Cherrie
Writing and Comp.
3
30. May. 2015
Portfolio
Introduction –
The best year of my writing
What did you
usually think when a whole year passed already? My sophomore year nearly ends.
By looking back to the works for the whole year in my writing class, I found
that I did get lots of improving. I did lots of works over the year, and I
could see many big assignments and projects throughout the year. Fortunately,
it was clear that I became to a writer, who is much stronger than the one I has
been at the start of my sophomore year. The improvement and success I could see
supported that I didn’t waste my money and time on taking the writing class. In the writing class this year, I became a better writer
by improving the writing efficiency, having less grammar mistakes, especially
for comma splices, and having a better organization of my essays.
I would like to
start to tell my improvements of my writing efficiency for the first. It seemed
to be impossible if anybody told me that I should write a 500 words blog post
three times each week. In the start of this year, I would say it’s even hard to
write 500 words a week. That’s the amount I wrote in the English final exam
last year. However, it became possible now. Even thought it was still hard to
find topics to write, especially in the 30-day challenge blog posts, I could
always finish the works that I have to do. And to say that proudly, I could
always finish them really well. Thus, I understood that the most useful for me
to write better was to have more practice. By the way, the experience this year
gave me a great example to show me how could I improve.
On the other
hand, the better using of grammar helped me a lot to be a stronger writer.
Comma splice was a common mistake that I would made nearly in all the essays I
have written at the start of the year. For example, in “The letter to Patrick”,
I wrote, “Many couples left each other because of tons of reasons, sometimes
they still love each other, but they left because of really small problems”
(The Letter to Patrick). There weren’t any of the FANBOYs, the conjugations
between “reasons” and “sometimes”, so it was a comma splice. Since I liked to
write long sentences so much, this sentence showed a common condition of all my
works last year and the start of this year. However, because of the grammar
lessons in writing class, the structure of sentences became much more clear
than before. The lessons helped me not just on simple comma splices, but also
clarified all the correct grammar using in writing a sentence. Even though I’m
still not perfect, I would continue working on it.
After that, I
have worked on the structure of each work I have to write a lot. Having a
logical and clear organization might make students a neat essay to see. It was
kind of hard for me to have a well-structured essay, but I tried a lot to
improve this year. From my works in the vary beginning of the year, I could
usually have a clear introduction and well organized body paragraphs. However,
I never know what to write in a good conclusion. For instance, in “My writing
life”, I just ended the whole blog post by a one-sentence conclusion: “So,
that’s my writing life and I wish I would be improved when time passes this
year” (my writing life). Maybe sometimes I might just repeat my thesis to
conclude. Throughout the year, I new that people could write the conclusion
with some thoughtful ideas or some expectation about the future that related to
the thesis. Thus, for now, when the year ended, my conclusion has become more
colorful and better structured. By the way, the well-organized essays have
graced all my works.
Admittedly, I
have been working so hard this year, and I can see my advance by reading all my
blog posts from last September till now. The writing class seemed truly worthy
for me to be a more reliable writer. Furthermore, I still have problems that
needed to be fixed. I have to accumulate more vocabularies to eliminate the
repeating of words; and I have to read more books to learn some more
interesting ways to describe details. Even though I could never be perfect, I
will always try my best to make me stronger and stronger. Believe me that
people will see a better me even just after the summer break!
Citation:
"The Letter to Patrick." Cherrie's Blog. N.p., 30 Sept. 2014.
Web. 26 May 2015.
"My
Writing Life." Cherrie's Blog. N.p., 14 Sept. 2014. Web. 26 May
2015.
The start of my
30-day-challenge - revised
Since my life
became boring and I wanted to do something challengeable, I decide to start a
30-day challenge that about read some books. Emma, a book written by Jane Austen, quickly
caught my interest and became the winner of the best topic list in my mind.
Reading is one of my favorite activities. The talented and famous British
writer, Jane Austen had written tons of thoughtful and fantastic romance
stories. I had read Pride and Prejudice 3 years ago. Meanwhile, I have
been attracted by her story and her ornate terms even though the English
vocabularies were kind of hard to understand. Basically, reading the book seemed
as Greek to me that I had to bring a dictionary everywhere when I wanted to
read. Because it’s a challenge, I wanted to choose hard things to do, and
it started soon. Until now, 3 days have passed and I have already read 5
chapters.
The main
character was called Emma Woodhouse, who’s clever, rich and a beautiful girl. However,
no one was perfect, she was also arrogant because of her good family
background and her capacity. In fact, I have to say that she’s always
been liked. The first few chapters of a book always talked about some
background information, and in this one, I generally recognized her friends,
her family and her elders. The first thing attracted me was the similar
temperament between Mr. Woodhouse, Emma’s dad who lived with her, and Mrs.
Benet in the book, Pride and Prejudice, who was always neurasthenia. Fortunately,
he’s still a respectable elderly and lived peacefully with Emma. Her
close relationship cycle including her sister, Isabella, who has married, her
tutor, Miss Taylor, who married Mr. Weston and became Mrs. Weston, and Mr.
Knightley, who has been Isabella’s brother-in-law since she has married.
Her life seemed
to be fulfilled and she was keen on matching couples. After Miss
Taylor’s marriage, her father and herself were bored by the life without their
dear friends. Mr. Woodhouse always thought women who got married were
pitiful because mothers were always dead in his idea. Thus, she spent lots of
time on comfort him and prayed for a new friend (Austen). Soon, she met
Harriet Smith and kept focus on her. As it says in the book, she’s not clever
but pretty. Harriet needed someone to guide her and Emma needed a friend to
take place of Miss Taylor since she has got married. The two girls
became close friends. Until chapter 5, Emma tried to persuade Harriet
from the pursuit of a not noble man and she would like Harriet to fall in love
with a rich priest.
For know, I like
the ironic language that Jane Austen talked about how Mr. Woodhouse didn’t
like to see any marriage or cakes. Meanwhile, the scene Emma brainwashed
herself by his father’s ideas and tried to comfort him also expressed fun. I
even clapped my hands and laughed about how funny the scene was. The writer
described detailed about the feeling and emotions in the characters’ mind when
each event happened. I like the way she showed the characteristic of different
people particularly.
The book Emma was
a kind of different book that Jane Austen wrote. The condition that Emma
lived in was totally different from Elizabeth had, in Pride and Prejudice, and
Elinor, Marianne had, in Sense and Sensibility. Well, she’s lucky to be the
richest character in all Austen’s works. I found that even the writer said
that the readers wouldn’t like a character that Emma was. However, just as
other readers did, I truly looked forward to continue the reading of the book
later.
Citation:
Austen, Jane.
Emma Jane Austen. New York: Book Of the Month Club, 1996. Print.
Reading should be
precious - revised
Time marches on,
and so does my reading progress. I didn’t see a lot of information
from the new 4 chapters I have read through 2 days. It should be happy
to feel that, but actually I found it’s a little bit hard to read two long
chapters. Whatever how interesting the stories are in the book, I could
always feel tiresome to read the never ended long chapters, especially
in my busy school days. Furthermore, those chapters were even written by a
profound language centuries ago. Have you ever had a feeling that you
can never paying attention on anything? However, I should know that it’s the
challenge that I chose to do and I should never gave it up.
There wasn’t a
lot of important things happened in the book, but I saw the never ended
descriptions in every sentence of the book. Because of the new part of the
book started, the writer started foreshadowing the following story lines.
It implied that a new character, the son of Mr. Weston who called Frank,
would appear soon. On the other hand, the introducing tangled fate
between Emma, Jane and Frank seemed to be the metaphor of the love line in the
book. Meanwhile, the story brought Emma a bad news about Mr. Elton’s new
wife. Yeah, you heard right, Mr. Elton quickly changed his loving target and
found a wife in a few weeks. Mrs. Elton sounded like “handsome, elegant,
highly accomplished, and perfectly amiable”. Since she didn’t appeared yet,
I might leave her to the topic for next few blogs.
Besides
talking about the book, I
had some new feelings during the reading task these days. A part of memory
came to me from the long path of my memory river. The memory should be
laborious bees to come from more that ten years ago, when I just started
reading. Even though what I would talk about seemed so usual, I could never
forget it. No body can imagine that how much I loved to eat. Having fast
food was the biggest awarding my dad issued me in my childhood life. Please
don’t think it’s not related to reading! Let me tell the whole story.
Every time that I did anything right, my dad would bring me to eat fast food
and buy me some books as encouragement. It wasn’t just a motivation to move me
to do right things, but giving me an idea that books were “precious”. I
didn’t like to read book when I was young, but I had a feeling that I should
treasured every book that I had and I read. Soon, I didn’t focus on having
fast food so much, but the “precious” sense of book left in my life forever.
Could you believe that the birthday present I
wanted the most were books? I ran followed my dad and only requested for
those obscure and complex books. In any normal families, parents should be
the ones who begged their children to read some books and absorb new knowledge,
but my parents never did. I could only have books when I participated
really well. Nevertheless, maybe just because of the dissatisfactory feeling on
reading books, I had a huge interest in it. It seemed like people would only
know how important foods are when they were hungry. And I could only know how
valuable books are when I didn’t have the right to read them.
I’m not sure
if the younger me would
feel disappointed if she knew I started complained about reading the book. However,
I knew that she would tell me to read more. I should adjust myself. In the
future, I must ensure that I will always continue to read. It doesn’t mean that
I cannot complain, but I need to satisfy myself by reading the book. I will
ensure that I will continue the interest of reading forever!
Citation:
Austen, Jane.
Emma Jane Austen. New York: Book Of the Month Club, 1996. Print.
An unexpected but
understandable hero - revised
Oh my god! I have
just finished my reading of chapter 48, but you know what happened? The
finding of the hero of the book totally surprised me; I found the male main
character of the book, finally! It’s hard to say that I even haven’t
mentioned him until my reading task tonight! It was so exciting,
and I cannot believe that. That’s Mr. Knightley! Austen must be hiding him
so well even thought I can realize so many implying now. Well, he had a
complex relationship with Emma that he’s the brother in law of Emma’s elder
sister, Isabella. I didn’t know how to describe the love story between the
new couples, but it’s so romantic. They weren’t growing up together
technically, but indeed Mr. Knightly watched Emma’s growth.
The love story
reminded me an old poem in ancient China, “When you were born, I was not yet.
When I was born, you were already old. I wished to have been born together. We
could enjoy our time together”. It’s like a rhyme that nobody knew where it
came, and I thought it’s the most proper describe for their love story. The
best fortune of the life weren’t being better than this. It was miracle to firmly
pass through more than ten years distance and embrace each other. I was so
glad that they finally got together after everything had happened, and after
lots of envious or doubts.
When I first
noticed that Mr. Knightley was the hero of the book, I was shocked, but then I
found that was reasonable. As Emma use a long term to find of who’s the Mr.
Right in her life, it wasn’t so relaxed for the impatient readers to
find out that the destined hero that they anxious longing for was as
well. I have been doubtful and shaky about the ideal hero in my mind, and I considered
if Frank Churchill was the one that Emma had loved him for a short time. However,
she started matching him and Harriet as soon as possible. Waiting should be
the most sweet and arduous thing in the world and it made me doubted if
Jane Austen truly wrote a lover for Emma in the book. Fortunately, the
appearing of the hero released my mind and I can happily and brightly swim
in the ocean of the imagined love story between the emerging couples.
Indeed,
realizing Emma’s mind was difficult both for the readers and herself. As I have said before, she thought she
loved Frank Churchil But thanks to Harriet for the whole thing that she’s
been saved by Frank Churchill and Emma changed her mind to match them. On the
other hand, Mr. Knightley saved Harriet as well from Mr. Elton’s sneering
by inviting her for a dance. Then, Frank Churchill engaged with another girl. Emma
felt sorry for Harriet, but then she knew the one who Harriet loved was Mr.
Knightley. Actually, Mr. Knightley was way out of her league in my perspective,
but Emma made her she was too great. Emma was so regretful that she
encouraged Harriet and she realized that the only person that sat in her mind
was he. In chapter 48, I finally saw they show their mind to each other, and
engaged. Did you struggle with this issue? It even took me so many words to
explain what had happened.
It seemed
magical that I have talked about Mr. Knightley since my first blog, but I
didn’t realize the important role he played in the whole book until the last
few chapters. That was
crazy, but I love it! And I believed so do you. Overall, it’s a little
bit reluctant to say that my challenge is going to end soon. Hopefully, I
would have a great ending of my challenge.
P.S. I would
watch the movie Emma tomorrow since it won't be a spoiler of the plot.
Literature in
movie version and book version - revised
As I finished the
reading of Emma, I decided to watch the movie of Emma, the old one that
established in 1996. I have a desire to watch the movie for a long time
since I first have difficulty to understand the language of the book, but I
didn’t want it spoiler the up coming plots. As I have written in the last
blog post, the hero of book was just been found out by me. Thus, I
restrained my curiosity and left the movie for the last after a huge
conflict and argument in my brain. Then, I thought that in the
movie, the plots, the emotions of characters, and all the details were showed
perfectly. Actually, the movie helped me a lot to understand the book better.
The language in
the book was kind of difficult, because the writer Jane Austen always make
her works really descriptive and she lived hundreds of years before me. If
English is my native language, I would feel the beauty of the fantastic
descriptions I saw in the book, but it’s not. Thus, I would just feel the old
version of English and the long descriptions were huge troubles that discourage
me to read the book. Also, Emma was one of the last few works of Jane
Austen. In my perspective, writing slower or writing more detailed might
comfort her mind. I truly should apology for my disrespectful on this great
writer, but that was the only way I could say why she made the plot so slow. For
me, after I have seen the movie, I knew that the way to comfort my “old brain”
was to watch the movie. I can’t believe that all the problems I had in the book
were solved. The movie only took about 2 hours and 10 minutes, but I should
say it’s much more helpful than every sentence or all the chapters in the book.
I can see people’s emotion easier from the movie by their facial expression.
For instance, I finally found the entangle feeling that
Emma had when she faced Jane in the movie. Actually the plots that
Emma were being mean to Jane and her aunt always confused me because Emma
should be elegant and kind in the setting of the book, but she seemed strange
at that time. The author did’t tell about their relationship clearly. However,
in the movie, I knew that Emma was kind of jealous her. Jane’s aunt always kept
talking about how great Jane was and it made Emma felt jealous. The book was
written in Emma’s perspective so readers could only judge and see things from
her sight. She was young, naïve and kind of granted with everything in her
life, so I cannot know all her feelings from the narration. After
watching the movie I could see her complex emotion in her face. I knew that
something strange was just made Emma, Frank Churchill and Jane related from the
movie. As a result, the movie version gave me a more profound impression of the
whole story line.
On the other
hand, the movie was so beautiful! It was extremely fantastic! One of the
most unforgettable scenes was the ball, the dance party, which I saw Emma and
Mr. Knightley danced together. It was so splendid that I wanted to cry. It
reminded me the dancing between Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy in Pride and Prejudice.
Although the young couples could argue or maybe some of them would break up,
the moment of dancing would be the precious they could never forget in the
whole life. I remembered Mr. Knightley’s eyes were as deep as the ocean, and
everything in his eyes were for Emma; everything that I could never find out
from the book. Overall, it was a perfect scene to see their dancing and
communication.
Overall, my dear
reading task was already finished, and I finally got the details and the
complete plots and ideas of the book from the movie. I have improved my
writing skills during writing the blog and my reading skills during reading
Emma. The 30-day challenge helped me a lot. I wish I would improve that
much in everything in my life.
I thought I would feel great when the 30-day challenge ended,
but I didn’t. I thought I would feel so relaxed when I finally got rid of
the boring plots and release my mind, but I didn’t. I thought I would feel
happy everyday when I wouldn’t need to rack my brain to find topics to write
three times a week, but I didn’t. However, the fact is I found all my
passion and energy had lost from my body when I went to check the book I have
read in the challenge, and it was finished; I found my brain was totally
empty when I turned my laptop on and prepared to write a new blog, but
there wasn’t a task to write about; I felt bored by having nothing to do
these nights, but I just automatically left that time period alone. Then I knew
that, the ending of this challenge wasn’t just an end, lots of new things, new
challenges, might start soon.
Emma, which was a classic written by Jane Austen,
reminded me this full filled 30-day challenge since I have chosen it as my
topic to read everyday. I have complained for thousands of times about how slow
the plots went through and how boring the lives of the main characters were.
I could only see the visits to each family, the parties and the balls sometimes
to spend their spare time all over the book; actually they just stay in their
house most usually. Also, I have complained for thousands of times about
how many things I had to do everyday. Even in my second post, I already started
to complain, “How can you imagine that I have to read 2 chapters of Emma and
there were a 500 words blog waiting for me?” after “my whole day of full of
classes, the golf practice for more than an hour and the long and boring sit
down dinner” (The Second Post). The hardness never ended for the days when
the challenge has just started and even until now when the 30-day
challenged had already rang the bell of ending. However, I was so proud of
myself that there wasn’t one second that I wanted to give up!
Every blog that I have wrote during the 30-day challenge
drained my energy and time that they were the ones I put the most and all my
efforts on compared with other works for the whole year. Fortunately that all
my efforts and hard work have been paying back that they were the best ones for
the whole year in Writing class. Also, they were the most unforgettable ones. I still remembered each time I sat next to
my laptop and thought about the topics that I could write painfully. The
process was difficult but also funny that when I ever found something
interesting in the book during the challenge, the first thing came up to my
mind was how lucky I was! If I saw more than one event happened in a
chapter, I would surprised and nearly started crying; then I would absolutely
leave the second event for the next day, even though I seldom saw any
chapters with more than one big event. There was a day when the challenges were
half finished; the teacher asked me if I could fill the blogs with better
ideas. It’s hard to forget that how graceful I was when she told me some
possible topics of the blog. Thus, these blogs exerted my utmost effort; they
were the result of my hard work, and it would prove my perseverance.
Well, I knew people would ask why I never stopped
complaining about how exhausting and terrible the 30-day challenge was.
However, that was the way I remembered things. I cannot improve myself
easily without any suffering.The meaning of growing was to suffer and improve. I
have said it was difficult, but I still finished the difficult task which I
could never achieved before the challenge. If I didn’t finish the 30-day
challenge, I can never realize or reach that. I knew how I recognized and
appreciate myself after the 30-day challenge. I have learned and earned lots of
skills and knowledge which I might not learn in the rest of my life but
really useful, in this simple challenge. It was the first time that I
read a classic in a language that it seemed not as familiar as my native
language. By continuing reading the book every day, I have learned many
kinds of writing descriptions, details and foreshadowing. I couldn’t imagine
how my writing skills improved in the everyday writings and trainings
process. For example, one of the biggest change was the improving of my
writing efficiency that I would never afraid of a 500 words blog anymore.
The challenge helped me to know how important to keep doing one thing that the
result of success seemed so sweet to collect.
Admittedly, the 30-day challenge on reading a book and
writing blogs ended. It might not be perfect, but at least I had a joyful
during my dear challenge and it’s successfully. However, as what I have
just said, it was only the challenge on reading a book, and it should never
ended in my daily life. People’s lives were always full of challenges, and
I should keep working. By noticing the ending of my “dear reading tasks”, I
truly should find some other fun, or maybe challengeable things to satisfy my
mind, which could only be passionate by new challenges accidently. Next
time, I might try to cook different foods every day; I might go to weight room
every day to lose weight; or I might try to write a novel for a challenge. My
future is multiple, I can see the start of the new challenge already.
Citation:
“The Second Post." Cherrie's Blog. N.p., 14 Apr. 15.
Web. 12 May 2015.
