Writing To Me [[ 2 ]]

1. At the beginning of the year, I knew that my grammar, introductions, and conclusions needed a lot of help. My grammar has improved, and once it was pointed out to me, I noticed that I use a whole lot of "to be" verbs. Once I tried changing some of these within my writing, the grammar seemed to fall into place more, and I liked my style. My introductions have improved more than my conclusions, but both have made a significant difference. Overall I would say I was pretty successful.

2. My strength as a writer is mostly my transitions. I used them all the time, and I think that this helps my writing flow, and sound much more advanced. It is hard for me to edit many aspects of essays, but transitioning and keeping the essay flowing is definitely my forte.

3. I still use way too many "to be" verbs in my writing. Even when I try to focus on it, the way I typically structure my sentences always seems to include them. I would like to still work on my sentence structuring ability so I could cut down on the number of "to be" verbs in my writing.

I love the idea of a tandem class. Being able to connect a writing class to an art class was really interesting. I love art, so using ideas from Humanistic Studies within an Art class (and vis versa) was my favorite part. I plan to major in Business Marketing, and I want to minor in Art, Advertising, and Psychology. I think this class relates to this combination and helped me realize this is what I want to do. If I had the chance to go back to the beginning of the semester, I would have definitely still registered for this class again.

Lost in Translation

I have previously blogged about names and their significance, but the play "Translations" only feeds into this topic even more!

Ireland has its own personal identity, which is based on history, background, heritage, culture, and many other affiliations such as these. A name also insinuates these same aspects of a history.

The British came in and tried to overtake every part of Ireland. They changed their education to English and changed Irish names of places to ones of English meaning.

Through translation, meanings are lost and some words must be altered. This book shows how sentences are not always translated word for word, and a lot of meaning is lost.

This got me thinking...relating back to the significance of names, what if somebody tried to translate your name and completely change the meaning and the history? Relating to Power, the question was posed about the significance of a name and if that has a direct reference to one's personality. If everything--names, streets, objects, etc.--was changed to a different language, would we completely lose all of the history and significance behind everything we know? Is a language that powerful or does this play just make it too big of a deal?