Part One
This semester in Mrs. Turner's class, I have written a total of four essays. Out of those four, I picked two that I thought were the best and put them in the blog. The first was a memoir about my experience getting my black belt and the second was about a nature walk. In the memoir I was writing about the memory of getting my black belt. I was trying to express the different challenges that I went through and how hard I worked to come this far. The main idea of my memoir would be that as hard as it was and as long as it took, I accomplished something that was awesome and I am very proud of that. In my essay on the nature walk, I was writing about the different things that I saw in the woods, how that made me feel, and how it related to Emerson and Thoreau. In this piece I was trying to figure out if I thought the experience in the woods was a good thing and if i agreed with Emerson and Thoreau. The main idea of the nature walk essay would be that the nature walk experience we a good thing, it helped you find yourself, and that I agreed with Emerson and Thoreau.
When I was writing the memoir, one thing that I was really working on was using the brush strokes to make my writing better. This was a very challenging process because of the way that you had to structure your sentences. When was writing my nature piece, I was working on using commas correctly in the sentences. In both pieces, I was trying to use very descriptive words so that you could fully understand my experiences. When I was thinking about what I was going to write, I thought in a very descriptive way and I tryed to reflect that in my writing. Three things that I have learned in this class so far that has helped me with my writing would probably be eliminating passive voice, using absolutes, and shifting adjectives out of order in my writing.
Part Two
In both of my writings I had some revisions because my two pieces are far from perfect. In the essay "Black Belt" I had to do a lot of revising involving taking out passive voice. I was trying to eliminate words like I, am, is, are, was, and be. This was probably the hardest part of writing that essay. I had to rearrange the sentence that was talking about the things that were required for my black belt, because it was a little confusing. In my nature walk essay, I had to do some of the same things. I had to revise my introduction and conclusion paragraphs so that I wasn't using so much passive voice. I also added a few more sensory details so that my audience could understand more about what I saw.
Part Three
As I was reading through some of my classmate's blogs, I found some things that I really liked about their peices that I didn't have. In Amanda's peice "The Scaffold in The Scarlet Letter," I liked the way that she used her quotes. The quotes that she used went very well with what she was explaining. I also thought that she did a very good job explaining how her quotes went with what she was talking about and it is something that I could use in future essays because it is always important to support your ideas with the text.
I also read Erika's essay on our nature walk and I think that it was very well written. One thing that I really liked about her essay and that I would like to use in my future essays would be that she used very good examples. In my pieces I used examples from the text, but Erika used just an everyday example to show what she was talking about. I would really like to use this in my future pieces.
The third thing that I wan't to remember for future writings would be from Natalie's Scarlet Letter essay. Her conclusion on that essay was very strong and helped me out a lot. My conclusions in my writings are always very weak because I don't ever really know what to talk about or how to word it. By reading the conclusion on Natalie's essay, it kind of refreshed my brain so now I can make my conclusions stronger.
Friday, October 19, 2007
Nature Walk
The Emerson-Thoreau experience of 2007 didn't quite live up to my expectiations.. Even though it was scorching hot outside, everything in nature looked beautiful to me. While everything was beautiful, I tried to connect with nature, but it was just about impossible with all the laughter, yelling, and the lawn mower roaring. Although I didn’t “connect” with nature, I did have the sense that everything in my little world at that very moment was ok and almost understood why Emerson and Thoreau looked at things the way that they did.
We started out experience as we walked out the doors of T.L. Hanna. I walked outside and the sunlight squeezed my eyeballs and a heat wave hit me. I tripped over the large gravel until we finally came to the entrance of the woods. Creeping into the woods, trying not to disturb anything, I saw all kinds of God’s wonderful creations. I saw a brilliantly colored, crimson red, lady bug making its way through the maze of leaves. As I continued to walk, I saw a million glossy leaves shining in the few rays of sunlight that came through the canopy and making a warm blanket over my head. I weaved through the woods trying not to let branches hit me in the face. I only spent a total of ten minutes in the woods, but I saw of these beautiful things.
This ten-minute experience in the woods was supposed to give us a taste of how Emerson and Thoreau saw things. Thoreau lived in the woods for two years and this is what he said about it, “I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.” Thoreau went into the woods to be with nature and to just try something new. Sometimes in life, you just need to get away and not think about all the struggles that you are going through. Emerson thought this same thing, and he said, “To go into solitude, a man needs to retire as much from his chamber as from society.” Everyone needs to go into solitude every once in a while, and he says that you can’t do that in a room somewhere and that you need to go out into nature to do that. Great use of quotes. Very nicely written.
As I look back on my experience in the woods, I see that I was trying to make a connection the same way that Emerson and Thoreau were. I was trying to see the beauty of it and how awesome God’s creations were. It also helped me to just get away from the classroom and get into nature. After this experience I can see how Emerson and Thoreau’s view on nature can apply to us in everyday life. We need to try new things, discover new things, and get into nature and out of the house.
We started out experience as we walked out the doors of T.L. Hanna. I walked outside and the sunlight squeezed my eyeballs and a heat wave hit me. I tripped over the large gravel until we finally came to the entrance of the woods. Creeping into the woods, trying not to disturb anything, I saw all kinds of God’s wonderful creations. I saw a brilliantly colored, crimson red, lady bug making its way through the maze of leaves. As I continued to walk, I saw a million glossy leaves shining in the few rays of sunlight that came through the canopy and making a warm blanket over my head. I weaved through the woods trying not to let branches hit me in the face. I only spent a total of ten minutes in the woods, but I saw of these beautiful things.
This ten-minute experience in the woods was supposed to give us a taste of how Emerson and Thoreau saw things. Thoreau lived in the woods for two years and this is what he said about it, “I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.” Thoreau went into the woods to be with nature and to just try something new. Sometimes in life, you just need to get away and not think about all the struggles that you are going through. Emerson thought this same thing, and he said, “To go into solitude, a man needs to retire as much from his chamber as from society.” Everyone needs to go into solitude every once in a while, and he says that you can’t do that in a room somewhere and that you need to go out into nature to do that. Great use of quotes. Very nicely written.
As I look back on my experience in the woods, I see that I was trying to make a connection the same way that Emerson and Thoreau were. I was trying to see the beauty of it and how awesome God’s creations were. It also helped me to just get away from the classroom and get into nature. After this experience I can see how Emerson and Thoreau’s view on nature can apply to us in everyday life. We need to try new things, discover new things, and get into nature and out of the house.
Friday, October 12, 2007
Black Belt
Savanna Keown
I slid on my white karate uniform, clean and crisp, while my heart pounded. I put on a white belt for the first time in three years. I grabbed my bag that contained a head gear, hand pads, feet pads, and a mouthpiece and headed to the car.Marty required all of these things that I had, including a white suit, white belt, and pads, to get my black belt. I knew that may become one of the biggest moments of my life because not just any average person can get their black belt. During the ten minute drive to the karate studio, my heart leaped out of my chest. I don’t think I had ever experienced that extent of nervousness.
The car pulled up under the “Marty Knight Karate Studio” sign, old and raggedy, and I became even more nervous. My parents went and parked the car and I went in to put down my sparring gear. When I walked into the karate studio I could tell that something wasn't right, but I just couldn’t put my finger on it. So I walked in, put my stuff down and sat on the mats like they told me to until the test began. Then I realized that Marty, the karate instructor wasn’t there. Just when I realized this, one of the members of the board, the group of black belts that decide if you passed your black belt test, announced that Marty just had to go to the emergency room and that we would have to do the test without him. At that point I didn’t know whether to be happy or worried about this. On one hand, without intimidating Marty it would be easier to test, but on the other now that Marty wasn’t there the board might make the test harder . But you got to do what you got to do and I had to take this black belt test.
“Everybody stand up, helicopters out, attention, turn to the flag, respect, turn to your instructor, respect. Run.” With that, we started stretching and my black belt test had begun. We stretched out really well and then we sat back down while the board decided what to do first. Silence filled the karate studio because off all the nervousness and because just like a test at school, we couldn't talk under any circumstances. We started out with our forms, there are seven. I flew through the first six with ease and then began the last one, the black belt form, the hardest one of them all and I just knew that I would forget a part of it. I talked myself through it and then became very relieved when I came to the end. I went through that form with ease just like the white belt form and happiness filled me. Next came the balance kicks. I had to do fifty balance kicks on each leg to show that my balance met the standards of what it takes to become a black belt. I had practiced these so they came very easy to me also. Then came the conditioning part of the test, during this I had to do one hundred push-up and seventy five sit-ups. This was probably the second hardest part of my test, but I made it through with someone there counting each push up and sit up. Then we moved on to the choke escapes. There are ten of these and it’s just different ways to get out of choke holds. I had known these since I became a yellow belt and I could fly through them. Now we had only two more parts left to the test, the fighting combinations and sparring. First we did fighting combinations. These are called out to you so this was probably the easiest part of the test and wasn't a problem for me. "YES, the test is almost over," I thought to myself. Little did I know that it had just begun and the next hour was going to be the hardest thing I had ever done.
I went and put on all my pads, starting with my feet pads, then my head gear, and then my hand pads. I was all padded up and sitting in the spot I was told to. We have to wear pads because we actually fight each other, the class is kick boxing, so we could get really hurt if we didn’t wear pads. They split all the people testing into different sections of the studio and the board members lined up in front of us to fight us. We would start fighting and then the bell would ring to tell you to switch fights. We fought a couple of rounds and then the yellow belts dropped out of the sparring because they had finished and had earned their yellow belts. We fought some more rounds and the orange belts dropped out, then the green, blue, and purple. The people testing for their brown belts and their black belts were still left to spar after about 45 minutes of straight sparring with no break. Then the brown belts dropped out. Breathing heavily, only black belt testers were left while we struggled to fight. The board of black belts had no mercy on a girl my size and they still hit me hard, too hard. Sweat dripping, I wanted to quit and tears started to well up in my eyes, but I knew I couldn’t, I just had a few more minutes to go. After a very long hour of sparring and getting beat up, the final bell rang and there is no word that describes how happy I became at that very moment. I clumsily took all my pads off and went to sit where they told me to. Now we would hear the verdict, who passed their test and who didn’t. All the board members lined up in front of us and if you passed they would call your name and you would walk down, get your belt and shake each person’s hand. They called the yellow belts, then the orange, then the green and so on in the same order that they had dropped out of the sparring. When they got to the black belts I was holding my breath because I felt so nervous. Then they called my name, Savanna Keown. I DID IT! I EARNED MY BLACK BELT! I walked down and shook everyone's hand that was on the board, some of which were my friends from karate class. I felt so happy and so tired at the same time. My legs felt like spagetti and I thought I might fall to the ground at any moment. Everyone began clapping for us and I started smiling from ear to ear. That was such an accomplishment for me and to this day, my grandpa still talks about how tough I am because he saw me endure one of the hardest moments of my life.
The car pulled up under the “Marty Knight Karate Studio” sign, old and raggedy, and I became even more nervous. My parents went and parked the car and I went in to put down my sparring gear. When I walked into the karate studio I could tell that something wasn't right, but I just couldn’t put my finger on it. So I walked in, put my stuff down and sat on the mats like they told me to until the test began. Then I realized that Marty, the karate instructor wasn’t there. Just when I realized this, one of the members of the board, the group of black belts that decide if you passed your black belt test, announced that Marty just had to go to the emergency room and that we would have to do the test without him. At that point I didn’t know whether to be happy or worried about this. On one hand, without intimidating Marty it would be easier to test, but on the other now that Marty wasn’t there the board might make the test harder . But you got to do what you got to do and I had to take this black belt test.
“Everybody stand up, helicopters out, attention, turn to the flag, respect, turn to your instructor, respect. Run.” With that, we started stretching and my black belt test had begun. We stretched out really well and then we sat back down while the board decided what to do first. Silence filled the karate studio because off all the nervousness and because just like a test at school, we couldn't talk under any circumstances. We started out with our forms, there are seven. I flew through the first six with ease and then began the last one, the black belt form, the hardest one of them all and I just knew that I would forget a part of it. I talked myself through it and then became very relieved when I came to the end. I went through that form with ease just like the white belt form and happiness filled me. Next came the balance kicks. I had to do fifty balance kicks on each leg to show that my balance met the standards of what it takes to become a black belt. I had practiced these so they came very easy to me also. Then came the conditioning part of the test, during this I had to do one hundred push-up and seventy five sit-ups. This was probably the second hardest part of my test, but I made it through with someone there counting each push up and sit up. Then we moved on to the choke escapes. There are ten of these and it’s just different ways to get out of choke holds. I had known these since I became a yellow belt and I could fly through them. Now we had only two more parts left to the test, the fighting combinations and sparring. First we did fighting combinations. These are called out to you so this was probably the easiest part of the test and wasn't a problem for me. "YES, the test is almost over," I thought to myself. Little did I know that it had just begun and the next hour was going to be the hardest thing I had ever done.
I went and put on all my pads, starting with my feet pads, then my head gear, and then my hand pads. I was all padded up and sitting in the spot I was told to. We have to wear pads because we actually fight each other, the class is kick boxing, so we could get really hurt if we didn’t wear pads. They split all the people testing into different sections of the studio and the board members lined up in front of us to fight us. We would start fighting and then the bell would ring to tell you to switch fights. We fought a couple of rounds and then the yellow belts dropped out of the sparring because they had finished and had earned their yellow belts. We fought some more rounds and the orange belts dropped out, then the green, blue, and purple. The people testing for their brown belts and their black belts were still left to spar after about 45 minutes of straight sparring with no break. Then the brown belts dropped out. Breathing heavily, only black belt testers were left while we struggled to fight. The board of black belts had no mercy on a girl my size and they still hit me hard, too hard. Sweat dripping, I wanted to quit and tears started to well up in my eyes, but I knew I couldn’t, I just had a few more minutes to go. After a very long hour of sparring and getting beat up, the final bell rang and there is no word that describes how happy I became at that very moment. I clumsily took all my pads off and went to sit where they told me to. Now we would hear the verdict, who passed their test and who didn’t. All the board members lined up in front of us and if you passed they would call your name and you would walk down, get your belt and shake each person’s hand. They called the yellow belts, then the orange, then the green and so on in the same order that they had dropped out of the sparring. When they got to the black belts I was holding my breath because I felt so nervous. Then they called my name, Savanna Keown. I DID IT! I EARNED MY BLACK BELT! I walked down and shook everyone's hand that was on the board, some of which were my friends from karate class. I felt so happy and so tired at the same time. My legs felt like spagetti and I thought I might fall to the ground at any moment. Everyone began clapping for us and I started smiling from ear to ear. That was such an accomplishment for me and to this day, my grandpa still talks about how tough I am because he saw me endure one of the hardest moments of my life.
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