Blogging Around

The first post I replied to was Mitchell (Deuce Bigs) Bigelow's post about how the Church is a unifying force. I found it very interesting how he discussed benefits of the church seeing as he is a devout atheist. I commented...

Mitchell,

Very nice post. I found it humorous when you said, "Last year, I managed to destroy his faith" (like it was nothing). It was also funny when u called God "America's favorite diety." Anyway, it was really interesting to hear an atheist person defend Christianity and now I understand why your on the debate team. I agree with your position that the church provides a great sense of belonging for its members. You made a very good case for the positive effects of the church on society. If a population as large as the Chrisitians is/becomes educated and informed and contributes to a greater power, the benefits to the world would be enormous. By ignoring the disputes about God and creating secular arguements, I think you really strengthened the credibility of your post (but you probably already knew that seeing as your a master debater).

I also commented on Jamie's post about the future. She basically discussed her fears and aspirations later in life and I found myself relating very easily to the worries she had. I replied...

Jamie,
I feel the same way as you. I have no idea what I want to be when I grow up. There's a lot of things that I am interested in but for a number of reasons, I don't think they will be my future career. I agree that I should do something that I'm passionate about. But, I feel like there are a lot of obsticles preventing me from doing them in the future. Some things I'm simply not that good at, others I feel like I'm behind every one whose involed like in Jenna's blog about dancing. This brings me to the point where I ask myself, is good enough just to settle for something that I don't hate. If I can do that, then perhaps perhaps it will provide me with the means ($) to do the things I love later in life. Unfortunately, I can't see the future. So until the future becomes the present, I'm going to take your advice and try my best to enjoy the rest of my childhood by not stressing. Great post, btw.

P.S. I also enjoyed Corey's and Jenna's blog about similar and relating topics.

Metacognition: Poetry

When I heard that we were going to be writing poetry this year I was much more excited to write poetry than in the past. In middle school we wrote a lot of poems. They were usually something that involved two, maybe three drafts of un-thought out words put together that resembled the work of, well, a kid in middle school. However, this year, when Mr. Allen (you? - I still haven't figured that out) introduced us to the assingment, it sounded very serious, professional and it got me excited. My increased interest in hip-hop and all other genres of music was also a major source of my enthusiasm towards poetry this time around.

The discussion of widowed images threw me off a little bit because I couldn't really come up with any good ones at first. Then, I began thinking about ideas that made me wonder and memories or aspirations I had. I was looking around my room when I spotted my old Pinewood Derby cars upon the shelf and I knew that's what I wanted to write about.

The writing process for me was a little difficult at first. I kept trying to make the poem perfect on my first draft. This always seems to happen to me. This time I tried really hard to follow my mom's advice of simply writing and not being critical. It was easier this time because the poem was not even a page long and it did not take too long to finish. The revisions are probably my favorite part. I love tweaking things to make it sound as floetic as possible. There were a few times when it was difficult to change a line or two but the perfectionist in me would not let me give up untill they were as condense as I could imagine at that time. Hopefully there will be at least one more revision, because I've already spotted a few more things to alter.