Metacognition: The Kite Runner Evidence Plan

As I started working on my Kite Runner essay, my mind kept wandering. There were the ted videos I need to watch, social studies reading, and a chemistry presentation to worry about. As I was preparing my essay plan, I wasn't able to put myself fully into it. Even though I knew that it was the skeleton of my essay, it didn't seem super important to me at that moment. I was aware that even after completing the evidence I would have almost a week to work on the essay and improve it. I could completely alter my evidence plan if I wanted to. I don't like this quality about myself, I tend not to completely throw myself into something until it's really important. This is relevant to the majority of things in my life, from homework, to practicing for a concert. While working on this part of the essay, I put in effort, but I don't really feel like I've made progress on an essay until I see paragraphs on paper. Hopefully in future projects, I'll be able to throw myself into something like this with all of my mind with it. This is a fundamental thought process that I need to alter about myself. I need to convince myself that working on something that will help reach the goal, without having the goal insight, is worth all my complete effort and time.

Best of Week: Short Sentences

                Before the school year started, when I saw the list of books we were supposed to get, I was slightly annoyed. “Another Grammar Book?” I thought to myself. I wasn’t looking forward at all to reading  this book. But when we started, I was pleasantly surprised. It turned out that this wasn’t even a grammar book at all. It was something that I could actually use to improve my writing. So to me, it's ironic, that something that I thought was going to be one of my most disliked things about this class, became a best of the week blogging post. I really enjoyed seeing how actual authors used this technique to improve their writing. Just the passages in the book by themselves impressed me. I have always liked using short sentences, but I kind of just scattered them throughout my writing randomly, without really any point to them. From this section of "Artful Sentences" It actually gives situations where they can be used for maximum effect, to invoke feelings in the reader, and give voice to my characters. In some ways, I'm looking forward to my next writing piece so I can try out this technique. Now that I think about it, my best of week is really two ideas, the first, that I can actually enjoy a book about writing techniques, and the second, how to use short sentences in writing.


Carry it Forward: Kite Runner

The idea that I'm going to carry forward from the novel "the Kite Runner" is the theme of the past calling you and bringing you back to atone for your sins. This happens to Amir when Rahim Khan calls him from Afghanistan. You also find out on the first page that this is essentially the theme of the book. Even though he ran away from his demons years ago, Amir still needs to atone for his sins. His past comes back to bight him, almost ruining his "almost" perfect life in the process. He was millions of miles away and he was still caught up in his past. Let's compare this to my "hypothetical life". I go to college and move to Arizona where I make completely new friends, and make a  clean cut from my old life. But, what if one day, my Dad calls and says my Mom is sick with a deadly disease and I need to come back to Northbrook. There, I meet all my old friends, relatives etc. They would know what I did years ago (maybe I killed someone in a drunk car crash) they would know all my ghosts, skeletons in the closet etc. These would exposed to my new life, and all my new friends etc would know my secrets. Whether they would accept them or not is debatable. But my goal in life is to not to have any "dirty little secrets". I plan to live my life to the fullest extent, not doing anything wrong, not derailing anybody's life. I'll try to act safely, and not take any unnecessary risks that endanger the lives of others. Because there are some things that stay with you forever, that you can't run from.