Alliteration - The recurrence of initial consonant sounds.
The sorry state of the situation only saddened the sorrow felt by the singing sows.

Allusion – A short, informal reference to a famous person or event.
Don't be afraid of ridicule, the Spanish Inquisition went after Galileo due to his belief that the Earth orbited the Sun, not the other way around.

Amplification – The repetition of a word or expression while adding more detail to it, in order to emphasize what might otherwise be passed over. 
This food, this huge portion of food, was the most delicious food I had ever tasted.

Anacoluthon – The practice of finishing a sentence with a different grammatical structure from that with which it began.
I must warn you about the implications of your act—but look at the time, I should really get going.

Anadiplosis - Repetition of the last word of one phrase, clause, or sentence at or very near the beginning of the next.
The candle got progressively brighter, brighter than the light even.

Analogy – Comparison of two things, which are alike in several respects, for the purpose of explaining or clarifying some unfamiliar or difficult idea or object by showing how the idea or object is similar to some familiar one.
Going to school and not doing anything can be somewhat enjoyable.  But so can eating cake.  The sickness afterwards, however, is quite unpleasant.

Anaphora – The repetition of the same word or words at the beginning of successive phrases, clauses, or sentences.
I would not go to the store, I would not go to the restaurant.  I would not even go to the school.  I would not leave home though.

Antanagoge – The placing of a good point or benefit next to a fault criticism, or problem in order to reduce the impact or significance of the negative point.
I may not be the most knowledgeable of guys, but at least I do my best to help out.

Antimetabole – Reversal of the order of repeated words or phrases to intensify the final formulation, to present alternatives, or to show contrast.
I'd rather not go to the store and then the restaurant, nor would I rather go to the restaurant then the store.

Antithesis – Establishes a clear, contrasting relationship between two ideas by joining them together or juxtaposing them.
If walking is so tiresome, running will be your death.

Appphasis – Assertion of emphasis of something by pointedly seeming to pass over, ignore, or deny it.
I'd rather not talk about her negative qualities as such.

Aporia – The expression of doubt about an idea or conclusion.
I'm not sure if I will go to the dance or not, dances just don't seem like my kind of thing.

Aposiopesis – And abrupt stop, leaving a statement unfinished.
If he hurts her even a tiny bit, why I'll--

Apostrophe – Interruption of the discussion or discourse that addresses directly a person or personified thing, either present or abesent.
Oooh that Rob gets on my nerves.  I don't ever want to see you again Rob!

Appositive – A noun or noun substitute placed next to another noun to be described or define by the appositive.
I think the opening band, the one that no one knew, played the best.

Appositive - A noun or noun substitute placed next to another noun to be described or defined by the appositive.
I might as well do another example, one different from that last.

Assonance - Similar vowel sounds repeated in successive or proximate words containing different consonants.
Many men did net several wrens.

Asyndeton – Omition of conjunctions between words, phrases, or clauses.
The dinner was made up of rolls, salads, meats, cakes.

Catachresis – An extravagant, implied metaphor using words in an alien or unusual way.
He felt the anger of the fire when he touched it.

Chiasmus – A,B structure followed by B,A structure.
She walks to school, while from abuse runs.

Climax – The arrangement of words, clauses, or sentences in an order of increasing importance, weight, or emphasis. 
He pulled the switch and the lights started to turn on.  One row at first, then two, then three.  Before long, the entire room was lit up.  It was a magnificent sight.

Conduplicato – Repetition of a keyword from the previous phrase, clause, or sentence at the beginning of the next.
I was so excited, having finally bought a computer.  A computer better than everyone else's, and not because it's mine and mine alone.

Diacope – Repetition of a word or phrase after an intervening word or phrase.
I will not go, oh no, I will not.

Dirimens Copulatio – Mention of a balancing or opposing fact to prevent the argument from being one-sided or unqualified.
She's a nice girl, really.  She's cute, funny, smart.  But if you so much as look at her wrong..

Distinctio – An explicit reference to a particular meaning or to the various meanings of a word, in order to remove or prevent ambiguity.
I should hope that I do not become lazy these last few months, and by lazy I mean not doing my homework.

Enthymeme – An informally stated syllogism which omits either one of the premises or the conclusion.
I have recently turned eighteen, so I was required to register for the Selective Services.

Enumeratio – The detailing of parts, causes, effects, or consequences to make a point more forcibly.
The house, the rooms, the windows, the doors, the tables, and even the chairs were all destroyed in the storm.

Epanalepsis – Repetition of the beginning word or clause of a sentence at the end.
Children are innocent, for they are children.

Epistrophe – Repetition of a word or words at the end of successive phrases, clauses, or sentences.
I druther not live in houses rundown, with people rundown, in a neighborhood rundown.

Epithet – An adjective or adjective phrase appropriately qualifying a subject by naming a key or important characteristic of the subject.
The laughing grin on his face told me that he knew something I did not.

Epizeuxis – Repetition of one word for emphasis.
After the competition, we were all tired.  She was tired, he was tired, I was tired, even the car seemed tired!

Eponym – Substitution for a particular attribute with the name of a famous person recognized as such.
I felt like Atlas himself, with the whole weight of the world upon my shoulders.

Exemplum – Citation of an example using an illustrative story, either true or false.
Here's why your plan won't work: In the late 3000's, Captain Zap Branigan tried to fight the Space Gators on his own, but he ended up dead in no time.

Expletive – A single word or short phrase, usually interrupting normal syntax, used to lend emphasis to the words immediately surrounding the expletive.
It was not, in fact, a happy occasion.

Hyperbaton – Includes departure from normal word order and a sort of “delayed” epithet.
It was a problem most insurmountable.

Hyperbole – Deliberate exaggeration of conditions for emphasis or effect.
It is known by everyone and their grandma that the sky is blue.

Hypophora – The raising of one or more questions and then the answering of them, usually at some length.
Why do I always seem to fail when it comes to relationships?  Perhaps it is because I am not aggressive, I get too hopeful and thus create a situation where this none, or even for the basic fact that I am quite shy by nature.

Hypotaxis – The use of subordination to show the relationship between clauses or phrases.
When I am near the fire, I feel the warmth of the fire.

Litotes – A form of understatement that is generated by denying the opposite or contrary of the word which otherwise would be used.
I would not dislike a trip to the park.

Metabasis – A brief statement of what has been said and what will follow.
I have already told you why I do the things I do, but now you must know the consequences of my doings.

Metanoia – Qualification of a statement by recalling it and expressing it in a better, milder, or stronger way.
He was the meanest guy I had ever seen, no, perhaps the meanest person.

Metaphor – Comparison of two different things by speaking of one in terms of the other.
To relieve me from ticket tearing at the theater, Scotty told me to go “play in the water.”

Metonymy – A form of metaphor in which the thing chosen for the metaphorical image is closely associated with the subject with which it is to be compared.
I can't eat all those carbs!  I gotta watch my figure!

Onomatopoeia – Usage of words whose pronunciation imitates the sound the word describes.
I heard the clanging of chains and the banging of metal as I walked through the factory.

(this is AM's favorite Rhetorical Device)

Oxymoron – A paradox reduced to two words.
He slowly ran to the threshold.

Parallelism – Recurrent syntactical similarity.
I walked out the door, along the road, through the intersection, and into the school.

Parataxis – Successive independent clauses with coordinating conjunctions or no conjunctions.
I packed myself a lunch, and I ate it at school.

Parenthesis – Consists of a word, phrase, or whole sentence inserted as an aside in the middle of another sentence.
I looked everywhere—even places I didn't know existed—but found nothing!

Personification – A metaphor that represents an animal or inanimate object as having human attributes or qualities.
My computer whined due to the stress of the difficult task I assigned it.

Pleonasm – Use of more words than required to express an idea.
He was burned alive in a raging fire!

Polysyndeton – The use of a conjunction between each word, phrase, or clause, and is thus structurally the opposite of asyndeton.
I thought and deliberated and tried and succeeded.

Procatalepsis – Anticipation of an objection and the answering of it, thus permitting an argument to move forward while taking into account points or reasons opposing.
Despite the fact that most of his ideas are not realistic, he is a man of much respect.

Rhetorical Question – A question that is left unanswered by the writor.
How can I expect to do anything if everywhere I go there are roadblocks?

Scesis Onomaton – Emphasis of an idea by expressing it in a string of generally synonymous phrases or statements.
I lost, I failed, I did not reach my goal.

Sententia – The quoting of a maxim or wise saying to apply a general truth to the situation.
As Mark Twain pointed out, “A man cannot be comfortable without his own approval.”

Simile – Comparison of two different things that resemble each other in at least one way.
In that classroom I was like a prisoner in his cell.

Symploce – One word or phrase that is repeated at the beginning and another word or phrase is repeated at the end of successive phrases, clauses, or sentences.
Going away and can be quite an adventure, but going away and then coming home can also be an adventure.

Synecdoche – A type of metaphor in which the part stands for the whole.
He plays the keys quite well, if I say so myself.

Understatement – Deliberate expression of an idea as less important than it really is.
After she told me off, I was only slightly upset.

Zeugma – A subject with two or more verbs, a verb with two more direct objects, two or more subjects and one verb, etc.
I preferred apples, she oranges.

Along the rooftop he runs, gliding through
the night.  But no one hears him on his way,
and yet as he gets closer, closer to
his goal, he thinks about his kid's ballet.
He silently arrives at your front door
and waits.  Watch out for his great ninja sword,
it will slice you in two.  He hears you snore,
defeat is something he cannot afford.
Your house is quiet as the ninja treads
through it and finds his way to your locale.
Not hesitating, he prepares his edge.
His deed now done, he leaves to see his gal.
As with you and I, ninjas too have kin
that will forgive and bear their father's sin.

('Tis a sonnet, by the way.  A Shakespearian sonnet.  'Twas a bitch to write.)

I just checked my work schedule...  I work 6-11 tomorrow and 4-11 the day after.  Fun times ahead.  Maybe.

Um..  School's been pretty cool.  Swimming in the morning is really nice.  But, damn is it tiring!  We've been kicking around with the kickboards these past few days my legs get tired after a while.  Walking back to the shower, I feel like my legs are gonna fail me!  Sociology looks to be fun.  If not for the fact that Megan sits in front of me and she's usually pretty talkative.  As I said, Mary sits behind me, but we don't seem to talk as often :???:

Um.  I've actually been thinking about this homecoming thing.  :shock: I was planning on asking... a certain someone... but I don't have any classes with her...  I think her third hour is close to mine, but I don't know for sure.

I've been getting a nice amount of homework as of late.  Physics homework every night.  Trig with good 'ol Verlinde every night (but then again, I can finish most of the assignment, if not all, in class).  Honors homework isn't much worse than last year.  It's just that I already seem to be on my normal... thingy... of procrastination.

Yesterday in German, Frau handed out these sheets for us to fill out and give to our parents.  The two blanks were "Blackboard username" and "Blackboard password."  This was so that the parents would know our login and pass and be able to see what we're doing in our classes.  Phil said he didn't want to give his mom his password.  I said "change the password" and Frau gave me a dirty look.  "Seriously, change it to something he's not afraid to give out."  Every freaking head in the room turned to me.  It was creepy.  I attribute it to the fact that I don't speak much in that class (nor any other, for that matter) except when called upon to read something.  And even then, it's in German. 

The spent loads of money on new carpet for the entire forum over the summer.  Personally, I think that money could have gone towards things that were actualy needed.  But anyway.  There are these big "NO FOOD OR DRINK IN THE FORUM" signs right outside the forum doors.  That hasn't stopped Jason, Andrew, and Greg from drinking cranberry juice and cokes in there, respectively.  Well, until today, that is.  Jason, somehow, spilled his cranberry juice when he went to get up or something.  He got it all over his shoe and on his leg, but more importantly, he got it on the new carpet.  Teachers came from all over and got all riled up over a spill.  It was hilarious.  It took the principal, an associate principal, and the hall monitor to tell Jason that no drinks were allowed in the forum.  The hall monitor picked up the bottle and asked "Is this the bottle?  Is this the bottle??  Is THIS the bottle????"  As if she couldn't figure it out for herself.  She picked it up with a paper towel though.  I couldn't stop laughing.  Jason says they incarcerated his drink.  Tim was making fun of the hall monitor by saying "We've got the evidence!  WE'VE GOT THE EVIDENCE!" in his crazy, exaggerated voice that he so often does.  Hilarity all around.  Jason says nothing happened to him, though, so it's all good.  Mr. Monroe was asking us if he went to MST (for Jason was getting paper towels to dry the carpet), we suspect it's because they wanted to take him down to the office and punish him.  Luckily for Jason, though, he has MST in the morning.

And that's the funny story for the week.

Um...  What else is there?

I recently got Kirby Canvas Curse for the DS.  It's freaking awesome.  The main game levels were pretty easy, but it seemed like that got loads harder for the last few sets.  I've got two more levels left in main game, but I've only completed 24.7% of the game.  There's a ton of stuff to do otherwise.  You can go through the levels to collect medals, of which there are 250.  I only have 65.  You can also choose "Rainbow Run" mode and play through the game levels and several extra levels.  Depending on what option you choose from there, you either have to make it through the level as fast as possible, or you have to go through the level while using as little ink as possible.  For those of you unfamiliar with the concept of this game, your goal is to guide Kirby and protect him by drawing lines with your stylus.  This is because he was turned into a ball by an evil witch which (hehe) also happened to turn the entire world into a painting.  The entire game is controlled with the stylus.  At first it seems easy, but it does take a bit to get used to.  I've sent Kirby into the lava several times.

I guess that's everything...  I can't think of anything more... so... here it is!

Where to start..?  Um..  I beat Mario & Luigi (GBA) two nights ago.  I had been stuck on the final boss for a few months now.  I've had the game for over a year.  It's a good game, 'twas quite rewarding to have finally beat the game after all this time.

I set myself two goals before this Saturday.  1) Ding level 90 in PSO so I can access Ultimate.  2) Ding level 30 in FFXI so I can do the Dark Knight and Beastmaster quests (those ones specifically, but really I can unlock most any advance job now).  I hit level 90 in PSO with ease.  However, I've had a harder time hitting 30 in FFXI.  I am currently level 29 with less than half of the needed exp to go.  SO CLOSE!  I eventually gave up though, as there was no chance I was going to get an invite from any party in the area.  And now I'll have to wait a whole week just to get roughly two-thousand experience points!  Agh!!

I bought a copy of The Good Earth at Border's so I can do the second part of my summer assignment for Honors.  This part's due on the fifth.  I won't be back until the sixth or the seventh.  Whatever.  Ms. Szmiegil can't honestly expect people to be doing these assignments and turn them all in on time.  It's the freaking summer.  We're going to procrastinate, we're going to turn them in late.  We're not going to give a shit. 

AndrAIa's been acting up a bit as of late.  I can't run installshield installation programs anymore.  At least, not on my user.  I can do so just fine from the administrator account. o_O Things seem a bit slower overall, and blackbox hangs on shutdown.  As far as I can tell, however, this only happens when I play FFXI on my computer.  After I force-close blackbox, I have to force-close PlayOnline (after I already closed it before hand).  This abnormal behavior of POL and FFXI can be attributed to the windower I use.  FFXI doesn't natively allow one to play in windowed mode, so I downloaded a program (recommended by Tim) that allows me to play with FFXI in a window so I can still chat on AIM or look stuff up.  Funny thing is, the windower causes no problems on Brian's machine. o_O

I think I may have to wipe AndrAIa clean...  I'm not looking forward to that...  All the backup...  At least I have another partition to put things on AND my external harddrive (which still has >50% disk space free).  I've been kinda worried about her lately, though.  You know how during the summer, temperatures rise?  Well, it's not uncommon to see her running at 120 degrees Fahrenheit.  Infact, the only time I've seen her running lower is when I had the air conditioning on in our room piping cool air into the office when it was already somewhat cool out.  Mom said to turn off the air conditioner, though, as it was apparently "too cold" outside for it to be running.  I saw AndrAIa's temperature readout shoot from 108 to 120. :cry::cry:

I've been getting about one shift a week at work.  Last summer I was averaging two or three shifts a week.  But now, all the shifts are g oing to the newbies (understandable, i guess) as well as the rehires.  People are getting rehired at their old wage, in their old position, and getting MORE HOURS than I'm getting!  WTF ::kicks a wall::

Oh.  I'm going on vacation tomorrow.  Mackinac Island.  Going with Dad, Pia, Brian, David, and Ali (how DO you spell her name?).  A week.  Away from home.  Usually I look forward to vacations...  But right now... not so much...  I dunno why.  There's nothing really.. going on around here.  Heh, unlike last time we went up north.  The whole Jason-Heather thing...  Whoo, glad that's over with.

...

Anyway..

I wanna get back on FFXI to see if there are any parties willing to accept a lvl 29WAR/MNK in lvl 17WAR gear for just one more level, but I feel as if my endeavor would just be in vain.

I've started playing Final Fantasy 2 on the GBA compilation Final Fantasy Dawn of Souls and it's pretty cool.  I wanna bring the PS2 up with us so I can play Final Fantasy 4, but I seem to have left ALL PS2 discs at Mom's.  (FFXI doesn't require any discs, harddrive for the win).  Oh well...  Brian seems to recall them having a TV last time we were there...  Maybe we could bring the PS2 to watch some DVDs or something.  I dunno.  I also wanna play Final Fantasy Tactics Advance, but there's only two saves on the cartdridge and they're both taken by Brian and David.  David just started playing the game again after I kept bothering him about not playing it...  I doubt we'll have time to hit up an EBGames or something on the way Up North.  (And I seriously doubt any of the local ones will be open at 9AM, when we leave)

I'm don't have a Final Fantasy fetish, I swear.

Shelby's birthday party was last Saturday.  It was pretty cool.  I didn't go swimming, though I brought all the required gear.  Near the end of the night, most everyone partook in a game of Apples to Apples.  It was quite fun.  Basically a card is pulled from the green card stack and layed down in a place where everyone can see it.  Then, everyone else (everyone but the person who layed the green card) looks at their hand of red cards and tries to find a card that most fits the description on the green card.  The person who layed the green card then flips over all the red cards and chooses the one they agree with most.  They then give the green card to the person that layed the winning red card.  Next person in line lays a green card.  Rinse and repeat.  To spice things up, there were cards that had people (people at the party) and descriptions or phrases that described them.  Most were red, some were green. o_O

It seems I kept to myself most of the night until Catherine showed up.  We mostly talked geek/nerd stuff <_<

Well, I'm out, gotta shower and pack for tomorrow...

That's been up there since the beginning of the second semester, I wonder if anyone's caught it yet?

I have two semi-big assignments due on Monday.  The first is for German.  I have to describe, in detail, three different outfits of mine (i'm just making up random outfits), cut-out pictures from magazines or whatnot that show these outfits, and put it all together in a nice booklet type thing.  Meine Garderobe.

The second is for English.  For the past week or so, we've been writing a paragraph.  A whole week for a paragraph? Yes.  I thought you were in Honors English? I am, now bugger off.  For the past two weeks or so, Mrs. Szmigiel has been lecturing us on style.  This paragraph, then, is an exercise in style.  She's grading us not on what we say, but on how we say it.  Oh, and if there's any passive voice (use of the verb "is" and an "-ed" verb), we fail.

I've technically got more done on the paragraph than I do on Meine Garderobe, but I'm more stressed out about the paragraph than I am about Meine Garderobe.  All I have to do is revise the paragraph a couple more times, change some sentence lengths, etc., and I'm good.  For Meine Garderobe, I still need to finish the second description, do a third one, finish my third outfit (finding articles of clothing), and finally put it all together on construction paper and make a nice booklet out of it.

Meine Garderobe involves much more work that the paragraph does.  The descriptions of the outfits must be nearly perfect (then again, the paragraph for English must be perfect).  My adjective endings all have to be correct.  Word order must be correct.  I must be using the correct cases (nominativ, akkusativ, dativ).  Only recently, however, have I started to understand all of this stuff better.  Throughout this whole year, pretty much, we've been focusing on adjective endings over and over and over again.  We're reading a novel now (we've finished what we were supposed to do in class this year), and Frau said that it's really to help us with our adjective endings.  They're just that important.  I was always a little lost when it came to the cases and such, but I think I'm getting a better grasp on the whole concept.  Sure, I need help and therefore look at my notecard quite a bit, but as I do so, I burn it into my brain.  I start to remember that mit is dativ and therefore a sentence should look like this: Ich trage diese gruenes T-Shirt mit diesen blauen Jeans. OK, that was a bad example.  Die Jeans is plural, therefore it has the same adjective endings for all cases.

Anyway, I have to go to leave for work in fifteen minutes.  Or..  auf Deutsch: In funfzehn Minuten muss ich zu Arbeit gehen.  Ja.  Ich liebe das Deutsch, es ist einfach.

Several critiques of Frost's poem.

Hm... stuff.  Frau is getting married tomorrow!  Go Frau!

Our English project was originally supposed to be due last Monday, a week from the Monday that it was to be assigned.  But that Monday ended up being a snowday, so it was assigned on Tuesday, thus bumping the due date up to last Tuesday.  Then, for some reason, she made the due date Friday, tomorrow.  Well, second hour was all whiney and wanted to take the test that we were gonna take next Monday tomorrow, and present the projects on Monday.  They took a vote, and they won.  So, we took a vote today, in eighth hour, and it was very close.  Out of 23, 12 wanted it to be moved to Monday.  Ms. Szmigiel had a hard time figuring it out, though.  The first vote was to move the date, and she counted eleven (she skipped a student).  The second vote was to NOT move the date, she counted eleven.  She said that nothing would change.  Wait wait wait!  What?  11 - 11 is a TIE, if anything.  So we took a good five minutes to straighten her out.  This whole time, Ashley seemed kinda disappointed.  When Ms. Szmigiel erroneously announced that nothing would change, she literally threw her arms in the air and cheered.  Whoa.  Seriously, why would you WANT to present sooner?  Even if you're already done, why not take the weekend to polish it??

Meh, oh well.

Just some random stuff...

I installed the game today around 5ish, it took forever to install, and then I had to go to work.  Dan was training the newbies today!  Finally, I have seniority over someone! :grin: Actually, it was pretty cool to see them all there, especially when they helped with some theaters.  But they were off the floor by 8PM.  And at 9PM, Rob left, so it was just me and Nick.  He stayed on ticket drop the whole time, while I ran around and cleaned all the theaters.  Yea, ALL of them!  Well, all the ones that broke in the 9 hour and the 10 hour.  It actually wasn't that bad, worse than normal 'cause it was opening day for [i]Polar Express[/i], but still not that bad.  I'm just glad I don't have to do that on the weekends.  So, we closed the theater and all, and finally got out of the building closer to 11 instead of my 10:45 punch out time, w00t.  n00bs, heh

I just finished the vocab, I started it after school, did some other homework, went to work, got home around 11:10, watched some news about the channel 4 (?) team busting this "psychic" lady on Van Dyke (near my house!), and finished up this.  I gotta take a shower now, and I'm out.  I wish I could boot up WoW just once, but if I did, I'd be on it for 3 hours straight before finally getting yelled at by Mom.  Hm...  Oh well.  I'll get some time to play tomorrow.  I [i]will[/i] get some time...  I have yet to decide what class I'm gonna be, I know I'm gonna be a Night Elf though, 'cause they plain rock.

Well...  Good night!