Essays

I'm using my blog to study. Usually, I don't study with a computer at all, but this is an exception: I need to improve my writing, and as quickly as possible.

My writing is too murky. My meanings are ambiguous, my thesis is indistinguishable from the rest of my introduction, and my points are obscured by my language. I need to develop the habit of writing in a direct style, rather than enjoying myself and writing flowery prose. I need my writing to be more coherent and easily understood. The SAT reader who grades my essay will only have about three minutes to read my piece; I can't afford to be vague and have them wondering what on earth I'm talking about! My writing must be direct, lucid, straightforward, and hopefully interesting, and it must also demonstrate a competent understanding of sentence structure, spelling, and vocabulary.

My question to you is thus: how does the above paragraph conform to those qualities I just listed?

Random moment

This morning, Zita came wandering up to Rebecca with a very forlorn expression. Beck, being the nice sister that she is, picked her up and asked, "what's the matter?"

Zita gave Beck a sad puppy-dog look, then told her, "I'm so hungry... I want an appetizer!"

Beck, doing her best to hide a grin, asked, "Do you even know what an appetizer is?"

Zita's response: "Uh-huh. See?!" Zita took off running for the kitchen, opened the refridgerator door, and pointed out what she wanted. "Appetizer!"

Beck: "Zita, that's apple cider."

Splashdown!

Okay, no 'splashing'. BUT--

WE OFFICIALLY HAVE THE LATIN MASS!

We had the first Mass yesterday evening, and the next one is in a week. After that, it'll be once a month, on the first Sunday of the month. Once we have enough people that they think can support a priest, we'll get our own apostolate up here, and our own church. Hoorah!

Quote

One of my many favorite quotes... I'm curious to see if anyone knows it.

"Put on the armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. For we are not contending against flesh and blood, but against the Powers, against the Principalities, against the world rulers of this present darkness, against the spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places."

No googling that quote! - I want to see if you know it offhand.

Sickling

I.

Am..

Sick...

So, I'm camped out on the living room floor, refusing to get up or move any more than I have to - and I'm DEFINITELY not going to eat anything for the next few days. I don't even feel like typing. Talk to y'all later.

Success!

All right, I know this is minor, trivial, and in all other ways ridiculous, but...


I UNDERSTAND SINE, COSINE, AND TANGENT!!!

*dances* Hahahahaha I finally understand it! It's so simple that I can't believe it took me this long to figure it out... I don't know if I was making it too complicated in my head or what, but now that I get it it seems absurdly easy! Tangent is opposite over adjacent.... hehehehe WHOO!

Writing

I just started working on a lipogram for the fun of it (for those who aren't vocabulary nerds, a lipogram is a piece of writing without the use of a certain letter of the alphabet. Most lipograms don't use the letter E). So, I'm working on a whole short story with not one single E in it. Call me crazy, but it's fun. Half of the time, my first draft sentences are kinky and unreadable, but now that I've been working on it for three days I'm starting to get the hang of it.

The difficult thing: Can you imagine a fantasy story without Es?! That nixes at least half of your setting nouns! Forest, tree, palace, house, hovel, cottage, throne, castle, turret, tower, desert, vale, valley, dale, dell, dance, stone, tunnel, cave, hole.....

Not to mention that there's no "the" allowed.