Metacognition: QE essay

While writing the first section of my QE essay I discovered many things. The first thing that I discovered was my thought process. Before this I would usually just sit down and write my essay. I would then come back to it a few days later and reread it to make sure that it made sense. At that point I would rewrite or rearrange things in my essay so that it flowed better or made more sense. With this essay, I couldn't do that because we only had one day to do it. I had to focus my thinking a lot more when I was writing it so that I could be sure that it made sense. I realized that when I write I think in a stream of consciousness and it doesn't always make sense. I learned how to work through this and write an essay that makes sense.

Something that I like about my writing is that I can write fluidly even though my thought process is anything but that. I can take the random thoughts in my head and put them on paper like they make complete sense even though in my head they usually don't. This is also something I'd like to improve on. I want to improve my thinking process so that I don't have to worry about my thoughts making sense when I put them on paper.

Best of Week: How to Write a College Essay

This week in class we talked about how to write a good college essay. This really helped me because going into Thursday I wasn't all that sure how to write a good college essay. After reading examples in class and talking about what we need to do, I feel a lot more confident about my essays. This not only will help me in writing my college essays but essays in general. I feel that we discussed things that can be applied to every essay that we write and not just the college essays. It also made me think about the essays I had already started working on. I can now go back and edit them with confidence that I didn't have when I wrote them.

Connection: New Yorker Essays and Real Life

In class we talked about the New Yorker essays that were written approximately a week after the attacks hit and what the authors had right and wrong about the attacks. One of the authors, Susan Sontag, was the most "controversial" because she spoke, what I believe, is the truth about America. In her essay she says, "Let's by all means grieve together. But let's no be stupid together." Sontag is saying that Americans can grieve together but they shouldn't be stupid or nieve together.  She is saying that collectively as a nation we can be really stupid and think that nothing bad will happen to us and that this attack came totally unprovoked.  In reality it was not and because we are thick-headed Americans, we think that nothing bad could ever happen to us, that we are the greatest and that we could never do anything bad to another country or group of people.

I feel that in real life people tend to think that nothing bad could ever happen to them and that they could never do anything to provoke something bad happening to them. People, especially in the North Shore, live inside a "bubble." They think that life is perfect and that they will always have everything that they have in the North Shore. They don't realize that in a matter of seconds everything that they have could be gone. I feel that Susan Sontag was trying to tell us this in her essay on the September 11th attacks. She, generally speaking, said that Americans think that nothing bad could ever happen to them and if something does happen then everyone should stop what they are doing grieve together.  She says that this is wrong, that we should grieve together but we shouldn't be stupid together. She points out the things in real life that people don't realize that they are doing.

Carry it Forward: The Angels

In the poem "The Angels" by John Updike, Updike says that we shouldn't live life on a "plane of silent compromise." I want to make sure that I am not living my life on this plane. This plane of silent compromise is a plane where there isn't much going on in life. I want to live a life where I can view art of great artists and really truly appreciate it. Now I look at art and don't really think about all of the work that's put into in and the hidden meaning that there might be. I want to look at art and find that hidden meaning in it. I feel that if I do this then I can live a much fuller life not on the plane of silent compromise. Updike also lists great composers in his poem.  I want to listen to more of their music because classical music is one thing that I feel I don't listen to enough of. If I were to listen to more classical music I would not be on the plane of silent compromise any longer. All in all, I want to look at art to find a deeper meaning and listen to more classical music to make sure that I'm not living on the plane of silent compromise.