Saturday, May 2, 2009

Better Writer

111-29-Diagnostic-Revised

A Trip to Paradise

Christmas 2007, one Christmas I will never forget. This was the year I went on the best vacation I could have asked for. I went to Puerto Rico. It’s every girls dream to be able to go and lay on the beach for all kinds of hours in the day. Well that year I got my dream, and I knew it was going to be the best vacation ever.
The night before our trip was like torture to me. All I did that whole night was toss and turn, I couldn’t sleep one bit. I kept staring at the clock and waiting for it to turn 5:00 so that we can start getting ready to leave. When that time came I was so excited I jumped out of bed and started getting ready. When the clock turned 5:00 I knew that that was the start of a perfect vacation.
We had two flights to catch before we landed in Puerto Rico. Our first flight was to Philadelphia. The trip was going well for know but that all changed once we landed in Philadelphia. Our cross over flight was only supposed to 20 minutes from when we landed. When we got to our gate we saw a sign that said delayed. Who knew that that was going to change the whole day. So we waited and there was still no sign of our plane. We went and asked the costumer service desk if they knew anything about where our plane was and they did. They told us that there was something wrong with the plane so they had to put it in the shop and it should be done within an hour. So we waited so more. After the hour was up there was still no sign of a plane, by that time everyone was getting aggravated. It wasn’t until we where sitting there for eight hours when we saw a plane coming our way. This wasn’t the plane that we where suppose to have but they said it would work. We just had to wait for them to clean it and we where on our way.
It was a relief when we touched down in Puerto Rico. It felt like nothing else can go wrong now. When I walked out of the plane I was confused on where to go to get my bags, cause all the signs where in Spanish, so I just followed the crowed and hoped that they where going to the write place. After we got our bag we headed towards the door. When we stepped out side it was like you where in heaven. It was about 10 o’clock and the weather was still nice. We then got into a taxi to go to our hotel. When we got there we had realized that we where all hungry, so we got ready to go eat. We left our hotel and walked down the street to see if any restaurants would catch our eye. After we ate it was about mid-night so we decided to call it a night and went back to our room.
The next day we woke up early. We hadn’t really lookout side of out room because it was dark, so when we did it was beautiful. If you looked to the left there was the hotels pool and hot tub and then directly to the right was the big ocean. We decided to go to old San Juan that day and look at all the old forts that where there. The view from the forts was amazing. After we left there we walked down the street and came to a pigeon park. It was a gated in area where you could go in a feed pigeon. These pigeons where like non other that I have seen before, they weren’t scared of people. After that we decided to head back to our hotel and go to the beach. For the next couple of days we did some more sight seeing and a little bit of shopping.
Then it came time to leave. I was so sad to see that my wonderful vacation was coming to an end. I hope that one day I will be able to return there for another wonderful experience. By far this was one vacation I will never forget.
111-29-Diagnostic-Original
A Trip to Remember


It was Christmas of 2007, when my mom gave me one of the best presents I could have asked for. I had been asking for years and this year my wish finally came true. My family and I went on a trip to Puerto Rico. I knew that this was going to be one of the best vacations ever.
The night before our plane left I could not sleep one bit. All I could do was lie there in my bed and wait for my mom to come wake me up. Finally the time came to leave for the airport. We had two flights to take before we arrived in Puerto Rico. Our first fight was going north all the way to Philadelphia. When we arrived there, we then came to learn that out that our flight to Puerto Rico had been delayed. None of us knew how long we were going to be stuck there for. After being in Philadelphia for almost eight hours, our plane was finally ready to take us to Puerto Rico.
I was so happy when we touched down in Puerto Rico. It had been such a long day and I was ready to start my vacation. When we got off the plane, I was lost because every sign I saw was in Spanish. When we stepped outside of the airport, I thought I was in heaven. It was so beautiful there. By that time it was late at night, so we got in a taxi and went to our hotel to get ready to go eat. The view from our balcony was beautiful; we had the pool on one side and the ocean on the other. The next day we decided to go sight seeing. We had gone to one of the old forts in old San Juan first and then headed back to the hotel to go in the ocean. Over the next couple of days we had gone and done many family activities together. When it came time to leave I begged my mom to stayAlign Center just a few more days. Unfortunately it did not work. Before I knew it we were on a plane back to Virginia Beach.
I was sad to leave Puerto Rico. I hope someday that I will be able to return there one day when I have a family of my own. By far, I think that this is one of the vacations that I will always remember thanks to my family.




Semester in English 111

When I first walked in to English 111 I did not know what to expect. I did not know how the teacher was going to be, how the class was going to be, or how hard the work was going to be. Through out the semester I had my hard times. In the beginning of the semester I got thrown off track when I had to take an unexpected trip to New York. This was not a trip that I wanted to take; I had a very close friend of the family die. This through my brain off track I didn’t know what to do. I found my self sitting in English just thinking about the kid who died and not paying attention to what was going on around me. After a couple weeks that this was going on I finally started to get my head back together. Let me tell you it was not easy.
The first real paper that we did was the restaurant review. To me this was the easiest one out of all the papers that we had to do. I was able to write it with all of the necessary materials with in a decent amount of time. The next paper that we had to do was the rhetorical analysis. This was the hardest paper for me to do. I think it was so hard because when he taught us about logos, ethos, and pathos my head was thinking about our family friend that passed. It was hard to write about something that you don’t know about. That through me way off track with when my papers where do. I ended up turning that paper in late, which I know it’s not good to do that but I was confused and still hurt from losing someone. The next paper was the argument paper. This was semi easy but at the same time it was hard. I think the hardest part for my was not doing all the research it was trying to make the length of the paper be what it was suppose to be. I have a hard time coming up with new topics to make my paper to the desired length.
I’ve never been a good writer and I have always hated English because of that. Another problem of mine is that I am the biggest procrastinator that you will ever meet. I try to stop and do papers ahead of time so that I don’t have to worry about them later but I still find my self working on them at the last minute. I feel as if I work better when I am under pressure. I know that’s a bad think but I can not get my self to stop doing that and to start working on stuff earlier rather than the day of. I think that peer review has helped me to become a stronger writer in so many ways. The stuff that they point out in my paper are probably things that I would have never seen if I where to look over it my self. It also gave me a change to look at other peoples papers and see how they write and learn from it.
I think that my writing has improved a lot with in the last six-teen weeks. I still know that there is still needed a. lot of improvement on it but I will work towards it in my next English classes. I believe that I am now well prepared to move on to more English classed and continue writing in attempt to become a better writer. And English 111 is to thank for that.

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