Kitten Perfection

Passive voice (Couldn't find any) : )

Abstract subjects

Linking verbs in S-LV-SC sentences

This is an essay that I turned in last year for my creative writing course. The assignment was to creating a creative nonfiction piece. Here is my draft unchanged from a year ago.

Kitten Perfection

Moving out is a big step towards independence, but an even bigger step is adopting a kitten for your very own; after all those years of my mom telling me, “No, we have too many already.” I never believed there was such a thing as too many cats, ever. It was time, my husband and I are moving to Pullman, Washington to be on our own and to finish college; we had looked to see if there were places to adopt kittens up there but the only ads we could find on craigslist were “Wanted kittens!”, “Pay to take your cat!”, “I’m lonely. Need cats.”

            We convinced my mother to let us get a kitten a month or so before we moved since there is a healthy population of kittens here. It was a perfect sunny day on April 28^th, 2012 when my husband and I drove up to the humane society. Thoughts of kitten fur rubbing my face and that kitten smell of clean fur that made my heart begin to race. I could not wait to have this kitten, to cuddle me, to follow me around, and to make that high pitched mew sound welcoming me home after a long day of work.

We rushed into the building and into the kitten room. We were right; there was a plethora of kittens here. There were black ones, white ones, orange and white ones, and then orange ones. I had no idea where to start; the sound of their adorable high pitched mewing filled my ears, making my heart race. Then, in the far right hand corner, there he was. The fluffiest kitten I have ever seen, I could suffocate on that bright orange fur, and faint from gazing into his bright green eyes. “We’ll take a look at that one, right there.” My husband pointed out the orange fluff ball and the attendant went to get him. I had the jitters all throughout my body, waiting to thrust myself face first into the orange fluff. The attendant brought him out, and handed him to me. He gazed up at me, eyes full of curiosity. I pulled him closer to me and he jumped out of my hands and onto my shoulder, and just sat there. I turned and looked at my husband’s hazel eyes and saw the same thing that I was feeling. This was him! I could feel the bond between us already building as he purred continuously into my ear.

The warm thoughts continued to lighten me as we finished the adoption papers and brought him home. The humane society had given him the name Zipper, but we didn't really feel like that was an appropriate name for such a curious lover. Instead, we named him Sherlock.

And here is my fixed draft using the Lanham method.

Fixed S-LV-SC sentences

Fixed abstract objects

Kitten Perfection

Moving out is a big step towards independence, but adopting a kitten for your very own is an even bigger step. After all those years of my mom telling me, “No, we have too many already.” I never believed there was such a thing as too many cats, ever. The time had come; To finish up our college degrees, my husband and I decided to move to Pullman, Washington. We had looked to see if there were places to adopt kittens up in Pullman, but there was only one type of ad found: “Wanted kittens!”, “Pay to take your cat!”, “I’m lonely. Need cats.”

            We convinced my mother to let us get a kitten a month or so before we moved since there is a healthy population of kittens here. On April 28^th  in the year 2012, the heat of the sun warmed my face as my husband and I drove up to the humane society. Thoughts of kitten fur rubbing my face and that kitten smell of clean fur that made my heart begin to race. I could not wait to have this kitten, to cuddle me, to follow me around, and to make that high pitched mew sound welcoming me home after a long day of work.

We rushed into the building and into the kitten room. There was a plethora of kittens here. There were black ones, white ones, orange and white ones, and then orange ones. I had no idea where to start; the sound of their adorable high pitched mewing filled my ears, making my heart race. Then, in the far right hand corner, there he was. The fluffiest kitten I have ever seen, I could suffocate on that bright orange fur, and faint from gazing into his bright green eyes. “We’ll take a look at that one, right there.” My husband pointed out the orange fluff ball and the attendant went to get him. I had the jitters all throughout my body, waiting to thrust myself face first into the orange fluff. The attendant brought him out, and handed him to me. He gazed up at me, eyes full of curiosity. I pulled him closer to me and he jumped out of my hands and onto my shoulder, and just sat there. I turned and looked at my husband’s hazel eyes and saw the same thing that. This was him! I could feel the bond between us already building as he purred continuously into my ear.

The warm thoughts continued to enlighten me as we finished the adoption papers and brought him home. The humane society had given him the name Zipper, but we didn't really feel like that was an appropriate name for such a curious lover. Instead, we named him Sherlock.

Well, I did reduce the number of words by three, but I think the main reason why it wasn't 50% was because I didn't use any passive voice in this paper; more than likely it is because it was a creative nonfiction piece.

Learning Shakespeare

Red--Adjectives out of order

Blue--Appositives

Green--Absolutes

Purple--Particples

Orange--Intransitive verb in passive voice

Pink--Transitive verb in active voice

 In this essay I had to write about what my previous experiences with Shakespeare were and also how I feel about Shakespeare now, after taking a university level Shakespeare course. I wasn't in class the day we talking about using intransitive verbs in in passive voice and transitive verbs in active voice, so I'm going to give it my best shot. Enjoy!

Learning Shakespeare

            The idea of having to read Shakespeare in an English class is enough to make almost anyone terrified, quivering in their boots. Shakespeare is known for being extremely difficult to read and understand, and most people seem to associate Shakespeare with English majors, snooty and egotistic. This idea of Shakespeare is wrong; with Shakespeare we need to take a different kind of approach to be able to understand the stories fully, but nonetheless it seems Shakespeare will never get out of that rut of a stereotype. Being in a university Shakespeare course has helped me change my way of thinking about Shakespeare and how to approach other works by Shakespeare.

            Before taking this course on Shakespeare, I had little experience with it. I, like most freshman in high school, had the unfortunate experience to read Romeo and Juliet. Most of this experience I don’t remember much—probably blocked it out due to trauma. The only thing that still remains of this memory is when we were watching Romeo and Juliet with Leonardo Di Caprio, as Romeo, my teacher had to move in front of the television screen when Romeo's butt shows, which is, of course, (Hoe else can I punctuate this sentence? Dashes don't feel right, but I feel there are too many commas) inappropriate for a high school audience. I also had the opportunity to participate in A Midsummer’s Night Dream as a play for my high school—I was Moth, a purple sparkling fairy of Titana's court. I had few lines but it was enjoyable nonetheless. My teachers that taught me those two stories of Shakespeare did not go into detail about the play, their main concern was if we understood the language and didn’t delve much deeper into the play than what was on the surface. Since then, I only knew the most basic concepts of the Shakespeare stories; I could tell you what the story was about and what happened, but I more than likely could not tell you the meaning the play was supposed to have or if it had any morals. This all changed, however, when I took this university level Shakespeare course

          The first play that was read in this Shakespeare course was The Taming of the Shrew. I had heard a lot about this play before having to read it; I knew that it was a hot topic for feminist groups, calling it misogynistic and cruel. I never took the theme to heart and found the play rather comical; however, after reading this play in class I was able to discover a hidden meaning to the play, that Petruchio isn’t just being a jerk and trying to “tame” Katherine, but rather showing her how she treats others and then trying to show her a way to get back at others in a more practical sort of way. Petruchio’s last test for his Kate is when they were walking to the dinner and he says, “Kiss me, Kate” (V.i.143) and at first Katherine, legs freezing, refuses, but Petruchio threatens to leave the town; she explains that she is just embarrassed about being in the street, then Kate kisses him anyway, then Petruchio says, “Is not this well?” (V.i.149). They show that they do have strong affections for each other in this passing, so the idea that Katherine has been broken down just doesn’t seem to fit here. Katherine gets to show all that she has learned at the end of the play in her speech to everyone at the dinner, but most people feel that this is just her finally being broken down to become the “ideal” woman—the one that listens and asks no questions. Katherine finally understands what she can do, think about the reaction that this speech had on all the Paduans—they were all shocked to silence. Katherine was finally able to bash her sister, Bianca, on how she was supposed to act as a lady and get her father to look down on Bianca—what a victory! I never would have been able to see this true hidden meaning to this play if it wasn’t for taking this class.

 

Not All Heroes are Warriors

Red - Absolutes

Blue - Participles

Purple - Appositive

Pink - Adjectives out of order

This is a paper I wrote for my Lord of the Rings class back in my community college, although it is only the first three paragraphs. The topic of the essay was to describe who the hero of the story The Lord of the Rings is/are. ENJOY!

Not All Heroes are Warriors

            The generic hero is a warrior type, tall, strong and handsome; someone that is often seen hacking off some tyrant king’s head, but how about a three foot or so tall Hobbit from the Shire? Being strong and valiant are not the only qualities that describe a hero. It takes a stupendous amount of courage to be a true hero. In The Lord of the Rings there is not one hero, but two: Frodo Baggins and Samwise Gamgee.

             Frodo Baggins, a hobbit from the Shire, carries the heaviest burden among anyone in the Fellowship; he carries the one Ring. He is the only one who can take the Ring to Mordor and that takes an unbelievable amount of courage. When this task was first appointed to Frodo by Gandalf back in the Shire he says, “And I suppose that I must go alone, if I am to do that and save the Shire” (Tolkien 61). Frodo would have embarked on his quest alone if he had to, that takes real guts especially since Gandalf just finished giving him all the details about the Ring and how the Enemy will be after him. The most obvious situation where Frodo shows his courage is when he was faced with Shelob. Marching bravely up to meet Shelob, a ginormous vicious spider, without any regard to his own safety, and she, terrified and alarmed, sped off into the gloomy darkness of Ephel Duath, her lair. Hobbits really are one of the most amazing creatures.

            Samwise the Brave is another chief character in this story. He may not be the one carrying the burden, but he sure does help his master all the way to Mordor. There are so many examples of Sam’s loyalty to his master Frodo; one such example is when they were nearing Mount Doom, Sam began to ration the meals so that he hardly ate and drank anything at all to make sure Frodo could have enough strength to bear his burden. One of Sam’s many acts of courage is when he carries the Ring for Frodo when he thinks he is dead. Sam finds out Frodo is still alive after listening to the Orcs; mind racing, fear rising, Sam makes his choice: he marches over to the tower of Cirith Ungol where Frodo is held captive by thousands, if not millions of Orcs, to rescue him. Sam knew the odds: one Hobbit versus a multitude of Orcs, which takes a serious amount of courage. Sam would do anything to protect his master Frodo and to make sure he accomplishes his mission to destroy the Ring.

Who's to Blame?

Hello fellow people of grammar! This week my topic will be about the Trojan War. I had to write this essay for my Mythology class (Do I capitalize the "m" in mythology in this sentence?) about something in the course that has impacted me the greatest. I wrote about the shifting of blame within the story The Iliad; however, this is only the first two paragraphs of my essay. Enjoy!

Who’s to Blame?

            The Trojan War: a marvelously gruesome and excruciatingly long war, began to unfold long before Paris had kidnapped Helen, the most popular belief for this war. The events leading to the Trojan War started long before even Achilles was born. There was a spectacular wedding between Peleus (the mortal) and Thetis (the sea goddess), but one individual was not invited, Eris the goddess of discord—who would want discord at their wedding? Eris is angry for not being invited and shows up anyway; she holds up an apple and claims that this apple belongs to the fairest, and tosses it down the aisle. The expected happens; Aphrodite, Athena, and Hera get into an argument about who is the fairest to claim the apple. Zeus then appoints a shepherd—Paris—to judge the fairest of the three goddesses and they each offer him a bribe, like any true goddess would. The three goddess all give him a tantalizing offer, Hera offers him power, Athena offers him wealth, and Aphrodite offers him the most beautiful woman in the world—Helen. Paris chooses Aphrodite as the fairest and gets whisked away to claim his “prize”, who just happens to already be married. Paris steals Helen and everyone gets upset and eventually the war breaks out. This story brings an odd perspective to the war, who is really to blame for the Trojan War? Is it Paris? Helen? Aphrodite? Eris? In The Iliad there are three characters who talk about blame, Agamemnon, Hector, and Homer—the author himself.

            Agamemnon, the king of the Achaean army, is a complex and interesting character. Although he was previously one of Helen’s suitors, Menelaus won out in the end. The previous suitors of Helen had formed a kind of comitatus (band of warriors) to protect Helen if there be a need. Because his relationship to Helen, you would think he would blame Helen or Paris for the war. “Zeus is a harsh, cruel god. He vowed to me long ago, / he bowed his head that I should never embark for home / till I had brought the walls of Ilium crashing down” (2.131-133). So it’s Zeus’ fault? But Agamemnon throughout The Iliad is seen always blaming the Gods for absolutely everything. When Achilles decides to come back to the war after Patroclus is killed, Agamemnon is still blaming everyone other than himself, “"I am not to blame! / Zeus and Fate and the Fury stalking through the night, / they are the ones who drove that savage madness in my heart, / that day in assembly when I seized Achilles' prize—/ on my own authority, true, but what could I do? / A god impels all things to their fulfillment: / Ruin, eldest daughter of Zeus, she blinds us all" (19.100-106). This is a different tale about the moment when Agamemnon took Achilles’ woman away, which before it was obviously Agamemnon's fault, but now it was entirely Zeus’ and Ruin’s fault. Agamemnon seems to not blame anyone or anything besides the gods for any misfortune that befalls him and the others around him.