tj_dragonblade | (no subject)

Journal entries for school:
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#5 - I wonder if I should have tried to test out of WrittenComm, but I'm thinking probably not (even if it wasn't such a satisfying course). I mean, I have a very instinctive, organic feel for what's 'right' or 'wrong' in language construction (likely comes from having my nose in a book for the lion's share of my leisure time growing up), but I can't define all the mechanical terms to save my life. I'd never heard of a 'Gerund phrase' (there's a name for when a verb functions as the subject of a sentence!) before last Friday, wouldn't have had a clue how to identify an infinitive phrase if it'd up and spit in my face. I'd still be hard-pressed to explain these things without checking my notes even now, but by god I know how to use them. It's nice to be shoring up my technical background knowledge, gaining a little legitimate backing for the intuitive sense that I rely on so heavily. And fun. Did I mention fun? The thing toward which I find myself applying the most effort so far in assignments is reining in the conversational tone that I'm so used to using. Creative writing allows for a great many more technical liberties under excuse of establishing tone and character, especially in dialogue. Online social interactions (yeah, TJ, you don't do anything like that, do you) tend to take those concepts and apply them to the individual who's writing/blogging/posting/what-have-you; we tend to develop a written 'voice' that's meant to give those we interact with online a sense of who we are, or at least who we present ourselves to be. My years spent online have loosened the hell out of my written voice. Which is not a bad thing, in the grand scheme, and not that hard to rein in when you get right down to it. Work emails give me practice at tightening up on informality, after all, and I'm very particular about the formal-instructive tone that I use when writing procedural documents. Class assignments are just another shade of diversity across the spectrum, and it's good exercise to go in those directions.

I'm amused and a little bit flustered at how often I have to restrain myself from emoticoning, however. My fingers fly in familiar patterns before I even realize what it is I'm doing, and my backspace key is consequently getting quite a workout. ^_^;

#6 - I need to start figuring out what I want to write about for this quarter's Information Literacy Assignment. I can't get away with the half-assed bare-minimum-effort sort of paper I turned out last time, nor do I really want to. I prefer to do work that I can be proud of, no matter that last quarter's ILA got full points, half-assed or not. I thank the instructor for his generosity and lenient grading; I know it's crap, however, and I know I can do better. It's great that I had it done early, sure, but...come on, TJ, you did better work than that back in High School. I'm tempted to take the same subject--Eliminationism in America--and tackle it again, do it proper justice, but I don't think it lends itself very well to a persuasive essay. It's more suited to an informative paper. So, what to do?

Heh. I suppose I could tackle the Racebending issue. It's near-and-dear and quite familiar to me already, which would facilitate the writing of a paper, methinks. Depends on what sort of 'legitimate' research I could hope to find to back it up beyond reams of internet blog comments and discussion threads. Hmmm. I'll see what kinds of sources are expected when we discuss research in the next week or two.

This idea bears consideration. Oh yes. With the added bonus that, when my husband gives his little eyeroll and goes 'Oh, you're back on that again?' I can say 'Yeah, but this time it's homework.' ^_^
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Aside from homework:

Meme lifted from