Thlog One

This first week of Writing 2 was extremely interesting. My classmates seem like extremely easy-going people, especially because they are mostly interested in adventuring and travelling like me. I met Kayla, River, and Gary, when Zack divided us in groups to introduce each other to the rest of the class. I really enjoyed that activity because I actually got to know their background, and their interests.

The topic we’re currently learning about is genre. We looked at the relation between country music, horror movies, and letter recommendations, and each of their conventions. I was initially extremely confused, as I have never really thought about finding specific features that describe a genre. When we were looking at the characteristics that indicate country music, one classmate supposed that it almost always contained complaints about something. Another classmate said that the singers almost always have an up and down southern drawl accent, having elongated vowels. We then looked at horror movies and its conventions. I was not too fond examining the three horror movie clips, as I awfully dislike horror. We then looked at Zack’s students’ email requests for letter recommendations and its conventions such as including due date, appreciation of the teacher’s time, when they knew the teacher, etc. The reading of ‘Navigating Genres – Dirk,’ disclosed the overall understanding of genres, as well as the different expressions and having to adapt writing depending on specific location. It also specifically explained the main conventions of thesis statements in papers.

In the second lesson, we were asked to free-write on questions based on our (students’) understanding of textual genres, as well as specific parts from our readings. This then continued to teach us about Elbow’s 1^st and 2^nd order thinking. 1^st order thinking consists of having no pressure, saying or writing whatever comes to your mind and used usually when communicating with close friends, or starting a formal paper. 2^nd order thinking is more so the self-critical, controlled and structured way of thinking, used when editing or revising papers.

My Blog Blurb

My name is Stephanie Yamada. I am nineteen years old, and am from a Japanese heritage. My parents, as well as my two older sisters were all born in Japan. My parents decided to move to Australia as soon as they had their second child for a taste of a different lifestyle in 1988. I was born and raised in Sydney in 1996. I mainly lived in the North Shore of Sydney, in a suburb named Chatswood. My hobbies include playing with my dog, hiking, cooking, road tripping, being with friends, shopping, playing sports, and being at the beach.

My current long-term goals include travelling to each continent, go to every known music festival in the world, obtain a major from UCSB, getting ranked in doubles for NCAA’s, find a career I love, and maintain healthy relationships with my family and friends back in Australia.

From the age of five, I was a sport enthusiast, and played tennis, soccer, cricket, touch football, softball, and baseball. However at the age of thirteen, I was forced into concentrating on one sport - tennis. Due to my devotion for tennis, I was never interested in school. I realised the importance of an education in my final year of high school at Methodist Ladies College, Sydney, and cut back on the time spent on training. This is my first year at University of California, Santa Barbara. I chose this university for its well-known academic greatness and to proudly represent the UCSB women’s tennis team and compete against other competitive universities. Currently I am tossing up majoring between Communication and Psychology. Although it is incredibly hard being here away from my family and friends back home, as well as the heavy time commitment towards both the education and tennis, I could not have picked a better university and know I have made the right decision.