The Last Blog

This will be my last blog and I wanted to let you know that this class has been pretty fun. I just wish that we could have Professor Sexton in all of our classes and have as much fun in the rest of our classes. I learned alot this semester and I hope that everyone else has to.

Retellings

I was just finishing up some of my Fluid Mechanics homework and I couldn't but help to notice that even retellings are in my Fluids homework. I could not believe that I did not know before. This retellings is that we have been using the same equations the whole semester. And every homework that we did used that equation so I guess that the equation that we used which was the Bernuli Equation is a retellings. I guess that shows you that you have not just retellings in literature but also in engineering books.

Sparknotes

I cant believe that I have not blogged about this great topic since it was a great question. Reading Sparknotes instead of the Brothers K is like finding out that you married your cousin. But I have to admit while I was reading the Brothers K I was reading sparknotes to help me get back on track and understand what was going on during the story but I have to admit that reading the book was alot better than sparknotes.

Wednesday Presentations

Since we cant blog past Wednesday Presentations if we have already gone I thought that I would just say that I am very interested in wondering what they have in store for us. So good luck to all and I hope you knock our socks off.

Worst Day Ever

I have to say that I was looking at Jessica Waldners blog about her worst day and I have to admit that would be bad but I think that my worst day was when I had all of my upper division engineering classes HW and projects and even tests due the same day. Yes that was last week and this week. Last week I have a very big project for my estimating and bidding class where we had to bid how much the MSU Alumni building costs and it was one hell of a couple of days. Everything was very stressful and I wanted to kill all of my group but I got it done and we came out of it with a pretty good bid price. Well this week I have everything due tomorrow with these blogs, the last of my EM 331 Fluid Mechanics homework, my ethics paper for estimating and bidding due today and finally I have my concrete final tomorrow and I have yet to look at any of my past notes and I probably wont until midnight or even one. So if you think you have a bad day and you are a English or literature major, I dare you to try to live the life of a least a engineering major or if you really want to not have any sleep in your college career then you should go into Architecture. One of my roommates is an Architecture major and he doesn't get home until 3 or 4 in the morning and goes back to school at 9. So I hope your days just got better.

Add on to previous

Just a little add on to my previous blog that no story is ever the first. Another great example is Disney. I have noticed that they have the same repetitive story with all of the princesses movies. They are pretty much all about how they have great live and then they get in trouble with some crazy old woman and then the great Prince Charming comes along and saves them. I just started watching the Disney movies over again and I have to admit, this time around I get alot more of the puns and jokes that Disney has incorporated in his movies.

No Story is ever a first

About every so often I watch a couple episodes of South Park. OK maybe everyday I watch a couple of episodes of South Park. And when the presenter on Monday did his presentation about how South Park is all about retellings, it finally clicked to me that they are retellings. Not quit retellings of stories but retellings of news and other world things. In every episode you can deffinatly tell what they are retellings. One is about when Ginni pigs start to take over the world because the Peruvian flute bands have been locked away. And so you can tell that this is making fun of the movie that came out a little while ago called Cloverfeild. And when they had all the news of the pirates in Somalia taking over ships, the South Park owners did a episode about that when the boys are tired of school and want to become Somalian pirates. I really like this new look that I have about everything that is around me. I guess that most of the things that have been happening lately is that that whole thing with Tiger Woods. Everywhere you look on the television you could see jokes about Tiger Wood and what he did. So even though they are making fun of him, they are just telling more and more retellings.

Individual Presentatinos Monday

So on Monday we had the second set to our class individual presentations. I went on Monday and I am always very nervous about getting in front of any group of people. I cant believe it, I am a Junior and still get nervous about getting up in front of people. But the other people that went did a great job. I really like how some girl in class did that one about the Brother K and thought the hero was someone else besides the one everyone thinks is. But I feel that some people should stop reading off of there papers and trying to avoid eye contact with the class. Professor Sexton even said that he wants a great summary of our paper not just for us to read our papers. Now all you people that have to go tomorrow or Wednesday, should take my advice and rehearse your papers as much as possible.

Found Poetry

So like I said before I went to famous daves tonight and I was looking around and found all the neon signs that were there and I was looking at them and couldn't help but think about what can I do with these neon signs. Then it came to me, I can turn these neon signs all into a great poem. I guess that I was right when I was writing my paper about that found poetry is everywhere and you can always make it a great poem.

Back to the begining

So I was going out to eat tonight at famous daves and as we were coming back I looked over at Dairy Queen and I could not only think about Arnold Friend sitting on his car looking out around him and scoping out the women. I just can believe that Arnold Friend from Where are you going where have you been came to my mind.

Men, Women and what they talk about

Professor told us before that we should eaves drop on a man and a women. Well I didn't have to go far to do this. I witnessed this with myself and my girlfriend. We sometimes have our fights but I have noticed that we argue about the same things. That thing is that she does not think that we spend enough time together. Well I try to tell her that I have one hell of a major that I am trying to finish within four years and I have one year left. But I do try hard myself to see her as much as possible but it is hell enough when everything is due at the same time. But I wanted to get that out that if you listen to men and women talk about things it will change for everybody but with me and my girl we argue about the same thing and talk about the same things. I know that when she gets off of work I always ask if she had a good day and if anything interesting has happened.

Individual Presentations Friday

The Friday individual presentations are what became my paper essentially. I almost forgot about all of the crazy things that have happened through out this whole semester. I cant believe that I have learned so much, as you can see from my paper I have learned quit a bit. I have to owe it to professor Sexton for all that he has done for us. Thank You

Final Paper

Tim Morton
Lit 110
4/25/10
What I Know Now

There were many different topics that I could have written about, but over this whole semester there has been one topic that everyone in the class knows. This topic will stick with us for who knows how long and I doubt that we will ever forget it. The major topic for the whole class was retellings and we all know that there is never a new story but only a story that is being retold. So then with this topic of retellings there were still a million other things that I could write about within this topic.
So up until now I have not been able to think of something to write about on what I know now that I did not before. Well I did not know what to write about until when I went to class on Friday when a couple of my fellow class mates laid it out straight for me. They talked about the same thing that I am trying to figure out. They summarize all that has been happening this whole semester, and not just in a literary sense but with all the crazy characters that have been in this class and all of the crazy topics that we have talked about. That is when I finally realized what I know now that I didn’t know before. That is that my life right now I have been judging things with yes and with a no, and I should not be doing that. This class has taught me to look at retellings from a different view. That view is why am I not getting into the story and why am I not able to see the retellings.
This is what I have learned to do in this class. I am able to see different stories in each story that we have read because we have read so many stories. I know now that from now on I will be able to read a book or a short story and realize what kind of retellings are in those stories or books. Now there is one book that I have been reading in my own time and I can see some of the similarities from that book to some of the stories that we have read in class. This book that I am reading is called “The Adventures of Tom Sawyer” by Mark Twain. There are many retellings in that book. The one that really stuck out to me is that this book is just another story of a regular taken away and returns to be the hero in the end.
Another great thing that I have learned in this class is that if you really take the time to look around then you will find poetry everywhere. Found poetry is everywhere, right now I am in my room and I am just looking around and I can see fifteen things that could possibly be a great piece of poetry. I am watching an NBA game right now between the Dallas Mavericks and the San Antonio Spurs and what I noticed that is if you focus on what the people are cheering then you will clearly see; well actually hear poetry coming from the crowd. I guess that if you closely listen to the crowd even more than you tell whether it is an iambic pentameter or an iambic tetrameter. See before this class I would have never thought of just listening to the television closely and finding these kinds of things. I just noticed that on my bed right now I have the syllabus to my Native American Studies 100 class and you can pick out many words to make it a great poem.
One big thing that I learned was a big example of what I and my group did for our group presentation. What we did was we did a retellings of the famous writing of Antigony in the words of what we would use in present day. These retellings as well as many other retellings taught me that anything can be retold in the view of another person. I guess that just goes to show you that no one can ever just have that one story, there is always going to be a retelling of the same story. A couple of other groups happened to have the same idea as ours but a little differently. One group got together and all told each other what their favorite story was and then they took all of the stories and made them into one. They then acted this story out and you can clearly see what stories they were acting out. Another group did something similar to that group but with just one set of stories that were all the same. The similar stories were all about Cinderella. That was the group with Garrett in it and with Heather playing the part as Prince, which was a great site.
The difference that this had made to me is that I am now looking at each of the literature readings that we have done and are still going through in a different mindset. I feel that I am even carrying this talent in to my other classes. A good example of this and what I happened to do my found poem on was my concrete class book. I guess that even engineers have the right mind set to have great power for great poems in there writing without even trying. I know now that I need to look into more depth with every piece of literature that I have read and will read to analyze it more in depth. Right now I want to go back through every piece of literary work that I have ever read. Even the stories that I read when I was a wee little lad back in elementary school.
In conclusion I have gone over those main parts of what I know now that I did not now before and talked about how it has made a difference to me. The main parts that I went over was that I need to take the literature works not just read the story but be in the story and analyze it while I am in the story. The next main part that I learned was that found poetry can be everywhere you look, even right in your own home and television. So now I take some time just for myself to look out and see what kind of poetry is around me and how I can put it into a poem of my own. The last main part of my learning part in this literature class was that any story is retold over and over and over again but just in different words that are more appropriate for the time that people are reading it. This difference in me has changed my viewing on literature all together. I know now that I need to look more closely and be more involved in the stories.

The Best Group Presentation

I told you before that I thought that Dani and Spencers group was the best group presentation to me. They had a great idea and they executed that idea the best. Now we are starting to do our individual presentations and I would like to say that I have the topic that I am going to write my paper on but I can not even think about what I am actually going to write on. Then when I went to class on Friday I was hearing the other class mates talk about what they have learned over the semester and I realized that over and over again the same thing came up. Well I will talk about that in my paper and you will find out on Monday.

Group 6

There is not much that I can say about group six because that was my group and I thought it went well but we definitely could have practiced it before at least for a little bit. But it seemed that the class and professor Sexton liked it.

Group 5 presentation

Group 5 did a great job with there presentation but I feel that they could have done it differently or something. But the cookies were good I have to admit. I thought that the music was really diverting the classes attention from what everyone was saying.

Group 4 presentation

Group four presentations was a good one as well. I liked to see eveyone having a part and being involved in the presentation. Garrett was a little scary in this skit but I guess you should expect that. Heather you did a great job as Prince, that was the best part I think.

Group 3

Dani and her group with Spencer did a great job but I liked how you incorporated everyone of the stories that you liked into just one story. I was very impressed with this presentation and I don't think that I stopped laughing at all during that entire time. Like I said I was very impressed with this.

Group 2 Presentaion

Group 2 I thought did an ok job with linking Avatar with Pocahontas. I liked the clip and it was interesting to see all of the similarities

Group Presentations

Now that we are done with group presentation and starting into the individual presentations I want to go through each group presentation and tell you what I thought about each group idea. So Group 1 which was with Tim and Devynn I think, did the worst of the all the groups. They did not follow any of the professors instructions on what each group needed to do. All there group did was argue the entire time and called it teaching the class something. I dont think so....... that was nothing but a cop out hope time goes fast presentation and Tim didn't even know what the hell he was even saying that entire time. You could tell that they didn't even think to hard about something and through this together in five minutes. Sorry Tim but you did not get the idea of this group presentation.

Term Paper

I have chosen to do my term paper on what I have learned from this class and what it has taught me and what kind of experiences I have experience in the class. The stories have taught me that I have look outside of the box on stories.

The Brother K

The brothers k, reading it from the spark notes to me is like not being able to taste pot roast and mashed potatoes. Like I said earlier in my blog I just finished The Brothers K, and I am glad that I stuck through it and finished it. I have to admit that I did read spark notes at the beginning because I was having a hard time following the story that I resorted to spark notes and it was easy to follow that story with those summaries but after a while I didn't need those notes because the story drew me in that I felt that I was in the story being right next to the conversations that I was reading.

Group Meeting

Our group just meet today in the library and it sound like we have a great idea for our group. I want it to go well so I want everyone in group six to pull together and focus on what part they have.

The Brothers K

I just finished reading The Brothers K and after about 400 pages through it, the story grew on me. And I pushed through it and found out that it was all in my mind that I didn't want to read it. I thought that this book was written better as the book went on and I felt that Ivan became more of a little rebel as the book went on and I didn't like his character. If you are debating on whether you want to read this book or even try to finish it I will tell you that you should read it or finish it.