Learning more about the rules of English

This unit has been a huge learning experience for me.  I remember going through English I and doing a ton of papers.  I guess I just wrote the papers the best I knew how and accepted the critique of my instructor.  I overlooked the obvious clues that she left me.  I kept making the same mistakes.  The exercises and quizzes really helped to make the lesson sink into my brain.  What I need to do to is make sentences correct.  The part that surprised me about the quizzes was that how I talk sounds right but it doesn't look right on paper.  Partly because I didn't know I was speaking wrong. 

I walked away from this blog because I was trying to make the "perfect" blog.  I sat and thought about a journal.  If I was writing in a journal, would I sit and try to make it perfect?  No.  I would write as if I was sitting there with my best friend and telling her a story.  So, now I am back and ready to put my thoughts of this week on "paper".  Maybe I can call it my electronic paper.

This week has been my thing in English.  I love to learn and learn where I am wrong.  I am not saying it is always great to be wrong.  I am just letting you know that not only did I learn I am wrong, I am wrong with the construction of complete and proper sentences.  I cannot imagine what an English teacher would think about my subject verb matching or how I used who or whom.  I am not sure I have ever used whom in a sentence.  Just saying that, made me laugh. 

I went to the library to do my paraphrase exercise.  I go there after I drop off my daughter at school.  There I can focus on just school work.  I was searching everywhere online to find a way to paraphrase.  The book really didn't give a good explanation or example that I could follow.  So, I just took what there was in information and did the work.  I am not sure as of today if I did it right.  My question is obviously directed toward paraphrasing.  Do I sit around and try to paraphrase?  Of course I do.  My mother can tell you a short story and make it the longest that you have ever heard.  It is like that old man at church that says the prayer and it never ends.  If I want to pass on my mother's stories.  I just don't want my sister to hear the extended version.  I have to shorten it.  Is that paraphrasing?