What happened to Lancey?

When I first finished reading "Translations," I didn't fully understand what happened to Captain Lancey. I thought that Manus may have seen Lancey and Maire kissing and he got mad. I thought that Manus might have killed him, but after class today I started thinking that maybe the Donnelly twins did something to him. They have more of a character for mischief than Manus does. Maybe Manus told them about what he saw and they decided to do something about it. There is no evidence as to what actually happened to Captain Lancey, but for some reason I think that someone killed him. The play ended when the English threatened to kill the Irish if Lancey was not found. It seems like the military have had more to do in Ireland than to just rename the country. They had ulterior motives.

And what was with that poem at the end? I looked it up and it's called "The Aeneid," written by a man called Virgil. It's an epic poem that tells the story of a Trojan that traveled to Italy and eventually became an ancestor to the Romans. The second half of the poems are like Homer's Iliad.

"Urbs antiqua fuit - there was an ancient city which, 'tis said, Juno loved above all the lands. And it was the goddess's aim and cherished hope that here should be the capital of all nations-should the fates perchance allow that. Yet in truth she discovered that a race was springing from Trojan blood to overthrow some day these Tyrian towers - a people late regem belloque superbum - kings of broad realms and proud in war who would come forth for Libya's downfall."

If you read between the lines, you can see similarities between the poem and the play. It's like Libya is Ireland and the Trojans are the English.

For more information go to: http://www.book-of-thoth.com/thebook/index.php/Aeneid

Taiga

I decided to look up information on the Taiga tribe. I found out that it is not an actual Indian Tribe. Taiga is the Russian word for forest. The average temperature is below zero for most of the year. It is located in Northern Europe and North America. There are lots of pine trees and lots of bugs in the summer. You can find bears, wolverines, badgers, deer, wolves, scorpions, weasels, muskrats, and oxen in the Taiga wilderness. I promise to come back later and write some more about Taiga in the near future.








http://www.blueplanetbiomes.org/taiga.htm

Knowing and Believing

Knowing and believing are completely different from each other. Knowing is what society pushes on you. You can only know facts. Everyone can know the same things. Believing is something you do on your own. You feel your beliefs like they are a part of you. They help form the person that you are. You have to be strongly connected to yourself to know what you believe. Belief is usually connected with faith and religion, but when I think of a belief, I have no connection to religion. I am not a religious person. Faith doesn't have to have anything to do with religion. You can have faith in people. That's where most of my faith lies. Knowledge is something you get from school or books. The things that you have learned have been proven. Belief in God is not something you can prove. No one has ever been able to prove that there is a God, so God can never be part of anyone's knowledge.

My Name

My name is Susan Amelia. I am named after my grandma and her aunt. Susan is my grandma's name. When I hear Susan, I think of an old woman. My grandma is a strong, intelligent woman. I don't mind being named Susan because I am reminded of her everyday. We both tell it like it is. We are kind and generous.

Amelia is the name of my great great aunt. She goes by Babe. She has been called hat since she was 9. That was when her younger sister was born. She was always the baby. She is a sweet woman that is also intelligent and strong. She is steadfast too. She was named after her aunt Amelia because she was born on her birthday.

I do think that you are named a certain name for a reason. You also become your name. I didn't like being called Susan. I have grown used to it, but I still prefer Suzy. I used to spell it Susie, but I realized that my mom spelled it Suzy, so I changed it. I am very glad that I was not named after my own mother because I do not want to be like her. We have a lot of unresolved issues that I don't want to go into.

Your name says a lot about you. The way in which you take ownership of your name and live your day to day life says a lot about your character. I never want to change my name. I AM Susan Amelia.

Susan: Hebrew for lily
Amelia: Hebrew for Work of the Lord; Germanic for work; effort; strain

The Book Cover

This cover of Lucy, by Jamaica Kincaid depicts a woman that is lonely. It is almost as if it is a photograph that has been taken of her. In the story, Lucy talks a lot about her sexual experiences with men. She doesn't seem to feel anything as it's going on. She is always thinking about other things. This drawing shows how Lucy feels about herself. She is comfortable with her own body. She doesn't mind if men see her. Since she is loking off into the distance, she seems to be thinking about something else. The drawing captures Lucy's isolation from the world. She is sitting alone in the chair. She is alone abd she will not let anyone get close to her. She is alone and probably always will be.

Is all writing an interpretation of the human experience?

Yes. No matter what is written, someone out there has experienced it. The context that it is put in is how it's interpreted. You can't write about something that no one has experienced. It's not possible. The experience could be from real everyday life, or it could be taken from a dream. A person wouldn't write about something if it didn't effect them in some way.

Universal Shakespeare

Other movies based off of plays by Shakespeare:
Scotland, PA=Macbeth
Chimes at Midnight= The Merry Wives of Windsor
Get Over It= Midsummer's Night Dream

By creating movies based off of Shakespeare's plays, the writers have made them universal. The writers have broadened the audience of the plays. By putting some reference in the movies about Shakespeare, they have dropped a big hint.

If someone was just to watch the movies without reading the plays before, they wouldn't be able to make the connection. That's what happened to me with "O."

Men in Dresses

How weird would it have been if we saw this acted out back in Shakespeare's day? Every character would have been a man. How would you react to a man dressing as a woman? Would that have any effect on the way you portray the characters? Would it make you feel like the scenes in the bedroom were less than serious?

I think that it would have been difficult for me to watch this play acted out if everyone was a man. I just think men should not wear dresses. You would see women with beards. I probably would have taken it a lot less seriously because I wouldn't be able to hold in my laughter if a man came out in an elegant gown. It would be very awkward for me for some reason.

My Reaction

As I was reading, I had some thoughts about the characters in Othello. I wrote them down, so here it goes:

Othello: He's an idiot for believing that his wife cheated on him. He doesn't have any proof! If he really loved her, he would ask her for the truth before accusing her of doing something wrong. Why doesn't he listen to her when she tells him that she hasn't done anything? What a stupid man!

Iago: He doesn't even know if anyone has slept with his wife. Why doesn't he find out if anything actually happened? It's really dumb that he wants to break apart a marriage when there's no proof for his reasoning.

Desdemona: What a naive little girl! She should stand up to Othello instead of letting him make her feel horrible. If she knew that he was going to kill her, why didn't she try to run away?

As for the ending, I think that Iago should have been tortured to death for what he did. What a jerk! I am really glad that his wife stood up to him. I'm a little upset that she died. The innocent died and the villain lived. What kind of an ending is that? I guess that's Shakespeare for you!

meanies

In class we were talking about why the title of the movie is Girl, Interrupted instead of just Girl Interrupted. This got me thinking. I thought about a list as it would appear in an index of a book. Every girl in that movie had some type of interruption in their lives. They are interrupted girls.

This movie made me think a lot about the way society views people with mental illnesses. The scene in the ice cream parlor said a lot. The way the woman goes up to the group of people and starts verbally attacking one of them shows us that some people are heartless. They treat everyone as if they were worth less than her. I don't think that it's fair for people to be cruel to other people, especially when they have something different about them. People need to treat everyone how they would want to be treated. I wish Lisa would've done something to that woman!

Stuck in the Walls

The narrator of the story is suffering from postpartum depression. Maybe the woman that she sees in the wallpaper is actually herself. All the women she sees outside creeping around could be representing the life she could have had if she never had a baby. The woman in the paper is trapped because the narrator feels trapped. She is stuck having to take care of another person for the rest of her life. She wants to shake the bars and be free from her life.

A Room of My Own

So today, as I was walking back to my room from class, I was thinking about what I would write about. I kept saying the title in my head over and over. A Room of One's Own. What would I do with a room of my own? What would it look like? What would I do in it? How would it make me feel?

My room would have a lot of windows. I would go there just to get away from the would. I would have tons of candles so it would smell like vanilla. My room would be located on top of water, near the shore. Instead of looking onto the water, I would look onto the land. I would go there just to be alone. I could go there and write in my journal and reflect on all the problems in my life.

I would love a room of my own!

Writing

For me, writing is like a good haunted house. You never know what's around the corner until you get there. I never know how a paper is going to turn out until I'm done with it. The words on the paper are monsters that make my heart pound. The sentences are like the paths to get out. If you write the wrong one, it might take you to a dead end. If they are good, then you have a clear way of getting out. Although, sometimes it's a lot easier to take the chicken out pass rather than going through the entire haunted house.