The Farewell Blog

These last couple of weeks have all been about goodbyes (and pretending to do my directed study work)-- from signing "Have a nice life!" in yearbooks or otherwise treating yearbook entries as confessionals. But instead of these trite little farewells, lit has helped us go out with our grand last lectures. And here are my thoughts:

I'm sorry if I ever gave the impression that I disrespected anyone in my last lecture (as some of you might have gathered). I don't think I could ever give an accurate view of my life up until now without an existentialist perspective. It's not that I hate religion or that I'm scared of it. It's that it has just never played a role in my life. And I'm sorry for those who thought my lecture was depressing because it wasn't meant to be. I'm not sure where I would be in life if I couldn't sit back and remark on all of its irony. I look inside myself for strength, and mostly I laugh really hard for hours. But that's just me.

On a grander note, I was overall under-whelmed with our presentations. Not because I think you guys are boring (haha, I know I know, I'm really boring) but because of how the project was presented to us. I get the feeling that most of us didn't really open up during our speeches, and the one's who did almost couldn't go anywhere with it. I want to say it's because of you Ms. Marcy. I'm sorry. I felt that you could have opened up to us more, and maybe we could have opened up to you. That also doesn't mean we had to give sob stories to make a point. We just had to be real, and maybe we felt that we couldn't be real because if we did, you might not agree with it.

After sitting in on Ms. Clinch's class lectures I began to realize that everyone in their class was a family bonded together by their teacher, whose open life inspired interest. They were able to communicate freely, most not needing powerpoints, and some using -gasp- bad language to get their messages across. I hate that, for some reason, I was never able to connect with our reading or grow as a writer. And now that it's over, I can gladly say I won't miss lit class.

So farewell lit class. Farewell blog. It was nice knowin' ya (but you never really did know me).

Goodbye Regal!

I quit my job. I can't tell if it's because I really just hate Regal or because I think myself so above a minimum wage job that I gave into my instincts and said F--- the world (Ms. Marcy, please don't kill me, I can't hold back any longer, this is how I talk in the real world). But there is a deeper reason. Every time I work I get the feeling that the harder I work, the more the company makes, the less I ever see a dime of that money (and I can't accept tips) and the more customers snap at me for reasons unknown except for the fact that they need someone to snap at, and why not me, the worthless minimum wage employee?
Or it's more than That. It's that every time a customer opts to buy three small popcorns instead of one large tub, I die a little inside, "Do you know how dumb you are? I want to pity you but I can't because I'm too busy pitying myself for watching this." and of course, my managers tell us to push more. More. Make them buy, make them love you, make them drink the Regal juice, or just the half-filled cup of instant coffee that our machine cranks out after you spit into the top of it (we don't really do that, but sometimes I am nice and press the button twice-- but only if you happen to be a cripple).
And then the intervention. The life intervention. The only analogy or explanation for this intervention I can find is Mersault, the day his boss promotes him, or more accurately, the time he is on trial for his entire life's misdeeds. The conversation went something like this, "We really like you. You're a really strong employee. But lately we have noticed your apathetic attitude. You don't upsell or push the Two for Ten combo. If you really hate it here, we suggest we quit before we fire you." What I'm really thinking, "Honestly, we sent you to Paris and back and you don't care anymore." So yeah, the real reason I quit my job? I sacrificed wonderful, carefree weekends and lovely, snow covered holidays to save for France. I did everything for Regal except lick the hot dog buns to keep them from growing stale. And then I got to France, I was in Paris, it was all happening-- and the same consumerism that sends me into a blind rage every time I am behind a register made a comeback again-- that these awful teenage girls would rather sit in a shopping mall and wander around drinking nutella shots (I am talking about myself here) than visit the catacombs. Or that our tour guide would have the audacity to forget to check the schedule for the Louvre. Or that I could spend a year of my time drained into Regal with the prospect of something better, that when I got something disappointing, I couldn't stomach the punch-drunk stained walls or the plush acid-trip carpeting because, quite frankly, I don't care anymore. So I quit.
And guess what? It made me happy. For those two seconds I was inscribing my initials on to my two weeks notice and throwing the shirt over my back, to the minutes I sat in my car and thought, "Holy S--- I'm broke" But that's okay because today I applied to the Tilted Kilt (Scottish themed Hooters) and I am honestly excited for a change.
p.s. Ms. Marcy-- after that speech you gave us today, I thought about how irresponsible I am/was because my dad does not have a job and neither does my mom, so right now we are hippies. And I kind of can't wait for college when I can just be a hippy. I guess the best thing to do would be to invest in a Kindle now because at some point before these next four years are up, my text books will be available online for three bucks.

Well, isn't it ironic

So everything is ending-- the married couple has called it quits, Charlie Sheen is off the air, and Bin Laden has just been executed. I would say it's the end of an era that marks this high school "journey" (or for those who can't stand to think of life as a grand narrative, a "hurrah"). The only thing I can say about the upcoming festivities is that I am stressed, excited, and sad.


Breaking your metatarsal a few days before the AP exam must be incredibly difficult. Not only physically debilitating, but ominously ironic. All I can say is-- don't worry about us, we have been prepared to our utmost! Omen or not, we will do well.

Also ironic, my date sprained his ankle two days before prom. I can't tell if I was angry with him or just amused. It's ironic because, if not for a sprained ankle three months prior, we would not have created the Folk Ravers (our joke band, but for those who read this blog, you probably already know this). Therefore, why be mad if it is what brought us together in the first place? Furthermore, he sprained it by tripping over a tree root while avoiding jumping over a bush, which, by his judgment, would have been more dangerous.

Yes, everything is winding down, including classes and AP exams. Except this thing that may or may not be winding down, which I newly discovered, but is probably already winding down, although it's just starting up.

Another Regal story...

I wish I could have taken the practice exam, really, but I had to attend a mandatory employee meeting.

This weekend a man and his daughter came up to my counter and ordered four drinks and popcorn. Not only were the drinks all different sizes, but they were all different sodas. Every time I get an order I repeat it back to the customer just to double check. Of course, I mixed up two of the drinks, and this man gave me a look like I didn't deserve to live on Earth. I didn't deserve to breathe, and since I couldn't get an order right, I was most likely going to fail at life.

Regal customers make assumptions when they approach me. Possibly because I look college age, "This girl probably dropped out of school and is never going to get anywhere in life." I'm not saying that every customer assumes this-- but this man was sure one of them.

At this point, after the glare he shot at me, I didn't even want to look at him. I filled the order and ignored him until he complained that there was butter on the side of the popcorn bag. Well, there is butter on the side of the bag because you ordered butter. But I didn't say anything and wiped it off. Then I rang up his order, and when I was through, I smiled at him and said thank you.

I knew exactly what I was doing, exactly which smile to flash him. And his face blew up. He asked for my name, and later, as I had predicted, he complained to my manager. Nothing came of it.

I've never felt as low about me job as then. That because I was taking someone's order, they could walk all over me (the irony is that I am probably more intelligent than 95 percent of the people who walk through there). The hardship is that my dad is out of the job, and I need to somehow afford UGA. And now I've realized why I have senioritis-- because despite everything I feel in my gut about this man, that part of me thinks he was right. And that's the part of me I need to work on. The more I sit through school, the more my grades drop, the more I can't stand thinking about my future, the more this man embodies every personal struggle I am going through as this year comes to a close.

So this is where I am sending my personal apologies. Sorry physics for failing your tests and for wanting to cancel the exam scores, sorry lit for neglecting you though I love reading and writing, sorry directed study for procrastinating, sorry French for never doing homework, and sorry Econ for drawing butts all over your worksheets.

Now it's time for Prom weekend. The Folk Ravers are bringing their accordion!

Great Expectations

I liked Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf. But I never thought that I would ever go knocking on its door.

My foray in France was both exciting and disappointing. Alone in a foreign place equipped only with a French-English dictionary, I found it was easier to pretend I understood less than I actually did. It's sad to think of it like that. I boarded the plane with a completely different idea of France than what I came home with. The moment I stepped of the plane, les palmiers were everywhere. I thought I had landed in California.

As soon as I stepped through the door the host family was gracious. "Pour boire? du lait? du cafe?" This would be easy, I thought, I don't have to worry about going hungry. I was willing to eat frog's legs every night. The house was remarkably smaller than what I was used to. I shared a room with Laura, my correspondent. Although part of the exchange guaranteed me my own bed, I knew that this was France and that they were being friendly. I was grateful.

That was the first day. On the second day I learned that the French hate bare feet in the house. Laura's mother demanded that I wear les pontoufles-- house slippers. However, they were less slippers and more like clogs, making my treks up and down the stairs (about half the width of American stairs) dangerous. I would leave them up there just once, I thought, they won't notice I'm not wearing them. Of course, the first thing launched at me is, "Ou est les pantoufles??" That's okay. I could deal with their rules.

On the third day I met Laura's girlfriend. Now I think it's cool that she is open with herself, but the problem was that her mother thought she had a boyfriend 0.o The third day is when they began quizzing me on my ability to read minds. "Do you want an omelette sandwich or a nutella sandwich?" Me-- "Oh nutella please!" "You don't like my omelettes? Laura hates them. You don't like them?" Me-- "Uh, no, I mean, yes, I like your omelettes." "Okay then I will make you an omelette sandwich." That might sound small, but the entire day continued like that. Again, les pantoufles, then again with my backpack and my clothes, and whether or not I wanted to go swimming. The family was constantly asking me questions about my happiness but not listening to my answers. It may sound like small things, but this continued for a week straight, and I swear I didn't have ten minutes to myself to use the restroom.

On the fourth day Laura lost her purse. And her cellphone. Suddenly the small bickering, even the moderate shout/fights I had witnessed (over whether or not I wanted to eat jambon du pays or jambon blanc, whether or not I wanted to swim, or sit in the front seat) turned into full on war. Every problem in the household-- Laura's secrets, her relationship with her mother-- came out. Losing your purse, I suppose, means you will fail out of school and fail life. I was just standing there watching all of this build, and just when I make it upstairs away from the crying, I am called down again to eat dinner right in the middle of it.

When I was deciding to take French people kept telling me how beautiful the language was. I agreed, until I heard the angry, bitter French that was kicked around in this house. And while I was eating and they were shouting, I listened though pretending not to hear. Then suddenly a question was addressed to me, "Where did you last see Laura's bag?" I wasn't going to play that game, this wasn't my fault. I said nothing. "You don't understand anything do you?!?!" That was the last time I wanted to talk to my family. The rest of the week was spoiled. I wouldn't learn anymore grammar or ask anymore questions. As far as I was concerned, the trip was over. It was time to get to Paris.

And so on the sad day that the Americans had to part with their French families, I said goodbye and that was it. I left as Nick and Honey left after the war. The family had no idea why I had suddenly turned silent in the middle of the week, and they had come to no conclusion in their fighting. I was glad to be rid of the absurdist drama.

Reading Moliere

Tartuffe was awesome. I'm really happy we had the chance to read it in class. Finally, something a little light hearted! (...as opposed to dark :P )

 So I guess it's all in preparation for France. We leave Thursday, so I should probably start packing or doing some laundry...
Can I just say one thing? OMG
:D

There are three things I want to see while I'm in Paris: The catacombs, the cinemateque, and Oscar Wilde's grave. Hopefully there won't be any shopping involved.

OH, I also get to see the chair that Moliere died in!!! And sit in the Twin Windmills where Amelie was filmed.

I'm tossing around the idea of doing some reading too (gasp). I've never read anything by Emile Zola, so maybe it's time to start. Hmm...if anyone has suggestions, let me know!

Right now I am continuing my odyssey into children's literature. I've read Tales from Moominvalley, and I've just started King Matt. It's funny, children's literature is so broad that sometimes I think I am actually reading a book for adults. Most of the characters represent really adult themes, especially in Tales.

Sorry I'm so scatterbrained today. I'm just really excited for everything that's coming and I haven't thought about lit (I'm sorry to say) as much as I should have. So many things have happened in the course of the week. I was waitlisted from two liberal arts colleges. To be fair, they only accept something like 500 girls (if we're only counting girls haha). Some major prom drama has gone down, partially my fault, and partially a lot of other people's faults. And, oh yeah, I came to some realization about something that was right in front of my face (those of you who know me probably know about this). I'm kind of unsure, but then again, it's senior year and I want to have fun! Maybe by the end of the year I will be able to drive stickshift.

So long for now, I'll give an update when I'm back from FRANCE :D

Happy Pi Day!

I ate way too many donuts O_o

On to Heart of Darkness. I don't know what it's about or why we are reading it. It really confuses me.

But really I don't have the heart to analyze literature right now. Everything is just swirling around in my head-- Prom, the musical, France, and right now, economics.

And it's not just a dress. As a little girl I dreamed of this dress just as much as my wedding dress. Every dress I have ever worn has merely been leading up to this dress. Don't think dresses are just frivolous wastes of money. They are a symbol of womanhood, and this dress is part of every girl's coming-of-age story. A large part of women's culture revolves around dresses-- sewing circles, wedding dresses, party dresses-- and we idolize women with great fashion sense-- Princess Diana, Jacki O, Michelle Obama. Indulging in a fancy dress is what makes prom so much fun! (that and the date, but that's another story)

Lately I've been thinking about what I want in life. What I have achieved in high school. And while nothing really stands out to me, I also know that  I should give myself a little more credit. So should everyone else. Sure, I am not the highest of achievers, but I have definitely pushed some of my limits. I know that whatever happens in the future, I am going to be happy and have a lot of great experiences. Why am I being so sentimental? Probably because I have been looking forward to something for so long, and now that it's finally here, I'm worried it will slip right through my fingers.

The Truth comes out

Before this research paper I had never read Song of Solomon. Surprise (I'm such a bad student, aren't I?). And I'm glad I hadn't grabbed any old book--why? Because I have a terrible connection with most of them and hate revisiting explored ground. The options (of in-school books that would have been on the list. I have a much more interesting list of out-of-school books that would not have made the cut) starting from the earliest I can remember:

Peace Like a River- Allusions, Allusions, Allusions! This book would be great if it weren't so tightly knit together. What's more, I am the least religious person I know, and it's not that I hate books about religion, it's that I just don't have a connection to much of the ideas. More importantly, there wouldn't be much ground for speculation or controversy. All work has been done before me and I am quite certain I could sparknote it and write a decent paper (and probably get an A).

Great Expectations- I do not hate this book as much as most people. But that's not saying much. The problem here is that the work is less than a novel and more of a television series. I wonder if teachers will start idolizing One Tree Hill or Gossip Girl in the near future.

Beowulf and The Odyssey- I lump these together because, to be honest, I sometimes get them mixed up. It's probably because I remember sitting in class in the ninth grade, feeling awkwardly shy during discussions, and doodling all over my notes so as not to be screamed at. I also remember these books being read to me word for word. More so read at me than taught. Bad memories.

1984, Brave New World, Anthem, The Fountainhead- Dystopian literature sets me over the edge. How many times can we restsate the problems in our society? I clump these together because each paper would be saying the exact same thing. And don't think we could go about comparing and contrasting these, there is no hope-- the venn diagram would be one dystopian mass with its own gravitational constant.

Cry, the Beloved Country and Their Eyes Were Watching God- We should make a point about white supremacy and then kill every character in the novel. But for serious, I could consider doing a paper on these novels. Zora Neal Hurston's language is at least fluid and interesting. Paton also had the allusion thing going on in much less overt ways, which was refreshing.

Catcher and the Rye- Brings me back to the days when I used to write poetry starring my recurring character Gary the Canary. This was of course after the time when I used to spout emo musings about my violin or various other objects (mostly household appliances). It was a good time, not the worst of times, but saying hello to Holden after all this time might send me into regression (though Gary the Canary is worth revisiting).

 One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest- This is funny because before I actually read this, I read a book called Love Among the Walnuts and thought it was original. Silly me, I guess everyone wants a taste of Kesey's electric coolaid.

Huck Finn, In Cold Blood, Jane Eyre, and Into the Wild- I love these books too much to touch again. Just let it lie, why ruin that?

Catch-22 and The Great Gatsby- The other books I love enough to revisit and enjoy again. Especially Catch-22 because I have some weird emotional connection to a certain freshman relationship. The only reason I didn't pick these is because everyone else picked them, and I wanted to be original (or something). the other option was Fitzgerald's better novel (not This Side of Pardise, which actually sucked) Tender is the Night. But I guess it wouldn't have been any help to me at all on the ap exam because it wasn't on that spreadsheet.

In the end I was actually happy with my paper. My thesis--
Song of Solomon and Invisible Man both emphasize that the past is part of one’s identity through allusions and motifs; however, Invisible Man focuses on individual self-awareness apart from culture while Song of Solomon reaches identity through connection to culture.
I can really see how this paper could turn sour fast for some of my classmates. The problem is that by returning to some previously studied works, we regurgitate what we have already been told is true. Nothing is interesting, and like I said, I could probably write a paper on any one of these books in less than three hours using Sparknotes. I honestly had to stretch myself to even find a thesis for my paper. If I am correct, most everyone else's thesis went like this:

In [insert novel here], [insert author here] conveys that [insert theme here] through [insert literary technique here], [insert literary technique here], and [insert literary technique here].

Try typing any variance of your thesis into google. You will probably get a neatly packed response with a list of ideas that you could probably rip straight from wherever. Now paste my thesis into your toolbar. Incidentally, nothing of use comes up.

I'm sure the thesis was just as stale as the rest of the paper. And another one of the problems was that by the end of the process, which was stretched out well beyond what it should have been, I hated my paper. It's a shame because it's good work. It could have been really good if I had put it into prose and tightened it into a functional essay. The way it stands now, it will always be an uncompleted mass of what could have been.

So I guess what I'm trying to say is that to everyone out there who told me I was an idiot for choosing a random Toni Morrison book-------HA!

Ms. Marcy, good luck!

Hope for us yet?

I've been hooked on tea lately. It's a curiosity-- as soon as I lose the floss I have been carting around for a few months, I switch to tea. I hope this doesn't mean that I will stop flossing my teeth entirely.

This week has been all sorts of panic attacks. The debate over the HOPE GPA raise to 3.7 will happen this Wednesday. It's sad. Our entire academic career has been based around the guarantee of a free education, and now at the point when we need it most, the rug is being ripped out from under us. The other day I found myself writing a letter to our dear Nathan Deal (who probably doesn't care because he has to meet budget demands) about the drastic changes. Take GPA from a 3.0 to a 3.5 and I understand, but a 3.7! Now to be clear, I didn't think this would affect me at all. Worked hard, good grades, challenging classes. Done. But now, in the face of an endless summer stuck in two part-time jobs, I am really too lazy to handle the burden. Why should I have to, considering I held up my end of the deal?

To lawmakers the change seems like business. But there are seriously kids out there who need the extra 10%, around 1,200 dollars, for books and a decent computer. I wouldn't have had a problem with these changes until I realized that the way to calculate hope gpa is less than fair. Take all of your core classes, subtract honors and ap points, add .5 points back for ap classes. Now, don't be fooled, sure the .5 may sound reasonable, but it is compensating for the fact that any B is a 3.0. Take an ap calc class and -gasp- earn an 86-- a decent grade, and maybe you even earned a 5 on the exam. But really that grade is a 3.5, less than the 3.7 needed for hope. Take your 3.5s and average them with the 4.0s (a 4.5 doesn't exist) and you will find that your A's actually do not balance out your B's. The system does not reward for A's, but really, punishes you for B's, or (horror) C's. It doesn't seem fair. There is a disparity between the way national AP curriculum is structured (in which you need to be challenged in order to learn) and the cracked way the state determines your academic worthiness.

I honestly yearn for socialized education. At least there is some guarantee in that.

Mr. Bloomfield's Orchard

There is a reason I go to the library, and it is not to read books that have any relevance to my life. I go in to be surprised. And lucky me, I came out with the best book I have read in ages. Mr. Bloomfield's Orchard isn't just what the title states-- The mysterious world of mushrooms, molds, and mycologists --but really an analysis on human curiosity and discovery.

I never for once thought that mushrooms could be so exciting (and I miss the non-fiction novel, I should really read Stiff one more time). Bloomfield tells a story about how one of his colleagues left him a mushroom to identify. Well, Mr. Bloomfield had an appetite, so he cooked it into a stew and ate it for dinner. The colleague returned and asked him if he had identified the Boletus satanus, Satan's bolete, that he had left on Bloomfield's desk. "Amazed at my evident health, he walked away shaking his head. Satan's bolete cannot kill a mule, but it can make people shit themselves senseless...however, before swearing of all mushrooms, it is useful to acknowledge that products as innocent as Wonder bread probably have some detractors." I cannot explain my love for Mr. Bloomfield, just as I cannot explain my love for Ken Jennings's blog.

In the first chapter Mr. Bloomfield explains the nature of an oddly phallic like mushroom called the Stinkhorn. He recounts the story Charles Darwin's daughter, "For Victorians in England, sufficiently obsessed with sex to become excited by table legs, their appearance was too much to bear. As a mature woman, Charles Darwin's daughter Etty so despised stinkhorns that she mounted an anti-fungal jihad with the aid of gloves and a pointed stick. She burned the collections in secret, thereby protecting the purity of thought among her female servants." It is surprising that a mycologist could be so eccentric as to make me enjoy the study of mushrooms, as he says, "Even high school students are familiar with the warty, black zygospores of zygomycetes, although they spend far more time defiling textbook diagrams of human anatomy than understanding fungi." Haha

Wow, that was one big block quote, but still, Mr. Bloomfield is awesome :)
On a better note, this week I read Oscar Wilde's "The Nightingale and the Rose." It was sad, ironic, and painful. Sardonically beautiful.

(And I've also realized that Hans Christian Andersen's "The Little Mermaid" advocates women to shut-up and look pretty)

Untitled

Exhausted, scratching at brain, hoping something will come off like dandruff (gross!) Go to library, research ideas for a story, end up checking out a book on funny looking mushrooms. Go to work, gossip about co-workers, come home, sleep, wake up, play violin, take a moody shower. And that's about it.

I am a little disappointed in the outlines. I am worried that formatting might be going a little too far. Last semester's annotated bibliographies dragged down my average because my header wasn't positioned at the right place on the pages. Grammar, grammar, structure, structure! Not that I can blame you Ms. Marcy, I understand how atrocious these papers can be, but I just want to say that I hope it isn't like this in college. Nothing is better than writing a rough outline and then feeling my way through a paper while watching it magically develop (I guess that is why we are now being subjected to this torture).

Also, my paper isn't on Invisible Man, it's on Song of Solomon. I don't want an even compare/contrast between the two. I want it to be 60/40 or even 65/35 because I feel as though my audience (that is, you) has a background on Invisible Man and doesn't need a walk through of every allusion. The focus, I feel, is not proving that Invisible Man is about individualism, it is about proving that Song of Solomon is not about individualism. So I want to treat the elements in Invisible Man more like assumptions because, I feel, that will make a more sophisticated paper.


I am excited to discuss more existentialism in class. Nothing is better than thought-provoking debates. The only thing I ask is that everyone keeps an open mind and remembers the Little Prince! :D

Oh what a beautiful mornin'...

So we just finished King Lear, and I just finished Just Friends, a memoir by Patti Smith that details her unbreakable friendship with Robert Mapplethorpe. There is no reason I have just talked about these two works side-by-side. You cannot compare them, but each of them has made me think if only a little.

I cannot blame King Lear for wanting to be loved. Perhaps he went about it the wrong way, and maybe he was a bit pre-mature in allotting his kingdom to his daughters (but it needed to happen at some point). The parallel with Gloucester, I think, emphasized Shakespeare's motif of disguise and deception. The only way I can look at this play is by envisioning two trains about to intersect, and I am not sure if much could have been done to stop it. Oh sure, King Lear could have listened to his advisers, but that never gets anyone anywhere. And Gloucester should not have talked about Edmund's mother like that.

On to the more interesting stuff. I've always wondered what I would do with my life. Truth be told, I don't have an interest in anything. I don't like math or science, and literature, for the most part, keeps me entertained but not much else. Patti Smith and Robert Mapplethorpe were literally starving artists. And it's weird too-- it seems as if Patti Smith had never been an artist until she left for New York and met Mapplethorpe. She moved from one medium to the other, experimenting in drawing, poetry, and finally music (how someone acquires musical ability in such a short time I will never know). She and Mapplethorpe lived at the Chelsea for some time and took part in the tail end of the Andy Worhol hysteria. It was as if all she did was decide "I'm going to be an artist today." And I'm really annoyed too. I'm waiting for the time when something will interest me and I find a calling.

 I'm sure most of you know that Mapplethorpe died of AIDS. When I read this part of the memoir I nearly choked. I knew it was coming, but nonetheless, it was sad, not only because it was heart-wrenching, but because it was real and it had happened. It has been too long since I have read a non-fiction novel (does this classify as a non-fiction novel? it should) and I have forgotten how much of a greater impact stories have when they are true and written in words that a reader can relate to.


Okay, back to work. And we played through some of the Oklahoma! music today. So excited!

Without Fear of Wind or Vertigo

We're drawing near to the end of King Lear, and I am excited to start something new. Don't get me wrong, I love the acting in King Lear, but now that we have read it, I am upset that we didn't read Hamlet. As was said in class, "Reading King Lear will give you an advantage on the exam because everyone will be writing on Hamlet." Okay, sure that might give us an edge, but where does that leave the student? Great, we will be the only ones who haven't read Hamlet. But I shouldn't be complaining; I'm sure both plays are equally as interesting and integral to our education.

That being said, I am wondering when this creative writing will begin again, or if that was just talk. Not sure, but I am super excited for my directed study on fairy tales this semester. I just finished a fairy tale called "The Selfish Giant" by Oscar Wilde (did anyone else know that Oscar Wilde wrote fairy tales?) and I actually really liked it for its simplicity. It's funny-- now that I'm reading into it, fairy tales are a creepy way for writers to regress into their childhoods. I can't decide if that's a good thing or not. Either way, I will be writing, narrating, and accompanying my own fairy tale :D

And it is also great seeing the progression of fairy tales. The earliest version of Snow White included a poisonous comb, which moved on to a very tight corset, and then a poisonous apple, which is cured by  Prince Charming's love (also something about cats who turn into princes).  In fact, the story goes that the prince found Snow White and bought her off the dwarves, and then Prince Charming dropped her casket so as to dislodge the poisonous apple from her throat (the Disney version is so much more romantic!) And also the violence which befalls the evil queen-- boots full of hot coals or simply a burning. What surprised me the most is that this Snow White does not reflect a mother's jealousy of a daughter's youth, as the stories might suggest, but rather a young girl imagining being abused by her mother/step-mother because she is jealous of the attention her father gives her mother. Freud is everywhere!

Anyways, I went to see 127 Hours this weekend and wound up sitting way too close to the screen. Suffice it to say, later that night I suffered from an uncomfortable bout of vertigo, which reminded about this chapter I read in If on a Winter's Night a Traveler ages ago (if anyone was curious about the title of this post). If you are into stream of consciousness or just plain scatter-brainedness, then maybe you should read it.

La Noyee

Wow, a ten day weekend, and I still don't have my work done. I did read a lot of Steven Pinker though.

For those of you who don't know, I have decided to take up the accordion. Maybe it was on a whim (as are most things I do) but I have had a fascination with the accordion for a really long time. It may seem like an obscure, dorky instrument, but if you listen closely to commercials on t.v. or songs by your favorite bands, you might be surprised to find that the accordion is pretty ubiquitous.

Yesterday I waltzed into a monthly meeting of the Atlanta Accordion Club. I think I was the only one there who was under the age of 50. The first challenge I had was actually transporting my accordion to the meeting place, which included me finding a parking garage and then walking down the street with an accordion strapped around my shoulders. "Hey, what's up I play accordion."

When I walked into the meeting, the first thing Biff (I can't believe I actually met someone named Biff!), the club president, did was write my name into the line-up. Basically everyone performs a maximum of three songs. "If you feel too nervous to perform, don't worry about it."
"No, I want to."

Surprisingly, I wasn't nervous. A couple invited me to sit with them, so I sat and chatted about the accordion and my college plans as if they were grandparents I was trying to impress. We drank lemonade and listened to the other performances, which included a bunch of sad songs from the 50s (okay, pretty cool music actually) until it was my turn. I walked up to the stage, strapped the accordion on and said, "So I've only been playing for a couple of weeks. Criticism is appreciated."

I played a French waltz. I don't even remember being nervous because everyone at the meeting was old and accepting. Once I got into the music, it was as if I wasn't even a beginner. I struck the last chord and everyone clapped. They were all amazed that I had only been playing for a couple of weeks.
"You going to play us some more?"
"That's all I got-- two weeks of work right there."

From there people gave me compliments, including a man who had played accordion in Epcot Center for 20 years. They offered to give me accordion lesson books and new straps to replace my rotting leather ones. A woman approached me and said that I gave her courage because, although she had been playing accordion for 20 years or so, she was too nervous to perform.

All in all, Accordion Club was a great new experience.

The Other Side of Flaubert

 Looking forward to King Lear, especially the audio version. I hope no one takes this the wrong way, but I can't wait for a change of pace in our reading dynamics (not that I don't appreciate the people who enjoy reading aloud). And Goneril really isn't such a bad name.

I've been reading A Sentimental Education and can't shake the fact that it's just not as great as Madame Bovary. I want to say that it's the writing, which it can't be (I'm sure it's the same), so I can only blame the plot. Frederic is a rich bachelor vying for the affections of a married woman while balancing the affections with quite another kind of woman. He flip-flops between the two and altogether acts like an arrogant rich man in French high society. In contrast with Madame Bovary, in which Flaubert mocks the middle-class, A Sentimental Education satires the French aristocracy. The plot altogether is altogether slow and dull.

On to better things. Time to reacquaint myself with blogger again-- the holidays came and went and now it's time for second semester senior year to begin. I can't say I have caught senioritis. On the contrary, I want to learn as much as I can before I leave the hallways of AHS. I've been blaming my classes for learning close to nothing new, but I have now come to the conclusion that the only one standing in the way of satisfying knowledge is myself. So onwards, my new directed study this semester will be children stories. Hopefully by the end of it I can understand why I remember some stories and forget others, why some make me cry and some make me laugh.

Well, it's a beautiful night outside (I suppose it will be midnight in a few minutes) so maybe I will call up a friend and go for a walk.