Note on "Love Song" seminar

Notes on todays lesson...it was quite interesting

Phonar Assignment

It was around 5:30ish and the sun was already starting to go down and the moon was already coming up. It was a nice day, warm, but with a pleasing little breeze. I remember driving in my neighborhood and looking up and seeing this big beautiful thing. At first glance I thought it was a light post, but at a second glance I realized it was the moon. It looked so big, and because the sun was going down, it gave the moon a reddish glint. It was so  huge and beautiful that I had to pull over so that I would be able to get a better look at it. It was such an outstanding sight that another driver had stopped to take a picture. I thought about taking one, but I knew that the picture would not do the image of the moon justice. I also just kind of wanted to bask in the beauty of it because I knew this was a rare sight. It honestly was one of the most stunning things I had seen in a long time and I knew that a single picture would not suffice. 

Vocab #6

Abase-behave in a way so as to belittle or degrade (someone).
- I watched my students abasing themselves in front of the teacher.
Abdicate-ail to fulfill or undertake (a responsibility or duty).
- John had to abdicate his fathers business when he passed away.
Abomination-a thing that causes disgust or hatred.
 -Michael Meyers in the movie Halloween is an abomination.
Brusque-abrupt or offhand in speech or manner.
- Someone who is nervous is going to be brusque.
Saboteur-a person who engages in sabotage.
 -Bumper in the  movie Pitch Perfect is an example of a saboteur when he throws a burrito at Fat Amy.
 Debauchery-excessive indulgence in sensual pleasures.
 -My sister is debauchery when craves chocolate.
Proliferate-increase rapidly in numbers; multiply.
 -China is proliferating in population all the time.
Anachronism-a thing belonging or appropriate to a period other than that in which it exists, especially a thing that is conspicuously old-fashioned.
 -You could say my great grandma is an anachronism.
Nomenclature-the devising or choosing of names for things, especially in a science or other discipline.
 -Parents who are about to have a baby are going to nomenclature for their baby.
Expurgate-remove matter thought to be objectionable or unsuitable from (a book or account).
 -Upon reading Canterbury Tales, the orator expurgated risque portions of the novel.
Bellicose-demonstrating aggression and willingness to fight.
 -My dad is a perfect example of a Bellicose.
Gauche-lacking ease or grace; unsophisticated and socially awkward.
 -Sometimes i''m a little gauche.
Rapacious-aggressively greedy or grasping.
 -The billion got far in life because he was rapacious.
Paradox-a statement or proposition that, despite sound (or apparently sound) reasoning from acceptable premises, leads to a conclusion that seems senseless, logically unacceptable, or self-contradictory.
 -Going to war to bring peace is a paradox.
Conundrum-a confusing and difficult problem or question.
 -Most days in math, the teacher gives us conundrums.
Anomaly-something that deviates from what is standard, normal, or expected.
 -A person with two heads is an anomaly.
Ephemeral-asting for a very short time.
 -The ephemeral joys of high school.
Rancorous-characterized by bitterness or resentment.
 -A lot of people say that Jean is a rancorous person.
Churlish-rude in a mean-spirited and surly way.
 -My younger sister Sam is honestly the recarnation of the devil and acts so churlish towards me.
Precipitous- dangerously high or steep.
-Mount Everest is a precipitous mountain.

THE POINT OF CANTERBURY TALES IS

In the story "Canterbury Tales," the author Chuacer lived in a time period where he had to stay one step smarter then his audience and how the content had to be satirical. Chaucer includes many genres that give a different view on life,  different characters, and all the different walks of life and they all tie in with how he felt about his time period and his experiences in life.

GREEN EGGS AND HAMLET

 a) I really don't know anything about Hamlet. I've always wanted to read it, but I never got around to it. (the second one is not a lie) b) The only thing I know about Shakespeare is that he has written tons of plays and that he is really smart.  c) Well for me personally when teachers say we are going to be reading Shakespeare, the teachers expect the students to undertand the text when it's difficult to read. My problem is that it's sometimes hard to read and the teachers don't always explain it the best. d) I think reading it a loud is a great idea and also having you stop and discuss in detail what Shakespeare is trying to say and if there is any underlining meaning; which there usually is.

vocabulary #5

Shenanigans-mischief; deceit, or prankish.

-My sisters are always doing shenanigan things to my parents and me.

Ricochet-the motion of an object or a projectile in a rebounding or a deflecting way, one or more times.

-The ball ricocheted and hit me right in the back.

Schism-division or disunion, especially into mutually opposed parties.

-Republicans and Democrats are a schism.

Eschew-to abstain or keep away from; shun, or avoid.

-Parents try to eschew alcohol from their kids at an early age.

Plethora-over abundance or excess.

-You could say tree’s aren’t really a plethora any more.

Ebullient-over-flowing with enthusiasm or excitement; high-spirited.

-I like to be ebullient every day.

Garrulous-excessively talkative in a roundabout manner.

-Everyone always has that friend that is garrulous.

Harangue-scolding or a long intense verbal attack.

-My mom likes to harangue me every time I do something wrong.

Interdependence-the state or condition of being mutual reliant on each other.

-Kurt and I are interdependent on each other,

Capricious-subject to, led by, or indicative by a sudden unpredictable change.

-People with erratic behavior can also be categorized as capricious.

Loquacious-talking or tending to talk much; talkative.

-When some people get nervous they become loquacious.

Ephemeral-lasting a very short time.

-The weekend seems to be ephemeral.

Inchoate-not yet fully developed; premature.

-One of my close friends was born inchoate, which made her want to specialize in that field of birth and babies.

Juxtapose-to place close together, side by side.

-To juxtapose something is also to compare two things.

Perspicacious-having keen mental perception and understanding.

-It takes a really intelligent person or actor to be perspicacious.

Codswallop-rubbish, non-sense.

-When a friend says something not smart, you can reply with codswallop and totally impress and freak them out at the same time.

Mungo-low grade wool, from felted rags or waste.

-I can imagine that mungo is not the most comfortable clothing to wear.

Sesquipedalian-given to using long words, containing many syllables.

-In high ranking spelling bees, I can imagine that the words are sesquipedalian.

Wonky-shaky, groggy, unsteady or unreliable.

-Every morning when I wake up, you could describe me as wonky.

Diphthong-an unsegmentable, gliding speech sound varying continuously in phonetic quality but held to be a single sound or phoneme and identified by its apparent beginning and ending sound.

-“The production of a diphthong acoustically is a glide between two sounds.” –Dictionary.com

Literature Analysis #1

Literature Analysis #1

1)     In the story “All the Pretty Horses by Cormac McCarthy, it begins with John Grady Cole’s, the main character, at his grandfather’s funeral. John Grady wants to live and run his own ranch so he decides to horseback to Mexico with his best friend Rawlins. In Mexico they find a perfect ranch to work and live at. Sadly Grady and Rawlins were dragged away from the ranch and thrown in jail for a crime they technically didn’t commit. In this jail Rawlins was severely cut and injured and Grady was almost killed by the men in the prison. Luckily the grandmother of Grady’s secret girlfriend when he was at the ranch, Alejandra, bailed them out of the jail. Unfortunately since the grandmother paid to get them out the deal was that Grady and Alejandra couldn’t see each other anymore. Grady tells Rawlins to go back home to Texas and then Grady tries to negotiate with Alejandra to stay with him, but she ends up following her grandmother’s rules and leaves him. Grady makes his way back to Texas, but he doesn’t stay there, he just keeps on riding on until he finds what he is looking for.

 

2)    The theme of the story would be that to follow your passions and life and see where they take you. They might not always be good, but the knowledge that comes with experience whether it be heartbreak or happiness, it is worth the risk every time.

 

3)    The tone of the story would be adventurous. In mostly every town that Grady and Rawlins pass through in Mexico there is something exciting or new happening. Like in the beginning of the story Grady makes a 3 hour trip to a city in Texas just to see a play. Grady is just adventurous by heart. Then when Grady doesn’t have what he wants in Texas, he is willing to travel to Mexico to find what he wants. Grady doesn’t care that it is a long ride; he embraces the journey with high spirits. And also when the boy Blevins that rode along with Grady and Rawlins lost his horse and needed to get it back. The boys had to come up with a plan to get the horse back from the stable that the townspeople were holding it at. Blevins got his horse back, but had to bust his way through the stable doors and continue riding while men shot at him.

 

4)    Structure- helped me understand the story better in which the author wanted the time period to be in.

P. (7) “The waitress called everyone doll. She took their order and flirted with him. His father took out his cigarettes and lit one and put the pack on the table and put his Third Infantry Zippo lighter on top of it and leaned back and smoked and looked at him.”

Zeitgeist- It was clear from the first few pages that this wasn’t from this time period and helped me the get into that mindset of the older western cowboy times.

P. (1) “The candleflame and the image of the candleflame caught in the pierglass twisted and righted when he entered the hall and again when he shut the door.”

Non vernacular- the usage of not everyday language and using the old western slang helped improve the mood and tone of the story for me. Also the use of Spanish made it even more believable because that was how that period of time was like in Texas and Mexico.

P. (9) “He aint been rode.” P. (10) “There aint nothing to him. Never was.” P. (75) “Es mucho trabajo.”

Style- the certain way that McCarthy wrote the story gave it authenticity and made me believe I was with Grady during that time.

P. (48) “You want to throw something up I’ll hit it, the kid said. Bullshit. The kid shrugged and put the pistol back in the bib of his overalls. Throw what up? said Rawlins. Anything you want. Anything I throw you can hit. Yeah. Bullshit. You throw your pocketbook up in the air and I’ll put a hole in it, he said.”

Setting- McCarthy often used imagery and the setting to give the story a real feeling to it and to make the reader feel as though they were there in the story with Grady and his adventures.

P. (59) “Days to come they rode through the mountains and they crossed at a barren windgap and sat the horses among the rocks and looked out over the country to the south where the last shadows were running over the land before the wind and the sun to the west lay blood red among the shelving clouds and the distant cordilleras ranged down the terminals of the sky to fade from pale to pale of blue and then to nothing at all.”

Foreshadowing- led me to believe something was about to happen so I could be ready for the situation the author would write next.  It helped me to understand the moral of the story when I understand what is going and making predictions throughout the story.

P. (41) “You aint ridin with us, You’ll get us thrown in the jailhouse.”

Simile- constantly used throughout the story. Helped with the imagery and creating a picture inside my head.

P. (68) “It fried em like bacon.”

Non-stereotypical- this story was not a usual cowboy/Western story. The new twist and different takes on things helped me understand the theme more clearly.

P. (254) “The train came huffing in from the south and stood steaming and shuddering with the coach windows curving away down the track like great dominoes smoldering in the dark and he could not but compare this arrival to that one twenty-four hours ago and she touched the silver chain at her throat and turned away and bent to pick up the suitcase and then leaned and kissed him one last time her face all wet and then she was gone. He watched her go as if himself were in some dream.”

Personification- the horses play a huge part in the story and they always seem to have human qualities.

P. (125) “He thought the horse had handled itself well and as he rode he told it so.”

Metaphor- helped to create a better mood and tone for the story.

P. (122) “The mouths of the cans were lensed with tinted cellophane and they cast upon the sheeting a shadowplay in the lights and smoke of antic demon players and a pair of goathawks arced chittering through the partial darkness overhead.”

Pathos- McCarthy did a great job in his diction to make me feel pity, sadness, and disappointment when I needed too.

P. (189) “The next morning crossing the yard Rawlins was set upon by a man with a knife. When John Grady got to him he was sitting with his back to the wall holding his arms crossed over his stomach and rocking back and forth as if he were cold.”

Imagery- plays a huge role throughout the story in helping me picture what is around Grady. Without the constant imagery and setting images, this story would be a totally different one.

P. (5) “The wind was much abated and it was very cold and the sun sat blood red and elliptic under the reefs of bloodred cloud before him.”

CHARACTERIZATION:
1) Two examples of indirect characterization for John Grady would be when Rawlins brags to Blevins about him being one of the best riders he has ever seen and Grady tells him to quit it, but Grady knows that he is a pretty good rider. The other one would be when Alejandra’s grandmothers judges Grady before he even had a chance to explain who he is or his situation.                                                                                                                                                             Two examples of direct characterization for Grady when we see that he is good with horses. We don’t need to hear about him being a horse whisperer, we already know this. Another one is that he is an honest person. Through his actions and dialogue readers can see that he never once told a lie and he acted like an honorable person when dealing with hard situations.                                                                                                                                                    -The author uses both these approaches to show the outside of a character and also the inside. A person may act a certain way around others to impress people, but only a person can see the real side them. By seeing both sides readers can infer which personalities best fit the characters correctly and which traits don’t.

2) Yes the diction changes from when the author is talking about the setting or displaying the imagery from the characters dialogue. It goes from neat and proper in the narrative part, to a type of western drawl when the characters are speaking.

“A single mud street rutted from the recent rains. A squalid alameda where there stood a rotting brushwood gazebo and a few old iron benches.”  To  “When he reached her she lay in her own blood in the grass and he knelt with the rifle and put his hand on her neck and she looked at him and her eyes were warm and wet and there was no fear in them and then she dies.”

3) John Grady is definitely a static character. I thought Grady always had great qualities like being smart and a hard worker. There was no need for him to change. Although John Grady is a static character, he does change in a sense in how he sees the world. In the beginning of the story Grady knows what his goals are, but by the end of the story he’s not too sure of what he wants in life anymore. I wouldn’t want to call Grady a flat character because he has so much depth to him that it has to make him round. His mind works in such a mysterious way that it always appealed to me as a reader.

4)

REFLECTIONS For Week One

1) There's only one thing that may affect my participation in this class is that I'm naturally a shy and quiet person in class. I like to keep to my own thoughts and I know that this class is different then most and I'll have to learn to speak what's on my mind. Other than that, nothing else should affect this experience.

 

2) Freshmen year in Honors English we had to either receit a long speech from the story Romeo and Juliet or make a 10 minute video summarizing the events in the story. My group chose to make a video. I thought making this video would be a drag and I just wanted to get it done with. But it turns out that I had an awesome time making it and being in it. Plus I got to make it with a bunch of my friends and it took us longer then necessary to make it because we were laughing so much. Making this video made me realize that you can have fun learning things in various ways. To this day, only reading Romeo and Juliet once, I can tell you what's it about and the main details about it.

 

3) So far I'm excited and worried about everything. When I learned that we had to make a blog I was nervous because I have never done anything like this before and it scared the poop out of me. But at the same time I was excited because this is something new and if this class didn't require a blog I probably wouldn't have EVER made one and it excites me that I can do it now. This is just the first week of school so I have no clue what is in store for me. I look forward to even more amazing and cool ways in how to learn. Our life isn't going to be like school, where we show up to a classroom, sit down, take out textbooks, and learn. No life isn't that easy and I think this class is practical in the ways we live our lives. That's the the way we are supposed to learn things, in a real and practical way.

POETRY #1.

1) This poem is called the " The Laughing Heart," taken from Charles Bukowski.
2) I find it ironic because the poem talks about life and death and the audacity to start to new things, but yet the commercial is about levi's? Levi's have nothing to do with what the poem has to say.
3) No I don't believe that it does reflect Bukowski's reputation. Most of his other poems are dark, whitty and sometimes cynical, but "The Laughing Heart" has a much lighter mood in which it encourages its readers to be independent and risk takers.
4) For the first question I went onto youtube to see if they mentioned the name of the poem, when they did not, thats when I searched some of the sentences I heard and it gave me Charles Bukowski's poem. For the third question I searched Bukowski's name and it gave me his biograpghy and the site had all the listings of his poems and short stories. It also gave me some examples of his poetry then I compared them to "The Laughing Heart."

Laziness kills

This summer, like the three summers before this one, I was assigned summer homework. Unlike the past summers laziness got the best of me and I didn't complete my summer homework. There is something about summer that always causes me too slack off and do nothing. Why is that? The fact is I have no clue. I feel disappointed in myself for not completing my summer homework and this feeling of disappointment is something I never want to feel again. I promise to work harder now and to complete future assignments because I don't want to let others down and most importantly I don't want to let myself down.