Division of a Paper

     As any student in any college knows, there are going to be times when they are going to have to write a paper and turn it in for some kind of grade. That paper is either going to make or break their course grade. A well written paper has to have three main parts. An intro, with which we "hook" the teacher, the content, which keeps the teacher interested in what we are writing, and an outro, which sums the paper up in a nice neat little package and ties up all the little loose ends. Unless the paper is about little loose ends and in that case they probably won't get all tied up, but left flapping in the proverbial breeze for a good teacher to see.
        The intro is that first sentence,or first paragraph, first chapter, first page, whatever it is to be called depending on the length of the paper. It is the thing that grabs the teacher and says "I know what might interest you," to him or her. It is what peaks the interest, like those warm wonderful aromas in the kitchen right before Thanksgiving.(Sigh) A good intro has three parts to it. A really good quote, question or a startling/descriptive statement. A statement that will grab the teacher by the throat and say,"READ ME", and then the rest of the paragraph says, "I HAVE KNOWLEDGE FOR YOU." The third part should lead the teacher by the hand right into the content of the paper.
        The content of the paper is the fleshing out of what was brought up in the intro. Ideally, there should be three parts to back up whatever the writer is trying to say. There can be more but there really needs to be at least three points. Three little bitty corroborating pieces of information is all it takes to back up what is trying to be drummed into the poor teacher's brain. More than that and the poor guy gets a headache form trying to read a gazillion papers with a gazillion points, less than that and he might still be...confused. Each point should have its own sentence, paragraph, section, chapter whatever the length of the paper is. For example, a book is nothing more than a really long paper. It has a beginning, a middle, and an end; it just has more chapters to back up the points.The points usually being; point one-boy meets girl, point two-boy loses girl, and point three-girl realizes she dodged a bullet and gets away laughing. This is where sequels come in, but that is a different point.When the third paragraph finally winds down, and the teacher realizes there is finally a light at the end of the tunnel, he should be led gently in to the outro.
         Finally, the last part of the assignment, is the summary or the outro. The outro is that part of the paper that sums everything, in the preceding parts up, in a nice neat little packge, if it can be done, making it easy for the teacher to remember what the paper was about. It recaps everything, ties up all those loose little ends laying around. The outro has to be there, due to the fact that the teacher, after having read so many papers and paragraphs, can't remember what he has just read when he gets down to the end of the piles of papers he has to read. This refreshes his memory just a bit. It is a way for the writer to leave her readers with whatever attitude that she wants. It is the last chapter in the book where the heroine is glad she got away, or got married, whichever and can even hint to the sequel if there is to be one.
         Any one of us can write any kind of paper. To put it together with some kind of cohesion, so that the end fits the beginning, and the middle, is what the teacher gets paid to drill into our little heads and what every student tries to do. As long as we have that basic formula down, we can do it in any order that we want to and we can still rest assured that we will at least pass the course. As long as we pass the work in to him at some point, for his reading pleasure, and a passing grade.

             

My Own Type of Research

     Research is one of my favorite things to do, as long as it is the, "hands on" type of research. I have always been a most curious creature. From the time I could stick my nose into something, that is exactly what I could be found to be doing. My favorite question growing up besides, "What is in the refrigerator?" was "Why?" At present I am trying to learn something about wine. I have started to read  books, pamphlets, and backs of wine labels, Mostly I am working my way down the wine shelves at the local grocery stores. Considering the fact that I drink about 4-5 bottles of wine a year, it is going to be awhile before I can safely assume that I know anything about wines at all. I began my research with red wines. I like beef and it bleeds red so I bought red wine to go with it. Apparently that logic worked because the back of the labels on the wine bottles agreed with me. Continuing on with that logic, chicken, fish, and pork were paired with white wines. That worked out pretty good as well. I originally started with the cheap end of the spectrum in wines thinking that one wine maker was just as good as another, however that thinking was a big mistake. I realized it the next morning when I felt absolutely awful. I also shied away from the boxed wines as they reminded me a lot of the Boonesfarm mistake and I did not want to go there again. Ever. Having a completely biased opinion of my home state, and believing that everything good comes from home I searched online for a number of wineries in the state and found a list of them. I then nagged my local grocer into ordering some of them, and although they cost a bit more than I really want to pay, there are some really good wines that are grown and marketed right here in Maine. I sample wines alphabetically by country according to whatever meat I am eating at the time and so far I am finding that most of the time as far as wines go, I am making good decisions about them. Enjoying how a good wine well chosen, compliments a dinner, I have begun experimenting with the dessert wines, and have become obsessed with finding the perfect wine to go with chocolate anything. It may take me awhile but I really liking doing the research. I also am starting to throw a little wine into my dinners as they are cooking, I find that works as long as I am not heavy handed with it. I look forward to doing actual field work this coming summer to increase the knowedge that am acquiring on a bottley basis.

Crocheting the Memories of My Life

 

     Learning how to crochet, for me, has been an ongoing experience since I was a little girl when I  learned the craft from my grandmother. Crocheting is a very old art form that has been handed down from mother to daughter for many generations. Sometimes skipping a generation or two but always making a raging come back. Beginning to learn any hobby requires a little thought on the part of the person learning the hobby. I remember first having to tell Grammy that I wanted to make a ribbon for my hair and it was from that first learning project that I learned a hobby that created some memories that were to last me a lifetime.

      To begin to learn my new hobby, I first had to talk to my grandmother and find out what would be best to start with.  In my case, I wanted to learn how to make ribbons for my hair. Grammy had showed me how to make them every morning, laughing when for some reason my eyes couldn’t keep up with her flashing crochet hook. Crocheting has one needle verses knitting, which has two. The hook in crocheting is identical to that of the one in  lace-making except in lace-making, or tatting as it is also known, you need the Hubble telescope to see the end of the needle and the threads. In crochet the needle is at at least 7 or 8 inches or so depending on the maker and can go to a foot or more. It has a small hook on at least one of the ends to catch the yarn and pull it through the loops held on the shank of the needle.

     Now that I had decided to learn to make ribbons, I then needed to know what else I would need to make them. The crochet hook is the first thing that came to my mind that I needed. It could be made of any materials from plastic to aluminum or anything else in between, and ranged in sizes from A to Z  with the standard size being G or H. For my purposes, a hook size G, made of aluminum,( which is my preference for crocheting simply because it slides through the yarn most easily), is the only equipment that I needed. As far as materials go, I would need a ball of yarn.  Yarn can come in as many colors as are in the rainbow, it really depended on what color my outfit was. My standard outfit was jeans and a tee shirt/sweatshirt.  So, for a color, I  chose a medium blue. Yarns also comes in many weights which is how one tells which one to use for what, the lighter weights are for decorations, children’s and baby clothes. The medium weights are for adult clothes, Afghans and crafts, and the bulky weights are for sweaters, shawls, and rugs. This is a very general guideline and can be subject to the whims of the pattern creator.

     Patterns, in crocheting, are the same as in sewing or anything else really. They are a way for the crocheter to know how to create the item desired. They number in the gazillions and can be as old as the paper they are written on or the thought in your mind. There are only a handful of stitches in crochet but it is the difference in how they are put together that give us the differences in the patterns. For the making of my hair ribbon I only needed two stitches; the single stitch(SC), and the double stitch(DC). I first started by knotting the yarn onto the crochet hook. By looping the yarn over the hook and drawing it through the knotted loop I have started my basic stitch. I continued drawing the yarn over the hook and pulling it through the loop on the hook.  I made this row of single chains about 30 stitches long. This was  called my beginning row or the starting row. When I have about thirty stitches in the chain, I crochet three more single chains and then poke the head of the hook through the middle of the third chain from the shank of the needle. I pull my yarn over the hook twice and draw each loop through the loop on my hook separately. I pull the yarn over the hook again and draw the yarn through all the loops on my hook. That is my very first double chain and I do one more double chain in the same chain stitch as the first DC. I continue putting two DCs in each SC for the next ten stitches. The pattern changes and I only do one stitch in each of the single stitches. Then it tells me to do that for ten stitches. The pattern changes back and I do ten more of the double stitches in each single stitch. Next I do one more row like the second row and I am done. There are loops and curls that have formed on the ends of the ribbons almost as if by magic. I tie the ribbon on my ponytail. My hair was then tied back with a uniquely-mine little hair bauble that I had made myself. This was the very basic pattern that I began learning to crochet on. As my head grew I had to add stitches to the pattern.

     As stated earlier, by varying the number of times you pull the yarn over the hook or the number of times you pull the yarn through the loops, you can vary the stitches. As I practiced and learned more variations of the stitches I have created heirloom quality Afghans for kids, toys for them to play with, accessories for my daughter’s outfits, and decorations for the holidays, all for the cost of a skein of yarn or two and some hours of my time. I now am at the point that my own granddaughter is asking me how to make the ribbons for her hair and I look forward to handing down to her the art form that I learned from my grandmother and seeing all the ways she can create the memories in her life.