Last Core Blog Ever!!

Although I wasn't a fan of the whole blogging thing at first, you have to admit that it is a really great way to get more from the class. Before the required blogging, I would just read straight through the story without pulling much out from it. But having the blogs forced me to take the time to stop at those half formulated thoughts that occurred in the middle of reading and analyze them. Rather than quickly reading through, I began to make more connections and think more about what was being said in the text. The blogs also caused me to create more connections between things. I even started connecting things between other classes and would start thinking of what to say in my blog before realizing that neither of those classes were Core so there was no blog to write them down for. Overall, the blogs ended up being a good way to get me thinking more, not just about my Core books and discussions, but all the books and discussions that are taking place in all my classes.

You Never Know What to Expect

I knew that our ninth text was in the form of a comic book beforehand, but I had no clue what to expect. It was a really touching story, reading about this girl and her life growing up during that time. In the beginning, she starts off with such naiveness, such as how she would be the next prophet so that she old people wouldn't suffer anymore, which I believe is how kids should be. By the time the story is finished though, she has grown past those simple times of believing she could be the next great prophet. Although she still had things to learn, she was forced to grow up way too quickly, even leaving her parents and her country at the young age of fourteen. I mean, by fourteen, you have grown and matured, but not enough to be leaving your parents with the possibility of never seeing them again.

Brokeback Mountain

So I just watched Brokeback Mountain the other day and the whole time while watching it I just kept thinking about how similar it was to Giovanni's Room. Both stories take place about the same time, when homosexuality was not accepted at all, especially by Americans. So, the two characters in the movie, Ennis and Jack, as well as David from Giovanni's Room, all kept their homosexuality a secret from everyone else, or at least try to. However, both David's fiancé and Ennis's wife find out and end up leaving. David's bad decision making skills which end up making him a jerk seem to be split between Ennis, who drinks a lot, and Jack, who ends up having multiple affairs with both men and women. In the end, Jack gets killed and Ennis is alone. Sounds familiar...

Surprise!

I was a little surprised at the ending...because it actually had a concrete conclusion at the end! It's a first for this class, and a last. Although there are still things at the end left to discuss, we aren't left with the typical Core question of, "what just really happened??" White Castle leaves us wondering who is who, House of Mirth doesn't reveal whether Lily purposefully or accidentally kills herself, Sputnik Sweetheart never tells whether Sumire really returns, and The Age of Iron doesn't really tell if Mrs. Curren is dead. Baldwin does the best job out of these five books in wrapping up the basics for us. In the end, we know that Hella has left, Giovanni is either dead or about to be, and David is now forced to move on with his life with the freedom he dreaded from the beginning.

For Different Reasons

At one point in the story, both David and Hella want to be married to each other, but for different reasons. In the beginning of the book, David tells the reader that "nothing is more unbearable, once one has it, than freedom. I suppose this was why I asked her to marry me: to give myself something to be moored to" (5). Hella had a bit different thought process when deciding to marry David though. During a conversation between the two, she tells David, "I began to realize it in Spain-that I wasn't free, that I couldn't be free until I was attached-no, committed-to someone" (126). Interesting how David and Hella want the same thing, marriage, to obtain opposite results, one doesn't want the unbearable freedom while the other wants to be freed.

"Oh," said Giovanni, "nobody likes to travel, especially not women."

I would have to disagree with Giovanni and his belief here. It seems like any time the mention of traveling abroad comes up, almost everyone here at Richmond lists off all the places they have been to already. I think I'm right to assume that at least part of the reason we go on these trips is because of the enjoyment we get from going to see more of the world than what we grew up around, as well as seeing the places we have only heard of before. It's a completely different learning experience between reading about something like the Colosseum and actually walking around inside of it. This is also why Richmond seems to push studying abroad for its students at some point during our four years here. Travel is a great way to enrich our education and get a different and better perspective on many things, why wouldn't someone like to travel?

Restructuring the Building

I went to the lecture tonight by Ellen Bravo, expecting to be bored and not able to understand the speaker like all the other lectures I've been to this semester. However, she ended up having some very good points and kept the entire lecture interesting and somewhat entertaining! Although I've heard a lot of the feminist stuff before, she presented it all in a different way, rather than saying poor women are being beaten up by all the horrible men, she showed the change that is needed as a way to improve society for everyone. What really got me was that, out of the 167 countries in the world, there are only four that do not incorporate paid leave at most if not all jobs, one of these four is America. Supposedly America is such a great country, the land of opportunities, but people from other countries feel sorry for Americans that have to bring their children up in a society that doesn't allow for both family time and a good job. In class, we have been discussing the racial inequalities that affect our society, and while that is an important issue that needs to be solved, we need to realize that is not the only inequality taking place in our society.

True Identity

"I wanted to find myself. This is an interesting phrase...which certainly does not mean what is says but betrays a nagging suspicion that something has been misplaced" (pg. 21).

To find ourselves. It is a phrase we have all heard many times and never really given much thought to. For my last paper I wrote about how, while it may appear that our identities have changed, our true identities never change, it just takes time for us to find it. Baldwin is right when he says that it is not something we have lost or misplaced as is inferred, it something that has always been there and always will be there. It is just a matter or whether or not you discover this true identity sometime in life or not.

The Glass Ceiling's Creation

"The work of civilization has become increasingly the business of men, it confronts them with ever more difficult tasks and compels them to carry out instinctual sublimations of which women are little capable." (59)

This statement really stuck out to me, especially after taking a sociology class last semester and the discussion we had in class earlier this semester on a few of the issues that women still deal with because of the gender inequality in our society. In this statement, Freud appears to be sexist with his view of women as being little capable. Although he appears to be a bit biased on this issue, he does still mention that this view of women that society now has was not always so, but created by civilization. The first part of this sentence brings up how civilization is increasingly the business of men, not that men were always better than women in society. The inequality that exists in today's society was not always part of society, and maybe one day it will once again not be an issue in society.

The Id in the Hat

Someone told me an interesting view of "The Cat in the Hat" really just being a story about Freud's theory of the id, ego, and superego. The cat is the id, telling the kids all these things they could do while thier mother is out. The children are the ego, they are the ones who make the actual decisions. Finally, the fish represents the superego, being the only one concerned with not doing these things that would never happen while mother was about. Also, the id is the only part of these three that remains completely unconscious and cat is the only one unknown to mother.

Freedom Isn't Free

"Perhaps freedom is always and only what is unimaginable." (164)

At the beginning of the war in Iraq there was a saying I always heard, "freedom isn't free." It reminds me of what Mrs. Curren is saying in the book that no matter what, freedom can never be fully obtained. In order to obtain and keep our rights, others such as our soldiers and Bheki and John must sacrifice their lives. But even with these sacrifices, it is still impossible to reach complete freedom, we are all slaves in some way, whether it is by political, emotional, or physical bonds and this will never change.

Carrot

Looking back, I think Carrot is a lot like Sumire. The night Sumire disappeared, Miu found her in her room, "stupefied, not hearing anything, not seeing anything" (112). This is the same way that Carrot is acting after he is caught shoplifting, "strangely emotionless, eyes out of focus" (186). Perhaps Carrot, who had always been considered the good, quiet kid, had the same revelation as Sumire. They both had to stop being "like a spineless little barber digging a hole in his backyard...and slowly but surely fade away" (140). Sumire did this by revealing her love to Miu, while Carrot shoplifted. It was what they did to keep from becoming nothing in this world.

Cats

Cats seem to carry an important symbolism in this play. There are multiple stories that are told amongst K, Sumire, and Miu about cats; such as the story of the cannibal cats who started to eat their owner after she died, the need to lack sympathy for the cat when deserted on an island, and of Sumire's cat from her childhood that just disappeared one night (pg. 101-106). Although each of these stories appear insignificant and just taking up time in the conversation, they all end up showing up again later in the text in some other context related to K, Sumire, and Miu. At one point, K talks of how the real him dies and the cats come to eat his remains, metaphorically of course (172). Also, Sumire's sudden disappearance is much like the sudden disappearance of her cat so many years prior, she also talks of this cat as the first and last cat she would ever had, just as it appears that Sumire is the first and last love of K's life.

You know, that person at that place over there somewhere...

Throughout all of Sputnik Sweetheart, just about every detail of the story seems to remain a little fuzzy and we never get the full story. It's never said what island they are on in Greece, or what really happens to Sumire during her disappearances, or provide an explanation for Miu's two bodied experience. These were just a few of the vague issues in the book that bothered me while reading about them. But then I read one of the lines from Document 1, where Sumire says, "That's gotta be one of the principles behind reality. Accepting things that are hard to comprehend, and leaving them that way" (pg. 136). It made me realize that ultimately, there's a reason we are not told every little detail, sometimes things happen and we need to learn to just accept it. Although this is not always the case and there are plenty of times at which we should put out an effort to gain more information ourselves, there are also times in which the best thing to do is just accept the unknown.

What If...

It's sad to hear about the difficulties Adrienne Rich went through due to her father's intolerance in accepting and following the Jewish faith and tradition. His reasoning is understandable though, with the nonacceptance of Jews by people at this time, especially the Nazis and the Ku Klux Klan. It makes me wonder, what if people had been more accepting? Right now, I'm taking a class on diversity in the classroom and how this should be dealt with; before now, I never completely realized how much of an effect this really has on people. Human beings tend to not be very accepting of those different than themselves, if we could learn to throw out the stereotypes though and be accepting of others, no matter what their background, imagine what kind of effect this could have in society. If we had learned how to not judge those different than ourselves, imagine how differently Adrienne Rich's story would have turned out.

Women=Men? Apparently Not

The assumptions we have made based on gender are controlled by society. I was just looking through an article, Politically Incorrect Ads of Yesteryear, and it's shocking to see some of these ads and their inferior view of women! There were ads that bluntly said it was the wife's role to clean, cook, etc, and ads that insinuated how the woman is the weaker gender. Although these are horribly insulting ads, it is at least somewhat reassuring in knowing that advertisement companies could never get away with these ads now. Even though there is still gender inequality today, it is at least making a slow improvement towards equality.

The Necessity of Violence

What good comes from this violent end of Othello? Roderigo doesn't get Desdemona, Desdemona and Othello won't live long happy lives together, Emilia was betrayed by her husband, and Iago will definitely not be getting promoted to that position he was hoping for. Although it may seem like it, violence does not always result in a negative outcome; in my sociology class, we discussed how almost all instances of progression are accompanied with violence and war. For example, the Renaissance didn't take place until after Italy was ravaged, while Switzerland remains a neutral country but is known for its cuckoo-coo clock. So perhaps, there could have been more to this story, resulting with a better outcome. Even if there wasn't, there would have been no story to write about with out the violence that ends it.

Who's To Blame?

So many deaths and no one to take the blame for them. People tend to pass on the responsibilities for their actions all the time. In Othello, the initial cause and responsibility of Desdemona's death seems to be passed around. It is her husband who kills her; but only because of her supposed cheating on him, he seems to believe he has the right to murder her. We could go past those two and blame Iago for her death, since he is the one who tricked Othello into believing the legitimacy of her affair with Cassio. However, Iago is taking his revenge on Othello since Cassio received the military position that he was hoping to receive from Othello. It ends up being a stupid case with no one having a legitimate case on their hands, so in the end, who's to blame?

In the Name of Love

It's crazy what people do for love...and horrible how people will take advantage of that. This is the relationship that Iago and Roderigo seem to have. Iago acknowledges Roderigo to himself as "my sick fool Roderigo, Whom love hath turned almost the wrong side out" (ll. 47-48). Rather than having sympathy for poor Roderigo, Iago just uses it towards his own capital gain, seems like a characteristic of Social Darwinism is being exemplified even by Shakespeare!

Andrew Hamm

I really enjoyed Monday's class, it was interesting to hear from Andrew Hamm and his insight on how to perceive Shakespeare's plays and reassurance in not being able to understand all of it. It is so true that Shakespeare is a difficult read for anyone, whether you are from the time it was written or now, or a high school student or professional Shakespearian actor. I'm glad we had the opportunity to get to hear from him and receive some of his own insight from the past few years!

How Long Is Eternity?

"You do not see in time nor move in time nor rest in time." (321)

This is one of the hardest concepts for me that I continue to try to grasp, but never can. It is not possible for our human minds to understand the concept of God's existence before time and his continuing existence after time. Perhaps this is because of our outrageous obsession with time. There are so many people in our culture who would have a complete breakdown if something were to happen to their planner that has all of their activities planned out to the minute; we also have lost respect for others, such as when a scheduled class time is over and students end up packing up, even if the teacher is still talking. In our society, we take any chance we have to 'save time,' by doing things such as eating breakfast while driving to school/work, or multitasking at as many things as possible. This time obsession of ours makes it impossible for us to be able to conceive anything that does not include time. It's interesting how we are so consumed with our time and how we spend it when we know that there is infinite time.

The People's Choice

"So I set myself to examine an idea I had heard-namely that our free will is the cause of our doing evil, and Your just judgment the cause of our suffering evil. I could not clearly discern this....But it raised me a little towards Your light that I now was as much aware that I had a will as that I had a life. And when I willed to do or not do anything, I was quite certain that it was myself and no other who willed," (119)
This is a very important concept that Augustine realizes, the explanation for the existence of our free will. True, if we didn't have the chance to decide whether to sin or not, the world would probably be a better place without all the problems that do exist, but it wouldn't be by choice. It makes me think of how, when you were little and your parents made your choices for you. For example, you had to go to bed at 9, most kids wouldn't want to just because that is what was commanded of them; however, in giving them the choice, they would probably choose to go to bed around then anyways. God would rather us be willing to joyfully follow him than forcing us to grudgingly follow him.

Back To Blogging

If you were to take out all the Godly, philosophical parts that Augustine fills Confessions with, you would find the story of a pretty normal life, nothing really extraordinary. I think having his prayers and high praise woven throughout the entire text is what seperates both Augustine and his book. His faith is obviously a huge part of what makes his life what it is so it just fits that it takes up such a huge portion of the book. It's just too bad that it makes it so difficult to read.