Week 3

When I was a little girl, about 10 years old, I would watch people on TV dancing as stars. Professional dancers on TV shows. I would imitate them and dance all around my living room. My parents never had the money to put me into dancing classes or anything like that. So as I grew older I still had that passion. Something in me told me I wanted to dance. I entered middle school and joined a dance class. From then I realized that it got my mind off a lot of thing and I loved the feeling. I then saved up money and put myself into a dance academy. I dance with many people and love doing it. I entered high school and joined dance class. That was the one class that I would look forward to going into. I performed in front of many people and enjoyed that rush. I think dancing has changed my life. Every time I feel upset or sad, all I do is go to a place were I can make up choreography and it really does clear my head. I entered college with my mind made up that I would like to become a dance choreographer. There are many people that are better then me and I do believe that I can get better. It just takes a lot of practice and that’s what I plan on doing. Out of all my free time I would say that I dance 68% of that time.

The word: Apathetic

Part of speech: Adjective

Source sentence and page number: Funny in Farsi (page:118) ".....That perhaps included in the freedoms in this country is the freedom of apathetic."

Context Clues:"Freedom in the country' Meaning not feeling anything from the freedom because they cant feel the freedom. Apathetic meaning not feeling.

Definition: Having or showing little or no emotion.

Your own Sentence: When im at work i dont feel apathetic anymore.

The word: Baklava

Source sentence and page number: Funny in Farsi (page:64) "In berkeley, and only in Berkeley, my name drew people like flies to baklava.

Context clues: :"drew people like flies." the flies were drawn th the food.

Definition: A near Easter pastry made of many layers of paper thin dough with filling of nuts, baked dough and honey.

Your own definition: My mom buys baklava from Sams Club when we have some time of gathering at our house.

Anomaly

Part of speech: adj

The source sentence and page number: Funny in Farsi not seem such a big deal in other families, but my parents, both of whom are painfully shy, looked upon their outgoing anomaly, just as Native Americans regard an albino buffalo-he was a miracle."

Context Clues: I use logic because they refer that the albino buffalo-he was a miracle, it meant something weird, peculiar to them

Definition: something different, peculiar, not easily classified.

Your original sentence: The girl was anomaly different then all the rest of the people in the classroom.

Week 2

In my reading class, Read 056, we do a lot of reading of chapter books and many other things. Reading has always been a problem for me. I really never read in my own free time and I never really read when we had to in high school. So practice in reading was never really done for me. Now that I’m a freshman in college I see that reading is done all the time especially in a reading class. So whether or not I like it I’m always reading. The reason I have problems in reading is because I always have my mind somewhere else. Half way through the page I loose focus and don’t remember anything I read which causes misunderstanding throughout the whole story. That’s the reason I don’t do it on my free time. The only time this happens is when I read something I’m really interested in, that’s when I find myself really paying attention. My family isn’t much of a reader either so that’s probably why I struggle. Growing up as a kid the only person that has ever really pushed me to read was my grandpa but other then that no one ever really pushed me to read. Its either I read or I didn’t. I don’t really remember my parents reading to me either when I was little. I never had reading done in my house when I was younger which is why I struggle now. I’m a pretty good reader when I want to be but when I’m not interested in it I have trouble.

Week 1

In the reading class that I am taking this semester read 056 I have learned how to study vocabulary words better. This has a really big impact on me because I never studied before because I didn’t really know how and I used to do real poorly on the test. Now that I do study I find it easier on testing. Some words that I get in my vocabulary I never used to hear around me because I wouldn’t really catch them. Now that I know what they mean I hear them being said more and more and I catch them because I know the meaning. Now that I know a lot more words then I did before I find myself using them when I speak. I use the words I learned in my reading class when I talk because they are more proper in my conversations. Many other people don’t know what they mean because they aren’t used very often so I always end up explaining it to them. Some of the words I learned I remember but some of them I end up forgetting. I don’t really remember all of them. When I study only so many stick in my head because of the meaning of the words and the way I use them. If I use more then others those are the ones that stick. I think studying vocabulary helps tremendously when having a test or even speaking to another person in general and having a conversation with others

The word: Gendarmes

Part of speech: Noun

The source sentence and page number: (Funny in Farsi) page 133 "The gendarmes started sifting through the clothes and the myriad of gifts i had brought for my host family.

Context clues: "Started shifting through"

Definition: a police officer in any of several European countries, esp. a French police officer

Your original sentence: When i visited Europe i got searched before entering the hotel by gendarmes.