bakerboi247

First off… i have spent the last 6 months studying the ACT. then i get an email saying Episcopal has signed you up to take the SAT… this was 5 days ago. the test as Saturday. so i go to baton rouge high to take the SAT not prepared at all. i was ready to shoot someone. the test is 5 hours long and was so different from what i had been studying. 

anyway… my issues with these tests are the time limits. Who the heck decides that a 40 question section should take 25 min??? so we had 7 sections that were 25 min long, 2 sections that were 20 min long and one that was 10 min long… what the heck… i was racing through the test hoping i could finish in time. there was not even close to enough time for me to check my work. i felt like it was a race not a test. arent they supposed to test your knowledge… not how fast you can read and answer. this just made me mad. i understand in life people have time limits but 10 min.. come on!!! and the essay section, thats a joke… the topics they pick… ohh my goodness!

A Heroic Journey… and yes i am using my all time movie Bringin Down the House staring Queen Latifa (Charlene) and Steve Martin (Peter Sanderson) 

Ordinary World: The movie starts out with Peter and Charlene sending instant messages to one another. Charlene comes off as a well educated class women. She leads him on so she can get Peters legal help. Peter finally decides to meet her at his house for a casual date. He is not so pleasantly surprised. 

Call to Adventure: Charlene arrives at Peters house. Peter opens the door and there stands a voluptuous black women. she was bigger than her was. Peter is outraged and confused. she tells him that she was set up by her ex boyfriend and needs help to get her case expunged.

Refusal of Call: Peter refuses to help her and shows her to the door. She then begins to should outside saying that Peter was her babies daddy. Causes neighbors to come outside. Peter quickly tells her to come inside. 

Meeting with the mentor: The next day Peter meets with his right hand man that the Country Club to get some advice as to what to do with this “issue”. And there Charlene walks in. She was very smart in the way she tricked him into helping her out. However, Peter still thinks she wasnt innocent. 

Crossing the first Threshold: Charlene is now introduced to life behind closed gates (we are talking about the gates of a fancy neighborhood) 

Challenges and Temptation: Peter and Charlene start to get to know one another over the next few days and he gets bored and takes her out to dinner. he has one too many drinks and then starts to “get it on” with charlene right as his son and bosses sister walk into the living room (his son was playing cards with his bosses sister next door and she was bringing him home)

Approach:  Charlenes cover is blown and he is forced to make her leave his home, since she is now on the most wanted in Los Angeles. 

Ordeal:  Charlene’s Ex gets into Peters car and holds him at gunpoint saying that he needs to stay out of Charlenes life and case. This proves to him that he is the one who set Charlene up. He then confronts him and this is where the shooting starts. they are in a night club as this is happening. 

Reward: right as the man takes out his gun to shoot Peter in comes Charlene. she jumps in front of peter and takes the bullet. she however did not die. She took peters titanium cell phone and had it in her bra. this stopped the bullet and they were all ok. FBI arrested the man and all was well. 

Road Back: Peter quits his job at his fancy law firm and starts his own firm. 

Return: He steps into his office the first day they open and there Charlene is.. sitting in his desk waiting to thank him….

As you already know, history is all around us. Our country is built around history and change. Beowulf is has been passed down over many years orally. It is a very very very old story. We are not sure exactly when it first came about because it was not written for many years. It also might have changed over the years because people tend to change things as they tell stories. It was the first of its kind. Many writers today use some of the ideas and styles today (an example would be fire breathing dragons). History sets the scene for the epic. It gives you a feeling of being in that time period and sets the mood. Also, there are different “norms” of each time period. Different cultures and traditions. It also teaches readers about that time period and gives us something we can visualize and relate to. Without history a novel would be the same as many others. History is knowledge…

Ok so when duke duke said we were reading this text i almost cried. i had heard from other classes that have already read it that it was so bad. and like duke said, dont listen to the other classes! it isnt as bad as i thought it would be. yes it is a bit slow, but quite juicy! i get into it as i read. however it makes me so nervous when duke calls on people to tell the story in class. i feel like i am going to just forget everything and not know what to say. then the whole class with think i am stupid. there is so much in this short text that i am afraid i am going to miss something then the rest of the book with be off for me. so i am trying to stay focused and on topic… the end is near!!!

There is nothing that scares me more than to think in a year and a half i will be in college and living on my own. 

At the moment i am looking at about 14 different school that fit my needs. I think i want to go into some sort of international business (and maybe branch of into a little PR work). I deal great with people and am very well traveled. I am cultured and love being in new places. I am the kind of person that can be in Paris one week then New York the next. We are a rare breed and i think that will help me in the long run. Right now i have my heard set on The American University of Paris. they have such a great business school. What they do there is your freshman year you live with a host family. so you can learn the town and get settled in. If i were to go there i would be living out a dream. I feel that when i go to apply at a places that are looking for well rounded kids to hire i would be the ideal pick. not many people can say that at the age of 18 decided to move to Paris on their own for their education. that shows that i am mature and take things seriously. the school is taught in English and is about 43% American. we are required to take 4 years of french and pass the French exam. however loving in Paris, i should speak french in no time. Many royals have graduated from AUP, including the prince of Monaco (graduated last year) and Tom Ford also graduated from AUP. Many amazing companies recruit from AUP. LVMH is one of them. i would love to become LVMH’s creative director!!! that would be a dream come true….

So right now i am working on my ACT scores and making sure i am being as diverse as i can. 

High school is coming to an end, however it is the end of the beginning!!!! 

In the 17th century, writing focused on analyzing. they focused on life and tradition. they often wrote about religion and daily life. Change was taking place around the time of the English Civil War. However the real change took place in 18th century writing. they wrote about new topics and in new styles. they liked to write comedies and about death. they loved writing about the forbidden and stuff that was in some cases looked down upon by society. like all of our movements it is about a change. out with the old and in with the new. 

As you already know i love to travel! it doesnt matter where i go as long if it is out of town i love it!

I went on a trip with my dad a few years back to Europe. We went all over England (but mostly stayed in London) and then to Denmark. I love big cities so you can guess i had a blast in London. We spent almost 2 weeks in England then flew to Denmark. We flew Ryan Air which was a really cool airline. it is like Southwest in the US but so cheap. our tickets from London to Denmark were $0.01!!!! however they tax you as if it were a very expensive flight. so it cost about $120 a piece. anyway… Denmark was very odd. i liked it but everyone there was the same. no one had a lot of money or really nice houses. they were all equal. at the age of 14 you leave school and go to specialty school for the job you pretty much have been chosen to do. it also isnt odd for a boy to move in with his girlfriend and her family at the age of 16. We went grocery shopping once and outside of the store there were like 40 babies in their strollers napping while their moms were shopping. i guess that means there is not a lot of crime…

well the last day of our trip we were sitting in the airport in Copenhagen and we see that our flight was delayed.. they didnt say how long. we then look up at the news and it was the day the liquid bomb threat was foiled. they said the targeted flights were continental from Gatwick to Houston and AA Gatwick to NY. I was on the Gatwick to Houston later that day!!!!!!! that was my flight… my heart dropped! a few minuites later i got a call from my mom who was in the bahamas. she was scared to death and wanted to charter a plane to come and meet me. i told her not to saying we will be fine. however i was buggin! my god mother holds a very high position at American Airlines and she called me to tell me i would be safe and not to worry but i was! all the flights were canceled that day and we were put on the 9am flight the next morning. So we get to the airport and check-in was a nightmare. the security check points were crazy! they basically took me in a room and took my clothes off! we were elite access so we got to skip a lot of the line and it still took us 5 hours to get through check-in and security. we were not allowed to take anything with us, no phones, no ipods, not even a book. all we were allowed was a passport and $50 cash. So finally we get on the plane and i could think of is…. is some terrorist going to bomb this plane. we sit down and i see police get onto the plane. there was a muslim man in the back of the plane and the passengers said we are not allowing him to be on this flight… people were yelling etc.. so he was escorted off… it felt like the flight took 23 hours! i was sweating the whole time! when we got to Houston they then took us off the plane in groups of 5. they again searched us and went through everything in every suitcase. it was crazy but that goodness everything was ok!!! i tend to have had luck with flights so this just adds to the list of very odd and very long flights… i just dont know why there are so many bad people in this world….

Overall fist semester was great! I think i understand the way Duke thinks so that deff helps! However there are a few things i am going to do differently this time around.

I need to stay on topic when writing. I tend to go off in random tangents that are relevant but not necessary for my paper. i need to pay attention to the small things and better prepare for papers before i start writing. Tense is also a major issue i have. i sometimes change tenses in papers. i need to review what i have written more than once and look for these types of errors.

When it comes to reading novels i need to do them on time! not the night before!!!! i tend to read the book and forget about doing all of those help sheets the Duke makes us fill out. those things help me so much when it comes time to study! i just need to spend more time on the content and not so much the size. just like with my blogs.

i intend to be prepared this quarter for anything the Dukester throws at me! so watch out world… A Bay Bay is on his way!!! (wow that was corny!)

also with blogs, yea i am no longer going to be doing them sunday when i am in bed ready to go to sleep… too much stress!