The Real Last Blog

In class today, listening to people talk, I realized that there are some people in this class that I just can not stand. Even though I can not stand them, I still listen to them and try to respect what they say. I just believe that a class should be about learning, not about messing around and getting off topic. I plan on reading the book Sexson was talking about today- Zen of the art of motorcycle maintainence. After listening to him, I believe this will be a good book to read during my travels this summer. I have taken a lot out of this class and will constantly think about it when reading, even if I do not want to! Reading the Brothers K was hard but it is a must because it is one of the most important books in literature (says my mother). She was thrilled when she found out that I was reading this book, she decided to take it out of the bookshelf and read it also. I am hoping that when I finish the book, it will make me understand more about life. This class has opened up my brain and my eyes. Thank you.

Fairy Tales

After reading all three of the Cinderellas, it has made me reflect on other fairy tales. I am pretty sad about the fact that all of the fairy tales are not original. I grew up loving the princess stories and it was all I knew. Everything I had had to deal with the disney princesses. Now that I know they are not original, it makes me bummed out. In a way, I wish I did not know that they were not original but in a way I am glad I know. It will help with my teaching career and I can tie all types of stories together knowing that they are all linked in some way.

Lots Wife

I know the story of Lots Wife very well. I first read it in sunday school way back in the day. However what they left out in sunday school was the part where the daughters have sex with their father to preserve the family line. But after the angels said not to look back, his wife does. After she looks back, she is turned into a pillar of salt. It reminds me of adam and eve. God is putting temptation into the path of people and some choose to give into temptation. This reminds me of the story in the Grand Inquisitor. In this chapter, Ivan talks about all of the temptations Christ could of taken but he did not. Ivan says that Christ should of taken the temptations though so people would have security instead of freedom.

No boring books, just boring people

I agree but at the same time disagree. This is because it can be both. There are some books that I have no interest in reading and that I personally would think are boring but others would not. What this statement comes down to is really how the person percieves the book. I could think a book is super boring but there would be atleast one person out there that would think differently... this makes that book not boring. So yes there are not any boring books, but I disagree with the boring people aspect of the saying. Just because I think a book is boring does not mean that I am a boring person, because trust me, I am not boring atleast that is what I have been told. I guess this saying comes down to the person interpreting it.

Worst Day Ever

After going through my notes, I have realized there are a few blog topics that I did not blog about. One of those topics was the worst day ever. I have had many bad days growing up but I do not feel comfortable talking about them because they are really personal and happened when I was under the age of 8. But after that when my life calmed down, I remember a truly bad day. Most people would not think of this as a bad day, but to me who is addicted to shopping, it was truly BAD! It was around 8pm at night and it was raining out. I was going to my neighbors because her mom was going to take us shopping and there was a huge sale that was over in an hour! So I put my shoes on half way and ran down the front steps. However, because the steps were slippery, I fell down the steps and hit my head on a garden pot and had to go to the hospital to get stitches. It was horrible! I was so mad I could not go shopping! It was terrible and I missed an amazing sale. :(

The Last Blog

I have truly enjoyed this class as a whole. There have been parts where I do not like it but for the most part it was good. I have read the stories that I have always wanted to read and I feel like I have become a more knowledgeable person. There are lessons that I have learned that will stick with me, like "you do not know what you think until you see what you say" and "every story is a retelling of another story". These have been two of the biggest points in this class that I will never be able to forget. This class has done alot for me.

Unnamed

In class on Monday, the professor commented on someone's paper after they presented and said that no the narrator is the first character and is unnamed. As I went back through the book to see if this was true, I realized it actually was! The narrator tells the story as if he is there or is watching everything happen. He also refers to himself as "I". Having a narrator is normal, but what is not as common is that the narrator is refered to as I. This really does bother me at times because it is not something I have seen/noticed before. Every time I will read a book from now on I will look for this and it will remind me of this big hard long book!!

My Paper

Retellings

I will take away from this class something I will personally enjoy in my life and rely on in my teaching career—the context of literature. When I first signed up for this class, I thought it would be another required class where my passion level would be moderate to none. After the first two days, I realized I was wrong, very wrong. This class immediately wrenched me from my customary way of reading stories and showed me how to perceive and understand with a different eye.

The class gave me the context for understanding literature. For me, it is like a closet in which I can hang every thing I read from now on in its order and in appropriate relationship with every other story. By focusing on the theme that every story is a retelling of another story, this class revealed to me how the great literary characters and great stories repeat themselves and merge into one broad retelling of the human condition.

In literature, different characters ask the same questions about how to live life, and writers for centuries have been attempting to answer those same questions. Stories build on one another. Full enjoyment and understanding come when the reader can catch all the allusions. It’s like standing before Monet’s Water Lilies, experiencing the immediate emotional impact, and then stepping back to analyze the meaning of this painting and knowing where it comes from.

Hamlet stands out in our literature. But he did not come suddenly into the mind of William Shakespeare in 1599 as a new being. Shakespeare instead took the archetype of the killing of the king to journey into the Prince of Denmark. Hamlet stands as one of the most important characters in English literature as well as world literature because Hamlet is universal and represents a certain type of human character. The Russian Dostoyevsky modeled The Brothers Karamazov after Hamlet.

Hamlet’s story is so widespread that it even reappears in a Disney animated movie, The Lion King. In both of these stories, the father is killed by his brother and the son comes back for revenge. These stories have very similar plots, but the endings are very different. In Hamlet, Hamlet ends up dying from poison making it a tragedy. In The Lion King, Simba, the son, regains the throne and all is well in the end, hence creating the “fairy tale ending.” Interestingly enough, both of these stories are very popular. One reason I speculate this is because they have the same plot and archetypes. As humans, we tend to like the things we know. We like the familiar. From before Hamlet to the late 20^th century premier of Lion King, the killing of the king archetype continues to pick up momentum.

This class has let me become the reader I have always longed to be. Something always held me back. It was not just socializing, which is something that comes quite naturally to me. Now I see how all stories connect to create layers of meaning about the questions we ask on how we are to live. It is as if I have been given the missing bricks in my literary foundation.

As a teacher, I am going to use what I have learned in this class to help my young readers develop their reading closets of context. For example, I will encourage them to see that when they watch the Lion King, they are immersed in a story thousands of years old and that knowing the details and the questions of the old stories only adds to the richness of the new story. Through this, I want to embed in my students a certainty of their own place in the great retelling of the human story.

Overlooking things.

Writing the paper for this class has made me look back at the past semester and pick my favorite stories and how it has affected me. I think that this class has made me look at things with new eyes and appreciate literature more.

Brothers K

I have been going back through the book looking at the characters and have come to realize I strongly dislike the step-brother. When the step-brother was at the monastery in the beginning he seemed like a very shady sly person. I strongly dislike people like this. They are the type of people who give humans a bad reputation. AND in the end when he kills the father, it just hints at he is not a good character and has issues. Yes, killing the father was a main part of the book but still it just does not seem right in my eyes.

Paper

I have changed my mind and I am doing the basic topic. "What I know now that I did not know before...... and how it has made a difference..." With this I am apply stories I have enjoyed and using the idea of every story is a retelling of another story. This topic has been the most interesting topic in the class for me. When I leave this class, this will be one of the things that I will remember forever. Now that I have realized this, I have been noticing that everything is a retelling and my world has been changed. Nothing is original which bums me out!

BK

Ever since class on monday I have been thinking of thesis to write about.  I have not found one yet but I have been looking into characters to get a better idea.  One of the characters I have found to like (well more then others) is Grushenka.  This is because everyone thinks she is someone she is not.  She portrays the "slut" but never truly gives herself.  She is a headstrong woman.  Just because others view her in a certain way, does not mean that she truly is.

BK

I am half way through with the Brothers K and well I have been slacking and bought the sparknotes.  I know everyone thinks that it is not good (it lacks the details and the gripping-ness of a story).  I am still reading the big book, but the sparknotes helps me get the main ideas and the themes easier.  

Hamlet

I have just started to read Hamlet and look over it.  I grow up with my mother always talking about Hamlet and how wonderful it is.  I am only a few pages in and so far it is ok.  It has not gripped me yet but I think that maybe it will after some more reading.

Memory

This tool looks like a good technique for memorizing things for school.  I will try to use this on my next test to see how it works for me.

Definition I found: The "memory theatre" was an aspect of a science of the imagination which was practiced from Classical times up to the Renaissance. It was used for the development of memory, and also as a "mind-map" - a connected symbolic space, often represented as a building, which spanned the imaginative or conceptual faculty.

Books or Travel

The other day in class, the professor was talking about how he would rather read a book then travel.  I totally disagree with this.  I travel to different continent every summer for 2 or 3 months and I LOVE it.  I think it is the best experience ever and I do not think a book can capture it.  A book can not capture the experience of going on the canals in Venice.  A book can not capture the beaches in Greece or the shopping in Paris.  Books can try, but they do not it.

Favorite Poem

In my highschool literature class, I had to memorize this poem and it has stuck with me ever since and gives me significant meaning.

Edgar Allan Poe: Annabel Lee

It was many and many a year ago, 
   In a kingdom by the sea, 
That a maiden there lived whom you may know 
   By the name of ANNABEL LEE;-- 
And this maiden she lived with no other thought 
   Than to love and be loved by me. 
She was a child and I was a child, 
   In this kingdom by the sea, 
But we loved with a love that was more than love-- 
   I and my Annabel Lee-- 
With a love that the winged seraphs of heaven 
   Coveted her and me. 

And this was the reason that, long ago, 
   In this kingdom by the sea, 
A wind blew out of a cloud by night 
   Chilling my Annabel Lee; 
So that her high-born kinsman came 
   And bore her away from me, 
To shut her up in a sepulchre 
   In this kingdom by the sea. 

The angels, not half so happy in Heaven, 
   Went envying her and me:-- 
Yes! that was the reason (as all men know, 
   In this kingdom by the sea) 
That the wind came out of a cloud, chilling 
   And killing my Annabel Lee. 

But our love it was stronger by far than the love 
   Of those who were older than we-- 
   Of many far wiser than we- 
And neither the angels in Heaven above, 
   Nor the demons down under the sea, 
Can ever dissever my soul from the soul 
   Of the beautiful Annabel Lee:-- 

For the moon never beams without bringing me dreams 
   Of the beautiful Annabel Lee; 
And the stars never rise but I see the bright eyes 
   Of the beautiful Annabel Lee; 
And so, all the night-tide, I lie down by the side 
Of my darling, my darling, my life and my bride, 
   In her sepulchre there by the sea-- 
   In her tomb by the side of the sea.

Found Poem

This is an add from a magazine for a mall by my house in seattle:  I am classic. I am casual. I am ur fav pair of jeans, and all the places u and I go together, “out of style” will never be one of them.

Casual

Jeans will never be style

Classic

Places you and I go

Casual will never be one of them

I am your favorite one

Sonnet

Needs some work but this is what I have so far:

Your smile makes me jump for joy every day

Your delicate lips are heaven on mine.

Your perfect smile is like the suns rays

Baby boy in my book you are a dime.

When you laugh it makes me light up with joy

When you are sad it makes me want to cry

I have never seen a more perfect boy

You make me so happy I want to fly.

 

When I’m with you nothing bad can happen

Through the ups and downs we have grown stronger

I love you even when your foots tappin.

Only time can tell if we last longer

Through the joy and pain together we’ll be

My one and only you will always be.

Another Dream

When I have a dream, I will write it down. I have just been too tired to realize I had a dream.

A Good Man Is Hard To Find

I read this story in high school and thought it was very intense. I read it in a book with other stories like this including The Lottery. Both of these stories are truly shocking once read. A Good Man Is Hard To Find definately makes me think twice about driving down a dirt road that not many cars drive on. It is very possible for this to happen in real life. there are many people like the misfit out there, we just do not know about them or think twice about them. We hear about them then just forget about it slowly.

In one of my classes we were talking about how there was a halfway house for men who were sexual predators right next to a school. No one knew about this but it was a threat. In this story, the Misfit was well known but no one thought they would run into him or he was a serious threat. It turns out he was and everyone got shot because they did not take him as a threat.

Icarus-"Landscape with the Fall of Icarus"

This painting is very interesting.  There is the pretty landscape and two people in the foreground that look like they are working.  It took me awhile to find Icarus in the painting.  On the right of the photo in the water there is a small leg coming out of the water.  This would be Icarus's leg.  The picture looks very peaceful.  If it was not for Icarus, it would look like a "picture perfect" type of painting.  There are ships in the water, trees, rocks, sheep and people.  It looks like a picture painted off a cliff in Greece.  Icarus should of known better then to fly too close to the sun because he knew his wings would melt.  It shows the ignorance of men and how a lot of times they will do what they want. 

Childhood Memory

I do not have many great childhood memories because my parents got divorced so I tried to block alot out and somehow i achieved! My earliest memory is when I lived in Encino, California.  I was picking plums out of my plum tree standing on a plastic slide.  I had just picked the plum and I saw a bee coming toward me.  I did not move quick enough and the bee stung me right below the eye.  I got down and cried very loud and ran toward the sliding glass.  My mom came and got me and then cuddled with me.

Ground Hogs Day

I woke up in the morning at 7am.  I got out of bed, walked into the kitchen made a bowl of frosted flakes poured milk into it and walked back into my room.  I then ate while sitting on my bed then walked into my closet and put sweatpants and a sweatshirt on.  After i finished my cereal, I went to my car, and got in it then drove to school.  I went to my educational psychology class, then my geography class then my history class.  After that I went home and made some noodles and then sat on the couched and read.  I read my history book for 5 hours.  At 6pm I went to the gym then came home and showered.  After showering I ate my leftovers from lunch and watched Michael Jacksons movie "This Is It" and went to bed.  I ended up going to sleep around 10pm.  

My life is pretty much the same schedule most days.  Exciting I know....

What I dream about.

When I woke up this morning, I could not recall any dreams.  Probably because I was hungover like non other but that does not matter.  I think I was too focused on trying to make myself feel better that if I did dream I completely forgot everything.

However every since I was seven, I have had a dream that keeps coming up occasionally.  It is that I was in my apartment in Los Angeles and the building got on fire and my parents were not around.  I ran out of the apartment down the street and found my pet snail on the sidewalk and sat with him until my parents came.  (yes I did have a pet snail however I learned after that it was not that same snail everynight!)  To this day, whenever I have this dream I wake up with chills.  

What people talk about in the sub

The sub on the MSU campus is a place for gossip galore between classes.  People talk about subjects anywhere from sex to marriage to church to politics.  I was sitting in the sub and some members from CRU were sitting next to me.  CRU is the church on campus for students.  I was listening to the students talk about how to recruit students to join CRU and how to make it more appealing to others.  Funny enough, on the other side of me were two students talking about sex and how it was the night before.  They were talking about who had sex with that person and how it was and comparing themselves to others.  It was very interesting listening to the two tables because the conversations were totally different.  This is what the sub is for though.  Conversations between friends about anything and everything.

"Where are you going, Where have you been?"

This story I found very interesting.  It reminded me of the Pied Piper story that happened in Tucson, Arizona.  One fact about the story I read was that it said his shoes were stuffed and his feet did not feet in this shoe.  This made me think that maybe he was the devil and had feet that were hooves.  Since the girl was going with the man and she did not know why, he might of had the power over her to control her.  

Another thing that got me the first time I read this was that the man was very creepy.  At first glimpse, you wonder why she is going with this creepy man and is not doing anything about it.  

What I wonder is who does the guy in the car represent?