Assignement #7-Author's Note

My dad came walking into my apartment hardly able to stand, his friend holding his one arm to balance him. They walked like that until he got to the couch to sit down. I was in my room, I stuck my head out and I saw him. Again, I was hiding from the worry that surrounded me. I couldn’t even bring myself to go out there. I saw him hardly walking, saw him unable to answer my mother who was speaking to him. He tried to talk but nothing would come out. He just looked down at his blue jeans and shook his head. “That’s it! I told you to get in that ambulance! I’m calling another one and you’re going to the hospital!”, my mother said. I turned around sat on my bed with my head in my hands and I cried. I was only 14, why was this happening to my dad?


The things that inspired me to write this memoir is that I've had this story built up in side for a while and I felt like I needed to talk about it. Just by writing this I felt better about everything that had happened. There is nothing you need to know about this piece it is pretty much self explanitory.  I didn't have anyone elses writing in mind when I wrote this I just felt that I wanted to write about this tramatic event in my life and this could be an excuse to do so. There are a few things that I have to do in revising this piece. Professor said that some physical details are missing so I will be trying to make it more in depth and descriptive. 

Blog Assignment #6-Midtern Reflection

I think I have come pretty far in this class. When I first joined I knew nothing about being creative nevermind getting creative thoughts down on paper. I can admit that I was confused when I first started writing my papers. I was being very plain and simple not going deeper in thinking about details. I still haven't perfected my writing but I think I've come along way. I now can be more creative in my writing, and I know how to set a tone or place for the reader to get an understanding  of what i'm trying to convey.
Most people were probably shy in the beggining, not wanting to share certain things with the class but that always came naturally to me. In all my peices that I've written they have been about very personal experiences. So thankfully that has never been a problem for me.
One last thing that I've realized from taking this class is that I repeat alot. When im writing I will say words over and over againw ithout realizing it. Words such as "Nicole and I" or "Marc's apartment", but now I know that once you say a persons name you can then call them "they" or "us".

Blog Assignment #4 – Writing on a Photo

I am looking at a photo from the 1940's of a family by the water near Astoria Park. They are sitting on the rocks and playing in the water right under the bridge. The sun shining, a father with his four sons. The mother of the boys is probably the photographer. Two of the young boys seem to be between the ages of 7 to 10. They have white shirts on with three buttons comming down from the collar. Their pants are rolled up and they're in the water knee deep. They have a sort of melancoly look on their face, just standing staring at the camera like a sort of zombie. At a time where you would expect children to be happy, a day by the water with their family, they don't seem to be. One of the other boys, which seems to be the youngest, is standing on a rock with a long stick in his hands. He is pointing at something in the water and isn't looking at the camera. He looks very happy like he doesn't have a care in the world, like we all felt when we were his age. Closest to the camera is the oldest of the boys. He looks like he might not want to be there, that this day was mostly for his younger brothers. He's sitting off to the side on a rock. His father a few rocks away smiling, a forced smile, looking at the camera but watching over his sons. Back in the 1940's there wasn't much to entertain a family so most of peoples time were spent outdoors. They don't seem genuinely happy, only the littlest boy. By the shoes they're wearing you would guess that they don't come from money. It is probably a weekend outing with the whole family.

Blog Assignment #3 - "Authors Note"

As soon as we looked to our right there it was in plain sight, a guy about 25 feet away with a gun pointed at us. We just froze for a moment. I screamed, “Oh my god!” and we both quickly turned around and ran right back into the door that we had just exited out of. It was dark out so I couldn’t make out who the gun man was. I have heard too many horror stories of innocent people being caught in the crossfire of a gun and I didn’t want to be the next victim. After that I don’t remember anybody or anything around me, all I know is that I ran as fast as I could to the bar and I hid behind it. I heard a commotion come through the door, but all I could think is where’s Nicole? I waited about a minute then I popped my head out the top of the bar and looked around. I saw Nicole. I ran out and said what happened? Where did he go? She said,” I don’t know but I think he’s gone”.


I chose to write about this "real event" in my life, because of the suspense and dramatization. It is something that I know a reader would be interested in. They would want to keep reading to see how the story plays out and what happens in the end. Basically, to understand the peice you must know that a gun was pulled out on my friend and I at a pool hall, but no one was injured. Now that I will be able to revise this piece I want to add more description into what I saw that night. For instance, to create the setting before I say what happens next. I have not written a short story like this before, and I think as I continue to write i will get better and better at it. For right now I know what some of my mistakes were. Usually I would be writing academic essays so there is a big difference between these two writings. I think I could have gotten more in depth about my feelings (scared, nervous), described what I saw a little bit more, but since I am not used to it, it was harder for me. I wrote my peice on word processor. 

Assignment #2: Reading Annie Dillard, "Total Eclipse"

"The hotel lobby was a dark, derilict room, narrow as a corridor, and seemingly without air."

This phrase stopped me in my tracks because in one sentence she paints the grim picture of the hotel lobby. This effectively gives the reader a sense of a cheap hotel that one would not normally want to stay in. She uses in depth description to make the reader feel like they could actually be sitting there. She uses the simile narrow as a corridor.


"The hill was five hundred feet high. Long winter-killed grass covering it, as high as your knees. We climbed and rested sweating and cold."

Here she describes an extremely high hill that they must climb, snow up to their knees as they sweated but were cold at the same time. In the first sentence you could just imagine standing at the bottom of a hill looking up 500 feet knowing that your have to climb in the freezing cold. She is mostly descriptive here there are no metaphors or similes.


"The skin on his face moved like thin bronze plating that would peel."

Here she makes a comparison of the skin on his face and peeling bronze plating. This is a simile. She describes the wind hitting his face and making his skin sort of peel back. This means that the wind must have been blowing very hard.


Annie Dillard uses an eloborate style because of her in depth description. She uses alot of similes in describing the moment or character. I believe her writing is very effective because she brought me in to exactly how she was feeling and what was going on around her.

Blog Post #1 ENG 274

Hi my name is Rebecca and I am a full time student here at LaGuardia. I just turned 24 years old on September 12th. I was a student of this college in 2007 and I am now back to get my degree. I am studying Liberal Arts for right now, because I am still not 100% sure of what I am going to make my major. I am thinking about getting into either education or the health field. If I was to get into education I would need this class to graduate. Needing the class to graduate isn't the only reason that i entered this class though. I've always loved english and at one point I thought about becoming an english major or an english teacher. One of the real reasons I thought about this is because I had such an excellent english teacher a few years back who inspired me and showed me how great I could be at english. As I was scrolling down the list of all the english classes to enter this semester this one struck my eye. I enjoy writing about my life and real experiences that I've had. I have mostly written for my english classes but at home I've written journal entries and done facebook postings. I am very interested in true crime writings and mysteries. I find that they are very intruiging. I was glad to see that the professor had us reading excerpts from "Cold Blood" because i enjoy crimes and mysteries. I hate boaring books and writings that drag along so I am happy to see the professor has interesting things for us to read!