Se7en

This week in Sweeney's English 102 Class we began viewing the screenplay called se7en. At first I thought that is was going to be boring and not interesting in the least. However I found the screenplay to be amazing and I thoroughly enjoyed it. The entire thing lasted over a span of seven days and tells a story about a murderer that is killing around the basis of the seven deadly sins. I find this to be extremely clever and intriguing. The first kill was for the sin of gluttony, the second was greed, and so on and so forth. I can say that this is definitely one of my favorite things we have done in English. I can not believe that we are basically done with this semester; it completely flew by. We only have to post two or three more blog posts. Still we have another paper and need to assemble our portfolios but that should not be that hard. Sweeney is definitely one of the best and most fun teachers Richard Bland has to offer and I am definitely glad I took his class. Good luck to everyone with their finals and final weeks of class.

Out of Class Activity Number Two

A day at the zoo! This was my second out of class activity for Sweeney's 102 Class. It was a beautiful warm day for it as well. I visited the Metro Richmond Zoo. I was not the only one who had decided to go on that particular day; it was so many people there that I had to park back in the woods and walk to the entrance. It has been many years since I last visited that particular zoo. However, they had a few new and exciting things there. The zoo has five new baby cheetahs that were so adorable, as well as a new zip line course. That day I was able to watch them feed the penguins too. I learned a few new facts that day and was definitely able to bring out my inner child again. It is always good to have a day where you can just be carefree and not have to deal with all the challenges you are facing as a struggling college student. I hope everyone else enjoyed there out of class activities they choose to participate in and I cannot wait to read about all of them.

Poetry Round Two

Yet another week of only Poetry in Sweeney's English Class. I do not particularly enjoy poetry. I find it is most of the time hard to comprehend and rather boring in fact. Poetry is definitely good for everyone, it just is not easy to sit through. We all need to learn the facts and forms about poetry. Everything in English is important but that does not exactly make it any easier or make anyone want to learn about it. This week we had to read "After great pain," "Death Be Not Proud," "Dulce et Decorum Est," "Do not go gentle," and three poems by Robert Frost. All of the poems were extremely short and for the most part easy to comprehend. Each poem was about something different but I will not go into all their little details because after all you read them right? Probably not. We are slowly making are way to the end of the semester. I for one can not wait because I am just trying to be done with school all together. Hope classes are going well for everyone and I wish you luck on your final exams.

Poetry

This week in Sweeney's English 102 Class we began talking about Poetry. We read a couple of different readings throughout the week. We read "The Rape of the Lock," "We Real Cool," "Harlem," "Hard Rock Returns...," and "Facing It." "The Rape of the Lock" was an extremely long poem but it wasn't to difficult to read. The story was about a young man who cuts off a lock of a woman's hair off and it turns into a huge deal. The other poems were about life, dreams, criminal legends, and Vietnam. All the poems were pretty decent; none in particular really caught my interest though. The poem called "We Real Cool" was only seven lines long and very simple but I thought it was unique how something that simple could be published. The poem "Harlem" was also extremely short and just simply talked about what happens to dreams when they are deferred. "Hard Rock Returns" is about all the tales of prisoners; that poem had a little bit more length to it but nothing too bad. The final poem we had to read this week was "Facing It" which was about Vietnam; that one was about the same length as the previous poem.

Spring Break is Finally Upon Us

Well everyone, its here. The moment we have all been waiting for. SPRING BREAK! That might be a little bit too enthusiastic. Especially on my end because my plan for spring break is working all that week. I hope some of you have amazing plans for the upcoming break; maybe like going some place warm! Sweeney's English classes this week have been slightly more strange than usual. Monday we didn't go due to the weather but on Wednesday, Sweeney decided he would not talk the entire class.I feel as if he has just completely given up and does not feel the need to waste his breath anymore. We are still on the topic of "The Glass Menagerie". Sweeney just typed on the computer what we discussed out loud. Even though there was only a total of three people discussing, we still covered just about everything we needed to cover. Tomorrow is supposed to be the best class day ever tomorrow so I am interested in to see two things. One: how many people will actually be there due to the upcoming break. Two: what this amazing, wonderful surprise of a class Sweeney has for us.

"The Glass Menagerie"

This week in Sweeney's 102 English class we have been reading, watching, and discussing "The Glass Menagerie". I really enjoyed the whole thing. At first, I was totally against the whole thing because I hate to read anyway, especially when it comes to Literature. However, once I sat down to read it, I started to take an interest in it and all the characters within. I could really feel Laura's pain with her whole mom situation because I have an overbearing mother myself. Another thing I love is the discussions we have in class; even if only three people are discussing and everyone else is talking about food. Sweeney challenges me to think about the story in a much less literal way and I feel it is very beneficial.Our discussions unlock all the hidden messages that I have no chance of ever finding if I just read the story myself. The discussions we have had about "The Glass Menagerie" really allowed me to fall in love with the story and be able to truly relate and put myself inside the story with them. I continue to look forward to more of Sweeney's thinking challenges.

The Struggle to Keep Afloat

We are pretty close to being at the halfway mark of the Spring 2014 semester here at Richard Bland College and I believe the tension is high. With teachers becoming frustrated and students feeling the stress from all their classes, things are getting pretty heated. I myself am really feeling the pressure because I feel as though I have too many things to balance at once, math especially. Statistics with Hudson? Well lets just say that is less than thrilling. I find myself getting lazy as well, which is not exactly a strong attribute to have right now. Currently, I am trying to get myself to pick it up and push through the rest of the semester and I hope everyone else is doing the same! Hopefully when spring break gets here that will be every ones piece of motivation they need to get everything straight before summer. Good luck to everyone and try not to let your ships sink from all the pressure and stress of being a college student.