Low Blow

Wow you guys, I feel so awful about the "C" we got for the visual. I feel like it is all my fault because I took on the responsibility of completing. When I saw the grade it was a complete low blow. I really did think we were going to get an "A" on it. I'm sorry that I didn't meet the expectations. Although I was reminded that we came up with the idea as a group and all agreed on the information that was going to be put on the board. I feel like we misinterpreted the assignment. Personally I felt like our visual was suppose to be an aid for the judges recall back too. I am just so upset because I was really excited about the board and I work really really hard on it. I think we felt that the message we were trying to convey to audiences was obvious to us because we had it in our heads. Hopefully we all kill it on the research paper though. I just feel so discouraged after receiving such a low grade on something we worked so hard on. We were all confident that we were going to ace the project. I am sorry if anyone has any hasty feeling towards me. :(

I Hate Research Papers !!

So, I know that we are starting our research papers tommrow and may I say, I am NOT excited. If anyone knows me, then they know that I hate rearch papers unless it is about something that I am truly interested in. I find it easy to research about something that I am passionate about, but if it is just an assigned topic, I find it tortuous. Hopefully that is not the case with this research paper. Whether I like my topic or not though, I plan on doing my very best because I really want an "A". My first paper was a "B" and my last two have been "A-'s" so I would really hate to go back to a "B" or less. I pretty much plan on living in the Writing Center until this paper is due. :(

Forever & Always :)

So I just saw on the schedule that we are starting on the research paper tomorrow! In a way, I am super excited about this. Statistics and factual proof are more my style. I like writing about events that are nonfiction and proof that is hard to argue with. I am confident in our presentation! I think we did a great job! All of us looked so nice and had everything we needed! We are just awesome. Period. The only thing I don't feel comfortbale with is the bibliography, sometimes I forget how to cite certain things... I hope she gives examples! There is a website I use, I forgot what it was called though. It's like citation machine or something like that. All you have to do is enter the information and it puts it all in order for you. Very conveinant! I don't know what else to type about, so I am just going to write a quick poem for your pleasure. :) We're the best group, it is a matter of fact. Whatever project that is thrown us, with confidence we say "we can do that!" Whenever there is a problem, we always talk it out- because that is what teamwork is all about. We talk about everything from parties, projects and boys. It's easy to say we'll be ANANA forever & always. :)

*ALMOST DONE*

So I just want to say….I GOT AN A! MY FIRST A! …that’s all!! ( teary eyes..again ). So anyways, I’m happy with the progress we are starting to make with our project! Dividing the project was a great idea! Yall will love the pictures that I printed for the poster board! :] Really bad news tho, I have my regents test on the day of presentation! I have been trying for past 2 weeks to get it rescheduled! But it nothing is changed yet! So I may not be able to do the presentation with yall :[ im sorry! Besides, you guys will do great on the presentation!

10 Miles Ahead, and Success should be on your right :)

I think we are finally getting somewhere!! It's so funny because at the beginning of this project we were so confident that we had the same goal within reach and Yes, we had the same goal but we definitely had different routes in mind to get there. We all have strong personalities and we exceed expectations individually, but it's so hard to collaborate all of our styles and mix them into one. Like I said before, too much estrogen in one group! But today I think was a turning point. We had structure, assigning, and some kind of direction, which was exactly what I think we needed. If we just all put a piece of ourselves into the project we will all be happy :) I just want everyone to be proud of the final product! When do you think we'll be getting our papers back? I asked my dad about the floor plan and he said all you need is some graph paper and a ruler. You can make up everything else. We can draw everything to an exact scale. For every square can equal a square foot, or ten square feet. I like exact measurements, I think it gives us more credibility. ANYWAY, I am STILL confident that success is in our near future. Love you guys! :)

A.N.A.N.A COMING ALONG!

Sooo, as of yesterday I was VERY nervous that we would not be able to have our visual done in time. As of right now, I am VERY confident that we will get this done and it will look great. Our biggest problem has been finding a time and day where all 5 of us could meet up. I'm glad we at least found one day, but wish we could of found more. Although I am glad that we decided to break the project up and then bring it all together. I am nervous about doing the Tri-Fold because I know how strongly opinionated we all our and all have different taste. I just hope that I can put together something that everyone likes! I am also nervous about the presentation part because I do not do well with public speaking, I get nervous and studder. Also Ive noticed that my chest gets really red which can be embarrassing so Ill make sure I do not have a low cut shirt haha. I am anxious for our written argument grades tomorrow. I worked so hard on this paper and changed it multiple times, deleting and added paragraphs. Sorry Mrs. Marshall for the 5 pages..opps. In the process of going from a rough draft to the final draft, I normally do not change much. This time I feel like a dramatically changed it every time I worked on it, which was a lot! I do not want to sound superstitious but I'm nervous that this change in work habit will effect my streak of "A's." Wow that sounds lame but whatever! I really hope our project turns out the way we planned.

Compromising

The title of this post is called compromising because, I feel that we have all had to do that in this past class session. I realize that we are a group of five very opinionated girls. We're all used to being the leader and organizer when it comes to working with groups of people. Therefore, that made it a little more challenging to complete the visual part of our presentation. I'm not very worried about the outcome of our project. I am very confident that we will all pull our weight and make this an "A" worthy project. I believe that since we had our little rough patch, only good things can come from here. I'm not happy that we wasted almost an entire class period to get it together, but sometimes that's what it takes. I'm also glad that we are all friends on facebook since that seems to be our main source of communication. Although, I always tend to catch the end of you all's LONG conversations ! (:

*Scary*

We have been doing sooooo well with our project. Today did get a little scary though! everyone had ideas on how to design the poster (but me because I'm not artistic at all!!) and we had hard time deciding how to create the title. (who know all the stuff that I brought would make it that much harder to create one! it was suppose to help!!! lol) I personally love the way the title turned out! (great job Ash! ) I'm also a little scared because we don't have the lay out of all the information about our organization yet! I do think it will flow a lot smoother if we get all the information that we need to talk about first and the focus on the design after! But I knowwww either way it will be done! and will look sha-mazing!!!! by the way...thats "im scared" pumpkin :)

Theres always gonna be another mountain.

Today, oh gosh.. today. Although we did not physically get much accomplished, we made progress as a group. Usually when we work together, everything goes smoothly and perfectly. Today we all had a huge problem with how we were going to make the title and what colors to use. It seems silly to fight about it but when you think about how each one of us girls have leadership qualities; so it only makes sense that there will be some sort of problem. I am use to always taking charge with group projects and especially when it comes to "artsy" projects. I am strongly opinionated and it was hard for me to state my opinion and then feel like it was disregarded. I think it was really bugging me that we never have time to all meet and when we were giving a class day, we couldn't make up our minds. I did not want to seem bossy so I tried to hold back and let other people take charge but it was really hard for me. Although I am happy with the final title, I do not like how we had to act to get there. This post all seems very negative but I think I am just venting from earlier. On a more positive note, I do think this little disagreement was necessary for us girls to really come together as a group. I feel like The Climb by Miley Cyrus depicts how today went; "There's always gonna be another mountain, I'm always gonna wanna make it move. There's always gonna be an uphill battle, sometimes I'm gonna have to lose." I cant even express how true that is! We will all have problems and will want them to disappear but the only way to get rid of them is to work through them, which is what we did in class. I apologize if I got angry or frustrated today, it is just something I need to work on. I still love all of you girls and cant wait to see how all our personalities shine through on this project!

Adjusting!

I love working in our peer workshop group and coming together to do this project. I love working with all of you girls. You are all awesome. Today was difficult for me. Typically when I work in groups with people I am always the one that takes charge of everything, which is fine with me. I have Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder and I like to do things my way. It does not help that I was raised an only child and never had to deal with sharing as a kid. I am not obsessive about EVERYTHING, just certain things such as things that are peeling, lines, colors and food. So it was a big accomplishment for me today when I was able to stay calm through the trifold process and let other people take over. I know that I will not always be able to get things my way through my adult life so it would be good for me to finally get used to it. When I am faced with situations where I am not in control I tend to show physical side effects; I realize this sounds very strange but I normally begin shaking. I did not experience that today. I think this project is good for me, not only to strengthen my writing, but also as a person. Thanks girls.

Shopping !!!

I have been having so much fun working with my group.  We got to spend some bonding time together this past weekend when we went shopping for supplies for our project at Wally World! I thought that it would be really frustrating trying to shop with 5 girls and agree on the supplies and materials that we actually needed vs. materials that we just wanted to glam up our visual.  However, the shopping part was really easy. The harder part however was when we started to work on our visual. Trying to organize and think up ideas that we all agreed on was a little challenging. In the end, we came up with a lot of great ideas and I am looking forward to presenting our ideas to the class and earning an 'A' with my team ! (:

Together as Perfection. :)

Our visual argument is going to rock everyone's socks off. I love how close we have gotten as a group too, strictly due to how much work we have done together. We have all learned how to trust each other and be comfortable around each other. We know that whatever characteristic we personally lack, the others in our group will make up for. Like I said when we went to Wal-Mart, individually no one is perfect, but as a group we can make perfection. I know we will work well as team, as proven in previous assignments. All that is left is seperating topics for whom to discuss. I love the small details we have all provided for the project, we have a little peice of ourselves within the assignment. The most difficult part will be the blueprint. I hope we can come up with a way to make it look as professional as possible. Other than that, I am so confident that we will succeed! :)

Things are coming along!

Finally, I feel confident about my final draft! I was not confident at all about my rough draft and changed it many many times. Which I will admit, I do not do often. Usually, I write my rough draft and it is semi- set in stone. I do make a few grammatical corrections that my peers suggest but I do not usually change the whole paper. For this particular assignment, I felt like it was necessary to constantly change, edit, and add to my paper. Since we all had to find some common ground with important decisions regarding our project, I had a lot to change. The more and more I realized that I had to go back and fix my paper, the less confident I became. After completely finishing the final draft, I am finally proud of my work. I have noticed throughout these three papers I have slowy improved on my on overall writing! On a nother note, I am excited to work on our visual tomorrow and am glad we can get a head start on it. See you girls at 11 tomorrow :)

How much is too much?

When we first began this project, I was really struggling. I am the kind of person who works off of facts, so having to make up my own was so difficult because I didn't know if the information I was presenting was realistic. In return, I did SOOO much research just to make sure that my paper made sense! Luckily, my dad used to work in construction so his rough estimates helped a lot. I have typed and re-typed lots of rough drafts, but I think I am finally content with the last one. I don't think I can possibly get more specific. But how much is too much? But I'd rather have too much than not enough. I am so excited to see the production of our visual. I have already drawn out the tri-fold numerous times. haha! The best part will be the... OH! I almost spilled the beans... I forgot Ms. Marshall reads these. She's going to be totally suprised :) I really am so glad that I have the best peer group EVERRRR. Next semester will be even better! If we are already THIS good, imagine how amazing we'll be next semester! Anyway, I hope you girls have a wonderful day, and enjoy this beautiful fall weather! :)

I am feeling extremely confident about our most recent paper about our group organizations. I did not recieve a lot of edits from my peer workshop which I consider to be a good thing. I have begun to recognize the errors that I normally make in my write and go back and fix them. When we did the first peer workshop my paper was lit up with red marks and cross-outs because of all the things that were wrong with it. I can see a differrence in my writing from when we first began English 1101. If you had asked me in high school to write a five page paper I would have looked at you like you had five heads. But now I can very easily write that amount.

For some reason, lately I have found a lot of inspiration from nature. Maybe it is because of the recent change in weather. While I was editing my Visual Arguement paper, i would go and bring my laptop outside when i got stuck. Something about the fresh, crisp air. I am definitely glad for the new season and can not wait to utilize it for fighting against "writer's block." I cannot wait to get into organizing the presentation and creating the visual for this project we are working on. It will be fun!

Coming Together (:

I really enjoyed the peer editing today in class. I'm actually kind of sad that it was our last one. I have found that when you do peer editing the right way it can be very benefical. I also liked working with my group and brainstorming ideas about the oral and visual part of our project. I think that we came up with alot of great ideas, and I'm super excited to see what our final project looks like. I think the class is going to be surprised about how much energy and effort we put in our project. As usual, I must say that I love my group ! I have the four best girls in the class to work with ! (: