finalblogpost

1) Where do you get your ideas for blog post topics? What inspires you to write?

Well, in most of my blogs I write about the vacations I take with my friends and family. The reason it is easier for me to write about my past experiences is because I was actually there. When I have to write essays or other types of writing that I don’t really know what happened, I into more of a writer block. Knowing what really happened and everything that happened I can explain more about the story.

On these travels that I take I learn about my family, and that it is important be with your family. Seeing these sites and monuments with my family make it more enjoyable, because you are with the people you love. Through blogs I can share the experiences and the memories with other people. I really like reading about other people vacations and trips that they took. Some of the blogs I read, it feels like I am actually there. I have wanted to try to get that feeling in my blog too because it made it very interesting to read. The blog that I read was very moving all because it the person made it seem like I was there in person. But I am not that good of a writer yet to capture that feeling. With practice and time I’m sure I can become a better writer. Writing is a way to express feeling that you have in your head. Writing blogs is a chance to say what you have to say about any topic; I think that’s why I have grown to like blogging. Blogs let your ideas be heard by people that want to hear what you say.

2) How do you like having a blog? How has blogging changed the way you write, the way you think, or the way you think about writing?

Having a blog was better then I thought it was going to be. When I first found out that we had to write a blog every week I was kind of irritated that I had to do it every week. Once I started to blog I realized that it was pretty fun. Soon I really did not mind at all doing my blog. Now that I write a lot writing’s become a bit easier. More ideas have came to me faster and easier. The more I write the more it would be easier to get around writers block. Writers block has been a bigger and bigger deal as the school year goes on. Trying to get around writers block has changed the way I write in a good way. I have learned to spread out my ideas and expand on what the subject is. This was one of my goals in the beginning of the year that I wanted to accomplish.

My thoughts on writing have change greatly since the beginning of the year. By the end of my sophomore year I think I would probably continue blogging for fun. For one of my blogs I wrote about what was happening in Japan and its government. Usually when I have to right about politics I tend to get bored with the topic and my writing is not the best. But blogging give you a lot of freedom and it was easier to talk about the subject. I think I am going to write more about politic now because I to see other people’s opinions and the same topic. Thought using blogger I have become better at editing other people’s posts. I like reading other peoples blogs and try to help making it better. I am excited to start this group thing in class. The group thing in class would also help me get new ideas what to blog about.

3) What have you learned from your struggles with writer's block? Why do you tend to get stuck? How do you tend to get unstuck? Notice any patterns?

Before when I got stuck with writers block it was really hard to get unstuck. But now from writing more often I have learned ways to get around it. I have learned to expand on the details about the subject. Before, I would just kind of tell the main idea and a couple of details and not really explain what is going on. Now it comes naturally explain. This might have not been the reason for the three hundred word minimum but it helped me because if I was not at the word amount I did not get the credit; so I had to learn to write more. Recently I have been writing more and more then I use to. In the beginning of the year I barely made three hundred words but now I am writing over three hundred words easily.

I usually get writers block when I do not really know much about the subject I am talking about. Now I know that if I want to do well on a piece of writing I should do a lot of research on the topic.

In class we do the quick writes and its non-stop writing it helps to just keep writing even if you get stuck, like to write down what you are thinking as your writing. I am not really sure why it helps but I do it when ever I get stuck with any kind of writing.
Another way I get unstuck with writers block is when I am writing about multiple subjects like this blog post. I am answering three questions in one post; when ever I get stuck I just move to a different question and keep moving. So far I have not got writers block and I am towards the end. The group discussions in class about our blogs would help a great amount in getting past writers block. Talking to other people allows you to get different ideas that you would not think of.

Las Vegas

For the first week of break my Mom and Dad took me and my friend to Las Vegas. I think the day before going on the trip was the most excited I have been to go on a vacation. The drive to Las Vegas was about ten hours long, but the way my dad drives we were there a couple hours early. When we got to Las Vegas we went to our hotel. We stayed at the Mandalay Bay Hotel. The hotel was at the end of the strip, it was cool because we were right next to the Luxor Hotel. That’s the one that’s a pyramid and at the top it has a bright light that you can see from space. When I go on trips with my parents they let me have a lot of freedom so my friend and I were out on the strip at like 3 in the morning it was pretty fun.

We ate at a lot of buffets; huge ones. The nicest one we ate at was at the Rio Hotel. It had like lobster that was actually and it had huge pieces of steak that was all you could eat. While we were at Las Vegas we went to watch Cirque Du Soleil’s KA. It was all about defying gravity. It wasn’t the best Cirque Du Soleil I’ve seen but it was still good.

Towards the end my friend and I were starting to get bored so we rode on those moving walk ways there was like 4 really long ones in a row. We would run as fast as we could and try to race. A lot of the time my friend and I were really tired during the day so we slept all day. Our hotel room was huge. It had different rooms and it had two bathrooms. And there was a flat screen television in one of the bathrooms. The trip was a lot of fun, and I had a good time.

art

I like any type of art. Anything could be art. Some people think that just paintings, sculptures, drawings and other things of that sort are the only things that are art. I personally think everything is art. Earlier this week in my English class we wrote about graffiti and I kind of wanted to expand on it. Last year my friend and I always drew tags (or words wrote in graffiti form) and tried to see who was better. He was a little better at it then me but I was still fun. I mainly did it because it was fun and I love to draw. I think part of the reason why some people do it on other people property and buildings, is because when you do it in the public then every body is going to see it. It’s like why would you want to do it on paper for only very few people see or where everybody could see it.

I like to draw mainly pencil sketches. I think my best drawing I have done is a flower that I drew for a friend. I was weird how good I came out considering that I did it in the dark only using the light from my phone. Lately I have been doing more like cartoon sketches then I use to. When I see someone else’s art work and I understand what there trying to say threw that piece I get all exited. I get the same feeling when I hear a song that I really like. I music is another way of expressing art. For the quick writes that we do in English class we do a lot about painting. I like trying to figure out what the painter was thinking as they were drawing the painting. I think we should do more quick writes about art work.

LA to mexico

A couple of years ago I went to New York for a cruise to the Bahamas which I wrote about in a past blog. But I also went to Las Angels to go on a cruise to Mexico. In this this trip I went with my mom and dad but I also went with my best friend and her brother and there parents. There basically like family to me. The plane ride to LA was crazy. The plane was the smallest I have even been in there was three seats in a isle and like 20 isles. My friend was trippin about going on the plane cause it was so small. Once we got to LA we went strait to the docking place where the cruise ship was. Just getting into the ship is such a hassle with the pass ports, bags, and the security. The ship that we were staying on way once the biggest ship that carnival ever had but that past month they built a new ship which stole ours ships spot. The theme of the ship was like the renaissance-ish. I don’t know how to describe it really. There was a lot of paintings every were.
The ship had 3 or 4 pools and A LOT of food. I think I gained twenty pounds in that week. Every night me and my friend would eat three or four ice cream cones each. I liked getting dressed up for dinners. And we had to do that a couple of times on the cruise. We took a lot of pictures on the cruise when we were at Mexico and on the ship. The cruise ship had a water slide, I didn’t ride it. I have no idea why. There was a mini golf course and a basket ball court and a volleyball court too. There was clubs for adults, 18 years and older clubs, clubs for my age and like day cares for younger kids. Being with my best friend on that trip was funny along with my family and hers was even better.

focus group

On this last Tuesday, December 1, my friend invited me and 3 others to do a focus group in San Francisco. For people that don’t know what a focus group is, it is like a survey for a company so they can do research and improve their company and what not. When we were at the place waiting to go in we were offered drinks and snacks. I had a Dr. pepper. One we were in side we were in a very open room with a bright colored stylish couch a table and a seat for the lady to talk to us. We were introduced to the lady that was interviewing us, and we sat down.
　
The main thing that they were interviewing us about was on ways that people communicate, mainly teenagers and adults. They asked us about how we would communicate, what would we do if face book stopped working, if texting would also stop. I would personally freak out if texting just stopped but I would live. Then the lady told us to write down the most common ways we us to communicate. I chose: texting, calling, face book, and myspace and aiming. (or AOL instant messaging) then the lady gave us various situations that we would need to communicate. Situations like: if we had something important to tell a friend, if we had to tell a relative something and other situations like that. Then she asked us why we chose it and what would be the next source we would use if we didn’t have the one we choose. We had to do a lot of explaining and analyzing when we had something to say. The weirdest part of the whole thing was when the lady told us that the mirror behind her was actually a one way mirror. When she told us we couldn’t stop looking at it. The best part of the whole thing was at the end each one of got $85 each. I would defiantly do it again.

about my doggie

Long time ago my family and I had a dog named Dude. When we went on a vacation we left him with my grand parents. When they were going back to there house Dude was in the back of the truck. In the middle of the ride home Dude jumped out of the back of the truck when their were on the freeway. My grandparents felt so bad that they bought me another dog, which is my dog now.
His name is Simba, he is a golden retriever and a shar pei mix, He has black fur but he has like gray hairs around his mouth so it kind of looks like a beard. Simba is a small dog couple feet tall. He is about 11 years old so that is about 77 years old in dog years. My dog is train well. He can sit, lay down (sometimes), and he can shake your hand. He knows what walk means and bath but he doesn’t like baths at all. If you say goodie he starts to get all excited and jumps around because he likes dog treats.
In the summers my family and I go on camping trips and we bring Simba with us. Car rides are not his favorite thing to do. He doesn’t stick his head out the window like ordinary dogs. When we are at the camp site he always chases the birds and squires. When me and my dad go to the lake to fish we bring him with us. He tries to hide in the corner of the boat because he knows that he going to go for a swim. I think that he is afraid of many things. Like he is afraid to do a lot of things especially anything to do with water.

My New Goals

In my past 9 blogs that I have wrote in two month I have changed what I said I would write about. In the beginning I said that I would write about baseball music and skateboarding, but I ended up writing about my past vacations. I wrote about my vacations because I found it was much easier to write. I was forcing myself to come up with things to say about baseball. I also did not know what to say about skating about music.
My goals in the beginning of the year have also change and also been added too. In the beginning of the year I wanted to increase my vocabulary and also learn how to expand in my writing. I am learning how to cut pieces of my writing to make it sound more fluid and to cut back on repeating things I have said. Now I still want to increase my vocabulary but also learn to say my ideas in a way that makes sense. Usually when I try to write I start writing things down but then realize that I does not make any sense. I think this is one of my main problems in writing.
In the future I think I will continue writing about my trips and vacations but also write about things that are happening in the world news wise. In one of my blogs I wrote about the Japanese Government and there election. I get pretty interested in this kind of stuff. For me to reach my goals I am going to start writing slower and more read through my work more carefully. For my other two goals I will use the list of word that we got in class and try to put some new words in my future writing. I will also keep trying to use what I was taught and cutting my sentences to make them shorter.