Christmas morning I woke up at 5:30 with the dog sitting on my chest (I think she’s still trying to kill me) and I continued playing my game.  At 11ish, my brother and sister called me up and we exchanged gifts.  I received a couple games I wanted, a new computer mouse (as I wore out my old one), and a gigantic 2lb Rice Crispy Treat.  We then went to my grandmother’s house and everyone cooed over my uncles new son.  Everyone brought their dogs (and we weren’t aware my grandma was watching her sister’’s dogs, so there are five dogs running around with ten people in a rather small apartment.  It was crazy, but by 9:00 everyone was tired and ready to go home.

I am so glad Christmas is over for another year and even more thankful that it only lasts one day, unlike the week-long celebrations of other religions.

Anyways, I am glad the semester is finally over. It turned out to be much more work than I originally thought it would, but I managed to complete it was a 4.0 average. My course load included:

• The Modern Novel
• English Literature I
• Children’s Literature
• Fantasy and Science Fiction
• American History II

I was prepared for a lot of reading and writing (and boy did I get it), but it was actually quite enjoyable. Since graduating high school (and truthfully sometime before), I hadn’t done much reading (outside of blogs, tutorials, and “coding” books, but this semester for the four English courses alone I read ~75 books and wrote about 31 papers, which seems somewhat high for four fifteen-week courses, but in all actuality was not as bad as one would believe. A number of the texts I read this semester I would highly recommend.

Read in “The Modern Novel:”

• The Stranger – Albert Camus
  The text in  follows the downfall of a stoic man following the death of his mother to his perceived “acceptance” of the meaningless of life and of his coming execution.
• Ragtime – E.L. Doctorow
  The text, set during the early twentieth century follows two families, a cliched American family and an Eastern European family of immigrants in and around New York City.  The magic realism (using actual people or events and adding fictional elements to the point where the division between reality and fiction is blurred) of the text illustrates the changing attitudes in America during the era and calls into question the perceived aura of perfection of the era.
• The Bluest Eye - Toni Morrison
  This text was my favorite (followed by Ragtime), read in “The Modern Novel.”  Morrison’s tragedy follows a young black girl, cast aside due to her skin color and familial circumstances, struggling to find acceptance by attaining the “bluest eyes in the world,” thus embracing society’s ideal portrayal of beauty.
• The Tortilla Curtain – T.C. Boyle
  This text follows two families, one of American descent and one of Mexican Immgrants who following a hit-and-run become entangled in each others lives.  Boyle’s text illustrates the effects of illegal immigration on not only American citizens but also on the illegal immigrants.
• The French Lieutenant’s Woman – John Fowles
  This text, I will admit, was probably the hardest vocabulary and allusion-wise but is worth the struggle in the end.  The text set in Nineteenth Century England follows the fall of a man from polite society after a confrontation with the titular “French Lieutenant’s Woman.”  This text is unique as it twists the rules generally associated with a novel.
• Ella Minnow Pea – Mark Dunn
  The last text read in “The Modern Novel,” was a short epistolary (written in letters) novel following a fictional island in which letters, after falling from a statue in the center of town, are outlawed.  The text starts out normally (albeit with a sophisticated vocabulary) and concludes in what can only be compared to a game of Mad Gab.

In Fantasy and Science Fiction I read: Frankenstein, 1984, The Giver, Feed, American Gods and The Golden Compass.  While I did enjoy nearly all of the texts read in this class (Frankenstein in paticular), I did not enjoy them in nearly the same was as I did the texts of “The Modern Novel.”  If for some reason you’re interested in the other texts I’ve read this semester and want to see what I think, check out my BellaBiblio page (This is a work in progress).

On a less academic note, I renewed my interest in the original Spyro The Dragon games, particularly Ripto’s Rage (Gateway to Glimmer) and Year of the Dragon.  I don’t know what it is (perhaps something about the gems…), but I love playing these games–despite the fact that I’ve beaten them both numerous times.

I figured I would give a shout out to Jason Mills who sold me a used copy of Spyro Year of the Dragon.  He was prompt and courteous and I would definitely recommend him to anyone looking for electronics or video game stuff.

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“Racism is something I agrre (sic) to that kids should be taught at an early age.  Mildly but tauhgt (sic) that everyone is not the same…” – Kelly Keagle.

“I do not think that children should have to be monitored when reading these books.  While i (sic) believe that slavery and abuse of women is wrong, i (sic) also believe that women being equal to man (sic) is wrong.  Our society today wants women to have the same roles as men and to be able ton (sic) do everything a man can do.  I do not believe that God made us to all be the same, he made women to be the weaker  vessel for a reason.  I think that in Laura Ingalls Wilder’s time, the way that they acted and treated each other was much better than our society today.” – Brianna Sumey

A number of other responses were posted in a similar manner, but these two were the worst of posts available.  Whether or not the remaining ten members of my class share this rather shocking view of the world, I am not sure.

The names of the posters were modified to hide their identities.  If they can post this in a class with their full name, I see no problem in myself doing it too.

Perhaps I will regain enthusiasm for writing/blogging again, but don’t hold your breath