brush strokes

After trying to find something in my blogs that went along with brush strokes, I noticed that I pretty much lacked any kind of those subjects. So, I decided to take an excerpt from an essay I wrote earlier in the semester.

My Life as A Reader

Every summer, my parents would ship me off with a backpack of clothes and my “blankey” to my Grandparents’ house in Gig Harbor, WA. Every summer, I would cry and would pry my fingers around the frame of the car door. I hated my Grandparents’ house. I would have nightmares about how much of a boring week was in store for me (I still do). You see, my Grandparents are the kind of people who own a T.V., but don’t believe in letting their grandchildren watch it. For an entire week it was just me, myself and I . . . and the stiff smell of the elderly. As the first few days of the week passed (which was just me sleeping, eating or catching crabs on the beach to torture), my Grandma asked me if I wanted to go into town with her. Of course I did! I was ecstatic! Finally, a way out!
The town of Gig Harbor is a lot different than a lot of the suburbs surrounding Seattle. It is full of a lot of old, retired yuppies (including my grandparents) . . . but at the time, I was just happy to be out of the house. After walking around from shop to shop my Grandma asked me if I wanted to go into the bookstore (gross, the bookstore). You can’t be mean to old people though, especially your Grandparents; it’s like in the unwritten rule for grandchildren. So, of course, I agreed to go in. There was something different about this bookstore . . . it was old, small but had a mysterious and magical aurora to it. I liked it. It reminded me of something that would be in a book or featured in a sci-fi/fantasy movie. The smell, the old tattered books and new sucked me in like a vacuum sucking up dirt from a carpet. I was in awe at just the pure beauty of this bookstore. After starring off into this Wonderland of a shop, the sales clerk asked me if there was anything I was looking for. Knowing that I didn’t have a preference and didn’t have a particular love for books, I looked at my Grandma with a slight hint of fear and curiosity. My Grandma suggested to the clerk that she let me look around and browse through the selection that was offered. So I did. I looked, and looked, and looked. I finally found myself in the fantasy section of the store. I picked up a few books and read the synopsis on the back. At last, a book that sounded interesting to me. I figured, what’s the harm in doing some reading back at my Grandparents’ house anyway? I wouldn’t be doing anything else. So I found and told my Grandma that I wanted a book, it was called, The Ancient One by T.A. Barron.


My Life as A Reader with Brush Strokes

Every summer, my parents would ship me off with a backpack of clothes and my “blankey” to my Grandparents’ house in Gig Harbor, WA. Every summer, I would cry and would pry my fingers around the frame of the car door. I hated my Grandparents’ house. I would have nightmares about how much of a boring week was in store for me (I still do). You see, my Grandparents are the kind of people who own a T.V., but don’t believe in letting their grandchildren watch it. For an entire week it was just me, myself and I . . . and the stiff smell of the elderly [absolute]. As the first few days of the week passed (which was just me sleeping, eating or catching crabs on the beach to torture)[participle], my Grandma asked me if I wanted to go into town with her. Of course I did! I was ecstatic! Finally, a way out!
The town of Gig Harbor is a lot different than a lot of the suburbs surrounding Seattle. It is full of a lot of old, retired yuppies [absolute](including my grandparents) . . . but at the time, I was just happy to be out of the house. After walking around from shop to shop my Grandma asked me if I wanted to go into the bookstore [participle] (gross, the bookstore). You can’t be mean to old people though, especially your Grandparents; it’s like in the unwritten rule for grandchildren. So, of course, I agreed to go in. There was something different about this bookstore . . . it was old and small [adjective out of order], but had a mysterious and magical aurora to it [absolute]. I liked it. It reminded me of something that would be in a book or featured in a sci-fi/fantasy movie. The smell, the old tattered books and new sucked me in like a vacuum sucking up dirt from a carpet [adjectives out of order and absolute]. I was in awe at just the pure beauty of this bookstore. After starring off into this Wonderland of a shop, the sales clerk asked me if there was anything I was looking for [participle]. Knowing that I didn’t have a preference and didn’t have a particular love for books, I looked at my Grandma with a slight hint of fear and curiosity. My Grandma suggested to the clerk that she let me look around and browse through the selection that was offered. So I did. I looked, and looked, and looked. I finally found myself in the fantasy section of the store. I picked up a few books and read the synopsis on the back. At last, a book that sounded interesting to me [participle]. I figured, what’s the harm in doing some reading back at my Grandparents’ house anyway? I wouldn’t be doing anything else. So I found and told my Grandma that I wanted a book, it was called, The Ancient One by T.A. Barron.

I hope I did this right, haha. I'm no sure if this is what Barbara exactly wanted us to do! And I'm no sure if I got them all right, but I tried!

scrap it up, baby

On Monday I missed class because I was driving home from Western Washington (Saturday was my birthday). However, it looks like we went over some important stuff: subordination and AAAWWUBBIS? I honestly have no idea what AAAWWUBBIS stands for - which brings me to my question of the week: what does AAAWWUBBIS mean? It sounds like the noise a fog horn would make. Oh well! You guys can teach me now. Anyway, on Wednesday Stephanie and Shannon talked about introductory clauses, and they did a fantastic job. I was really impressed with the way they went about showing us how to point out different introductory clauses. After that, we started working on our scrapbooks. I was really kind of frustrated because we didn't get to spend as much time looking for examples as I wanted to, and I feel that a lot of the people at my table are just as confused as I am when it comes to "breaking the rules" and "errors in print." I'm having a super hard time seperating the two. I mean, there are ones that are just blunt, but a lot of them I feel could go either way. This is something that's been driving me crazy. In addition to that, I'm having a hard time coming up with explainations. I know that there is something wrong with the piece that I pick out, but I can never quite figure out what it is, or how I'm supposed to say it. I looked a lot of my questions up in the Nitty-Gritty book, but everything I'm looking for isn't in there! So basically I'm just a huge ball of frustration right now when it's coming to our scrapbooks, haha. As far as not understanding anything this week, well, I think you can see by my ranting what I'm having a hard time with. So any suggestions you guys have or any ideas circling my problems, please let me know!