Feeling nostalgic...I realize that I have only ONE semester to go before I graduate! I should be glad (and I am to an extent) but mostly I am not. First of all, I am apprehensive about what is after...a job/grad school etc, and second, I really want to take more classes in English and the Arts.

In the spirit of welcoming the New Year and looking back on the past, I decided to complie a list of a few things I am grateful for and I am going to miss.

*W-I will miss it!! Its been such a blessing for me!
*The English Department!!! The classes, the Profs, the staff and students ALL ROCK!!!
The Hamlet class, Victorian Novels, Classical Mythology, Poetry, Profs C, S!
*Good friends: who've been there for me when I needed them, who are supportive and great to hang out with.
*Liberal Arts education: I am glad I've had a chance to get an all rounded education :)
*The Art department: for being so supportive! Specially Prof. D!
*The LTC and the tutors there.
*The Lake: It is sooooo beautiful all year round!!
*Gothic campus: As much as it creeps me out at times, it is fodder for the Imagination!
*Mandatory PE credit-If this wasn't the case, I would not have taken Swimming or fencing which I have learnt to simply LOVE!!!
*CWS: both years they've been FAB!! I am really grateful to the funding they've given me so I was able to have worthwhile internship experiences.
*The ISA program: I would not have gone abroad without them! And the committee.
*Midnight Breakfast: reminded me of the stuff only found in Enid Blyton's school stories (esp. Mallory Towers!!!)

and much more..

Another favorite of mine:

Lines Composed In A Wood On A Windy Day
-by Anne Bronte

My soul is awakened, my spirit is soaring
And carried aloft on the wings of the breeze;
For above and around me the wild wind is roaring,
Arousing to rapture the earth and the seas.

The long withered grass in the sunshine is glancing,
The bare trees are tossing their branches on high;
The dead leaves beneath them are merrily dancing,
The white clouds are scudding across the blue sky

I wish I could see how the ocean is lashing
The foam of its billows to whirlwinds of spray;
I wish I could see how its proud waves are dashing,
And hear the wild roar of their thunder to-day!

Something is not right...
Even though I don't know what it is, a part of me does not want to know either. After all, I could use any ounce of imagination I could get. Its like having friends...you want to have friends really badly and all...but when you are with them, you want to be alone with your thoughts. I don't know if these two things can ever go together. Like now I am at home and with family..and yet a part of me wants to be alone. When I am alone, I don't like it too much either. All I want to do is be EVERYTHING to ONE other thing..but then again...I don't know if this is the solution. Anne Bronte's poem "The Captive Dove" a favorite of mine (what with writing 2 papers and spending countless hours thinking about it, I ought to be an expert on it I reckon :P). But the gist of the poem is...Anne finds herself trapped and tries to find freedom in art. However, art leaves her "pining, neglected and alone". I think then that we are forever trapped...by ourselves.

The Captive Dove
~Anne Bronte

Poor restless dove, I pity thee;
And when I hear thy plaintive moan,
I mourn for thy captivity,
And in thy woes forget mine own.


To see thee stand prepared to fly,
And flap those useless wings of thine,
And gaze into the distant sky,
Would melt a harder heart than mine.


In vain, in vain! Thou canst not rise:
Thy prison roof confines thee there;
Its slender wires delude thine eyes,
And quench thy longings with despair.


Oh, thou wert made to wander free
In sunny mead and shady grove,
And far beyond the rolling sea,
In distant climes, at will to rove!


Yet, hadst thou but one gentle mate
Thy little drooping heart to cheer,
And share with thee thy captive state,
Thou couldst be happy even there.


Yes, even there, if, listening by,
One faithful dear companion stood,
While gazing on her full bright eye,
Thou mightst forget thy native wood


But thou, poor solitary dove,
Must make, unheard, thy joyless moan;
The heart that Nature formed to love
Must pine, neglected, and alone.

I am beaming now....literally.
My 14 year old brother who hates reading books (in general) actually is taken to a book I made him read. Norton Juster's "The Phantom Tollbooth" WORKS WONDERS!!!!
I was smitten with the book ever since I read it after Darlene recommended it to me. I handed a copy of it to my brother as a reading assignment and I couldn't believe he is actually reading it without being told!
If my hopes of being an English teacher needed more encouragement, I have had some food for it today. Just seeing my brother makes me so happy.

My Sister's Keeper...Jodi Picault

*may contain spoilers so be warned*

I really liked the themes this book brought out. The nature of death and how it is unpredictable. I was really surpised by the ending of the book, all the while I thought that Kate would die but just when the writer prepares you for getting to know Anna more, she has to take her away. At first, the Fitzgeralds were told to expect the death at any time and but then when Anna was born and Kate had a regular supply of blood from Anna, Sara focused on planning to keep Kate alive. For her it was always a matter of "if we get the meds in time, then Kate can be kep alive for longer" or "if we prevent her from doing this, then we can prolong her life" and Sara never thought that there are some things that you can never prevent no matter what. Sara worked so hard to prepare for Kate's death: the photographs, keeping every memory of Kate alive, dreading the life to follow if Kate died, but death defeats any plan or preparation. We can never know when death will strike....Sara as a parent never expected she'd have to prepare for the death of her child and in another level, she was so preoccupied with Kate that she never thought that she should make bonds with the other members of her family. It need not have been Anna in the end, it could have been Jesse too. Jesse is a troubled kid and Sara didn't have time or the energy to get to know him well (before Anna's death that is).

The author's decision to kill Anna is both good and bad. I think it works well in this case because it addresses the issue of how one can never plan death. Also, in terms of Anna's character, I felt it was a good move in thi case because she did not have to go through everything in this world. She was literally unwanted and she might as well remove herself from such a place. Even if Anna had lived, she would have been constantly under the pressure of having to donate her organs or her blood for Kate. She'd have still been ignored by her parents. But in death, she is remembered more. Her death is literally like a blow to the readers, it came when we least expected it, just like an accident.
On the other hand, the author did not give Anna an opportunity to excercise her rights. We don't even know if she would have stuck to her word and not donated the kidney to Kate. We dont' know how her family would have responded to her after the trail, if they would have noticed her more or not. In some ways, by killing Anna its like the author herself is deciding what to do with her: Anna is trying to fight against a force that "designed" her and made her do things she had no choice over. The author does just that: by giving Anna a voice and letting her get to know the readers, and then taking her life a way so cruelly, the author is doing the very thing that Anna is fighing against.

I liked the technique of having Kate's voice in only one chapter, the last chapter. I think this is a very powerful move becase all the while we wonder who is Kate, what is her mind like..and when we just hear about other people talking about her, it is as if she is dead to us. However, when we hear her in the last chapter, we know she is alive. We only hear Kate when Anna is dead. I think this means that they cannot co-exist. In the real of the home, Kate rules but in the book, Anna rules...until her death, when Kate rules again.

ahh....just turned in my final papers yesterday...TWO for 234: one called "The tragedy of Passion: Character of Mrs. Loveit in George Etherege's 'The Man of Mode'." and the other one is "Ode on the Death of a Favorite Cat by Thomas Gray"

Now that that's over....I've got my hands on more books to keep myself occupied LOL!
I finished "My Sister's Keeper" by Jodi Picoult yesterday..OMG EVERYONE should read it! It brings out so many issues that all of face that just reading it on the page is invigorating...
Next I plan to start on either "Snow Falling on Cedars" or "Shirley" by Charlotte Bronte.
I've also started reading "The Bronte Myth" by Lucasta Miller (I think I like it better than the biography of CB by Lyndall Gordon, which was too focused on Charlotte as some kind of quiet martyr..)

I am going to post reviews on My Sister's Keeper and Dear Frankie (a movie)

I have an idea for a project...and I think it'll be a decent deal if I could get it going...
Hopefully I can start it when I am at home.

Plan for final Research paper:

Topic: Portrayals of Ophelia in Western Culture: Representation of female experience

Types of Female experience:
Young maiden/Older Woman (ages of womanhood)
A young picture/older Waterhouse/Older and younger women in films/art
Restraint/one amongst a crowd-18th century
Explosive Sexuality
Balcell's representation
Waterhouse
Madness/hysteria:
Pictures of mad women
Ellen Terry
Innocent virgins
Religious pictures
Submitting to death in a cold world
Arthur Hughes
Millais
Crewdson
Political figure
Kostintsev's Ophelia-aggressing against Stalinst rule
Madness as a symbol of rebellion
Burgin-The Bridge
Balcell-play on Millais
Modern Girl
Almeryda's Ophelia
Multicultural Ophelia
Peter Brooke's Ophelia

Ophelia

Bewitched, I stumble
And fall, fall, fall,
Headlong
Into an abyss
of blackness that blinds

I cannot move,
My thoughts are gagged,
My brain is strangled
Caught in the agony
of living another's pain


I cannot will it to go,
Thrashing my head on the banks
My fingers gorging my eyes
I resemble it in madness;
For who is not possessed?

I was watching JE and a few more thoughts crossed my mind:

* I think JE is as much Rocehster's story as it is Jane's. I mean we know pretty much everything about his life...from his indulgent boyhood to his attitudes as a grown man.
And I was thinking ...that Bronte's purpose was to show that there ARE men like Rochester...who are frustrated with the way the current world around them works, sick of superficial appearances, play acting. These men want someone headstrong but also good as Jane. R also believes in the magic of the past (myths) unlike the others who are into balls and useless card games.
However, for a man like R to get someone like Jane, he as to ISOLATED. Thonfield is indeed is in a lonesome setting. So only if Jane goes to such a place, where R is not interrupted by any other people, he can get to know her ...and then fall in love with her. I guess this means that R could NOT have been as interested in Jane if she had been in a crowd (if you beg to differ, let me know your response)
And then also Bronte says that a union such as Jane and R's could only exitst in isolation because they have to go to Ferndean (and even Thornfield is burnt down). So does such a thing not exist in our life? Does this mean we'd have to live in isolation with someone in order to fall in love? How healthy would such a relationship be? Jane did get to know other people but her exposure to the world is not diverse. Also, R does know the people of the gentry and yet he chooses Jane. How would they carry on their lives? Woudl they not have to meet other people? What if R died early? Granted Jane has a fortune of her own...but how would she be happy without companioship? ..wait...there is Diana and Mary so I guess they'd keep her company though they would not mean to her as much as R did.

I can't help feeling sad when I hear affection showered on someone and they don't realize what it means.
I was talking to someone and they were telling me about how another esteems them and this person does esteem the other as well...except not to the same extent. With this person it is so mellow...or maybe I don't see enough. I am just not sure. Maybe they do feel more than what is visible to me. But on the other hand, this might not be the case. Perhaps they are shallow in their affections.

How will they love? What will it mean to them? How does their SO feel about this? If I was in the SO's place, I'd be so hurt. I could not endure mellow affections. Its better to have none than something so shallow.

Fear

What if I lose
This lust for life?

What if I snap the strings
That bind me tight?

What if I blind my heart
To things that really matter?

What if I choke
On my own breath?

What if I stop feeling?
Where would I go?

What will become of me
If I am not what I am?

For I fear that
Which will extinguish

My fear
For then I will no longer

Be me, myself,
With all my fears.

I feel, I fear, I rise.
I burn, I fear, I fall.

And yet
Let me be

Me
My self

---S

I feel a *strange* sense of sadness...a dull ache really...
It's got to do with the end of the semester...truly, this year is the best I've had and I am so sorry to have to let this semester go...I won't get one like this ever again. I've learnt so much, had interactions with people who listen to me, and I have done it all for the pure love of learning and doing what I want to do. Although I have the low moments (mishaps with my parents etc), the good moments are the best I've ever had.

On to other things...here are a few lines I coined for my art project:

You see me not
For I am merely a shadow
Formed of steel
Let me out
For I burn

So..wonder what others who read this think of them..are they really bad lines? or mediocre?
I think they fit the project ...but in the writing of them I also thought they sounded like poetry (?!)

Final Art project ideas:
*Villette
Theme of invisibility
Shadows/Nun as shadow
Not wanting to lose the nun (symbol)
Storm (representation of something)
Flames

*JE
Red Room (possibly integrate with above?)
Locked wife
Fire (with R)

*AB
Captive Dove

I need a goal in life. I really do. It would make everything much more focused.
Now if only I could actually DO something about finding a goal.

Things I have to do before I leave for break:
aaarggh!!!!! craziness!!!

So here's the list:
Eng 324: 15 page research paper-Topic: Visualizations of Ophelia
Eng 234: 5 page paper + 5 page rewrite
Eng 120: 6 page comparative paper
Art 105: Portfolio + Narrative project

I think I am going to be near death *cries hysterically*

Some random questions:

Should people live in isolation if they are to be happy?
Why do people hurt each other?
Why do some people want so much out of life and others so little?
Why do some people get lost in the sidelines?
Can one really live with no affections?
Is it possible to live in one's dreams constantly?
Can the dead haunt you?
Can you communicate with your dreams?
What is crazy? Is it being normal?