Free Writing

I am so excited for Summer! There's only a little bit left to do in school and then I am FREE!!!!!!!!!! This will be my first summer as an LT at Camp Lake Hubert. I really want to max in sailing so that I can sail all day with my friends and teach the younger girls how to sail. I also want to work a bit in crafts (especially candle making!!) and in riflery. High ropes would be fun to but it can get really boring if you aren't on the course. I'm a bit upset because our new cabin isn't right on the lakeside, its in the woods and only about a quarter mile down a path from the barns... ewwwww. Some of my friends really enjoy going horseback riding and teaching it, but I dislike the barn because it smells. I also dislike wilderness ever since my friend Kelly and I tipped our canoe in bass lake. It was possibly the most disgusting moment of my life. Bass Lake is a small swampish lake on the opposite side of camp from the beautiful Lake Hubert. No one runs motor boats on Bass Lake, but people do fish, kayak, and canoe. We were singing "rock the boat" and rocked it a bit too far. All of a sudden we tipped upside down and were covered in the nastiest seaweed ever. We swam to Bass Beach and when we came out of the water we had leaches on us! After that day I never signed up for canoeing and kayaking again. Every time I'm at Bass Beach now I just make sandcastles. :)

Fictional Characters

1.a. Long Duk Dong from Sixteen Candles is an asian foreign exchange student. Some people believe that he is the most offensive asian stereotype to ever be created by Hollywood. He speaks in a conversational accent and attempts to use terms such as "hot stuff". Most Americans have probably seen Sixteen Candles or at least another John Hughes movie such as The Breakfast Club, and Ferris Bueller's Day Off (I love those movie!) which also contain stereotypes. His movies have shaped American culture and have shaped people's ideas of the typical suburban teenager.

1.b. Barbie is a toy that everyone in America knows. She is also possibly the most controversial toy that America knows. With a 36-inch chest and a 18 inch waist, critics feel that Barbie gives a bad image to young girls saying that they have to be skinny to be pretty. In 1972, the Mattel company had to change Barbie's look from a 'demure' sideways glance to the current, more simple look and in 1992 the company enlarged Barbie's waist. Some think that Barbie is misunderstood however, and that she is only meant to be a toy.

2. One of my favorite TV shows is The O.C. (but not season 4). On the show, Adam Brody plays Seth Cohen, a nerd who I think is actaully really cool and adorable. He breaks the stereo-type that a nerd is uncool and anti-social as he gains friends throughout the show and has made girls all over America fall in love with "the nerd". He is important to our society beacause he reshapes the stereotype of the typical high school nerd and makes people think twice about labeling people.

Stories :)

Stories are important in childhood because they allow children's imaginations to grow. Kids are able to learn form the morals of stories and better themselves. Having stories read to you as a child makes everyday a little more fun. Kids also learn howto readby having stories read to them.

When people get older, they still read stories but to themselves instead. People read stories for entertainment purposes and to broaden their horizons or deepen their thinking. Older readers can also learn fromthe morals or just escape from reality to the worlds of fiction for awhile (not that little kids don't do this too).

Stories are important in our nation because almost everyone is literate whereas other countries sometimes have extremely low literacy rates. America also has the right of free speech, so you can publish anything that you want to. Publishing your ideas and thoughts is a powerful tool of persuasion in America. Stories help a writer get a point across to their audience, the readers. America also has a lot of respect for authors and scholars.

When I was little I read the Berenstein Bears, the Little House on the Prairie books, and many others. I read these with my mom and when I was old enought to read them, I read them to my brother, even if he didn't want to hear them. My favorite of all time was Amelia Bedelia. She always did everything wrong and every single time, even though I knew what was going to happen, I found it hilarious.

Good Story Characteristics
1. Universal theme that can apply to all generations
2. Characters a person can relate to and feel like they know
3. A well-developed conflict
4. A hero who the reader can side with
5. Cliffhangers and foreshadowing
6. Details and imagery
7. It makes the reader think about life in depth or is funny

Different Lifestyles.

I think that people's parents play a large role in how their child turns out in life. My friends and I have a lot of different viewpoints on politics, things that are socially acceptable, things that we should or shouldn't be allowed to do, and many others. Most of these viewpoints we get from our parents. I enjoy the way that my parents raise me and sometimes it is hard for me to understand the things that my friends' families believe especially when they are so different from mine.
In my family my brother and I are very close and when I got to do something, my brother who is 18 months younger than me, also got to do it. Jon and I are allowed to do more things than most of my friends are able to do which I think keeps me from being 'rebellious'. My parents are both workaholics, yet my mom is able to balance her realtor career with being a mom very well. She is able to organize her work schedule around mine and my brother's schedules which is nice. My dad is a land developer and works an obscene amount yet we get to hang out a lot on the weekends at my cabin. We all enjoy classical rock and hamburgers from the grill. Overall we are capitalist and our dinner conversations are dominated by politics and business and the economy.
Sometimes I will eat dinner at my friend's house and it is so different from my own. Her family is very healthy and eats some really weird food. Her parents don't talk about politics because they disagree. They are very silent during dinner except for when they say grace which my friend always does because she is an only child. Her parents are protective of her yet she is far more rebellious than I would ever be. Her relationship with her parents is distant. I respect the differences between her family and mine yet sometimes it is hard not to critisize their ways of parenting. Sometimes I think that she thinks my parents are a little weird for the way they raise my brother and I as well.
At another friend's house they discuss politics (yet with the opposite viewpoints of my family) and the medical field since her dad works in it. They love orchestra hall and sometimes speak in french. They travel a lot and are a very intellectual family. Her mom is a stay at home mom and pushes her two children into doing every sport and academic club available. My friend would never do anything out of line and she always obeys her parents. I don't think that she has ever brought home anything less than an A on her report card. I admire her for everything she does yet sometimes I think she overworks herself and she is often stressed which I wish her parents would see.

poetry

Nothing Gold Can Stay by Robert Frost

Nature's first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf's a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf.
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day.
Nothing gold can stay.

Taken from http://famouspoetsandpoems.com/poets/robert_frost/poems/529

RESPONSES
1. I picked this poem because I like Robert Frost and this poem is calm. It is also short and simple with the theme that everything that is good only lasts for a little while. I like this theme because even though it is sort of sad, it also has the idea that you should enjoy things while they last. It also has a really nice rhythm and pattern and sounds wonderful.
2. The title is the last line of the poem. It's significance is that it underlines and strengthens the idea of the theme that I mentioned above.
3. This poem has personification because it turns nature into 'her' and gives nature actions such as "to hold"(2). Another example of personification is "Eden sank into grief"(6). The personification helps the reader relate to nature and adds to the theme. It also makes alliteration possible by using 'her'. The poem also uses alliteration: "Her hardest hue to hold"(2). I think the alliteration makes the poem sound clean and pretty. The rhyme scheme is AABBCCDD which helps the poem flow smoothly.
4. To me the tone seems calm. None of the words are harsh words and they all seem smooth and pretty to me. Some examples are 'gold', and 'leaf'. Also the poem gives a calming effect in line seven: "So dawn goes down to day"(7). The rhyme scheme adds to the tone as well.

Writing Territories

1. I like to read novels of all genres except for fantasy or science fiction. The only exception would be Harry Potter. My favorite is realistic fiction. Right now I am reading My Sister's Keeper and I absolutely love it! As for writing I find it hard to do outside of school but I think its really fun. Last summer, I wrote part of what was going to be a novel, but after a while I just got tired of it because I had thought of the whole story and didn't want to write it all out. I keep a journal that I write in once a week on average. Normally I just write about the highlights of the week.



2. It was regatta week. The best week of my summers at Camp Lake Hubert. Finally this year I got to skipper instead of crew. The girls camp would be racing five boats against Lincoln's, the boys camp's, five boats. "Annie Schoenwetter! You'll be sailing a C... Dock Holiday. Crew members will be Jane, Allie, and Kippy."

I couldn't believe it. A C-class boat! I always sailed them during free sailing but never in a regatta. Jane, Allie, and Kippy were good friends of mine who I had known forever but I only saw at camp. Right then and there I decided that it was our year to dominate and beat the boys, not to mention all of the other girls, most of who were my friends.

Regatta day came soon enough and after five days of training, we were ready. We raised our main sail and then the jib, letting the boom swing across the boat in the violent winds. The calm lake soon turned into whitecaps and the sky became dark. "Rolf!" I yelled. "Is the regatta stil on?"

"Yeah! Get on out there!" Splash! I turned around and saw Kippy had landed in the lake. She asked if we'd be okay with one less crew and I said yes. Truth be told, I wasn't so confident that we'd have enough weight to hold down the boat in the rough winds. But nontheless we headed out and joined the prestart flow and before I knew it we were off with a great start.

There was one boat in front of us, it was the final leg of the course. Challenge, with a crew full of boys, cut effortlessly through the waves, whereas we could have definitly used another person. We were slowly gaining on them and as we reached the final buoy, the leeward mark, I made a risky move and cut them off. We stole their wind and pulled out of the turn before them, flying towards the finish line.

We crossed the line and the whistle blew, declaring us the winners!! Allie was so excited that she stood up. Bad move. We ended up tipping and then turtling right after we had crossed the finish line. Surprisingly, this only made the victory even better.

February 25th responses

1. I really enjoyed writing my own play! Wrtiting a play didn't take very long because it didn't have to be too in depth because you don't describe that characters thoughts. I was able to write a first draft in no time. I found that the sets were sort of limiting because you can't decorate the stage like a movie set. A stage that is too busy can also be distracting. I don't think I'd like to pursue writing scripts because it simply doesn't interest me.



2. To a 10 year old, I would tell them to pick their battles and their priorities. This is based on my own experience. I spend too much time on the small things, like worksheet school assignments, when I really should be spending more on important things like essays. But maybe thats just because I have bad time management at times. Also, I would tell them not to fight with friends and family about small things that don't really matter. It isn't worth having people be mad at you over a stupid fight. Lastly, I would tell them not to stress so much, especially not about things that you can't control or things that have already happened and you can't change.



3. I don't think that I could ever write something that would become a classic, but I have a great respect for those people that can and have. I think that great literature lasts forever because people can relate to the conflicts and the characters. There are also normally themes that can still be found in today's world. Classics are usually not quick reads because they make the reader think in depth and draw connections to today's world.