"Finishing up Two Papers"

2.21.2007

I think that this week has been just as challenging in homework as the others have been, I am trying to finish up/work on two papers, and it probably was not smart on my part to take two English classes, especially when they both involve writing papers. It is hard to write two different papers at the same time, and keep your mind separate on each of them, but I should get through it!

The first story I read was “The Garden of Forking Paths”, and wow, was that ever a bad story for me to start the week off with. I was so confused I had no idea what was going on! A story really needs to have a good attention grabber to grab my attention and this one really lacked that. I think that it is because it started on the second page of a document, so maybe the exciting beginning was in that part. One thing I was not sure about this piece was why the main character of this story was on the bus and the journey to this place to begin with. Was it just to find out about his relative/ancestor?

I was so much more pleased by “Everything that Rises Must Converge”. This story was so much more straightforward and understanding that I was actually enjoying reading it. My favorite part was when Julian’s mother kept bragging about her grandpa who owned a plantation and was the governor and had 200 slaves, and then Julian turns around and starts telling his mom that it really was not that big of a deal, the plantation is over run by black people anyways! I guess I just took it as a sort of dry humor, but added that kick to the book, I really enjoyed it, even though the ending always seem to be bad and depressing with Flannery O’Connor’s pieces.

"No Paper this Week!"

2.15.2007

This week was definitely a relief not having to worry about finishing my paper and being able to focus more on the rest of my homework. However, Monday was my birthday, so I was in Minnesota until Tuesday and missed a couple days of classes. After missing a few days of classes, I still had a tremendous amount of homework to catch up on in only a few days. I still am not all the way finished with all of my homework, so I am doing them a little out of order now. I have read two stories so far, and have saved the longest one for last; I will probably have to read that one tomorrow so I can take the quiz tomorrow night as well.

Out of the two stories, I have read so far, my favorite was probably “The Use of Force,” just because it was interesting to see how the little girl would defend herself from the doctor, just so she did not have to have anyone know she was sick and so she did not have to accept the fact that she was sick and may die. “A Good Man is Hard to Find” is another good story, the only thing I did not like about is was that it was a very sad ending with everyone in the family dying. The misfit was a very cruel person and I wish that the grandma had been able to change his mind to make somewhat of a good ending.

I am interested to see how the longer story turns out that I still have to read. I do not remember what it is called off the top of my head, but hopefully it is somewhat good like the other two I have read this week, and not like “The Hunger Artist” last week. I will find out tomorrow night I guess.

Does anyone know if we will have to write another paper for this class or if that was the only one? If anyone knew and could let me know that would be great. Have a great weekend and week everyone, talk to you in a week!

"What a Relief"

2.9.2007

It seems like forever ago that we were just learning about this paper, and had many doubts on whether or not we would be able to finish in time! The time is finally here; everything pretty much has to be completed as of tomorrow. It feels like such a huge weight lifted off my shoulders to finally be done with this paper (for the most part at least). The weeks should be much easier now not having to worry about working on a paper on top of all the other assignment we have in this class; that leaves more time to focus on reading the stories, taking the quiz, writing our blog, commenting on other people’s blogs, and participating in discussions.

I would have to say my favorite story this week was A Pair of Tickets. In order for me to really like the story, it has to grab my attention in the beginning, but also be easy to understand and realize what the characters are going through. I also thought it was very good, because, even though there were a couple sad parts throughout the story, the end was very uplifting, not only for me, but for the main character and her “half-sisters” as well.

Even though the other two stories had fine qualities as well, they aren’t ones that I would probably read again. The Hunger Artist is just a weird story all together, and I am still not sure to this point why people would do that. It actually grossed me out more than anything while I was reading it hearing how weak, scrawny, pale, and bony he was; if I saw him I would probably think I had just seen a ghost. The Open Boat had a decent ending (except for the one person dying), but the whole story up to that was not as entertaining as it should have been. If the author had made some more drastic interventions in The Open Boat, it would have been another story that I would like to read again.

"Busy Week"

2.2.2007

This week has definitely been an interesting week for me. Not only have I been so bogged down with homework, from this class and others, but I was still able to find time to go to Sioux Falls to visit my mom (I am from Shakopee, MN; she was in Sioux Falls on a business trip), and I was also able to book tickets to Mexico for Spring break : ) that definitely made all of my homework this week a little bit easier (the sooner everything is accomplished, the sooner Meixco comes!).

Being the first week we had to read stories out of our Literature book, I wasn’t quite sure what to expect. The 1^st one I read was “Sonny’s Blues”, and this being one of the longer stories, I was worried that they were all going to be about that long and I would have to be doing a little bit more reading than I had 1^st anticipated. But, thankfully, only one other one was that long. I guess I would have to say that I read the best one first. “Sonny’s Blues” was my favorite story this week. I think that story had the biggest influence on me out of the other three. The one thing about that story that I was confused about is why the brother kept saying that he had an ice cube in his stomach and that it was like it was melting but never went away? What does that mean? Is that another way of saying that he was nervous?

I also thought that “Hills Like White Elephants” was a very interesting story. It was short, yet it really made you think a lot about what they were talking about. Another thing that made this piece so easy to read and follow was the fact that the author didn’t use any Flashbacks to make things confusing. The only thing that was confusing about this piece was the fact that we didn’t know what the two people were talking about, but sometimes the pieces that make you think a little bit are the good ones.