I would like
to start off by saying that, this first semester of taking English 1080 turned
out to be much better than I have thought it would be. Back a few months ago I
was really worried about coming to MUN, mostly because of the fact I had to do English
courses. Throughout high school I felt that I didn’t learn anything and I wasn’t
going to be prepared for English in university. Luckily I end up in a good English
class with a good prof. I feel that I learned more about writing in the pasted
couple months, than I did in high school. Also English was always the subject I
disliked the most in high school but since coming to university, ironically English
is now my favorite course.
To go back
to the beginning of this semester, to me the most interesting material we
covered in the course would have to be the poetry section. I really enjoyed the
spoken word poetry and spatial poems. It was something brand new to me and very
interesting to learn about. The two poems I found the best to read and listen
to was “Swingset” and “The Tyger.” Regarding the essay workshops, I felt they
were a huge advantage of helping me write my essays. The essay workshop really
helped me understand how to make a clear and good thesis statement for my papers.
Also after doing a couple essays I feel that, I finally have a better
understanding of how to write a good essay. Before this course, I had no clue,
our high school teacher never thought us how to do it and would complain when
we didn’t do it right. Also the weekly
blogs we had to do was a good idea and easy marks in my opinion. Most of the
activities we had to do were creative and fun to do. The one I liked the best was
the memes, I really enjoyed making up funny memes, considering I used to do it
all the time. Overall this English 1080 course was a success to me, I feel like
I was worried over nothing. It turned out I could do the English here in
university all because of the great Prof I chosen to take English 1080 with.
This week I will be talking about the different
steps and tips people can use when driving in the snow. I personally learned
how to drive in the snow because of going to young drivers in the winter time.
Here's the steps of how to drive safe in the snow:
1.)Clear off snow and ice from vehicle
Remove
all snow and ice all on the vehicle, including the roof, windows, head lights,
etc. It’s important to remove all the snow and ice for good vision while
driving.
2.)Reduce Speed
Drive
slower in the snow, where it’s slippery. Driving fast would only cause you to have
an increase chance of an accident. When dealing with winter and the snow, if
you need to be somewhere, you should adjust your time and leave earlier.
3.)Keep distance
Always
keep good spacing distance from the vehicle ahead of you. Braking on slippery
roads takes a vehicle longer to stop compared to on a dry road.
4.) Don’t give gas going up hills
Giving
more gas when trying to go up a hill will only cause a vehicle’s tires to spin
and you’ll never make it up the hill. It’s best if you go up a hill in first
gear or keeping your speed around the same.
5.)Aware of brakes and gas pedal
Slamming
your brakes on will cause your vehicle to slide or skid. Slowing but effectively
applying the brakes is best. Don’t pump the pedal or remove your foot when
braking. Also you have to slowly apply gas when driving. When stopped and about
to go again, slowly apply the gas. If not your tires will spin. When coming to
a point where you need to stop, start releasing pressure on the gas pedal to
slow down.
6.)No Cruise Control
Do
not use cruise control in the winter time. It’s only a greatest percentage of
you getting into an accident.
7.)Caution of Slippery Spots
Places
like bridges, ramps, and overpasses all have a greater chance of ice on their
surface. You need to be aware of the upcoming placing you’ll be driving and
know if the road is filled with ice.
8.)Pay attention at all times
The
final one is to always pay attention to your surroundings. If you see a threat coming,
for instance a vehicle sliding. It’ll give you time to react and hopefully
avoid an accident.
“The secret of
getting ahead is getting started.”—Mark Twain
Mark Twain was an American author and humorist, he wrote the
famous books known as “The Adventures of Tom Sawyer” and its sequel, “The Adventures
of Huckleberry Finn.” Since reading Huckleberry Finn last year in school, I
have become a huge fan of Twain, slowly gaining interests for his famous books.
If there is one quote I love from Twain that he had said was “The secret of
getting ahead is getting started.” To me this quote is telling people if you
want to get ahead of a certain task in life you have to start somewhere. Sitting down isn't going to get you anywhere,
you have to work hard and even if you take your time to get the job done, you
will succeed.
“You’ll miss the best
things if you keep your eye shut”—Dr.Seuss
Doctor Seuss was an American writer, poet, and cartoonist,
he was known mostly for his children books around the world. This quote came from his famous book “I can
read with my eyes shut.” To me this quote has a significant meaning in the way
of Seuss trying to tell his readers to open their eyes and look at the world
around them. If you keep your eyes closed you’ll never see the positive things
around you in life. Ignoring the negativity in life will cause you to be
happier, enjoying life to the fullest. The best things in life happen when your friends and family are around,
seeing them happy causes you to be happy. As Seuss is trying to say is if you
block all the bad from the good in life, there will always be good things in
your life but if you keep your eyes closed you’ll never be able to witness the
best things in life.
“All
our dreams can come true, if we have courage to pursue them”—Walt Disney
Disney was an
American business magnate, cartoonist, filmmaker, and voice actor. Disney was the one who created the Walt Disney
Company, which was created to tell children around the world that dreams can
come true. Also all the movies created by the company help children be able to
live the magic of the movies. I personally was a huge fan of Disney movies
growing up. In my opinion the quote above said by Disney means everybody has
dreams and there may be times when we may feel the dreams are never going to
happen. If we really want it to happen we need to pursue our dreams and believe
in our self to help make these dreams come true by thinking positively. Having the
incentive to try and explore new things.
“Doofus”
by Mark Morehead uses a boy named Billy as the protagonist who’s in grade two
and learning how to tie his shoes. The antagonist is Billie’s big fat jerk
brother Todd. Todd is older than Billy and likes to pick on him, for example
calling him “Doofus” all the time. Todd causes Billy to have internal conflict
by teaching him to tie his shoes the wrong way on purpose and calling him a
“Doofus” because he can’t tie his shoes correct. I would call Billy the exact
thing his older brother calls him a “doofus”, cause at the end of the story there
was a funny plot twist. Billy came home right proud telling his brother to look
at his shoes he had keep tied and even finally tied up right since leaving that
morning. Until Todd said “Nice job, Doofus. Whose shoes are those, anyway?” To
me the protagonist is a kid who in my opinion would probably come home with the
wrong head if it was possible.
The
symbolism in “Doofus” would be the “knot” on the shoe the protagonist is
wearing. In the story it says “And now this... a knot”. This is the quote of
where Billy’s journey in school of keeping his shoes tied begins. I think the
“knot” represents the ability of being fooled and as the “knot” gets tighter
and tighter it represents a victim getting pulled towards the lies of the enemy
like a black hole is sucking the victim into the dirty lies. The antagonist,
Todd is the one who created this “knot”. This symbolises the internal conflict that
Todd had created upon Billy. Also the setting of the story causes a major role
in helping the readers understand what Morehead flash fiction is really all
about. The majority of the story takes place in Billy’s school while he's in
grade two. To me, the setting of the school helps give the symbol of learning.
Billy had been learning how to tie his shoes and going to school trying to keep
them tied up, he learns one day how to finally tie his shoes correctly. Also
the timing of this story is when Billy is only young and learning new things.
As a child a lot of kids seem to make mistakes like Billy done by bringing home
the wrong shoes. I personally did something the same like Billy, once when I
was younger I brought home the wrong book bag from school. So by doing silly
things like what Billy and I have done gets people labeled a "Doofus"
just for making a simple mistake.
The overall
theme in the story “Doofus” is failure. I believe failure would be the correct
theme to suit this kind of short story because of the way the protagonist Billy
seems to have failed a couple times. One of the first failed moments he had was
when he keep failing into his brothers way of teaching him how to tie his shoes
by just creating a knot and never knowing the difference that it was wrong. Another failure that Billy
had was when one day he came home with the wrong pair of shoes on from school.
The title “Doofus” adds the effect of creating the overall message because
usually people call someone a “Doofus” if they did something wrong or weird. Therefore
the title of the short story is indicated towards the boy, Billy. Billy was
quite the “Doofus” no matter how hard he tried to do something right, he always
seemed to mess it up. Therefore failure is the perfect word to use for the
theme of this short story. Billy teaches the readers of this story to try their
best and if they don’t succeed to try, try again.
This past weekend I was a victim of
vandalism. My car was parked outside the apartment building where I live. When I
went out to my car to go to math class I realized my car had the passenger side
window smashed. There was glass everywhere, all over the seats and on the floor
of my car, my center console was also scratched to pieces from the glass when
you searched through my car. After I looked around in my car that next morning,
I came to realize you stole my iPod touch that I accidently left in the car all
night. Unfortunately for me I had to replace the glass for the window which
cost me three hundred dollars, and well I’m out an iPod. I think you should think about what you are
doing before vandalising other people’s property. People work hard to get what they have and
don’t need this kind of bull. I know I’ll
never find out who you are but you are the one who has to deal with the guilty conscience
of stealing. I do understand that vandalism happens all the time and it could
happen to anyone but unfortunately it happened to me. Anyways I hope you enjoy
using your new iPod touch, let’s just say it was a gift from me.
In Victoria, BC earlier this week, scientists came to the
conclusion after doing an experiment on University students that consumed alcohol
before writing an exam helped students achieve better grades. Scientists asked
one thousand students to volunteer in doing an experiment. Scientists got five hundred students to consume alcohol
before writing an exam. They got the other five hundred students to write the
same exam without consuming alcohol. Once
the exam results were released, scientists were shocked with the outcome. The students
who consumed alcohol before the exam surprisingly scored a high average of eighty-five
percent. The students who didn’t consume
the alcohol had scored lower on the exam with a sixty percent average. Therefore
the scientists came to the final conclusion that alcohol indeed helps students achieve
better grades.
Scientists
were in complete shock from their experiment at the University of Victoria. They
decided to go into greater and deeper studies to figure out why the alcohol
helped students achieve better grades. After
laboratory studies scientists couldn’t figure out any possible reasoning why
students who consumed alcohol would do better on their exams. Scientists decided to
go back and survey the same one thousand students who volunteered to participate
in the experiment. They asked the students how much did they drinked regularly
and scientists got the answers they were looking for. These five hundred
students who consumed the alcohol were heavy drinkers and alcohol didn’t affect them in achieving good
grades. In conclusion the students who volunteered to consume the alcohol were
smart in the first placed and only volunteered to get free alcohol.
This week I have been told to do a spatial poem. I have decided to do my poem on an airplane. I always loved flying ever sense my family and I began going back and fourth to Ontario every summer. Even up to this day I still have interest in airplanes.
Airplane In The Sky
I hope everyone has been enjoying my blog and continues to read it. There will be more posts coming your way as my semester of university continues in English 1080!
The PlayStation four, of course is the newest console that Sony
had produced. The console for sure is not a device that’s having trouble
finding homes. One minute and thirty seconds
is how long it takes for the device to start up and get pass the sign in screen
and into your game. The PlayStation four lengths are smaller in comparison to
the PlayStation three. The PlayStation four is smaller of the two next-gen
consoles, which is a good thing in my opinion. The majority of the outer case of
the system is black plastic. When viewed looking down on the console, the top
left of the console is made of reflective plastic just like the original PlayStation
three. Between the black plastic and the reflective plastic is touch sensitive
power button and eject buttons on the front of the console.
So far, the PlayStation four is everything I had hoped it would
have been, minus a couple things. The UI is very easy to control and navigate.
Switching from an app to playing a game is such a breeze. Everything is much faster on the PlayStation four
than the PlayStation three. It installs large games incredibly fast, and while
you're downloading a game, you can play another game while waiting. Another
thing I should mention is that I've yet to have a glitch with my system, which
is quite amazing compared to my glitches that occurred on previous consoles I
owned. Lastly, the main thing that
stands out to me the most about the PlayStation four is the controller. The controller
is very comfortable and a huge improvement over the controller of PlayStation three
. When I first heard the touchpad and built-in speaker were going to be added
to it, I didn’t think much of it. But it turned out I love the controller of
the console especially the touchpad.
I must admit there are a couple things I was a bit disappointed
in when I bought the console. I dislike the fact that my friends on my
PlayStation three can’t see that I’m online on my PlayStation four. Also I’m
one of those people who can spend hours on YouTube and unfortunately there is
no YouTube app on the console. As much
as I love the UI bar it would be nice to have the option for maps and have the
option to hide things. I'll probably never use TV, Music or whatever, so why
not give me the option to hide it? I would be able to shorten the bar and it
wouldn't be in the way for me.
All in all, the PlayStation four is quite unique and much
better developed new generation console. In the tech world a phone would only
last ten months before the newest dream device is release leaving the other
phone in the dust. But that’s not the case when dealing with consoles, they
have to last for years. Which in my opinion Sony has achieved. At this point of
time I believe PlayStation four is the best new generation console out. I guess
we’ll just have to wait a couple years to see what company will come out with a
better device topping the PlayStation four.
In the picture above is my ski-doo, it’s a Renegade 1200.
Going snowmobiling is one of my favorite hobbies I like to do in the winter. It’s
one of the main reasons why I love the winter. Every year my friends and I go
on snowmobile regularly, we leave from our houses and go across a bog then head
up across the ponds ice fishing. Ice fishing is another hobby I do frequently
with my friends. I love being able to just go and relax on the pond for the
day. We usually have a fire and hot chocolate while enjoying all the beauty
winter has to offer. Where I’m from it’s
a very small community and everyone has their own snowmobile, we drive on the
roads just like a car. You’re more likely to see more snowmobiles on our town
bog than you see cars going up the road when winter arrives. I have always had a passion for snowmobiles
since I was a child, this is my third snowmobile I have owned and look forward
to owning many more.
Out the bay driving around
The picture you see above is a picture I've taken one hot summer
day while out trying to cool myself down while enjoying my boat. In the summer,
one of the many hobbies I enjoy and look forward to doing is cod fishing. My
family and I spend a lot of time out the bay during the summer. We go out the
bay fishing around an island called Offer Island, this is where many large cod
fish are caught, which are more fun to catch. Offer Island is the furthest piece of land you’ll see out our bay until
you get over towards England. One of the main reasons I love going out the bay
is to see the humpback whales, growing up I have always had interest in whales
and it’s still in me today. Another
activity we do is tubing, we go out the bay and we get pulled on a tube by the boat.
I love the smell of the salt water and enjoy every moment I spend out in boat,
this is one of the things I miss the most since moving to St. Johns. Although I’m
really looking forward to this weekend cause I’m going home to go out in boat cod
fishing.
I have chosen the song” Love Runs Out” by OneRepublic, it’s
a newly released song that I just can’t get out of my mind. When I first heard
the song I started humming to the beat of the rhythm instantly. The song clearly
has a rhythm to it. Rhythm has sound effects that is produced by organized repetition
and syllables. The syllable count for the refrain in this song would be 11-12-10-10-13-10.
Ryan Tedder put a lot of rhyme into this song, this is what makes the song so addictive.
For Instance in the first stanza, the first two lines of the poem has six rhyming
words. I'll be your light, your match, your burning sun, I'll be the bright,
and black, that's making you run”. Ryan
also organized his song with eight stanzas, having constant rhyme in each
stanza.
The speaker in this song would be a person who's having difficulty in their relationship and really wishing that a certain someone could be the one they love forever, although the speaker knows when it's time to move on. The speakers tone in the song to me seems to be a positive tone, the speaker seems to be really determined. They are trying to get a
message across saying be positive and keep fighting for a
relationship to last until there’s nothing left to fight for. Accepting that you could
have been someone else’s light, match, or burning sun. In the song Parallel
structure is being used throughout the full song, for example when the lyrics say “ I'll
be your ghost, your game, your stadium”. This is a perfect example of parallel structure of many that are used throughout this song. I couldn’t find many literary elements in this
song. Although looking from a different point of view of the song. The one thing that stood out to me the most was symbolism. People may view this song from a religious
point of view. When the speaker used the word “run” and “running” this symbolizes living
life and also the sentence “I’ll be your ghost, your game, your stadium” represents
God until love runs out.
My opinion on this song would be in the perspective of
viewing it towards a relationship song. The speaker is trying to put out there, never
give up on a relationship cause you never know when a special someone will be “your
light, or burning sun”. After doing a
bit of research I came to realize that many people view this song from a
religious perspective. Also Ryan Tedder the writer of this song grew up in a religious home, which
might of inspired him to write this song in a religious way. Although I
personally view this song as a relationship kind of song. I may see it this way because I’m a teenager
and at my age teenagers always have trouble with relationships. Everyone will
have their own opinions on the meaning of this song because nobody thinks
alike.
Hi, my name is Lucas Collins. Welcome to my English 1080 blog website. I am from a small town called Hare Bay, here in Newfoundland and Labrador. I came from a small rural community where everyone pretty much knew each other. Growing up I only had a small class consisting of only nine classmates. Once I got to high school, I went to a different school where five communities came together to form a little school of just over 90 students. Coming to Mun is a big change for me. Having classes in different buildings and having so many people in my class. Some of my interest are playing sports like badminton, table tennis and volleyball. I also like to socialize with my friends and go for walks and just hang out. I love the winter time when I can go on ski-doo rides with my friends. One of my hobbies include fishing, I love when me and my family go out the bay cod fishing. I love the scenery of the bay and seeing all the humpback whales out swimming around the boat. Living in a rural community I found there was way more freedom out in my hometown than here in St.John's, although there's more to do in here. As of right now I'm attending Memorial University and doing general studies. I still haven't completely decided what I want to do, I'm leaning towards Education. I wouldn't mind becoming a math teacher, I really enjoy math classes and teaching others math. My second choice I'm debating on is doing business and becoming an accountant. I really think i'm going to like going to this university here in St.john's and meeting so many new people. This was a little introduction about myself. Overall I'm an easy going person and basically your normal teenage person who is here to work to get what I want in life and hopefully become a math teacher one of these days. If you see me around don't be afraid to say hi. I hope you all enjoy your time here at university and the best of luck to you all.
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