I shall ramble about two pieces of classic literature I do NOT like:
The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka. Period. End of sentence. I don't like it. Maybe it was the circumstances around the time I was reading it (first lit class in college) or maybe it's the fact that I can tell that it has been translated from German to English and I don't like the way it sounds. NOT that I can read German fluently, but I can piece together enough and it just bugs me (oooo ironic) to knowing how the original sentence was probably written and how translating it made it...kinda crappy. I like the idea behind it, of course.
Absalom, Absalom! by William Faulkner. Again, I don't like it. I like to blame this lovely piece of literature (cough, cough CRAP) for making me fail a Southern Literature class. What? I failed. Are you sure? When CliffsNotes says to go ahead and jump in the river because there is no way you are ever going to get through it (I just might be paraphrasing here) you KNOW you've picked the worse possible book to read, ever.
Now I probably really hate this book, because I wasn't able to "get it" and therefore I felt extremely stupid. And when it comes to literature, I normally "get it" and thus, Absalom, Absalom! is my ultimate nemesis.
And since I got that off my chest,
~~J
Monday, April 30, 2007
Tuesday, April 24, 2007
New Friend #9:
Proof that my favorite contemporary author (LAURA ZIGMAN) thinks I'm brant-able (her super cool word for blogging and ranting outloud)...
Since I can't get the screen caption from her site much bigger, I am including the text for you to read:
Laura’s going a bit outside the box here with NF #9 — Janet — a person she knows only from Myspace. Janet is younger than Laura (big surprise: everyone is younger than Laura), and lives in Memphis, TN, where she’s working a job-job before going back to school to finish her degree in English and Journalism, or English and Creative Writing (Laura really should do her homework before she starts writing about someone). Janet also wants to write, and Laura hopes she gives it a go since Janet is obviously a passionate reader and all good writers are passionate readers.
Laura can’t even remember who started emailing first (Laura assumes she herself started when she “found” Janet [through a process of searching for her name to see who if anyone on Myspace had included her in their list of “favorite authors”] and Janet was good enough to write back) but after a few back-and-forths they exchanged stories and Laura found out that Janet was going through that incredibly horribly rough and misery-inducing phase known as “the late 20s” when everything sucks and it seems like it’s never going to get better. But Laura is certain that Janet’s life is going to improve tons really really soon.
In the meantime, before Janet gets completely carried away with her soon-to-be-fabulous life, spending lots and lots of time with all the new friends she’ll make at school and doing all sorts of cool college stuff and completely forgetting about anyone on Myspace (“Myspace? What’s Myspace??”), Laura feels very lucky to have such a lovely pen-pal*
*For people Janet’s age who might not be familiar with this rather antiquated term, “pen-pal” means “someone with whom one exchanges letters.”
copyright Laura Zigman 2007
p.s. Thanks for help with the Screen Caption, Marlene!
Since I can't get the screen caption from her site much bigger, I am including the text for you to read:
Laura’s going a bit outside the box here with NF #9 — Janet — a person she knows only from Myspace. Janet is younger than Laura (big surprise: everyone is younger than Laura), and lives in Memphis, TN, where she’s working a job-job before going back to school to finish her degree in English and Journalism, or English and Creative Writing (Laura really should do her homework before she starts writing about someone). Janet also wants to write, and Laura hopes she gives it a go since Janet is obviously a passionate reader and all good writers are passionate readers.
Laura can’t even remember who started emailing first (Laura assumes she herself started when she “found” Janet [through a process of searching for her name to see who if anyone on Myspace had included her in their list of “favorite authors”] and Janet was good enough to write back) but after a few back-and-forths they exchanged stories and Laura found out that Janet was going through that incredibly horribly rough and misery-inducing phase known as “the late 20s” when everything sucks and it seems like it’s never going to get better. But Laura is certain that Janet’s life is going to improve tons really really soon.
In the meantime, before Janet gets completely carried away with her soon-to-be-fabulous life, spending lots and lots of time with all the new friends she’ll make at school and doing all sorts of cool college stuff and completely forgetting about anyone on Myspace (“Myspace? What’s Myspace??”), Laura feels very lucky to have such a lovely pen-pal*
*For people Janet’s age who might not be familiar with this rather antiquated term, “pen-pal” means “someone with whom one exchanges letters.”
copyright Laura Zigman 2007
p.s. Thanks for help with the Screen Caption, Marlene!
Friday, April 20, 2007
notebooks & bookbags & pens! OH MY!
As you can see by the time elapsed since my last update, nothing REALLY has happened in the land of "student revisited." Strike that, reverse it (ti esrever)!
I've registered AND paid for both sessions of the Summermy Life. That's 10 credit hours total and many dollars GONE from my checking account. I have managed to keep relatively calm while I wait and wait and wait for the first day of classes (40 days from now).
This morning at work I was chatting about something work-related (maybe?) and then I suddenly went into panic mode. SCHOOL SUPPLIES. I have to buy school supplies. I haven't bought school supplies in *tumbleweed blows by* SEVEN years. ACK!
1)a bookbag or something similar...CHECK! A 2.5-year ago graduated Pharmacist offered up his dust-collecting bag. SCORE!
2) notebooks, pens, pencils, calculators, whiteout, erasers, paper, folders, highlighters...etc etc etc.
so afterwork I purchased:
2 notebooks (college ruled, I've never been one for WIDE ruled)
1 package of 6 mechanical pencils (never one for the wooden ones)
*they are kinda shiny pink, gold, green, blue, purple and yellow*
1 package of brite liner bic highlighters (yellow, pink, blue, green, orange)
1 package of papermate ball point pens (blue, red, orange, purple ink)
*I'll really use my lovely drug rep pens, they write better*
1 liquid paper correction pen
1 package of unlined notecards
1 mini box of Hershey's 60 cal. Chocolate Sticks
*a stressed out purchase that will probably be gone before tomorrow*
3) I've come to the realization that I really, really need to purchase a laptop computer/notebook by next summer.
These realizations all caused a lovely session of heavy breathing and mini-panic attacks today. ESPECIALLY the laptop realization. ACK!
Tomorrow night when I am in Tunica, MS, celebrating my Mother's birthday at the casinos, I will be shouting "Mama needs some laptop money!" everytime I approach a slot machine.
~~J
I've registered AND paid for both sessions of the Summer
This morning at work I was chatting about something work-related (maybe?) and then I suddenly went into panic mode. SCHOOL SUPPLIES. I have to buy school supplies. I haven't bought school supplies in *tumbleweed blows by* SEVEN years. ACK!
1)
2) notebooks, pens, pencils, calculators, whiteout, erasers, paper, folders, highlighters...etc etc etc.
so afterwork I purchased:
2 notebooks (college ruled, I've never been one for WIDE ruled)
1 package of 6 mechanical pencils (never one for the wooden ones)
*they are kinda shiny pink, gold, green, blue, purple and yellow*
1 package of brite liner bic highlighters (yellow, pink, blue, green, orange)
1 package of papermate ball point pens (blue, red, orange, purple ink)
*I'll really use my lovely drug rep pens, they write better*
1 liquid paper correction pen
1 package of unlined notecards
1 mini box of Hershey's 60 cal. Chocolate Sticks
*a stressed out purchase that will probably be gone before tomorrow*
3) I've come to the realization that I really, really need to purchase a laptop computer/notebook by next summer.
These realizations all caused a lovely session of heavy breathing and mini-panic attacks today. ESPECIALLY the laptop realization. ACK!
Tomorrow night when I am in Tunica, MS, celebrating my Mother's birthday at the casinos, I will be shouting "Mama needs some laptop money!" everytime I approach a slot machine.
~~J
Tuesday, April 3, 2007
cleared for take-off:
No. First and foremost I really, really detest any type of time in an airplane.
I don't know if it's because I spent plenty of time flying back and forth across the Atlantic Ocean when I was a child or the simple fact that I still don't understand how tons and tons of steel and flesh can actually FLY. Don't bother spouting physics at me, I have my fingers in my ears.
I digress...
So. I have actually be cleared to register next week. Biology lecture and lab, here I come! Have you ever seen someone so excited to spend a ton-o-money on something other than birkenstocks or handmade soap?
(and now the trippy intro to Steve Miller's Fly Like an Eagle is stuck in my head!)
I hope you don't have to point me to this exact moment about 1 week into the month of June because I hate Biology and want to jump into the Mississippi!
~~J
I don't know if it's because I spent plenty of time flying back and forth across the Atlantic Ocean when I was a child or the simple fact that I still don't understand how tons and tons of steel and flesh can actually FLY. Don't bother spouting physics at me, I have my fingers in my ears.
I digress...
So. I have actually be cleared to register next week. Biology lecture and lab, here I come! Have you ever seen someone so excited to spend a ton-o-money on something other than birkenstocks or handmade soap?
(and now the trippy intro to Steve Miller's Fly Like an Eagle is stuck in my head!)
I hope you don't have to point me to this exact moment about 1 week into the month of June because I hate Biology and want to jump into the Mississippi!
~~J
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