Of Wanderings & Such

The Portable Folio - Part Deux

It's been said a few times before, but I'll reiterate anyway. This post is the cover entry for my blogging portfolio for the second half of this semester. So, to get right down to it, here it is:

The Cover Entry

Blood-Burning Moon - As I read the story, I wasn't sure whether I was supposed to focus on the racial elements in the story or just read it as a love triangle.

Here We Are - I have to say, I'm a die hard fan of satires. There's something to be said for watching the world make a fool out of itself. Just a warning: I've used the word "vanity" a million and a half times in this post. Maybe the fall of language has something to do with the end of the semester.

Greenleaf - Another story with very strong racial overtones. Can someone please tell me the significance of having read so many stories that give rise to racism? I wish we had talked more about this is in class.

Normal Man Marries Oblong Woman - Loneliness, insanity and the back breaking pressures of society. My heart went out to Zoe in the story You're Ugly, Too.

Where's the Miracle? - McBride's novel, Miracle at St. Anna was the only selection this semester that deeply disappointed me. I have to say, I'm tired of character analysis, and this book perpetuated that discussion in class. I have yet to see any real issues being brought up in this novel besides for racism, but that's just my reading of it. My theory is, just because its a published book doesn't mean that it's literature.

The Extra Collection

Coverage

Here We Are

Where's the Miracle?

Normal Man Marries Oblong Woman

Depth

Where's the Miracle?

Normal Man Marries Oblong Woman

Interaction & Discussion

We All Want to Live (Scott Clark)

The Farmers Children (Tammy Roberts)

Timeliness

Where's the Miracle?

Xenoblogging

The Comment Primo

The Farmers Children (Tammy Roberts)

Wildcard Entry

The End -- It's Here

The End - - It's Here

You can tell I'm tired when I start using cheesy cliched titles like this one. After going through two harrowing semesters, my mind is at a point now where it refuses to think. And for good reason -- I've thunk my way out of over 64 papers this year, and frankly I'm done. This is total and complete shut down. And if you were in my dorm room, you'd see it too.

Every spare inch of surface area in my room is taken over by books. Course books, poetry books, research books, my books, the neighbours books. It's like they all grew feet and marched into my room when I wasn't looking. Beneath those books, I have papers buried. Reams and reams of them. I'm not sure that the recycling club on campus is going to be happy with the way I've supported mass destruction of the forests. I'm a tree hugger. I really am. Yet for some reason, a tidal wave of papers swept into my room and never really left after that.

There are times (when I actually have two spare minutes in my schedule) when I slow down and wonder how it would feel to have a life. An actual one. You know, the one where you socialize and interact with real people and not the ones you meet walking through the pages of a book. And then there's the building of a network of friends and just plain hanging out to do nothing but have fun. I used to have one of those. And then I came to college.

It's not just my social life coming to an end. It's my complete and utter inability to think about anything but school work. Thank the lord I'm single...I don't know where I'd have been able to pencil in time for a relationship. Not to mention I'd hardly ever have any clean clothes to go out on a date. My laundry gives me evil stares every time that I walk in to my room. It's been screaming, begging, pleading to get done - but no, those papers have got to get done.

And now they are! The spring semester (in terms of assignments at least) is officially done, as far as I'm concerned. To hell with those revisions, I say. My brain has popped out my cranium and stepped into the happy, glorious, lazy, jazz and poetry filled days of the summer. I wish I could have been travelling this summer. Or even taken a trip back home to India. Of course the danger that tags along with that option is that I'd never come back. Ever. Again.

But, in the meantime, I'm making best friends with a margarita or ten to try and get those darn creative juices that froze up in some corner of my vagabond brain. This is the time when I reconnect with myself. Convince myself that there are actual tangible hobbies that I have an interest in and good friends and family to spend my time with. My summer days are going to be lazy and hazy. I hope yours are too.

The Farmer's Children

Note the apostrophe in that title. Those kids distinctly belong to the farmer, not to his wife. Bishop makes the distinction clear in the very beginning of the story.

"...while the stepmother, being romantic and overgenerous, to her own children at least, had given them the names of Lea Leola, Rosina, and Gracie Bell" (286).

The story comes with a well integrated Hansel and Gretel touch, with the kids even taking crumbs of bread along with them to help them find a way. Yet I don't understand the point of the story. Is it a fairy-tale about kids suffering under an evil stepmother? Or is there an actual lesson to be learned here? Somehow the end seemed very unreal to me, which means that there are huge gaps in the story to be filled in by the readers. The consensus in class is that the boys died from the bitter cold. My question is why did they not make a small fire before retiring to bed? Of course, someone could step in at this point and say that since the author's the boss here, what she says goes. But what's the point of reading literature if you don't question it?

By the way, did anyone notice the farmer's absence except in the title and at the end? It's almost as if he really doesn't exist.