As much as I've tried to motivate myself the past few weeks, I am so inescapably and perpetually bored out of my mind right now. I feel like I have gone full steam for 4 solid years and this is the first summer I've ever had where I'm not working or taking classes full time. Don't get me wrong, I'm still taking some classes, and I'm working a little bit doing research, but I can't even believe how much free time I'm still left with. What do people do all day?!
Accomplishments so far:
- Completed three seasons of Arrested Development, and am well into the fourth.
- Discovered a new nature show called North America on the Discovery Channel on Sunday nights.
- Read lots of articles about attachment styles and attachment behaviors.
- Spent hours being pensive about potential thesis options. (No physical results to show for it)
- Successfully filled the next two months of musical numbers for our ward's sacrament meetings.
- Started a new blog about marriage and family therapy.
- Committed to living within a smaller budget, discovered that's great way to feel like a failure, so made the budget a little bigger after repeated failed attempts.
- Finally hung curtains and some wall art in the living room!!
- Read 4 Harry Potter books before I burned out.
- Made numerous trips up to Salt Lake for doctor's appointments (not pregnancy appointments).
- Scheduled minor surgery for a month from now.
- Learned some basic stats from Dave for my program.
- Gone camping twice (once in horrific weather, once in great weather)
- Rediscovered the TV show Friends since it seems to never stop playing during the day.
- Seen every great movie that's come out in the past month (hence the budget disaster).
- Sewed 2 princess costumes for my nieces and visited them so much they're sick of me.
- Spent some much-needed quality time with the sun at the pool with Annie and sometimes Russ too.
- Listened to "Scream-Free Parenting" on CD and had a hard time agreeing or disagreeing with it.
- Started learning how to code from an online course.
So when I write them all out it's not that bad. If you sort of squint and look at it funny, you can find some truly productive things in between all the TV splurging, movie watching, and pool-going, right? I just wish I had more to show at the end of my day. I'm used to papers and projects non-stop. I can't really get a handle on this whole "life after graduation" stuff. I guess it's a good thing I still have two years before I have to really master it...
Also...The Bachelorette is a lot more addicting when you're bored...who knew?
Showing posts with label rant. Show all posts
Showing posts with label rant. Show all posts
Wednesday, June 12, 2013
Thursday, March 28, 2013
Who Needs Shakespeare...?
The following is a rant spurred by an issue brought up in my class the other day. I will concede that it's a little one sided and overly passionate while lacking in rational support for now. Maybe someday I'll write a full-fledged paper, but for now...feel free to skip this post if you don't want to read about my stubborn views about literature.
In my Young Adult Lit class (again) today, we discussed the idea of replacing teaching the classics with new, popular, young adult literature in the classroom. My professor's argument is that kids can't relate to The Scarlet Letter or The Great Gatsby. I can understand where he's coming from, but I'm dumbfounded. I couldn't believe that this entire class of English Teaching majors agreed that we should stop teaching the classics in high school! They're basically advocating that we dumb down our education system to make school more accessible. What about trying to raise our students up?! What about teaching them that the great things in life don't come without hard work and effort? I think part of the argument is that the classics are really hard to teach because the kids just don't read. I can't argue with that because I definitely spark-noted my fair share of novels in high school, but the writing wasn't lost on me. Maybe kids won't read at home. Then read it together with them in class! Or if there isn't enough time in class, take specific passages and pick them apart with the students to show them that really great writing is complicated and full of multiple meanings--which makes reading it time and time again worth it.
I, of course, was just coming off of reading my novel about Charles Dickens and remembering how great he is, so I was personally offended that anyone would suggest that Laurie Halse Anderson was anywhere near his level of greatness. I'm not suggesting that all YA lit is trash, there are actually some really great YA novels out there, but for the most part, we have a literary canon because those are the texts worth studying--even hundreds of years later.
One girl went on and on about how Shakespeare is so dumb, overrated, and we all put way too much stock in his plays. I could maybe understand what she was saying, except for the fact that I've studied Shakespeare--and lots of it. Maybe he didn't mean to support feminism, religion, the traditional family, or all the other meanings we ascribe to his plays, but who cares? If we can still derive new meaning from plays written 400 years ago, props to Shakespeare. Yes, on your own, as a 9th grader, Shakespeare is almost inaccessible and has the potential to be meaningless, but with a teacher guiding you slowly through and explaining the difficult passages, it becomes the incredibly beautiful and inspiring text that it is! Sure Romeo and Juliet was difficult, but my 9th grade class enjoyed it. And we were able to grasp enough of it to know that it was worth picking up again later on in our lives.
I'm sorry, but I just don't think very much young adult lit is worth reading over and over again at different stages in your life. The main argument for easier reading is that at least assigning young adult lit will get kids in high school to read at all. I hate the concept of having to dumb down reading just because nowadays we're used to immediate gratification, at the cost of real learning and growing. Maybe we can make the summer reading some YA books, but what's the point of reading simple, easy books, when we have teachers who are specifically there to help us understand the difficult novels and become better readers/thinkers?
K I'm done with my rant. Congratulations if you made it all the way through! I'm just completely shocked that the future teachers of English from BYU don't think the classics should be kept in the classroom. Like, have we been taking different classes or something? Because from where I stand, studying Shakespeare has the potential to make you a better person, and I'm pretty grateful my high school teachers had the gumption to trudge through these classics with me all 4 years. Their dedication helped inspire me to work hard to understand the meanings behind books like "To Kill a Mockingbird" and plays like "The Tempest", and I feel like I'm a better human being for it.
***You teachers out there...please don't judge me for having an idealized view of high school classrooms...I admit I haven't ever taught before, but I just want to hold on to my precious belief that students can still be motivated by literature.***
In my Young Adult Lit class (again) today, we discussed the idea of replacing teaching the classics with new, popular, young adult literature in the classroom. My professor's argument is that kids can't relate to The Scarlet Letter or The Great Gatsby. I can understand where he's coming from, but I'm dumbfounded. I couldn't believe that this entire class of English Teaching majors agreed that we should stop teaching the classics in high school! They're basically advocating that we dumb down our education system to make school more accessible. What about trying to raise our students up?! What about teaching them that the great things in life don't come without hard work and effort? I think part of the argument is that the classics are really hard to teach because the kids just don't read. I can't argue with that because I definitely spark-noted my fair share of novels in high school, but the writing wasn't lost on me. Maybe kids won't read at home. Then read it together with them in class! Or if there isn't enough time in class, take specific passages and pick them apart with the students to show them that really great writing is complicated and full of multiple meanings--which makes reading it time and time again worth it.
I, of course, was just coming off of reading my novel about Charles Dickens and remembering how great he is, so I was personally offended that anyone would suggest that Laurie Halse Anderson was anywhere near his level of greatness. I'm not suggesting that all YA lit is trash, there are actually some really great YA novels out there, but for the most part, we have a literary canon because those are the texts worth studying--even hundreds of years later.
One girl went on and on about how Shakespeare is so dumb, overrated, and we all put way too much stock in his plays. I could maybe understand what she was saying, except for the fact that I've studied Shakespeare--and lots of it. Maybe he didn't mean to support feminism, religion, the traditional family, or all the other meanings we ascribe to his plays, but who cares? If we can still derive new meaning from plays written 400 years ago, props to Shakespeare. Yes, on your own, as a 9th grader, Shakespeare is almost inaccessible and has the potential to be meaningless, but with a teacher guiding you slowly through and explaining the difficult passages, it becomes the incredibly beautiful and inspiring text that it is! Sure Romeo and Juliet was difficult, but my 9th grade class enjoyed it. And we were able to grasp enough of it to know that it was worth picking up again later on in our lives.
I'm sorry, but I just don't think very much young adult lit is worth reading over and over again at different stages in your life. The main argument for easier reading is that at least assigning young adult lit will get kids in high school to read at all. I hate the concept of having to dumb down reading just because nowadays we're used to immediate gratification, at the cost of real learning and growing. Maybe we can make the summer reading some YA books, but what's the point of reading simple, easy books, when we have teachers who are specifically there to help us understand the difficult novels and become better readers/thinkers?
K I'm done with my rant. Congratulations if you made it all the way through! I'm just completely shocked that the future teachers of English from BYU don't think the classics should be kept in the classroom. Like, have we been taking different classes or something? Because from where I stand, studying Shakespeare has the potential to make you a better person, and I'm pretty grateful my high school teachers had the gumption to trudge through these classics with me all 4 years. Their dedication helped inspire me to work hard to understand the meanings behind books like "To Kill a Mockingbird" and plays like "The Tempest", and I feel like I'm a better human being for it.
Thursday, January 24, 2013
So I Sew...
So...I'm taking a sewing class this semester. It's fun. Except it's crazy, too. In retrospect, I probably should have taken this class when I wasn't going to succumb to extreme senioritis. Apparently, the 6 hours of class a week isn't enough and we are expected to spend an extra 10 hours in the sewing lab on week nights to finish our projects. Now, these projects aren't exciting in the least. We are working on pajama pants right now (takes me back to my 9 year-old days at JoAnn's sewing classes with Annie...), which is great, but in addition to the pants, we have about 3 little "samples" a week. These are little 6x6 squares of simple fabric where we practice different stitches, seam finishes, hems, surging, etc.
Don't get me wrong; I loved my cooking class last semester, and I'm grateful BYU offers these classes to us, but I just feel like I've already seen enough tears and frustration in the first 2 weeks to know that some of these girls are going to drop the class and never pick up a needle and thread again--at least not for a long time. I think because the people who take this beginning class are the types who are easily overwhelmed by crafty things, there's gotta be a better way to teach us...
I think it's great that we're learning these techniques and skills, but really? My whole project isn't going to be ruined if one of my stitches is uneven...They're like nazis around here! I think someone told the School of Family Life that they needed to make their grading standards harder (apparently there were too many A's going out), and I'm feeling the repercussions. Thankfully I have my own sewing machine at home so I get a little bit of freedom without the crazy sophomore TA's breathing down my back.
 |
| Sorry, I'm sitting in my Myths, Legend, and Folktales class right now. The dragon seemed an accurate representation of my TAs. |
Sorry, totally random rant, I apologize for that. I really am liking sewing, just wish the class was less stressful.
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