Friday, 2.19.10 & Monday, 2.22.10

The test went pretty well for the most part. For next time I think I need to focus on other peoples blogs more and ready every reading assignment completely...perhaps even twice.

On Monday, we discussed what it would be like to explain to a blind person what it's like to see. Sexson compared us to blind people in that we're blind to literature and he's the one who teaches us what its like. I thought that was a great analogy.

There are two kinds of blind - people who are born blind and people who become blind after being able to see part of their life. I was trying to think of what situation would be better and I decided that they both have their pros and cons. If you're born blind, you would have never experienced that sense and not have known what you're missing. But if you become blind, especially later in life, then you would have had a chance to experience sight and some of those images might be able to stay with you.

Monday, 2.15 & Wednesday 2.17

So we read and discussed A Good Man Is Hard To Find. This story didn't bother me as much as it should have. For some reason I can see why the Misfit killed the family. He could see right through the entire family. They thought they were all innocent but in reality, they were insensitive (the kids were going to throw their garbage out the car window??) and two-faced - the grandmas always seemed in a sour mood and was preoccupied with material good like wearing her fancy clothes and regretting not marrying a financially successful man. She seemed rather racist as well, making unnecessary comments about people on the street. Then, at the end of her time, she pulls the "Jesus-card" to try to persuade the Misfit into not killing her...he saw right through her and killed her anyways.

Class 12/13 - 2.10/12.10

Since I was gone on Friday (I was on my way back to my home town for the long weekend..) I decided to combine these two posts. On Wednesday Sexson had us read A Good Man Is Hard To Find and The Lottery. After reading these two short stories, something hit me. I realized my senior year in high school I took a literature class and we have read a lot of the same short stories, including Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?, A Good Man Is Hard To Find, and The Lottery. I'm not sure if this is coincidental or if these are the basics taught in every into to lit class, but I thought it was cool. It's nice to have some background knowledge behind what you're re-reading. We went into great depths discussing these works in high school and I've definitely benefited from it in this class.

Class 11 - 2.8.10

We learned about the three stages of life: the "hunky dory" stage where everything is completely innocent and without complication, the "split world" when you go through a time of trials and hardships, and the "return" stage where you go back to where you began.

I think that the first stage could almost not exist...it all depends on the circumstances. Some might say the "hunky dory" stage only exists in the womb, some would say it lasts through childhood. In an ideal world it would. But in reality, innocence can often be nonexistent. Think of why one is in the womb in the first place...was it because of a accidental one-night stand? That, I think completely takes away the innocence. Innocence is definitely situational.

Class 10 - 2.5.10

I found this piece by Henri Matisse on page 842. This piece stuck out to me because its unlike any other in the anthology. Its a modern piece created in the late 1940's. As far as I could find, all of the other works featured in our anthology are works done in the Renaissance or earlier. While pondering this, something hit me. Not only are storied always retellings of other storied, but works of art are always retellings and re-renderings of previous works. Some one has already rendered the same idea in some sort or articulation. If you wanted to be really abstract about it, you could also think of it like this: You have paint - but where did it come from? someone collected the pigments and binder, which each have their own story. Your brushes may have experienced other pieces, or they may be brand new. Essentially, everything is a retelling of something else.

Class Nine - 2.3.10

My earliest memory is still very vivid - I was around four years old and my dad took me fishing over on a neighbor's dock (I grew up on a lake). We used Power-bait because I think it pretty much guaranteed us a fish. We ended up catching 2 decent size rainbow trout, and we brought them both back to the house to clean. My mom took a picture of me holding the fish in front of our house (which I still have). I was wearing a pink turtle neck and some goofy pants. My dad and I cleaned the fish together, and I remember when we cut their stomachs open to examine the contents, we found a bunch of corn, which I found strange..I didn't understand how the fish had gotten the corn in the first place.

This positive experience of fishing with my dad really stuck with me. As I got older, I used to spend hours on our dock fishing. My dad and I didn't always get along during my childhood, but when we were fishing together, we put that all behind us. I'm still an avid fisher today!

Class Eight - 2.1.10

So our assignment was to remember everything that happened to us between 6 a.m. to 11 p.m. on Feb. 2....here's what I did:

woke up at 6, hit the snooze button, went back to sleep, actually got up at 6:45, got dressed, brushed my teeth, did my make up, ate a yogurt on the way out the door, walked to Kinko's, printed my graphic design assignment ($2.00 for each color copy...can you believe it?!), went to the Daily and got a cup of coffee and a lemon bar, walked back to campus, went into the graphic design room to finish up assignment for class at 9, get to class with seconds to spare, critique every one's work, go back into the lab and rework my design, go back into the classroom and get next class' assignment, walk home, prepare to take a nap, decide that 25 minutes isn't long enough to take a nap, play on Facebook, text my friend, grab a clementine and eat it on the way to my Energy & Sustainability class, get to class, fill up my water bottle, see that we have a guest lecturer, listen to said guest lecturer about the effects of green house gas on climate change, receive a text from friend and respond, walk to work (Hannon Dining Hall), clock in, put an apron and gloves on, go out and check the salad bar, fill up a couple thing, look busy without actually doing anything for a while, prepare the breakfast bar for the next day, periodically check my phone for another text from friend, check the temps on the salad bar, re-ice everything, check out, run into my roomie on the way out, chat with her for a second about not receiving text from the friend, tell her I'll see her at 6:45, go home and take a nap from 4:15 to 6, get dressed and head back to work, stop at the library to drop off DVDs that I checked out, arrive at work, sweep and mop the back rooms, sweep and mop the main room, periodically talk to my roomie (who also works there) about not receiving a reply to friend's text, dump mop bucket and get checked out, eat dinner there, walk over the the library to get new movies since a certain friend has yet to text back, get home, talk to my ex-boyfriend and other friends on Facebook, finally receive text from friend, make plans to hang out later that night.

I really enjoyed this activity. It made mundane, everyday events seem like something special because I was actually paying attention to them. I think I might actually do this more on my own time.

Class Seven - 1.29.10

Has any one ever experienced a lucid dream? When I was little, I could lucid dream almost anytime I slept. For the most part I've grown out of it, but occasionally it still happens to me. For anyone who doesn't know what lucid dreaming is, here's a link that explains it in detail:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucid_dream

I also frequently have reoccurring dreams. It seems like the older I get, the more often these dreams occur. I seem to always have a dream about a ski resort I've imagined up. If you asked me to, I could probably draw a trail map of it - that's how familiar I am with it.