Friday, March 16, 2007

Table of Contents



Dear Reader Letter



Intro do another day in the office



Another day in the office



Intro to what I like to call home



It's not much but i call it home



Intro to rollercoaster



Rollercoaster



Intro to my girlfriend



My Girlfriend



Dear Reader Letter

My name is Daniel Collins and I like long walks on the beach and candlelight dinners.Just Joking. On a serious note though, my name really is Daniel Collins and im 19 years old. I am currently enrolled at Everett Community College where i'm about to complete my very first quarter of college. Completing my first quater of school was so important to me because at the beginning of the quarter, I contemplated whether or not I should just work full-time or actually do something useful with my life and go back to school. With encouraging words from my family and friend's, I decided to go to college and im happy to say im liking it a lot. I was a nervouse wreck my first couple days of school. That was until I actually begin coming, due to partially to my English 97 course. At first, I was a bit intimidated by the whole Major Writing Assighnment and having to do work from Blackboard, but after figuring it all out, they just became ordinary piece of cake assighnments. The teacher, Mrs. Shen improved my writing knowledge from night to day. She refreshed me on my verbs, nouns, and conjunctions, things I was terrible at and turned me into a mean, green, writing machine. I hope that I can use my new found writing skills in hopefully going to Western Washington University and becoming a teacher.

As a child, I never considered myself to be a great writer in any way or form. I've always struggled in English a little bit, especially along the lines of verbs and subjects and all of that good stuff. I do, however, recall and still do love writing neat poems and cool stories about my favorite hobbies or sports. Theres nothing else I rather write about than sports. I'm a firm believer that a person always writes better about a certain something or someone when they are more interested or have more passion for that subject. That's why I feel and write so strong about my blogs. They are about sports, which is my third love only behind my mom and my girlfriend.

I hope you enjoy the pieces that I have selected to represent my writing skills in my e-portfolio. They consist of MWA#1 "It's Not Much But I Call it Home,"a descriptive paragraph that I wrote about my new house, my second MWA#2 "Just Another Day in The Office,” a descriptive narrative on the time I got stitches, a blog titled "Still in it," referring to UW basketball, a journal entry that we were allowed to write anything about called "My Girlfriend," and last but not least a piece called "Rollercoaster," another blog of mine about UW basketball. All of these pieces represent my writing skills in many ways. I also chose these pieces not for the grade that I recieved on them but for what they actually mean to me. I wouldn't of have written them if they didn't have some kind of symbolic meaning behind each one. I hope you guys enjoy my e-portfolio.

Yours Truly,

Dan

intro to another day in the office

For my first piece of writing I chose " Another Day in the Office," our second Major Writing Assignment which was a descriptive narrative. I chose this writing because I feel that it shows off my writing style by kind of reflecting on my personality. As you read this piece, hopefully you will think that some of it is humerous because that's what I was aiming for. I consider myself to be a pretty funny guy and I like to construct my writing around that. " After a half an hour of sitting in the waiting room filling out a clipboard and listening to crying babies, I heard the most beautiful words I could of possibly have heard:" "Mr. Collins, you can come back now." I hope you enjoy this piece.

Another Day in the Office

It was a beautiful mid-March afternoon with the warm sunshine and chirping birds and the occasional stitches. The four of us which included myself,my oldest brother John, my bestfriend Andrew, and also another good friend of mine named Justin, mat at my house to go play some basketball in the new neighborhood behind my house.

"Shotgun," Andrew yelled as the four of us pile dinto my brother's old Nissan Pathefinder.

We arrived atthe freshly paved court and began ouor process of picking teams. After shooting for teams, we came to a conclusion and the teams were Andrew and I versus John and Justin. The game had only been going on for about five minutes when it came to a quick stop.

"Check the ball dude," the cocky Justin said to me. We checked the ball, and as fast as he could blink, I drove right past him for what I thought was going to be an easy lay-in but instead was a flagrant foul which consisted of Justin pretty much punching me on top of my big head.

"Foul," I angrily shouted, "What do you think this is man, the freaking NBA?"

Immediately responding Justin replied, "Shut up dude, is was an accident." Being caught up in the moment, I ran up to the much bigger Justin and threw him to the ground. We started rolling around and wrestling like two wild dogs on the hard concrete surface.

"Get off him," my older and much strongger brother yelled at me as he pulled me off of the ground by my shirt collar.

Being friends and all, we both got up and acted like nothing happened until the stunned sounding Justin said, "Dude, are you bleeding?"

"I don't think so bro," I relpied kind of skeptically. It was that exact moment that my other buddy Anndrew pointed out a large gash with blood flowing out like a river in flood season on my left wrist. "Son of a bitch," I said out loud.

"We better get you home man," my usually uncaring brother said to me. On the way home, I had to use my own shirt to apply pressure to the wound. When we got home I showed my dad and he came to the obvious conclusion that I was giong to need some stiches.

Walking into the house to get a rag before we left my gracious father said to me, "Make sure you don't drip bloode everywhere."

"I'm glad that you care about the hardwood floors and the counter tops more than your own son," i jokingly said to him. The same was said from him in the car as well. After a half an hour of sitting in the waiting room filling out a clipboard and listening to crying babies, I heard the most beautiful words I could have possibly have heard: "Mr. Collins, you can come back now." "About time," I thought to myself holding my blood-drenched rag against my wrist. All in all, I was given six stiches along with an awesome scar and a great storybehind it.

Intro to It's what i like to call home

For my second piece of writing I chose "It's Not Much But I Call it Home," our first Major Writing Assignment which was a descriptive paragraph. I chose this writing because it shows my strength's in descriptive writing and using my sensory details which I feel I am pretty good at. For example, "The sound of the creek is nice but the smell of fresh cut grass being blown around by the warm breeze coming off the Tulalip Bay on a cool July night is heaven."I hope you enjoy this piece.

It's not much but I call home

I was like a kid in a candy store the first time I laid eyes on our new home, 8 1/2 acres of true beauty and wilderness. The house was great, but the land was something else. Surrounding the property like tall castle walls, old growth cedar and ancient Douglas Firs stand high and proud above the rest of the peaceful habitat. If you were to stroll down the private gravel road a few hundred feet, you would find yourself looking into a crystal clear creek that flows into the nearby Puget Sound. The Stream is also known for salmon spawning so during spawning season, king, silver, and chum salmon fiercely race up-stream like it's the Daytona 500 to lay their eggs. The Flowing that can be heard from the distant creek is as soothing as a melody played to put a newborn baby to sleep. The sound of the creek is nice, but the smell of fresh cut grass being blown around by the warm breeze coming off the Tulalip Bay on a cool July night is heaven. It may not be Hawaii or somewhere in the Caribbean, but it’s what I like to call home.

Intro to Rollercoaster

For my third piece of writing I chose "Rollercoaster," a blog from our class blog assignment. I chose this piece because of wrting because when I think about sports, I tend to feel more confident or comfortable about writing itself. I think this piece shows my ability to reach out to an audience that's interested in that topic that I write about and get their attention. "They go up, they go down, they go in loops,they are the Washington Huskies." As a sports fan, I love to here other peoples inputs on certain topics and that's why I decided to choose the topic I did for my blog. I hope you enjoy my blog that I wrote on the University of Washington Mens Basketball team.