Thursday, December 22, 2016

THE HIDDEN BLOG

The hidden blog, is a blog not late but undiscovered.  It is analysis of two unexpected pieces of Literature, Fable by Charles Yu and Three Short Moments in a Long Life by John L’Heureux, I didn’t have any writing events to discuss so instead I’ll talk about my semester as a whole.  I fully realize this isn’t the criteria for the blogs but I feel this will provide the best paper.

These two short stories are amazing representation of life’s events artfully created to become connected with the narrator rather then the story itself, because even if the stories are told beautifully the real importance is the narrator himself. In Fable, the story told is one that is mythical that is supposed to describe his life, but it is the reactions he gives when the therapist forces him to keep talking.  In Three Short Moments in a Long Life the narrator goes over three huge moments within his life, each one shipping who he would become, it is not the individual stories but rather the sum affect that it had on him.

Fable begins with the narrator talking to a therapist and being told that he must tell a story describing his life, which in the beginning he gives a  mundane story that just describes how bad he essentially feels for himself.  The therapist tells him the story doesn't go in depth enough, the therapist continues to tell him to describe in better detail until he realizes what actually has him in such a troubled state, his child who he loves but also causes a great deal of added stress.  It was not what he wanted to say for fear that it wasn't an appropriate thing to say.  The narrator has trouble comprehending that this could the source of his problems and then realizes that he has to come to grips with it and change his mind set.

Three Short Moments in a Long Life has the narrator describe 3 moments that greatly impact his life, they are normally heartbreaking but give a relevant idea as to how the narrator was thinking at the time of these stories and how the narrator matured.  The final story includes the narrators death but this is no normal death in a story but a very real choice made by a human.  Due to the experiences throughout his life he decides that the next seizure he has he’ll not ask for treatment and allow himself to die.  His wife is reluctant but because of her love for her husband she allows it to happen.


I have no great stories from this semester I just know that is was a bad one.  I was sick for about 2 1/2 out of the 3 1/2 months which not only hurt my social experiences at school but also greatly impacted my athletic performances.  It was heartbreaking and greatly annoying seeing a lot of hard work going to waste.  But I can only imagine like the stories above that these experiences will shape me further and I firmly believe that most bad experiences can be learned from.  These small stories connected with me so well that shared them with my girlfriend and we talked about them after she read them. 

Tuesday, December 13, 2016

Missing blog

I noticed the other day that I had only posted four blogs out of the necessary five for the semester. While I obviously don't have an event and can't find the time for one at such a hectic time of the semester, I thought it would be at least an interesting if not relaxing exercise to just write a sort of recap and reflection on the semester, with our final exam being tomorrow evening.

Admittedly, I initially took this class simply to fill part of my core requirement for English courses. However I have found that this was one of the more thought provoking and insightful classes that I have taken here in my short time at Loyola. I thought we had a great group of individuals in our class, many of whom showed how intelligent they are by offering very impressive statements and responses during both our in class discussions and on this blog site. I though the idea of doing a blog for a class was at least worth a shot, and the results were pretty cool. I liked that we were able to choose between the service learning and event track, this gave everyone's blog a lot more of a unique feel as most people either helped at different organizations in the community or went to different events on and off campus.

Probably my favorite event that I attended was the debate forum held by the Loyola Rhetoric Society back in late October. With the election season reaching its apex, tensions around both the country and the world were as high as they have been in recent memory. I found that the debates had between the diverse group of students and scholars provided the audience with a model of civilized debate on real world issues that Secretary Clinton and the eventual President-Elect Trump failed to exemplify. On the topic of the election, perhaps the most memorable class we had was on November 10th, the day after Election Tuesday. It pains me to say this, but outside of that class, I have rarely encountered civilized discussion of what happened and how everyone was reacting in a way that was respectful to the opinions of both sides. The climate here on campus seems better than most, yet the tension over the events of that night still makes too difficult for some people to talk about. On social media, it's even worse. It seems like my facebook feed is just a wash of overzealous Trump supporters and my twitter feed is filled with enraged, sometimes violent disdain from the other side. So for our class to be able to not only have a civilized discussion about the issue, but to be able to recognize and accept the opinions of both sides as equally valid is something truly commendable given the circumstances.

Overall I found this to be a very enjoyable and even at times relaxing class. As a business major, it is rare that I can focus my attention on topics like philosophy or literature, as many of my classes are objective and math based courses. This course was in many ways a breath of fresh air for me and I am very glad to have taken it.