MY LAST BLOG!!!!

So this is our last day in this class and our last blog. This semester we have done a lot of things in a short of amount of time. I think my favorite thing about this class was when we learned about Italian Literature, The Inferno. To me is was way interesting with all the rings of hell he made up and kind of weird and demented that he came up with those things. Its weird to think that someone could actually come up something like that. The other piece that I really liked was when we read Hamlet. Even though it was only for 3 days I think I understand it more than all the other things we've learned. This was a good class and I enjoyed it. :) Thanks for a good last english class.

The Inferno

So this past week we have been reading parts of the Inferno, and so far it seems interesting. Dante had a very twisted mind and it shows in what he wrote. So far we've read the beginning part and read about the 2nd part of hell. I think that this story is really good from what i've read. We only read the parts that the book think is the most important parts. The second story is about lust and it told a story about one of the people who are in this circle of hell. The person who he talks to is Francesca, and she is there because her and paris were together when she was married to Giovanni, and he found out about them and killed them both. So far in this semester I think that this is my favorite thing that we've done. Just because its strangely  cool to me. Its weird, yes, but it kind of draws you in.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/a/a4/Dante-alighieri.jpg/220px-Dante-alighieri.jpg

Aeneas, Hero? or not?

Dido & Aeneas

    We have been reading The Aeneid and the one part of the story we read was called The Passion of the Queen. In this story two people fall in love, Dido and Aeneas, they meet each other and instantly fall in love. I guess you can say they got hit by cupids arrow. In this story the two go to a cavern because theres this huge storm, Juno, the goddess of marriage, kind of made the storm happen so she could get these two together and marry them. At the beginning I guess it all was working out until Aeneas has this dream and Mercury, another god, gets into his dream and tells him you can't do this you have to find Rome, cause that was his mission all along. Aeneas tries to leave Dido without her knowing about it, now to me thats just rude. Dido finds out and she is beyond mad at him which she has a right to be. They get into this argument and Dido leaves, although Aeneas wanted to follow her, he didn't because he knew what he had to do, which is to find Rome. In the end Dido kills herself because she can't live without him or whatever.

Our modern day "Heroes" & Ancient Heroes

     So in this blog i'm supposed to tell you if Aeneas is a hero or not. We kind of went over this question in class and when I first answered this I said he wasn't a hero. The reason being was that in my mind he didn't sacrifice anything, like he left to be a king of a country, to have power and then give the power to his son when he's gone. That he left Dido and broke her heart. To me he chose power over love. When we talked about it in class I kind of started to think that he is a hero. So thats my answer, Aeneas is a hero. The reason why is because when he met Dido he was on his mission already and this I didn't know. He really did love her but had to sacrifice his own love and happiness, to find Rome so the people of Troy could have a place to be again after the war. Now we didn't read the whole story just this one part and that confused me because we didn't really know what happened in the beginning. The reason I said no to begin with was because I didn't know the whole background of the story and we just jumped into it. We got told what happened in the beginning and thats what changed my mind. Aeneas is a hero for finding Rome, giving the people of Troy a new home, and chose to pick his people over love, which had to be hard. I don't think I would be that strong enough to leave the one I love, so it's cool he had the strength to do what he did.

Artwork

    The last thing that we did with Epics were to watch a part of an opera that was based on this story. To me I didn't like it much because i'm not into that kind of music but it was interesting to see how the viewed the story through music and art. It gives us a visual way of understanding it when the text gets hard to understand. This unit for me, was kind of difficult to follow and understand, but when it was explained more I got it. Stories from a long time ago have more meaning than the stories we have now, but there is still things that haven't changed, as in heros, love, and wars.
   

Epics

http://dsbs42.files.wordpress.com/2012/01/iliad.jpg

So this whole week we have been reading a lot of epics. The first one that we read was The Iliad. We didn't really read the full story just part of it and it was really confusing to me. I could hardly understand half of what I was reading because of all the difficult words. I think they should change the words so we can understand it better, but then again we should learn all of the tough words to have a better vocabulary so I see in two different ways. We read the part of where Hektor and Achilles were fighting. The reason that Achilles wanted to fight Hektor was because Hektor killed Achilles nephew or someone in his family. The reason being was that Hektor thought it was Achilles. In the end Achilles killed Hektor. The part of the story that we read had great details about each part. I think we read 3 stories in The Iliad but not quite for sure. Epics are really long poems basically and very hard to read, I think. They've made a movie about The Iliad and its called Troy with Brad Pitt in it. I've never seen it before, but i've seen a clip from it when the greeks gave the trojans the trojan horse and they hid in the horse and came out at night when everyone was sleeping anf killed a lot of people. That scene alone kind of made me want to watch it. We moved on and are starting to read the Aeneid. I havent read much of it so im not sure on what its like but next time I'll maybe blog about it.

Chinese Literature

http://www.iupress.indiana.edu/images/books/9780253337108_med.jpg

For the past week or two we have been learning about Chinese Literature and its been interesting to say the least. We've learned about Confucianism, Buddhism, and Taoism. We've had to figure out how to translate the chinese symbols into what we thought the poem said. We had this word bank type thing so it wasn't that bad. When Mrs. Olson read how the other two people translated it, we weren't that far off which was cool cause i did think we would do so hot on it. We also compared the Chinese folk songs to American folk songs and you could tell the difference in what they value and what we do. There's is always about love and ours is always about freedom what what has happened in the past. To me it was very interesting and was really glad we got to learn about all of it.

Chapters 4-9 Pride and Prejudice

http://janeaustensworld.files.wordpress.com/2010/06/081908_pride_janesick.jpg

So from the last time i blogged it was all about them finding someone to marry and they went to this ball. Since then they keep on talking to each other about the ball and what people have said about them and might i add its not that nice. Jane gets this letter from Miss Bingley for her to come for dinner. Jane then goes on horseback to her house while it was pouring. Her mom wouldn't let her take the carriage so Jane would get stuck there. Elizabeth gets this letter from Miss Bingley to inform them that Jane had gotten sick. Elizabeth was really worried for Jane so she walked 3 miles to get to Miss Bingley's house. Elizabeth did not look very presentable about Miss Hurst and Miss Bingley weren't so nice to her. She got  to Jane and she was very sick. She stayed that night but stayed by Jane's side the whole time but to eat.  Every time Elizabeth would leave the room they would talk about her to me thats a bit rude for the fact that they don't even know her like at all. But its the way life is no matter where you go you get judged and criticized. By the end of the night Jane had gotten worse and when morning hit they called Mrs. Bennet and they came right away. They also called the doctor. Once they had got there they saw and checked Jane out to see what was going on. It was just a really bad cold, so they say anyway. Jane can not be moved at all. Again so far its pretty good and i think i understand most of what i'm reading theres some parts where its not the best. To me its starting off a little slow but i have faith in it.

Chapters 1-4 of Pride & Prejudice

http://blog.lib.umn.edu/raim0007/gwss3307_summer2008/pride%20and%20prejudice%203.jpg

Right in the beginning Mrs. Bennet is talking to Mr. Bennet about how he needs to talk to Mr. Bingley, because Mrs. Bennet wants him to be with one of her girls. Mr. Bennet did not want to talk to him but in the end he did and he came for the ball that they were having. He brought his friend Mr. Darcy, he was handsome but very rude. He thinks he's above all the girls who are there and Mr. Bingley is trying to get him to have fun with someone but its going no where. Mr. Bingly is very interested in Jane Bennet. When  the ball was over and it was the next day the girls went to there friends house and talked about the night at the ball. This was as far as i got. Even though I haven't read much of it but so far its pretty good and I like it. Its kind of hard to read at times but i understand most of it. I really like the way its written too.

Switching

http://magicoficecream.files.wordpress.com/2011/05/pride-prejudice-book.jpg

So I have been reading 1984, but I just can not seem to get into the book for the life of me. It's not that interesting or the type of book i'm interested in. So i'm switching to Pride & Prejudice by Jane Austen. Some of you may have seen the movie, but i haven't. This book is about how these sisters who wont get married. Their mom is trying everything to find them a husband, but Elizabeth Bennet, the main character, is doing everything she can to find something wrong with every guy she meets. I'm kind of excited to read this book, because it sounds like something I would love to read. I will keep updates on how its going.

Rustam & Suhrab

http://blsciblogs.baruch.cuny.edu/warriorsanonymous/files/2010/12/rostam_sohrab.jpg

This week I really didn't have that much time to read with so many things going on. So I'll be posting about what we read in class this week. We read a short story called Rustam and Suhrab. It was an older story about a father and son. In the beginning it starts off as Suhrab wants to find his father, so he goes into this battle, just him and Rustam. Suhrab thinks this may be his father so he tries to get Rustam to not want to fight with him but Rustam wasn't about to have that so they started to fight. Suhrab was winning and just about to kill Rustam. Just before Rustam said, you can't take ones head until you've had them to the ground twice, but this wasn't true. Shurab lets him go believing what he had said. The next day they fought again. This time Rustam gets Shurab and stabs him. Suhrab tells Rustam he has this Jewel that his mother gave to him and she had said that it belongs to his father. Rustam then opens his jacket and there the jewel was and it was Rustam's from long ago. Rustam killed his own son. He sat there and just held him and cried. While were were read this we talked about irony and how Suhrab tried to get his father not to fight and Rustam wouldnt have it. I thought that this story was really good and that people should really read it. It has a lot of metaphors and we talked about that too.

Just the beginning

davinciinstitute.com

I've just started reading this book. In the beginning of the book it talks about the main character Winston Smith and he's in this staircase and he see's this picture with an eye with a caption saying "Big Brother is Watching You."  Winston has his back turned toward the picture, because he knows someones watching. No matter where you are in your house, at work, friends house, or even out in the street someone is always watching. To me that would just freak me out and would make me not want to say anything to anyone. I haven't read much of the book, but it's interesting so far. It's a the type of book where it just starts right on in on what it's about. 

1984

The book I choose was 1984 by George Orwell. Its about how the government monitors everyones every move and how much the government controls everything.