It's like 10,000 thoughts, when all you need is a blog....

While on the computer, packing for Reno, and maintaining my fantasy baseball team, I thought, well, why not blog? But what to blog about? The what seemed like 100 hero books we read? Or the 10 women books that we read that just never seemed to end? Or those soul-crushing soul-selling books? Why not talk about irony? Too many questions? Hmmm. Anyway, let's talk about every single book we have read throughout our high school career. They all seem to mesh together with tragedies, heroes, women, plot twists, framing, motifs, themes, and symbols. But it's the books that really stick out in my mind like: Animal Farm, To Kill A Mockingbird, Julius Caesar, The Power of One, The Fountainhead, and A Thousand Splendid Suns. These books are what I believe make up just about every theme we've talked about. These are the classics they ask about throughout our entire lives and we've had these amazing teachers make us analyze and read these books so that we can understand literature. Animal Farm is one of my favorite books even before I knew it was an allegory to the Communist Revolution. Either way, the book is totally B.A. To be honest, I have never really liked English as a subject, I am and always will be a history buff, and that's why I will becoming a history education major. But the books that have historical context to them, such as Animal Farm, really spark my interest in learning. But now that I've rambled on to the point of being crazy, or am I? Or was this all the insane ramblings of those that the narrator in The Tell Tale Heart did? OH! BAM! Gotcha Mrs. Burnett. I bet you think that I'm crazy, just like the narrator. Being focused only on one thing, books, just like he was with the eye. Everyday I have these ramblings in class and I am just as insane on concentrating on one subject just as he was, except I don't plan on killing anybody, just watching Terminator 2 like 10,000 times. So before you give this blog a 0, just remember the similarities the narrator and I have in our ramblings. In all seriousness I really enjoy blogging, I really enjoyed this year's class, and I really enjoy going to lunch immediately afterwards. (Just kidding, but seriously I do love lunch.) It's been a blast, I'm super psyched to pass the AP test which you have more than prepared us for, :) and I hope to be a great teacher just as you are. PS: This is not some lame attempt to suck up. ;)

"You were hot shit back in Hickville...."

First and foremost, Big Fish is my favorite movie and I know that may surprise you. I saw the movie around the time that it came out on DVD and instantly fell in love. The stories, the characters, and not to mention my love for Ewan McGregor and Danny DeVito (whom I met :) ). But it wasn't until I read the connections that Edward Bloom wanted to be immortalized just as others did in the books that we read. The thought of that never crossed my mind in the 100s of times I have seen Big Fish. The thought of it kind of left a taste in my mouth and I thought of what Amos Calloway said, "Sure I do! You were hot shit back in Hickville, but here in the real world, you got squat! You don't have a plan, you don't have a job, you don't have anything except the clothes on your back." So Edward Bloom made himself immortalized in his stories that would be passed on by his family members. His different and exciting life filled with all sorts of adventures is exactly how he would be known. Not by extreme beauty or his magical abilities (or whatever happened in The Stranger), but by his family. And I think that mainly this is a masculine thing, to be remembered by future generations. They erect buildings or want their names on the side of a plane (Up in the Air) so that people will remember them when they're gone. And honestly, I would like the same thing to happen, to be remembered. And the transition that high school students are going to make this fall from a small pond to the ocean is frightening. I know that I can be seen as a somewhat big fish and that people will remember me for some years, but how long will that last? How can I immortalize myself in such a way that people will remember me? The whole thought scares me, because in college I want to be known. Not as the kid who sits in the classroom and sneezes to loud, but as someone that my classmate will remember. Oxford can be seen as a "Hickville," but I know that I'm going into the ocean, and I don't want to drown.......

A Thousand Splendid Sons....

So far A Thousand Splendid Suns had been my favorite book to read this year. But if was not my favorite book to get, shelling out approximately $16.00 for it, even though I work at a bookstore. This book raises a lot of questions that Americans wouldn't be able to answer. Do people really live like this? Are women that oppressed? Is gender equality that far off from our society? And the answer is yes to all questions. The unfairness that Mariam, Laila, and all the other women in Afghanistan had to face each day was so harsh. When Laila went to visit Aziza at the orphanage, she was whipped along the way, because she needed a male escort everywhere she went. The whole idea of not being able to leave the house without a man is so unorthodox. Where would American women be if a terrorist group took over the country? Or what if it were women that took over and men, for once, were oppressed? It would be so difficult to imagine because we are in a sheltered life. I see this book as an eye opener, mainly because I get somewhat understand the situation is because I can see it on the news. Other books like The Awakening and A Doll's House showed what it was like for women at the time, but the idea was a little confusing in my mind. A Thousand Splendid Suns let me know what they are like for present day women and see that they still do live like this. Which is sad. :( But an overall good book.

The Awakening: Beaten to Death (Get It?)

Given the circumstances that we talked about The Awakening all week, one more time wouldn't hurt. But then, I was at work reading A Thousand Splendid Suns when a lady approached me and said, "Wow that is such a great book, I read it in one sitting. It makes me feel great that I am a woman in America." And I thought to myself, that is a true statement. But I compared what it was like for Edna and what it was like for Mariam and Laila. Aren't they the same? As stated in class, it was always, "Well in Edna's situation.... And in Edna's society..... In Edna's time period....." But the things that Edna faced are still faced today. The whole thought process between the women characters in these novels really makes me angry. Because it is unfortunate that we live a sheltered life in Oxford where everyone lives in the (almost) ideal lifestyle, where men and women are equal. But that's not how things work in the world and literature. But characters such as Edna, Laila, Mariam, and Nora live lives that are so unbearable that they have to change their entire lives. They have these drastic changes that men don't have to change, which is unfair to them. I cannot stand inequality between genders and it infuriates me reading these novels where women live in these backwords societies. When women are put into situations like Laila was, where she was rescued, then forced into marriage, it really stinks that they have no other options in Afghanistan. Even if these situations are fictional, they really happen in all across the globe. It can be very difficult for women to move up in society whether it be through a dominant husband who doesn't allow her to work, or a country that doesn't allow women to be alone in public. These novels can be a real eye opener. Thank you for letting/making me read them.