Blogging on British Lit

This year I've been taking a AP British Literature class though our homeschool co-op. The class is taught by my mom and I'm having lots of fun! We've read though lots of different things. I'll name a few and whether or not I liked it:

Beowulf (excerpt)(Liked)

Chacuer's Canterbury Tales (or part of it) (Liked)

Shakespeare's Macbeth and some sonnets (Liked)

Milton's Paradise Lost (excerpt) (Utterly Despised)

Obviously we have read a lot more than that.......but those are just a few examples. We just finished up the Romantic Poets and will soon be starting Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice. My favorite of the Romantic poets was George Gordon, Lord Byron. Samuel Taylor Coleridge was my second, but although a good poet, he's just to weird for me.

I'll be posting some of the writing assignments that I've done so you can read them and tell me what you think.

The first thing that I'm going to post is a paper that I did comparing the play Macbeth to the actual Scottish history. I'm also going to post a sonnet explication of Shakespeare's Sonnet 18 and a poem analysis of Byron's The Destruction of Sennacherib.

National Novel Writing Month

November is National Novel Writing Month. I've signed up on the website nanowrimo.org to write novel during the month of November. The goal is to write a 50,000 word novel between November 1st and 30th. I don't really think that it will happen in my case, but I'm going to have fun trying. The main site is for people 13 and over. There is also a site for younger people (ages 17 and down) at ywp.nanowrimo.org. So theoretically, if you are between the ages of 13 and 17, you can sign up on both sites.

The best part is that if you reach 50,000 words, you become a winner, and if you don't reach the goal, nothing happens to you. (On the Young Writer's site you can set your word count goal to be lower than 50,000.) People that reach the word count goal and become winners are also eligible to receive a free proof copy of their novel from createspace.com which is a self-publishing site. Also, to clarify, the people who run these websites won't read your novel. They simply count your words to see if you have reached the goal.

I am a official participant this year. I'm not totally sure what my novel is going to be, but it is in the fantasy genre. I'll post more details as I write.

***I am noting that the forums sometimes contain somewhat inappropriate things, as these are not Christian websites. However, very inappropriate content can be reported.

I think this will be a fun experience. Please check out these websites if you are interested in writing novels.

June Authors of the Month

The June authors of the month are Alex and Brett Harris. I realize that I had their names on my sidebar under "Authors of the Week" for about a year, but I never really wrote a post about it. So they are my Authors of the Month for June.

In 2005, Alex and Brett Harris, the younger brother of Christian author Josh Harris, founded the Rebelution blog. Since then they have written a book, produced a helpful modesty survey for teens, and have done multiple nationwide tours to teach teens the meaning of their book and the goal of their organization.

I wrote a post last year about their book, Do Hard Things. At the time I hadn't finished reading the book. I have finished it now, and I think that it is a great resource for both teenagers and their parents. The Rebelution is definitely a website that you should check out.

Also, Alex and Brett have a great suggested reading list that I am planning on using this summer for some good reading. Check it out here.

Not relating to the authors of the month, I updated my blog's look because I had been using the other template for a while and I wanted a new look.

Again....Lack of Posts

I haven't been posting lately because I don't have Internet at my house. Right now I'm actually posting from my grandmother's house. Not much happening at home. We just finished our 2nd week of school. Eck.


I got a whole bunch more old pictures recently that my grandma has had forever. My oldest one is of my great-great grandparents on their wedding day in 1904.

I also got a copy of Leo Tolstoy's War and Peace from 1942 and a book called The College reader from the late thirties.( I think.)

As you can see. not much going on.............

Currently Reading.....

I am currently reading The Passion of Jesus Christ by John Piper. I just started reading it, but so far it is really good. Basically,in this book John Piper is giving fifty reasons why Christ suffered and died. You might be thinking, oh well I know why Christ suffered and died, he did it to redeem us from our transgressions and sins and to give us a hope worth living for and to save from us an eternity in hell.Well, yes, but there are so many more reasons in this book that I never would have thought of. I'll give a full review when I finish it.


The other book is Boy Meets Girl by Joshua Harris. I had started reading I Kissed Dating Goodbye, but as I was reading it I kept thinking, "I already know that I don't want to date and that I want to court instead." My dad had bought this book, so I went and got it and started reading it instead. That's when I realized, "Hey, here is somebody that shares the same views on courtship that I do." It is really encouraging for me to read this book, because a lot of times when I tell people that I have no plans to date and that I want to court instead, they kind of look at me like I'm an alien from another planet and then say something like, "Then how are you supposed to get married?"

It's kind of like when I tell somebody that I'm homeschooled, and the they ask the question, "What about socialization?" I've so many responses like that now that it makes me want to laugh when people say it.

Again, a full review of Boy Meets Girl when I'm finished with it.

Old Books

Recently I have started collecting old books. I've always loved books in general and one day my mom and I were at a yard sale and I saw some really old books for sale. Now, I have a total of eight books, and I've gotten all but one of them from yard sales. Here is what they are:

1. A 1904 edition of The Leading Facts of American
History by D.H Montgomery. This one is probably my favorite because I love
history so much. Also, in this history textbook there are only 26 presidents, 45
states, and 15 amendments to the Constitution.

2. A 1897 edition of Hints and Helps on English Grammar.There is no author listed; itjust says that it was published by Raub & Co. However, the preface is signed "The Author."

3. A 1939 edition of a math textbook called Practical Shop Mathematics. It is by John H. Wolfe and Everett R. Phelps.

4. A 1942 State of Georgia Trigonometry textbook called Plane Trigonometry with Applications. It is by William L. Hart.

5. A 1937 edition of Five Little Peppers at School by Margaret Sidney.

6. A 1926 edition of The Blue Book of Cookery, by Isabel Cotton Smith. The introduction is written by Emily Post who
wrote the famous book called Etiquette.

7. A 1940 edition o a book called Faces and Places. It is by Myrtle Banks Quinlan. It is basically a learn to read book for kids.

8. Finally, a 1895 edition of First Year in French by L.C. Syms.

So basically, this post was just about books, and mostly because I was bored.

My New Blog

Okay, I realized that I don't have a blog where I can just write about absolutely whatever, so here it goes. If you see this please, please, please comment so that I know that you exist. Sometimes I think that every one has died or else no one uses the Internet anymore. Then I rethink that and realize that it's just that no one leaves comments! At least not on my blogs.

Lately with this whole thing of my brother having cancer, I have given a lot of my time to books. Pretty soon the public library system will run out of good books. From there I will proceed to re-read every book I've ever read. Oh, yeah, and then there is Little House on the Prairie on Hallmark Channel every day at 10, 11, 3, and 4. I do enjoy watching that but I usually only do it in the afternoons. In the morning I'm still wading through my Algebra 1. I figured out this morning that by doing two lessons for two days, and three lessons for two days, I can be finished with my math for this year by the end of the week! Wouldn't that be grand! Finally done with school so I can have a month off.