From reading this blog it is obvious that Kristin is very good at writting. The imitation excersise that she did was very interesting and shows her writting off well. I could tell from reading the first draft of her first paper to reading the final draft of her third paper that her writting has become more descriptive, I could see how good her writting has become.

John:

The last two reading responses didn't show up, which was upsetting because I wanted to see what he wrote. Something I noticed in John's writing is the fact that in both the first paper and the third paper John mentioned his English teacher from high school.

 Helen:

I noticed when going through Helen's reading responses that the wrong imitation excersise was put into her blog. One thing I noticed in Helen's writing from the first draft of the first paper to the final draft of the third paper was that her paragraphs became smaller.

Amanda:

The first reading response was very thoughtful, seeing as it was two paragraphs. I had read Amanda's draft of the final paper in class and had made a lot of comments about it. Between that draft and the one that I just read a few changes were made, the descriptions that were put in were very good, it helped me see what was happening in the story.

Me:

Looking through my imitation excersise I realise that my first imitation was very descriptive while my other two were based on a Sci-Fi show that I like. After looking through my papers I noticed that I use about the same amount of description and that in all of my essays I mentioned something about a British series. In the first papers I mentioned characters from Doctor Who and Torchwood, which I did in the third paper as well, and in the second paper I mentioned Harry Potter, in the third paper I mentioned Harry Potter twice. I like to write about the things I read and watch on TV or in movies.

            Of course this flight wasn’t an easy one. At the time, Colorado was teaming with storms. Greeley got hit with a couple of tornados; the east coast was also getting storms. When on a plane most of the time you will get your first drink about fifteen minuets into the flight and if it is a long flight a meal will be provided within the first half hour. That wasn’t possible on our flight it was going to take up to an hour or two to get our meals. The turbulence was just that bad.

            The flight attendants finally had to give us our meal even though the flight was still very bumpy. I had the chicken platter with a diet coke; I even had a Crunchie bar. That is a chocolate candy bar from England with a honeycomb center. After dinner the coffee cart came around, I distinctly remember asking the guy who sat next to me if I could use his cream. After drinking my coffee I fell asleep.

            That was the beginning of my trip to England. Over the course of those three weeks I learned about my family and grew up as a person. This was my first trip out of the country without my parents. I also brought my best friend who has never been out of the country, I call her Dani. I stayed in Nottinghamshire with my grandfather.

            My favorite thing to do in England is go to the wax museum Madame Tussauds. Every time I go the museum changes. Madame Tussauds is in London, so when we went there we also took a tour of London. The first stop was the museum itself. The first room looked like a red carpet event, flashing lights and upbeat music. There are many wax figures of famous celebrities. I had my picture taken with Daniel Radcliffe, who plays Harry Potter,  and I have a tendency to tell people that I actually met him. I did the same thing last time I went to Madame Tussauds in 2003, my mom and I got a picture with the wax figure of Simon Cowell. I also got a picture with Graham Norton, who is a talk show host in England, that first room was rhythmically interesting.

            The next few rooms were very different than that first room. There was a room of old movie characters. I have a picture of superman, Charlie Chapman, and other cool characters that I would have to look in my camera to see who they are. There was also a room of terror that had scarily realistic looking heads on spikes. In this room there was also a live action show of terror. I didn’t see it but Dani and my grandfather saw it. I, obviously, am still as afraid of horror as a genre as I was when I was younger.

            The rest of the museum was the same as I remember, and by that I mean the hall of presidents and old kings and queens. There was all of the US presidents, the most famous kings and queens of England and many of the diplomats from other countries. In this room there was also the Beatles. It took forever to get a picture of them, since everyone wants a picture of the Beatles. The end of the museum was a ride of old London wax figure style.

            As I grow up and visit England many different times this place changes with me. As I grow older so do the wax figures, as new things happen in life, or movies that come out, new wax figures are made to correspond with the new happenings. I also learn more about the museum every time I go. During the tour there was a new room, it explained how the new figures are made and how the old ones used to be made. I always feel as if the changing of the museum is a signifier of how everything changes as people age. I look at the wax figures that have been there forever and I think, They don’t look like that anymore.

            On this trip my friend Dani and I went to my parents’ friends’ house in York to see a different part of England. The coolest thing we did was go to a coal miner’s museum; I actually went down a coal shaft.  It was a scary thing, but it was also a very interesting thing. I learned a lot about coal miners and the different ways that mining changed over the years.

            Before going down the miners shaft every one has to take off any of there electronic devices. That includes watches, mobiles (which is the British term for cell phones), cameras, and any other electronic item. After giving any of the items over to the person on the other side of the counter they gave us a huge battery and a miner’s cap, which was a heavy item to carry while walking around in an uneven environment. After everyone was caped and checked to see if their lights were working we were finally able to go into the shaft.

            I don’t quite remember every single thing that I did but I do remember some of the things that happened. The first room that we came to was shut entirely and the lights all turned out. When the lights were turned back on there was a fake rat on the floor to scare all of the youngsters that might have been there. In that room there were also figures of a pony and a family. That was to show us that there were once a time when an entire family would work in the mines, but unlike us they didn’t have any light so the children had to sit in the pitch black and wait until they heard their parents knock on the door of their area. It was a scary thought that any child would have to live through that. I know that when I was a child I was afraid of the dark, and anything that may go bump in the night. I may not be afraid of the dark anymore but I know what I was like as a child, having three brothers doesn’t help a fear grow into a strength.

            As we went through the mine museum the instructor that was bringing us through told us of the new inventions that helped miners as they went through the changes in technology. I even walked the back way of an area, which means I walked through the machinery and got to see the inside area of the machines. At the end of the tour through the mine the instructor asked us if we knew anything that coal was used in. It was interesting to find out that it was in makeup and even in toothpaste; apparently coal is a great whitening product.

            While in England I saw some of my relatives that I haven’t seen in years. My mum is an only child so the only relatives I have on her side are her aunts, uncles, and cousins. One day my granddad brought Dani and I to a pub to visit our Michelle and a few of mum’s other cousins (in my family when we say our before a name we mean that they are our blood relation.). They told me a few stories of mum when she was younger. She did a lot of things she probably didn’t want me to know.

            She has told me a few of the stories about her youth, mostly so that I wouldn’t do anything bad, like about how she had skipped some of her classes, about growing up an only child, about only having a few BBC channels on the TV, about the only phone being the red phone booth at the end of the street, well you get the point. I realized that she told me of the things she wanted me to know about her.

            I won’t say any of the things that I learned about my mum but I did learn a few things about my cousins. The main thing that I remember that I have in common with the cousins is that we have the same favorite actor, David Tennant (you’ll learn more about him later). We talked about many things, any diets we may have done, music, differences of life in America compared to in England and many other things.

            While in England I had my first taste of alcohol. Even though I was only eighteen while I was on vacation that is the legal age in England. I realized that I don’t really like alcohol at all. After one drink my head starts to hurt, by that I mean that I have a killer headache that throbs. I also realized that if I do drink alcohol it has to be the fruity drinks that don’t actually taste like anything alcoholic. I only had Bacardi breezers when I went to a pub.

            It is kind of bad that in England they don’t check ID’s unless you are getting an alcoholic drink without a meal. It is a good thing that Dani and I remembered to bring our drivers license with us to England. The only bad thing about going to the pubs in England with my granddad is that he likes to go dressed up nice. Let me tell you that walking for half a mile in heels is killer on your feet, trust me. I even have a tendency to fall on nothing so it was horrible walking for so long.

            My favorite part of the trip to England was when Dani found what we called “the Doctor Who store.” The store was actually called Forbidden Planet and there was more than just Doctor Who merchandize, there were comics, other sci-fi television show paraphernalia, and many other things. I used most of the money I brought to England on items there.

            The reason I loved that store was because I am a big fan of the British TV show Doctor Who. My favorite actors are in this show, David Tennant, who most Americans will know as Barty Crouch Jr. from Harry Potter, and John Barrowman, who was the main tenor in the song “Springtime for Hitler” in The Producers. For a little background on this show David Tennant plays The Doctor, a Time Lord from a different planet, who is a time and space traveler. His space ship the TARDIS, which means time and relative dimension in space, looks like a blue police public call box. If you hadn’t noticed I also called the paper TARDIS, I have a brilliant explanation for this. The TARDIS is a time machine, for me to go to the future I have to grow up, thus the title for my memoir.

            Watching the show in England was an amazing experience, the season just started this month in America. I even got Dani to watch it with me; she saw an episode once and thought it was a bit loony. It felt more authentic to watch the show in England since it is a British show. But that is another story for a different memoir.

            Back to my original story about the store, I bought a lot of Doctor Who merchandize. When I first went into the store I bought two books, a “decide your destiny” style book. Before leaving England I bought seven of these books, I got numbers two through eight. I was very excited when I saw that they had a TARDIS. I bought it before anyone else could, it’s a coin bank but I think it is brilliant. I even got a picture of my favorite actor John Barrowman that was signed by him. The last two things I bought were a poster of The Doctor with the TARDIS and a poster of the main cast of the Doctor Who spinoff show Torchwood. Just a little explination of Torchwood, they are a “special-ops” group that takes care of the aliens that crash into Cardiff, Wales or come through a rift in time.

            On the plane ride back home I thought back on what I did while in England. I didn’t do everything that I wanted but what I did do was very exciting. While in England I also bought my first autobiography. I read the entire book within a few hours, randomly telling Dani a few of the anecdotes that I saw in the book that I thought were funny, like for example when he talked about a state, which I can’t really remember which one it is, that is as flat and curve less as Paris Hilton. I don’t think he said it quite like that but that is how I remember it.

I did many things while I was in England. I even survived Friday the thirteenth, which is a running joke between Dani and I that we were going to become werewolves (well maybe Dani would). When I say that I mean that she bought me a how to survive a horror movie book that said that I may not survive the next year’s summer. I walked a lot more than I usually would and I even got a library card for the Hucknall library. My thoughts at the end of my trip are kind of like the end of John Barrowman’s autobiography, “My ending isn’t written yet, my show’s not over. Stay in your seats. This is only the intermission.”

            The same could be said about acting. Take the Shakespeare play Hamlet. The main character has been played by many people from Mel Gibson to Kenneth Branagh. They both played the same character, Hamlet, but the way they became that person was different. They spoke the same monologue, the “to be or not to be” speech, but they said it in a very different way. Of course the main difference is that Mel is an American playing Hamlet and Kenneth is Irish, so the accents may have changed the character a bit. Not only the accents would change these characters but since they are from different places they would have had different experiences that would change their interpretation of the writing. In the end the words were still the same, only the style was different.

            One writer may have different voices as well, even if the content is the same. For example the Anne Rice novel series The Vampire Chronicles. The books are all about the same subject, vampires, but they all are different. Each book is from a different vampire’s point of view. Interview with the Vampire is in Louis’ voice, The Vampire Lestat through Memnoch the Devil and the last two books in the series are all in Lestat’s voice. There are also other books in other voices. Armand, Marius, Pandora, Merrick and Vittorio are also vampire’s that Anne Rice has made a voice for. The different stories all have a different voice that is slightly similar to each other.

            I am about to imitate a piece of writing from Frankfurt’s book “On Truth.” I will use my own style but still use the concept that he had when he wrote the book. This imitation will show how my voice can be used even though the words were originally Frankfurt’s.

            No person or society can ignore the truth. These societies can not just have knowledge of the truth and what is false, and that they are important. A society must not forget to help individuals that are trying to be truthful. People must also remember that it is easy to lie, but that it is better to be truthful, or you may lose the ability to see the difference between truths and lies. To be a good human being you must tell the truth.

            If any societies decide to use lies they will eventually become unable to function as a culture. If this happens to a society they will never be the same. A society can not function without truth and facts. They will never grow as a culture if they are used to having beliefs based on lies. To become a great society, we as people, need to remember to use factual truths, and not lies. People need to know and use factual truths to become better people.

            To write this imitation I used an interesting method. First I read the passage about five or six times to make sure I knew what it was actually about. After that I went through and read each sentence three times. Then I wrote the imitation sentence for sentence, so in a way I wrote in a similar style to Frankfurt while still making it m own. I used a slightly similar style to write but I did change his writing and I also used my own ideas to change what he said slightly while still using his original idea as a base for my imitation.

As I wrote this imitation I realized that I wasn’t quite right on what I thought. Maybe it is both content and style that make voice. I tried to keep my writing based on what Frankfurt thought, but I used some of my own thoughts to keep my writing going. For example when I wrote “people must also remember that it is easy to lie, but that it is better to be truthful” I used my own thought on what is best for people, I was also thinking about Harry Potter when I wrote that line so I was trying my best not to use a quote from the 4^th movie’s trailer, “soon we must all make the choice between what is right and what is easy.” I wrote in my imitation, “People must also remember that it is easy to lie, but that it is better to be truthful…” while thinking that I had to make it sound different from that piece of work.

            Even though I used examples on how it is style and not concept that makes voice I realized that my examples actually didn’t help my argument. While the Shakespeare argument might have worked the Anne Rice one didn’t fully work as I originally thought it did. I realized while writing this piece of work that it is content that also makes the writing personal. Anne Rice’s vampires may all have a different style in the books but they are also the only vampires like them. Most vampires can be killed with a stake, sunlight, fire, and beheading; Anne Rice’s vampires can survive being staked, since it doesn’t even hurt them; they can re attach their heads, if they are ever cut off; they make their own fire when the time comes, and they can eventually go out in the sun without being burned to death, they just get a nice tan.

            While writing this essay, and looking back and re-reading it, I realized that the most I ever use voice is in the first and third parts. I noticed that with my voice I have a tendency to use examples from anything I might have read, seen, or heard to get my thoughts out on paper, I also do this when I talk. My imitation may be in my own voice but it isn’t really in my own voice. My voice comes through in the first and last section of this paper. I like to use examples and many other things to show who I am on written paper.

            I now know that it isn’t just style that is the makings of a good voice; it is also the content in the writing that makes it personal. I made my imitation personal to myself by using my style and also my own thoughts mixed into the content. It is not easy to put yourself out of the picture and write simply in either a certain style, or just use certain content to make a piece of work. If a person is really truthful to themselves it is hard to write anything that they don’t believe is their own words written in their own style.

            “I really like the way Mrs. Jones teaches. I get a real feel for writing,” the tall brunette, Tosh, told her friend as she gestured inarticulately with her hands.

            “I think Mr. Smith is a great writing teacher. I think my work is really coming along nicely,” the petite blonde, Gwen, said, her hands sitting delicately in her lap.

            “How does Mr. Smith teach you about writing?” Tosh asked as she pivoted her body to look closely at Gwen.

            “I think he’s brilliant. He uses this technique called ‘Free Writing.’ He just tells us to write whatever we feel like writing and not to stop until he says so,” Gwen replied as her hands twitched, as if she wanted to move them with her talking but kept them in her lap.

            “What about grammar and all of the writing dynamics, are they still used?” Tosh tilted her head in question, waiting for Gwen’s response.

            “Um, I don’t think they are. We just write what pops into our head, no stopping, remember?” Gwen looked at Tosh as if she missed the entire conversation.

            “How could you write all that and not want to go back and fix the grammar mistakes. I would never be able to do that.” Tosh nodded sagely at her own words.

            “Well how does Mrs. Jones teach writing then?” Gwen came back at Tosh, waiting for her answer.

            “She teaches all of the different writing styles, the proper use of punctuation, you know the usual. These skills are important for college writing.” Tosh said as she turned slightly away from Gwen.

            “No need to get so defensive about it. Come on lets get a coffee from Starbucks.” Gwen held her hand out to Tosh and they started walking to the campus coffee shop.

             If only all arguments ended as Tosh and Gwen ended theirs. Not all people can be persuaded away from an argument if offered a coffee. There are many people who still fight about what is the correct way for a teacher to teach in a writing classroom. Should the teacher be practically nonexistent or should he or she become the most important person in their students writing career. What is the best way of teaching in a writing classroom?

            One method for teaching in a classroom is to give the students more free will. If the student feels more in charge of their work, maybe it will be better and more interesting work. If the teacher tells a student “write whatever you want” it might just be a brilliant work of art, or it could be horrible. The main thing is that the student gets to choose what is written about. When given a topic that they have to write about and not given at least a few different things to write about the student might hate or not be informed enough about the subject and then happens to write a horrible essay because of it. If the student takes charge then they have all the answers to what is being written about. They feel superior in the knowledge that they are important writers just as much as any other person is. It is a good feeling for these people to write what they may perceive to be brilliant works of art.

            A student also needs a teacher, but being a teacher in a “teacherless” class might be confusing. If done as Peter Elbow, an English teacher and writer, had it done in his classes it could be a really good tool for helping students learn. If the teacher does exactly as the student does then they are helping the student. Even just having the student critique the teachers own writings can help them learn better writing skills.

            The most well known way of teaching a writing class is to be the main authority in what the student does. The student will write on what you want them to, the way you want them to, and for how long you want them to. Depending on what type of writing class the student might be taught to write papers differently (e.g. maybe they want certain headers for their students papers). Different classes are all unique and every teacher teaches what they think will help their student most in the end. Some teachers might seem stricter than others but a lot of them still are the leaders of the classroom, their word is law. You, the student, write what they say is proper for the class.

            To be the opposite of a “teacherless” class the teacher has to show that he or she is there to help the students become better writers than they are. If the teacher is to do as Bartholomae, another English teacher and writer, thinks they will teach the way they were taught. The teacher will teach using excerpts from writers stories that they were taught with, they will use the past, they will have students quote or paraphrase, and they will teach the proper way to cite the sources that they used. Teachers can be fair to their students and still be strong role models.

            Or maybe there is a third way to teach writing. It might be a better way to teach if some of both Elbow’s and Bartholomae’s styles were combined together to make an even better way of teaching a writing class. When I was younger one of my teachers taught a way that used both of the techniques together. At the beginning of every class we would have to do a free write. Unlike Elbow’s free write there were times that we had to write what the teacher wanted and not what we thought. It could help others to think about different ways to write during one simple free write session. The teacher taught many different styles of writing (e.g. poetry, short story, descriptive, creative) but always let us, the students, have the final decision on what was actually written for credit in class.

            There might never be a complete answer for which type of writing is better. Maybe Elbow’s way is right, but then again it might be Bartholomae who has the correct way of thinking. Teachers will always teach in a way that they think is correct, that is how it will probably always be.

            “Hey Tosh, hi Gwen what’s going on?” a red headed girl asked as she saw Tosh and Gwen enter Starbucks.

            “Oh hi Donna, we were just talking about different styles of English writing,” Tosh explained to Donna as Gwen went to the counter to order a coffee for Tosh and a mocha for herself.

            “Why were you two talking about that, you know you will never like how the other learns better. Kind of how I like to be creative but also follow the rules that my teachers set up for me.” Donna said after taking a sip of her coffee.

            “We may not like the same styles but at least we can still be friends and not mean to each other afterwards.” Gwen placed Tosh’s coffee in front of her as she entered the conversation.

            “Now on to a much more interesting topic, have you seen the new Welsh student Ianto. He is…”

            Of course this flight wasn’t an easy one. At the time Colorado was teaming with storms. Greeley got hit with a couple of tornados; the east coast was also getting storms. When on a plane most of the time you will get your first drink about fifteen minuets into the flight and if it is a long flight a meal will be provided within the first half hour. That wasn’t possible on our flight it was going to take up to an hour or two to get our meals. The turbulence was just that bad.

            The flight attendants finally had to give us our meal even though the flight was still very bumpy. I had the chicken platter with a diet coke; I even had a crunchie bar. That is a chocolate candy bar from England with a honeycomb center. After dinner the coffee cart came around, I distinctly remember asking the guy who sat next to me if I could use his cream. After drinking my coffee I fell asleep.

            That was the beginning of my trip to England. Over the course of those three weeks I learned about my family and grew up as a person. This was my first trip out of the country without my parents. I also brought my best friend, who I at times call Dani, who has never been out of the country. I stayed in Nottinghamshire with my grandfather.

            My favorite thing to do in England is go to the wax museum Madame Tussauds. Every time I go the museum changes. Madame Tussauds is in London, so when we went there we also took a tour of London. The first stop was the museum itself. The first room looked like a red carpet event, flashing lights and upbeat music. There are many wax figures of famous celebrities. I had my picture taken with Daniel Radcliffe, who plays Harry Potter,  and I have a tendency to tell people that I actually met him. I did the same thing last time I went to Madame Tussauds in 2003, my mom and I got a picture with the wax figure of Simon Cowell. I also got a picture with Graham Norton, who is a talk show host in England, that first room was rhythmically interesting.

            The next few rooms were very different than that first room. There was a room of old movie characters. I have a picture of superman, Charlie Chapman, and other cool characters that I would have to look in my camera to see who they are. There was also a room of terror that had scarily realistic looking heads on spikes. In this room there was also a live action show of terror. I didn’t see it but Dani and my grandfather saw it. I obviously am still as afraid of horror as a genre as I was when I was younger.

            The rest of the museum was the same as I remember, and by that I mean the hall of presidents and old kings and queens. There was all of the US presidents, the most famous kings and queens of England and many of the diplomats from other countries. In this room there was also the Beatles. It took forever to get a picture of them, since everyone wants a picture of the Beatles. The end of the museum was a ride of old London wax figure style.

            As I grow up and visit England many different times this place changes with me. As I grow older so do the wax figures, as new things happen in life, or movies that come out, new wax figures are made to correspond with the new happenings. I also learn more about the museum every time I go. During the tour there was a new room, it explained how the new figures are made and how the old ones used to be made. I always feel as if the changing of the museum is a signifier of how everything changes as people age.

            On this trip my friend Dani and I went to my parents’ friends’ house in York to see a different part of England. The coolest thing we did was go to a coal miner’s museum; I actually went down a coal shaft.  It was a scary thing, but it was also a very interesting thing. I learned a lot about coal miners and the different ways that mining changed over the years.

            Before going down the miners shaft every one has to take off any of there electronic devices. That includes watches, mobiles (which is the British term for cell phones), cameras, and any other electronic item. After giving any of the items over to the person on the other side of the counter they gave us a huge battery and a miner’s cap, which was a heavy item to carry while walking around in an uneven environment. After everyone was caped and checked to see if their lights were working we were finally able to go into the shaft.

            I don’t quite remember every single thing that I did but I do remember some of the things that happened. The first room that we came to was shut entirely and the lights all turned out. When the lights were turned back on there was a fake rat on the floor to scare all of the youngsters that might have been there. In that room there were also figures of a pony and a family. That was to show us that there were once a time when an entire family would work in the mines, but unlike us they didn’t have any light so the children had to sit in the pitch black and wait until they heard their parents knock on the door of their area. It was a scary thought that any child would have to live through that. I know that when I was a child I was afraid of the dark, and anything that may go bump in the night. I may not be afraid of the dark anymore but I know what I was like as a child, having three brothers doesn’t help a fear grow into a strength.

            As we went through the mine museum the instructor that was bringing us through told us of the new inventions that helped miners as they went through the changes in technology. I even walked the back way of an area, which means I walked through the machinery and got to see the inside area of the machines. At the end of the tour through the mine the instructor asked us if we knew anything that coal was used in. It was interesting to find out that it was in makeup and even in toothpaste; apparently coal is a great whitening product.

            While in England I saw some of my relatives that I haven’t seen in years. My mum is an only child so the only relatives I have on her side are her aunts, uncles, and cousins. One day my granddad brought Dani and I to a pub to visit our Michelle and a few of mum’s other cousins. They told me a few stories of mum when she was younger. She did a lot of things she probably didn’t want me to know.

            She has told me a few of the stories about her youth, mostly so that I wouldn’t do anything bad, like about how she had skipped some of her classes, about growing up an only child, about only having a few BBC channels on the TV, about the only phone being the red phone booth at the end of the street, well you get the point. I realized that she told me of the things she wanted me to know about her.

            I won’t say any of the things that I learned about my mum but I did learn a few things about my cousins. The main thing that I remember that I have in common with the cousins is that we have the same favorite actor, David Tennant (you’ll learn more about him later). We talked about many things, any diets we may have done, music, differences of life in America compared to in England and many other things.

            While in England I had my first taste of alcohol. Even though I was only eighteen while I was on vacation that is the legal age in England. I realized that I don’t really like alcohol at all. After one drink my head starts to hurt. I also realized that if I do drink alcohol it has to be the fruity drinks that don’t actually taste like anything alcoholic. I only had Bacardi breezers when I went to a pub.

            It is kind of bad that in England they don’t check ID’s unless you are getting an alcoholic drink without a meal. It is a good thing that Dani and I remembered to bring our drivers license with us to England. The only bad thing about going to the pubs in England with my granddad is that he likes to go dressed up nice, walking for half a mile in heels is killer on your feet.

            My favorite part of the trip to England was when Dani found what we called “the Doctor Who store.” The store was actually called Forbidden Planet and there was more than just Doctor Who merchandize, there were comics, other sci-fi television show paraphernalia, and many other things. I used most of the money I brought to England on items there.

            The reason I loved that store was because I am a big fan of the British TV show Doctor Who. My favorite actors are in this show, David Tennant, who most Americans will know as Barty Crouch Jr. from Harry Potter, and John Barrowman, who was the main tenor in the song “Springtime for Hitler” in The Producers. For a little background on this show David Tennant plays The Doctor, a Time Lord from a different planet, who is a time and space traveler. His space ship the TARDIS, which means time and relative dimension in space, looks like a blue police public call box. If you hadn’t noticed I also called the paper TARDIS, I have a brilliant explanation for this. The TARDIS is a time machine, for me to go to the future I have to grow up, thus the title for my memoir.

            Watching the show in England was an amazing experience, the season just started this month in America. I even got Dani to watch it with me, she once saw an episode and thought it was a bit loony. It felt more authentic to watch the show in England since it is a British show. But that is another story for a different memoir.

            Back to my original story about the store, I bought a lot of Doctor Who merchandize. When I first went into the store I bought two books, a “decide your destiny” style book. Before leaving England I bought seven of these books, I got numbers two through eight. I was very excited when I saw that they had a TARDIS. I bought it before anyone else could, it’s a coin bank but I think it is brilliant. I even got a picture of my favorite actor John Barrowman that was signed by him. The last two things I bought were a poster of The Doctor with the TARDIS and a poster of the main cast of the Doctor Who spinoff show Torchwood.

            On the plane ride back home I thought back on what I did while in England. I didn’t do everything that I wanted but what I did do was very exciting. While in England I also bought my first autobiography. I read the entire book within a few hours, randomly telling Dani a few of the anecdotes that I saw in the book that I thought were funny, like for example when he talked about a state, which I can’t really remember which one it is, that is as flat and curve less as Paris Hilton. I don’t think he said it quite like that but that is all I remember.

I did many things while I was in England. I even survived Friday the thirteenth, which is a running joke between Dani and I (meaning that she bought me a how to survive a horror movie book that said that I may not survive the next year’s summer) that we were going to become werewolves (well maybe Dani would). I walked a lot more than I usually would and I even got a library card for the Hucknall library. My thoughts at the end of my trip are kind of like the end of John Barrowman’s autobiography, “My ending isn’t written yet, my show’s not over. Stay in your seats. This is only the intermission.”

            Of course this flight wasn’t an easy one. At the time Colorado was teaming with storms. Greeley got hit with a couple of tornados; the east coast was also getting storms. When on a plane most of the time you will get your first drink about fifteen minuets into the flight and if it is a long flight a meal will be provided within the first half hour. That wasn’t possible on our flight it was going to take up to an hour or two to get our meals. The turbulence was just that bad.

            The flight attendants finally had to give us our meal even though the flight was still very bumpy. I had the chicken platter with a diet coke; I even had a crunchie bar. That is a chocolate candy bar from England with a honeycomb center. After dinner the coffee cart came around, I distinctly remember asking the guy who sat next to me if I could use his cream. After drinking my coffee I fell asleep.

            That was the beginning of my trip to England. Over the course of those three weeks I learned about my family and grew up as a person. This was my first trip out of the country without my parents. I also brought my best friend, who I will call Dani, who has never been out of the country. I stayed in Nottinghamshire with my grandfather.

            My favorite thing to do in England is go to the wax museum Madame Tussauds. Every time I go the museum changes. Madame Tussauds is in London England, so when we went there we also took a tour of London. The first stop was the museum itself. The first room looked like a red carpet event, flashing lights and upbeat music. There are many wax figures of famous celebrities. I had my picture taken with Daniel Radcliffe, who plays Harry Potter,  and I have a tendency to tell people that I actually met him. I did the same thing last time I went to Madame Tussauds in 2003, my mom and I got a picture with the wax figure of Simon Cowell. I also got a picture with Graham Norton, who is a talk show host in England, that first room was rhythmically interesting.

            The next few rooms were very different than that first room. There was a room of old movie characters. I have a picture of superman, Charlie Chapman, and other cool characters that I would have to look in my camera to see who they are. There was also a room of terror that had scarily realistic looking heads on spikes. In this room there was also a live action show of terror. I didn’t see it but Dani and my grandfather saw it. I obviously am still as afraid of horror as a genre as I was when I was younger.

            The rest of the museum was the same as I remember, and by that I mean the hall of presidents and old kings and queens. There was all of the US presidents, the most famous kings and queens of England and many of the diplomats from other countries. In this room there was also the Beatles. It took forever to get a picture of them, since everyone wants a picture of the Beatles. The end of the museum was a ride of old London wax figure style.

            On this trip my friend Dani and I went to my parents’ friends’ house in York to see a different part of England. The coolest thing we did was go to a coal miner’s museum; I actually went down a coal shaft.  It was a scary thing, but it was also a very interesting thing. I learned a lot about coal miners and the different ways that mining changed over the years.

            Before going down the miners shaft every one has to take off any of there electronic devices. That includes watches, mobiles, cameras, and any other electronic item. After giving any of the items over to the person on the other side of the counter they gave us a huge battery and a miner’s cap, which was a heavy item to carry while walking around in an uneven environment. After everyone was caped and checked to see if their lights were working we were finally able to go into the shaft.

            I don’t quite remember every single thing that I did but I do remember some of the things that happened. The first room that we came to was shut entirely and the lights all turned out. When the lights were turned back on there was a fake rat on the floor to scare all of the youngsters that might have been there. In that room there were also figures of a pony and a family. That was to show us that there were once a time when an entire family would work in the mines, but unlike us they didn’t have any light so the children had to sit in the pitch black and wait until they heard their parents knock on the door of their area. It was a scary thought that any child would have to live through that.

            As we went through the mine museum the instructor that was bringing us through told us of the new inventions that helped miners as they went through the changes in technology. I even walked the back way of an area, which means I walked through the machinery and got to see the inside area of the machines. At the end of the tour through the mine the instructor asked us if we knew anything that coal was used in. It was interesting to find out that it was in makeup and even in toothpaste; apparently coal is a great whitening product.

            My favorite part of the trip to England was when Dani found what we called “the Doctor Who store.” The store was actually called Forbidden Planet and there was more than just Doctor Who merchandize, there were comics, other sci-fi television show paraphernalia, and many other things. I used most of the money I brought to England on items there.

            The reason I loved that store was because I am a big fan of the British TV show Doctor Who. My favorite actors are in this show, David Tennant, who most Americans will know as Barty Crouch Jr. from Harry Potter, and John Barrowman, who was the main tenor in the song “Springtime for Hitler” in The Producers. For a little background on this show David Tennant plays The Doctor, a Time Lord from a different planet, who is a time and space traveler. His space ship the TARDIS, which means time and relative dimension in space, looks like a blue police public call box.

            Watching the show in England was an amazing experience, the season just started this month in America. I even got Dani to watch it with me, she once saw an episode and thought it was a bit looney. It felt more authentic to watch the show in England since it is a British show. But that is another story for a different memoir.

            Back to my original story about the store, I bought a lot of Doctor Who merchandize. When I first went into the store I bought two books, a “decide your destiny” style book. Before leaving England I bought seven of these books, I got numbers two through eight. I was very excited when I saw that they had a TARDIS. I bought it before anyone else could, it’s a coin bank but I think it is brilliant. I even got a picture of my favorite actor John Barrowman that was signed by him. The last two things I bought were a poster of The Doctor with the TARDIS and a poster of the main cast of the Doctor Who spinoff show Torchwood.

            On the plane ride back home I thought back on what I did while in England. I didn’t do everything that I wanted but what I did do was very exciting. While in England I also bought my first autobiography. I read the entire book within a few hours, randomly telling Dani a few of the anecdotes that I saw in the book that I thought were funny, like for example when he talked about a state, which I can’t really remember which one it is, that is as flat and curve less as Paris Hilton. I don’t think he said it quite like that but that is all I remember.

            The end of my adventure into England was the ride back to America. My thoughts on the trip went pretty much in the same order of my Memoir, which wasn’t in chronological order. I feel that this trip made me grow as a person, even if I still don’t spend my money as wisely as I could. The end of my trip is kind of like the end of John Barrowman’s autobiography, “My ending isn’t written yet, my show’s not over. Stay in your seats. This is only the intermission.”

            The same could be said about acting. Take the Shakespeare play Hamlet. The main character has been played by many people from Mel Gibson to Kenneth Branagh. They both played the same character, Hamlet, but the way they became that person was different. They spoke the same monologue, the “to be or not to be” speech, but they said it in a very different way. Of course the main difference is that Mel is an American playing Hamlet and Kenneth is Irish, so the accents may have changed the character a bit. In the end the words were still the same, only the style was different.

            One writer may have different voices as well, even if the content is the same. For example the Anne Rice novel series The Vampire Chronicles. The books are all about the same subject, vampires, but they all are different. Each book is from a different vampire’s point of view. Interview with the Vampire is in Louis’ voice, The Vampire Lestat through Memnoch the Devil and the last two books in the series are all in Lestat’s voice. There are also other books in other voices. Armand, Marius, Pandora, Merrick and Vittorio are also vampire’s that Anne Rice has made a voice for. The different stories all have a different voice that is slightly similar to each other.

            I am about to imitate a piece of writing from Frankfurt’s book “On Truth.” I will use my own style but still use the concept that he had when he wrote the book. This imitation will show how my voice can be used even though the words were originally Frankfurt’s.

            No person or society can ignore the truth. These societies can not just have knowledge of the truth and what is false, and that they are important. A society must not forget to help individuals that are trying to be truthful. People must also remember that it is easy to lie, but that it is better to be truthful, or you may lose the ability to see the difference between truths and lies. To be a good human being you must tell the truth.

            If any societies decide to use lies they will eventually become unable to function as a culture. If this happens to a society they will never be the same. A society can not function without truth and facts. They will never grow as a culture if they are used to having beliefs based on lies. To become a great society, we as people, need to remember to use factual truths, and not lies. People need to know and use factual truths to become better people.

            As I wrote this imitation I realized that I wasn’t quite right on what I thought. Maybe it is both content and style that make voice. I tried to keep my writing based on what Frankfurt thought, but I used some of my own thoughts to keep my writing going. For example when I wrote “people must also remember that it is easy to lie, but that it is better to be truthful” I used my own thought on what is best for people, I was also thinking about Harry Potter when I wrote that line so I was trying my best not to use a quote from the 5^th movie.

            Even though I used examples on how it is style and not concept that makes voice I realized that my examples actually didn’t help my argument. While the Shakespeare argument might have worked the Anne Rice one didn’t. I realized while writing this piece of work that it is content that also makes the writing personal. Anne Rice’s vampires may all have a different style in the books but they are also the only vampires like them. Most vampires can be killed with a stake, Anne Rice’s vampires can eventually go out in the sun without being burned to death, they just get a nice tan.

            I now know that it isn’t just style that is the makings of a good voice; it is also the content in the writing that makes it personal. I made my imitation personal to myself by using my style and also my own thoughts mixed into the content. It is not easy to put yourself out of the picture and write simply in either a certain style, or just use certain content to make a piece of work. If a person is really truthful to themselves it is hard to write anything that they don’t believe is their own words written in their own style.

MODEL SENTENCE: The gallows stood in a small yard, separate from the main grounds of the prison and overgrown with tall prickly weeds.-George Orwell, Burmese Days

IMITATION: This one fox stood out from the rest, silver with black paws and a long sleek tail that trailed in the dust behind the beautiful beast.

MODEL SENTENCE: The real art that dealt with life directly was that of the first men who told their stories round the savage camp-fire,-Robert Louis Stevenson, "A Humble Remonstrance"

IMITATION: The Doctor looked around himself at the majestic beauty of the 31st centuries sky and the planets that he knew were around him.

MODEL SENTENCE: If one must worship a bully, it is better that he should be a policeman than a gangster.- George Orwell, "Raffles and Miss Blandish"

IMITATION: Looking at the wrekage around him Jack thought, I would rather be face to face with a weevil than earn Ianto's wrath.

Variation and Expression

MODEL SENTENCE: He went through the narrow alley of Temple Bar quickly, muttering to himself that they could all go to hell because he was going to have a good night of it.-James Joyce, "counterparts"

VARIATION OF THE PATTERN: He went through the narrow alley of Temple Bar quickly, they could all go to hell because he was going to have a good night of it he muttered. 

ALTERNATE EXPRESSIONS: As he went through the narrow alley of Temple Bar, as quickly as he could, he murttered to himself, "You can all go to hell." He was going to have a good night of it.

Walking quickly through the narrow alley of Temple Bar he muttered, "You can all go to hell. I am going to have a good night of it."