goodness gracious

Hi everybody,

We're all going to meet up in about an hour for the last time. The test shouldn't be bad.  It's hard to forget about the crazy things we talk about in class either way, which will be the bulk of the questions I imagine.  Anyhow, its been real, and its been fun.  And its been really fun. Thanks to everyone for making this the quirkiest and most awesome english class I've ever been a part of. All the best to you guys and whatever future endeavors are to come.  Until we perhaps meet again by coincidence.  Chances are one in three after all.

Dominique

to think of a good title for the entree (or paper) that already has a title...

Her Expectations: A Survival Guide

Perhaps as is the case with each and every individual on some level, so it similarly goes for a particular young lady by the name of Matilda, that the will to live and live well is a deep seeded need at the very core of our being. Whether this is always accomplished is another matter, but it is the expectation of ourselves to strive at successfully carrying on that is relevant within this discussion. The character Matilda, who is referred to from the novel Mr. Pip by Lloyd Jones, is a prime example of how despite the incessantly encountered tribulations from a journey called life, survival is innately within us. We thereby expect it of ourselves to do what is necessary in facing this issue and its various untamed forms. Despite our preferences, each and every kind of event may come at us right and left like bullets without a warning and at any time. It is how we deal with them that defines in large part the people that we truly are. And how it is we are defined plays a significant role in what might be called our overall stability of self and acceptance of fulfillment. In her encountering the highs and lows of life, Matilda plays the fictitious yet crucial role of one who chooses her survival through the methods providing her with the greatest possibility for a meaningful existence, something we can all learn from.

As a member of a community on the island Bougainville, off the coast of Papua New Guinea during the time of a civil war, Matilda is subjected to one atrocity after another. As a young girl in the midst of a difficult situation, it is natural that she clings to the first opportunity providing a mental escape, which plays a key role in her survival at this time. Here enters the eternally affecting Mr. Watts and his mysterious ways that will forever be with Matilda throughout her years both on and off of the island. As the only teacher figure available to Matilda and the other children, it is he who provides the material that may be used to avert attention from whatever hardships lay about. So it is the story from Charles Dickens known as Great Expectations that becomes the central source for learning and the distracting of Matilda’s desperate mind. With this story, she discovers an effective psychological retreat that carries her through until other methods of survival become required of her. But for a significant period of time, it is through a great work of fiction that gives shelter and allows Matilda’s expectations of herself and from life to continue in their evolution, as she grows as an individual. In finding a friend, a world and a home outside her own, she successfully moves on to find herself in new cycles and phases of a very particular journey.

While enduring the last few obstacles the island has to offer, Matilda encounters a much more dramatic reality the expectations of survival must be met with. After the death her mother, Mr. Watts, along with countless others from her village, Matilda is left with a memorable numbness that threatens her will for life most significantly. While she is walking through an increasingly thunderous rain, drained of any hope for escape to a different beginning, there comes the final test before descent from the land of rebels and redskins. Caught in a raging flood, it is a concrete physiological survival that is now required of her. And in the moments of expected death, she finds the will to fight for air to be restored in her lungs. When we think of survival, it is perhaps this distinct line between life and death that is most obvious. And while this certainly is a prominent component of the vast array, and one in which Matilda needed to experience, it is not the only form and perhaps not even the most important. After winning the physical struggle for life against the flood, it is almost as if she is immediately rewarded for her efforts by the boat that will essentially lead her onto a new life, away form all she has ever known up to that point.

Matilda re-meets her father in Australia where begins her search for a piece of her that appears to be missing. An incompleteness remains from the trauma now thousands of miles behind her, and in order for her continued survival it is information she seeks out. An education is what must be had in order to make progress that will mend the scars that have been laid upon her. To accomplish any kind of fulfillment, it is only to continue what she started that will suffice. To make further sense of what kept her going on the island is almost a tribute to those now deceased who were connected to it. So beginning with the story about a boy called Pip, Matilda encroaches upon the world of Mr. Dickens and his extensive literature. The tools needed to emerge into the world of learning have been acquired from the classroom once occupied with by Mr. Watts and the other children she had called friends. At this point where she is surrounded by a different kind of society, to learn is to live and therefore to survive. It appears to be the next necessary step forward. It might not have made sense at the time, but while Matilda fills her mind with all of the material she can get from higher education, she is simultaneously striving for a kind of unnamable truth; a greater meaning of who she is and what does in fact define her. This educational phase of many years is necessary for her later understanding of what it is that matters most, and could possibly constitute the answer for her ultimate survival and peace of mind.

One can become as informed and educated as possible, reading all of the books and doing all of the research, but still hit a dead end. Here Matilda emerges into a hole that for her leads to a depressive state, in which the only way out of is not within the already mastered academic world, but somewhere deeper inside of herself. She has met the challenges of many prior instances and in turn risen to the occasion so that the journey may continue. But at this point Matilda is now facing the biggest challenge of all. She finds that after making all of the possible motions that might lead to her eventual relief from days long behind her, there is nothing left to do and yet the hole inside of her is bigger than ever. And then out of her now well-developed sense of survival, she discovers a truth that had been beyond her for far too long. Her own individual voice that had once been noted by an old teacher as more important than anything, suddenly comes to mind. It is not other people, authors or characters that hold the key to her salvation, but the one and only story pertaining to none other than herself that suddenly becomes more relevant than anything else. And in this final act of survival instincts, Matilda begins to write. She writes the most sincere and real truth she has inside of her. And from all of the previous experience that has led her to this profound revelation, or rather an epiphany of sorts, the ultimate key to her being and continuing on, is finally discovered.

so, right

The last lecture was today? Really?  But I don't understand, it's too soon.  This makes me nervous, and I just don't think I know what I'm going to do.  No not really.  I don't know why I said that. So, right.  Wrapping things up I see.  It is almost completely dark while I sit here in a lawn chair on my flat top roof with my trust macbook looking over the treetops of bozeman. Evenings really are pretty nice in the summer here.  I'm actually wearing a sweatshirt and not suffocating or on the verge of heat exhaustion.  The moon looks like a waxing crescent, maybe. I'm trying to recall 9th grade earth science and all of the glorious phases there are for the moon to be in.  I really didn't love that class, pretty dull actually. Not at all like what I've subjected myself to for this second half session in familiar Wilson hall. I think I'll miss it a little bit.  The Monday, Wednesday, Friday routine I've become accustomed to from 12:30 to 2:30.  Definitely a different kind of experience.  The wind has just mad away with some of my papers. I'll be right back... Anyway, so. A paper, presentation and a test.  I'm glad we did outlines, that should make this easier.  But that's it.  Three more things to check off on the eng 123 list and bon voyage. I was considering mentioning something from my notes but it's too dark to read them and I don't feel like going inside.  So until next time when we can all undergo one last presentation.  Should be interesting, as always. Ciao.    

hmmmm

It's funny how my approach to blogs and overall feeling of them has evolved over the past few weeks.  At first, I had no idea what to write about, and thought the only things that could be put down were highly witty, intelligent, and impressive (even though they never were).  But now it's not so stressful.  Still definitely a hassle to sit down and make myself do most of the time, but I start without having the vaguest idea of what I am going to say and something still comes out.  I like it better that way. It's just a blog after all.  That word didn't even exist a few years back.  

So we watched the rest of the Importance of Being Earnest, which I found surprisingly entertaining.  The more modern version that was done really isn't that bad either if you're into that sort of thing.  Parallels between Oedipus and Earnest continue to be made.  Both of them were foundlings and consequently orphans throughout their lives.  Neither really know the whole truth of who they are for the majority of their adulthood in fact.  While one is comedic and one tragic, this alone can bring them together as was pointed out today.  Life is suffering according to Buddhaic traditions.  There is a lot of truth to that, however pessimistic it may sound.  However out of the most sorrowful of sorrows comes none other than the unexpected humor. Laughter emerges when all hope seems lost and there is no way out.  But alas, through this newfound comedy comes a kind of relief, a new perspective permitting us to let go and cease our position as a the victim.  How unlikely it is that two completely different emotional circumstances could actually provoke one another.  Opposites attract in many ways it seems. 

The two stories are well known and liked by many despite their dramatically different endings. Whether it is gorged out eyeballs or multiple lovers embracing, there is something to take from each.  Reading about tragedy puts things in an important perspective.  Without the ability to see the world in a tragic sense, we are ignorant to the full truth reality has to offer. Pain and suffering, at least in this world, are a necessary and inevitable part of the how things go. Comedy is not lost either, even with the multiple burdens we carry.  Perhaps it is with tragedy that makes comedy so funny.  We want to laugh and be happy as a distinct slap in the face to that of the tragic (and vice versa).  If we have to endure the morbid and awful parts, then when the time comes to find humor we will.  And with the experience of the polar opposite, that humor and joy will be amplified and appreciated in an entirely different way.  It seems likely that one cannot exist without the other.  It is a roller-coaster ride of feelings and emotions that each and every is subject to.  The distinction should be appreciated so  the difference might be noticed and we can reflect for ourselves which is preferable and why.  

Defining ourselves by what we do, or our professions.

Common unhappiness vs. hysterical misery.

All memories are still somewhere in our unconsciousness. 

We know everything about ourselves, but also about everyone else through the collective consciousness. 

We are only here for the moment anyway.

Classic are especially contemporarily relevant.

Tragedy in terms of its formality and generality.

People make comedy.  The more people produced, the more comedy.  

Plot: methos.  What is necessary to make the play.

Ideas of knowing and not knowing who you are.  What is it that defines who you are?

What tit means to give up on God.

theodicy- vindication of divine attributes

anagnorises - (in ancient Greek tragedy) the critical moment of recognition or discovery, esp. preceding peripeteia.

Fa La La La La

Discussions of Tiresias who appears in Eodipus Rex came about today.   It doesn't really pertain to the tragic tale we are reading, but it was asked how is it Tiresias came to be blind. Apparently there are two versions to this story I found online.  They are as follows...

The more prosaic - he saw a goddess naked: never advisable (compare the fate of Actaeon). Out in the countryside with his mother, young Tiresias saw Athena bathing nude in a pool. His reactions are not recorded, but his punishment was swift and severe - he was struck blind, to ensure he would never again see what man was not intended to see. But having lost his eyesight, he was given a special gift - to be able to understand the language of the birds (and thus to foretell the future).

The other version - (first in Hesiod, and the one fancied by Ovid in Metamorphoses) is more exciting. Out as before in the country, near Mount Kyllene in the Peloponnese, he came upon a pair of snakes lustfully intertwined. He hit the copulating couple a smart blow with his stick - presumably striking a blow for animal decency. But Hera was not pleased: as the sensuous seductress of Zeus, she heartily approved of sex - even for the lower creatures. His punishment was cruel - the worst a man could imagine. He was transformed into a woman, in mind as well as body. But some time later (after seeing the copulating snakes again, but this time alllowing them their pleasure) he was released from his sentence, and permitted to resume his masculinity. All could then have been well, but Tiresias was drawn into an argument between Hera and her husband Zeus. A common area for marital discussion - who has more pleasure in sex - the man or the woman? Hera was clever enough to let Zeus believe that men were superior in this as in everything else. But it was decided to check with Tiresias - as only he had known what it was actually like in the two roles. As a dastardly man, he revealed woman's greatest secret: on a scale of ten, she gets nine parts of the pleasure to his one. Hera was furious, and instantly struck him blind - Zeus couldn't do anything to stop her - but he did give Tiresias the gift of second sight.

And so that was that.  Poor guy, and what a bummer.  Welp, if the Gods know best then what the hell are you going to do?  Probably not too much.  

So, an endearing line in literature.  Well goodness, I just don't know if anything could possibly be more so more than the first of G.E.  I honestly wouldn't know where to begin in presenting something I found to be an endearing line in literature.  But I'll certainly keep you posted if the light bulb goes off in this direction.

Anamnesis- 

1. the recollection or remembrance of the past; reminiscence.

2. Platonism. recollection of the Ideas, which the soul had known in a previous existence, esp. by means of reasoning.
3. the medical history of a patient.
4. Immunology. a prompt immune response to a previously encountered antigen, characterized by more rapid onset and greater effectiveness of antibody and T cell reaction than during the first encounter, as after a booster shot in a previously immunized person.
5. (often initial capital letter) a prayer in a Eucharistic service, recalling the Passion, Resurrection, and Ascension of Christ.

The task of the poet is to help people live their lives.  What a job.

Everyone has the same amount of time in the day.  What we do is a matter of priorities.

If our lives are not interesting or important then neither is yours or anyone that of anyone else. What a terrible thought.  How incredibly depressing.  More credit should be given to the average human life.  There is always something there we don't realize.  With the billions of people living, it is hardly an option to put them all in a little box and say this and this of them just in order to make a point.  It simply is not accurate.  Yes television exists, some watch significant amounts, some not at all.  What may I ask is the motive of putting others you consider below your standards down?  It might be realized this very act is reason to have the same done to you.  But anyway... on to the next thing. 

a bit of this and that, you know..

Things that have been happening... goodness, quite a lot.  Sonnet creations have been exposed for all to see and consider.  This was much more intimidating than I expected.  Individually written poetry seems to be much more personal than most other things you could compose. But, we lived through it and learned.  I actually really enjoyed hearing all of them.  They proved to be worthy of the glorifying adjectives so commonly mentioned in class.  I suppose a recap couldn't hurt.

In reverse order of their being read.

Steve: wrote about a dog named Ricki (spelling uncertain).  Even if they can't be together, it is still possible to love the other.

Medina:  a sonnet to her mother Joy, whom she has come to profoundly appreciate through the hard times.

Ryan: recounts the epic hail storm and being caught in the middle of it with a  broken-chained bike.  And the appreciation of a kind lady to shelters him from his potential doom.

Amber: to her husband who she loves very much, and cars deeply about.

Greg: another classic expression of love for his wife whose favorite flower is the sunflower.  She has him by the bill.

Krystal: to her young son Kyven who she hopes wonderful things for, like seeing the world.

Kimberly: Concerning a horse that will eventually be hers.  Written to the family whose care it is currently under.

Tracy: to Rob, the guy awesome guy at the bar that makes the shift that much better.  He even is nice enough to stick around when the creeps lurk and take out the garbage.

Whitney: to her wonderful father who she loves and will always love very much.

Jason: about the well-known wreck on the four-wheeler.  Wounded body, and damaged vehicle, it was an experience to remember.  An Advil was taken but a Tylenol sounds better for poetry purposes.  Essentially, we were lied to. 

Steph: to her song-writing boyfriend.  To show her appreciation for him.His receiving poetry is nothing unusual.

Luke: reflections from his Australian walk-about.  Concerning who you are, and what is inside.

Some other thoughts to ponder-

The things we're looking for are often right in front of us.  

Why is it we suffer?  Perhaps to give the writer s and poets something to write about.

Always a matter of life and death.

The things that seem completely irrelevant may in fact be the most relevant after all.

It is important to be aware of linguistic practices and uses, or you may become stuck in the "like" trap.

Knowledge doesn't necessarily make you happy.

Write what is needful.

It has become evident that there is a tremendous amount of content in Mr. Pip from which a topic concerning Matilda's great expectations may be derived.    Passage after passage was rattled off and its according significance.  As far as term papers go our guidelines are intentionally vague.  Not just anything can be written as I made the fatal mistake of suggesting to Mr. Sexson.  Naturally it must be relevant somehow to Matilda and to expectations.  So not anything goes, but a clearly there a multitude of possibilities.  We are reminded not to bore.  It isn't a boring book I wouldn't say, so with the right approach and a little creative thought some fabulous topics might be had that will all but displease the teacher of 1130.  A rough copy is apparently to be had for Monday.  This has also been left open for various outcomes.  All the better to expand our supposedly cramped up little minds and reach for new heights. Intimidation need not loom over our poor souls.  This is a chance to have all kinds of fun, right? Well, maybe. Matilda is not such a regular old joe shmo without direction or purpose.  She is really a pretty impressive individual, and it is all the more INTERESTING to see her go through some evens many of us will never even remotely encounter.  So, what to write about... I think I have some thinking to do.

some things

Past half way already.  That does seem odd.  Time flies when you're having fun I guess.  Well, and the summer sessions are incredibly condensed.  So we continue on into the land of poetry while in room 1130, but on our own it is Mr. Pip that is supposedly filling the hours.  I'm about a third of the way in at this point, and I really don't mind it so far.  In fact, like was the case with Steve, it is kind of hard to put down.  Nothing too terribly awful has happened yet, but Luke assures us that it gets really depressing...wonderful.  The situation of the setting in itself is rather unfortunate, but the world as seen through the young and hopeful eyes of Matilda almost masks what is going on around her.  I'll just have to keep reading.

Found poems were officially found and read to the class.  Who would have thought poetry could be hiding on hair spray bottles ("Big Sexy Hair" - nice choice Medina), in the U.S Constitution, on a coffee can, and of course, even in a math textbook to name a few.  They were all pretty unique an fun to hear.  A few things were mentioned along the lines of poetry during the found poem recitations, and really just throughout the course of class.

A change of style in writing leads to a change of meaning.  An example being to take a paragraph form of something and extract parts, putting them into lines or stanzas.  

Repetition is often times effectively used to give linguistic power.

The confusing and obscure is okay, and at times is more appropriate and necessary than the clear, simple and direct.  

Poetry is made out of the world. 

What isn't a tale having something to do with life and/or death? 

Poetry (and writing/literature in general) is a way of preserving an experience.

To consider: oral traditions vs. writing; importance of dialectic.

Rudimental knowledge is to be known so that one may later change and "play" with the rules.

The MSU motto was found in a sonnet.