Well the semester is over, and I would have to say that the blogs were not as bad as I thought they would be at the beginning of the year. Some of the last ones were a struggle being so close to summer, but that's true for any type of school work. I enjoyed the blogs more than any other facet of the class, because it was a much more peer to peer oriented tool as opposed to the in class discussions.
Coverage- Here are the blogs in which I quoted the work and used a TrackBack to the course website. This was true for every single blog, so I would say this part is a resounding success.
Great Attention Getter
The Blind Prophet, Daredevil?
Worlds Apart
Ambiguous Waltz
Stockholm Daddy
Devil's Advocate
The Power Of Scarcity
Intense, In the Worst Way Possible
Nameless Theory
E^2
Time Time Time Time Time
Inverse
Not Getting To The Point
Timeliness - Here are blogs posted on time or early. All of my blogs except for one week (two blogs) were done before or on the Friday that they were due. I was only late one week, which I got done on Sunday, so I still had them for class. I was proud of myself for getting all of these in on time. I had many blogs in the earlier part of the semester that I honestly did just to do it, but I put a lot more effort into these blogs.
Great Attention Getter
The Blind Prophet, Daredevil?
Worlds Apart
Ambiguous Waltz
Stockholm Daddy
Devil's Advocate
The Power Of Scarcity
Intense, In the Worst Way Possible
Nameless Theory
E^2
Not Getting To The Point
Interaction- Here are some blogs that sparked discussion among my peers. I did not get many comments this time around, and I think it was because most of my blogs were a lot longer. I say this because I felt that my blogs were much better than my earlier blogs, and I know that when I am looking for blogs to comment on I look for shorter ones, so it would make sense that other people might do the same. Also, looking through for my comments I felt like not a lot of people were actually commenting at the end, making it hard to get comments on my blogs.
Worlds Apart
Nameless Theory
Ambiguous Waltz
Depth- Here are the blogs which took the most time, and show the most depth. I had much more of these in-depth blogs than earlier in the semester, and besides being long they also took more thought. I was getting tired of just writing blogs about just the literature, so I tried to incorporate things that I am interested, such as movies or popular media characters, or anything I could think of dealing with psychology (which is my major). This made them much easier to write, and I feel that my peers could relate to them better.
The Blind Prophet, Daredevil?
Worlds Apart
Ambiguous Waltz
Stockholm Daddy
The Power Of Scarcity
Discussion- Here are comments on my peer's blogs that I feel were well put. I feel the responses I got showed that I got my points across to the writers of the blogs (or other classmates). Again, I noticed a drop off in comments toward the end, so it was hard to get a dialogue going.
Carlos Peredo - Being Marked For Greatness
Rebecca Marrie - Thesis?
Nikita McClellan - Throw Away Everything You Learned
April Minerd - The Trouble With Bugs And Coffee Grinds
Aja Hannah - Emerson said...Or Was It Ellison?
Aja Hannah - Fly Away Dirty Minds
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Coverage- Here are the blogs in which I quoted the work and used a TrackBack to the course website
Great Attention Getter
The Blind Prophet, Daredevil?
Worlds Apart
Ambiguous Waltz
Stockholm Daddy
Devil's Advocate
The Power Of Scarcity
Intense, In the Worst Way Possible
Nameless Theory
E^2
Time Time Time Time Time
Inverse
Not Getting To The Point
Timeliness - Here are some examples of blogs posted on time or early
Frost's Deception
After Apple Picking
Racism At It's Finest
Interaction- Here are some blogs that sparked discussion among my peers
Quick Rebeginnings
Hot Dog!
One story? C'mon
Depth- Here are the blogs which took the most time, and have the most thought put into them
Frost's Deception
Hot Dog!
One story? C'mon
Discussion- Here are comments on my peer's blogs that helped spark discussion
Felix, now a certain anxiety beings to seep out more openly: Yes! Go ahead, what is it?...Isn't that cap too hot?
Henri: It helps my arthritis." (9)
I enjoy Miller's use of this little play-writing technique that I've often seen. I'm not very familiar with theater, but I mean constantly telling the speaker to speak, but interrupting him while doing so. It just made me want to know what he is talking about, instead of just saying it.
Besides this, I do like how modern everything feels. Felix definitely has a politician kind of vibe with his complete hatred for Henri in private, but puts on a good face and pretends he is his best friend. The first chapter really made me want to keep going.
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With all of the airports and superheroes out there, flight does not really seem that big of a deal to us anymore. I do like how some authors turn this concept upside down though. For instance, in Catch 22, the main character Yossarian is a pilot. However, he knows that every mission is possibly death, and the ground is freedom to him. While war definitely changes the rules compared to everyday life, this is still my biggest problem with Foster. I just don't like trying to give a basic outline for literature when it's obvious that someone is just going to break the rules out there somewhere. I thought maybe after not reading Foster for a couple of weeks I'd be less biased, but I guess not.
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Alright, I would first like to say that I do enjoy this book, because it is pretty unique and I feel is written quite well (besides some blatant sex scenes that are pretty much porn). However, the constant references to time throughout the book just seem a little bit of overkill. It jumps out right at the beginning of the book (that quote is at the end of the first paragraph) and does not go away. Yes, this is a book about time travel, and its effects on people, but I sometimes feel like it is a bit overkill. When comparing it to a novel such as Invisible Man, which makes many great points about people through their actions, and not just saying that racism is bad over and over and over again. It's like this saying that used to tell us in high school, that we are supposed to "show and not tell". Maybe it's just me, but it kind of got on my nerves. This was really just a mild oversight in the grand scheme of things though, because the story itself is so rich and the characters are so deep.
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that every listener is also a potential speaker ("How many orators sit
mute there below!" [1903-04, 7. 63]), also captures the most charged
moments of eloquence to appear in Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man, a novel that
measures the self-reliance of its nameless protagonist through his growing
acumen as a public speaker. Midway through the novel, Ellison's narrator
stands before a massive audience after his initiation into the political organization
called the Brotherhood, observing that "The audience seemed to
have become one, its breathing and articulation synchronized" much like the
"social organism" or "battery" to which the Emersonian speaker both
addresses and connects himself." 75
I find it perfectly fitting that Ralph Waldo Emerson and Ralph Waldo Ellison have some contact. While it may not have been completely intentional, I'm sure Emerson influenced Ellison in some way. Throughout the novel I noticed how much speeches had such a musical quality, and how powerful the whole mood of them was. At first, not to sound racist or anything, I thought it was because they were in a black church (this is where I noticed the strength of the speeches). However, as I went on Ellison was just trying to create that mood throughout the novel to show how great a speaker the narrator is. I really enjoyed this article, and I learned a lot from it.
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I know the fact that the narrator does not have a name has to have some significance to the story. After reading I have come up with yet another reason I think this might be. I think the narrator does not have a name because he is not one character, but he changes constantly. At the beginning and end he is a sociopath, at the "beginning" of the story he is naive, he is naive in college, then he starts to change. All of these characters is different but they all make up one individual. I feel like giving him a name would also undermine such a change, because we would think of his too much as the same person all the time. That's just my thought on the subject, does this make sense to anyone else?
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"I spoke automatically and with such fervor that I did not realize that the men were still talking and laughing until my dry mouth, filling up with blood from the cut, almost strangled me. I coughed, wanting to stop and go to one of the tall brass, sand-filled spittoons to relieve myself..." (30)
I went into this book not knowing what it was about at all. One of my friends told me to wait until I read chapter 1 and then text them (they had read the book before), so we could talk about how messed up it was. So I read chapter 1, and the only thing I could think to say was, "That was intense, in the worst way possible." I have no idea what the rest of the book is going to entail, but that chapter left me feeling disgusted at the absolutely degrading behaviors they make the boys take part in, and just how straightforwardly racist the people are. While Foster said to read with eyes that are not our own, reducing boys to animals and poking fun at them while doing it is something I could never agree with no matter when it happened.
Obviously this chapter is supposed to get us interested in what will happen, and make us feel horrified. Mission accomplished.
"Both in the novel and in the desert itself, water's conspicuous absence is what makes it so powerful. The flooding that climaxes the novel is thematically situated to provide maximum counterpoint to the drought which originally forced the Joads to migrate west. Disenfranchised and dehumanized, the Joads can only curse the rising floodwaters even as they once prayed for a deluge to feed their parched crops. The cycle of alienation appears complete; people whose humanity was once integrally tied to the land and the weather now care nothing for the growing season or the health of the earth. Their survival has come to depend on shelter from the elements rather than the elements themselves."
This quote shows both of the original points I made quite well. The first is the absence of water, or under abundance, and how powerful it can be. The absence of water during a certain time lead to an entire people having to migrate west in order to find work, an entire culture was uprooted simply because of scarcity. This phenomenon, not necessarily this particular one, has happened countless times in the Earth's existence. Today there is a scarcity of oil, which leads to high gas prices (keep in mind I'm using scarcity as in the battle between unlimited human wants, and limited resources, so while there is not a "shortage" of oil, there is not enough to satisfy our wants completely). In the 30's there was a shortage of jobs all around, and some people became hobos or even took their own lives as a result. This article made me think just how there is never quite enough of anything to go around, and made me realize the full extent of the power of scarcity.
The other thing I saw in the article is simple how powerful nature is. In the quote from before, it mentions how there was such a lack of rain, and then there was a flood. While this did not actually happen, seeing as it was from a book, occurrences like this DO happen in real life as well. While we can control where we go and how we react to the elements, no one can change the elements. There is no way any of us could have stopped hurricane Katrina, or the tsunami from 2004. I especially like how the article put it, when it said "Their survival has come to depend on shelter from the elements
rather than the elements themselves." No matter what we as a people do, we cannot hide from mother nature.
"And I, "Sometimes I'm so happy I can't stand myself."
And he, "When I am too full of joy, I think
how little good my health did anyone near me.""
Besides the fact that I enjoy interactions between poets who become friends, I like how Frost turns the tables in a witty way. I would not think when I was happy how useless I am to those around me as a means to regulate myself. I would hope that the poem was taken from an actual conversation between the two men.
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Recent Comments
Alicia Campbell on Not getting to the point: I agree that this technique ma
Rosalind Blair on Inverse: I have the same sort of view o
Aja Hannah on E^2: I did also enjoy the musical q
Julianne Banda on Nameless Theory: I understand what you mean, an
Jennifer Prex on Nameless Theory: Yes it does. Names are so much
Rosalind Blair on Nameless Theory: I think that your assessment o
Sue on Intense, in the worst way possible: I agree with Julianne, I could
Julianne Banda on Intense, in the worst way possible: I agree. The first chapter cau
Aja Hannah on The Power of Scarcity: In the Environment class I am