Second Semester Blogging

The end of the year is so close. I feel as if I am at the final stretch of a marathon, but as I step back to look at the big picture, I see that I have only been through half of my high school race. Sophomore year is coming to an end. Now, I must take the time to stop and examine my blog. I am briefly going to compare this semester to first semester on the different types of assignments my class had, and how they affected me. Blog posts were increased from three-hundred words to five-hundred words. Literature circle group letters were given a new format. They changed from addressing how one annotated a book, to more of a quote analysis type of assignment. But, just like last semester, my blog post topics vary from a wide variety of random topics with different styles of how I approached them. These are the very mild changes that have affected the way that I write.

I am positive that my writing has improved in at least one way. I am beginning to become a faster writer. This skill will certainly help me in the future if I am ever timed for writing. I believe that my speedy writing has been caused by all of these quick-writes that my English class does on some unique topics. Strangely, I wrote quick-writes last year in class for practice as well. They are an interesting task where a teacher gives their class a topic, and the class must write without stopping for a said amount of time. Sometimes the teacher can give the class a few minutes to arrange their thoughts on the topic. Over the two years that I have done them, I guess that I was bound to become a "quick-writer." An example of one of these awkward writing tasks would be my blog post called the "Quick Write: Rules of Love." This is not the best example of a quick-write because I put it in question format rather than attempting to form paragraphs about the questions (which is the normal format). Thanks to practicing these, I am capable of phrasing complex sentences for my blog posts in smaller amounts of time, and pretty much finishing them altogether in a short amount of time as well (roughly thirty to forty minutes). In "Chaotic Week," I discussed an unfortunate position I was placed in, and briefly about the book I would have to read over the weekend. "I am only forty pages through this four hundred page or more behemoth, which means that I have only taken a small glimpse of what is yet to come." I had hardly slept the night before, and yet I was able to formulate this sentence. I thought that it sounded perfect the way it came out. I did not even consider altering this sentence as I proof-read the blog post. The several minutes that I use to plan out a quick-write have also affected me. Every time I have to write a book review (e.g. Unwind, Hot Zone, and Parable of Talents). I now find myself using a sheet of binder paper to prepare for what topics I will write about and what quotes I may use from the book. It is a habit that I nearly find impossible to do without.

As I had mentioned in my "First Semester Blogging," I stated that "my blog has a lot of varying topics." I would still find this true. I still even blog about "either an event that recently occurred, or a thought that was lingering within my head for the past twenty-four hours." Some topics are not too out of the ordinary (well at least for other people). While I was writing "Avatar=My Hurt Locker Anticipation," I got to act like a legitimate sophisticated movie critic. At first it was a bit strange talking about the two most highly acclaimed movies of the year, but eventually I just let my ideas flow for whomever to see. Just the feel of writing like a critic was a bit different for me. Another blog post that appears completely bizarre is "Our Kitchen Sink." The title is not suppose to have some sort of double metaphoric meaning. That might actually throw off the reader before he or she begins reading. I even included "This weekend was not so good" as an intro. The whole post is just a plain and simple story telling the sequence of events that happened on my (at the time) recent terrible weekend which involved the replacement of my family's kitchen sink. I was still in a bit of a "handy-man" mode and decided to write about the experience the following day. Well, there was a familiar topic that I decided to write about with a new approach. "Easing Up" is about my somewhat new writing topic of skateboarding with a slightly new form I chose to write in. I decided to write as if it were just a journal entry. In the first two paragraphs, I mainly reflect on the distant past. But, things change in the last paragraph as I tell of a more recent event where my friends and I were "playing a game of L.I.N.E." For the ending half of that paragraph, I allow the reader to see exactly what I was thinking at the moment I was losing and also the feeling of triumph for being able to perform certain tricks under a certain amount of pressure.

I can hardly believe that I am at the middle of my high school career. I am beginning to feel concerned if the remaining other half will pass as quickly as the first one. All that I know is that I have become a better writer during the time I have been blogging. New assignments like quick-writes have given me the ability to write faster while being able to form perfectly coherent sentences. And now, I briefly, yet carefully, create a layout for what my essays (or book reviews) should include. My random blog post topics still continue to exist. New topics and new approaches to familiar topics are seen throughout my blog. They will continue to be posted onto my blog for as long as I want them to be. I think I might still blog even though it will most likely not become an English class requirement for the next school year. I want this to become a hobby of mine. For once, I have found a method of writing that I do not hate, and I might even conduct on my own free time.