ALL DONE.

I officially turned in my MASSIVE BEAUTIFUL FANTASTIC TIME-CONSUMING LIFE-STEALING BEAST of a project yesterday :] :] Now I can finally study for my AP tests….hmm.. LAST POST EVER.

                                           Adios! <3

WOOOOOOO!!!!!!

Hooray, hooray! I’ve completely written everything! Today, Natalie and I had a very productive AP English party at my house, and I wrote my annotation introduction as well as my general introduction. I also edited and printed out new copies of everything I’d already had written. That means I have almost two weeks to edit! I do have to find one more background source, and make the citation page and whatnot, but for all intents and purposes…I’ve finished writing! Hooray! And let me just tell you….it feels goooooood.

OU Library…again.

Once again, I find myself spending one of my lovely days off of school, not to mention one of the few days that happen to be GORGEOUS outside, in the quiet, relaxing OU library. This is because RK said my criticism abstract was done on a parody which was apparently NOT a criticism (it totally is, in case you were all wondering. I ripped my abstract up, so no, you can’t read it). Due to this little mishap, I chose not to trust much of the criticism in the back of my book anymore, and made a second journey to the library. This search was extremely successful, and I’ve come away with five essays that look promising. My plan is to get rough drafts of the abstracts done today and tomorrow, so that I can work on editing them this next week, as well as writing the intro to my annotations. I’m trying to leave two weeks to work on my general introduction, which I’ve heard is the hardest part.

The end is approaching. I can’t wait to see it all come together! Happy writing :]

Criticism Abstractsssss

Well, I turned in the last of my annotations today to be revised (let’s get a WOO HOO!). Who knows how long RK will have it before I can revise them (just kidding!!) but in the meantime, I’m getting started on the abstracts. I’m still having trouble picking my criticism — I just have too many choices, and don’t know exactly what to look for. I picked one for sure; it’s really unique – it’s written in the manner of the Bible as a parody. It makes me laugh. If I’m feeling bored later I’ll type it out on here for your enjoyment, since it’s not very long. It IS kind of inappropriate though…I’m not sure edublogs.org would appreciate it. Ah well, on with the work. I’m not exactly sure how to write the abstracts yet, since I’ve never really done one, although I have heard that they’re easier than the annotations, which makes me hopeful. If I keep at the pace I’ve been going (and manage to pick out my criticism!) I could have these done by the end of the week. Keep your fingers crossed!

ps, I’m planning on adding the finished parts of my project as pages, if anyone wants to look at them.

SpRiNg BrEaK 2oo9 :)

Over spring break, I decided to take a break from my final project, which may have not been the best idea, but we needed a break from each other. Instead of spending my time writing annotations and critical abstracts on the beach, I decided to read Slaughterhouse 5, which I actually enjoyed a lot. Since I finished that over break, I don’t have to worry about trying to finish it before we write about it in class :] Also, today I got right back down to work on my final project, using AC to read through some more criticism and edit one of my annotations. Hopefully I’ll really crack down on this project in the next few weeks and not have to worry about it as May 21st approaches :]

Happy reading!

Movie vs Novel

 Yesterday, when I really should have been writing my poetry journals or preparing to write in class on Song of Solomon, I decided to watch the movie One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest instead. I convinced myself that since it was technically for my final project, I was doing something productive and not lazing about on a Sunday afternoon. I borrowed the movie from Kristin, who’s Dad is apparently a Cuckoo Nest fanatic, and spent two and a half hours watching it. The movie started out quite similar to the book, which surprised me. However, about a half hour in, I started to notice distinct differences, the most prominent of which being that the narrator of the novel, Chief, was not really a very important character in the movie until the last half hour or so. In my opinion, the book was still better, because I enjoyed the extra details and thematic concepts that Kesey provided. Despite this, I thoroughly enjoyed the movie (probably because Jack Nicholson’s bad boy attitude was so attractive, especially with the hat on…haha Kristin), and many of the patients were much more comical on the big screen than they were in the book. If you’re sitting at home on a rainy afternoon and have nothing to do, go out and rent the movie. You won’t be disappointed!

If you’re interested I’ve included the movie trailer in a previous blog, and below is a website full of pictures of scenes from the movie. Enjoy!

http://www.jacknicholson.org/OneFlewOverTheCuckoosNest.html

Annotations take 3!

So today I gave RK two of my annotation rough drafts to read through and mark up. Ironically, the one that I had only done two drafts of came back mark – free, and the one that I had done four of needs a lot of work. I’m somewhere in the middle of my third annotation, and hope to be completely done with them by spring break. My goal for the break is to select which critical essays I plan to write the abstracts on. All in all, I feel that the project is going well, and that I have a good time frame. I’m so glad I didn’t procrastinate too much on this project – frantically trying to finish it the last week of school sounds terrifying and awful. I can’t wait to see it all finished Happy reading!

Annotations take 2!

Since RK so considerately gave us a workday with the sub today, I’m planning to work steadily through my annotations. I have a solid third rough draft for my first passage, and plan on showing it to Kreinbring as soon as I can manage to find the time! I’m halfway through my first rough draft of the second annotation, and plan to wrap that up today. I’ve also started working my way through my mounds of criticism to try and pick the ones I want to use for the project. I found a very interesting one written in the style of the Bible…It’s not a typical critical essay. The others that I have read thus far have been extremely frustrating for me. They aren’t relevant to what I’ve decided to discuss in my paper in the slightest. Hopefully I get lucky the further I get into the criticism. The other interesting find I had was a critical essay comparing the authors of Catch 22 and One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. Perhaps I’ll share it with Kristin – she may find it helpful. Happy reading :]

Annotations, take 1!

Well, here Kristin and I sit in the Avondale library during AP English class. I’ve finally chosen all of the passages for my annotations, as well as discovered two excellent background sources in the back of my book. Both are letters, though, so I’m going to have to find another one that is an interview or something else. I have yet to go through the criticism, but since my book is packed with it, I’m sure I’ll find something to suit my fancy.

This book was full of passages I wanted to annotate – I started out with somewhere around twelve orange sticky notes and had to narrow it down to three. This proved much harder than I thought it would be, but in the end, I chose three that were spaced out throughout the book, and helped to emphasize three different themes or central ideas of the book. This will make writing the introduction to the annotations harder than if I were to choose three passages that advanced the same general theme, but this will make it so that each of my annotations are different, and not all talking about the same thing.

Off to write an annotation – Happy reading! :]

FINALLY!

YAY! Today I finally finished my book! I thoroughly enjoyed it; the end left me wanting more, but I think part of the charm of the book is that you never know exactly what happens to Chief. Throughout the entire book you question: sane or crazy? Reality or hallucinations? I think the end of the book is just another one of those questions: will he survive or not? Despite this hanging end, the main conflict of the novel is tied up; the Nurse has lost her inhuman power over the men on the ward, and McMurphy has sacrificed himself on their behalf.  One of the passages I may do for an annotation strongly portrays McMurphy as a Christ Figure; because of this, he had to fall victim to the Nurse while at the same time bringing her down with him, just as Jesus sacrificed himself to cleanse the sins of everyone else. McMurphy sacrificed himself to bring down the Nurse and free the rest of the ward from her totalitarian control. This saddened me a little, but as I said before, it was inevitable.

I had left off blogging for a while in order to get the reading done. Throughout the week I’ll make four more posts on the reading, despite the fact that I’ve finished: One for the rest of part one, and then another one for each of the other parts in the book. My plan of action is to try to have a rough draft for each of my annotations by spring break: one annotation a week. I’ll also be choosing my criticism, as I have several choices and can’t decide between them. Wish me luck!