Blog # 10

This week we finished up reading Freud's book, Civilization and its Discontents.  We watched a movie about Sigmund Freud and his nephew. For today's class we read a bunch of poems off of the internet.  So today in class, instead of a commentary, we worked in groups.  We were given two poems and had to find certain elements in each poem. The elements weren't too hard to find.  They were things like "line that made you laugh" and "line with contradicting elements".   Then as a group, we made our own poem.  We each had to write a certain part of speech.  The catch was we didn't know what anyone else had written.  So the sentences came out really choppy but very entertaining.  Today's class was a good change from the usual lectures.

Week #9

This week is short because of fall break so we have only had class once since we got back.  Yesterday we watched a movie that talked a lot about art and inventions.  Last Wednesday we took our midterm exam.  I liked how we got immediate feedback after we took the test.  I didn't think the test was too bad.  I didn't study as much as I wanted to but I still did alright.  I think the test was scaled also so that helped my grade even further, which was nice.  For tomorrow I need to finish Sigmund Freud's book.  So far I find this book fairy confusing.  I am hoping that we will discuss it a little bit in class tomorrow to help me understand it.

Blog for week #8

This week we have reached the half way point of this class.  So that means that we have a midterm this week on Wednesday.  Today in class we discussed what will be on the test.  I was glad we discussed it because I had no idea what to expect on it.  Last week, the second movie showed at the local coffee shop.  I enjoyed this movie more than the last one.  It was called the Bicycle Thief.  The movie wasn't in English though so reading the subtitles got annoying.  Other than that, I found this movie much more entertaining that Dead Man.  I just finished writing the review for it.  So once I am done blogging, I will need to study for the midterm and then I will be done with this class until after fall break.

Blog #7

So far this week, we have been watching another movie in class.  The movie is called The Doll House. So far it is about a girl who goes off and marries a fairly wealthy man and ends up becoming kind of a snob.  When we left off yesterday, this girls long time friend, who she hasn't seen for quite sometime, randomly shows up for a visit.  There seems to be a lot of issues about money so far in this movie.  I wonder if that will be relevant later on. So far, it is a fairly interesting movie.  I'm looking forward to finding out how it ends.

Blog # 6

Today in class we watched part of the film The Yellow Wallpaper.  I found this film very interesting.  I have never read or even heard of the story, so I was a little lost during parts of the movie.  From what I understood, a family decides to move into a very nice house that has been uninhabited for quite some time. Everything seems like it is going to be great except the wife whose name is Charlotte, seems to have a bad feeling about everything.  Charlotte keeps having metal breakdowns, mostly due to her imagination and the yellow wall paper in her room.  She seems to find something creepy about the wall paper but still continues to write in the room.  We were unable to finish the film but we did see that Charlotte and her husband's marriage was hitting a rough patch.

Blog #5

So far this week, we have been reading Karl Marx's Communist Manifesto.   For today, we had to read about the first half of the book.  I found the reading confusing for the most part, and for some reason parts of this book reminded me of A Tale of Two Cities.  I think that was because of the struggle of the lower classes to survive and the higher classes lived very easily.  Today in class we discussed the ideas that Marx was trying to get across in his book.  Marx believed that profit was a good thing, but not in large quantities. He didn't like that the lower classes were getting payed very little while the upper class had a profit surplus.    We also discussed in class the way that feudalism worked and how the classes changed from feudalism to capitalism.  After today's class, I hope that the reading will not be as confusing.

Week #4

This week we have been focusing on Frankenstein.  Today in class we watched part of the movie.  I thought watching the movie gave everyone a good visual of what is going on in the story.  I must admit that I have always imagined the creature to be not quite as ugly.  I don't know why this is but I think its because I usually take the creature's side.  I do agree with the creature when he says that he is like Adam but he had done nothing wrong.  Victor created him and then turned from him before he had even been alive for a few days.  I think the creature would have been able to over come that however if the family he had been watching had accepted him.  If they had accepted him and given him a chance to explain himself, the book would have turned out very differently.  This book does not have a happy ending really so we know that something has to happen that cannot be fixed.  I am looking forward to finishing the book, but I also wish we could have spent a little more time on Frankenstein.