Goodbye Spring Quarter... Hello Summer! :)

Dear future students of English 110,

Don't freak out! This class isn't as hard as it looks :) Just do the work and you'll be okay! That's the first thing I'd like to tell you. DO YOUR WORK! yay, another repeat saying from high school. However, it is fairly simply to follow. If the syllabus says read it, then read it. If the syllabus says write it, write it. Take your time on your writing too, by the way. However, Lauren is awesome and lets you correct it if you really and truly want to! Oh that reminds me, she is awesome! Honestly, she is amazing! The best prof I've had yet in college. So organized and creative AND even makes English fun and laid back. I absolutely loved her class.

I don't know if I would have done anything differently in this class. I feel like if you follow instructions and try (and listen to her lovely feedback!) then you will do fine. She gave me so much feedback on my RAP essay and I felt like I listened to her and my classmates feedback to make my essay better.

Good luck!

Commonplace Writing

Racy commercials. Raunchy advertisements. Things that makes us all stop and think "Wow" when we see them. And let's face it, we've all seen "those" ads. So, I'm thinking about writing how racy our society has gotten. Remember the good ole' days when we watched movies like the Land Before Time, Pooh Bear, Arthur and other educational things our parents liked? Now, kids listen to Lady Gaga ("I wanna take a ride on your disco stick" Um, a five year old girl I babysit was singing this and KNEW what it meant! I was so shocked!) How about little kids watching cable, turning on sixteen and pregnant, and watching it. NO! They shouldn't be!! How about Hannah Montana and her slutty little outfits. Or, for that matter, even the clothing that little kids can buy? I feel like all of the little girls I know (even little girls in general) are always trying to act way older than they are. I know a fifth grader who straightens her hair more than I do!

I feel like this topic is very relevant and interesting. Society as a whole has gotten sooo raunchy. Some of the bathing suits I've seen for little girls are so entirely inappropriate, it's not even funny. It's timely and compelling. Everyone sees it, they see the problem with little girls acting like sluts! Something just needs to be done about it. This is kind of similar to my RAP Project because they'd both be about advertising and how the media exploits gender. Any advice or help would be appreciated with this! :)

Writing Pet Peeves

When it comes to writing, I have a lot of pet peeves. I don't know if it's because my mom taught English so she was always telling me what to do, what to fix. One of my main pet peeves is commas. When I read other people's writing, they either have the comma thing down or they absolutely suck at them. Most of the time they have no commas. People, commas are important! They help your writing look more polished, help it read better! I'm not saying I am perfect using them because I tend to overuse them. But I like commas! Another pet peeve is when people don't use the correct "their" or "there" or "they're". It's stuff like this, little incorrect grammar usage that really bothers me. I notice it even with the Facebook groups. There IS a difference between "our" and "are". Off (as in turn the lights off!) has two f's, otherwise you're saying "of". The number "two" is spelled differently from "too" and "to", which there is also a difference between. I feel as if knowing these differences are very important. Come on, if you don't know them now, then freaking learn it! When people just repeat themselves over and over, especially transition sentences and the first few words of them, it's annoying. I am not reading Dr. Seuss here, I want creativity or at least not the same words repeated over and over at the start of a sentence!

Short Leg Syndrome

I was sitting in the sunshine on my deck, trying to figure out what to write a blog about. All of the sudden, my three dogs started barking at something. Now, this isn't unusual because I live in a neighborhood on a court, and my backyard hooks up to a main neighborhood road. This causes a lot of people to cut through my yard and therefore make my dogs bark!

But I got to really thinking. Like you know, rhetorically analyzing my dogs. Picture this... three dogs, all little. Like not as in you know, maybe going for a run with you but still fitting on your lap little, but as in two weiner dogs (or dachshunds for the actual term) and a welsh corgi. (Which, for those who don't know, corgis look like fat dachshunds with point ears and no tail, quite a picture, yes?) But they all have short legs! I'm talking legs that aren't even as long as my hand, supporting long bodies. In fact, people often tell my family we have "short leg syndrome" because all three dogs are little with short, unproportional legs to their body. Whenever my family wants to get another dog, the breed is usually short with stubby legs. Why can't we seem to stay away from this?!

Their weird body configurations contribute to many comical stories. Have you ever seen a weiner dog try to run as fast as they can down two flights of stairs? They can't physically go down (or up) the stairs. They just can't do it! Instead of acting like a normal dog, they have to slant their bodies sideways to be able to get down! So you see this little sausage-type dog going down the stairs, sideways. It's quite hilarious to watch.

As for the corgi, ours is fat. I'm not talking about a little on the chubby side, aw look how cute, "a fat dog is a happy dog", no. She is literally 60 lbs and looks like a fox and a dachshund on steroids, combined. She is honestly fat. She is giant. To add to insult, her ears are huge, like bat ears, and she has no tail. Who on earth ever looked at her and wanted to breed more of her?!

Our two dachshunds are natural howlers, so to speak. So they will start barking, then it turns into howling at something as harmless as the tree outside the window blowing in the breeze. Then, the corgi chimes in with really high pitches barks. I always feel like our neighbors must think we mistreat our dogs, but really, they like to be vocal and say hi to everyone! :)

I feel like everyone always, no matter what, has a dog story to share. They're so cute and have such unique personalities! Like this one time... no, no, I'm going to spare you on all of my dogs stories. I guess the reason everyone always loves them is they truly are man's best friend.