Thursday, November 12, 2009

Poems

tick
tock
tick
tock
tick
tock
tick
tock
you wasted ten seconds reading this
just look at the clock
tick
tock
tick
tock
tick
tock
tick
tock
get back to work
or your bad grades will be a shock

her 18th birthday party, his favorite football team's game
their grand winter ski trip, it all sounded pretty lame
But i guess theres a reason im not so excited..
i missed each of these things
since i wasnt invited

Friday, October 30, 2009

Concision Thing

You lead the last minute heroics and lead you team to victory.

You lead the heroics and your team to victory.

You heroically lead your team to victory.

You  lead heroics.

Hero

 

Friday, October 16, 2009

Reflection on essay

1.   The most challenging part of writing my essay was making it all come together and flow. Our teacher had us get all our thoughts onto paper, and just write what came to our heads. My rough draft I turned in was stream of consciousness. It was very skewed, and addressed a lot of ideas and concepts. I wasn’t really sure how to organize it, or where to go with the essay. I had to take six pages of pretty much randomness, and filter it into a logical essay, addressing the main ideas and concepts I wanted to, meanwhile following and keeping the plot of my baseball memory, interweaving the two in order to backup the ideas I addressed. If I could go back to my essay I would end the essay with me walking off the field, because I feel that the concluding two paragraphs to my essay may have distracted from the point I was trying to make conceptually, and took the focus of the essay back to the story of my pitching performance shame I felt, and not on virtual reality vs. reality. Although it sort of connected to my essay by addressing the mistake I made confusing virtual reality with reality, it may have been unnecessary and redundant.  There are some other things I would also change, but the changes would be less significant

2.   My essay is about virtual reality vs. reality. As technology advances and is used more and more by society, people begin to become very involved with virtual reality. Video games were my main focus. People begin to view videos games as more that just “games.” They begin to enjoy the false feeling of power, superiority, and joy they receive from the game and prefer it to reality. They also can confuse virtual reality with reality because of the superiority and skills they posses in the game. I used a memory of a bad experience in baseball as the base of the essay, in which I too confused virtual reality with reality, leading to a very bad day filled with humiliation.

3.   It was a really fun to write about my topic because it is something I think a lot about, and something I have witnessed and experienced first hand. I liked writing about video games and virtual reality because they are becoming such a large part of society today. It was cool to read about some of the stories and new articles on people confusing virtual reality vs. reality. It was quite entertaining and alarming. I really could get involved and into my topic, which is something I usually struggle to do in writing. That made writing the essay much more fun and less of a burden. 

Tuesday, September 29, 2009

3 questions

What role does honesty play?
the memory is hugely based on how a lie led to a humiliating exposure and experience.

How does this represent fantasy vs. reality?
in the memory, i thought i would be a good pitcher because i was a dominant pitcher in my video game, and the video game made it look easy. this could relate to similar situations, with worse consequences.

Where does team responsibility play a role in the memory?
i lied about my ability and made myself seem greater than i actually was. i took on a role too large, and wasn't prepared. i ended up hurting my team because of my lack of responsibility

Monday, September 21, 2009

Memory

Chris Reed

English

Pugliese

9-21-09

Baseball Game

I arrived at the field one hour early. Butterflies in my stomach, ready for my first game. The field looked massive, larger than usual, as if someone had moved the fences back farther, and moved the bases farther apart. The infield had just been raked and watered, and the outfield grass was perfectly cut. I was in amazement.

I set my stuff down on the dugout bench and jogged out onto the field to join my teammates for warm ups. I was beyond nervous. It was my first baseball game. Things weren’t looking to good from the start. During warm-ups the muscles in my arm were telling me they weren’t happy, very sore, and I couldn’t throw the ball anywhere near where I aimed. My teammates were already frustrated with me, and the game hadn’t even started yet.

After warming up our arms, we all headed back to the dugout. The time for the first pitch grew nearer, and still coach hadn’t announced who the starting pitcher would be. I was nearly positive it wouldn’t be me, so I was just focused on doing well in the field, and hopefully getting a hit my first at bat. I was totally zoned out, envisioning myself hitting a home run and jogging around to the bases, team and fans going nuts. But then I thought I heard my coach call my name. I snapped out of the trance I was in, and looked up.

“Reed, your starting pitcher today. Hope your arm’s feeling good.” Coach Dave announced.

My stomach tightened up and I nearly puked. How was that possible? I had no prior pitching experience. Then I remembered telling coach during our last few practices that I was an expert pitcher, and that I should pitch in a game sometime. But I had never anticipated that he would really listen to me, and actually have me pitch. Especially now, the first game of the season.

“Reed, go down to the bullpen and throw some pitches, we need you ready in five minutes. The games about to start.” Coach commanded.

As I journeyed down to the bullpen, thoughts raced through my head. What was I going to do? I had no idea how to pitch. Then I tried to calm myself. I kept telling myself that since I was good at pitching in my MLB video game, than that had to mean I was an ok pitcher in real life.

Unfortunately that was not the case. The first inning lasted for what seem like years. I couldn’t throw a strike. Literally, I looked like idiot on the mound, and allowed the maximum amount of runs possible, six. After that, the mercy rule came into play, and the inning was finally over. I felt awful. The look of disappointment in my coaches eyes, and the discouraged looks on my all my teammates faces. We were obviously going to lose the game because of me.

The coach took my aside and asked me why I had told him I knew how to pitch, because it was apparent that I couldn’t. I told him about how I thought that if I was good in my video game, then I could be good in real life. At least he chuckled. He told me not to worry, and that it wasn’t a very big deal. But to me it was. I was humiliated.

I ended up striking out two out of three at bats that game, and had three errors in the field. It was a day to be forgotten, and unfortunately to this day hadn’t been forgotten. After the game, my dad had nothing to day. I could tell he was disappointed with me, like everyone else who watched the game. But he still managed to say something supportive. Doing his job as a father.

That day I was so ashamed that I swore to myself I would never let it happen again. I wouldn’t lie about my talent, because it would catch up to me again, as it did before. I practiced pitching with my dad everyday, ritually, so someday I would be as good as I was in my video game. I couldn’t wait for my chance to redeem myself, because the events that occurred on that treacherous spring day would be stuck in my head forever, and would serve as my motivation. Motivation to improve.

Wednesday, September 16, 2009

Questions for Tobias Wolff

Why do you choose to end your stories the way you do? without a conclusion

In Nightingale, what did the Fort Steel Military Academy end up actually being?

Why weren't there other students or parents, and why was the map and aerial photo of the school wrong? Was the school all a scam, all fiction like the map and photo?


Tuesday, September 15, 2009

Zoom in. Real time, accelerated, slowed

He looked around at the same scenery that he had been looking at for the last hour

Real Time

"Where are they, I've been waiting forever." said Tub to himself, then, in and attempt to release all his anger he screamed "Ahhhhhhh!!!!"
He walked back and forth at a brisk pace, trying to keep himself warm, and after doing this for a few minutes and noticing that it was unsuccessful, he began doing jumping jacks. The jumping jack idea would have been very effective, but there was one problem. Tub could only do ten jumping jacks before keeling over exhausted, , wee-zing. He had gotten very out of shape because his exercise and eating habits. To make himself feel better he told himself, "that extra blubber is helping keep me warm."
But that definitely wasn't the case.

Accelerated
All that was going through his head as he paced back and forth was warmth, and maybe food. Every part of his body was cold, from his toes, to his head, even his brain was cold. He was shaking and shivering, and nothing he did could help him escape the cold. He was very upset that they were this late. Could they have forgotten about him? He was worried for a few moments, but then realized that they were probably just screwing around somewhere, or just running really behind schedule. His stomach growled. He was starved. He didn't know if he could deal with it much longer. All he could think about is the king size Hershey's Chocolate bar that he left at home on his counter. He had planned on bringing it as a snack, but forgot to, because he was in a hurry. He didn't want to make them wait for him.

Slowed
Snowflakes drifted down from the sky, coming out of nowhere, in a never ending stream. The flakes landed on his back, settled there for a second, then melted away into water, seeping through the cloth of his fleece. His whole body damp and nearly frozen. As he did jumping jacks his gut bounced up and down, up and down, along with his rolls, and double chin, and man "breasts." The world nearly shook beneath him. Each time his feet landed on the ground, the ice crunched and the stop sign next to him vibrated a little bit. He self consciously imagined the neighbors in their houses, diving underneath their dinner table, panicked, thinking the tectonic plates had collided and an earthquake was happening. After ten he collapsed to the ground, completely overworked and exhausted. He took a huge breath as air filled his lungs. As he lay there, heart pounding, melted snow began to seep through all his layers, soaking his clothes, and him. He stood up, embarrassed and disappointed in himself. He looked down at the snow angel he had made and noticed that snow angels aren't so great to look at when they're fat. So he started attempting jumping jacks again. It was time for things to change.