English Majors Raise Your Hands
Monday, July 26th, 2010
Posts Tagged ‘english’
Staging Self-Consciousness vs. Self-Conscious Stage
Tuesday, March 30th, 2010
H. Blau
I’m in a class with Professor Herbert Blau this quarter. I’m not quite the academic sponge– I don’t know who’s so well known in “circles”, or who’s done what, or whatevers. I barely have my schools of thought down (let’s just say, I have no idea. No. Idea. what this means.), but apparently he’s pretty accomplished. And when I say pretty, I mean very.
He’s my teacher for the dreaded senior capstone us Engrish majors have to take before we gradroolamate, and the class is named: DRAMATIC LITERATURE: THE SELF-CONSCIOUS STAGE.
As an accomplished and historically relevant figure in the explosion of avant-garde theatre during the ’60′s (Beckett’s Waiting for Godot production at the San Quentin Prison), Prof. Blau is perhaps smaller in stature, mild in appearance, but his presence as a lecturer is explosive. I’m terrified; but then I see myself being terrified, and then I’m just skittishly bamboozled.
Miley knows how contemplative we can be
It’s a good thing, though: the topic is so interesting to me. Because I am a creepy and mostly introverted person, I spend a lot of the time contemplating life (someone accused this of being an Asiatic trait; quiet and contemplative) and mostly, the existence of people’s lives on same, different, or parallel planes. What makes us run? What makes us click? What happens when spheres of realities collide? And, of course: the subjectivity of any “TRUTH”–! We just read Pirandello’s It is So! (If You Think So) for Wednesday’s homework (Oh gosh, today’s Tuesday– good to know–) and it’s clear that realities are subjected to people’s personal beliefs. Whatever intentions a message may have, the interpretations are completely dependent on the rules of the receiver’s reality.
Mars Hill Church... Sunday Night Live
For example, Mars Hill Church sends me Facebook invites to their services every week, and while they might be thinking of friendly gestures to include me in their group, I have an absolute repulsion for persistence in trying to spread religious beliefs onto others. Which is why I’ve deleted them. The update to do with how Heaven has not gotten very good PR was my last straw. In any case, their consistent agenda (really? I say no EVERY WEEK) makes hostile feelings resurface, and I find myself with thinning patience. But I’m pretty sure they don’t mean it like that. They probably have no idea that I feel so strongly against these invitations. The fact is, their rules and reality– the involvement of religion in their every-day lives and interaction, for example– is on a completely different plane. And no one’s more wrong or right, in my opinion– as for them, I have no clue as to their stance on religious tolerance. On a different note, religion itself is a more obvious of performance of beliefs; otherwise, daily interactions, explicated structures of feelings and thought are more subtle examples of personal performances.
One shade of this concept: the self-conscious stage :: has to do with performance outside the theater. Social cues prompt certain social customs– is that not a performance? Is the way you behave with family more truthfully “YOU” then they way you behave with a certain circle of friends? But on the other hand, if everything is a performance, then is anything a performance? Would it all become just… “life”? Is performance in theater just a deliberate re-play of our lives, or our multifaceted performances *of* life?
Performance or life as phony?
Mostly, why does this matter?Is this what drove Sylvia Plath, Holden Caulfield, Franny, and Zooey mad?
There was a moment on the Spanish Steps, when I was watching tourists from all over the world mill and mix about, I realized that they Whys and Wants of the world are too much for any one person to handle, and to try to puzzle out an endless riddle must be a silly thing to do. Rather, we make a nonsensical riddle of things before us through the delusions and poetically romantic aspirations for life to be more than just life! But an unwavering truth, like the myth of unwavering true love, something that surpasses taxes, homework, waking up every day, the angst and conflict of existence, the need to check Facebook for useless information, and the reason for looking twice before crossing a street. The simple quiet struggle of returning home to loved ones after a long day. Professor Blau pronounced this :: “I don’t care if there isn’t a truth, I’ve GOT to have it!” — it’s what propels Mars Hill to spread the Gospel through incredible viral marketing that utilizes young, college social networks and fresh m inds to mold; it’s what pushes students at the University of Washington to be ontime to their 8:30 AM class Monday through Friday, it’s what justifies the weariness of tired parents when they sign another check for their children’s increasing tuition. It’s what makes us explore the world in so many lights– for whom is this alley darkened or brightly lit with welcoming doors of opportunity…?
Thus, life continues to infuriate me. Reasons and nonreasons ravage at my rationality and tie knots in my stomach, until I vomit words onto a blog post that perhaps 10 people will glance at for an average of 48 seconds.
Excellent; carry on– in fact, click HERE for some nice distractions to forget whatever I’m trying to say– for artist Kumi Yamashita does a great job in deceptive distractions with fantastic shadow art…
Graciousss
Cog my Nates
Thursday, January 21st, 2010These words actually took a surprising amount of effort to find. Usually, I would think my awareness was keen enough to pick up on these cues and curiosities of varying meanings and cross-cultural conflicts within every-day semantics. Instead, I think I was pretty preoccupied with social-cross-cultural conflicts being experienced, and so looking for these words took more concentration and focus in looking for cognates. Once I began looking, however, they were everywhere. It just takes a little more to catch them, and you realize that a lot of information you inadvertently suck in every day is taken for granted until you don’t understand them. Also: a lot of the cultural background plays a huge part in the nuances between similar words.
phrases intimo
1. “Sono eccito” ==>“I am [turned on]”
I wasn’t looking for this expression specifically, but I asked Andrea, my Italian teacher, how to say “I am excited”. Directly translated, the meaning of the phrase has a culturally sexual implication. This also happens in the Spanish language. Here is an interesting example of what isn’t “lost in translation”, but rather, what is unknowingly said…
Smoking and comics come together in this great Tintin comic
2. “Il fumetti” ==> Comics
As it stands, the phrase seems like a derivative of the action “to smoke”, or “fumare”. The entire exercise where the class is supposed to ask each other what activities or hobbies they like/enjoy or do not like/enjoy, everyone believed that the phrase meant “to smoke” or “cigarettes”. However, Andrea explained to us how the association came about: the word bubbles and thought bubbles of comic book writing are parallel to the idea of cigarette smoke coming out of one’s mouth. This sort of shows how much and often Italians may smoke…
bookz
3. “Libreria” ==> Bookcase
Naturally, I thought this meant library. With a second thought, I thought it meant bookstore. Upon looking this up, the direct translation means “bookcase”. The terms for library, on the other hand, is the same in Spanish: “biblioteca”.
Yellow Pages
4. “Gialle” ==> yellow
During Italian class, the descriptions used with the term “gialle” had me thinking it meant “giant”. I was very wrong; in fact, it means yellow. The term was also used to describe mystery novels as a genre.
Fabbricati
5. “fabbricati” ==> manufactured
Originally, I automatically associated this word with “fabric”; but it makes sense it means manufactured, or fabricated. Interesting that this word would be used, because of how relatively obscure “fabricated” is for us, at least in terms of everyday, colloquial language.
Confezioni = biscotti?
6. “confezioni” ==> confection
This word reminded me of “confession”, but confection makes sense too. Although, it was referring to the units of biscotti that came in a singular box—so I’m still not sure how this works, but I’m guessing they are referring to the actual biscotti as confection (as a type of food), rather than just biscotti.
Cristal
7. “cristal” ==> glass
Doesn’t everything sound better in Italian? Including glass? Incidentally, “crystal” is “cristallo” in Italian. Whether or not crystal becomes a derivative of glass (in the sense of Italian technology) would be interesting to find out…
Abiti
8. “abiti” ==> suits/dresses
I actually thought this term was derived from the Italian verb “to live”, or “abitare”, but instead it’s a noun defining dresses. In the case of suits, I’m guessing dress-suits.
merceria
9. “merceria” ==>haberdashery
This term had a surprising definition. Looking at the context, I assumed that the term meant “merchandise”, and was going to contrast it with the similar appearance to “mercury”, but it was more difficult to extrapolate the precise meaning. The original definition of haberdashery means “men’s outfitters”, but applied to other signs—i.e. “intimo-merceria”, it has a more precise meaning of “boutique”.
fiasco
10. “fiasco” ==> flask
This surprised me because the sign was actually in broken English. They even misspelled bottle as “bootle”; so I was taking another gamble that they didn’t really mean fiasco. So fiasco means flask, rather than the a chaotic occurrence; the sign clarified that it could clear security for carry-on luggage.
piano
11. “piano” ==> slowly
This disconnect is pretty obvious. The translation from the English word for the musical instrument to the adverb actually shows up in reading music. The meaning is slightly different though; in the musical context, piano, or pianissimo means softly, while forte or fortissimo demarcates where one is to play loudly or with more force.
laboratorio
12. “laboratorio” ==> laboratory/office/workshop
While this word actually aligns with a predictable definition, the cultural nuance lies in its versatility as a term. When we use the word “laboratory” in English, it usually means a very specific scientific work-place, for chemical experiments. However, it seems like the Italian word can be applied to any work-place of artistic trade- i.e. antique crafts.
The Bell Jar
Monday, November 23rd, 2009
What are these for, besides keeping Beauty + Beasts' magical rose alive??
I spent all morning reading Sylvia Plath’s The Bell Jar– no, I haven’t read it before, and before you let those dead jaws drop (I mean you, elitist name-dropping hipster majoring in *hand to forehead* English– good grief, I don’t give a rat’s scabies-ridden hindquarters how many books you’ve purchased or read), let me just say that I am a neurotic reader.
Into books... not this way
As in: I believe I have a problem with reading. This is a self-initiated intervention on the behalf of me: Grace, you are way too into books.
Let me clarify: this is not a brag on how nerdy I am. I think I have this escapist mind-set when I get into a book, and I invest much emotion and thought into a plot that’s merely been exposed to me through the letters burnt black on a page. So the protagonists’ realities and constraints pervade my own, and the plot’s roots entwine their small tendrils and crucial moments into my private sphere of life.
Which explains why I was so obsessed with the sci-fi-/fantasy genre. I couldn’t go out like a normal adolescent and go through certain rites of passage (strict, over-bearing parents of high school years) so I buried myself in my own imagination. Maybe that’s why I’m also so indecisive and particular. I imagine the possibilities to death, instead of freely living through the possibilities. I used to have this insane habit of narrating, in my head, what I was doing at every moment. It drove me crazy. Constant meta-analysis is a destructive amount of self-awareness, to the point where everything you do seems so unnatural to yourself… you question motives instead of inherently following intuition.
Sylvia Plath makes Crazy Look Good
That said, reading Plath’s The Bell Jar makes me feel insane. Is this the product of her quality of writing? Perhaps. Yet while i was reading it, I found it ironically comical that Esther would try and fail suicide so many times, her madness seeking and rejecting help almost simultaneously. Too much drama backlashes into incredulity.
This contradiction lives within … a lot of us. The issue of masculinity, for example– the camaraderie of males holding beers while juggling the homophobic distance of a ten-foot pole (no, not pole; god forbid any phallic symbols). Or, the seeming split between being “cool” and “being yourself” (do people strive to be truly original or are the characteristics of their personality built upon their nurturing environment?), eventually being merged as you age with senility and experience. Am I stretching these parallels?
What am I getting at? Books make me think too much. Even the narrative style, the language flow, seeps into my brain until I’m soaked as an oversaturated sponge. I need to stop freaking out and pay attention to COM 371′s Problem Managing Sequence. Four steps for excellent small-group-decision making awaits me.
GUH’Bye
Graceee