Final Reflection

The fall semester is finally going to come to an end with finals week up ahead. Classes are over with, and I cannot say I will miss them all too much. It will be nice to have a bit more free time than we usually do. There will be a period without work and studying that needs to be taken care of, and that is what we have all been waiting for during the semester. Even with this semester behind us, there are a number of things I learned during the semester, especially from this class, PWR 340.
When I first came into this class, I had not taken a writing class for about 2 years, and even that class was sketchy. Upon entering this class, I learned about some of the problems I had with varying sentence structure. In order to be interesting, the structure has to be varied. Changing my sentence structure also meant making sure the subjects of my sentences were actually people or things. This was a problem which I had quite often. I also realized that I often wrote in an extremely boring manner, often only using one story throughout an entire piece of work. In longer pieces, this technique would have plagued my writing. My biggest problem was definitely with proofreading. I never realized how pivotal a role proofreading played in the writing process until this class. I never proofread before this class, and in order to succeed as a writer, I needed to change this aspect of my process. Each of these problems was brought to my attention through this class.
By the end of this semester, I feel like I had significantly brought about change in my writing. I made an effort to proofread my works regularly, usually after every page of work. If I wanted to be a successful writer, I knew I needed to make a number of drafts which would drastically change. During the proofreading process, I made sure to especially focus on the sentence structure I used in each paragraph. These two steps alone drastically improved my writing. Finally, I began to do more research and work in order to make my pieces more intriguing to the reader. Reading one 12 page story can be extremely boring, and thus I began to implement a variety of stories in my work. Each of these changes made my work much more interesting and easy to read, and the improvement became more and more relevant as the semester continued.
I do not know if I will ever take another writing class while I am enrolled in college, but I have definitely seen improvement in my writing because of this class. If I am ever again in a class which involves any type of writing,(sustained, creative nonfiction...etc) I will remember all that I have learned in this class, and it will surely help me in an effective manner.

Pats Eek out another

The Patriots pulled out another win on Monday night to get closer to perfection. They now stand at 12-0 on the season, and the chances of them getting to 16-0 are looking better than ever. With the exception of a fairly tough match up with Pittsburgh, the Patriots should have a pretty easy time ending the regular season undefeated. With home field advantage throughout the playoffs, it would be pretty tough for anyone to hand them a loss at all, even the Colts. Yes, the Colts played them close during the regular season, but they were at home and they were healthy. Both of these things will most likely have changed by playoff time.
I am already sick and tired of hearing people say that the Patriots are lucky to have won their last 2 games. The Eagles played alright, not amazing; they simply made very few mistakes during the game, but when it counted most, Feely threw a pick. The same could be said about the Ravens game. The Ravens ran the ball well and played pretty good defense for most of the game. The key words there were "most of the game." When it came down to it in the fourth quarter, the Ravens couldn't run and they couldn't stop the Pats, and that is why they won. The only luck that the Patriots had was a Ravens time out when they were stuffed, and a dumb rule with regards to false start. Neither of which is something they can control, so people need to stop whining about how lucky the Pats are, and start to see them as what they are-- one of the best teams in NFL history.

The Weather Outside is Frightful

The way the weather had been going this semester was too good to be true. We hadn't had any snow, and we only had about one week where it rained everyday. The temperatures even seemed to be higher than usual for this time of year. We all should have known that this trend was not going to last. The weekend we just experienced came out of no where, although it is normal for Cortland to follow its own code for weather.
Thursday and Friday were cold days, even for Cortland, and a couple of my friends told me a storm was on the way. I wasn't expecting anything big, seeing that this was about the 3rd time I had heard that snow was on its way. I should have listened. Even after the light snow from Friday night into Saturday, I did not want to leave my room. To make matters worse, it has only gotten colder in the past 2 days, and it has snowed even more. The wind has picked up, and it makes walking anywhere miserable. Walking up the hill is nearly impossible with the temperatures, the wind, and the ice on the sidewalks. I have already seen about a dozen people bite it all around campus. That is probably the only thing fun to see when it gets cold; I get to watch people slip and slide all around, and the occassional falling is not too bad either. Although, you never want to see anyone get hurt too bad.
Well, now that I have rambled on about the weather for a little bit, I think I am going to go warm up before I have to head back outside for another class. Stay safe and Stay Warm!