Mood

My mood this morning was relieved and happy, because my day before was filled with anxiety and anger. If colors were involved it would be pictured with faded black, grey, and red being overtaken by baby blue and purple. These two colors would be dominate because their not to bright, but are definately peaceful and I am not to excited but definately more calm today.

Conitinue Reading Assignment

Golden Grove: In the first interpretation it says in the 5th line, "Who is there to cry for? Is not each man a wanderer," and I enjoy this line because it shows individualism, and in college that is something that is harder to do. So, it shows how each man is searching by themselves.
Notes: *Wandering is purposeless walking

Hills like white elephants: # 5~Everytime she asks him to not talk about it, he doesn't respect her wishes. At the bottom of pg. 126 it seems he is trying to pressure her into by down talking her, as if he is tired of her acting that way. To contradict it, the man at the end of the story carries the bags, and he says he knows they will be happy together if she does this, meaning he does want to be with her.

Girl: #1~ The two speakers are the mother and daughter, and it is show by the daughters voice being italized. Of course, the daughter could still be mocking her mother outloud because there are no breaks in the entire prose for the voices to be a conversation.



The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven: #3~ Since he used to work at the Seattle 7-11 Graveyard shift he probably understands the feeling anxious in the town. It not necesarily the skin and hair as the fact he is alone and looking slightly sketchy making him nervous. The narrator suggests this because he begins to do suspicious actions just to mess with the worker, and if it was his appearance alone, he wouldn't have to do that.

~The translation by Philip Nikolayev is the better one, because the words choosen create a more powerful tone than the other which appears melancholy. The obvious similarity is that both poems have five paragraphs each, and that each one has the same conclusion for each paragraph even though worded differently. An example of why the first translation is better is in a comparison of lines 9, the first is , "Alone, alone amid a naked flatland" and the second is "I stand alone, the bare expanses viewing." The first is clearly a better example of imagery, you can picture the idea of lonliness a lot more.
~Hills Like White Elephants: I am concluded that the statement that is the title was made by the girl to just draw attention away from the argument to something she found intriguing. The argument is a little fussy as to the exact topic that they are talking about, but a vague idea is thought of. That is especially since white is usually related to purity or innocence.
~Jamaica Kincaid: Interesting how the color white is used in the beginning of this story. It shows how a women is suppose to be perfect lady, doing this and that in the exact way she is taught. She is suppose to appear to be honest and dutiful, but she will become a slut because she has no choice in the ways of her own life, the men decide in this poem.

Freewrite

*HEART ~ Fragile, weak when heartbroken, strong when in love, beating, life/ survival, sympolic of so much, the past
*DESERT ~ hot, dry, a lonely wonderous place, desperation
*UNIVERSE ~ wide open space, unknown, stars, imaging or wishful to get away from time, endless possibilities
*SHEPHERD~ Caring, dutiful, watchful, falling asleep in the barn with the animals, busy/ hard worker, possibly broke, respected, helpful

Warm-up

1) Close reading~ I have never heard of this before, but I would assume it would be reading in detail or looking for specifics in the reading. It is defined in google as, "a method in which you pay close attention to a text, either in order to observe striking features generally or in order to answer specific ..." which is basically what I wrote.
2)Pastoral~ I would define as the actions of a shephard, since he would take care of his pastor. One of the definitions of pastoral is "A person or thing associated with the tending of livestock" and its etymology is classical Latin p st r lis. If someone was pastoral they would certainly pay close attention to their livestock.
3) Mistress~ A lover to a married man. It is defined as a women having control or authority, and its etymology is Norman and Middle French maistress and Italian maestressa. So, I guess if a women is in charge she is focused on the specifics of something.
4) Nymph~ I don't know much about this word either but I believe it is a mythical creature of some type. It is defined as "Any of a class of semi-divine spirits, imagined as taking the form of a maiden inhabiting the sea, rivers, mountains, woods, trees, etc., and often portrayed in poetry as attendants on a particular god." So, although it can be a real person thats just a beautiful women it is given the idea of perfection and therefore able to be near higher power. Its etymology is Middle french.

1/24/08 HW!

~ Stephen Crane
- "In the desert" is a classic tell of it is better to have loved and lost then to not have loved at all, because the creature says he likes his bitter heart, but his heart is bitter from some sort of heart break. The fact that this is a creature that is naked shows that he is willing to be vulnerable, but since he is also beastial he could handle what else is to come his way. He certainly would be tough enough to survive on his own in the desert. Since he was holding his heart in his hand, it gives the idea that he tried to give it away, and then by eating it he is taking his heart or love back.
- "A Man said to the Universe" tells about an individual acknowledging his own existence out loud as if he should be having someone taking care of him or something. Which is why the universe replys that it doesn't have "a sense of obligation" meaning it does not have to help the person out. It is only the person's responsibility to take care of themselves no one elses.

~Practice 6-D: In the poem "Black Elvis" the obvious metaphoric name is black elvis. His name is connected to the story because black usually symbolizes darkness, death, or much more, and the character is very unnaturally calm and is know to have the blues alot. They use his name to create patterns in his actions or feelings such as when you wants to slip out of the place unnoticed so he doesn't have to sing, if the room was as dark as him it would be easy. Also his feelings were replaced with "harder and colder" ones creeping through his blood, all of which go along with the theme.
~ Practice 6-E: Grandmother in my personal definition means someone that cares for you unconditionally. Will drive you to dance practice, make your dinner, teach you how to bake a cake, and who you only want to see pleased with your own actions. I am sure many other students feel that their grandparents were there for them as well, but then there are probably others without them and some whose grandparents may not have been able to be there for them.

first post for english!!

Strategies: First part:
~The first section compared "reading for pleasure versus reading for an academic assignment," and it makes good points about how students address academic readings. I think if you just treat an assignment for a class as if you stumbled upon it, then you would actually enjoy the reading. When reading material on your own, you should always use your presumed knowledge to get in depth of a reading, otherwise you can miss out on some really intriguing details the author has created.
~How detailed the breakdown of the first paragraph of the poem "Say I" is really good, because it helps me know how in depth we are expected to go when writing on poetry.
~ I am not quite sure if we are suppose to do the practices or not, so I just wrote some comments and thoughts.


Review Prompt:
4. Define Genre: The text defines genre as "a category we use to name and identify a text with consistent and familar features." So its basically grouping texts together so that their similarities are easier to be found and understood.
5. Convections of a text are important to look at because it allows the reader a better understanding of certain points that the author is trying to create. After knowing the genre the reader will be on the lookout for things that are thought to happen, and that makes it possible to pick up on foreshadowing or twists in the story.
7. Shakespeares "Sonnet 130" easily bends conventions because it is suppose to be a love poem which normally tries to make the person of detail seems flawless in everything, and he instead demolishs lots of her features. Such as, "My mistress, when she walks, treads on the ground" makes her sound like an overweight elephant more than an object that attracts his eyes.
12. Define Context: The text defines context as "nothing more or less than the who, what, where, when, and why that surround every word, image, or artifact." Its the readers way of trying to figure out details of the text that make it realistic or just relating to some aspect of the world.
13. People approach text for the simple reason that all minds work differently, and certain words spark different thoughts or emotions for different people. In addition, everyone pertains different knowledge, so it is easy to overlook a meaningful word or go to in depth into a poem without realizing it.