Dead Week

One more week. Just one more week. This is the week of hell if there ever was one. We The People is on Saturday. The hopes I have for my team are so low. We're so screwed. There's no way that we can beat the other schools in our district competition. So, that's disheartening. Then, finals are next week. I'm not too worried about that. They should be pretty easy. Next week should be even better than this week, to be honest. I can invoke my finals tradition of studying until 8:30 and then relaxing for the rest of the evening. I have a whole week to make it through before that, though. Homework and finishing plays and answering long objective questions is not something I look forward to (not to mention Christmas shopping...).

I honestly just can't wait until We The People is over. I feel like my team is solid, two of our testimonies are really good. We have what we need to be able to rock this competition. The other groups on my team are another matter. Some of them have their stuff together, just like my group. Some of them do not. I honestly cannot see us knocking out one of the top three other schools and making it to the state competition. Those schools have established teachers, established programs, and they have something that works. They have a pretty long history of making it to nationals. I just don't see us making it. Not with where we're at.

I'm trying to be positive for this last week. If I just give in to this week being awful, I could certainly make it worse than it might be.

"It's Christmas! Let's be glad! Even if your life's been bad, there are presents to be had!"

It's Christmas 1st!

In an attempt to get out of the November funk, I've been making myself listen to Christmas music. Christmas music always helps me to get into the mood of the season. This year I have expanded my horizons past my families normal Christmas music to something that's more to my liking. My first recommendation to you all is Relient K's holiday album "Let It Snow, Let it Raindeer" (have I mentioned that I love puns?). It features typical songs such as "The 12 days of Christmas", "Sleigh Ride" and what not, but it also has quite a few of their own songs. One of my favorites is "I Hate Christmas Parties" The next album that I would like to mention is "Songs for Christmas" by Sufjan Stevens. This also offers classic Christmas songs, but a few of his own. I really enjoy this album because he takes a very folksy approach to all of these songs. I am especially identifying with his song "It's Christmas! Let's Be Glad!". He also has another album that weeves in and out of holiday favorites, too absurd songs like "Mr. Frost" and "Christmas Unicorn". I highly recommend that you guys give those a look.

Thoughts on Ferguson

I do not want to talk about the Michael Brown case in this post. I feel as if I do not have nearly enough information to be able to discuss it at all, outside of the racial injustice piece. Even then it might be best for me not to speak on it, as I am white. However, I do want to talk about the protests going on because of it.

Thinking about this whole thing brings me such immense pain. I hate the idea of how much people of color are hurting right now. It pains me to realize that we are still living in a world of racism. But I think this issue brings such an important reminder that this is still going on. As a white individuals, we do not have to even think about racial injustice. It doesn't happen to us. But that is absolutely no excuse to pretend that it doesn't exist. This issue is still very much alive. As unbelievable as it sounds, the KKK are still active. African Americans are arrested at six times the rate that whites are. We are among China, Brazil, and Mexico who are fighting against corrupt governments. America is held up to be one of the greatest nations in the world. Can you really still say that?

Is he really crazy?

It was very strange to me to be confronted with Hamlet's madness this week. Inside the text, I feel that Hamlet's words and actions are entirely justified. While many of them are not right, they are at least justified. All of his witty comebacks seem to be simply coming from a very intelligent mind that resents having to associate with lower beings. Perhaps even the real hurt and betrayal he feels towards his uncle and mother. But Hamlet's actions towards Ophelia right before the play, are ones that I simply cannot account for outside of madness. They are unfounded and the exact opposite of what he has told her in every other encounter they have had. I cannot make sense of it.

However this madness is suggested in every enactment of the play I have seen. It is startling to see the interpretation that this man is truly mad throughout. When we watched the film version with David Tennant, it was the first real enactment I had seen. While he performed it incredibly well in my opinion, it was just jarring for me. I'm not sure how to proceed with this revelation, especially as he seems to be slipping more into madness by the scene. We shall just have to see.

Family.

It is becoming more and more apparent to me that I have a very unique relationship with my family. As we trudge on through november, it seems that even parents have been on edge. It might just be in response to frustrated students, but I'm inclined to believe otherwise. I've been the quiet listener to quite a few rants regarding parents this week. I heard about numerous silly arguments that have boiled down to "I'm your parent, I get to decide. That's final."

I feel very blessed that I have a relationship with my parents (well at least my mother) that they are willing to sit down and have a reasonable discussion with me. It seems that other people don't have this relationship with their parents. It feels as though many teens don't have a mutual respect established with their parent. It is just very odd to me that the stereotypical teenager/parent relationship is very much a real thing, and that it is actually very prevalent. Just some food for thought this week.

A Play Within a Play? How Meta!

I would like to take a moment this week and talk about the play within a play contained in Hamlet. I think that Shakespeare employed a great plot device. It was tremendously clever, and I've seen it used so many other places. It's nice to know where all of these things come from. Especially the "The lady doth protest to much me thinks". That was also great. I would also like to take a moment to trumpet Adventure Time for having so many literature parallels. They employ a wonderful reference in the episode "Ignition Point".

In this episode, Finn and Jake venture off to the Flame Kingdom in order to retrieve Flame Princess' scented candles. While they are there, they get mixed up in in a plot to kill Flame King. They decide to take over the night's play and go on stage pretending to be the king's assassins. They watch the audience to try and discover who the real assassins are. However, before they manage to find them, the King has them captured. Finn and Jake then tell him that they overheard the assassins and their plot. It is then revealed that the guards holding the boys are the actual assassins,
and they are the King's nephews. They swear revenge on the Flame King for killing their father and taking the thrown.

It has been so enjoyable to find all of these older literature ideas represented in contemporary entertainment. It really solidifies the idea that it's hard to come up with new ideas nowadays. This frustrates me, but it also encourages me in that as long as you can spin something a new way creatively enough, that it doesn't really seem to matter that you're using and old idea.

Skills USA leadership

I was chosen to represent my school at the Fall Leadership Conference for Skills USA Nevada this weekend. I usually enjoy attending these conferences. They're a lot of fun. I get to meet new people, get some helpful information on how to be a better leader. But this year's conference felt like a mess.

One issue I had with the conference was how they decided to run workshops. These workshops split the large group into many smaller groups and offer short lessons on things like how to effectively run social media for a group, or even how to give better directions. However, instead of signing up for workshops ahead of time, you simply showed up at a workshop. This posed a problem, considering there were 300 of us. Each workshop had a limited amount of people that could attend, and once capacity was met, you were out of luck. That left a few people wandering around, trying to find a workshop when many of them were already full. We were never even given descriptions on what these sessions were about. We simply had to pick based off of the Disney song title that each session was given (the theme for the week was Disney. Leaders land, disneyland, get it?). I have an issue with this because as this is a conference intended to make us better leaders in our Skills Chapters and in our communities, I think that I should be able to attend the workshop that would most benefit me. It felt as though they treated these sessions as a time filler that just needed to be accomplished rather than something helpful that they were offering us. This was particularly frustrating, considering that they did take up a considerable amount of time, and it was entirely possible to get stuck in a boring session that didn't apply to you.

In years past this conference had been well organized and overall helpful to me as a leader. This year really fell short of the bar for me. It was disappointing, considering that it was the last one I would be able to attend. I hope that in future years they can get themselves together, because I truly believe that this kind of event can be a great benefit to students.   

Hamlet!

Oh, my gosh. Hamlet is amazing! I'm so excited that we started it this week. I love the language and all of the sass that Hamlet is throwing down. I am in the perfect mood for reading this play. While it deals with some dark subjects (cough death, suicide cough) the darkness seems to go well with the stress of November. I feel like Hamlet's unrelenting sass is my constant attitude right now. He seems like such a moody teenager. I was very confused when I was informed that Hamlet was actually 30 years old. It seems very odd that a thirty year old man would be so grumpy and moody, not to mention still in college. It's also very interesting that he would still be at odds with his parents at this age. That always struck me as a thing that one would experience in their teens, but once they moved out and away from their parents, the resent would lessen. That is what usually happens, at least in current times. I have found in my experience, that twenty-somethings usually find at least some appreciation for their parents, or the teenage sass and angst dilutes as they grow older and more mature.

Perhaps Hamlet's reaction is reasonable. His mother did remarry very quickly, to her former brother-in-law. Hamlet is very outspoken in his rejection of this new marriage, even calling it incestious (I wasn't aware that this was frowned upon, I actually thought this was the custom so that the widowed woman was still taken care of). His uncle has also taken his thrown, although I'm not sure how much Hamlet wants it in the first place, and brutally insults him infront of the court. If I were still grieving the loss of my father, I might be inclined to be very sassy as well. 

Bereft by Robert Frost

It's strange to say that such a sad poem was refreshing to read. But that is the only word I can find to describe my feelings towards it. Frost's imagery is what gets to me the most in this poem. His description of changing seasons evoked a powerful emotional response from me, a sort of identification with the speakers feelings. I'm a little startled, because I cannot say exactly where this identification comes from. Perhaps this poem is simply cathartic for me. I can feel the deep sorrow that is within it. However I still find a strange beauty in it. I especially enjoy the lines "What would it take my standing there for, Holding open a restive door. Looking down hill to a frothy shore". These lines really solidify the image for me. I imagine the speaker staring down at the shore, with the door trying to push him/her out of the way. I imagine their countenance to be one of pure awe at this terrifyingly beautiful scene.

The last four lines of the poem were also especially impactful for me. "Word I was in the house alone/Somehow must have gotten abroad,/Word I was in my life alone/Word I had no one left but God." Frost's imagery of this empty house reminds me of the song Little Talks by Of Monsters and Men.

I don't like walking around this old and empty house
So hold my hand, I'll walk with you, my dear
The stairs creak as you sleep, it's keeping me awake
It's the house telling you to close your eyes

This song is about the speaker, who has recently lost her husband. There are many references in the song to how creepy the house is without him, even with creeks dispersed throughout the song. The eeriness of that song is what I imagine when I read Frost's poem. I believe the speakers of both have experienced something very similar, some great loss in their lives. I imagine that they might even get along. 

In this autumn season, I can't help but identify with the darkness and sorrow that both pieces convey. I feel as if all three of us are struggling to get out of bed each morning, with the weight of the entire world on their shoulders. 

Over The Garden Wall

It is with my greatest pride and deepest pleasure that I introduce you to my latest obsession: Over the Garden Wall.

Over The Garden Wall is a Cartoon Network miniseries that has been airing all of this week. It follows the story of two brothers, Wirt and Greg, as they try to find their way out of a dark forest and back home. Wirt is a bit of a stick in the mud, and is constantly getting frustrated at his brother for running off and being silly. It gets in the way sometimes, but deep down Wirt truly loves his brother. Along the way they meet many interesting characters such as Fred the talking horse, (video)
some interesting pumpkin people, and a spooky woodsman who warns them to avoid the beast of the forest. Throughout their adventure, many of the people of the forest warn them of the beast. Will they ever find it? Will the beast find them? Will the boys ever get home? Go find out!


I do really encourage you to go watch this show. It'll only take out as much of your time as a movie would. The writing is amazing and very witty. When you think you've figured out what strange thing the boys are encountering, the writers pull the rug from underneath you with a creepy twist. I guarantee that you'll love it, and that's a rock fact!

On Blake

Reading William Blake's The Tyger and The Lamb in class was really enjoyable. The antithesis between the two were absolutely great. Even the color of the two pieces that accompany the poems exemplify the large difference between the two. The Tyger's main colors are a deep orange with highlights of black. The Lamb's colors are blue and yellow, which are psychologically calming colors to go with the peaceful nature of the poem.

It was also enjoyable to discover that they were printed next to each other in the original publication. I am curious to know what order though, because The Lamb seemed to be from the innocent perspective of a child, where as The Tyger is seems as though it is written by an adult that is questioning the world through examining the nature of evil. If The Lamb poem were to go first it would make sense, since it could be seen as a chronological progression of faith. With this mindset, the child would be in the state presented in the poem, one that is only seeing God as good and there being nothing wrong with the world. The child would then grow older and would begin to ask the bigger questions such as why evil exists, and how this benevolent God could create such a terrifying creature as the tiger. However, if these poems were published in the reverse order, it wouldn't present as clearly. There would be a very jarring shift from darkness back to innocence. Either way, Blake could be creating a very purposeful reaction by juxtaposing these poems, I would just like to know which.

The Tower - Part One

I had promised a few weeks ago to talk about Adventure Time. And that day has finally arrived. First, I begin with the episode "The Tower". For those of you who don't watch or haven't seen the episodes leading to this, this episode takes place directly after Finn goes on a search for his father. This adventure takes him to the space prison called "The Citadel". Through this, his father and some other baddies escape and Finn's father abandons him. In the process, Finn loses his arm. He is then left with a stump with a flower at the end of it. As he is dealing with the PTSD of losing his arm and his father, the princesses of the land are trying to help. They are making him prosthetic arms made from various things. However, Finn manages to explode each one. After the explosion of his most recent one, Jake gives him some advice:

This is the first piece of this episode that I think is really important. Jake gives us an important way of solving our problems, He gives the idea of a "Melon Heart", to suggest thinking with your brain, but also with your heart in order to deal with struggles and complex emotions. I point out again that this is a children's show, and the show uses this to its advantage. It presents this complex idea in a way that children can understand it and makes the show meaningful. This is also important to note as a parent, because they are being introduced to this idea, and can be a way to direct you child to help them deal with the struggles that they are and will be facing in the future.

Finn then decides to go and think about what "his melon heart is telling him". He lays in the grass and stares at the sky, thinking about space. He ponders that space is where his dad is, and wonders how he could get up there and find his dad again. He then begins to stack rocks. but not in the way that you think. Finn discovers that he is creating a telekinetic prosthetic arm. He sees this tower that his arm has made, and begins making a tower into space. When Jake returns later, he finds the tower to be much taller and with objects flying up to it, of their own accord. Princess Bubblegum is also there, deciding that she needs a way to get Finn down. 
Also really important. This is where it's important for parents to be watching with their kids. This scene discusses the dynamic between choosing to work through issues rather than just pretending that they don't exist. It is important for parents to recognize that stepping back and letting children work through issues themselves sets them up for a healthier future. But this part of the episode also points out the important piece of when it is okay to step back into the situation because your child isn't handling it in a productive manner.

We then learn that Finn has made his tower so large that it has made it into the clouds. While he's building, he is constantly singing this song:

Baby's building a tower into space
Space is where he's gonna find his dad
Daddy's got an arm 
and baby's gonna harm his arm by tearin' it off his dad

I find this song to be very representative of Finn's overall goal. The fact that he repeats it for the entire time that he is building the tower shows his motivation. He is driven solely be the idea of "eye for an eye" that he cannot see anything else. It also shows how little Finn has thought about his plan. Finn has a basic knowledge of space, enough to know that it's a pretty big place. His sole focus is getting just a little closer to where he thinks his dad will be, that he doesn't think about how to get around in space or that breathing will soon be an issue.

Finn then encounters a cloud person, by accidentally entering her house. She seems very alarmed and hits him with some lightning in order to get him out of her house. She makes some vague comments about how Finn must be a "swimmer", and how she's not water anymore, so Finn cannot get her up his nose any more. The cloud person then returns the next day and hears Finn singing his song. She introduces herself as Carroll and asks if Finn is really going to do those things. She tells him that revenge isn't the best way. "I get it, I get it. But let me tell you something. I used to be water. Like a pond or something real wet. I used to hate people swimming in me, kicking and stuff. So what did I do? I evaporated, I got myself out of there." She says. "Listen, you have to stop obsessing about revenge.  Be like me and run away, you have to run away and never stop hating your old life. You gotta really dwell on it."

Now Carroll presents Finn with some very important advice. She states that revenge isn't the best way. But she also presents and equally unhealthy way of dealing with issues. Carroll took one good step, and that was getting out of the situation. However, she never dealt with the trauma that it caused her and is still suffering as a result. She is even still paranoid about something like that happening again, like we saw in their first encounter. 

The next thing she says is representative of her pushed-down feelings. 

I find this wording to be incredibly clever. Carroll describes what it feels like to think about past hurts. When we don't deal with these hurt feelings, thinking about them can be like touching something hot and wanting to pull away. Sometimes the more we think about them, the more they hurt. But Carroll is an example of how we need to deal with these issues. Because if we don't they'll just fester and leave us afraid of new relationships.

That's it for part one! Stay tuned for the second half in the coming weeks!

Frankenstein

The ending of Frankenstein seemed oddly reminiscent of the ending of Othello. I was slightly surprised that the monster seemed so remorseful immediately following Frankenstein's death, which is similar to Othello immediately discovering that the death of Desdemona was unjust. After some reflection, I suppose that it would make sense that he would mourn the death of his creator. The monster was an emotional creature, he certainly wasn't heartless. However, he had seemed so bent on Frankenstein's destruction and knew the consequences of his actions beforehand, for him to turn around and immediately regret them. The ending also seemed anti-climactic with the return to the epistolary frame. It seemed to just end. I was hoping that the speaker would at least have continued to seek his goal or offer some sort of closure to the novel outside of Frankenstein's death. But perhaps that was Shelley's goal. Not all  stories are meant to have a satisfying ending and serve the novel better to leave the endings as they are.

SnafuCon 2014

I had the pleasure of attending this year's Snafu Con this past weekend. I had an amazing time getting to explore everything the convention had to offer. (For those of you who aren't familiar with the event, it is Sierra Nevada Anime Fans Unite, and takes place in my home town every year.) Everyone was dressed in fabulous cosplays, and was having an incredible time. I love that events like this because they bring so many amazing people together over a similar interest. It was like one giant geek fest, with no one looking down on anyone else. Everyone I met was nice and just excited to be there.

For a good chunk of the time, I was there to support my friend at her artist's alley table where she sold her artwork. She sold a variety of prints, key chains and even a bunch of stickers.

(If you see something you like, she has an online store that you should go check out!)

I also had the opportunity to cosplay for the first time! I made one for Mabel from Gravity Falls. It was so much fun, I can't wait to make another. I even got a few compliments, and asked for pictures.

You made me this way! You're my glob!

I've been discovering recently that experiencing the original content for something that pop culture references constantly, is an incredibly rewarding experience. While yes, there is some disappointment in not being able truly experience something for the first time, free of stigma and spoilers given away in endless references. But I've been finding that pop culture has skewed the original content, and that the original is never given the credit for being awesome that it deserves. However, one thing has bothered me in the time that I have been reading Frankenstein. It seems that I have overlooked an amazing reference to the novel, a reference that holds mostly true to the character of the novel. This reference resides within (you guessed it) an episode of Adventure Time. 

In the episode "You Made Me", Lemongrab, who is an artificial creation of Princess Bubblegum, has an existential crisis of sorts. While the obvious reference is the creation of life, Adventure Time manages to slide in a few more clever references that stay true to the creature in the novel. In the episode, Lemongrab is discovered to be spying on the candy citizens, by hiding in the dark while they are asleep. This is reminiscent of the monster hiding in the shed of the side of the cottage. Lemongrab observes them in a similar way, trying to learn about these creatures that are like him, and yet so different. The next, which I would argue is the most clever of the episode, the confrontation between Lemongrab and Princess Bubblegum. Similarly to the monster and Frankenstein, Lemongrab approaches Bubblegum saying "It's all your fault, you made me this way." Bubblegum tries to reason with him, asking him what he wants. Lemongrab then responds with the argument that, being the earl of Lemongrab, he governs no one. He wants candy people to be under his rule, to alleviate his solitude. He then blames Bubblegum again, and falls out a window. He runs down the road, screaming, "You made me, you're my glob (the adventure time equivalent to God)" This is where I believe that this episode keeps the idea of Frankenstein the most. It makes a direct reference to the reference (reference-ception?) to Paradise lost, and the idea of Frankenstein being in the same predicament as God, and rejecting his creation. Even more interestingly, however, is that Princess Bubblegum never openly rejects Lemongrab. She shows compassion and the willingness to do whatever It takes to get Lemongrab to a healthy state. Whether her motives simply stem out of her concerns for her citizens and the absolute rejection they have of Lemongrab (just like Victor's concern for his family) I cannot say, but it is certainly another excellent reason for my love of Adventure Time.  

 

Meditation on Death

It has been quite a week for death. On Wednesday, I had to discover on Facebook that a friend has taken their own life. This morning, I find out that a friend has also lost their mother to the same cause. I can't even imagine what he must be going through. Death seems to be everywhere, even in English. It seems so unfair to me to have to study Othello's murder on a day like this. It is unfair that he believed taking Desdemona's life was just because of her "unfaithfulness", when people around the world are taking their own lives because they cannot find a reason to keep living. The fact that Othello takes the life of Desdemona, a pure, innocent, and joyful person, to save other men from her, angers me to the core. And I know that this is no fault of Shakespeare, or even my teacher for having us study this on such a difficult day. Heartbreak over Desdemona's death was what Shakespeare intended. But today was just not the day for it.

College....

Oh dear god, it is almost October. Which means it's almost my birthday, but once that passes everything goes downhill, and it goes quickly. For the past month, I've dealt with the pent up college/graduating anxiety by reminding myself constantly that it's only September. Nothing is slipping out of your fingers yet, applications aren't due yet. It's not even sweater weather yet, girl! But today that quickly fell to shambles. A capstone update is due next Friday, and I have done almost no work on it what so ever. I'm afraid that it won't work out as I had hoped. I would hate to fall back on that math class next spring, and miss the opportunity to do an amazing project. College application deadlines are approaching soon. My stomach is still eating away at me because I only have two colleges that I want to apply to anymore, and one of them has not wanted to talk to me at all. I am having trouble finding scholarships that even apply to me. I probably shouldn't be complaining too much on the scholarship front, however. I was recently told by my parents that my grandmother has set aside a large amount of money, so that I can go to college. Why they only told me this now, is beyond me (apparently that money has been sitting there for quite some time now). I wish that I could keep living in a state of denial, and pretend that college is so far away. But I need to break out of that shell, and realize that it's staring me in the face. It's time to hit the ground running, blondie. You can do it. You can get through this.

The Moor of Venice has an X-men complex

While we were reading through Act five in class yesterday, I had a realization. Othello has an X-men complex. The only thing that bothers me about X-men movies (or at least the contemporary ones...do other ones exist? I have no idea.) is that a threat is introduced, and then almost nothing happens for the next hour of the movie. There is absolutely useless plot information, characters that the director has given me no reason to care about, an incredibly fast escalation, a large fight scene, and then the movie is over. The good guys have triumphed, at least until the next movie. It has absolutely no flow, and the small anecdotes are rather uninteresting. This structure makes it so that I can watch the first twenty minutes of the movie and the last half an hour, and completely understand the plot. The same could be said about Othello. Act one opens with an interesting controversy, Othello and Desdemona's love, and a plot from Iago to destroy it. The next three acts have semi-interesting points and some engaging character development (Othello went crazy very quickly...), and it is left to the final act for everything to collapse over a course of 11 pages. Which leaves me wondering if this was the case for other Shakespearean tragedies. Did I just miss it in the others? Or were the others simply more engaging? I feel the need to reread some of them, to find out.

Confliction.

I know that I had promised Adventure Time, but those episodes have proved to need way more time than I have had recently. I've had something on my mind that I have wanted to talk about. Being on Tumblr so often has skewed my views on a few important matters. Most of the time, they're on social injustices in the world such as discrimination and racism. I can find myself justifying these opinions on ideas such as racism and sexism, because they encourage the harm and mistreatment of people. I have been speaking out about these matters more, because American culture says treating people as lesser than a human being is okay, if it's only a joke. But today I found myself yelling at a fellow student for standing for the pledge of allegiance and giving a nazi salute. I don't even say the pledge myself, and view it as an odd nationalistic custom in the American school system. However, I still found the gesture to be inappropriate, so I called him on it.

What happened next shouldn't have surprised me. A student that I respect very much, turned around and made a holocaust joke. I was also upset by this, and asked him why he thought that joke was funny. He then proceeded to point out that rejecting this sort of humor represents that I am uncomfortable talking about such a topic, even if it's in a historical context.

There is something to be said about dealing with tragedy through humor. But I do not find it acceptable to joke on matters of the massive mistreatment and horrific killings of people. I find this to be on the same level as rape jokes. There is no justification for making a joke out of such horrific actions. Am I in the right for calling them out on it? Or am I stuck in white guilt and "uncomfortable with talking about things like this" since I cannot find humor in them? Are holocaust jokes really historical satire? Or is almost 75 years enough that I should be desensitized?

"Moor" on Othello (Hooray for puns!)

After finishing Act 2, I have been left with a few questions. Is Iago's motivation truly because of his wife's "rumored" unfaithfulness? Why does vengeance for this accusation allow my brain to process his actions as justifiable? Is it because of all of his wit and surface sympathy for his fellow characters?

There is a small mention that Iago's motivation is based solely off of a rumor. What if it is only a rumor, and nothing more? Will this come back to bite Iago? And does the fact that Othello has already harmed Iago justify his actions? In an real world situation, of course not. An eye for an eye is never the answer to any conflict. All that results is more violence, anger, and resent to be left unresolved. But the context of literature changes that. Many hunger for the story of the underdog getting revenge on his oppressors. But is this right?

What makes Iago so appealing in the first place? His cunning and manipulative behavior certainly makes me like his character. The rhetoric he uses with other characters, makes me forget that he is the main antagonist in the play. Perhaps most appealing, is the view into the mind of the villain himself. It is often forgotten that villains believe that they are doing the right thing. In Iago's case, he is seeking revenge on Othello for "holding his office" with his wife. This action, while not necessarily correct, is enough for me to justify his campaign against Othello.

So for the time being, I have decided to empathize with Iago. I cannot wait to see where this clever character leads his prey next. I am afraid for this decision, because I have been told by a classmate that by the end of the play, I will despise him. But we shall see...

Podcasts.

I love podcasts. I've been listening to the Welcome to Night Vale podcast for a little over a year, and let me tell you, it is just fabulous. It is a wonderfully written podcast with a heavy dose of weird. But over the span of that year, Welcome to Night Vale was the only podcast I would listen to. When the two week gap between episodes became too much for me, I began exploring the wonderful world of podcasting. First, I started with How to Do Everything, hosted by NPR's Mike Danforth and Ian Chillag. I even managed to ask a them a question. That question was "how does one 'moo' in a British accent". And you know what they did? They contacted Patrick Stewart and asked him to demonstrate the different dialects of British cows. It was amazing. 

But what's making me happy this week, is the podcast Pop Culture Happy Hour. This podcast takes explores pop culture in a way that I had rarely heard before, and that is thoughtfully, and in a manner you might hear in an English class. It is absolutely amazing. While it offers an in-depth breakdown of the things that I love, it also gives me new things to go and watch, listen to, and read. But most importantly, it is giving me the tools to be able to take content and break on my own, while having a fun time doing it. 

Another podcast that is tickling my fancy this week, is Ask Me Another. It is a very witty and clever word puzzle show. They play silly games involving obscured word tricks, singing very frequently, (have I mentioned that Jonathan Coulton frequents the show?) and so many terrible puns. So go check it out! 

Othello!

I am so excited that we started Othello today! In the classes leading up to it, I was a little worried because I haven't read Shakespeare in a while. But it felt very easy to get back into, and I can't wait to keep reading. I was also excited because Othello isn't a play I have heard much about. With Romeo and Juliet, Hamlet, ect. it's easy to have some experience with it before reading it for the first time. It's pleasant to be able to experience a classic for the first time, without the stigma or prior knowledge of how it ends.

I'm also very excited to discover that the play's main protagonist is a person of color. While, yes, the utter racism portrayed absolutely breaks my heart, it is so amazing to see something like this coming from the 17th century. It also leaves me wondering if they got an actual person of color to play Othello. While I'm sure there is only racism and death ahead for our poor Othello, I can't wait to read the rest of it.

What time is it!?

I love Adventure Time. Now just hear me out. I know that some of you are groaning, and skipping over this post as we speak. If you are, I'm going to guess that you see Adventure Time as "just a cartoon" and know only of the show's nature to have an occasional fart joke. But this show has so much more to offer.

Adventure Time is so important. While, yes, they still need to attract their audience of primarily children (which does mean fart jokes sometimes...), the writers on this show are absolutely amazing. The fact that they manage to discuss so many important and difficult themes, while still catering to their main audience, simply astounds me. So, over my next few posts, I will be sharing a recent arc of the show that really packed a punch for me. These four episodes discuss issues such as searching of a loved one, making sacrifices, betrayal, seeking revenge, dealing with difficult emotions, when to step back (including as a friend and as a parent), and even using sexuality as a way of avoiding one's problems.

If you're awesome and want to watch any of these episodes before I talk about them, here's the list:
"Wake Up"
"Escape from the Citadel"
"The Tower"
"Breezy"

If you choose not to, there will be spoilers! Beware!

"Seeing Catch-22 Twice" - Maybe you should look again?

"Seeing Catch-22 Twice" was a very intriguing article to read. Ron Rosenbaum was able to craft a very relaxed, yet analytical piece regarding the novel and it's religious commentary. Rosenbaum wrote a respectable and well argued article. Except in one instance. Towards the end of the article, Rosenbaum cites the passage of the soldier who sees everything twice. "...for it's Marx Bros. Refusal of logic and the fact that everyone accepts it as logically as possible." Okay. That's agreeable. "...perhaps the thematic high point of the book, is Yossarian's astonishingly scathing denunciation of God." Wait. Back it up. Yes, I can agree that this passage can mean a number of things. But how this passage relates to Yossarian and Lt. Scheisskoph's wife's conversation about God, is beyond me. Rosenbaum fails to relate this passage's importance to the reader what so ever. He simply "connects" this passage to a more relevant one, and simply moves on. While I'm probably the only person who had this issue, please back up all of your claims Mr. Rosenbaum. I would love to be enlightened at where you saw this connection.