KimAesun News

fifteen

Aesun Kim — Fri, 25 Jun 2004 23:03:04 GMT

Finals have ended and spring quarter has now come to a close. It feels good to have a few days off before summer quarter...three days. But now it's time to catch up with friends who are back in town from other colleges. : )

I felt a bit overwhelmed with the final essay for this class because there seemed to be so much to cover (all the books, some of our essays, and things we learned - had to be incorporated some how). But as I started writing things came along and I was pretty pleased with the final result. It was based on a quote I forgot to include in my essay from a book I had read in Ewrit 1B by Arundhati Roy, A God of Small Things:

Perhaps it's true that things can change in a day. That a few dozen hours can affect the outcome of whole lifetimes. And that when they do, those few dozen hours, like the salvaged remains of a burned house -- the charred clock, the singed photograph, the scorched furniture -- must be resurrected fromt he ruins and examined. Preserved. Accounted for. Little events, ordinary things, smashed and reconstituted. Imbued with new meaning. Suddenly the become the bleached bones of a story. (32)

Working on the paper and talking to the other students around me in class made me realize how much we all got to know each other and how great spring quarter English class was. The other English literature and writing classes I've taken here didn't really open up the class enough to make friendships and really know who's actually sharing the classroom with you for twelve weeks. I really hope to see you guys around and maybe even in some other classes in the future. (Anyone planning on taking any ELIT courses, by the way?) So anyway, I posted up my final essay as well as all the other three expressive papers as well as the sentence collection from this quarter. I figured I'd post up my Magnum Opus after we receive the actual publication. Not only did I fix and add some stuff right onto the publication version (that I would need to look at to update the version I have on my computer right now) but by holding the posting of my magnum opus, I think I'll anticipate the publication even more. I'm not sure if I'll be able to make it yet next Friday afternoon, but I'm hoping plans I have will be able to change.

I saw the actual printed pages of the publication yesterday too. I'm glad all the headers showed up even though I went slightly above the margins while laying them out. I'm really really hoping that I didn't cut off any ones essay in-between. After making each person's layout I had to put them onto on whole master layout and in-between it would often change the indents, leaving some text behind. Hard to describe, but sincere apologies if anything is missing on your paper. It was already 3am and I didn't have time to read through everyones. It should be good though. You guys should be proud of the essays you wrote, they all seemed really good when I glanced over them. I'm looking forward to the distribution of the publications next week.

As for the writing aspect, this class definitely helped me identify the areas in my writing that I need to keep working on and developing. For once in my English class I'm confronted with the dilemma of how I'm going to keep my readers interested and happy after theyre done. Happy to know they didn't waste fifteen minutes of their time reading some general, obvious, boring paper. And on a rare occasion, I've gotten a B on an essay for doing just that. (That last time and only(?) time I got a B on an English paper was during my senior year English class where I didn't do enough analysis of the works of a certain poet. In the case, one of the papers I did, not only did I stick to boring general analysis, I failed to include myself in my writing -- didn't make the writing my own. It wasn't my paper, expressing my experiences, perspectives and views. Just a reiteration of what was developed in the book.) Aside from that, most of essays in this class helped me to open up my writing style in terms of the use of words and structure. I'm glad that through the writing process of this class I was able to identify the areas of writing I need to work on to become a better writer. I'm really hoping to keep myself motivated to continue to do some creative writing on my own even after this class.

And finally, I'm going to miss sitting outside of class every Tuesday and Thursday talking to you guys while waiting for Mr. Lovas to arrive. I think those few minutes of chatting was what really got all of us to get to know each other better. I felt this class was more of a community of writers rather than just the same ol' students you'd find in any other English class.

Good luck to all of you~ : )

<3, aesun

fourteen

Aesun Kim — Fri, 18 Jun 2004 01:27:41 GMT

Last Tuesday the class watched a performance of A Midsummer Night's Dream -- specifically the portion of the play within the play. It was very amusing to watch the talented actors looking as if they couldn't. I'm hoping to see the whole performance on tape some time over the summer. Today, the two groups in English class video-taped the same scenes we watched two days before. I was the moon and although I knew my cue, "Proceed Moon" I didn't hear it -- maybe because of all the sound, distractions, and what not -- and so there was some mix up there. Both groups did a good job, considering how it was put together within a short period of time.

I turned in my Magnum Opus today. I'm a little unsure about whether or not I like the ending to my paper. I think if I come up with something better to bring it all to a close I'll change it before I give in the Mac format for publication. There are subtle metaphors to the descriptions I wrote in my Magnum Opus and I'm hoping you catch them. I tried to take an approach where I wouldn't be confined to just telling the straight truth. It's non-fiction, yet at the same time some portions are non-fiction. Hopefully you won't be able to tell the difference between the two within my paper.

I volunteered to help the Production team depending on how my finals exam and study schedule turns out. It's hard to make any committments as of now since I have group presentations for my Ewrit 2 class that were already having trouble finding the time to film for, a Chem midterm Monday followed by a Chem final Wednesday. Then my math final the same day as my Chem final. Thursday would seemingly be a great day to work on the production, but I think that'd be too late in the quarter. While working on the newspaper in high school we used Adobe Pagemaker, but we always had the standard size papers and pre-made layouts (11X17) to work from and alter from there. I'm not sure if I remember too much of it. But first, I need to get mine into Mac format but since I can't meet during the assigned hours 1-3pm Monday, I'll have to go in sometime that evening or maybe even Tuesday morning? I'd rather do it myself and make sure everything is the way I want it to be instead of handing the work over to someone else.

I wish I could go with the two groups from class that are going to see the Arcadia (Tom Stoppard) performance today and tomorrow. I've read Stoppard's Rosencrantz and Guildenstern which I really enjoyed, so I'm sure Arcadia will be just as good. Instead, I'm going to read the online text version here so I don't miss out on anything -- especially for the final.

I can't believe I have a "midterm" tomorrow and then another "midterm" on Monday (the Monday one being two days before the actual class "final." I'm looking forward to seeing the reactions from the Arcadia performances, so please post! : )

thirteen

Aesun Kim — Sun, 06 Jun 2004 05:32:16 GMT

The conference session with Mr. Lovas last Friday went really well. I came out of his office with a better sense of where I was going with the Magnum Opus document. I'm still a little unsure of what exactly I'm going to do from beginning to end -- but that will definitley come along as I continue to process and think of ways to approach my paper. But definitely got a few (good, hopefully) ideas going for me.

On another note, I wanted to reflect on the past two weeks of poetry presentations in class a little bit. I've always liked most of the poetry I've read in school and I thought it was nice that everyone brought in their own poet. Most of them were ones I've never read works from or I've never heard of at all. But still, whether it was singing along to Joni Mitchell, having a group reading of Edgar Allan Poe's "The Raven", or just listening to some international poems -- all of them were very interesting and enjoyable to listen to.

I just started reading our next literary work, Shakespeare's A Midsummer's Night Dream and I'm anticipating our little performances from it. : )

Have a good weekend~

-- aesun

twelve

Aesun Kim — Mon, 24 May 2004 06:55:49 GMT

Untitled

Vast greens and boundless blues
Distant cities that have no clue
and yet --
Here I stand between the two.                                              4

A soft breeze and cheerful rays
Smoggy traffic and clock-driven days
and yet --
Here I stand between the two.                                             8

Infinite thoughts and lack of strain
Boring, mindless routines to sustain
Captivating poems read on cue.
Blue-printed plans of goals to pursue.                             12

Here I stand between the two.
Inhaling this majestic view.
If only clocks would fade away
So that I may have a longer stay.                                     16

Note: In Stanzas 1 and 2 I tried to carry a structured pattern. First a line from the poetry walk followed by a line about where we normally would find ourselves at that time of day. This is then followed by a break in structure with two couplets in both Stanza 3 and 4 each -- with Stanza 4 beginning with what would normally go at the end of the first two stanzas. I don't know why, but I thought it'd be more interesting that way. Within Stanza 3, each line is alternating between what I felt on the hike and how I would normally feel every day. Lines 15-16 not only refer to the fact that I wanted a "longer stay" up on the hill at Fremont Older, but also in general. Living chained by the hands of the clock makes our days seem to go faster -- everything is timed -- but without that sense of running on the clock, I feel our days would be much longer and well-spent according to our own plans. Whew. That took a while to generate -- the whole weekend, off and on. Still, it was enjoyable. I never feel stressed when I'm asked to write my own verse. I suppose it's because our own poetry can be any way we want. No restrictions, no set guidelines. : )

eleven

Aesun Kim — Sat, 22 May 2004 04:20:34 GMT

I really enjoyed the poetry walk our class had last Thursday. It was a nice hike and I got the opportunity to get to know more about the other students in my class on the way up. Whether it was the soft crunching sound of our shoes pressing on the gravel, the distant view of three different cities, or the vast greens (that many of us don't get to see often -- living in the city), all added to the enjoyment of the trip. I shared the poem by Lal Ded "I searched for myself..." because it was the one I was able to relate to the most. Beautifully written and I really admired how the poet could say such things that I can only think of in my head -- the type of thing that I can never seem to put to words..well, if I did, it wouldn't come out as eloquent as this:

I searched for my Self
until I grew weary,

but no one, I know now,
reaches the hidden knowledge
by means of effort.

Then, absorbed in "Thou art This,"
I found the place of Wine.

There all the jars are filled,
but no one is left to drink.

-- Lal Ded
(Women in Praise of the Sacred, ed. Jane Hirshfield.)

Reading poetry out loud to each other as a group was so relaxing and I must say, a pleasant break from the busy study schedules we all have. Falling into routine makes our everyday lives so dull and since we've already past more than half this quarter I'm pretty sure by now most of us have fallen into some routine. This poetry walk though, was a nice break from the usual. I really took to heart what Mr. Lovas' said about how sometimes we have to step back and away from keeping a time limit on our lives; we would end up limiting ourselves. Something along the lines of how we need to waste our life at times. (Bad memory. Should've written it down : / Anyone remember what it was?) But as he was mentioning that, I couldn't help but reflect on how much I've constrained myself to silly limits -- limits that shouldn't have to be set. I should be enjoying these days more than anything else, not making myself weary by the want to do things a certain way -- the way within the set lines. (None of that probably made any sense : ) but anyway..) In any case, I'm still thinking about my poetic response to the outing. Hopefully I'll come up with something eloquent by the end of this weekend.

Our poetry walk reminded me of a quote I came across a year or so ago. It was from some website that I can't recall, but had the title of The Phantom Tollbooth.

...the most important reason for going from one place to another is to see what's in between, and they took great pleasure in doing just that. Then one day someone discovered that if you walked as fast as possible and looked at nothing but your shoes you would arrive at your destination much more quickly. Soon everyone was doing it. They all rushed down the avenues and hurried along the boulevards seeing nothing of the wonders and beauties of their city as they went...No one paid any attention to how things looked, and as they moved faster and faster everything grew uglier and dirtier, and as everything grew uglier and dirtier they moved faster and faster, and at last a very strange thing began to happen. Because nobody cared, the city slowly began to disappear. Day by day the buildings grew fainter and fainter, and the streets faded away, until at last it was entirely invisible. There was nothing to see at all.

-- The City of Reality

It reflects how caught up in time we have become that we fail to recognize the simplest beauties of nature around us. This put a whole new perspective on how we spend our days.

ten

Aesun Kim — Tue, 18 May 2004 10:32:17 GMT

I haven't done a good job of posting this past week. Although I find myself occasionally encountering topics where I think to myself, Oh I should write about that once I get home today, I never really found the motivation to put blogging over my other activities (whatever they may be at the time) and other times I haven't found the time to sit down and just write. (Poor excuse, I know. But I've had several midterms this past week : / ) Well, now I'm behind on a few of the subjects I wanted to post about. (Actually, some are long overdue.)

But for now, I'll leave a brief update:

I posted up my second expressive paper. This time around, I had a more difficult time thinking about what to write about. There were a lot of interesting subjects that I came across in both A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius (Eggers) and Maus I (Spiegelman) but I couldn't find a way to incorporate them all together in a clear essay. So, I chose Maus I and developed an essay based on the perspective I got from the book. In comparison to my last essay, this expressive paper actually expresses my own personal views more than it does in regurgitating quotes and the storyline. My past essay, I thought, was well-supported but lacked a degree of personalization. It wasn't my expressive paper. This time around, I'm afraid I don't have as many quotations from Maus to support my views, although I do have a lot of details in replace of concrete quotes. Because my thesis revolved more around the whole structure of Maus, most of the writing in this second essay is more of my voice than it is of Spiegelman.

On another note, I ended up watching "Troy" at the 8:10pm showing last Friday at the Great Mall Century Theatres with my sister. (I wouldn't have had time to watch it at all during the weekend, so I took up the opportunity and I was pretty satisfied.) I read Mr. Lovas' and Qin's response to the movie and mine is similar. I liked Mr. Lovas' term "HoHo" for "Hollywood Homer." : ) It was interesting to sit in the theatre and have English 1C discussions of bird omens and prophecies start up again the back of my mind when a character mentioned the eagle flying over the skies with a serpent in his mouth. I'm not very sure about Greek mythology (aside from what we read in The Odyssey about Troy) but too bad Priam didn't listen to both of his sons. (1)He should have listened to his eldest son, Hector, and shouldn' t have ordered the soldiers of Troy to offensively attack the Greeks (the morning that Achilles was going to depart) because Patroclus wouldn't have been killed -- which in turn, wouldn't have sparked the duel between Achilles and Hector. (2)Even if we let the first one (1) pass, Priam should have listened to Paris and burnt the wooden horse. Tsk. Tsk. Well, what can I do with Greek mythology that has been told for years on end? At least it provided a good 2 and a half hours of violent, bloody war scenes with hints of love-making. Actually, I was pretty sad that Achilles died right after he found someone he fell in love with. Poor guy. Almost shed a tear. Ah, the work of Hollywood. All in all, I enjoyed the movie --whether it was just Brad Pitt or if it was the special effects-- I don't know. But it did put a nice ending to my Friday night before my weekend of midterm studying. (I'm glad you guys enjoyed it too.)

nine

Aesun Kim — Fri, 07 May 2004 06:42:02 GMT

Today in class Mr. Lovas brought up discussion about the outlook each student has about our English 1C class. I sat there thinking about his approach to teaching and how I was adapting to this new style. In high school English classes were always driven by the teacher's agenda. We would have a discussion on a specific topic, a quiz to make sure you're up-to-date with the reading, in-class essay topics to respond to, and essay topic guidelines. The essays did have some leeway in that we were able to choose our own opinion and writing approach -- but still within the set topic options. What's new for me in this class is how I don't have anyone behind me telling me what to do every night for homework and what to write about. I have to search the motivation within myself to get things done. I agree with Mr. Lovas that students need to learn how to not only follow guidelines but also carry out their own paths of learning; setting their own guidelines, standards, goals. The consequence of not doing assignments in high school was that you would lose points on let's say a quiz or class activity. In our English class, if you don't do readings and assignments, the only consequence is the lack of enrichment in our own learning. He doesn't bind us to a point system and we're not constantly reminded of how many points you need out of the total to get the grade. Instead, the only option he gives us is to be responsible and carry out our own education in the classroom. Drive it with our own motives. This being new, (I haven't done this in any of the classes I've had here at De Anza yet), I'm adapting and realizing what I'd be losing if I didn't read, do assignments, and participate in discussions.

I received my first graded expressive paper back today. Interestingly, this morning I had a dream (I kid you not) where I received my expressive paper back with a score of 54/100. I think what might have caused such a nightmare was my reflection upon reading other students' papers (posted on their blogs). I was really impressed with the writing capabilities everyone had (who posted) and within each paper I began to see characteristics my paper lacked. Despite being my "expressive paper" I only expressed my views on the literary topic, none of which reflected my persona. True, the opinions reflect me, but I didn't really write anything that would leave the reader knowing something more about me as a person. I don't think I personalized it as much as I should--- no not should, wanted-- to. It didn't express me as a person. I was actually debating -- while writing the paper -- what would have been expected. This was wrong in the first place, since I should be writing without the thought of fulfilling what's expected by the teacher. Rather, I should have written with the intention of expressing myself through this literary work. I'm actually anticipating the next paper and the new approach I'm going to take. Expressive. -- the word itself has such a subjective, wide range of meanings. And I think that's where I had disagreement between what I want and what I thought was "expected." Anyway, it was reassuring to get the grade I earned.

And since I'm on the topic of my approach to this class I feel like writing about the areas of improvement I've been working on in my past English classes -- and that I still am working on. I understand that I haven't been participating much in the class discussions (the ones that involve the whole class). I'm not a very opinionated person when it comes to many issues. I continuously find myself sitting on the fence, able to go both ways -- whether I have a concrete reason or none at all. Usually discussions that involve social issues leave me in the dark since I can't decide which way I'd go. When it comes to discussions involving pieces of literature, though, I'm a bit more open since I can always find concrete examples to back myself up in my arguments. Although sometimes, even when I do have support to back my literary opinion, I get easily intimidated by other students. Not a good characteristic, I know. I've been working on it for a while. I noticed it sophomore year in high school when I would find myself debating whether or not to raise my hand for my two cents worth. I have a feeling that my English teacher that year (who was also the same teacher I had senior year for English AP) and the English teacher I had junior year noticed I had trouble voicing my opinions out into the discussion and helped me complete my thoughts. What a waste to keep all these thoughts to myself. When I did speak in class I would usually write my thoughts down into coherent sentences before I spoke because if I didn't I'd easily be at a loss for words. This is still a trouble for me sometimes. I'll let it be known that this quarter, you'll find me having trouble putting thoughts together and coherently expressing them to the group. (It's so coherent in my mind, but so hard to express with words.) Please bear with me though. I'm bound to get things right soon.

eight

Aesun Kim — Wed, 05 May 2004 02:38:57 GMT

After listening to Iris Chang (author of The Rape of Nanking and Chinese in America) as well as discussing her approach to presenting her studies and work in our class discussion, I noticed a change in my own outlook. While I was sitting in the conference room listening to her describe the great "atrocities" and her comparisons to other tragic historical events, all I could think of was the emotional aspect of those occurrences. She seems reasonable in the way she identified "Power" as being the source of these wrongdoings in Nanking and on our own soil in the past. She mentioned that genocide -- and I assume she meant to include other acts against humanity -- tend to occur in three stages: (1)economic depression, (2)political dictatorship/instability (in which they take advantage of the bad economy as a reason for change), and (3) ethnic scapegoating. She supported her stance well with evidence from different historical events (Turkey, Japan, Germany). She made democracy sound very commendable and praiseworthy since it offered the opportunity for citizens to (1)bear witness (educate the public; accumulate evidence to hold government officials accountable), (2)direct intervention (i.e., the westerners in Nanking who establish the Int'l Safety Zone), and (3)passive resistance ~ civil disobedience (the power of incction to promote social change; i.e. MLK, Ghandi). And although she seemed to suggest that a democracy would save us from power-hungry government officials, I couldn't help but think about the war we are in right now. And how although we live in a democratic society how we could also fit into the first three stages of the "Power" criteria she listed.

Discussing her approach to her speech in class was also interesting. After her speech a man in the front frow (assumed to be of Asian ethnicity) asked a few questions which seemed to alarm if not offend Chang. I doubt the man was out to offend her, but what ran through my mind when someone mentioned that he could've been a Japanese man was whether or not she would have reacted the same way to those questions had a person of another ethnicity asked. I would like to think that she would not, but at the same time I expected her to say something about how her reflections on the Japanese that she speaks about is not directed or in any way related to the Japanese generation of today. I was disappointed she didn't mention anything like that, because if I were Japanese and had been sitting through a speech like hers I think I would've felt a bit uncomfortable. Not due to shame -- after all, what's there to be ashamed of? you weren't the one who bayoneted babies thrown in the air -- but rather, I think I would've sensed or at least imagined each of the listener's changing their outlook on Japanese people. Its kind of hard to describe in words. But even so, if a speaker is speaking harshly about the acts of people of my ethnicity -- even though I was not apart of the whole ordeal -- I would still feel uncomfortable to sit through it. It seems to isolate a certain group within the audience. I feel she should have addressed that issue in the beginning of her speech. Then again, I wonder why the Japanese guy sitting next to me left? He had a notepad to take notes on (probably for an assignment) but instead of taking notes he listened for the first 20 minutes or so and left.

I remember a quote/phrase that goes something along the lines of writing extraordinary events in ordinary writing and ordinary events in extraordinary writing. I thought back on this quote when Mr. Lovas brought up Chang's approach to presenting her work. She used very graphic words such as slaughter, atrocities, beaten, tortured, among others that I can't think of at this moment. It made me compare her style with what Eggers does. She uses extraordinary writing to describe extraordinary events, which provided the emotional impact. Even so, I prefer Eggers approach in the way he makes his events sound so simplistic and the way he uses ordinary - as-if-it-didn't-matter-much writing. Almost an indifferent approach. If you read the passage I responded to in the previous entry (seven), you'll notice how he doesn't comment on events on an emotional level. He describes them like ordinary events. No special, flowery writing to describe the death of his parents, but his writing is conversational. I prefer that much more than Chang who chose to dramatize the historical events with statistics and graphic words. It seems to have more of an effect, to speak of extraordinary things in ordinary language.

I was only able to read up to page 178 in AHWOSG before today's class which was a few pages shy of the Real World interview Eggers goes to. Still, I found the discussion regarding his interview interesting. He described himself as the ideal midwesterner that would represent "tens of millions...who grew up suburban and white." (205) I overheard one student mentioning that he sounded desperate. I agree, but at the same time it probably sounded that way because Eggers knows what "type" of person they want or actually, need, on their cast. He even mentioned it previously when describing the employees of his start-up magazine:

"Now to diversify. We are obsessed with seeming diverse. Not in terms of actually having an incredibly diverse staff or anything -- but in terms of appearing diverse, thus when photo opportunities arise, we panic. We must look like the perfect cross section of young America! For the cameras we need three men and three women; three whites, one black, one Latino, one Asian."

Ironically, even though they call the show the Real World, how real is it, when you have the media making such an effort to diversify and dramatize events that go on in the house. I admit, I've watched a couple of episodes out of sheer boredom, and just for the amusement of watching, but I don't think that the show itself can possibly reflect real life. After all, these cast members know that they are going to be aired on national television and will have those minutes of fame. I don't see how itd be possible to actually go about living a real life when you have cameras on your tail wherever you go.

--aesun

seven

Aesun Kim — Mon, 03 May 2004 04:12:57 GMT

"Maybe not like worms but like a million little podules, each a tiny city of cancer, each with an unruly, sprawling, environmentally careless citizenry with no zoning laws whatsoever. When the doctor opened her up, and there was suddenly light thrown upon the world of cancer-podules, they were annoyed by the disturbance, and defiant. Turn off. The fucking. Light. They glared at the doctor, each podule, though a city unto itself, having one single eye, one blind evil eye in the middle, which stared imperiously, as only a blind eye can do, out at the doctor. Go. The. Fuck. Away. The doctors did what they could, took the whole stomach out, connected what was left, this part to that, and sewed her back up, leaving the city as is, the colonists to their manifest destiny, their fossil fuels, their strip malls and suburban sprawl, and replaced the stomach with a tube and a portable external IV bag. It's kind of cute, the IV bag."
A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, Dave Eggers. page 4.

I chose this excerpt because it reflects my initial outlook on this novel and Eggers' narrative. I was amused at the way Eggers depicted the cancer cells harboring in his mother's body but at the same time his whole situation was still heartrending. At times when I think he's just avoiding confrontation with his true emotions (due to the lack of expression in that area), yet there are other times that I think that maybe he's over it and he's just writing about how situations like this can be conquered. Even in the excerpt above (as well as the surrounding context), there's no sense of what he's actually feeling about the situation but I see him as a detached character, who's indifferent and impartial to what's going on. All he comments on are trivial things like the IV bag being cute.

I started reading this morning and still haven't put the book down. (Yep, this morning. But I guess you should consider how I was behind a little as of last Wednesday and just got to the book today.) His writing seems simple when you look at it in terms of how real it is. Almost as if he's speaking to me in person and and describing everything right before me. But on the other hand, his writing is rich with details and the way he portrays his situations is so creative. I have a feeling that by the end of this book, you might see a book change in my list of fives. We'll see.

--aesun

six

Aesun Kim — Fri, 30 Apr 2004 00:46:32 GMT

My Expressive Paper 1 link is up for anyone who would like a read.

[Will update asap with AHWOSG quote response. Need to do some more reading first. : ) ]

five

Aesun Kim — Wed, 28 Apr 2004 03:28:58 GMT

I was going through the email list to send a specific email to the people in the Egger's group, but I couldn't match the person with certain email addresses. So, I'll just post my questions and comments here, since we all decided to each write in our blog about the collaboration poem for Thursday.

I was curious, did we want to have our shrinklet rhyme? Follow a certain meter? Or just blank verse or even free verse?
Feedback to the questions above would help in terms of what we all want our verse to be like.

My couplet would probably change accordingly, but here's what I have (so far) for my part (Chapter 1 and 2):

-Introduce Odysseus and his hardship

-Athena inspires the Prince to set sail for news of Odysseus

EDITED --

A.
Sing a short one, Muse, of the luckless hero whose travels have grown weary.
His son sets sail with hopes to find news of his father that's merry. (? hahaha. :9) Okay. Okay. No rhyming?

B.
Sing a short one, Muse, of the luckless hero whose travels have grown weary.
With a seed of hope, his son sets sail for news of his father's well-being.

On another note, seeing how our deadline for our first expressive paper was moved to Thursday, I decided I would just post my final draft (after I make more revisions from the paper I had today).

four

Aesun Kim — Mon, 26 Apr 2004 12:55:47 GMT

I just woke up (4:00am) to review a little bit before my 7:30am Chemistry lab section for the midterm we have today, but decided to take a small detour through my blog links to see if anything new was being posted. I came upon Mark's recent entry about the movies he watched this weekend and realized that I didn't write about the movie I saw (happens to be the same one), Man on Fire starring Denzel Washington last Friday. Washington plays the character of an ex-government operative (an assassin) who takes on the job of a bodyguard down in Mexico upon the request of his friend. Essentially the plot of the story lies in the "fact" (stated in the beginning of the movie -- although no sources were credited, hence the quotation marks) that "every 60 seconds there is a kidnapping taking place in Latin America. And of those, only 70% of the victims survive." Just when Washington and the little girl, played by, Dakota Fanning, start to develop a nice relationship, she gets kidnapped and Washington goes out on a wild spree of revenge.

Aside from the short plot summary, what I really wanted to comment on was how I also noticed people cheering on the violence. And well, although most of us tend to do it subconsciously or at least not in the open -- a lot of the movie-goers that night were yelling out encouragements to, Denzel. "Yeah, you get 'em Denzel," or just simple, (but nonetheless irritating), clapping, whistling or "Yeah!"s floating around the theatre. Last Friday was probably my first movie outing during the past 7 or 8 months (I usually rent movies with Korean captions so that my parents can also enjoy it) so I couldn't help but ask, Is that what they do nowadays? I don't remember people doing that months ago when I watched action movies at the theatres. People tend to keep things to themselves. But funny how every time someone yelled a comment out for the rest of the audience to hear, the screen just before the movie reading "Silence is Golden" kept appearing in the back of my mind. Silence is golden.

Well, Mark does have a point. Most people say that they do not support violence, yet their actions don't support their words. And not only actions, since sometimes our thoughts don't agree with our words. And even if I were to assume that the audience that Friday consisted of the younger crowd, that doesn't go to say older adults aren't included. I'll have to give the example from the first playoff game between the Sharks and the Avalanche when there was a fight that went on between two players. After practicing at the driving range with my dad, we decided to watch the rest of the Sharks game at the golf clubhouse when the small fight ensued between the players on the ice. At that moment, the seemingly quiet clubhouse who only expressed their delight when a goal was shot, began roaring with cheers and encouragements to the Sharks member who was throwing fists at the other team member. These adults who were probably in their mid- to late 30s were feeding off of the violence on the screen. People in the clubhouse who didn't seem to even be following the game started getting into it too.

And while most of us have an affinity to a certain character in a book (Odysseus, let's say), or a movie star, a hockey player, etc. when he/she takes on a fight, could the encouragement of a one type of violence be acceptable than another? The media probably knows that people tend to be more compelled to watch brawls and violence, which is probably the reason they kept replaying (over three times that I counted) the small fight between the hockey players.

Considering I took more time out of my "reviewing" session than I had originally alotted to write this entry, I'll have to stop and go back to my Chemistry book.

--aesun

three

Aesun Kim — Fri, 23 Apr 2004 08:19:29 GMT

After discovering class was cancelled, I was on my way into the campus center to get some lunch when I ran into Jane who was quickly trying to finish her meal before the time class would have normally started. I told her the news and we ended up engaging in a small English discussion over lunch about what we listed on our Lists of Five as well as a little bit about the expressive paper that's due next week. For her own category in the Lists of Five she chose her 5 Dreams which she shared with me. Very ambitious, but I know hard-working Jane will do so much more. I told her about my own category, 5 Best Poems I've Read and then we shared our 5 Best Books too. This was good because usually I get book recommendations from my friends around me and this time - for once, I was returning the favor to someone else. Overall, the discussion was nothing short of interesting and I got to know her a lot better. She has such a fresh, lively personality and I can't help but admire how she has that endless crave for knowledge (I've had math class with her the past three quarters. Time has passed so quickly.)

On another note, I was reading Mr. Lovas' weblog entry about the "page 23 meme" and decided to do one myself. I randomly chose a book off of my shelf, Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1951.) and flipped over to page 23, fifth sentence, which read:

"I was yawning all over the place."

After the discussion with Jane, I've been thinking about possible expressive paper topics (although I don't have many to choose from right now).

-Informal and formal power (Book 7) ~ the power/role of women in The Odyssey
-Odysseus: A question of his own abilities -- help from gods, etc.
-Prophecies
-
...

Those are just several we discussed in class. I definitely need to go back and think of more possibilities. Any ideas for topics? I've heard a lot about the risk papers that 1B students had to write last quarter, and I'm thinking that I should try that out some time this quarter. I've never done papers like that before. Although I have strayed very far from the five-paragraph essay in terms of structure, I feel as if I haven't developed much in my writing in regards to ...creativity. In senior year English AP class we wrote poetry analysis papers, a response to a critic's paper, and papers with topics related to the books we've read. I learned that 5-6 pages sometimes won't do justice (as it did in previous high school English courses) when you're asked to fully analyze a certain aspect of a literary work. It could take more than five paragraphs, it could take 10-13 pages of in-depth writing. Which, many times, it did. Deep analysis, but not much room for creativity. And even though I had more writing experience as news editor with the school paper, The Prospector, I basically stayed within my own section and only occasionally wrote for the features and lifestyles section. Newswriting had strict boundaries. Whether its matching word count or not following the inverted-pyramid structure (structure of the article in which most important facts are listed in the beginning and less important in the end) there's nearly no room for any creative writing.

Anyway, after I decide my topic for the expressive paper, I'll try to come up with ideas to make it different from past essays. I have a feeling I will be thoroughly challenged this quarter in terms of writing-style. It's something I haven't encountered enough to be comfortable doing, but it's definitely an aspect of my writing I would like to improve on.

"Yawning all over the place,"
--aesun

And then slowly, as one day followed another, springtime replaced winter, and autumn summer, it dwindled away bit by bit, crumb by crumb. It went away and disappeared. It went inside, I mean, because you always retain something deep down, a sort of heaviness...

Madame Bovary, Gustave Flaubert.
(Good book, by the way: 4.1/5.0 on my vague, undefined scale).

two

Aesun Kim — Wed, 21 Apr 2004 00:43:34 GMT

This afternoon I received an email from Mr. Lovas about how my (academic) weblog was now up and ready to go. To be honest, I was a little bit anxious to try this whole "academic weblog" thing out. I've had a few in the past (via. Blogger), although I wasn't very committed to them. The longest one I've had was probably during my junior year in high school when my news editor (at the time) offered to set one up for me. That was my very first blog that lasted a whole year before one hiatus lead to another until I completely stopped writing. Since then I had one or two that lasted for a few months each. I guess what's interesting this time around is that half the time I'll be required to update and the other half I'll update whenever I please. Maybe I'll stick with my old blogging habits and include passages/quotes that I come across that I would like to remember -- at the end of (almost) every post. I found it nice to look back at my old posts and see beautifully written excerpts that I had found and kept track of. edit -- Today, Mr. Lovas mentioned making a link to another page that would hold our sentence collection but I decided to do that in another notebook that I would like to keep writing in even after this class.

Well, I'm a little behind in the Odysseus readings so I'm hoping to catch up to where I am suppose to be at before the next class session. I've been enjoying the class sessions we've had thus far. It's just as it was described by previous 1B students that I spoke to: "at times boring, dull, slow, and excruciating to sit through" were, of course, not the words that they chose. ; ) But actually, I'm really glad that this class is so discussion-oriented. I think that's really important especially for an English class - to have that sharing of ideas and interpretations. And that's also exactly why I enjoyed my Intro to Fiction and senior-year English class so much. Lately, I've been thinking about how much more enriching it would have been had I taken Ewrit1B with Lovas last quarter. Anyway, I'm curious to see how the use of my academic weblog will play out.

-- aesun

Perhaps its true that things can change in a day. That a few dozen hours can affect the outcome of whole lifetimes. And that when they do, those few dozen hours, like the salvaged remains of a burned house -- the charred clock, the singed photograph, the scorched furniture -- must be resurrected from the ruins and examined. Preserved. Accounted for. Little events, ordinary things, smashed and reconstituted. Imbued with new meaning. Suddenly they become the bleached bones of a story.

A God of Small Things, Arundhati Roy.

(--- post written April 18, 2004)

one

Aesun Kim — Wed, 21 Apr 2004 00:43:12 GMT

The Beginning.

April 17, 2004

I originally had these first two posts typed up and ready to go but I made a few wrong clicks (although I'm not quite sure where) and so these are now being posted. I made a few exchanges with my blog partner, Kaitie and we also exchanged more accessible communication info so from now on "a few wrong clicks" shouldn't be an issue. : ) --- April 20, 2004.