Blog Par-tay!

It's no secret that our country has been plauged by prejudice since it's founding. In the over two centuries since this country was settled by the Pilgrims, it has seen prejudice against race, religion, sexual orientation, gender, and a long list of others. However, it is popular belief (and often an excuse) that people are prejudice against other people because "that's how they were brought up". They were taught that people who don't believe in the same god as they do are heathens, or that people who are not heterosexual are an abomination, or that people of a different race are less than human. People believe what they are taught to believe, or in otherwords, tolerance is linked to a person's education.

My question is, if people were to expand their literary options outside of their current interests, or beyond those things they can identify with the best, is it possible that this newfound knowledge could make people more tolerable of those who are different? It is my belief that without books, our knowledge of things outside our basic knowledge would be very limited. Therefore, it would be much more difficult to understand other people's point of views. Combine that with the lack of proper education, and tolerance could potentially be a much bigger issue than it is currently.

1. There are many books that have a message of tolerance.

While researching websites on educators and tolerance, I came across one site that had a long list of books that teach a message of tolerance. These books are geared towards elementary school children up to young adults, and the list was released on the heels of the tragedy of 911. One book, titled A Coat of Many Colors, teaches a lesson about accepting people whether they are incredibly wealthy or dirt poor. Another, titled Necessary Roughness, tells a story of an asian family in an all white community. All these books were written with the intention of teaching children to accept people who are different from them, because they may not be as "different" as you think.

2. Educators play a huge role in teaching tolerance.

I came across in my research a press release put out by the United Nations, stessing the importance of tolerance. It was released after Secretary-General Kofi Annan recieved the Stephen P. Duggan award, which is an award for international understanding given by the Institute for International Education. The press release was Secretary General Annan's acceptance speech, in which he stated, "None of us is born intolerant of those who differ from us. Intolerance is taught and can be untaught." He calls for educators to stress the importance of tolerance, as he believes that many nations are unable to develop when they are constantly at conflict with each other. He said, "It not only builds mutual understanding among cultures at the individual level; it also helps societies achieve progress. Whether in contributing to the training of teachers, scientists and engineers, advancing the role of women in development, or administering the Fulbright Programme, you have understood that in our world, the engine for progress is fuelled by knowledge."

According to Steven Wolk, author of the article Reading For a Better World: Teaching For Social Responsiblity With Young Adult Literature, "classroom inquiry nurtures social responsiblity, and living a socially responsible life means to live a life of inquiry". Therefore, as is agreed upon in the above mentioned press release, the subject of tolerance not only can be picked up from education and educators, but is also, largely, discovered through books.

3. Many people who are intolerant, are that way because they do not understand those who are different from them.

In my research, I chose two people (who will remain anonymous) who I am close to to interview regarding my inquirey question. While these are two people are very kind, they have a very black-and-white view on people who are different from them. When asked their opinion on people who are not heterosexual, they had this to say.

"It is absolutely unforgivable. It is against nature and against God himself. God created man and woman to be together, and that is the way it should be. There is no excuse for being attracted to the same sex. It is not how we were designed."

I then asked if they, personally, had any experience dealing with homosexual individuals, or had any further knowledge of them.

"Absolutely not. We do not associate with people like that, because they go against everything we believe in."

From this, I could safely conclude that they had developed a strong prejudice against homosexual individuals, but only based their "opinion" on the Bible. They have never, and will never, attempt to gain any more knowledge or understand of homosexual people, and will continue to hold prejudice against them for the rest of their lives.

George Levine believed that one could create a feeling of empathy towards anything or anybody by taking the time to study them closely and develop and intimate relationship with the person or thing in question. Levine, himself, took the time to get to know a little bird, who he came to know and understand a great deal more after having spent so much time in intimate company with the creature. "It was an emotional effect," he says in "The Heartbeat of a Squirell", "but it was also rather like reading a book intensively, carefully..."

In conclusion, I've found that tolerance, in truth, has a great deal to do with what we know. According to Steven Wolk, author of the article Reading For a Better World: Teaching For Social Responsiblity With Young Adult Literature, "classroom inquiry nurtures social responsiblity, and living a socially responsible life means to live a life of inquiry". The subject of tolerance not only can be picked up from education and educators, but is also, largely, discovered through books. Without books, our knowledge of things outside our basic knowledge would be very limited. Therefore, it would be much more difficult to understand other people's point of views. Combine that with the lack of proper education, and tolerance would be a much bigger issue than it is currently.

I am very interested to see how people feel about this. Do you feel that if people were to expand their literary options outside of their current interests, or beyond those things they can identify with the best, is it possible that this newfound knowledge could make people more tolerable of those who are different?

Works Cited:

Education World. "Use Literature to Teach Tolerance". Educationworld.com. 29 August 2002.

<http://educationworld.com/a_lesson/02/lp277-04.shtml>

Levine, George. "The Heartbeat of the Squirrel" Googledocs.

<https://docs.google.com/a/eou.edu/gview?a=v&pid=gmail&attid=0.3&thid=124d9c4d07025b61&mt=application%2Fpdf&url=https%3A%2F%2Fmail.google.com%2Fa%2Feou.edu%2F%3Fui%3D2%26ik%3D7773230ea8%26view%3Datt%26th%3D124d9c4d07025b61%26attid%3D0.3%26disp%3Dattd%26zw&sig=AHIEtbSrw-vUf6ZUuDko7im8HspMBjGwOg>

United Nations. "INTOLERANCE IS TAUGHT AND CAN BE UNTAUGHT’, SECRETARY-

GENERAL SAYS IN MESSAGE TO INSTITUTE FOR INTERNATIONAL EDUCATION".

UN.org. 28 November 2001.

<http://www.un.org/News/Press/docs/2001/sgsm8046.doc.htm>

Wolk, Steven. Reading For A Better World: Teaching For Social Responsibility With Young Adult

Literature. Googledocs. May 2008

<https://docs.google.com/a/eou.edu/gview?a=v&pid=gmail&attid=0.4&thid=124d9c4d07025b61&mt=application%2Fpdf&url=https%3A%2F%2Fmail.google.com%2Fa%2Feou.edu%2F%3Fui%3D2%26ik%3D7773230ea8%26view%3Datt%26th%3D124d9c4d07025b61%26attid%3D0.4%26disp%3Dattd%26zw&sig=AHIEtbTuach8QgeyqPVM7jIwbxTJCgsfWw>

Freestyle

This week I've been on a mission to find music that helps me put my feelings into words, because lately I find it hard to express what I'm feeling. Here are a few songs I found, and the lyrics that I have used to apply to my life. Keep in mind, while reading these lyrics, that I am not angsty or otherwise feeling sorry for myself. I am simply feeling slightly overwhelmed.

Molly Marlette-Constantly:

"I close my eyes
I'm holding on tight
I wont let go
To what I've known
I know it's not right
But It's what I know

Baby, I won't keep fighting constantly
For inconsistency, I'm waiting
Always trying, still resisting
The one thing that I'm missing"

This is 100% me, as much as I hate to admit it. I have a horrible habit of holding on to the past, regardless of how much it led me astray and left me feeling hurt. All I know in my relationships is conflict, conflict, and more conflict. I'm so used to it that I find myself carrying past experiences over into new relationships, and finding ways to create conflict in an otherwise peaceful situation.

Margot and the Nuclear So and So's-On a Freezing Chicago Street:

"So if your lover should leave don't get too sad
And don't compose any poems to win her back
Cause when you're burned as though she'll never return home
Though all your life you'll wait she never will return"

I also feel that this song applies to me in the case of me in my past relationship. When the relationship ended, he did everything he could to get me back, even changing his whole personality and outlook on life. I, somehow, was strong enough to see through it and told him it didn't matter what he did, I would never go back, but still he tried. So I suppose this is my song for him.

Ray LaMontagne-A Falling Through:

Don't you care
That it may seem unfair?
(You steal things you ought to borrow)
Don't you find
That it may seem unkind?
(I'd rather breathe than drown in sorrow)

This song speaks to me on a very personal level. I can hardly listen to it without crying. I will be the first to admit that I'm not dealing with things the way I should, and that running away just makes me hold on tighter to things I need to face head on and let go of. I suppose this is my own private plea to be heard and understood.

Imogen Heap-Wait It Out:

"Everybody says time heals everything
but what of the wretched hollow?
The endless in between
are we just going to wait it out?"

I absolutely love Imogen Heap, and have for years now, and this is easily my favorite song by her because I love this line. It's so true. There are some things that are hard to wait out. Yes, time will make things better, but the healing might not happen quickly enough which leaves the often unwanted opportunity to be alone with your thoughts.

Scene Response

These three scenes, while they were the same part of the story, were all different.

In the 1951 version, the most noticable flaw was the fact that Othello was played by a white man. Othello's character seemed much more dominant that Iago's, which made it hard for me to believe that Iago could have such power of Othello's thinking. They also skipped through a lot of the lines, which made it hard to follow along. Their dialogue was very dry and without a lot of the necessary emotion you would expect in a situation such as this. The actors seemed more concerned about saying the words than delivering the feelings associated with the story.

In the 1981 version, there again was the mistake of Othello being white, and again Iago's character seemed unsure and a little hesitant. However, when Iago behaved this way in this version, I believed that it was all part of his plan and believed that his demeanor did not make him a weaker man, but a clever man. In a way his behavior made him more dangerous, because when he played the weaker man nobody would think him capable of deceit at such a level as he had achieved. There was a significant amount more emotion in the acting, and it was a lot easier to follow because the actors made it possible for you to feel what they were pretending to feel.

The 1995 version was the only one which had Othello played by an African American man, so in that case it was much more true to the story. Iago's character seemed less sheepish than the other two scenes, and emanated that sort of strong personality I came to expect from reading the play. I enjoyed how Iago changed the tone and volume of his voice while lying to Othello. This made the lies seem more treacherous than they did in the other two scenes.

Othello scene III

"And, for I know thou'rt full of love and honesty,

And weigh'st thy words before thou giv'st them breath,

Therefore these stops of thine fright me the more;

For such things in a false disloyal knave

Are tricks of custom, but in a man that's just

They're close dilations, working from the heart

That passion cannot rule."

(Shakespeare, 985)

This was Othello's response to Iago proclaiming, "My lord, you know I love you". Othello was so blinded by his misplaced trust in Iago, and so hypnotized by Iago's pretend trustworthiness, that Othello didn't even allow himself to believe that Iago could be lying to him. Obviously, his trust should have been place in more noble people, like the woman he loved and married, but I suppose it's common for love to make us blind.

If only Othello had realized what he was saying when he talked of a "disloyal knave", and even stopped for a second to reflect on the pile of lies he was being fed, he may have realized that Iago was exactly the disloyal knave he described, and not a just man. So many lives could have been spared, if only he hadn't been so easily swayed by Iago's words.

Othello

Othello: "...For I know, Iago, But that I love the gentle Desdemona, I would not my unhoused free condition put into circumscription and confine for the sea's worth."

(Shakespeare, 946)

Now, I will admit that I am not very good at translating Shakespeare, so if I have completely missed the point of this line, I apologize now.

The part of this line that caught my attention was when he speaks about loving Desdemona so much that he wouldn't deny it for all "the sea's worth", or all the lost treasure under the sea. While this is not a pivotal moment in the story, it does set the stage (no pun intended) for Iago's deciet. This love that Othello holds so dear for Desdemona ends up becoming a weapon to use against him. Even while he is unaware, his growing and unconditional love is fuel for Iago's fire, and everyone and everything around him are pawns in Iago's evil plan.

Wicked

I am a HUGE fan of Wicked, both the book and the musical. I first read the book about a year ago, and was lucky enough to be able to see the musical in March of this year. Both of them were incredibly entertaining, but they were also very different.

While they were about the same thing, the book and the musical were essentially two different stories. The musical is light and comical, but the book is dark and much more controversial. In the book, there is sex and violence and conspiracy. Elphaba doesn't go to Oz to work for the wizard, but rather to go underground and start a revolution that is highly illegal. Her father is a Munchkinland preacher. Fiero is not betrothed to Glinda, but has a wife and children back in his home land. He has a racy affair with Elphaba and falls in love with her. And most importantly, in the book the slippers are, in fact made of rubies, unlike the musical where they are made of colorless jewels.

I wouldn't say I prefer the story one way or the other. Like I said, I'm a fan of both. It doesn't matter all that much to me that I'm getting two different stories. To me, I look at it as two chances to live the story that I've fallen in love with.

"Mrs. Hale: No, Wright wouldn't like the bird-a thing that sang. She used to sing. He killed that too." (Glaspell, 847)

During this part of the dialogue between Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peter's, the two women were debating both what kind of man Mr. Wright was, and if his wife killing him was unlawful or just sad and excusable considering how cold Mr. Wright was.

When the women found the bird, they made the decision not to show it to the Sheriff, but rather to take it with them to Mrs. Wright in jail. I don't know what purpose this served, as everybody was already convinced she had killed him. Perhaps it was so nobody would know what her motive was, and they would go easy on her or she would be let go. The women clearly felt bad for Mrs. Wright and her life that they described as lonely.

The dead bird, to me, symbolized Mrs. Wright's life. It was beautiful and full of song until a man came along and wrang all the life out of her. It's just too bad that she felt the only way to get her life back was to do the same to her husband, but in a much more literal sense.

O

The scene that leapt out to me the most was the final scene, in which Hugo is being arrested just after Odin kills himself. This movie was depressing and tragic all around, and this final scene brought all the preceding events together as Hugo starts talking about living like a hawk.

In this scene, as images flash of all the victims of all the deceit and lies, Hugo says:

"All my life I always wanted to fly. I always wanted to live like a hawk. I know you're not supposed to be jealous of anything, but... to take flight, to soar above everything and everyone, now that's living. But a hawk is no good around normal birds. It can't fit in. Even though all the other birds probably wanna be hawks; they hate him for what they can't be. Proud. Powerful. Determined. Dark. Odin is a hawk. He soars above us. He can fly. One of these days, everyone's gonna pay attention to me. Because I'm gonna fly too. "

Throughout the movie, I couldn't seem to figure out Hugo's reasoning for going to such length's to sabotage Odin's life. It didn't seem as though he wanted to be with Desi. The only issue it seemed he had was that Odin got MVP, and Hugo felt he deserved it more. Hugo obviously was seeking some sort of reward for doing what he did, though I can't place my finger on it, but in the end everything blew up in his face and it didn't phase him a bit. Even when he was being taken away in a police car, he still insisted that someday he too would "fly". Perhaps his only problem was that he was a sociopath.

This scene shed some light on the kind of person Hugo truly was. We saw him as being manipulative and selfish, willing to do whatever it took to achieve his goals throughout the whole movie, but this final scene showed us that he was more than that, he was completely impervious to guilt, and had no sense of right or wrong, even when 5 people were dead because of him.

World War Z

In the spirit of Halloween, I chose to read Max Brooks' World War Z, An Oral History Of The Zombie Wars. This story, though it was entirely fictional, was very eerie to read. Max is also the author of The Zombie Survival Guide which I've also read, and both books are so well done, you'd almost believe that the earth truly had been invaded by the living dead.

World War Z tells the story of the zombie war from many different perspectives. It recounts personal experiences, like one woman who fled with her family to Canada to wait for the cold to freeze the zombies, only to find that human beings are just as vicious as the living dead. It speaks from the view point of military personell, who have insight on the missions they were ordered to partake in. Sometimes these missions involved a great deal of moral dillema, sometimes they ended in the untimely demise of civilian lives. It also tells it from the viewpoint of those who were civilian "soldiers", and the battles they saw and the horrors they faced. This book, to zombie fans and impartial readers alike, was very enjoyable (as long as you have a strong stomach and an open mind).

I, personally, enjoy Max Brooks' stories, because I have always believed that zombies are the most terrifying monsters, much more than vampires, werewolves, or devils. This started a few years back when I first saw 28 Days Later. While it is highly unlikely, the potential for a "zombie" outbreak is scientifically possible. I don't believe that the dead will just randomly rise from the grave and attack humans, but to say that there is a disease that infects the human race, kills their bodies and minds and turns them into cannibalistic, contagious killing machines who crave human flesh and who's only demise results from destroying their brain and NOTHING less, is truely a terrifying prospect

Persepolis

"...Pardisse's report was by far the best. It was a letter to her father in which she promised to take care of her mother and her little brother. "Rest in peace, dad." At recess I tried to console her... "You father acted like a genuine hero, you should be proud of him!" "I wish he were alive and in jail rather than dead and a hero." Those were her exact words to me." (Satrapi, 86)

This story was a very heavy, emotional, violent autobiography of one girls struggle with the revolution in her country of Iran. While you get many stories of personal loss in this graphic novel, this one stuck out to me the most, because it shows you the revolution from the point of view of a little girl who lost her dad in the fight to reclaim the former freedom of his country.

Pardisse's response to Marji's statement that she should be proud of her father really put the fight into an entirely new perspective. Marji was so caught up in the politics of the whole thing that it seemed she'd lost sight of the human aspect. Yes she'd experienced loss but not of a parent, so she couldn't fully appreciate Pardisse's situation until she got a first hand account of the pain of losing a parent. This is not entirely her fault, after all Marji is very young in this story, and is experiencing things that most adults have a difficult time dealing with and understanding.

The illustration of this part of the story showed that everybody felt compassion and sympathy for this girls situation. We do not know for sure how each of them felt on the subject of the revolution, but in this moment they were all united in their sympathy for Pardisse and her family.

Carrie

"Now dust is her hands and dust is her heart./ There is never an end to it." (Kooser, pg. 635)

This passage was important for the same reason why it lept out to me. To me, it was a message that this woman dedicated her life to something that was her destiny to become. All her life she was trying to rid herself of dust and each day she got closer to becoming it.

It interested me because it is such a unique way to view life and death. We all have something ti live for, and sometimes the things we live for become us in death.

Counting The Beats paraphrase

"You have me, my love and I have you," he said. "If we didn't have anything more than each other, I don't think we would even care." But time ticks by and each minute brings them closer to death. The outlook is pleasant today, and maybe for several more to come, but it cannot always be this way. One day, the end of life will come and tear them from this world and from each other. "Where will we be, when death comes to separate us?" she asks. "We will be together, as we always will be," he says, and time continues to pass and they remain together.

When I was one-and-twenty

"The heart out of the bosom/Was never given in vain;/Tis paid with sighs a plenty/And sold for endless rue." (Housman, pg. 586-57)

The most eye catching words in this particular quote were the ones where the speaker describes the price of giving your heart away, with "sighs a plenty" and "endless rue". I agree that it is paid this away. I also feel that it's paid with tears, smiles, and even a skipped heartbeat or two.

This line was important to the poem because it explains why the wise man is warning the other of giving his heart away. He was insistent on keeping the heart in your own possession, and keeping your "fancy free". This is not because he was selfish or self-serving, but because he knew the consequences of falling in love.

This guy knew what he was talking about.

Haiku

The haiku I wrote was a mash-up of the past three quotes I chose to write about from our readings. First from "A Well-lighted Place", then from "A Rose For Emily", and finally from "Everyday Use". I mashed them up into one Haiku.

A light for the dark,
So when I hold my head high
It will be God's work.

Mock Orange paraphrase

I chose the poem Mock Orange by Louis Gluck. I paraphrased it the way I saw it if it was being written as a short story.

I have been detestable. I have given myself to another in a way that disgusts me. Our bodies lay there together, and he kisses me. Our union is humiliating. In the act, we were one but not in a long manner. And when it was done, we were immediately two again. We are fools who give in to our primative desires, who betray our self-guiding thoughts for lust. When it's done I smell the mock orange from outside, and it will forever burn this moment into my memory.

Curl Up & Die

"Clinging to the remnants of perfection like most do after they break it.
Not knowing which directions the correct one, do I discard or remake it?
Cause if I don't know then I don't know but I may know someone that knows me more than I.
And if I somehow could rest this soul maybe control could find its way back to my life."
(Thiessen)

I chose this song for OH so many reasons. This song, titled "Curl Up And Die" by Relient K, found it's way onto my iTunes at a time when I was searching for direction in my life.

You can look at this song in many different ways. On the surface, it's a song of breaking up. The singer is telling a story of wanting change for his life and not wanting his girlfriend to be a part of it anymore, but having a hard time moving on. This is told in the line "Not knowing which directions the correct one, do I discard or remake it?" How easily can we all relate to losing a significant other, trying to find peace in our lives, and wondering how to move on?

When you look underneath the surface message to find a deeper meaning, it is a song about making any significant life change, and being afraid of what will happen when you do and what could happen if you don't. Nobody likes feeling as though their lives are out of their hands, and the singer conveys his need to change this when he sings "If I somehow could rest this soul maybe control could find its way back to my life".

This song has a Christian undertone, as interperated from the line "If I don't know then I don't know but I may know someone that knows me more than I". However, this "someone" he mentions may not only be limited to God. It could also be anyone in our lives that is our "savior" when we're in our darkest hour.

Overall, I felt that these few lines were the most powerful line of the song. It shows the weakness of the singer that was shown in the previous verse of the song, when he says "I don't like the place I'm in, headspace within the hardwood and the ceiling", and his longing for closure. But it transitions into the next phase of the process, which is looking past the past and towards the future and finding that place where he can be happy.

This song was my guide for picking up the pieces of my heart after a split with my husband. The breakup was what I'd wanted, what I needed after living through abuse for over three years, but moving on was not easy for me. This is why I chose the passage I chose, because I was "clinging to the remnants of perfection" of my love for the man I made my husband, and I went back and forth in my mind about whether it was worth giving him a chance to redeem himself. Thiessen sings "I feel fine but I know the same does not apply to you...So I guess that I'll curl up and die, too." I found myself saying this too many times, willing to look past the pain he caused me, LITERALLY, to make him happy. Oh, the things we do for love.

You can find listen to the song here:http://www.playlist.com/searchbeta/tracks#curl%20up%20and%20die%20relient%20k

The Second Stage Turbine

I didn't get a chance to do a lot of reading this week, so I decided I'd talk about one of my favorite bands, Coheed and Cambria.

Coheed and Cambria is a band from New York. They are considered to be a concept band. The songs follow a story, throughout all the albums. At the risk of sounding too vague, the basic gist of the story is about a war in the world, and a struggle to fight off the oncoming evil. There are songs about despair and losing a loved one. There are songs about leaving people behind. There are songs about fighting, and songs about interrogation, and anything else involved in matters of war.

All of their albums are based on comic books that were written and illustrated by the lead singer, Claudio Sanchez. These books are called "The Amory Wars", and they help shed more light on the story. According to the story, Coheed and Cambria are the main characters. They are the center of the "evil" that is being unleashed on the world, but they are completely in the dark as to why.

The song, "The Devils In Jersey City", is explained in more detail in the comics. In the song, they say "Sweet Josephine, will you follow me home?" Josephine is the daughter of Coheed and Cambria. At this point in the story, Josephine and her boyfriend were together in a less inhabited part of town, Jersey City, and Josephine's boyfriend had just proposed to her. He asked her to leave with him, but she wanted to stay. They were confronted by a gang called The Devils. The Devils raped and beat Josephine, and her boyfriend was too afraid to stop it. In the song, they explain this by saying, "Speak up, let out. Caught in the crossfire Compared to the step to the bone that might break, It's too late to find a better way out of this, With the finest regards that I lost, In the cracks of this street"

I haven't had a chance to read past the first volume, but I plan to explore the other installments of the story.

A similar band to Coheed and Cambria is The Dear Hunter. Their songs all follow a specific story as well. However, I have just recently discovered this band, so I couldn't tell you what their story entails.

A Well-Lighted Place

""I am of those who like to stay late at the cafe," the old waiter said. "With all those who do not want to go to bed. With all those who need a light for the night."" (Hemingway, pg. 150)

The last sentence jumped out at me the most. It seems obvious by the tone of the earlier conversation with the two waiters, that by "light", he didn't mean physical light. He meant it to be more like "distraction", like "escape", or something to help you avoid sleep. This could be because falling asleep allows the opportunity for our thoughts to run free, and it becomes difficult to ignore them.

This quote brings depth to the old man and the old waiter. It brings the internal struggle of the older men to the surface. The young waiter cannot understand them, clearly. After this I went back and re-read the conversation on page 148:

"Last week he tried to commit suicide," one waiter said.

"Why?"

"He was in despair."

"What about?"

"Nothing."

"How do you know it was nothing?"

"He has plenty of money."

It seemed, after reading the full story, that it was the young waiter that claimed the old man had no reason to kill himself. He can't relate, because of all the positive things in his own life. He has a "light" of his own at home in bed with his wife, from his youth, and from his confidence.

I enjoyed this story, because I feel I can relate to the feeling of wanting "light" for the night. I can't say I know the reasons why the other two men need it, and I won't assume, but I can empathize nonetheless. Sometimes, for me, it's easier to stay up all night, and disconnect myself from life.

What happened to Marry Poppins?

Well, considering I'm one day fresh from finishing the entire Twilight saga, I had originally planned to write this blog about how much Bella gets on my nerves and how many times I had to stop myself from throwing the book across the room. Tonight, though, I came across a fictional character that infuriated me even more than whiny Bella Swan. While babysitting my 9 year old cousin Annie, she and I were reading aloud from the book Mary Poppins Comes Back.

Before we started reading, Annie warned me that Mary Poppins was "sort of mean". I think that was the understatement of the century. The book version of Mary Poppins is surly, hot-tempered, and just downright rude to Michael and Jane. She is nothing like the movie version of Mary Poppins, who at least is sweet and somewhat loveable.

She only read me one chapter, but that's all I needed. I listened to Mary spit venom at Michael when he mentioned the merry-go-round (c'mon, you know you remember the merry-go-round) being in town. I heard her crush the children's hopes by telling them that nothing good will last forever, not even her. I have no idea why they think she's good, when she's so quick to put them in their place, which she seems to think is just beneath her feet. This is a passage straight from the book.

"Oh do come on, Mary Poppins! You look all right," said Michael impatiently.
She wheeled about. Her expression was angry, outraged and astonished all at once.
All right, indeed! That was hardly the word. All right, in her blue jacket with the silver buttons! All right with her gold locket round her neck! All right with the parrot-headed umbrella under her arm!
Mary Poppins sniffed.
"That will be enough from you-and more!" she said shortly. Though what she meant was that it wasn't nearly sufficient.

I suppose the question that's on my mind is....what happened to Mary Poppins? I've never read the first Mary Poppins, myself.

Was the movie version sweetened up, so as not to frighten children? She's practically a monster!

Is this the sort of nanny children from the 60's loved to read about? I personally would have stopped reading after her first malicious retort.

I wish I hadn't read this book, for now I can never love Mary Poppins the same!

Team Maggie

"She looked at her sister with something like fear but she wasn't mad at her. This was Maggie's portion. This was the way she knew God to work." (Walker, pg. 70)

The words that struck me as the most important was the entire last sentence. "This was the way she knew God to work." I interpreted this to mean that she knew, and accepted, that she was never meant to have things go well for her. She was the less attractive and less educated sister, permenantly scarred from a fire that burned her home, and had lived through far trauma more than her silly older sister could probably even begin to imagine. However, she didn't let this make her bitter, but rather became complacent. She knew life wasn't fair, and she wasn't going to fight it.

Before this, while I didn't have anything against Maggie, she also didn't really catch my attention all that much. She was just the gawky girl who didn't enjoy anybody's company but her mother's. These three sentences showed that while Maggie was still all those things, she was also gracious. She was willing to give up one of the only things she was ever promised to have that didn't involve trauma or suffering in some form, and she was willing to do so to spare her sister's feelings. These quilts, after all, were probably the first and only things Maggie had that Dee coveted. It was her willingness to give up the quilts that showed that they truly belonged with her. It wasn't about who would take better care of them, but rather who deserved them more.

I was impressed by how easy it was for Maggie to give up something she seemed to cherish so much, even though it was obvious how ungrateful Dee really was to have all these things. Dee just blew through the house, taking whatever she wanted, because ""no" is not a world the world ever learned to say to her", and instead of being angry or even a little irritated, Maggie just gave in without even a second thought. I was surprised to see that, despite the fact that she seemed to dislike Dee (avoiding her when she visited, and feeling uncomfortable in her presence), she obviously cared about her sister enough to give her something just to make her happy. Dee didn't deserve her sisters love, and she certainly didn't even seem to care.

Quote

"She carried her head high enough-even when we believed that she was fallen" (Faulkner, pg. 32)

It was any easy choice when it came to picking a quote to write about. In Faulkner's story it was easy to see the tragedy, and it was at this point in the story that I felt I really understood our heroine, the smelly recluse known as old Miss Emily.

It was the words "high" and "fallen" that really caught my attention. These two words have two completely opposite meanings, and were a perfect way to describe not only the situation of seeing Miss Emily on the street that day, but also of her story as a whole. Her attempts at seeming untouched by tragedy, of "holding her head high", were a perfect contradiction to the way the people around her perceived her; as a hopeless soul, as "fallen".

The passage was of great importance to the story. Miss Emily was an overall mysterious person. This quote added to the feeling of mystery surrounding her as a person. It gave some insight into her personality. She puts on this front, perhaps out of pride, appearing composed when her past and the resulting recluse-ness speak otherwise. If I had to sum up Emily in just one sentence, I would have put it just like that. However, her short-lived and unsuccessful attempt begs the question of why she gave up putting on a brave face for the public? If she managed to play up her "sanity" so well then, why did she eventually cut herself off from the real world?

What interested me most about this quote was it's simplicity. It said so much in so few words. It captured the essence of Emily's life quite well. It also interested me was how lightly the people around her took her strange behavior. It was as if her refusal to behave as she was expected to given the circumstances was not at all concerning to them.

While reading this story, I was vaguely, yet continuously, reminded of a character in The Virgin Suicides. She was Cecelia Lisbon, the youngest sister of 5, and the first to commit suicide. Cecelia was different than Emily in only one small way; she was not afraid of her actions seeking attention. Cecelia's two suicide attempts consisted of slitting her wrists in the bathtub and having no apparent motive for doing so, and then flinging herself out her window during a party for her and her sisters. Emily, though her behavior was equally as bizarre, especially knowing she was housing the body of her dead lover and possibly sleeping with it, was not as boisterous about her insane plans as Cecelia. However, Cecelia was very much the same as Emily. They both appeared fine and put on a front to hide their true feelings, hoping nobody would be the wiser, and for the most part, it worked.

Freestyle

I suppose for this blog I'm going to talk about both what I'm reading, and an issue I have with this reading. As I mentioned in my previous posting, I'm currently reading A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess. If you've ever read this book before, you may be able to guess what it is that I'm choosing to discuss.

I am only about a chapter and a half into this book at the moment, but from what I've deduced so far, this story is about four young friends who behave and speak (and dress) very strangely and love creating trouble. It's told in first person, from the point of view of the main character, Alex. From the first page, practically the first sentence of this book, their dialogue is almost gibberish, which the back cover described at "a brutal invented slang". It opens, page one chapter one paragraph one, with:

"What's it going to be then, eh?

That was me, that is Alex, and my three droogs, that is Pete, Georgie, and Dim, Dim being very dim, and we sat in the Korova Milkbar making up our rassoodocks what to do with the evening, a flip dark chill winter bastard though dry."

This "invented slang" (i.e. gibberish) continues throughout the rest of the chapter, and it's not just mentioned here and there. The entire book is heavily saturated in it. Words like razrezzing, deng, devotchkas, and chelloveck are only a very small sample of the plethora of "slang" this book uses in leu of sensical dialogue.

I won't deny that I am impressed by Burgess' unique words and the way he manages to tie it in so well with the story while still having it make sense (er, sort of). My only issue is that these words have absolutely no meaning to me as a new reader seeing this all for the first time. This is both a burden and a challenge. I only consider it a burden simply because I have to stop on average once every sentence to take in a new word and attempt to use to surrounding dialogue as a clue to what this word might mean. I'm able to figure out most of the words, but not all.

I'm also struggling to read this book at a pace that I'm comfortable with. Like I said, I have to stop frequently in mid-sentence to investigate the meaning of "shoomny smeck", or something of that nature. I normally can read things very quickly, but I find that while reading this book, my pace of reading varies from quick to slow, back to quick, and slow again, and it's more of a challenge to remember what I'd already read because of this constant change of pace. I anticipate that as I read further into the book I'll grow accustomed to the strange "slang" and be able to read through at a steadier pace.

Like I mentioned before, I am only about a chapter and a half into this book, but I'm nervous, though excited, to continue reading. I've heard so many good things about not only this book, but also the accompanying movie. And hey, maybe with all this new terminology, and being forced to work my "glazzies" across these pages at such a staggered pace, I'll be a little bit smarter for having read it.

Lub

My name is Janesse Brianne Wood, though I've always gone by my middle name, and my last name is soon to change. I'm 21 years old and I love cats. I can't decide what hair color to stick with, and I am perpetually cleaning my apartment. I grew up in Heppner, OR, but currently I'm living in Beaverton. I am majoring in Environmental Studies with electives in writing and a Minor in Public Administration, but I have yet to hone in on what I'll actually use my degree for. I don't have any hobbies, really. I enjoy writing on occasion but for me, writing is more of my coping mechanism for all those things that hold too much emotion for me to display without looking like I've lost my mind.

I wish I could describe who I am, but the truth is that I'm not entirely sure. I know I'm not who I was yesterday, and I'm sure I'll be different tomorrow. But I feel like my life didn't truly start until last spring. If you would have asked me before then to describe myself, you would have gotten a short, shallow answer that barely scratched the surface of who I really am. I would have told you about my "great" job, about my "amazing" house, about my "happy" relationship. Truthfully, I spent so much time worried about making other people happy and doing the things they wanted me to do whether it was hurting me or not, that I'd lost sight of what it is that I wanted for myself. I was sucked into a toxic life that I never bothered to fight against, because felt trapped. I refused to change until that change was thrust upon me, and . I may not have been prepared for it but I was liberated. It's just like John Lennon said; "Life is what happens when you're busy making other plans". I dread the thought of who I could have been if change never came, but I know it wouldn't be even close to what I'd wanted for myself. I've worked hard every day since then to change my life, for fear of falling back into destructive patterns again and losing the bright future I have now.

I've been reading since the age of four. My very first book of choice was anything involving the Berenstain Bears. They were simple, fun, and entertaining stories, and I didn't really feel to need to try much else. I also remember reading the Ramona Quimby stories with my Grandma Sue whenever I would stay the night with her. I loved Ramona because I could relate to her. I also gushed over both The Boxcar Children and the Wally McDoogle series. I used to wish I could live in a boxcar too, and have wild adventures just like Wally.

While I've always loved to read, it wasn't until just recently that I was interested in recreational reading and actually took the time to explore my literary options, so to speak. Before I discovered my true love for books, I immersed myself in the world of music. I have music for every mood and every season. For example, I can't listen to Jack Johnson or Sublime without thinking of summer. Bands like Lovedrug or Lydia are my winter bands, and comfort me in times of hardship. Relient K is my happy band, forever, until the day I die. A Fine Frenzy is who I turn to during relationship drama. Music helps me cry, helps me smile, helps me focus, and helps me put my emotions in perspective, but it also slows my computer down. I desperately need an Ipod.

Reading has turned out to be an escape from my troubles, and a way to occupy my mind with someone else's. I don't limit myself to one certain genre. I recently finished up a delightfully depressing book called "The Virgin Suicides", unaware that the title was more revealing of the storyline than I'd originally thought. Currently, I'm jumping between This Side Of Paradise by F. Scott Fitzgerald, A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess, and the ever popular Twilight saga (because I can't successfully nitpick the content of the movies if I haven't read the books). It's a pretty broad variety of stories, enough to keep me interested in all three. I am a Harry Potter fan, and when I say that, I mean that I'm obsessed. My favorite book of all time, though, will always be Wuthering Heights. I'm not sure exactly what appeals to me so much about this story of Heathcliff & Catherine's intense love/hate for each other and persistant sabotage of each others lives. Maybe it's the tragedy of it all, I find it beautiful.

My friend, Ashley Black, and I have been good friends for several years. She is someone I've always admired, and is as beautiful as she is smart. Ashely likes to read books with a lot of romance. "It's weird and cheesy but true. The combination of romance and adventure is what I'm into". She finished all four Twilight books in a couple weeks, because she "couldn't put them down", something I can certainly relate to. She thinks books that you can relate to a certain part of your life are the best books in the world. She also enjoy books about people in either hard/peculiar situatuions. "Absolutly loved Fear and Loathing In Las Vegas, the original Alice In Wonderland, and Through The Looking Glass." She's read a few biographies that she's really enjoyed about people she's interested in, such as Marilyn Manson and Marilyn Monroe. "I'm also really into psychology and philosophy books at the moment, helps me understand the bigger picture, and whats really going on."

Another good (and stunningly gorgeous) friend of mine, Katie Lenahan, is somebody who I've always turned to for advice, and who's opinion I've always valued. Her view on reading is very similar to mine. Her favorite thing to read is fiction, "because I like to be taken to a place where I can escape everything that overwhelms me during my day to day life. The farther I can get away from the reality; the normal and the mundane, the better". Growing up, she says she was consumed with fairy tales and stories like "my father's dragon" and "ella enchanted" because she felt they took her to a far away land like nothing she had ever known. She fell deeply for the Harry Potter series because it allowed her an escape into a whole different world. Lately she's been reading a lot of Chuck Palaniuk's works because "he does a wonderful job of mixing reality with the insane, the regular people with the irregular situations and pushing reality so far that is becomes something else entirely". His books allow her to get lost in them and while still allowing herself to relate them to her own every day life and what's going on with people in her world. "I use books as my escape, my portal to another time or place or person while not losing myself, and that is why I have a day to day, ongoing love affair with books."

My younger sister, Kellee Jones, is the smarter, prettier sister. She's always loved to read, ever since she was little kid. She says "I think I'm most happy when I have a good book to read." She likes to read a variety of books. Her taste has definitely changed over the years. In elementary school she was really into historical fiction, which at times came in really handy when I needed help with my American History homework. Then, in junior high she went through a Jane Austen phase. "I swear the only books I would read would be by her." In high school she expanded her reading list quite a bit. She read the Twilight series (I give her all the credit for sparking my interest in the series), Harry Potter, The Uglies series, and many others. Some of her favorite authors right now are Stephenie Meyer, Scott Westerfeld, Francine River, Ellen Hopkins, and Sarah Dessen. "The reason that I love these authors is that the way they write, it makes it easy to relate what thier characters are going through. They keep their stories interesting, and once I start reading one of their books, it's so hard for me to put it down."