the last blog.....

I will admit i have been waiting... not too patiently for this day to come. the day that i would write my last blog for my capstone class taught by Dr. Sexson. but, i feel a little sad today. The groups that presented were great... and both made me think a little harder about what is about to happen. ill finish my last two papers that need to be written .... ill take my two tests next week... and then next saturday i will walk across a stage in the field house and be done with my schooling... For a while there i didn't know if i would be able to make it through college. I had such a hard time when i wasn't doing well in school and i hated all my classes, and then i even had a bit of a rough patch being an English major as well this semester. ( Mainly because i suffered from extreme senior-itis which i though was only an excuse for seniors in high school but this semester i definitely suffered from it far more intense than i did 6 years ago) I really had never given much thought to how it was going to FEEL to be done with college. I had always just thought of what i was going to do, what plans i would want to make, how i was going to spend all this free time that is coming my way now that i wont have to worry about school anymore.......

As excited as i am to venture off into a world that is unknown, i feel a loss of some kind. The last group that presented today made me realize that there is a small death happening in me right now. There is an end and i cant see what is in the next beginning, yet that doesn't scare me too much. Im ready. Im ready to be done. Im ready to leave this english major (although i will always be one!) behind and start a new chapter of life. There is so much that can happen in just a day... let alone a minute of life. And TS Eliot has definitely opened my eyes to pay attention to these little moments. Listening to all of the 'best blog moments' from the first group i also felt a loss. I am now not going to be around such interesting, intelligent, funny, people that i have surrounded myself with in my english classes. SO thank you groups 3 and 4 for making me realize i am losing quite a bit in this moment. Not only myself as a student, and english major, but also the company i have around me, that i have learned so much from these past few months.

while writing those last few sentences i teared up... i had to stop writing... but the tears aren't of sadness but joy... i have come to the end which is my beginning. I remember thinking a few years ago in my more crazy years of being a college student thinking that i would NEVER EVER want to leave bozeman.... not only were all my friends around me, but the town is in a beautiful location, the mountains, the rivers, the snow, the sun... all of it is here. But now i know that 6 years ago was yet another end and beginning. An end to an innocent, naive young girl and the beginning of a life that taught me lessons, good and bad, brought me friends good and bad, and ultimately got me to yet another end and new beginning.

a few weeks ago while i was driving home for the weekend and sitting back thinking about all the years that i have been in school i put my ipod on shuffle and come upon a song. Now this song that played has been a song that i have listened to for years, and i have always loved it, but the words didn't mean too much to me until then. Ill set the scene to at least try to captivate the feeling i had while i heard the first words of the song....

I should have known what was about to happen because the setting was perfect for one of those 'chill down the back' kind of epiphanies. As i was driving, all by myself i should add, the sun was out, the sky was clear, and i was reminded once more , like many times before, why Montana is called 'Big Sky Country'. I was just about out of the pass right before hitting Livingston, and the road starts to twist and turn. As i went around the last bend in the road Tom Petty's song 'Time to move on' came on over the radio. the first words hit me like a brick! :)

It's time to move on, time to get going

What lies ahead, I have no way of knowing
But under my feet, baby, grass is growing
It's time to move on, it's time to get going

I started to cry... i couldnt even listen to the other words of the song so i continued to replay it over and over again.... it was perfect. The words of the song made me realize that i was ready to move one, that it was time for a change in my life, that it is time for me to start my NEW BEGINNING.

My last words will be Tom Petty's Lyrics because well i think that all of us can take away from the song some new thoughts on our lives of English Majors coming to an End....

It's time to move on, time to get going
What lies ahead, I have no way of knowing
But under my feet, baby, grass is growing
It's time to move on, it's time to get going

Broken skyline, movin' through the airport
She's an honest defector
Conscientious objector
Now her own protector

Broken skyline, which way to love land
Which way to something better
Which way to forgiveness
Which way do I go

Time to move on, time to get going
What lies ahead, I have no way of knowing
But under my feet, baby, grass is growing
It's time to move on, it's time to get going

Sometime later, getting the words wrong
Wasting the meaning and losing the rhyme
Nauseous adrenaline
Like breakin' up a dogfight
Like a deer in the headlights
Frozen in real time
I'm losing my mind

It's time to move on, time to get going
What lies ahead, I have no way of knowing
But under my feet, baby, grass is growing
It's time to move on, it's time to get going

Final presentation of my college life!

Today was the last time that i will stand in front of a class and present.... anything! its odd to think that next fall i wont be coming back on to campus to go to an english class in wilson hall.... but i am also very very VERY excited for this to come to and end... Im completely ready!

I thought that the first group of the day had a beautiful presentation... and i say beautiful because it was... the lights low, the candles, the music... everything seemed to fit so well. i really enjoyed when the entire group read aloud different words and the entire room filled with a music note.... a small hum of noise..i couldn't distinguish what was being said or what it meant... but hearing the words overlap each other and hearing the music of the words gave me a chill... and it brought me back to that night in the baxter hotel... listening to Dante and Eliot... all the words blending into one sweet low hum of a music tone.

our group had a lot of fun coming up with the script we used.... i know we all felt that it was at times quite cheesy but i think its point got across. we are all at the end of a road and some may have plans... but no one can know for sure what will happen in the future.. and really... if someone told you today what was going to come your way, would you believe them? i know that i wouldn't... i don't want to know what is in store for me that will ruin all the fun!

Last day of paper presentations!

i didn't blog about the presentations on Wednesday so ill start there.... Mick had a great presentation! While he was reading off his words i felt like i was listening to not only a poet but a poet alike eliot. His words made me think and question... like so many words of Eliot's. Adam also did a great job, i really enjoyed how he explained the background of the book that he had read all semester and used that to write his capstone. When i presented i was so sure that my paper was quite wonderful... since it was still a work in progress. As i went to the library wednesday morning to finish the editing i read it over and started adding new parts to it and realized i was taking the paper in a whole new direction. i had started writing not only about why i love literature and where it takes me but the lessons i have learned through reading the novels, poems and stories that i have through the years. While i was trying to fix my paper i realized that all of the big life lessons that i have learned in the past few years have all stemmed from the reading that i had been doing in my classes. One might think it slightly cheesy to learn life lessons from literature but i feel that the lessons that characters learn in their are all lessons that readers can learn too, as long as readers step back and try to hear the unheard music of the words.

Now i feel bad that i didn't read any of my paper in class today.... but i have never been one to be very happy with the way that i write... and of all the lessons i have learned by being an english major that is one area i feel that has not improved so much. when writing my paper i found myself trying out techniques of creative writing... and i guess i am just not too comfortable with how my 'creative' writing came out.

I have to agree with Nick when he said today that he doesn't feel that he has every been in a class with so many incredibly intelligent people. one thing i know for sure is that English majors on this campus have to be some of the most intelligent people i have come across. not only do they know how to express themselves through prose, but everyone in our class seems to have a higher understanding of life.... and i really think that all of us can say that through the literature that we have all read.. there are lessons buried deep inside those words.

Anyway.. i am sorry that i didnt read any of my paper aloud... i just dont feel that i am as eloquent with my words as so many others in our class are! again with the anxiety of influence....

I feel as though i sound like a broken record, but everyday of presentations i am blown away with how great all the papers are! its refreshing to know that i am not the only one feeling somewhat lost... after listening to Lisa's presentation i realize even more that i am soo ready to be done that i am not even paying attention to what is going on around me. These next few weeks are the last weeks that i will be in bozeman... i am leaving... dont really know where i am going... but i am closing a chapter of my life that never seemed possible to close. I have so many wonderful memories of my years spent here at MSU (although most of those memories are not ones of actual class time) that to think its all ending is unbelievably scary. What seems even more scary is that i have to finish my paper and present it and i cant imagine that it can even amount to what has already been done! i find myself letting everything yet nothing distract me while trying to get all the final assignments done for this semester. i can see the end at it is blinding me from what is in the now.... thanks to lisa i have realized this... so i guess thats just one more thing that will most likely be quite bothersome for me while trying to get through these next few weeks!

im nervous but ready to present my paper on wednesday... the part that makes me the most nervous is that sexson listed of the people presenting on wednesday and my name is at the end of that list.... again im probably going to suffer from a bit of 'anxiety of influence' because i can only imagine how wonderful the papers will be that are presented before me! ha i just cant think of that and think about the now and get the 'best paper of my life' written !

the second day of presentations and again i am taken back by how great i think that everyone is doing! its causing me to have some 'anxiety of influence' while trying to write my own paper but at the same time listening to everyone present their ideas i am having little moments of 'ooh' epiphanies. i am finding more moments in my time as an english major to put into my paper and so in that sense i am feeling pretty great about how my paper will turn out.

i have decided to not really write much about my time here at MSU before becoming an english major.... i feel that i didn't really enjoy any of my time spent in classes before my english classes started so I'm looking back at just the four years that have gotten me to the place i am now... which is completely in love with the four quartets! since sexson suggested that i name my paper 'Stations along the way' (actually i cant remember if it was stations along the way or stations on the way but either way its titled stations along the way) i thought that structuring my paper into four small chapters would work best. with each chapter i have gone through and found a quote from each of the quartets that will be the titles of each chapter.

as of now my paper has most of its introduction, some of its conclusion and a little bit of the middle .... but i am having a little bit of a hard time trying to figure out what exactly i want each chapter to say ..... what is helping me though is reading through the four quartets... because each time i do i have another memory of a class in the past... or at least another small 'ooh' moment where i have yet another idea for the paper. Hopefully it goes as well as it is going in my head... i just need to start typing it!

First day of Presentations

Wow.... i am slightly scared to start writing my paper after hearing the 5 the were presented today! Kevin, Abby, Joan, Katie and Ronald all did a wonderful job. What i thought was rather interesting was even though no one really wrote about the same topic... all seemed to have the same feel to the papers. It was like all the papers started at one place and ended at the same place they began with. 'in my end is my beginning...' they were all very circular...

while listening to everyone present their papers today i obviously start thinking about mine and i know that my paper will circular.... after talking to Dr. Sexson about what i am to write about... Stations along the way.... i found that what made me want to be an english major is what i discovered at the Baxter last week. the music in literature... the art of the words that are written down and read. Although i hadn't thought of this until i took the weekend to really think about what i am going to write about... all the classes that i have taken and all the professors i have encountered... good and bad... and all the lessons i have learned through my years here at msu. i didnt realize at first that what i have come to love about literature was there all along. i feel as though through the years of 'learning' how to read like an english major, and being a critical reader rather than a reader just for the joy of reading... i lost the music of literature.... i have gotten to a point where when i pick up a book for class i seldom get totally lost in the words because i am thinking about what is 'really' going on in the text. especially this semester... all that i have been reading i feel like i have a protocol of how to read and what to write about. but there is one text that i don't feel i have to read a certain way or get a certain meaning from... and its the Four Quartets.

i love the fact that the poem was written in the form of music... because for me literature is music.... and it seems just natural that i end my english classes with a piece of work that not only moves me in words but moves me musically if that can even make sense... like i had said in my last blog... listening to the words of eliot is even more moving than reading them.... at times i don't really know what eliot is saying in his poem... but isn't that the point? aren't we as readers and listeners just supposed to find the music in the words?

The Anxiety of the end.....

first off, sorry for never blogging..... i just cant seem to type anything when i get onto my blog spot. nothing want to come out....

i have had trouble writing all semester.... i have been dealing with this anxiety of writing all semester . the moment i sign on to blog nothing happens when my fingertips hit the keyboard.... and thats pnly the beginning... papers are even harder for me to write! when i sit down to do any type of writing i feel like its a huge mountain that i need to climb but i dont have the strength to do it. i just feel like im all out of words to write down. but i think i have figured it out... the anxiety is purely coming from the fact that in a few short weeks a chapter of live is closing (that is if i can start catching up on my blogs!) and graduation is jsut around the corner. i have been waiting for this last semester of school to happen for two years now and now that it is here....i dont know what to do with myself.

on top of the fact that i need to make sure i get through this last semester i need to write my capstone paper... but again... have no idea what i should write about. in class on wednesday lisa talked about writing on what she knows now that she didnt know before. i thought to myself well theres a start i should try to go from there since it is such a broad topic... but again with the anxiety... i just cant even think about what i have learned and havent learned. i feel like throughout the past 6 years of school here at MSU i have learned more life lessons then anything.... thank goodness im meeting with sexson this morning to firgure out what the heck i am going to do!!

on a totally different note, i went to the baxter for the recitation on tuesday night and it was so great! it was really quite beautiful to hear everyone recite their lines one after another in no particular order. Eliot's four quartets is becoming one of my favorite things to just pick up and read. at times i just pick it up and open it to a random page and start reading from there.... i wish my mind was working as it should so i could get an idea for my paper from just doing that... but the second i think about writing that paper my mind shuts down...

The Bhagavad-Gita

reading this text it is even more epiphanic then woolf.... every page has a new , deeper meaning of what life is and what life has to offer... again i feel that i cant really explain what each part of the sttory means but i know what parts of the text that move me and i really enjoy. again i have to say that i feel blessed to read another piece of literature that moves me in a way that i didnt think possible.

'Sensous objuects fade
when the embodied self abtains from food,
the taste lingers, but it too fades
in the vision of higher truth.'

'Delights from external objects
are wombs of suffering;
in their beginning is their end,
and no wise man delights in them.'

'doomed by his double failure,
is he not like a cloud split apart,
unsettled, deluded on the path
of the infinite spirit?'

'I will teach the deepest nystery
to you since you find no fault;
realizing it with knowledge ad judgement,
you will be free from misfourtune.'

'Do not tremble
or suffer confusion
from seeing
my horrific form;
your fear dispelled,
your mind full of love,
see my form again
as it was.'

'know that passion is emotional,
as the delusion of every embodied self;
it binds one with negligence,
indolence, and sleep. Arjuna.'

'From lucidity knowledge is born;
from passion comes greed;
from dark inertia come negligence,
delusion, and ignorance.'

To the Lighthouse

5 moments of endless Epiphanies in the text :

1. ' that was of littel acocunt to her. if her husbadn required sacrifices (and indeed he did) she cheerfully offered up to him chalres tansley, who had snubbed her little boy.' pg 16

2. 'but this is what i see; this is what i see,' and so to clasp some miserable remnant of her vision to her breast, which a thousand forces did their best to luack form her.'

3. '.... on the plale semicircular beach, wave after wave shedding again and again smoothly, a film of mother of pearl.'

4. ' she could have wpet. it was bad, it was bad, it was infinitely bad! she could have done it differently of course; the colour could have been thinned and faded...'

5. 'But it had been seen; it had been taken from her. This man had shared with her something profoundly intimate.'

i just opened my book to 5 different pages and found moments of epiphany. i dont feel that i can really even comment on each line, because well... i just dont think that i am even close to being at woolfs level of one, writing, and two her understanding of all that writes about..... when reading through the lighthouse, i feel that all woolf says is an epiphanic moment.... throughout the entire novel one is able to open up another part of the character and you dont even realize that you are getting into that characters head ass much as you are as a reader..

Henry James

'An Englishman's never so natural as when he's holding his tongue. '

'Be not afraid of life. Believe that life is worth living, and your belief will help create the fact. '

'Deep experience is never peaceful'

'I think I don't regret a single 'excess' of my responsive youth - I only regret, in my chilled age, certain occasions and possibilities I didn't embrace.'

again i feel that we are able to read another poet, or writer that has such insightful moments of clarity for readers. when sexson asked us to google james, i couldnt remember if i had ever read him... and now looking back i am sure that at some point in the past few years i have read him, but whenever i did and whatever it was that i read didnt seem to apply to me at the moment because i really dont remember ever reading him.... then that got me thinking... how many things have i read through the years that i just read and let it pass by. of course there are texts that i have read through the years of the english department... but i know i dont remember all of them. is that due to me not liking the text or... is it because at that moment in my life when i was reading something i didnt fully connect to it therefore i didnt let it enter my mind and really take something away from it. this is slightly an epiphany for me because i have always though of my self as a connected reader. one who takes away from each text and really reaches some different or new understanding in life or whatever after reading a text... how many times have a i read something in the past few years and not picked up on something. was i not ready if i let James pass me by? at the point when i read him.. and i know i did know taht i am writing about it ! was i just so blind to HIS hidden music in the text that i wasnt able to see it or pick up on whatever was written..... this makes me a little sad... i need to become a more 'connected' reader again....

HAMLET

Hamlet.... well i have read hamlet... hmm 3 times in the past year and a half.... so pretty much every semester for the last year and a half i have read it. not that i dont enjoy hamelt... but its taken me a while to pick it up again and read it again....

i am taking a Harold Bloom class this semester and constantly Bloom speaks of Shakespeare as not only being the center of the western canon, but also the single most greatest writer of all time. not that he uses those words but he might as well because that is what he comes across as saying... not that i dont agree with him at all, and in fact when he writes about Hamlet i completely agree. When reading Hamlet, even when he at times seems to be annoying or just plain being a baby, i think that anyone can really connect to him and really be able to understand what him on a level that no on e int the play can.

i think that Shakespeare wrote Hamlet for the audience... for the audience to really connect to him because he doesnt have anyone else that understands him in his life. now i feel like i am talking like bloom... but one thing for sure... like reading hamlet again or not, there is a sense of connection to the character everytime i read it. i dont find myself a very melancholy person but what i do find is that through his melancholy and at times in my melancholy moments there is room for epiphanies to happen. in silence and 'aloneness' and in deep thought that only one can reach in a moment pf melancholy i think is where some of the greatest epiphanies can come from.

Tintern Abbey

Five years have past; five summers, with the length
Of five long winters! and again I hear
These waters, rolling from their mountain-springs
With a sweet inland murmur.*—Once again
Do I behold these steep and lofty cliffs,
Which on a wild secluded scene impress
Thoughts of more deep seclusion; and connect
The landscape with the quiet of the sky.
The day is come when I again repose
Here, under this dark sycamore, and view

These plots of cottage-ground, these orchard-tufts,
Which, at this season, with their unripe fruits,
Among the woods and copses lose themselves,
Nor, with their green and simple hue, disturb
The wild green landscape. Once again I see
These hedge-rows, hardly hedge-rows, little lines
Of sportive wood run wild; these pastoral farms,
Green to the very door; and wreathes of smoke
Sent up, in silence, from among the trees,
With some uncertain notice, as might seem,

Of vagrant dwellers in the houseless woods,
Or of some hermit's cave, where by his fire
The hermit sits alone.

The first 25 lines of the poem are my favorite. Wordsworth takes his readers back to a place where the only thing he knows about is in his memory. this semester i am also taking my brit lit II class and we have read wordsworth... and though i like his work tintern abbey is by far my favortie thing that i read of him. i find it quite ironic that this semester is the first time that i read wordsworth in any of my classes and its not only in my capstone but also in my last lower division class that i have to take.... hmm.. is the world trying to tell me something... am i to have some epiphany while reading tintern abbey? well i havent had one yet but i do reall enjoy reading through it. i think what i like the most about this poem... is that wen reading through it i am moved by his words and not because i think they are amazing per say... but because when picturing what he is writing is beautiful.... i have a place in my head that i have been before that always comes to mind when i am reading this.

the place that i love and the place that might not actually look like what wordsworth is viewing but i picture my families ranch.... the land is outside of red lodge montana... and there is a beautful stream with green hills that go on forever, and trees that line the end of the land like a fence that was put up , but in fact they have always been there.... not that it is the same in calibur as tintern abbey, because i looked up pictures of what land and area wordworth was looking at but for a poem to move me enough to take me to a place where i love and can imagine it very clearly is pretty amazing to me .

Annie Dillard

“Because how we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives.”

Annie Dillards essay on the eclipse was ... well wonderful..... i got taken away by her words and really felt that i was in that moment with her. all of her different moments of strong detail in her writing made me wish that i could write like her! i loved the moment when she wrote, "I turned back to the sun. it was going. the sun was going, and the world was wrong. the grasses were wrong; they were platinum. their detail of stem, head, and blade shone lightness and artificaially distinct as an art photographers platinum print.' i cant explain why but i stopped at that moment and just re read those sentences over and over again. there was something sad about what she is saying but at the same time she is captivating the beauty in the moment. by looking at everything around her with such complex, yet simple eyes....

Hopkins and inscape

“All Life death does end and each day dies with sleep”

“Nothing is so beautiful as spring -- when weeds, in wheels, shoot long and lovely and lush; Thrush's eggs look little low heavens, and thrush through the echoing timber does so rinse and wring the ear, it strikes like lightning to hear him sing.”

i was surprised to find that when i typed in Hopkins and inscape there is a whole website that related to it. for some reason i thought this was going to take longer and i wasnt gong to be able to find what sexson had wanted us to! but on the website it states ' By "inscape" he means the unified complex of characteristics that give each thing its uniqueness and that differentiate it from other things'

i feel that hopkins has it right.... characteristics are extremly complex but the uniqueness in the complexities is where there is something new to learn and something new to see. i think back to all the people that i have been honored to meet through the years here at msu and i realize yet again that the only people that i have every really been able to connect to on a certain level are English majors..... and i dont think it is that we are all the same i think that there are so many people that are in the program.... in our class! that are all so complex and so different. it is exciting to talk to people like that rather than ones that have nothing interresting to say or nothing that moves me...

Walter Pater

A very intimate sense of the expressiveness of outward things, which ponders, listens, penetrates, where the earlier, less developed consciousness passed lightly by, is an important element in the general temper of our modern poetry.

All art constantly aspires towards the condition of music.

Art comes to you proposing frankly to give nothing but the highest quality to your moments as they pass

In a sense it might even be said that our failure is to form habits: for, after all, habit is relative to a stereotyped world, and meantime it is only the roughness of the eye that makes two persons, things, situations, seem alike.

Not the fruit of experience, but experience itself, is the end.

What is important, then, is not that the critic should possess a correct abstract definition of beauty for the intellect, but a certain kind of temperament, the power of being deeply moved by the presence of beautiful objects.

I couldnt help but put the quotes up from walter pater that i just really enjoyed. i love that this whole semester we have been able to read poets of al types and poets at first seem to all be the same to an extent.... but for the first time i have let poets move me and really make me think and explore thoughts.walter pater is one that has surprised me in the sense that what he has said connects to me in an odd way..... not as much as TS eliot, but there is something there that i really love. i think it may be the sense of complete a utter importance he stresses on beauty and art. for him it seems to be very important to open ones eyes and really pay attention to what is around you.

Diamonds

while going over all the Diamonds in class today i realized that for the most part, Gabrial is like everyone else in the world. we all look past things, we hardly ever pay attention to the small details, in life. if we did we would surely go crazy, but sometimes i wish that maybe i just paid attention a little more than i do. when paying attention to the small things, looking at all the coincidenses that life seems to be, i realize that all those little things, all those mute moments, all those times coicidnental happenings.... they all add up to that big 'AHHHH' so why would i want to pay attention to the little things so very carefully?? if i did wouldnt that ruin that great moment of epiphany? wouldnt it just make life that more dull? i think so...
it seemed that the most common diamond is the painting. the balcony. gabrial. his wife. i feel that the way joyce expects all his readers to read is how he thinks we should read life as well. it seems that the characters in 'The Dead' are all dead to an extent.... they live their lives with not much change in daily ruitine..... and if we didnt pay attention to the small things that Gabrial doesnt pay attention to at all, we wouldnt get that from the text.

the music of epiphanies....

'All the arts aspire to the art of music'

joyce explains that we should pay attention to the epiphanies in literature.... but pay attention to the MUSIC in the literature rather than the philosophical things that can be found in literature.
i hwould have to agree obviously, but sometimes it seems that the epiphanies may be very important yet, the moment they happen almost passes you by before knowing what just happened. As joyce wants, this way of reading , makes a reader so much more focused on the text rather then just 'passing' everything good by. So when reading 'The Dead', i will have to be looking for anything and everything that is trivial i guess.
Diamonds that we are looking for in 'The Dead' are trivial, is what Dr Sexson has told us. Pay attention to the conversations, the paintings on the wall, the trivial conversations.... which most are not only in the story but in life...
if i think about it, i have spent almost my entire life having conversations with trival topics.... but that changed once i came to college and actually met people that i wanted to have conversations with, that were more than just trivial BS.... and since becoming an english lit major, i have met my favorite people to talk to about REAL things.. hmm i would say thats a little 'oooh'... one more reason why i became an english major...

the negative epiphanies.....

When we spoke about the epiphany and the negative together i thought to myself, there is no way that an epiphany could be negative. mainly because i was thinking stricktly about feeling rather than knowledge that one gets while having an epiphany. then i started to think, of course epiphanies can be negative.... and for me i think that main reason they can be, is because sometimes those eurphoric moments also bring harsh realities. overall one of the hardest things to deal with in life are things that you dont want to admit to yourself. and when it comes time to admit these things (and there always comes a time) that moment of realization not only hurts horribly, but its as if that something has just lifted and you can breathe just a little bit better than before.
the most recent 'oooh' moment i had was durring christmas break. family was all around for my great aunts birthday and it was a very important time for all of us. just a few months ago my great grandfather died, and my great grandmother is still kickin' it, but this time has been very hard for her because its the first time in over 80 years since she has been without Papa Tony. and i have noticed that since his death she has been much more understanding, much more loving, and far more humble before... i guess it has taken his death to make her realize she doesnt want to miss out on anything else while she is still with her family. while we were all sitting around towards the end of the night, grandma looked at all the grand daughters that were there and said , ' Dont sit and just dream, Just LIVE'. at that moment i realized that so much of peoples time is spent THINKING about what they want to do and not actually doing it, because it SCARES people to really get out there and admit they want to try something new, move somehwere new, get out of their comfort zones.
i guess i tied this moment to the negative epiphanies because when there is a negative reasoning for an epiphany there is still wonder that can come from it. because if what my grandma said, i know that i wont spend the years of my life thinking about what i would like to do, or dream to do...... i just have to go out there and make those dreams happen, and if they dont happen , at least now that i tried for it.

Should we forget or remember epiphanies?

While in class Doug discussed his blog comment one why or why we shouldn't remember epiphanies. right from the start i have to say that i really agree with Doug. The moment of an epiphany is unlike anything else. If you could have that euphoric moment all of the time it wouldn't actually feel to mean anything when you do actually have am epiphany. so for me, i think i would rather 'forget' the moment. by 'forgetting' the moment i guess i mean more on the lines of forgetting the FULL experience. if you could look back and feel and see all that you do when you have an epiphany, that initial euphoric feeling wouldn't ever be there.
we also spoke about the first book that we read and couldn't put it down. I'm rather embarrassed to admit to this, but the first book that i read in just little over a day was 'Summer Sisters' i cant even remember who wrote it. but the story and the characters are still vivid in my mind when i think back to that Saturday i read it. I guess you could say it was my first 'big girl' book to read because of what it dealt with, love, sex, growing up in general. because that was the first book i read all the way through with dreading the idea to stop, it opened my eyes to much more in depth literature. because of that book i wanted to read more and discover books that really interested me.

Piper at The Gates of Dawn

First off I have to say that I was so pleastly surprised by the Van Morrison song that we listened to in class. I have always been a fan of him, and am sure that I have heard the song before, but obviously never picked up on its link to literature. When hearing that song play, I couldnt help but think back to when I was reading that chapter. I felt that the music of the song fits the moment so well. And I think that if I were to sit and read that chapter while listening to that song, that I would feel like I was actually in the moment with Rat and Mole. I just thought that was soo cool!
So... Sexson wants us to have a defintion of Epiphany from chapter 7, Piper at The Gates of Dawn. I have never really been one to be able to put into words what it feels like to have such an Epiphany, or really any Epiphany at all. But isnt that kind of the point? When one has an Epiphany, it has to do with that one person. That one person seeing something new for the first time and having a complete understanding of something that they didnt before. I have read over the chapter time and time again and am trying to come up with a good enough definition, but I really cant seem to come to an idea that makes sense once I write it down. When reading the moment of Epiphany I get it... whatever 'IT' is.... but i just cant put into words what it really is.

Sexson said in class today, that you have to 'let go of the experience to understand the meaning'. I think that is where you have to start to even understand an Epiphany. I know that on the first day of class, i walked out of the class room and thought to myself, crap.... I have never actually had an Epiphany, but know I realize that I was putting to much thought into it, and not 'letting go of the experience'. And besides that before talking so much about the Epiphany I was putting far too much weight on the idea of the Epiphany. Whatever an Epiphany really is, all I know is that when I experience one the feeling the rushes through your body is what makes me want to have them everyday!

The 'Ooh' and the 'Ahhh'

In class we have discussed the difference between the small epiphany's and the big epiphany's. I sat back and started to realize that most of my epiphany's are small ones. And I keep trying to look back at when I decided I wanted to be an english major and in that moment I did have an epiphany, but it was a rather small one. So I have been thinking about when I first really fell in love with books, and reading.
When speaking about show and tell today, it brought me back to a memory of my first show and tell (well at least my earliest memory of show and tell). I was in 2nd or 3rd grade I believe. I brought in my copy of Shel Silversteins 'Where the Sidewalk Ends'. My grandparents had sent me the book for a Valentines Day. Which now just seems really ironic,but in side of the first page my grandparents wrote me a small note saying that they knew I would love all the poems in the book. I remember feeling like a 'big girl' because it wasnt one of those large printed books you get at school. It was something that spoke to me and that I truly enjoyed. I know that was the first book that i absolutely fell in love with. I think alot of it had to do with that fact that the poems where ones that I could read myself, and there were pictures, but most of all, I could fully understand the poems. So with this memory I am gonna say that when i was just a youngster, in the early stages of my schooling career, I had my first Epiphany dealing with books.

While reading the 7th chapter in 'Willows', I knew right at that moment that what I was reading was the 'Ahhh' type of Epiphany. When I was reading through it my heart was picking up beat, I was reading even faster, and as silly as it may sound, it felt that I too could hear the music that was leading the Rat and Mole to their moment of Epiphany. I found it so intreseting that 1. Pink Floyd actually named an album after this chapter, and 2. that Van Morrison has a song about this chapter. I think that I may have had just a 'oooh' Epiphany in class. Because with all the talk about music, I realized that either my Epiphany's have dealt with literature, or music, and mostly music.

What I've done at MSU....

Well, Sexson wants us to all look back and think about our classes we have taken here at MSU....
This is my sixth... and hopefully final year here... So there are many many classes to look back on. Here is the somewhat brief ( but still very informative) blog about my past here at MSU.

Before i was an Eng Lit major i had a couple others ...... when i first came to MSU i wanted to study something that was interesting for me, and something that i truly enjoyed. So my first semester i applied to the Art program. i have always enjoyed art - and always loved painting, so as soon as i could i took a painting class. Once the semester got into full swing, i started to absolutely loathe picking up a paint brush and creating something that i knew once finished, wouldn't be my best work. I then realized that i needed to try some other classes in the Art dept, and not just focus on the painting. But once i started taking other Art History classes and studio classes, i hated school even more. Art, painting especially had always been my main hobby, it was the one thing that i always had for an outlet. I felt that i was using up all of my creative juices, and nothing i was doing was worth it. So i decided to switch my major to a much more .... should i say.... reliable major.

Business classes were by far THE WORST classes i have ever taken. Yes i know that they aren't that challenging and not difficult to get through. But whoa were the boring, my attention span in those classes were about a minute and then i would totally zone out. And besides the silly business classes, i had to take math classes...... and that was even worse! Calculus.... really!? so after surprisingly passing through my accounting classes, algebra, and calculus.... i started for the really fun ones.... Stats... ha, after trying to get through that class twice i decided i needed a new major if i wanted to get a degree.....

So i started to talk to friends that had different majors, i talked with a couple advisers and had narrowed it down to a couple things, it was gonna be either philosophy or just a liberal arts degree. But with both of those i was a bit behind in all the classes that i would needed... so one day i came home feeling quite defeated and sat down in my room to think about what i was going to do......As i looked around my room, there i realized what i should study! Books, books everywhere! Through out school my favorite classes were always English. My favorite teachers were always my English teachers. So there you go... the rest is history... i called my mother to tell her that her daughter was going to graduate with and English Lit degree... no i wasn't going to take the teaching option... and i signed up for my classes that next day.

I had never really thought about my decision of becoming an English lit major as an Epiphany... but if the epiphany is something that is seen.... then right when i saw those books sprawled through my room and flashbacks of favorite classes and teachers... i knew what i was supposed to study....

1st day of my LAST semester!

The Epiphany..... at this point i dont have much to say about it .... but! i do love the moment of an Epiphany. Even those small little things you figure out... that second of realization and understanding is wonderful. I really hope that this semester and this class get me to a point of a larger Epiphany than i ever experienced. This being my last semester of college... for some reason i feel more ready for what is a head of me then i have every felt, most people say it can be the hardest, but i am ready for whatever comes my way! First task at hand is to read The Wind in the Willows and have already started that... and think that i will truly enjoy the story.... but ready to see what kind of Epiphany Sexson has for class!

Second, is to start memorizing 30 lines of T.S. Eliot's 'Four Quartets'. We have our groups already picked out for the semester, and i am in group 1, The Nortons who focus on the 1st Quartet. and quite surprisingly i have gotten a little head start on memorizing .... maybe ill have at least 5 lines memorized for class on Friday! :)

I am so ready for this class to really begin! Cant wait!