http://blogs.qc.cuny.edu/blogs/0906N_1432/013/ weblog en Copyright 2007 Sat, 26 May 2007 17:12:43 -0500 http://www.sixapart.com/movabletype/ http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss The past two semesters have afforded me the great opportunity not only to study an interesting topic, but to work with extremely intelligent people (many of whom should one day become professors), and to feel as though my work was not in vain by virtue of such things as being awarded certain honors, the successful conference, etc. I feel we all interacted very well and in many ways have come to realize the power as well as the frustration of hard word. For those who are graduating--myself included--look back upon this two-semester course as being, probably, one of the most substantive courses you've ever experienced in college. I'd also like to extend not only a thanks but a respectful commendation to Professor Tougaw, whose affability and doctrine of treating his students like colleagues instead of subordinates have brightened my view of academe a bit. Thanks. God bless. Good-bye. http://blogs.qc.cuny.edu/blogs/0906N_1432/013/2007/05/closing_blog_comments.html http://blogs.qc.cuny.edu/blogs/0906N_1432/013/2007/05/closing_blog_comments.html Sat, 26 May 2007 17:12:43 -0500 I had a great time at the conference. Being a moderator was a good experience; before the conference, I hadn't been on a stage in a long time, though I used to be on them a lot. Everybody did really well, and several professors commented to me afterwards that it was conducted very professionally. You all fielded the questions smoothly (I did my best to avoid the esoteric question-askers), and, all in all, the conference felt like the perfect culmination to two semesters' worth of work. What else is better than a public forum? http://blogs.qc.cuny.edu/blogs/0906N_1432/013/2007/05/conference_reflection.html http://blogs.qc.cuny.edu/blogs/0906N_1432/013/2007/05/conference_reflection.html Sat, 26 May 2007 17:09:17 -0500 In this dream, I keep seeing people I know in my grandmother's house, people who normally would never ever be there. Everyone wants to have a big party. I go upstairs in my grandmother's house, which strangely is now a very large room with high, vaulted ceilings. It looks like a humongous attic--maybe something out of Edward Scissorhands--but everyone is partying up there. There is no fun feeling to this dream, however; in fact, it all feels odd and anxiety-inducing. http://blogs.qc.cuny.edu/blogs/0906N_1432/013/2007/05/friendly_faces.html http://blogs.qc.cuny.edu/blogs/0906N_1432/013/2007/05/friendly_faces.html Sat, 26 May 2007 17:05:49 -0500 I am working for a strange food service company which, in addition to delivering food, has a restaurant, though the restaurant is a shabby-looking place in a large warehouse. I am working in the warehouse as a waiter. Everything is big and dusty and vast and I have a hard time efficiently serving the food. Someone keeps talking about "him," but I don't know who "he" is. It can't have been the owner of the business, because he, in the dream, sits atop a large armchair that looms over the entire warehouse/restaurant. http://blogs.qc.cuny.edu/blogs/0906N_1432/013/2007/05/new_job.html http://blogs.qc.cuny.edu/blogs/0906N_1432/013/2007/05/new_job.html Sat, 26 May 2007 17:02:55 -0500 My family and I move into a new house (actually a rather large apartment) somewhere in what appears to be Queens. Of course I feel out of place. I have trouble parking and it is always dusk outside. One night I come home and, though I go through our front door, I keep ending up in other peoples' places. I keep thinking they're all going to call the cops on me, and I can't find my apartment. http://blogs.qc.cuny.edu/blogs/0906N_1432/013/2007/05/new_house.html http://blogs.qc.cuny.edu/blogs/0906N_1432/013/2007/05/new_house.html Sat, 26 May 2007 17:00:56 -0500 Michael Myers, the crazed killer from the Halloween movies, makes yet another appearance in my dreams. This time, he's after me in a strange suburban house that I can't find my way out of. There is a huge whole in the center of the house and you can see from the basement up to the top floors. It's dark outside. The neighborhood resembles the one in which I grew up. The cops come but they can't find Michael. They assure me it's OK to go back inside the house. Of course, it isn't. Michael chases me again. I don't remember much else even though I know there was more. http://blogs.qc.cuny.edu/blogs/0906N_1432/013/2007/03/dream_halloweenstyle.html http://blogs.qc.cuny.edu/blogs/0906N_1432/013/2007/03/dream_halloweenstyle.html Sat, 10 Mar 2007 14:11:38 -0500 I'm ashamed that I couldn't identify _Pride and Prejudice_. Other than this, I'll be fine. http://blogs.qc.cuny.edu/blogs/0906N_1432/013/2007/03/my_take_on_our_first_practice.html http://blogs.qc.cuny.edu/blogs/0906N_1432/013/2007/03/my_take_on_our_first_practice.html Sat, 10 Mar 2007 14:08:30 -0500 Writing about poetry can be either fulfilling or disastrous. It's very easy to fall into several horrific trends while writing about a particular poem: 1- Over-analysis, whereby you force absurd meaning and interpretation into every line, giving every comma some metaphoric purpose when its really just a way of separating clauses. 2- Term-collages, whereby you throw out every poetic term you know because either you don't know what to say or you wish to show how many poetry books you've read. 3- Vagueness, whereby you make unqualified remarks about what might be going on in the poem, but by virtue of its being a poem, the symbolism makes it so difficult to make any firm assertions. Ideally, you need to find a good blend of interpretation, formal analysis, and shameless personal opinion, with a dash of elegance in your writing. This is extremely difficult. It's easy to sound like an idiot when writing about poetry. That's my take on it. http://blogs.qc.cuny.edu/blogs/0906N_1432/013/2007/03/writing_about_poetry.html http://blogs.qc.cuny.edu/blogs/0906N_1432/013/2007/03/writing_about_poetry.html Sat, 10 Mar 2007 14:02:13 -0500 This is a short poem by DH Lawrence which I think resonates so firmly the growing trend of modernist poetry. Lawrence wrote it, or at least published it, in 1929, a year before his death: I never saw a wild thing sorry for itself. A small bird will drop frozen dead from a bough without ever having felt sorry for itself. This short, unrhymed poem is Lawrence's way of conveying the pride of humanity, how a small bird defies death by remaining stoic, and yet we, as humans, drown ourselves in the poem's titular fault--self-pity. Lawrence's poetry is somewhat ignored nowadays; his novels are more widely read. He was, however, a gifted poet, and I recommend that everyone read his work. In the case of this poem, I believe the power of it comes from the amazingly modern feel to it: the enjambment, for instance, serves a revelatory purpose, the enjambed lines themselves constantly completing the emotion/observation that the preceding lines start. This poem is so different from anything published, say, 30 years prior to its own publication. In 1899, British poets such as Thomas Hardy still had a dinstinctly Victorian flavor to their work. http://blogs.qc.cuny.edu/blogs/0906N_1432/013/2007/03/self_pity_by_dh_lawrence.html http://blogs.qc.cuny.edu/blogs/0906N_1432/013/2007/03/self_pity_by_dh_lawrence.html Sat, 10 Mar 2007 13:42:49 -0500 I am at some university, a big, gothic building with fences around it. Medieval-looking hallways. I don't know what I'm looking for. I see Bill Maher (the guy on TV who does "Real Time") walking on campus, talking to a student, acting very smugly as he usually does. Maher, on this campus, is a professor. I try to talk to him but he walks past and says nothing. The campus is then revealed to be an amalgam of an unknown building and my old elementary school. A huge mansion looms on a hill above. I am intrigued with the height of the ceilings. For no reason whatsoever, all of a sudden men are coming after me (as usual). I hide with some people in a safe house, and supposedly the Bill Maher character knows how to escape but he never comes. http://blogs.qc.cuny.edu/blogs/0906N_1432/013/2007/03/dream_bill_maher_university.html http://blogs.qc.cuny.edu/blogs/0906N_1432/013/2007/03/dream_bill_maher_university.html Sat, 10 Mar 2007 13:38:42 -0500 I am in some strange, baroque complex with many floors and levels. There are stores, homes, and restaraunts. I see members of my family every now and then (particularly my mother, my uncle); I also see a few friends. There is a pizzeria in the complex also. I go in and order food. There are dozens of disgruntled customers waiting on line for pizza. The one worker, an ancient old man, tries to accomodate them all but cant. He cant make the pizza fast enough. The oven is huge and vast; you can walk inside of it. I feel sick. I go outside and into a shoe store. I see my family again and I warn them not to go to the pizzeria. They don't listen. As soon as they approach the pizzeria door, men with guns burst out of it and shoot them. I run for cover and the streets are full of fire. http://blogs.qc.cuny.edu/blogs/0906N_1432/013/2007/03/dream_building_complex.html http://blogs.qc.cuny.edu/blogs/0906N_1432/013/2007/03/dream_building_complex.html Sat, 10 Mar 2007 13:29:07 -0500 I am at some isolated, island health spa. It seems like paradise. The skies turn dark. It rains and there is immense wind. I see a girl whom I haven't seen in years, and suddenly I want her. We try to escape off the island together. Despite the danger, I feel safe with her, even happy. Somewhere along the line, however, she disappears. The island continues to be consumed with waves and stormy winds. http://blogs.qc.cuny.edu/blogs/0906N_1432/013/2007/03/dream_the_storm.html http://blogs.qc.cuny.edu/blogs/0906N_1432/013/2007/03/dream_the_storm.html Fri, 09 Mar 2007 15:25:49 -0500 I don't recall whether this occurred during the cruise ship escape or after. It all seems part of the same "dream landscape." Nevertheless, assume the following narrative occurred during the story of the cruise ship, since the same settings and characters apply: I roam a snowy, hilly graveyard with my family and a bunch of tourists. We search for our own graves. When someone finds the tombstone with their name on it, they automatically are consumed and disappear. I don't want to find mine. My brother disappears and I miss him. It turns night and the snow disappears. The graveyard is near the harbor with the eerie ship and the slummy, scary city. I hide in a trench. Wolves are sent after me. I have a gun but I have trouble aiming. I run into the forest but no matter which direction I go I end up near the graves. http://blogs.qc.cuny.edu/blogs/0906N_1432/013/2007/03/cruise_ship_escape_part_2.html http://blogs.qc.cuny.edu/blogs/0906N_1432/013/2007/03/cruise_ship_escape_part_2.html Fri, 09 Mar 2007 15:21:32 -0500 I am on board a strange cruise ship, in the dining room. The room is huge, with high ceilings, each of the four walls actually floor-to-ceiling aquariums with large sharks swimming around in them. Everyone in the room is scared. I am with my father and one of my brothers. I start to feel sick in the dream. We must escape. We roam the corridors of the ship, which now resembles my a high school (not mine) and a futuristic spaceship. Classes are being held on the ship. We must find certain people to escape. There are no doors to the room, only windows guarded by laser beams. We go outside to jump off the ship but the sea has turned to slush and shark-like monsters circle us. My brother suggests we use snowboards to jump off an glide to land. Everyone seems to think this is a good idea though it is clearly not; I am petrified but everyone else is fine. My brother jumps off the ship on a snowboard while I stay behind with my dad, who suggests that we wait and try to get more help. When night comes we are at a harbor. The sea is water again. My dad says we need to jump off the ship. As it is pulling away we run like mad to the railings and hurl ourselves off. We are underwater. My dad has hit his head on the dock and is unconscious underwater. I can't talk. I try to save him but can't. On land, it is dark and a slummy, scary city surrounds the harbor. Drug dealers huddle around barrels which are on fire. I try to eat but I keep throwing up. http://blogs.qc.cuny.edu/blogs/0906N_1432/013/2007/03/dream_cruise_ship_escape.html http://blogs.qc.cuny.edu/blogs/0906N_1432/013/2007/03/dream_cruise_ship_escape.html Fri, 09 Mar 2007 15:14:33 -0500 Aliens are invading the Earth. I stand with my family looking up at the night sky. We are on a farm. Lights swirl in the sky, presumably UFOs. We all say "Oh no. Oh no" as if we were expecting it to happen. I feel hopeless. We board a rescue shuttle and go into space while the aliens invade. We are up there for a very long time. My father and I fight; I tell him I can't stand to look at him. I don't see my family for what seems like an eternity. I am alone on the rescue shuttle. I am running out of food. http://blogs.qc.cuny.edu/blogs/0906N_1432/013/2007/03/dream_apocalypse.html http://blogs.qc.cuny.edu/blogs/0906N_1432/013/2007/03/dream_apocalypse.html Fri, 09 Mar 2007 15:10:10 -0500