Don't You Know The Sun Shines After It Rains ?

It's 11pm and dark outside but inside, I am surrounded by sunshine and rainbows having just completed my final literary paper for this term. Hooray! To say I struggled with this assignment a lot is an understatement, however, and to be honest, I don't understand why. I completed the readings, attended class, wrote efficient notes, even went as far as to ask for assist and still, I persisted to misunderstand (as you may have guessed from my last post)! I'm thinking the build up of stress for upcoming exams has defected my focus for this assignment. And I think we all come to a point where we realize that stressing out the amount we do for exams is just not worth it and we stop caring. Today, I stopped caring.
However, after visiting Kaitlyn today, I couldn't wait to get home and write my paper. I kept typing and typing with no end...a few distractions here and there, but never did I not know what to say next! The minute I stopped preoccupying myself with exam stress, was the moment I began learning. And now, with my paper complete, I am off to bed and will be looking forward to class tomorrow! :)

Theory Overdose

I don't know what to do or say,
I want this headache to go away
Interpret this, interpret that,
Feeling as if I am under attack
But a savior to me is the little green book
Feel free to take a peak and look
At all the theories discovered inside
They're sure to sharpen and boggle your mind
Fairwell to jars in Tennessee,
Hello to Ideology!
Beginning on assignment five,
Into a sea of theory I dive
In over my head with fishes and sharks,
I've been bitten by Lacan, Althusser and Marx
Do I have identity?
Or is my selfhood just a fantasy?
Kicking and swimming my way to the coast,
With an overdose of theory, I am diagnosed

Sooner or Later ..

I would just like to say how much I enjoyed Kaitlen's teaching of psychoanalysis on Thursday. Having not taken any psych classes before, I felt that kaitlen made it fairly comprehensible. I very much enjoy Scott's lectures but I thought having the TA teach us was a nice alternative for a day. By doing so, it allowed her to interact more with the class and provided us with a new learning experience. By applying the elements of psychoanalysis outside of their context to things we were all very aware of, I was able to process things more clearly. Oh! and the ending discussion of our hand-in assignments was a nice incorporation to class. Sooner or later, I will write a level 5 paper.. Sooner or later, I will develop a better understanding of psychoanalytic theory.. sooner or later, I will be living and breathing theory? EEK.

Freshly Squeezed!

100% pure and natural, freshly squeezed,and not from concentrate. No water, sugar, or preservatives... (On Tropicana's Pure Premium Orange Juice)

Tuesday's class was particularly insightful for me as we talked about the "freshly squeezed" juice from Tropicana. Not only was the lecture insightful, but educational by applying it to deconstruction. I enjoyed the new take on our deconstruction workshop: instead of discussing our thoughts and insights on our 3rd assignment,we applied deconstruction to other binary oppositions like Man vs. Woman and freshly squeezed vs. concentrated. Overall, it was helpful in the furthering of my understanding of deconstruction and post-structionalism. In fact, my understanding of deconstruction is certainly my most confident thus far. So here's what I have learned: In the binary opposition freshly squeezed vs. concentrate, freshly squeezed is privileged but is destabilized by pasteurization and deoxidation (play). Freshly squeezed is the center, but is not because the juice isn't reallly freshly squeezed. Tropicana avoids telling us the creation behind their OJ by telling us what their juice is NOT and how it is NOT created. This is where consumers like I are fooled and have at least one 2L carton of Tropicana OJ in the fridge. But lets be honest - it just tastes so good, so pure... so freshly squeezed!

Just Another Blogging Sesh ..

Happy Halloween classmates! I'm in a particularly good mood considering Halloween is just a day away and figured today would make for a good blogging sesh (and also, because I forgot to blog on the weekend of our last festivity, Thanksgiving.)

Prior to this time, I have been working on my Assignment 3, Deconstruction of "the Anecdote of the Jar." I have to say, I'm actually enjoying this one very much and believe it's my best construction yet for this class. Though we've only completed two others, I've found that I have become more opened-minded to understanding such poems as "Anecdote of the Jar". Hearing others' perspectives and responses to such literary works in comparison to my own helps me develop a better understanding,and when given additional assignments, urges me to think deeper under the surface and not settle for one take on the piece, but several. It funny to think that being introduced to multiple answers to literature pieces provides for a better understanding of it because usually we have the best understandings of things that have one simple truth, not multiple ones. In addition to sharpening my mind, I'm also finding these class discussion sessions to benefit my writing. One assigment with 2x the benefits? Très magnifique!

It is not a stiletto, and so it is a sandal

Hello. So, taking a step back, I'd like to expand on Saussure's Structuralism.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but according to what I have learned, Saussure claims that signifiers signify through relationships of opposition. For example, this is a sandal. It is not a slipper, a stiletto, a pump, a running shoe,a moccasin, nor any other footwear. And because it is not any of these, it is a sandal. As much as this way of creating identity seems complex, and almost unnatural to the mind.. I recur myself making identifications in this way. For me, it helps to think of it as a process of elimination, because essentially, that's what it is. By eliminating all other shoes, you're left with one - the sandal. This might sound silly, but this "eliminating" process takes me back to high school where we were given multiple-choice questions and took part in a similar process of elimination, eliminating those answers that didn't pertain to the question being asked. Again, by eliminating those that oppose, you arrive at an answer; you find a shoe that "fits". Perhaps my way of thinking has some fault to it, but it's definitely helping me process some new things I have learned. Maybe it can help you too.

Confessions...

Confession: Contrary to what was expected, I'm really not finding this class
all that difficult to comprehend (aside from the odd reading or two).
Maybe this is good? maybe Im not the only fish not being swept away by
sky-high waves and drowning in a deep sea of theory? Or maybe I think
I'm finding my way, only to soon find myself swimming with the sharks.
I don't know...
Now onto something I am sure of...that I am I very interpretive person. Sadly, I can admit to have interpreted my muffin this morning. I suppose I like to make sense of most things, of puzzles.But don't get me wrong, here - I'm not some Sherlock Holmes, striving to find anything from clues, reasons, meanings, connections and answers behind anything and everything. Interpretation is actually a very natural thing for me; it really has become a part of my mentality -i just do it enough to forget I do it.

Confession#2: Contrary to all that has just been said: I have four black and white model portraits on one of the walls in my room. I mention this because these portraits are one of the few things I've never bothered to interpret. And so, I can't really tell you plenty about them other than the fact that they are some skinny...well, you know...
But they're beautiful, and really, if I did interpret them, I highly doubt they'd remain on my wall.

Technology Connects the Dots

Third blog in and I still have things to say...this could be a good thing. Props to class lectures I suppose, for if they didn't keep me awake, then I'd only have dreams to share with you. Surely some of you's agree. But really, props to class lectures; I have found much of the reading, as expected, very difficult. I found the time-line we discussed in class to be a refreshing overview of Eagleton's so high over your head in theory, "Literary Culture".But I will continue reading, highlighting main concepts, as an active student would.It is probable that I won't be breathing theory by the end of this term, applying it left and right (something that actually scares me), but I'm learning and I am definitely outside of my comfort zone.
Someone asked me the other day about the reasoning behind having to write these blogs. "To connect with classmates and share thoughts and opinions of literary theory/criticism outside the class" was something along the lines of what I said. Connecting. Connecting to classmates, connecting to the teacher; it was all about connecting; And on a wider scale,in this same technological way, people connect with friends/family, whether they see them daily or once a year at Christmas;technology connects the dots (dots being neighbors, communities,nations,etc) and creates a unified picture - our World. Pretty, isn't it? Maybe. I, personally, find this almost...pathetic, so...materialist, almost.Times before the 20th C. were surely more rewarding when exceptional literary pieces were what once united people. Now, times seem effortless, rewarding-less.And though, technology has become this connecting tool,it seems as though it does the very opposite, fragmenting everything at the same time, in the sense that today, people can be divided even more than before.But I guess this is all just a theory of mine. But surely we can all agree on one thing:In today's society, technology connects the dots, that once connected, reveals the World as one. Now that I think of it, it does sound kind of pretty...but I suppose that's based on the perspective of It from where we stand.

Making Connections...

I'm going to start my first blog by looking back on Day 1. We had been given the task to define "literature". Quite simple, right? For the task seemed so...easy. Was I ever wrong. From the moment my pen came in contact with the paper, I froze. I couldn't think of a single set of words that word accurately define literature from all perspectives, as a whole. Slightly panicked, I wrote the first thing that came to mind - defining literature as a creative piece; a sort of art in which people express themselves. This brings me to Day 2. Dr. Pound presented a lecture about the Romantic Period; a time where literature and imagination fused; an era responsible for making literature expressive. And then it clicked, remembering back to the first day. I was a "romantic-thinker" (If there is such a term). This brought me much disbelief because just one day before, coming into this course, I was sure that making connection s between who I am as a person and the study of literature, and its development , would be like squeezing water from a rock. Was I ever wrong (and glad to be!)
Developing a spark of interest for the course, and making personal connections to my studies... Glorious!

Just saying "Hello!"

Just welcoming those of you who are checking out my blog :) Not to say that I expect many of you's!

Anyways, as you've probably guessed, this is my first blog. EVER. I just don't do them. Some people are good at them and have really interesting things to say, and then there's people like me who can only pretend to know what they're doing. But I guess it's no different than a diary, really...
And now, I will walk away from this with a positive attitude, believing I am not going to be the sole individual to read my blog...

:)