My English 15 experience

1.      I had some doubts walking into my English 15 class on the first day.  My friends who had Ms. Squillante last semester told me that she was amazing however, I still thought that it was going to be boring because how exciting can an English class get?  I was proven wrong because this has been my best English class in my whole academic career.  I learned a lot about my writing and I have used these lessons to help improve my skills.  In high school I was one of the best writers in my English class.  After my first paper, I realized that I was not that great.  On the other hand, I was willing to progress and I learned from the mistakes I made in the first paper.  English is one of those subjects that you will have to use in the future regardless of the career you are in.  Because of this, I am grateful that I had a great instructor like Sheila Squillante because she was open to help with any question I had and she explained them in a way that I could understand.  I saw Penn State in a good light with the artistic events that are featured around campus.  I learned that listening a book reading could actually be entertaining and that an embryo could come out of a Cadbury Crème Egg. (which still creeps me out till this day)  on the other hand, I was able to see Penn State in a bad view. Listening to the podcast showed how bad the drinking problem at Penn State could get.  Although I do not believe that this is the case for the majority of the students, it was interesting to have seen another perspective of the student drinking.\

2.       http://luketry.blogspot.com/2012/03/party-rocking.html#comment-form

http://meeten3.blogspot.com/2012/04/harry-potter-review.html#comment-form

http://keepyourweightback.blogspot.com/2012/04/art-event-1-mary-e-rolling-reading.html?showComment=1335708511737#c1228010485318096042

3.      I completed my SRTEs

Take Care

     With two albums reaching number one on the Billboard charts in their first opening week, Drake is on an unstoppable roll. However, the two albums are not one to compare.  Unlike Thank Me Later, Take Care has more slow and R&B songs and not as many fast-paced songs.  Take Care featured many artists such as Rihanna, Nicki Minaj, Lil Wayne, Andre 3000, and even a solo from Stevie Wonder. 

      This album might come as a shock to some people because of its mellowness; however, Drake is exploring the different forms of musical styles.  He invited producer/singer, The Weeknd to produce and sing on a few tracks on the album. They offered a different genre than songs that are being released today.  They freely express the use of drugs like syrup and “XO” which is a mix of Ecstasy and Oxycodone on songs like “Crew Love” and “Marvin’s Room”.  This tone puts the audience on a slow and relaxing ride while Drake sings about love and heartbreak on this album. 

     Drake shows his willingness to be in a relationship regardless of challenges in the song also entitled “Take Care’ when he says, “I know you’ve been hurt by someone else/If you let me, I’ll take care of you”.  Throughout this album, he shows how much he longs to be with women in his past.  In “Marvin’s Room” he sings about how he wants to get back together with an ex-girlfriend even though she now has a new boyfriend.   His pain is felt when he boldly curses the man who took his place in the girl’s heart and tells the girl, “You can do better”; referring to himself.

     Overall, this album showed a different side of Drake.  He is more open about his feelings regarding relationships. The general slow and mellow tone of the album flows well with his lyrics. Though most of the songs were slow, there are a few upbeat songs such as “Underground Kings” and “The Motto”. As a precaution, he is advocating the use of dangerous drugs in his lyrics so this album should only be for mature audiences who are not easily influenced. Besides this aspect, the album is a hit and one to be remembered.  Drake is an artist to keep an eye out for because of his lyrics and style.  With two number one albums under his belt, Drake is making a name for himself in the Hip-hop world. 

Artistic Event #2

     My English professor told us about an artist named Greg Patton and about this unusual creation he made.  Because of the way my professor explained it, I expected to be a little disgusted because I have never heard of this being done before.  When I went on the link, my mind was completely blown.  Greg Patton created an “embryo and put it inside of a Cadbury Crème Egg and made it look as if it was hatching.  This hatching Cadbury Crème Egg was shocking in a weird way.  I have never eaten a Cadbury Crème egg but if I had, I would never eat one again after looking at this.  As I scrolled down the page, I just became more and more disgusted yet amazed at the same time.  I have to admit that it was creative because it really looked like the “embryo” had really just come out of the egg.  I could only look at the first two different “embryos”. I glanced at the last one all the way at the bottom of the page and I could not handle it because I felt like I was about to throw up. Greg Patton is artistic; however, I think he is a little twisted in the mind to have created such a thing.

    On the other hand, his other work is quite impressive.  He also makes face jugs that are not as grotesque as the Cadbury Crème Egg.  Greg is a very talented artist. Looking through his face mugs I found one that stood out to me and it was the one titled “old wise puppet”.  I liked this one because it really reminded me of an old man.  The features were well crafted from with the nose to the mouth.  The unevenness of his face made me assume that they were wrinkles.  There were also excessive wrinkles on his eyelids.  What confused me was why he did not have any pupils and why his lips were so dry.  It could possibly be to add fright to the creation.  Overall I think that Greg Patton is a well imaginative artist.  Besides the Cadbury Crème egg creation, I like his work and I think he is very good at what he does.

Link to cadbury creme egg: http://artifactotum.tumblr.com/

Link to face mugs: http://www.patton-pottery.com/joelfaces.htm

First Artistic Event: The Mary E. Rolling Reading Series

 On April 5, 2012, I attended the Mary E. Rolling Reading Series at Foster Auditorium in the Paterno Library.  It featured readings from Nicole Cooley and Julia Spicher Kasdorf from their book Breach and Poetry in America respectively.  I have never been to a reading before and because of the idea of sitting down and listening to someone read, I thought that it was going to be boring.  Yea, I thought there would be part that I would find intriguing but overall I thought I would end up falling asleep during the reading.  However, this was not the case at all.  I ended up enjoying the readings and most of it was quite humorous.  I’ll admit there were some dull parts, but the majority of it was entertaining. 

The part that stood out to me was Nicole Cooley’s poem entitled, “Evacuation”.  I loved her tone as she read and the emotion she added to the reading.  It was very descriptive, for example when she explained how she pictured her parent’s objects floating on the water and her childhood memories of riding her bike through the levees.  I felt as if I was actually in the scene while she was reading.  I felt a lot of emotion through her reading.  You can feel her pain as she talked about how worried she was as she waited to hear from her parents anxiously for three days.  Also, her emotion was expressed when she read how she was constantly calling FEMA to check the location of her parents only to get no response each time.  I felt sympathy when she talked about how she had to hide from her daughters so that they would not hear her talking to her brother on the phone about finding their parents.  I loved how the somberness of her voice changed to relief when she read that she finally received a call from her parents saying that they were safe.  A part that shocked me was hearing how a stadium in New Orleans that held survivors of the hurricane was dark and when the president came to say a speech, a bright light was shone on him then soon after they was turned off again when the president left.  I thought that this was inconsiderate to the survivors because they must feel as if they are not important because they were going through distress and they were denied light on top of that.    I learned a lot from this experience such as that there was another hurricane that happened in New Orleans and the levees were broken to protect the White neighborhoods while the waters invaded the Black neighborhoods.  In the end I thought that this was a good event and I will consider attending another.