RCWW assignment 9/8/09

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1. One of the toughest papers i have ever written would be my personal statement for college acceptance.
2. It took me a long time to get to writing the personal statement. I had to think about what exactly I wanted to get across and how to say it. I was writing for people who basically held my future in their hands, so I wanted it to sound professional. I would write something and then go back and scratch it out because I couldn't elaborate on what I wrote. I tried to talk about how I became the person I am and who helped me along the way, but it was tough to make it sound professional and not flighty. Sometimes I would lose focus and have to go back and rewrite. Writing is a complicated process that is basically trial and error.

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1-2. split, paused, considered, vanished, rounding, trailed, picked, chased, smashed, entered, ran, ran, ran, chased, chased, glanced, choking, expected, strained, pounding, trained, to fling, to point, to go, chasing, impelled, compelled, tore, running, improvising, running, choosing, failing, to slow, discovering, exhilarated, dismayed, losing, chased, caught, caught, stopped
3. "He chased Mikey and me around the yellow house and up a backyard path we knew by heart: under a low tree, up a bank, through a hedge, down some snowy steps, and across the grocery store's delivery driveway. We smashed through a gap in another hedge, entered a scruffy backyard and ran around its back porch and tight between houses to Edgerton Avenue; we ran across Edgerton to an alley and up our own sliding woodpike to the Halls' front yard; he kept coming." (pg 17, paragraph 12) I think these few sentences really show the drama of the story.

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1. It says the man was in "city clothes: a suit and tie, street shoes... a thin man, all action." (10)
" a man in his twenties... our pursuer, our captor, our hero... the man's lower pants legs were wet; his cuffs were full of snow, and there was a prow of snow beneath them on his shoes and socks..." (16)
"... the driver of th black Buick... sainted, skinny, furious redheaded man..." (21)
2. "You stupid kids" he says [perfunctorily], his ordinary Pittsburgh accent, normal righteous anger, usual common sense.
3. The man's role is to simply keep the suspense of the story. Without him, the kids would just be running around, but with him they are being chased by what they think is a 'mad man.'

1. She calls the snowball an iceball. It is "a perfect iceball, from perfectly white snow, perfectly spherical, and squeezed perfectly translucent son no snow remained all the way through."
2. "backyard labyrinths" (15) makes me think that every backyard she stepped foot in was so incredibly complex that it took her years to get out.

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1. perfunctorily, redundant, mere formality, passionately, precisely, prolong, brooded, dismembered, piecemeal, Panamanian jungle, exalting
2. She wanted the 'glory' of the chase to last forever. Though she was terrified, she liked the feeling she had from being chased.