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!