Hi, I am Tori & Welcome to my Life

By -

    Hello, everyone! My full name is Tori Elizabeth Hicks, but you all can call me Tori. I am constantly asked if Victoria is my full name, but no, not me; I am just Tori. My father told my mother when I was born that Victoria was so common, and that he just wanted Tori, so he got his wishes. I like it though, filling out my name in the bubbles on state testing throughout grade school was so easy. 

    Okay, I got distracted. Hobbies. My favorite hobby is dancing and I have danced since I was two and a half years old. So, that means that I have been dancing for eighteen years. I am twenty years old, I will turn twenty one this November. I love to spend time with my friends and my boyfriend. Michael and I have been dating for five years as of August 22nd. 

    I work at the Starbucks on Main Street Spartanburg. So, if you want to see me, don't come to Pine Street. I would say that I generally work 2-3 days a week, about 15-20 hours a week. 

    Something that you should know about me as a learner is that I do not do well with technology. I also get stressed out when things are scattered all over the place, because I get afraid that I will miss an assignment. I live by the syllabus; I have it printed off and I check off assignments as I do them. If the syllabus is ever to change, it would be helpful to know, so that I can reprint it. I am a perfectionist and will almost always have assignments turned in before or by the due date. 

    Thinking back to my childhood, I loved books. I was most passionate about reading in elementary and middle school. In elementary school I would read Magic Treehouse books in one sitting. I also loved Diary of a Wimpy Kid and Junie B Jones books. I would always get to go to our "AR"(accelerated reading) celebrations and I would have one of the highest set of "AR" points. In middle school I read many books but some of my favorites were the Hunger Games series and The Fault in Our Stars. Saying this now, I really want to go back and re-read the Hunger Games series. At the end of middle school and into high school, I got more into writing. High school is where my reading really fell through. I never had the time to read anymore, so I didn't. I would still write; my favorite thing to write is poems. I loved all of my assignments in my classes that were related to writing, but I hated reading assignments. This is why I don't read much now. 

    Hopefully, I learn to enjoy reading more through this class. Since it is required for me to read, I will obviously have to devote time to my reading. I feel that this may spark that drive to read that I had in elementary and middle school. Literally, back then, you wouldn't see me without a book in my hand. So far in this class, I have went ahead and read the first book, The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, and I have started the second book, The Hate U Give. I have absolutely loved both of these books so far, and have enjoyed taking time out of my day to read them. I got through the first book in two days. I started reading these books earlier because I am not as quick of a reader as other people. I have thoroughly enjoyed these books and hope the rest of our readings are just as much fun as these have been! 

   This is the first class that I have got to really read in, so I am excited about that. I am very excited about our class and getting to know you guys. 

    

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Growing Pains - The Symbolism of the Tree in Speak

By -
I have felt the paralyzing pain of internal disease. The kind of trauma that causes your mouth to curl in and swallow you whole. I, like so many other women, are walking the halls in Melinda’s shoes in “Speak.” I thought Laurie Anderson did a phenomenal job of twisting all of the tribulations a high school girl goes through, into the tree that Melinda is. Whether we’re as strong as an oak or weak as a bush, we have all gone through the disease that strikes Melinda from the inside out. Melinda is like a half-dead tree. Some parts of her strive to blossom and create beauty. Other parts are broken and diseased. Like a dead tree, Melinda needs to save herself and “cut off the damage, [so it] is possible for the tree to grow again” (187). The symbolism of a tree is significant in “Speak.” Trees reflect her growing process. In the beginning, Melinda is a sick and lifeless tree. Her view is negative and dark. She’s so far past repair, bursts of sunlight do her no good. Sunlight would be pe...
Read more

How Starr Goes from Acting to Embracing in The Hate U Give

By -
In The Hate U Give, Starr Carter is caught between two worlds. She lives in a predominantly black neighborhood, but her father sends her and her brothers to a private school where she is surrounded by white people. She talks about acting differently depending on what group she is around, which can create some identity problems. She says on page 11, "Funny how it works with white kids though. It's dope to be black until it's hard to be black." When at Williamson, she sees white kids that think it's cool to engage in black culture, but she knows they don't understand what she goes through in her Garden Heights community. She witnessed her friend Natasha's death when she was 10 years old, and she sees gang activity in her community all the time. When she is among her black friends, like at the party, they tease her for hanging out with the white kids. This reminds me of a Drake song where he says, "I used to get teased for being black, and now I'm...
Read more

Postmodernism in Curious Incident

By -
Before I start writing, I first want to acknowledge that I just really loved this book! It seemed like a lot of the class had trouble enjoying or appreciating the novel because it's so different stylistically, which is understandable, but all of those unique elements helped make the novel more authentic. The main topic I want to focus on (also what I'm writing my paper on) is how a lot of postmodernist elements were used in the novel to make Christopher come to life. While obviously not every postmodern novel is about an autistic kid, I think Haddon really used a lot of these elements to his advantage and they ended up working out really well to characterize Christopher. One of the major postmodern elements which helps this book really craft an authentic portrayal of autism is the fact that it's metafictive. Basically, this means it's a "story within a story." Readers would be extremely limited just reading the parts of the novel which are meant to be C...
Read more