Final Portfolio Prep

I am not so sure if you want to hear "off topic" stuff, but I feel like sharing some with you tonight. Hopefully you will not mind much. Anyhow, I have been listening to a song this whole entire day. Are you wondering what the song is? Well, it is an old song. Maybe very old. But I just discovered it not too long ago, just some days ago. It is by a very old group. Westlife. The song is called, "Every Little Thing You Do". I knew about the group, but I have not heard of this song until two days ago. Michelle wanted to borrow my Zune MP3 player, and so I lent it to her for two days. And when she gave it back to me, there were new songs in there and so I listened to them.One of the songs is "Every Little Thing You Do". Have you ever listened to a song for the first time and thought that it's so good you wanted to learn the lyrics? And so you repeated the song until you got all the lyrics down by heart? Well, that is what I am doing right now. I like listening to male singers more than female singers. I think they have better singing voices.

Okay... This semester went by super fast. I cannot believe we are already working on our final portfolio. How did time go by so fast? I remember back when I was so much younger, elementary school went by so sloooooow. Anyway, my final portfolio...I have revised my Project 1 Paper already. I am planning on using Projects 1 and 3. Project 3 just needs to be revised again and, and then my final portfolio will pretty much be done. Oh, and my "Reflection Letter" too. I will need to work on that very soon. I chose these two papers because I believe I understood what I was writing about more than my Project 2 Paper. I honestly did not really know what I was writing about in my second project paper. I did not feel the connection when I was writing. Often times, I felt confused and was not sure if my ideas were tying together or not. This semester had me thinking about connecting my ideas and making sure they all tie together the most. I don't remember having to worry so much about rhetoricality in my English essays, EVER. But because of this class, I think have grown to become a better writer. I feel like I am finally a university student when I write essays these days.

I believe my papers do not have much of the generalities issue. I use sources to back up what I have said or argued for. They are not just opinions or anything like that. But I will reread them just to be double sure. I will also take out my "Annotated Bibliography" out from my Project 3. I believe I included it there. I have noticed that solutions were not included in my papers. If I were to add solutions to what I want to change, my papers would be more lengthy and they would meet the final portfolio page requirement. Another thing I would probably need to include when going through the revising process is talking about both sides and then putting in my own opinions.

I believe my portfolio is cleanly formatted. My work isn't all over the place and hard to keep up with what's going on in the portfolio. I use proper page breaks, page numbers, I tab every new paragraph, and my Works Cited page is properly MLA formatted. I believe I will pass English 5A this semester.

Research Homework for Project 3 Paper

In "'Bros Before Hos': The Guy Code" from Rereading America, Michael Kimmel talks about some research he discovered when asking males what it means to be a man. Most women would basically say something like, "Whatever I want" when asked what they think it means to be a woman. Men, on the other hand, usually come up with the response "Don't cry." Other similar phrases and ideas such as: "never show your feelings, never ask for directions, never give up, never give in, be strong, be aggressive..." (Kimmel 609) etc. would follow after that. These answers give the same meaning as admitting to weakness. As a man, males like to appear good and manly or masculine...especially when trying to impress a girl. Even when you are sad or feeling down and not in the mood, you are to not show your feelings that easily. A man acts as if there is nothing going on and everything is going perfectly fine."The Guy Code" is a particular language guys follow in order to tell whether he measures up or not.

In my opinion, I would like to say that this is very true. I see guys doing that all the time, not showing their feelings and basically just going with the flow. But do they really have to bottle themselves up like that? What if you are feeling like you're going to explode because you are keeping too much of those feelings inside? Isn't it better to let some of them out to someone close to you so that you can feel like something is off your shoulders? I don't think anyone should always keep everything to themselves. I understand that guys want to be manly and strong and everything, but sometimes...girls like sensitive guys. It shows that they don't care what others think about them. I have a friend who goes by "The Guy Code." He never shows his feelings and never really tell anyone his hardships. But once in a long while, he would say, "Life is really hard right now. I just wish things would be easier." He's a guy who doesn't judge anyone and would just say "hi" to everyone...including strangers. He's a great guy. It's pretty depressing when he actually lets out a little of his feelings. He rarely does that. And I'm not saying it's a bad thing that doesn't show much. It's just everyone has at least someone they hold dear to them...and tell them almost everything. But I feel like my friends keeps everything to himself. I don't think guys should act so manly all the time. There are times when we need to cope with our feelings and having someone listen to you  can be a big help. It can relieve stress at some point.

Blog Work

Honestly, I haven't started on my revising process yet. I know, not very good. But I have been having too much fun watching dramas on the internet and time just goes by too quickly. But HOPEFULLY I can start on it tomorrow night or Saturday. Or SUNDAY. Just kidding, that is totally NOT the plan. I cannot procrastinate any longer. That was senior year and I should not be procrastinating in college.

One of my peers said that I should be more straight-forward in my introduction. So I will do a little fixing by  adding what my body paragraphs will mainly be about. Probably like two sentences or so. She also said that I should use a different word for "sometimes" and "something." I will make sure to change the words with better use of diction. I should probably talk more about my sources than what the ideal family is. She also believes that I have some rhetoricality in my paper, but when I read my paper, I do not see much of it in there. She commented that I need to connect my sources with my thesis. I guess she is saying that the flow of it isn't very good. Not everything ties together, and I KNEW that was going to happen. I think I have a problem with connecting my sources to my thesis statement. Therefore, I CANNOT procrastinate on the revised draft. She did not say much, that's pretty much all she said about my rough draft. Honestly, I was pretty confused when I read my introduction. It doesn't seem to flow well. It's like I can see how I want to write my paper and what I want to argue about and how I want to put the paper together...but I just can't write it the way my brain sees it. I don't know why. Anyway...back on topic. I think I want to add another paragraph of "I say." I don't remember putting much of it in my paper. My paper consists mostly of summarizing, I think.

For my sources, I decided to use "An Indian Story" and "The Color of Family Ties." But right now, I am thinking if the sources you use play a big role in your paper. And of course they do, right? I'm starting to think that maybe "An Indian Story" doesn't go with "The Color of Family Ties." That's probably why I can't really connect my paper together. Or maybe I just can't think of a way to connect them. I'm trying really hard to think how I can connect the two sources with my thesis. I have never really thought about connecting the ideas when I write papers. It's just this semester that I've been worrying about how to connect the ideas. "An Indian Story" portrays the narrator growing up without the support of his parents. And because his mother died, his father remarried and he didn't get along with his step-brother very well. He wasn't comfortable around his step-mother either. For that reason, he grew up in his Aunt Greta's care. Although he grew up with his aunt and now his father, Aunt Greta raised him well. Their bond shows that not only a model family can be so close and comfortable around each other. Naomi Gerstel and Natalia Sarkisian's research shows that social class is more important that ethnicity. The support and love from relatives can be as special and exceptional as the family bond of the "model family." Support and care from relatives and cousins can be as much needed as the love from your immediate family. Caucasians tend to have more income than other ethnicity, but "The Color of Family Ties" shows that Blacks and Latinos/as are more likely to give money to their relatives or get it from them. I believe these sources support my thesis because the "model family" make you want to see your family like that. But in reality, not all families work the same way. We have choices and freedom. We can choose who to live with our how we want to live our lives. But to me, the "model family" is just together by themselves. They don't seem to care about who's around them or their relatives and close friends. The "model family" takes away what you want to believe in. And because they're so "perfect," your own family can sometimes not be seen to be at their level. But that's not true. Because everyone can make decisions and do what THEY want to do.