Blog assignment #5

In going to be interviewing my cousin Jermaine James. My family calls him JJ, JJ is a 46 year old male who spent most of his life locked away in federal prison. Ever since JJ was younger head been in and out of trouble for drugs and robbery. My guess is the judge got tired of seeing his face and you know what they say third times the charm and gave him 20 years in prison. My interview is based off of him because he's been locked up since I was a baby and now that he's been released its my opportunity to get to know him better. He's been home for 2 or 3 years now and I still know very little about him.
From what I can see he has two really caring parents. My aunt and uncles are free spirits but that can be a negative and positive effect on how he grew up. He has 4 other siblings 2 older brothers, a younger sister and baby brother. The oldest brother been the jail but always came home and his second oldest brother has been in jail his entire life and does not plan on coming home. In fact him and JJ got arrested together and that's when they were both sent away. Now that JJ is home I just want to get a sense of where his head is. Looking at the man I see in front of me at family affairs it's honestly hard to even believe he did prison time or committed a crime. I wanna figure where his life took its turn and what does he see for himself in the future as far as him adjusting to society.

Questions:
1: has it been difficult adjusting to society?
2: what caused your life to change the way it did ?
3: where do you see yourself in 5 years ?

Blog Assignment # 4

In Frank Mccourts memoir, Angela's Ashes, his sense of style is very descriptive and gives off an understanding of the persons character. This memoir is from the child's point of view but it touches more on how the child views the mother (Angela) and her emotions. The story is about a poor family who's living conditions are at its worst. As the family tries to deal with it the child starts to notice that the mother is becoming more & more livid and unhappy with her life and her husband.

In the beginning of the story, when the family first moved into their new home they found out the hidden secret of living in that house. They shared the lavatory with everyone else in there lane. Angela's reaction to this was the first sign of her unhappiness. " Mam comes back to her chair and her tea. We can't stay here, she says. That lavatory will kill us with all diseases."
The second sentence that shows a sign of Angela's emotions changing is when she says "Mam says, I don't know. It's your blood and tis a sad thing when a man can't even drive a nail straight." This is showing how tired she is becoming of her husband. He isn't the man she thought he was he looks weak and unable to provide for his family.
"Bed,bed,bed. What's the use of going to bed? If I go to bed I'll only have to get up again and I can't sleep in a place where there's a river sending poison to us in mist and fog." This sentence explains that she is getting tired of living the same life day after day. This story is a bit mind blowing because you would expect a wife to stand by her husband through the problems but you would expect the husband to try harder to prove his husbandly duties.

Blog Assignment #2

In Truman Capotes, In cold blood excerpt he tells the story about the murder of a family who lives in a small town in western Kansas called Holcomb. Capote uses good descriptive details and facts to help the reader get a sense of a imagery and understanding in order to follow the reading. In one section of the excerpt Capote gives away the ending but not to much. It's just enough to keep the reader interested. There are 3 significant sentences that caught my attention that kept me reading.
Sentence 1, "But then, in the earliest hours of that morning in the November, a Sunday morning, certain foreign sounds impinged on the normal nightly Holcomb noises---- on the keening hysteria of coyotes," this sentence creates a sense of mystery it shows that it's leading up to a big moment.
"At the time not a soul in sleeping Holcomb heard them-- four shotgun blasts that, all told, ended six human lives. This is sentence 2 and in my opinion it kind of confused me and makes me wounded how four "shotgun blast" kill six people. Sentence 3, "those somber explosions that stimulated fires of  mistrust in the glare of which many old neighbors viewed each other strangely, and as strangers." This is significant because by describing the neighbors reaction to the sounds it shows that this type of things doesn't normally happen in the neighborhood so they are shocked. It makes want to Congo the story to find out what took place and why.

Welcome to my blog!

Hi! My name is Shynia Steed. I am a college student and an aspiring social worker. This blog is for me to be able to share my creative writing with others and so that i can express myself. My Eng274 class is my first creative writing class and I hope it turns out to be what I expected. In my other English classes I have taken it was a little different although I did get to write some amazing pieces of poetry, screenplays and fiction stories. My favorite type of writing to do are murder mysteries or like open ended short stories because they always leave the reader wondering and ready to pick up another piece of your writing.