Reflection
The items that I chose to put on my blog were My Day of Surfing and my Nature Essay. The reason I chose to put these two items is because I felt that they were my best two items of work. I also liked them the best as just a reader not an author. In my day of surfing I had to make a few changes. Some of the changes that I decided to make were to change a few of the words around to make it make more sense. I had to go back and add my brushstrokes and I had a problem with comma errors. In my Nature Essay I had to go back and add some more specific examples, which I did not do a good job of in the first place. Also I had to describe some other stuff like the trails in my story. Someone that has helped a lot is Luke. He has taught be to become a better writer. Even though it may not be apparent yet, I feel his advice will help me in the long run in my stories. He has helped a lot. Hank has also helped, he has just shown me some little tidbits on my writing make it make more sense. This will also take some time to sink in and help my writing in the long run.
Tuesday, October 30, 2007
Friday, October 12, 2007
my day of surfing
My Day of Surfing
By: David Alexander Watson
As soon as I step out of the hotel room I get a strong whiff of the saltwater air. I step onto the beach with my friends surfboard under my arm. I feel the sand under my feet and the breeze in my face. My friend walks up behind me and pats me on the shoulder asking me if I am ready. I am not sure to tell you the truth. Then he goes off to talk about something with his family and I wonder if they are laughing at me. The waves around me crashing reminding me of what I am about to do. I try not to look over to the rocks but, I can not help my self from catching my eyes taking a peep over at them. I get up the nerves and start out into the water to try to get up.
I am sitting on the surfboard waiting for the perfect wave, I hear an airplane go by overhead and it distracted my for a second but I regained my focus. My friend is yelling and telling me I can do it. The taste of saltwater already in my mouth from previous wipe outs. I see the wave, I am getting that nervous feeling again as the wave approaches. I turn towards the beach. I prepare to get up on the board, I begin to paddle. All of a sudden the wave is upon me and I get up on the board, but i fall straight off and I begin to paddle out back again to go try again. I try again but the same thing happens. This time i get awfully close to the rocks because of the current so I get out of the water and walk up the beach to get away from them. Especially since I can not really steer the board yet.
When I get back out there I have a feeling that this time might be the time. I see a wave coming towards me but it is not the one, so i let it past. Then the perfect wave came, I could feel it. When it got close enough to me I began to paddle. As soon as I am up, I am down. When I fall down I fall awkwardly on my knee, it hurts badly. As soon as I caught my breath I get up and go try again.
By: David Alexander Watson
As soon as I step out of the hotel room I get a strong whiff of the saltwater air. I step onto the beach with my friends surfboard under my arm. I feel the sand under my feet and the breeze in my face. My friend walks up behind me and pats me on the shoulder asking me if I am ready. I am not sure to tell you the truth. Then he goes off to talk about something with his family and I wonder if they are laughing at me. The waves around me crashing reminding me of what I am about to do. I try not to look over to the rocks but, I can not help my self from catching my eyes taking a peep over at them. I get up the nerves and start out into the water to try to get up.
I am sitting on the surfboard waiting for the perfect wave, I hear an airplane go by overhead and it distracted my for a second but I regained my focus. My friend is yelling and telling me I can do it. The taste of saltwater already in my mouth from previous wipe outs. I see the wave, I am getting that nervous feeling again as the wave approaches. I turn towards the beach. I prepare to get up on the board, I begin to paddle. All of a sudden the wave is upon me and I get up on the board, but i fall straight off and I begin to paddle out back again to go try again. I try again but the same thing happens. This time i get awfully close to the rocks because of the current so I get out of the water and walk up the beach to get away from them. Especially since I can not really steer the board yet.
When I get back out there I have a feeling that this time might be the time. I see a wave coming towards me but it is not the one, so i let it past. Then the perfect wave came, I could feel it. When it got close enough to me I began to paddle. As soon as I am up, I am down. When I fall down I fall awkwardly on my knee, it hurts badly. As soon as I caught my breath I get up and go try again.
Nature Essay
Nature Essay
Nature, is suppose to be something that is offset from civilization. In Anderson, South Carolina nature might be a little different then it is around the world or just around South Carolina. We think that you can go out into the woods in your backyard and go through a trail that has clearly been stepped on before a numerous amount of times. In are "Nature Walk" it was not such the case. We were constantly reminded of being surrounded by civilization with the sound of cars whizzing by, the oddly large amount of beer cans for us to be on school campus, and of course the ropes course who stole every-one's attention. In everyone I am including myself of course. So we, the modern man, need to take a look at some of the writings of some of the great writers of the past. Below I take a look at a couple of great quotes of Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau.
Transcendentalists were very big on going out into nature and being alone away from everything else. That was what our experience was supposed to be but it wasn't exactly that. This is apparent from the reason listed from above. Ralph Waldo Emerson once said "To go into solitude, a man needs to retire as much from his chamber as from society. I am not solitary while I read and write, though nobody is with me. But if a man would be alone, let him look at the stars. The rays that that come from those heavenly worlds, will separate between him and vulgar things." To me that means that to experience the world's true beauty you must get away from things that were not originally here and get out into nothing but the beauty of nature, so that way you can truly see what the world is like. If you just go out into your backyard you are just going to see all the crap that has been put there by the arrogant people before you.
Another great Transcendentalist writer was Henry David Thoreau. One thing that he says that i find interesting is "Some of my pleasantest hours were during the long rainstorms in the spring or fall, which confined me to the house for the afternoon as well as the afternoon as well as the forenoon, soothed by their ceaseless roar and pelting; when an early twilight ushered in a long evening in which many thoughts had time to take root and unfold themselves." From this I get that another one of the Earth's natural beauties is during a period of time that some people absolutely hate, in that being rainstorms or thunderstorms. Think about that you have these great amounts of energy flashing through the sky, creating wonderful different colors throughout the sky.
So even though it is not very likely that many people are going to change the way they act by reading those two quotes, i feel as if that it might help some people out with the way they think about nature. Hopefully it will also affect the way they go out and when in nature how they treat it. The reason I hope this is because at one time the entire earth was just nature and if you look at it now there is not that many places around the world that are just nature.
Nature, is suppose to be something that is offset from civilization. In Anderson, South Carolina nature might be a little different then it is around the world or just around South Carolina. We think that you can go out into the woods in your backyard and go through a trail that has clearly been stepped on before a numerous amount of times. In are "Nature Walk" it was not such the case. We were constantly reminded of being surrounded by civilization with the sound of cars whizzing by, the oddly large amount of beer cans for us to be on school campus, and of course the ropes course who stole every-one's attention. In everyone I am including myself of course. So we, the modern man, need to take a look at some of the writings of some of the great writers of the past. Below I take a look at a couple of great quotes of Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau.
Transcendentalists were very big on going out into nature and being alone away from everything else. That was what our experience was supposed to be but it wasn't exactly that. This is apparent from the reason listed from above. Ralph Waldo Emerson once said "To go into solitude, a man needs to retire as much from his chamber as from society. I am not solitary while I read and write, though nobody is with me. But if a man would be alone, let him look at the stars. The rays that that come from those heavenly worlds, will separate between him and vulgar things." To me that means that to experience the world's true beauty you must get away from things that were not originally here and get out into nothing but the beauty of nature, so that way you can truly see what the world is like. If you just go out into your backyard you are just going to see all the crap that has been put there by the arrogant people before you.
Another great Transcendentalist writer was Henry David Thoreau. One thing that he says that i find interesting is "Some of my pleasantest hours were during the long rainstorms in the spring or fall, which confined me to the house for the afternoon as well as the afternoon as well as the forenoon, soothed by their ceaseless roar and pelting; when an early twilight ushered in a long evening in which many thoughts had time to take root and unfold themselves." From this I get that another one of the Earth's natural beauties is during a period of time that some people absolutely hate, in that being rainstorms or thunderstorms. Think about that you have these great amounts of energy flashing through the sky, creating wonderful different colors throughout the sky.
So even though it is not very likely that many people are going to change the way they act by reading those two quotes, i feel as if that it might help some people out with the way they think about nature. Hopefully it will also affect the way they go out and when in nature how they treat it. The reason I hope this is because at one time the entire earth was just nature and if you look at it now there is not that many places around the world that are just nature.
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