TR

I always hate Tuesday/Thursday classes. They're half an hour longer and I never seem to take anything interesting on these days.
At 9:30 a.m., I have the most horrible and excruciating course I've ever taken. It's a Writing Intensive class called Critical Approaches to the Study of Literature. It is the keystone class that English majors are forced to take. No one likes it, everyone complains about it, and it's that one class that makes or breaks an English major. If you can't handle it, get out of the department!!

What makes it worse is the professor I got. She's a dot of a woman with scary teeth and Harry Potter-like glasses. And after nearly ever sentence, she cackles!!! She says something clearly not humorous and cackles at herself. She goes off topic, is unclear in her teaching, doesn't know how to operate simple technology, and is making this class impossible to pass. Obviously, my feelings toward her are of great dislike.

At 3:35 p.m., I have Internet and Society, a class to give me hours for my financial aid requirement. It is taught by a small Chinese woman who speaks incredibly good English but with a heavy accent. She's so incredibly adorable, but her class is slow and just one PowerPoint slide after another. The interesting aspect of this class comes from my sarcastic and rambunctious classmates. They keep the class moving as we guess what word our professor is trying to pronounce and asking abstract questions about the Internet. Our final project is making an online blog. Unfortunately, I'm not allowed to use this blog. I must make a new one and report on my research for the paper we are working on. We have to pick a country and describe how that country uses the Internet. I wanted Egypt for obvious reasons, but had to pick Ireland instead. The Irish aren't very plugged in so I plan to focus on how Irish citizens aren't online in this day and age. I'm not sure yet how to turn that into a blog, but we'll see.
My Tuesdays and Thursdays are days I suffer through. Thankfully, it's only twice a week! I look to my Mondays and Wednesdays when I got to Brit Lit and Friday when the week is done!!!

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34. The Quiet American

Book 34: The Quiet American by Graham Greene (B)

Brendan Fraser (Pyle) and Michael Caine 

(Fowler)

This book wasn't nearly as interesting as Nineteen Eighty-Four, but it had some bright moments. It takes place during the fighting between Vietnam and France after World War II and before America becomes involved. Fowler, a British journalist, is writing on the war while living with and loving on a Vietnamese woman named Phoung. Fowler refuses to become involved in anything! He stands on the sideline and watches what's happening around him. Along comes Pyle, an American CIA agent. Pyle is blissfully and annoyingly ignorant and naive about the way of life in Vietnam. He also falls in love with Phoung and decides he wants to marry her, asking Fowler's permission to do so. When Fowler loses Phoung to Pyle because Fowler's wife won't divorce him, Fowler begins to rethink his decision to stay on the sidelines and "not be involved." When Pyle's involvement in the Vietnam way of life starts to get out of hand, he forces Fowler to finally make a decision and jump into the world that Fowler had been not living in for so long.
Greene writes well and the book is clear and concise. I find Greene's interpretation of an American to be slightly offensive as Pyle comes out as loud, ignorant, and downright stupid. He's straight up obnoxious! The character is anything but "quiet," which gives the title an ironic twist. Maybe Greene is referring to that there's no such thing as a "quiet American."
The Quiet American is a classic for sure. It captures a time that many Americans don't understand or don't know much about. The way of life, particularly for a journalist, was the thing to have in colonist Vietnam, reporting on a war many only saw from afar. Greene does a marvelous job of capturing that.

Photo of the Day September 17

To fight the battle of cage boredom which is known for hamsters, I went out and bought a small animal playpen. I try to give her at least ten to fifteen minutes in it every night. She has a ball running around in her wheel (she got a new one because the green one pictured was worn down for all night use) and gnawing on her new toys! It's quite a handy thing. The only problem with it is there's no lid. Sparta, who has now returned to my home in Greensboro, finds that a hamster in an open cage is just irresistible. So, I have to lock him out of his own room, which I don't like to do for long. Still, seeing Nutmeg run around in that little pen is too adorable!!! I'm happy she likes it.

Photo of the Day September 16

Fall is coming!! Already, I can feel it on the chilly breeze. It's so nice. All night, I had the windows open and snuggled down into my fluffy comforter. If only Stuart had been there too...!!
I took this photo for my boss from The Western Carolinian to show him I'd been made a staff member. I had my first assignment this week. I wrote a piece on the campus's Sexual Health Clinic. Very eye opening that one!! I learned many new skills.....!!
I'm glad to be back reporting again. All these English classes are getting me down!

33. Waiting for Godot

Book 33: Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett (B-)

I was required to read this book, like the last, for my British Literature class. This one I did not enjoy as much. I wonder if I would have understood it better if I were British...
The reason it gets a high-ish grade is because you become so endeared to the characters even if you have no idea what's going on. It is written as a screenplay... "a tragicomedy in two acts." It wasn't funny though. I think the humor comes in if you have the opportunity to see the play acted out by actors on stage. The script itself however is rather confusing and flat.
It's supposed to be an allegory. I don't understand allegories. My one help was the pencil scrawling of notes in the margins by whoever had the book last. To him or her, I am extremely grateful.
If anyone understands what this text is talking about, please comment before Wednesday when I have a quiz on it!!! Because as of right now... I'm at a complete loss for words. I have no idea what's going on, who the two main characters are talking about, and WHO IS GODOT? Does anybody know? Does he even exist???
...I'm so confused!

1984 Book vs Movie

After finishing the book, I sat down and watched the movie with Stuart via XBox Party mode. The movie stars John Hurt and the legendary Richard Burton, whom you all know I love from a previous novel post. Well... let me just say that compared to Orwell's amazing novel....

THE MOVIE SUCKED!

32. Nineteen Eighty-Four

Book 32: Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell (A)

I read this book for my British Literature class, and it was the first book I have been assigned to read and actually enjoyed!!! What intelligence! What an ending! What an idea and system that completely boggles the mind!!

Nineteen Eighty-Four begins in presumably 1984, but not like the one we know (you actually never really know for certain what year it is). Oceania is one of three superstates that controls a portion of the world and is where main character Winston lives and works and exists. Life in this 1984 is both advanced yet not. There was no cars, no televisions, no modern technology of enjoyment. However, there is factory technology. Books are written by machines and history itself is altered so that Big Brother, the one who oversees Oceania, and the Inner Party are ALWAYS correct. Winston tries to figure out why the world is like this. Is capitalism really a thing of horror? Was the world worse than this dreadful place they live now? Why is Oceania constantly at war? Why do proles (the lower class) live without the constant watching cameras of the telescreen?
The story is far more complex than I can ever describe it in a single blog post. My class has spent three days alone discussing the novel and we're only halfway through it. All I can say is that it's unbelievably intelligent.
After reading, "The problem was how to keep the wheels of industry turning without increasing the real wealth of the world. Goods must be produced, but they need not be distributed. And in practice the only way of achieving this was by constant warfare" (195), I paused and looked at my roommates. I then went on a rant about how amazing the book was and how ridiculously intelligent it was and that if it had a crappy ending I was going to scream and fuss and throw the book against the wall.
The ending was not how I had hoped it would end. Still, it was an amazing ending that was heartbreaking. Not in the Marley & Me heartbreaking way, but in a... "I would have done the same if I had been in that situation" guilty heartbreaking way.
Read it!

Works Cited:

Orwell, George. Nineteen Eighty-Four. New York: 

First Plume Printing, 1983. Print.