New to Me

Firstly, lets just say that my vocabulary is lacking at times. I'm not good at remembering names so why would I be any better at memorizing new words and their definitions?


Hoops is where I come across many new words that I haven't seen nor heard before. I like and dislike that about the poems. Its interesting hearing the words, but a pain in the butt to have to look them all up! Here are some of the words that I recently have discovered from Hoops:

• memento mori (59)- This is a Latin phrase that can be translated to "remember your mortality". This phrase is definitely one that will make you think about your own life. It makes me want to think about my place in this world. This is the title of a movie made in 1999. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0266075/

• afronaut (30) - It was hard for me to find a legit definition, but from what I found this is an african person that has been in space. I thought that it had to do with being an astronaut, but the spelling of it caught my eye and so I thought that was interesting. Urban Dictionary defines this word. http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=afronaut

• panopticon (22) - As Mr. Warnock said, this is a building used in prisons to insure round-the-clock surveillance. We talked about it in class and I just instantly became interested in it because I had never heard of such a thing, nor would I have ever thought of something that clever! There is a Wikipedia page dedicated to this. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panopticon

• festoon (25) - This means to hang with chains and flowers. I just absolutely adore the way this word sounds so I had to choose it! There is a salon in California with this name. http://festoonsalon.com/

In the MG, new words are thrown at me all the time. New ways to help me become a better reader and writer are always talked about in this book. Here is a word that caught my eye:

• synthesis (559) - The way by which someone creates their own points from the research of others. I have not heard this word used in this way before so I thought I would share this one. Here is an article on synthesis writing. http://users.drew.edu/~sjamieso/Synthesis.htm

These are a few of my favorite... words!

Just to start off, most of these words are some of my favorite because they simply sound amazing! They roll off the tongue so well!
Sassafras: This is a code word that my friends would use if there was something in my teeth. I am a very random person and it was the first word that popped in my head when we tried deciding what the word should be.
Pensacola: This is a city in Florida that I have never been to, but I like the way I say it when I talk.
Cute: I use this word all the time, and my best friend absolutely hates it. I guess it can be considered one of my favorite words because I use it all the time.
Homely: I use this word a lot too. I mainly use it instead of saying ugly.
Low-key: We say this a lot in California. I don't know why I like this exactly, but it reminds me of a lot of my friends.
Legit: In stead of saying legitimate, I will always say, "that's pretty legit!" I use it to mean awesome and fun.
Gnarly: I do not say this very often, but it definitely reminds me of California and my really close friend, Hannah, who is one of the funniest people I know.
Mall: I love this word because malls are some of my favorite places to be. When I hear this word, I immediately perk up.
Leon: I do not know if I can include names in this list, but I am going to take the chance. Leon is my absolute favorite name for a boy. My first son will be named Leon, whether my parents like it or not (they hate the name)!
hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia: This became one of my favorite words the second I figured out how to say it! This is the fear of long words.
I really enjoyed writing this list; however, it was very difficult trying to figure out the reasons why I like these words so much. I wanted to simply write for all of them that I love these words simply because I just do.

Confusing Words

I ALWAYS get complement and compliment mixed up with their proper usage. I remember talking about a complement that I received for part of my college essay. I asked my teacher to read over it and help me with my essay and he noticed that I used the spelling "compliment" instead of "complement". He just laughed and told me the difference of both.

Another word that almost my whole senior year english class and I mess up on is "separate". We all would spell it as "seperate" in stead of "separate". It was actually funny because every so often we would have verbal quizzes in class and my teacher would have us spell out the word as one of the questions. You would be surprised at the number of people that would spell it wrong even towards the end of the year!

Before reading MG Handbook, I did not know that there is a difference between "everyone" and "every one". Looking over what is said about the two in the book, I now understand completely that there is a difference.

(I also noticed that Professor Warnock used "cite" properly and it made me chuckle a little because that word was in the MG Handbook and after seeing it in the weblog assignment I looked it up just to make sure he wasn't trying to trick us).

Commas are the Death of Me

One main problem that I encountered while writing my rough draft for Project 1, and now final draft, is comma placement. This problem happens every single time I write a paper a ndI am still in the process of writing a grammatically correct paper. Since I was just writing my rough draft I decided that grammar was not the most important part to worry about at the time. Thankfully, I have my roommate who is AMAZING with grammar and she said she would help me out. I love her! Also, the McGraw-Hill handbook will come in handy a lot because I saw that there are sections on the proper usage of commas. As you might have already noticed with this blog entry, I probably made mistakes with comma placement (fingers crossed that I didn't). Funny thing, I recently talked to my junior high english teacher about school and one of the first things she said to me was, "so you still having trouble with commas?"

Blog Entry #1

The first of my blog entries; lets make this exciting!

The essay The Dancer in Me was very interesting to read all together. The part that really struck me though is when Divya said that her instructor, Ramaa Aunty, was intimidating: "I was nervous my first day because she was very intimidating." I immediately thought of my ninth grade english teacher who was very intimidating to talk to at first. I felt exactly the same as she my first day of classes. This quote, reminding me of my teacher, got me into thinking about how I wanted to write about the way he helped me grow as a writer and thinker.

In the McGraw-Hill Guide about Reading actively, the questions that the book said we should be asking while reading are really good for anyone to use. The question that I always think about is, "What is the writer's thesis or main point?" This question is helpful for everything that we read, whether it's a newspaper article, a novel, a play, or a biography, the author always has a some kind of message they want to get across. With my upcoming project I hope to be able to convey the right emotions and messages across to you as a reader.

Clare Cutuli