and saying, DO THIS. 

When I was little and people asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up, I never had an answer, and I never thought that I'd get to this point and still not know.  They seemed to think that I would want to be a nurse like my mother (I think she's amazing for being able to do that -- I know I couldn't) or some other medical profession, but I know I would hate it.  I want to help people, yes, but I know I'm too sympathetic to be helpful in the kind of situations my mother faces every day.  I'd be crying all the time and burn out in less than a week. 

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It's Finally Finished

English: A map of the fictional nation of Panem from Suzanne Collins' "The Hunger Games." (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The final revision of my critical analysis paper on The Hunger Games is done, or at least as done as it will ever be, and I turned it in.  I feel like I've been let out of prison!  I don't have to think about the movie anymore, and I can get on with the rest of my work.  I'm glad that the paper was due now; all the major projects for my other classes are due in the last two weeks of the semester, and having this one out of the way means a lot in terms of time.  All I have to do for English 101 is the application letter/résumé and a portfolio, which ought to be a breeze.  Oh, and there's still a test on the textbook readings and a final exam, but I'm not going to worry about them now.

One thing I have noticed is that what Dr. Toffee calls my "writing process" has changed.  I always thought of revising as being mostly correcting errors, but now I get it.  In fact, right now, I realize that I'm not following the prompt for this week.  I'm supposed to be writing about "The experience of developing and writing" the critical analysis essay, and I really should revise this post to fit that.  But I'm not gonna!

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Face to Face on my Horrible Draft

English: South facade of the Temple of Artemis seen from the South Theatre in Jerash, Jordan (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

A couple of days after the peer review on my critical analysis draft, I read it again.  Suddenly, it was horrible.  I don't know how this happened.  So, I went to my conference with Dr. Toffee last week under a cloud of angst.  It wasn't too bad.  She suggested a few tweaks for my thesis statement, and -- for once -- I saw what was wasn't working in the way I had put it.  She liked my explanation of my critical model, especially the parts about Artemis and Atalanta; I was kind of nervous about that, so it was a relief for me.  The analysis has to be reorganized some.  I need to put in a few references to other scenes from The Hunger Games to show that it's not just in the scene I'm focusing on that Katniss is following the archetypes.

All in all, it went okay.  I guess the draft wasn't as horrible as I thought.

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Rita Dove's The First Book

Cover of Bride of the Rat God

This is now one of my favorite poems.  It's so simple, yet it says everything it needs to say about that moment when you first hit upon the book that turns you into a reader.  I'm pretty much a "narrative junkie," with a two-book-a-day habit, and since the semester started, I'm about 30 books behind.  Yeah, I'm reading a lot for school, but it's not like I'm reading stories.  And I've gotten really cranky over not having the time to read for myself.  This is the reason I stopped posting for a while:  I needed to read. 

So, what did I read?  I re-read a couple of favorites, Barbara Hambly's Bride of the Rat God (since it just came out on Nook-- I love that thing!) and Johnny Tremain by Esther Forbes (another Nook download; I read this in fourth grade and it's still as good as I remember), as well as four free-Friday Nook ebooks.  I've been reading Norwegian mysteries by Jo Nesbo; they are fascinating and disturbing.  My sister loaned me her Hamish MacBeth mysteries (by M. C. Beaton), and they should take me through to the holidays.

I feel so much better now.

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