FiNaL RefLecTioN for 2o1o-2o11 :)

Over the course of this year, my writing has improved greatly. As I was looking back over my posts, I noticed one stood out in particular because it got the most views. It was my Final Book Review for “Unwind”. In the second paragraph, I was trying to explain as to how Connor was more brutal than Roland.
“Earlier in the book when Connor killed the bus driver. This was just a big freak accident because all he was doing was running from the Juvey cops, not purposely seeking out victims. Now, this was good too because the bus was full of Unwinds on their way to harvest camp and one of them was Risa”
Now this was a horrible way of explaining what was going on. I had punctuation and grammar mistakes. I could have written,”Earlier in this book, Connor killed a bus driver. Now, this was just a freak accident because he was trying to get away from the cops, not purposely seek out victims. Believe it or not, this situation was a good thing also. The bus was full of Unwinds going to camp and this accident helped free most of them; one who happened to be Risa.” AS you can see, there is a drastic difference between these two paragraphs.

Secondly, it has been much easier for me to write blog posts. Towards the beginning of the year, I struggled trying to reach the requirement. In my “Of Mice & Men” post, I used very long block quotes in order to meet the 500 word limit. I also dragged out explaining the situations of what was happening in the book to get more words.
Throughout the year, we’ve done a good number of response posts too. My third post of the year was a response post. The “ASTI Constitution”  was a response to any student's blog and I chose to use a quote from Rahni’s blog. She explained how she was never harassed and always stood up for other people. Reading this from her blog gave me an idea as to what to do for my post. In this case, I can say that she helped me do my post and I learned something from that that I had never looked back on and thought about.

A month later after that post, I did another response post to Leah’s blog about the N-word.  This was a very touchy subject to blog on and give my opinion about. But again I learned something I never thought about before.
“Now modern day, if a person calls another person the N-Word(usually black person to black person), it would mean homie. But on the other hand, if a white person says to a black person, "Whats up my nigga!" Then it's going to be interpreted as racist... Now some might say, well isn't that just as racist. Saying a white person can't say the N-Word just because they're white? No, because when a white person calls a black person the N-Word, it is racist. So a black person is not being racist if they say a white person can't say the N-Word because if they do, than it is going to cause a commotion, regardless.”
Now I had never deeply thought of why a white person couldn’t say the N word and a black person could until I read her blog. Overall, I learned a lot from doing response posts.

I believe the blog posts that have the most positive effects on my life are personal posts/ response posts. They allow me to reflect on my life and get things off of my mind that are bothering me.

One response post that a friend of mine wrote reflecting on a situation in my life really helped me get things off of my mind. In my response post to Andy T’s post “The One”, he touched on the subject of my relationship with his friend. I chose to reflect on how he said his friend and I barely knew each other and we were an odd couple because we are racially different. Now I had always thought about this, but never gotten a chance to speak about it until then. A segment of my response was:
“Being racially different doesn't make two people an 'odd' couple, neither does the fact they barely know each other. Would two people have to be the same race and be best friends for them not to make an 'odd' couple? No.”
At this point, the subject of this blog post ranges way beyond my school life, but rather my personal life. But it is also a good thing because if Andy was not bold enough to express his opinion about the situation, I would have never talked to anyone about it. However, it is not a very important topic at all because racially different or not, the only thing that matters is if you like the person or not.

In a more personal post I did more recently reflecting on almost all the important events that happened in my life, I got a chance to reflect on all the ups and downs throughout my 14 years on this Earth. In “A Little Taste of My Life”, I presented 5 vignettes of my life and one-about cancer- almost made me cry looking back on the memory.
“Another Life Claimed”:
“She would hardly eat anything but a bag of chips in an entire day, if that. She was just wasting away like an old memory.”
This was about my cousin Leilani who passed away because of Cancer and what was happening every step of the way. Although much of my family was with me while she was dying, I had never gotten deep down and personal with anyone on this subject. But blogging gave me the opportunity to do so and finally face what happened without breaking down and crying.

In conclusion, blogging as helped me greatly. It has allowed my writing to improve drastically and relieved my mind of much stress not needed in my life. I do not know if I will continue to blog only because of time management, but I hope I can because it betters me as a person.

Peer Review Comments

For Cristian:
Nice job relating this book to the Russian Revolution, the connections are made well . Although it is kind of hard to see where your second quote ends/starts.

For Devin:
Good job comparing your two books, but I think you could have a read a book that is a little more up to high school level . Just saying .

For Lhadze:
This is a very good review . I like how you compared the characters to yourself and your feelings toward the same subject as them . It made them seem more realistic .