zBlogging the Literary Life - AP College English

10th PERIOD PHOTO

ok, so here is a bunch of gobb-o-ly-gook that should link you guys to my photo website where i've uploaded our class picture.  hope it works...

AP English album

FINALLY OVER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!?

Today was the last day of finals for AP English! This has got to be one of the most happiest moments in my life. I presented my final presentation on utopia, I cleaned out my locker for the last time, I donated my extra supplies to the elementary schools. Having nothing in my locker has been a dream of mines every since I started out as a freshman.  So tomorrow is our last day of high school! I am eager to finally be free from school for a few months. Tomorrow is the first step into my new life. I know that after tomorrow my life will never be the same. Do any other seniors feel this way? I wish all seniors a prosperous journey in their new lives as well. I hope to see everyone alive and well at our 10year high school reunion. But before that I get one more chance to say our last good-byes at graduation. One more chance to see us looking our best! Mr. Heidkamp I better see you there as well. Take care and as my grandfather would say- So long!

It Kind of Ruins the Show

Today, in class, we were talking about how watching a show for literary terms (or whatever the correct term is) kind of ruins a show.  I think that, in a way, it can take away from the funny parts of a show, but it's also really interesting.  I have never been a huge fan of the Simpson's, it's funny and stuff, it's just never been one of my favorites.  Watching it today, though, it was cool to see all various uses of sarcasm/ irony, parody, hyperbole, etc.  I think it is even more interesting to find all these things in music, though.  I think that we often listen to music and, even when we love a song and think we know all about it, we miss a lot of the amazing things in the song.  I wanted to change my song for the poetry/song CD thing and I was listening to a bunch of my favorite songs and I couldn't believe all the cool  things I had missed before.  Also, on a completely irrelevant note, could anybody tell what song Homer was singing in the beginning of the clip from today?  Was he singing the wrong words to the tune of, "Marry Me Bill"?

Impromptu POV

Our group was having some trouble today in class picking apart the impromptu. The hardest part for us was figuring out how the point-of-view changes between characters throughout the passage. I'm not really sure if we are allowed to ask for help but anyways... any ideas? We understood that Sethe and a narrator played a major part in it but it keeps switching between the two. It's difficult to keep up with the changes. Is there anyone else or are our predictions completely wrong in the first place? Thanks!

Faulkner's Wife was Really Helpful

The prompt from the King Lear essay about titles and their relationship to the story got me thinking about A Light in August.  I did a little searching and found out some interesting stuff.  So the most obvious reason for the title is the light that lights up Mississippi in August.  One article said that the light spoken of seems to be coming from the past.  Maybe if that's true then it is hinting at all of the character's back stories coming into play later on in their life like Hightower.  It also said that Faulkner's wife gave him the idea.  He was originaly going to call it Dark House, but one day his wife was talking about the pretty light in August and he wrote down the name immediately.  Even more interesting, though, was the other meaning for light.  Apparently, at the time the novel was written, the word "light" was  slang for pregnant.  Faulkner could quite literally have been referring to Lena's pregnancy in the month of August.  There's a lot of interesting stuff out there on the title, pretty cool.

Sadie's Got the Right Idea

I read the poem Sadie and Maud after school today.  It is on page 348 by Gwendolyn Brooks and it's pretty good, you should read it if you get the chance! 
The poem was about two sisters.  It starts off saying that Maud went to college and Sadie stayed home.  Sadie seems to be the free spirited sister, her family is embarrassed that she has two children under her maiden name and about the way she lives life.  The poem portrays the families embarrassment by saying, "Maud and Ma and Papa nearly died of shame"
The poem also speaks of how Sadie, "didn't leave a tangle in.  Her comb found every strand."  This explains how Sadie lived her life to the fullest.  Then it says, "When Sadie said her last so-long, Her girls struck out from home.  (Sadie had left as heritage. Her fine tooth comb.)  So this is saying that Sadie may have had two girls on her own and her family may have been ashamed of her, but she still had a wonderful life to live.  It then goes on to say that her sister Maud, even though she had gone to college, was living all alone. 

If there was one thing I learned from this poem it was this: Going to college will leave you sad and alone, but you will have a great life if you stay at home and live freely.

Maybe I should rethink this college thing...

Poetry Set To Music

Today in class we were talking about metaphors in poetry.  I started thinking about one of my favorite artists, Regina Spektor.  She has really awesome lyrics with a lot of metaphors, her songs are kind of like poems set to music.  One of her songs is very interesting to me in that it uses a dream to explain how she feels about chemotherapy... (I'll cut out a bit for the sake of space)

I had a dream
crispy, crispy Benjamen Franklin came over and babysat all four of my kids
then in my dream, I told the doctor off
he said, "If you don't want to do it, then you don't have to do it"
he said, "the truth is you'll be okay anyway"

then in my dream, crispy, crispy Benjamen Franklin and the doctor
went and had a talk with my boss
something about insurance policies
they kept the door closed at all times I couldn't hear or see
when they came out they said, "you'll be okay anyway"
and I smiled 'cause I knew that all the while

no thank you, no thank you
I ain't about to pay for this sh**
I can afford chemo like I can afford a limousine
and on any given day I'd rather ride a limousine
no thank you, no thank you
I ain't about to die like this
I can afford chemo like I can afford a limo and besides
this sh** is making me tired, it's making me tired, it's making me tired
you know I plan to retire someday
But momma's gonna go out in style

When I woke up the kids were being quiet
I knew it was a dream, right away I called the limousine company
The limousine pulled in and we piled in
The doctor he asked which way we were headed
I said "sir let's just go west" and he listened obediently

Sophie all I want to do is listen to radio BBC
Michael sat on my knees and whispered to me all about the meanies
Jacqueline was being such a big girl with her cup of tea looking out of the window
and Barbara she looks just like my mom
Oh my Barbara she looks so much just like my mom

The song goes on, but I think this gives a good idea of the song as a whole.  I like how Regina goes in and out of the dream.  In her dream there are these people who you are lead to believe would not act the way they do in the song in real life.  The doctor tells her that she will be fine even if she doesn't have the treatment.  Then, she uses the doctor as the driver of the limousine as if to show that he is the person leading her on her journey through chemotherapy, but then she tells him where to go.  In the dream she makes the calls.  Then you are taken back into her real life with her kids around her.  You get the sadness in her kids and you feel some of her emotions towards them.  Then you see the angry part when she tells how she could afford a limousine just as much as she could afford chemo.
This is just one of the many songs with great symbolism and all her songs are extremely literary.  I would urge you guys to check her out if you don't listen to her already.  Her name is Regina Spektor, I think she has a myspace page.

AP English Make-up

The Heart of Darkness is a rather similar confusing  book but rather interesting at times.  I like how the author compare the book to nature and make women one of the motifs in the book. "They live in a world of their own, and there has never been anything like it, and can be.  It is too beautiful altogether , and if they were to it up it would go to pieces before the first sunset.  Some confounded fact we men have been living contentedly with ever since the day of creation would start up and knock the whole thing over." (17) This qoute reminds me of a sexiest nature. It almost sounds as if he says that women live in a world all by themselves. If they were to live in a world all by themselves, and if a woman possibly would have set this world up it would fall apart. Indirectly, it sounds as if he's saying that men are soley in power.  Therefore, this book has some sexiest undertones.

Exterminate All The Brutes!

    Today in class my group discussed the quote about Kurtz from Heart of Darkness on pages 74-75.  The quote is extremely idealistic.  Everything sounds so wonderful and dandy, it's almost hard to take seriously.  The paragraph goes over Kurtz' pamphlet and speaks of how beautifully it was written and how wonderful it was.  The whole passage has a very dreamy way to it.  There is also a bit of foreshadowing of Kurtz death and how Marlow will have to take care of his left over business with lines like the last one, "I had full information about all these things, and, besides, as it turned out I was to have the care of his memory."
    The most important part of this passage, however, is where the dreaminess and, almost, philosophical phrasing starts to get interrupted.  "It gave me the notion of an exotic Immensity ruled by an august Benevolence."  The capitalization of the two words makes them stand out and our group thought, perhaps, "Benevolence" is referencing the europeans while "Immensity" Is referencing the great Africans.  This is the first hint at something darker behind the passage.  Then, like a hit upside the head the words, "Exterminate all the brutes!" completely exposes the passage for what it is.  The narrator even describes it as "...luminous and terrifying, like a flash of lightning in a serene sky..."  This shows that this idealization of Kurtz and of the other Europeans and the roles they play in the Congo are imagined in Europe as something grand, but what is actually going on is horrible, gruesome and savage.

Racial Termonolgy

I was thinking about our conversation about Marlow's descriptions of the natives.  I can see how, to us, his language seems extremely inappropriate.  If anyone were to speak of the African's on the new land the way they are spoken about in the novel, I would be the first one to judge them, but I just don't think the reader can do that for this novel.  The Heart of Darkness, like so many other books of its time uses language we aren't use to.  If you look at a few pages from the story, I'm sure you could find multiple words you don't understand or wouldn't use in that context, which is the same way we have to look at the racial slurs Marlow uses.  He has probably grown up hearing people use those names.  In his day, even if a person wasn't racist, the words he uses were common terminology back then.  I just don't think that the vocabulary is something we should dwell on because the story was written in a very different time.