Tuesday, June 8, 2010

Tuesday, May 25, 2010

Peer editing

I edited Jon Iverson's and Nate Kline's stories.

Monday, May 24, 2010

Song lyric story

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=atBg9zLI2bA



Jaron grew up in a little town in Iowa. He lived on a farm and played football for his high school every fall. He was one of the better tight ends in the state but he would never tell anyone this. He just worked hard all of the time to constantly get better. During one game he noticed one of the cheerleaders watching him a lot during a Friday night game. He had no idea who she was and none of his friends had ever seen her before. When he went back to school on Monday he was looking for the girl all day but he was unsuccessful. He went to practice that evening wondering if the girl even existed. He was a little sad but he put all of his emotions out of his head for most of the practice. However about an hour into practice the cheerleaders came outside for their practice. Jaron was watching them looking for the girl he saw last Friday night. He saw her and noticed that again she was looking at him. They made eye contact but she got nervous and looked away. Jaron was distracted by the girl all of practice.

After practice he went over to her and started to talk to her. He learned that her name was Jamie and that she had just moved from St. Paul Minnesota. She was adopted however she did not like life in the big city so when she turned 18, a few weeks ago, she moved in with her uncle. Jaron asked her if she wanted him to show her the town. She agreed and they took off in his pickup. There was not much to see in the little town and both of them wish there was more to see so they could spend more time with each other. After they went around the town twice Jaron dropped Jamie off at her house. She said she would like to do something with him again sometime so they made plans to go to dinner after the game on Friday night. They ended up going to dinner and Jaron asked her out at the dinner. She happily said yes. They were together for the rest of their junior year and that summer. During their senior year they were still together and began to get very serious.

They decided to not go to college but instead get married. They were married for three years when they started to talk about having a kid. However before they even started trying to have a child she went out with her friends on a Saturday night. She had done this many times so Jaron was not really concerned. However when it was three in the morning and Jamie was still not home Jaron got concerned. He called her but she did not answer. This made him even more concerned so he decided to call one of her friends. Her friend was obviously intoxicated when she answered. Jaron asked her where Jamie was and what she was doing. Her friend told him that she left around one with some guy. He asked who it was but she started to ask how his child was. Jaron decided getting anything more from her was not going to happen so he hung up and tried to call Jamie again. She did not answer so he decided to go to the bar that she was at before to see if the bartender knew anything more. When he got there the bar was already closed. He decided to go home and try to get some sleep so he could figure out things in the morning.

Jaron did not sleep at all that night so around six he made some coffee and started to read the paper. When Jamie walked through the door later that morning she was met with Jaron’s unhappy glare. He asked her who she left the bar with last night and where they went and what they did before she even could close the door. She said that it was an old friend from Minnesota who was coming back from dropping off his kid at college. She said that she made a mistake but was drunk and it would never happen again and that she was really sorry. Jaron was so angry he left through the back door and went around the house to his truck. He went for a drive just to calm himself down a little bit. Once he could think clearly again he realized he was a few hours from home in the middle of nowhere and his truck was almost out of gas. He decided to turn around and see if he could make it to a gas station before his tank was empty.

Unfortunately he did not so he then had to for a walk to get gas. When he got to the town he reached a church before the gas station. He was exhausted and planned on just stopping and asking for some water or food. When he walked in the people were welcoming and gave him some food and water. The preacher even offered to give him a ride to the gas station and back to his car after the service. Jaron accepted the preachers offer and stayed for the service. The preacher talked about how you cannot hate others even if they have done wrong to you. After the service the preacher drove Jaron to the gas station and then back to his truck. When the preacher was about to leave he asked Jaron if he needed anything else. Jaron asked if he had time to talk. The preacher did so they sat down on the side of the road and Jaron told the preacher what Jamie had done the night before. The preacher thought for awhile and told him that you need to be the one to make the decision. But he told Jaron that his wife did a similar thing and that he stayed with her trying to make it work for a few years but they never could. They later got divorced and that he felt it helped him get on with his life.

Jaron thanked the man for his help and went back home where Jamie was waiting for him. Jaron was still angry with her so he refused much conversation and told her that he wanted to get divorced. She began to cry and Jaron told her that she made him feel the same was when she made her decision. She left the house and spent the night at one of her friend’s houses. The next morning Jamie came to get all of her stuff. Jaron had not so neatly put her stuff in boxes which he left on the doorstep. They got divorced but Jaron still hated her. However he remembered what the preacher had told him and decided to follow his advice for the most part. He prayed that many unfortunate things happen to her. A few years later he remarried. One Saturday morning he was eating breakfast with his new wife. He opened the paper to see that his prayer had really worked.

Tuesday, May 18, 2010

Narrative from Lyrics

Haven’t been in church since
I don’t remember when
Things were going great
Til they fell apart again
So I listened to the preacher
As he told me what to do
Said you can’t go hating others
who done wrong to you
Sometimes we get angry
But we must not condemn
Let the good Lord do his job
And you just pray for them

I pray your brakes go out
Running down a hill
I pray and flower pot falls
From a window sill
And knocks you in the head like I’d like to
I pray your birthday comes and nobody calls
I pray your flying high when your engine stalls
I pray all your dreams never come true
Just know wherever you are
Honey, I pray for you

Really glad I found my way to church
Cause I’m already feeling better and I thank God for the words
So I’m gonna take the high road
And do what the preacher told me to do
You keep messing up
And I’ll keep praying for you

I pray your tire blows out at 110
I pray you pass out with your best friend
And wake up with his and her tattoos

Wherever you are, near or far, in your house or in your car

Wherever you are honey, I pray for you


Characters:
A man who does not like his girlfriend or wife (protagonist)
Wife or girlfriend (antagonist)

Setting:
The story is taking place everywhere in the mans life. It could be taking place at any time. The mood created is depressing and spiteful.

Possible Conflict:
It is an external man vs. man but it is also a little bit like man vs. circumstances. The man probably got cheated on to make him so angry.

Possible Resolution:
A few possible resolutions are the womans brakes could go out when she was driving down a hill, a flower pot could fall from a window sill and hit her in the head, or other unfortunate events. Another resolution could be him actually getting over her and the situation and forgetting about her.

Monday, May 10, 2010

May project

I am going to do a go animate project. I will hopefully be able to make a story about a kid who plays lacrosse. however i would not be surprised if there are no animations for lacrosse. do not really know where i will go from there since i have no idea what i will be able to do on go animate. however i will probably make it a fairly realistic story unless there are cool nonrealistic things that i feel i would need to add. It will probably involve a conflict to make it somewhat interesting. it will either be a huge problem/conflict of it will be realitivlty small. it will take place in minnesota since i know enough about it to have a good setting. I will probably not have much of an idea about how my story will start however once i start will focus in and start writing about it. i feel that two minutes is not very long however i could see that taking a very long time to do. i really want to just mess around on the site for awhile then figure out more about the story.

Friday, May 7, 2010

collaborative writing

I thought that this was a good assignment. It taught me how to use google docs. which I feel is a very useful tool when doing group projects outside of school. The fact that you can also make comments or chat is also very useful so that way you can see what is going to be edited or what should be edited. My group did not really use google docs but i still feel that just learning a little about it and using it to some extent was a big help. I liked the fact that we got to choose what topic we wanted to write about instead of all of us getting assigned groups and writing about a certain thing in a certain way. I feel our book looked a lot better on the publishing web site and seeing it on google docs with no pictures is kind of a let down. however i do like the fact that everyone in the class can look at it and edit it. I feel like google docs will get more features and become the same as microsoft word but it will allow for more collaberation which will make it even better.