Writing Papers... Ugh.

Our short story unit has come to a close... about two weeks ago.  The only thing left is to write a paper about one of the stories.  It's Monday and the first rough draft is due tomorrow. At midnight.  I am a proficient procrastinator so I have not even begun my paper... yay.  Right about now I'm getting to the "Okay, I need to work on this paper," but I know from procrastination experience that I'm probably not going to begin this paper until later tonight when I am freaking out about getting it turned in. 

Procrastination is not my friend.  I really hate having this issue almost everytime I write a paper.  I know that if you begin earlier on papers that it will be composed better but I kind of don't believe that.  My serious case of procrastination has led me to some nicely written papers.  Take AP Euro for example.  I didn't write my summer essay until the day before it was due.  I got a 50 out of 50 on it.  I know it doesn't always work like that especially in English class but I always find my mind wander away from my task that I am SUPPOSE to be completing at the time. 

Maybe one day I will actually write a paper a few days before it's due but until then I need to work on this short story unit paper and try to make it as proper and wonderfully written as my history essays.  I like writing history essays.  I don't like writing English papers or essays.  So wish me luck Mr. Mullins because I have no idea how this is going to turn out.

*Above is the picture of me from the 90s trying to write an essay - I age well*

Tweet, Tweet, Tweet.

I have no idea what to blog about right now... We haven't been doing much in my English class so I'm sitting in Newspaper trying to think of something related to English that I can blog about.  It's not working.  Not going to lie, the only thing on my mind right now is getting Taylor Swifts new album that came out TODAY.  But that's not relevant to English class.  I recently discovered twitter and we did tweet last class so thats what I'm going to blog about.

I've noticed since being on Twitter for about three days now that its a lot better than facebook but it still uses slang and nonsophisticated words just like facebook.  With any social media network, this is a problem, but is it a bad thing?  Twitter is used to reach out to millions of people everyday.  If big movie stars like Brad Pitt or Angelina Jolie start using slang will their followers do the same?  I think they would. 

Maybe Twitter won't be that bad for our population considering most posts only consits of status updates instead of pointless photos and games updates like Facebook show on people's news feed.  Slang isn't that bad during a time when you are talk to friends but what worries me is people won't know how to speak to a professional when being interviewed for a job. 

Hopefully hashtags like #WhatIWrite will improve people's slangs use and writing style.  Hopefully people will be more aware that it's okay to have good vocabulary.  Maybe there is hope for our speech even with the social networking sites.

Books and Their Annoying Endings.

At this point in my academic life I have read a LOT of books.  I recently just finished the newest book in a series I am currently reading and I seriously want to rip up the book and punch it's author in the face because of the way it ended.  I would boycott the rest of this series but I need to know what happens after this unfortunate ending.  Besides my raging anger toward the ending of this book, I noticed that the short stories that we read this past unit in English ending similarly like this book.

We read literary fiction in English and literary authors are known to have abrupt endings that leave people confused and aggravated the everything wasn't wrapped up.  Unfortunately unlike a series, short stories don't continue their stories.  They just end.  I also think that short stories don't connect with their readers as much as regular commercial fiction series do.  I personally find it hard to connect with some short stories because they are short and don't give their readers enough time or description of the characters for them to connect with the story or characters on a first read.  However, when reading the story two or three times, it becomes easier to connect with the stories even if they have abrupt and crappy endings.

I just found it very odd and interesting that I was able to connect commercial and literary fiction together.  They are similar in many ways but usually they are totally different from each other.  Unfortunately, the ending was what connected between the two.

I still want to punch Rick Riordan in the face.

Existawhat?

I have to say that I really enjoyed class on Monday and Wednesday... which was very shocking because I don't think anyone else did.  Even though discussions tend to move forward without me, I really got into the discussion when we started talking about philosophy.  I was introduced to a new way of thinking known as Existentialism.  It's the opposite of what most religions believe in and even though I am Christian, I still found myself really drawn to this subject.  Our actions identify what type of person we are; that is existentialism. After learning about the principles of existentialism, I enjoyed the subject even more because I could relate to the subject.

Many works of literature use existentialism to help define their characters.  "The Guest" was able to use existentialism to define the character Daru.  Two major principles were used in this short story: freedom and alienation.  It would be hard to spot these common themes if the reader did not already know that existentialism was.

Daru is isolated and alone on the hill.  He provides food for students but that is it.  He doesn't deal with anyone personally, only the fact that some people don't have food.  I believe that the author used this principle to depict Daru's character to the reader.  He has a very strong sense of alienation.  He doesn't deal with responsibility, only himself.  However, Daru is forced to deal with responsibility.  An Arab is left on his doorstep and forces Daru to be responsible for someone else's life.   Daru's freedom was threatened at this point and I believe that if anyone was put in that situation then we would do anything to regain our freedom.  Forcing someone to accept responsibility only makes them desperate for their freedom.  You accept the responsibility and then once done with it, you get freedom back but does it really work that way.  At the end of the story, Daru is still held accountable for his role in the Arab's path.  This makes me wonder if anyone is ever re-leaved of the responsibilities forced upon them or do they haunt you?  Based on the story, I'd say they haunt anyone who tries to run away from them.