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Wednesday, January 26, 2011

Dynamics

Yesterday, as I walked out of our 3rd period English class, I found myself saying hi to a few of my friends in Ms. Serensky's 4th period Words, Words, Words class. As I walked away, I found myself wondering, what's the dynamic like in that class? I've never seen Ms. Serensky have to truly discipline anyone for talking or disrupting the class in my English classes (with very smart and well reserved students), so how does she handle certain individuals the NEVER EVER would have been in her classroom if not for Words. Now, no offense to those people, for I like alot of them, but I'm interested to know how Ms. Serensky deals with them. PJ for example. When he laughs, the whole class laughs, stopping work. What is the solution? Does Serensky just use the "stare, eyebrow clinch and head tilt" technique to intimidate him back to silence? Or does she break out a whip and start making threats? or better yet, does she threaten her students that she will commence with a Thomas-esque "Dear Journal" session, but with the unruly students name opposed to Thomas's. Then I think, what's the atmosphere like? Is it intense, like how it is during an in class writing, or is the mood more jovial, along the lines of the mood of an extra credit game? I'm confused and intrigued to see how Ms. Serensky deals with students who are not physically inclined to do work, and allow 80% of their alotted homework time for the work of her class. Now, given that the expectations are obviously different, I would like to observe the different dynamics in the two types of classes. The next class Serensky should teach, Regular Freshman English. Now that, would be an interesting dynamic.

Monday, January 10, 2011

Bye Bye Blogging?

At this point of the year, I find myself worried. When the question was posed that we could either stop blogging, or continue, I came up with my true thoughts. I actully really liked blogging. I thought it was a much better and more interesting assignment than poetry papers, or other things we have done. I ecspecially liked it because it involved reading other classmates' work. In AP English we get very few oppurtunities to read the work of our peers, and through blogging, we got to do that. I learned alot about many of my classmates, just through creeping on their blogs. I also liked the topic range. I think that having the blog topics relate to AP English, keeps them semi-interesting for the rest of the class. If someone wrote about marshmallows, I probably wouldn't be too interested, but if someone wrote about marshmallows after we had talked about smores in class, then I would be much more likely to read it. The blogs seemed like a great form of expression, and a great way to expand our writing through creativity and impersonality that we never face inside the classroom. I definetly don't want to have to say bye bye to blogging. The only thing I would change, is that I would have both the blogs due on Sunday. Having the one due on Thursday was often hard to remember, and I think it would just be alot easier for the overall deadline to just be Sunday. But other than that, I thought the blogs were great!

Sunday, January 9, 2011

Pictures

Recently, I discovered that I was behind the quota for the number of pictures needed throughout our blogs, and that my massive amounts of fattening food pictures from a previous blog don't fit the criteria. So, without futher adue, I give you..... First Semester of AP English 12 2010 in Pictures
First up is this scandalous picture of Othello. Othello took up alot of our time in class, and this picture is almost too inappropriate for this blog, and makes me feel a little uncomfortable, so thats why I chose it.

Next is this gem. Although this boy is asian, he represents an awkward situation had by Jimmy and Ms. Serensky. Jimmy was taking off his sweatshirt, and in effect took off his t-shirt to reveal his bare chest to a very flustered ms. Serensky. Needless to say, it was grand.


Ahahahahaaa. This represents how many times we talked about how many kids in the school are intimidated and scared by Ms. Serensky because they have not had her as a teacher. And I think this picture is funny.


This represents how long our first data sheets were, and how some people were having contests to see whose could be the longest. TYPICAL.

This is just a little add in for Ms. Serensky. You're welcome!!!

To Blog or not to Blog?

At the end of last week, Ms. Serensky passed around a sheet of paper asking whether or not we enjoyed the blogging assignment, if we wanted to continue it, and what we would like to blog about in the future, given that we continue with the blogs. I found that I answered that I liked using the blogs, and thought that we should continue with them just like we're doing now.

 I think it's very interesting to not only see other people's writing style and personality through the personal blog entries, but I think it's also interesting to see the topics that people choose. Whether people are talking about dreams, drawings they made, things we did in class, or stalking people that are somewhat related to whatever book we're reading, it's very cool to see the writing of another classmate so uncensored. I think we should keep doing blogs just like we have been doing.

The only request I would have is that we have them both due by Sunday, as opposed to Thursday and Sunday. For the blogs due on Thursdays I always forgot. I knew about Sunday, but Thursday was inconvienent and hard to remember.

Thursday, January 6, 2011

Fat Pill?


Today in class, Haley mentioned how her family calls pop tarts "fat pills" because they are so high in fat. This caused me to think of the website thisiswhyyourefat.com, and also imagine what a fat pill could possibly be. So, I did some research. I visited the site, (whose slogan is: "where dreams become heart attacks") and started scrolling through some of the pictures they had. Up first on the list of vomit inducing items they had featured on their website were a grilled cheese birthday cake, birthday cake french toast, a donut and pulled pork sandwich, and a poptart ice cream sandwich. I wanted to stop looking at all the pictures, but I just couldn't. It was repulsive, but also addictive. I went to the next page. I threw up. First, there was the Philly taco (a philly cheesesteak sandwich wrapped in a piece of cheese pizza), bacon spam footballs (spam stuffed with cheese, wrapped in bacon and then deep fried), chocolate covered bacon with sprinkles (self-explanatory) and my personal most disgusting and gut wrenching favorite: Deep Fried Recees cups wrapped in bacon. Are you kidding me people? Honestly, do people eat this stuff?! No wonder America is so obese... its because people sit around all day and eat chips with Whopper dip (3 whoppers with extra maynoasie and ketchup pureed) and eat anything they can get their hands on and then wrap it in bacon, deep fry it, then dip it in chocolate. Come on people. This is disgusting. I may vomit just thinking about this. These things are the real life "fat pills". Pop tarts seem like next to veggies in healthiness when compared to this stuff. Yuck. (Every item I have mentioned, there is a picture on thisiswhyyourefat.com)

Whopper Dip
Recees cups wrapped in bacon the deep fried

Bacon Bouquet

Corn Dogs dipped in chocolate and sprinkles

Riblets wrapped in bacon, stuffed with stuffing inside of a chicken wrapped in bacon, then stuffed into a duck with more stuffing, then wrapped in bacon, then stuffed with more  stufing into a turkey, with more added bacon, and then slow cooked for 7 hours

Wednesday, January 5, 2011

A Few Fellow Students at a Basketball Game

Tonight, there was a big basketball game against our obvious arch-rival, Kenston. While at the game, I noticed that several of my fellow AP English classmates were in attendance. They were Kelly, Jillian, Alex K. and Hurtuk. Also there were John, Sam and Joseph, but since they were on the basketball team, I didn't observe them. So while watching the game, I decided to observe my four classmates outside of their natural element of AP English. I felt like I was a photographer in the jungle, stalking rare animals ouside of their natural habitat. First off, we have Kelly. Upon arriving, Kelly made her first of two AP English references during the game. It was, "Ciabotti! Guess what?!" to which I responded, of course, "what?!" and her excited response was, " I finished my data sheet!!" The first thing she said was in regards to an AP English paper, and nothing about saying hello, or addressing the intensity of the game. Her next reference came as the clock for the game came down to 1.5 seconds, and we were down by two. "Oh boy, I'm more stressed right now than I was for English. Wow!" Outside of her natural element of English class, Kelly was quite interested in bringing up English topics, and cheering quite loudly for Joseph Sitzwol. Romance brewing? Who knows. Maybe I'll find out after further research. Then there was Jillian. Oh Jillian. When not being the little lovable awkward turtle that she is, Kelly and I discussed ways that she was awkward. How she appearently screamed while watching "Shutter Island" today, when the part wasn't even scary, or her voice cracking cheers for John or Sam, and we even discussed the possibility of getting a large group of people to all blog about her awkwardness. With the additional observation of Jillian's lovable awkwardness climbing exponentially from what Ive heard of her English classroom, to out in the real world, our AP English references for the night (from 7:30 to 9:00 roughly) added up to a total of 6. Then we spotted Kreger. Perching across the gym, not in the student section, but leaning against the doorway to the Kenston side of the gym, laughing to himself about something. A reference to English was made at his awkward standing alone ness, but I am failing to remember what it was. A few minutes later, out popped Hurtuk, right next to Kreger. Hurtuk's situation was the same as Alex's... except... he had a yo-yo.... and he wasn't even playing with it. He was just letting it hang there. Still attached to his finger, stretched out all the way.... just.... hanging there. To break his concentration of letting the yo yo just hang there, Kelly decided to text him, "Sick Yo Yo". While commenting on Kreger and Hurtuk's sketchiness, I'd say out English references came out to around 10. In an hour and a half. Wow. I'm glad we were all at a basketball game, and still could not put AP English out of our minds.