Hooray for English!

I walked into English today thinking that I would be walking out crying 90 minutes later from a near-impossible poetry in class essay. Much to my approval, Mr. Mullins had a surprise for us. When he announced what movie that we would be watching I figured it would be one of those school documentaries which I napped during. However, I was very pleased with Dead Poet Society. I haven’t really been a fan of old movies, and figured that such a movie about English wouldn’t attract me at all. Dead Poet Society (or the 50-ish minutes that we watched) was a very interesting movie. I think that part of it is due to that Robert Sean Leonard, Robin Williams and Red Foreman (no clue his actor name) are some of my favorite actors. 

Not considering the cinematic elements that make movies appealling, I am legitimately intrigued with the Dead Poet Society concept. The in-depth and personal interactions that the characters have with poetry is very interesting. This movie sheds some light on the empowering and enthralling side of poetry, which is much more attracting than the view of intelligent, classy poetry that I hold. The structure and literary elements of poetry don’t do much for me, but I think this Dead Poet Society stuff is really cool. I’m excited to finish the movie!

Time for a couple Limericks!

My favorite type of poetry by far are limericks. What attracts me to them are their humorous and nonsensical nature. I did not know until today that the purpose of limericks is to offer comic relief, I had assumed that only the popular ones were side-splitting. There is a specific structure for limericks: an (AABBA) rhyme scheme and a definite meter sequence where the A-rhyming line have equal syllables and the B-rhyming lines have half(ish) that number of syllables (i.e. 10,10,6,6,10). One of the most popular limericks is the Popeye theme song:

I’m Popeye the Sailor Man,

I’m Popeye the Sailor Man,

I’m strong to the finish

‘Cuz I eat my spinach

I’m Popeye the Sailor Man.

I have searched the web and read hundreds of limericks (I got a little sidetracked) to try to find the most comical limericks. I have found that I enjoy reading limericks so much because the make me laugh and I don’t have to think. In my opinion, here are the 3 funniest limericks:

A young schizophrenic named Struther, 

Who learned of the death of his Brother, 

Said, "I know that its bad, 

But I don't feel too sad.

After all, I still have each other.

(Shout out to my fellow chemistry and physics fans)

Archimedes, the well known truth-seeker,

Jumping out of his bath, cried “Eureka!”

He ran half a mile,

Wearing only a smile,

And became the very first streaker.

There once was a girl named Irene,

Who lived on distilled kerosene

But she started absorbin’

A new hydrocarbon,

And since then has never benzene!

Holla if you got that last one. Ha! A complete list of limericks for your enjoyment can be found at http://freewebs.com/limericks/.

The Importance of Point of View

The Collector by John Fowles, my second independent reading book for this semester, has been my favorite book that I have read this year. I think being able to choose your books more freely for this inquiry project has allowed me to read more enjoyable books. The Collector centers on Frederick Clegg, an avid butterfly collector who has crippled social skills. He struggles to interact with everybody in his community; however, he has an intense infatuation with a local college student, Miranda Grey. Clegg has just won a fortune of money through a football betting pool and schemes to abduct Miranda for his own. The part I enjoyed most about this book is how Fowles uses perspective throughout the novel. The chapters alternate between Clegg and Miranda’s point of view. While one perspective allows a narrow, focused understanding for the audience, two perspectives allow a much broader range of emotions to be revealed to the audience. I found it fascinating to unearth the emotions of both the captor and the captive, far different from the one-sided point of views that are traditionally used in this genre. If you enjoy crime dramas, I strongly suggest that you read The Collector soon.   

An English Conceit

So how bout those new vocab quizzes, huh? No really...they are a legitimate topic of conversation. I actually like them better. They are less rote memorization and more practical knowledge to learn. I prefer the identification and short answer section (part two) of the quiz rather than the definition part. I think the second half would actually suffice for the entire quiz. I am just greatful that I didn’t have to spell these words--like I could spell ‘consciousness’ correctly without looking it up on dictionary.com. For real. There was one particular question that I enjoyed answering. I know, weird. But I thought the ‘create your own conceit‘ was fun. To expand on the good times I had creating my own conceit (and to further famliarize myself with the vocab) I have decided to write a conceit about English class. Enjoy:

English class is like an airplane ride. Just as English is needed to graduate, an airplane ride is needed to get to your destination. If done alone, it could be very boring and uneventful. However, if done alongside close friends, English class could become an exciting experience. If unsuccessful, well, no one wants to come back to high school. It seems that I want to get it over with as quickly as possible, but I’m not so sure I’ll miss it once it’s over.