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Short Story

Howard was dressed in his safari outfit, complete with a beige safari hat, kaki shorts with a light brown belt, a kaki button down short-sleeved shirt and a leather satchel containing his most prized possessions. As he walked through the jungle in India he was on high alert for a tiger that would be on the hunt for its next meal. After wandering the hot, sticky jungle for a while he decides to sit down near a stream and have himself a nice chocolate bar. As he was finishing his chocolate bar he heard something out of the ordinary. He stood up to assess his surroundings and found himself locking eyes with an adult white bangle tiger. He started to slowly back away from the regal animal but every one step he took back the tiger took two forward. Howard found himself backed against a rock wall. He was literally stuck between a rock and a hard place. He was clutching his leather satchel for his life. The tiger was now a whisker away. Just as Howard thought the tiger was going to pounce, he closed his eyes, fell to his knees and started to pray. Then Howard felt a big, scratchy tongue run across his face. He knew this was it. Then the tiger started purring and rubbing its face against Howards cupped hands. Howard opened his wet eyes and realized what was happening. He then started to scratch the tiger behind its ears and the tiger plopped down right on top of Howard. The tiger then fell asleep from being in the hot sun too long, and so did Howard. When Howard woke up at sunset the tiger was gone and he never saw him again.

Lists and Poetry

List 1: 10 things I know to be true

1.I know my family loves me

2.I know God loves me

3.I know my family happy, safe and healthy

4.Airplanes are loud

5. People are generally good

6.There is always someone better than you

7.Life is precious

8. Animal crackers are the snacks of the Gods

9.You can never robbed of your intelligence

10.Fairies and Mermaids are real

List 2: 10 objects I can’t live without

            1.Pearl necklace strung by my Grandmummy

            2. The ring I received as a 16th birthday gift from my mom

            3.Chocolate

            4.A pictue of Jesus

            5.My stuffed animal Mr.Piggy

            6.Toothbrush, toothpaste, and floss

            7.A good pair of shoes

            8. My moms hot chocolate

            9.My sisters clothes

            10. Shampoo

List 3: 10 things I should have learned by now

1.     What 12 x 12 equals by memory

2.     How to tolerate crying babies on an airplane

3.     I should have learned by now to take care of myself before I take care others

4.     How to avoid biting my nails

5.     What primer does for your face

6.     To always wear sun screen

7.     To excersice daily

8.     How to be a morning person

9.     To have better posture

10.  To spend more time and energy on family members

List 4: 10 of my greatest fears

           

1.     Causing anyone heart ache or pain

2.     Being in pain

3.     Being alone

4.     My mom or sister not being happy, safe, and/or healthy

5.     The dark

6.     Never amounting to anything

7.     Being rejected

8.     Being suppressed

9.     Dieing painfully

10.  Not being able to help someone or doing something wrong

List 5: The 10 things, places, people etc, that make me the most happy

1.     Mommy

2.     Ashley

3.     Brownie

4.     May May

5.     Sue

6.     Italy

7.     Art museums

8.     Natural history museums

9.     Mom and pop cafes

10.  Movies

List 6: 10 places I will visit before I die

           

1.     Italy, again

2.     The Bahamas

3.     Hawaii

4.     New York

5.     The moon

6.     Paris, France

7.     Wales

8.     England

9.     Germany

10.  India

Step 2: Self Portrait Poem

Fiona

Helpful

Funny

Tall

Redhead

Ashley

Love of the sun

Love of the moon

Love of the stars

Who feels soft

Who feels warms

Who feels reptilian

Who needs chocolate

Who needs sunblock

Who needs a new desk

Who gives time

Who gives praise

Who gives love

Who fears scalpels

Who fears the red death

Who fears heights

Who would liketo see Cher

Who would like to see Florence and The Machine

Who would like to see Granddaddy

Who lives in an old white house

Hodgson

Blog Reviews

http://amormonatoxford.blogspot.com/?expref=next-blog

    A mormon at Oxford is a very interesting blog. The lay out and design of the blog seems to emulate the essence of the authoris, a lawyer from provo utah who has her own law group in England. The focus of the site changes throughout her posts, sometimes work, sometimes family but its mostly about anchoring her faith while going through life and its many obstacles.The content defiantly matches the focus, she ties her faith into every post she makes. Her writing style is very informative and light. She uses grammar and punctuation well. The blog is very much effective in capturing its audience, who are family and working class people.

www.twaggies.com

   Twaggies.com is a charm full and delightful blog. Twaggies takes twitter posts from all over twitter and makes illustrations of them. Usually the tweets they twaggie have misspellings or are making fun of celebrities in some way. The design of Twaggies is very minimalistic insofar as the website is back and white except for the twaggies, illustrations, themselves. The focus of the site is humor. The content is sometimes not aligned with the focus. Just in the sense that sometimes a twaggie isn’t very funny but I guess that just depends on the audience’s perception of the joke. Twaggies message of humor at the cost of humanities idiocy is effective. The intended audience for this blog/website is the younger to middle aged generation. There are no interesting facts about the author of the blog because the blog commission’s different artists to produce the twaggies so it’s more of a community of authors as opposed one sole author. Twaggies.com is a delightful and fun blog to escape to after having a hard days work.

michellephan.com

   Michellephan.com is a fun lifestyle blog/website. When you first go to the page you see a navigation bar and the top post for the day all written in young, lady like font. The focus of the site is to better yourself. There are tips and tutorials on how to do make up different ways and different hairstyles, clothing ideas, fitness routines and diet plans. The content defiantly matches the focus. I feel like I’m going to a virtual wellness spa every time I visit the blog/website. The authors voice is very helpful, young, descriptive, concise and to the point. The grammar and punctuation is very good. The sites message is of self-wellness is very effective. The intended audience for this blog is 13 to 25 year old girls in school. I love this blog because it is my go to website for anything girly!

I am Empathetic, not an Empath...

This is an Empath from the series Star Trek....I am not one of these.

 Many people have all sorts of different trials through out their lives and they rely on someone to help them or listen to them. Some people, who can afford it, hire a counselor or psychologist. Others pour their emotions into a journal. Some bottle it up and explode at people for the most miniscule of things. Or, a person finds a friend and relies on that friend to listen to them. That’s where I come in.

“Throughout the trials in my life I always try to be the strong one, with a stiff upper lip so that others can lean on me and depend on me for whatever they need. I’ve been doing this since I was 8 years old. I don’t know why I always choose to help others mourn and grieve rather than grieve myself.”

 It was upon writing this paragraph in the first draft of this personal reflection that I realized why I choose to help others. I realized whom I am and what I was born to do. I was born to be empathetic, to help people who can’t help themselves. I believe I was put on this earth to help strengthen the weak. I believe God has given me the strength to be strong for myself through being strong for others. The trials I face help me be more empathetic. The trials that others face who need a shoulder to cry on or need just some emotional support, helps me become more empathetic. Sometimes though, it gets overwhelming. I believe when too many things are going on at once I isolate myself from the environment surrounding me. I become numb to the waves of emotions that the moon of people seems to be propelling on to me. I just emotionally shut down. It is very scary and I get really depressed. But I soon snap out of it and get back to being everyone’s counselor.

 There was one instance where I wasn’t expecting my empathetic traits to stand in the way of my every day life; it was very much outside of my normal routine. I was sitting at home on the couch in my living room researching a topic for debate. I believe the topic was about something in the Middle East. When I clicked on one website and read what the extremist thought of Christians like my self I was angry at first, very briefly, and then I became scared and sad. Then I researched more about extremists in the Middle East a picture popped up of a woman who had been brutally beaten by her husband who was one of the extremists. I got really confused. Because in the category of debate I was in you had to have cases for both sides of the argument and you decided which one you would use with a coin toss. Because I am such an empathetic creature I empathized with both pro and neg cases. I became confused and nothing made sense I spun into a state of depression because I couldn’t understand why I couldn’t just make my mind up about which side I agree with. That was when I decided to stop doing debate because I would go to bed crying every night because I was so confused, and there was so much hate in the world that it was just awful and overwhelming. That was one instance my empathy surprised me.

From the Virtual World to the Real One, Join in the Conversation

Post #3 – Write a well-developed paragraph on the following question:  How can you use your talents and interests to “join the conversation” online?    Make sure to title your post to reflect the meaning and essence of your writing.  Add a visual element.

 Joining the conversation, especially online, is a very valuable skill to have in terms of communication to co-worker, higher ups, and just in general. Joining the conversation, I believe, is harder to do in real life. There’s always that pit in my stomach when I want to add my two cents to the discussion and sometimes I chicken out and don’t join the discussion because I'm afraid of rejection or complete judgment. Online, however, I believe it is easer to join the conversation. Because if you join in on a discussion online then if you do get rejected or judges you can just go to a different site and just leave the discussion. I think sharpening my talent of being able to join conversations online will help me join conversations face to face because I will be more comfortable with critical feedback and feel safer knowing that if I can have the courage to say this online then I can certainly have the courage to say it in real life. 

Better Failures and Winnie the Pooh Bear

Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try Again. Fail again. Fail better.

Samuel Beckett

 This quote is more than a quote to me. It’s a lifestyle. When I was younger I would always compare my self worth to the trial accomplishes of others. If I were in a higher math then that person I would figure my self better and smarter than that person. If I were in a lower math than that person I would think myself stupid and unimportant. It wasn’t until I heard this quote that I realized I can’t judge people on what the do or do not succeed at because its not fair to them. I wouldn’t want to be judged at failing at something because I tried and I failed better the second time.

“One of the advantages of being disorganized is that one is always having surprising discoveries.”

A.A. Milne, Winnie the Pooh

 I sometimes say this to my mom when she wants me to clean my room or when she gets really mad because my rooms an absolute pigsty I just kind of turn it into a philisoohical disscusion; Mommy my room reperesent life, no matter how extensively a person organizes and plans, nothing ever goes to plan and you have to roll with the punches.