CM 1120

I felt that is was most fitting to have my last blog post to be about the class I'm doing this for. I have nothing negative to say about this course, I quite enjoyed it. It allowed all of us to get a grasp on the expectations that are placed on us in university level English courses, with reading the stories and poem before class, and being prepared to discuss in class.

One of the things that caught me off-guard in this course though, would be the fact that we had to construct this blog. I had never heard of any course having this type of evaluation before, unless I just never paid attention before. I must admit that at first I didn't really like the idea of having to write 10 posts and allowing other people to openly comment on them. I  was also apprehensive about having to comment on five other people's posts. But after starting to write and getting the hang of things, I began to enjoy it. It allows us to openly give our opinions about the stories and poems we have read, the fact that we could openly dislike something was refreshing. It was refreshing because in high school they pretty much told us to suck it up and we couldn't quite voice our opinions like we can here.

The stories and poems we read, for the most part, were interesting. I wonder, though, why a good deal of the reading material had the subject of death or loneliness in it someway or another. It almost seems as though all the good writers were depressed or something. As for the essays, I have come to terms with the fact that they are going to follow me everywhere I go. This course has taught me to deal with it in the best way possible, which is be prepared. As well, all of the editing assignments has made me more conscious of the mistakes I make in my everyday writing. (Even though sometimes no one can tell)


So I would like to end this post by saying that I enjoyed this course, and this blog. The freedom to truly say what we want about any piece of writing is awesome (the only word I can think of at the moment to describe it). I also feel that this course has helped many of us become better editors of our work, and other people's work for that matter. I could probably keep rambling on in my normal fashion, but I shall cut it off by saying I hope the students after us have the same appreciation for this course as many of us have gained.

Writing In-Class Essays

I used to dread it when any teacher faced the class and told us that we were going to have to write an essay. I especially hated it when the essays were supposed to be in-class. To me, it was so unjust to only give us 50 minutes to try and write a coherent essay and make it worthwhile to read when it was finished. I don't know about you, but I love to be able to look over my work a few times and correct every little mistake and make sure it's up to par. In-class essays, I feel, were made to punish us. Of course I felt this way until I got into this English course.

In-class essays aren't as daunting now as they were before, I'm guessing it's probably because I actually prepare for them before I go to write them. In high school I used to go into the essay completely unprepared, I admit it, I never did any pre-writing for most stuff. So when I got into the classroom I'd be writing the whole period and I still wouldn't be finished because new ideas were constantly flowing in my head, and I felt that I had to write them down somewhere/somehow. Now I realize that when you have the outline and everything pretty much written out writing the essay is actually simple. When the paper is now placed in front of me I look at it as a challenge, not to write whatever flows into my head, but instead to write a good essay from the notes that I worked on the night before.

I would like to take a guess that I am not the only one that feels this way now. The CM1120 course has opened our eyes to new and more mature ways of going about an essay. We now have to prepare if we want to come out of the classroom with a good grade on our essays. So this has been my little, I shall call it a rant, on writing in-class essays.

Serotonin

When you read this story you get the affects of using drugs/drinking without even touching anything. The structural techniques that Russell Smith employed were ingenious. It allows the readers to "feel" what the characters feel.

The whole story spans one night in the life of a teen who, along with his girlfriend and friends, take illegal drugs and drink as they get ready to go out to a bar. The setting is as follows;

-First they are at a bar
- Next it's before the bar and they are on their way to Doke's (drug dealer)
-They are all back at the bar and it's 2am
-Flashes back to when they were all in Doke's apartment
-Back at the bar and it's now 5:45am
-Then we see Jason talking to Sherry (his girlfriend)
-Then they are finally leaving the bar at 6:23am

The author probably wrote it this way to symbolize blacking out for periods of time. I believe this because we don't have an account for what happened for all the night, we are only allowed to see bits and pieces, just like someone who took the drugs would remember the night.

During the course of the story we are allowed an inside view of what is going on in Jason's mind as he battles his feelings for Emily, all the while his girlfriend is on the sidelines watching it all happen. Jason has an attraction to Emily but he justifies this by saying "This is just serotonin". He is trying to blame his indiscretions on the drugs, which could probably produce this effect. Yet after his "wild" night he calls it quits because the night has "transformed" him. He doesn't want to feel conflicting emotions anymore and this solidifies his reason for "quitting" drugs.

So the structural techniques employed plus being able to "see into" Jason's mind allows us to piece together how drugs alter our perception as well as play tricks on our short term memory. I must admit, at first, I didn't like the story but when I realized that the structure was purposely made to mimic black outs, I found a new respect for it. Not everyone can create a story like this and actually be successful with it. So altogether I learned to like this story

The Red Convertible

I enjoyed reading the story "The Red Convertible" by Louise Erdich. Everything that she added into the story fit and made sense. I especially like how she wove the red convertible into the story, it's quite symbolic of the relationship between Lyman and his brother, Henry. I also like how it shows the issue of PTSD, with regards to Henry. This story actually reminded me of another we have previously read in class, "Stones".

Lyman and Henry were almost inseparable before Henry went to war. They bought a red convertible together and that summer they took a road trip to wherever they felt like. During this roadtrip we are able to see the characterization of Henry as a life-loving, happy-go-lucky guy. It seems as though he has no care in the world and he never will. But when he returns, with his brother, from the trip he finds out that he has been drafted to go to war. After he returns from he war he is a completely changed person, he is no longer happy, he sits in front of the television biting his lip until it bleeds and he won't talk to anyone. Lyman, knowing that his brother loves the convertible, goes and beats up the car he kept in perfect condition so that his brother could go and fix it. Lyman knows that if Henry starts to fix the car then maybe he will turn back into his normal self. So once Henry fixes the car, grabs takes his brother and a case of beer and drives to the high water. So they get there and they drink and get into a little scrap which they later joke about. After this Henry jumps into the river and is swept away by the current, we can deduce that he committed suicide. So Lyman knowing that Henry isn't coming back, takes the car, puts it in neutral and allows the car to drive into the river, dying like Henry died.

So with this back story we can assume that the red convertible is very symbolic of the relationship between the brothers. It first symbolizes the bond of friendship bewteen the two brothers, they both bought it together and took equal care of it. Then is soon becomes symbolic of Henry's demise and also of how Lyman lets go of his brother.  Lyman went and beat the car to a pulp which represents how Henry's emotional state was when he returned. Then when Lyman allowed the car to roll into the river it was symbolic of his letting go of not only the car, but his brother as well.

This story, along with "Stones" , highlights the issues that arise from PTSD. Both Henry and David Max have been through war and have suffered with PTSD, though they both dealt with it differently. Henry committed suicide, we assume, and David Max became a drunk

So I truly loved reading this story, I can't quite exactly pinpoint one reason why I loved this story.

The Lamp at Noon

When I read this story, written by Sinclair Ross, all I could think about was the Great Depression/ drought of the 1930's. During this time so many people were suffering and not much could be done. People's livelihoods were taken away from them; either by the bank, or the unyielding dry weather. So when I read this I could imagine how Ellen, the wife, was feelings about everything that was happening at that moment in time. But I could also see Paul's point of view and why he wanted to stick it out and persevere.


Paul, like most farmers during that time, knew of nothing else but their fields. It was their livelihoods and they weren't about to give it up, even though there was nothing left. The picture below shows the extent of the drought, and probably what Paul and Ellen were dealing with. In the story, Paul was overly confident in the land because he believed things were going to get better, the drought would end, and he would be able to replant his crops. He had grown up on the farm and knew what to expect. Whereas Ellen doesn't believe/ have confidence in the land. She had grown up in a lavish lifestyle where she never had to deal with droughts or depressions. She led a sheltered life and didn't know how to face adversity.


I felt that this story highlighted the people's feelings about the drought/ Great Depression very well. Though it wasn't mentioned in the story, the great depression was "alive" during this time which added to Ellen and Paul's worries. I did like reading this story because it allowed us to peer into the lives of the people that were living during this time period.

Falling in Place

This short story was so confusing I contemplated not finishing it, even though it is short. The shifting narration is enough for anyone to lose interest or lose grip of what is actually going on within the story. I know that the author is trying to show how an event can affect many people in different ways, but they could have done it in such a way that it would be easier to follow along and understand.

This short story is about an international student named Su Lin who commits suicide one night by lying down on a train track with a train on its way. Before she decided to end her life so violently she was studying music at a university, where her first recital went splendidly. A young man soon fell in love with her, and she reluctantly went out with him (she felt that she didn't have enough time for a relationship). Soon after this she became overwhelmed with her studies and became ill, we are lead to believe that it is a mental sickness. Soon after this she decides to commit suicide.

The author switches perspectives because he wants us, the readers, to understand that when it comes to a bunch of people going through the same traumatic event we are all connected. So in this story the mechanic, who was driving on the road and saw/heard the train screech to a stop, the boyfriend of Su Lin (who heard about the accident in a cafe), the engineer of the train who tried to stop in time, the woman who was doing laundry and cutting her rose bushes, and maybe others (I can't tell) were the characters from who we gathered the story from. These people do not know each other but they are all alike, with respect to being a witness to the accident, and therefore they are all now connected.

This is all I can think of to write about this story due to the fact that I didn't fully comprehend it at first and because I didn't enjoy it. All I can say is that I hope I wasn't the only one that was confused by this story.

Hills Like White Elephants

I did not enjoy the short story "Hills Like White Elephants", by Enrest Hemingway. I don't know if it was the point of view, which was dramatic, the use of symbolism, or just the story as a whole that threw me off. When we started reading it in class I had no clue what was going on, I certainly didn't jump to the conclusion that the woman, named Jig, was planning on having an abortion.

The whole story goes like this;
"What did you say?"
"I said we could have everything."
"We can have everything."
"No, we can't"
"We can have the whole world."
"No, we can't"

We don't know who is speaking to whom, all we know is it's two people bickering back and forth. To me I would rather know who is talking to who, maybe it would help me understand the story a bit more. Maybe this was the style of writing back in 1927, I don't know, all I do know is I don't like it.


One of the main symbols within the story would be the hills. One is barren and dry, looks like white elephants, and the other side is lush and green. With me not knowing what the story is about, I couldn't jump to the conclusion that the one side is symbolizing a Buddhist belief and the other is symbolizing having a child. The Buddhist's believe that a white elephant is symbolic of wisdon on the eve of giving birth, which would tie in to this story and how Jig is trying to decide whether or not to have an abortion. But if you never knew this you were trying to figure out what white elephants had to do with anything, like I was trying to figure out. To make it even more confusing, when Jig went and placed her bags at the fertile side, it meant nothing to me because I didn't understand what was going on.


So I truly didn't like this story, and I'm not a person who doesn't like many stories. I just feel that I was completely thrown off by the symbolism and the way it was written as a whole.





(This is a white elephant)