A silly story

Alright, so my homework for Advanced Composition was to write a story using 26 rhetorical devices. I had to include ALL of them in my story, so even bar the subject it sounds completely ridiculous! Add in the fact that I'm not the greatest writer and you have a disaster. The only reason I'm posting this is because Tom wanted to read it, and I figured it couldn't be too much weirder than the woman that lives in his ceiling so...

Here is the list of all the devices we had to include in our story, the little numbers correspond to where I placed them in mine (I hope... if I used them properly) Don't feel bad if you don't know what all of them are... I didn't either until I had to do this exercise:
1.Active voice
2.Passive voice
3.Simple sentence
4.Compound sentence
5.Complex sentence
6.Compound-complex sentence
7.Loose sentence
8.Periodic sentence
9.Parallel sentence
10.Parallel sentences
11.Denotation
12.Connotation
13.Antithesis
14.Appositive
15.Interrupter with a hyphen
16.Asyndeton
17.Alliteration
18.Assonance
19.Anaphora
20.Epistrophe
21.Anadiplosis
22.Metonymy
23.Personification
24.Hyperbole
25.Litotes
26.Oxymoron

Here's the story, I'm goingto hide my face in shame now whilst you read it! Hahaha

Deep in a forest, secluded in a lush glen, there lived creatures that had rarely been seen by humans.(2)(5)(8) These animals were half avian and half feline—avian faces, wings and front legs, feline hind legs and tails- and they resided in small flocks.(4)(15) People gave such beasts the name “gryphons.” (1)(3) This particular flock of gryphons was brightly colored and it was also rather unusual, even considering the nature of its species.(6) One young gryphon especially stood out from the rest, displaying a playful disposition.(7) She was a perfect example of being child-like and naïve. (11)(12) Her face and chest were a deep violet, her body and tail a vibrant magenta, and her feathery tail centered with a beautiful shade of turquoise.(9) Keet, as this gryphon was known, also had a delicate pair of lavender wings, a golden orange beak, and a set of scaly golden avian forelimbs. (10)(14)

It just so happened that one night whilst the flock was sleeping, a kidnapper took one of the young gryphons. When the flock awoke in the morning, they were shocked to find that little Lotus had been abducted, most of all Keet who was her best friend. Poor Keet was confused, yet aware of what had happened to her companion, and she stared wide-eyed at the elders who were squabbling over what they should do.(13) “Well this will not get us anywhere,” thought Keet, and she sneaked off alone to look for her captive friend. She took to the air swooping, diving, calling out in shrill chirps— it all seemed to no avail.(16)

Finally, after what seemed like days of searching, Keet heard a weak whimpering whine coming from a strange concrete edifice, the likes of which she had never seen before. (17) This odd structure was not alone; Keet had wandered into some bizarre tribal city, which unknown to her belonged to humans. Keet flew up to a clear glass panel that looked in on a tiny room inside the building.(18) There she saw that her best friend had been locked in a tight cage, had been crying profusely, and had been quite thoroughly shaken be the events which had taken place.(19) Apparently the humans who lived in the city thought that Lotus would make a fine and loyal pet, but Keet was not about to find out if that were the case.

To release her friend, she had to think like a brave gryphon and act like a brave gryphon.(20) Although Keet was overcome with fear, fear for her life and fear for her friend, she managed to clear her head enough to devise a plan.(21) Words of support from the flock seemed to ring in her large catlike ears as she nimbly cut a large hole in the glass pane with a sharp claw.(22) It was something she never dreamed she would do in a thousand years.(24) The bright sun smiled and the sky sang encouragingly as Keet slipped stealthily through the hole in the window and quieted her sobbing friend.(23) This proved to be no easy task, as Lotus had been quite worked up by the whole ordeal.(25) If she had been calm enough, maybe she would have thought to pick the lock on the cramped cage, which is what Keet did while holding a calming hand over her hysterical friend’s beak. Once freed, Lotus stifled a chirp of gratitude and the two sneaked silently out through the window.

Keet and Lotus returned home with some true tall tales to share with the flock, and were greeted with many sighs of relief.(26)

Test your color IQ, kids!

Ok, so I found this link on one of the sites I frequent yesterday. It's pretty cool! This test will determine how well you can distinguish colors. If you are confused (check with the sun... hahaha *cough* ok sorry) the object is to arrange the tiles in order to form a gradient. The very first and very last tile of each row are where they are supposed to be. So for example, on the first row, arrange the tiles in the correct order from the reddish color to the greenish color. The lower your score, the better. A 0 is a perfect score, and the scale goes pretty high! My score was a 7, pretty good:

• Your score: 7
• Gender: Female
• Age range: 20-29
• Best score for your gender and age range: 0
• Highest score for your gender and age range: 1364

Now, your turn! Color Hue Test

Be sure to let me know how you did!

Throw it on the fire...

Haha, best sign EVER. So I just got back from my trip to the middle of nowhere, NY; I had an awesome time! I went with my friend Emily to her grandparents' cabin this weekend, and it was pretty far removed from modern "civilization." The nearest small town with a convenience store was a 10 minute drive away, and the nearest Walmart was about 45 minutes away. No cell phone towers or anything of that sort, just a lot of nature. It took us around 7 hours to get there (possibly more because we sat in traffic for a ridiculous amount of time), but it was worth it. Also the names of some cities along the way were flipping awesome or just plain hilarious, such as Moosic, Lackawanna, Frackville, and Schenectady. I love Emily and her family, they're so entertaining! I got to meet her grandparents and some extended family members, I already knew her parents and younger sister.





We occupied ourselves by doing ridiculous things, like sticking Oreos to our foreheads and trying to work them into our mouths without using our hands, harmonizing to "Lean on Me" and bursting into song constantly, and just being generally loony. Hence the awesome sign! Yes, Emily's grandparents have that on their front porch, how great is that? The Oreo thing was hysterical, I had tears streaming down my face because I was laughing so much. Therefore I failed and the Oreo ended up on the floor instead of in my mouth... oh well. If you look closely at the picture up there you'll probably be able to see that I was crying.



I saw lot of wildlife there too, including a hummingbird, a pileated woodpecker, lots of frogs and toads, and a mother deer and her two fawns. I wish I had been able to get more pictures of them, but it always seemed like whenever I saw something, my camera was elsewhere. I did get some really nice pictures of the landscape though. Unfortunately I couldn't capture the beautiful night sky on camera as it was so dark, but I had never seen so many stars before.


The cabin was only a block or so (well, not your typical city block...) from a lake. On Sunday we all helped to build a huge bonfire on the shore of the lake for an event the locals call the "Ring of Fire" (no not the song). Everyone who lived around the lake built a fire, and all lit their fires at the same time. When you looked across the lake you could see everyone's fire burning, hence the name "Ring of Fire." We watched fireworks that some of the neighbors set off and sang songs around the fire. Emily took a video of me and three other people who were family friends singing "Green Grow the Rushes, Ho!" I had originally learned the song at the Pennsylvania Renaissance Faire a few years ago. It's only the last verse, and you can't see much because it is so dark, but I am there. Listen to how lovely the others' voices are! Mine is probably the worst of the bunch, heh. I uploaded this because it may be included in my R.E.M. comic in the future, considering they have a song called "Green Grow the Rushes" which has parallels (including the name) to this song. (If you are reading my blog you probably know that already, but just in case!)

And now I am, most unfortunately, back at school. Ah well, lovely weekend! Hopefully I will get to visit again soon.

Look who bought the myth... I mean, got a blog!

Yup! Nothing much to say in this first post really, but Tom, Jems, and Jordan sort of coerced me into getting a blog, so here I am. It's about 12:30AM and I really should be sleeping, but I am determined to at least have this completely set up first! I'm stubborn that way. It took me several hours just to decide on a blog title, isn't that awful? I finally settled on this one because it is bird-related, R.E.M.-related, and touches on the fact that I'm terribly clumsy. Haha.

Anyway, I'm going to up-state New York with a friend tomorrow to stay in her family's cabin over the weekend, so that should be fun! I hope there aren't too many spiders, as I am rather terrified of them. I have 2 relatives who were hospitalized for spider bites and I'm paranoid that I will be next. However, I'm told there are also loons up there, which I have never seen in the wild, so that's pretty exciting and kind of balances out the dreadful spiders! With any luck I will also get to work on my next comic page while I'm up there too.

Alright, well it really is time for sleep now, so I bid you all good night (even though most of you will probably read this in the morning!)