The second day in which I get to spout my comments on a christmas movie that no doubt everyone has already seen seven or eiaght times.

            Introducing The Little Drummer Boy. No drumroll please (I have a headache).
                 This is the all time mom favorite. Or at least two mothers of my acquantiance seem to like this movie (well two out of two that is a good correlation, isn't it?). To be honest I think that the simplicity of the visual component of the show is quite appealing. I also appreciate the just general over all simplicity and beauty of the movie. It is perhaps the best children's classic Christmas movie that I have seen (Other then the Peanut's Christmas of course, but that is to good to be a classic).
                  Not that it's competition is all that great anyway. I mean seriously Frosty Returns. Who thought that movie was  a good idea? I mean personally I was hoping frosty was going to melt. In both movies actually and what else is there Rudolph. I mean if the shiny nose was such a big problem they could always have cut it off. I mean it is just like my dad always says if it hurts cut it off. Fine that might be a little bit of an over reaction.
            Also a problem with the Little Drummer Boy is that it seems to send half of my siblings to bed with nightmares (well as long as they stay in bed we are okay). These kids are way to sensitive. I like to call myself sensitve (I don't like calling myself sensitive but I unfortunately am sensitive).  So maybe kids should not watch it. But it is a kids show. I mean who else will watch this? (stupid bloggers like myself don't count).
              Well actually maybe watching it once a year is not such a bad idea. It really has many elements about it that are quite appealing (whereas other Christmas children's shows are quite appalling).
            So I suggest watching it if you can even find it.

My (almost) Baby sister seems to think that I have to write for her contest. Therefore I am writing this (have you ever wondered how long they would let you make these titles?

                    Lets see... Oh yes I have been coherced to write a review of It's a Wonderful Life. I have never actually watched the full movie technically, although I acted as Violet Bick in a community theater play. I have yet to get over that enough to finish watching the actual movie. That and I have this thing against Jimmy Stewart. Maybe he's just to decent and American. I think I like my characters very good and/or very interesting. Don't get me wrong I like amazing characters who are good amazingly so. But I have difficulty in many cases with boring good characters. This is not fair to Jimmy Stewart I will admit his character in here was fairly well drawn and interesting enough. I can see why the movie is a classic. The message of the story is very good and somewhat empowering (I am not certain if empowering is usually a good thing. I am not a believer in self confidence at all costs. Sometimes we all can be dumb and we should learn of it).

                    Maybe I can not understand someone who is so friendly and likeable. I mean likeable. That is what Jimmy Stewart is likeable. Likeable.  It feels like they are trying to take away my free will by trying to force me to like them. Then either I end up liking them or hating them for the attempt. Jimmy Stewart really is neither. I just do not care for his character that he always seems to play. Although I do hear he tried to get out of the nice average American man role that he always played towards the later part of his career.

So I was supposed to write about It's a Wonderful Life. Well to be completely frank it bores me after we go through his life the first time. When he starts freaking out I lost interest him as a character, (I dislike over dramatic reactions somewhat) and since I already knew the story as every does whether or not they have watched it, I have never finished it. So this is not much of a commentary I admit. IT probably is a good a very good movie, but I never could stand sentimental heartwarming movies. They are so disgustingly emotional.

finals again

              Yes, I have finals yet again. Why do I always make time during finals but no other time to blog? I have problems. Personally I wish finals where just a little bit more final. The dragging out of education is getting just a bit tedious. I am now writing a fifteen page paper of Evelina by Francis Burney.  Burney was the person who more or less helped to inspire Jane Austen, although from what I can tell Jane Austen is a better writer. Although to say that for certain I would have to read more of Burney's books.  For some reason Burney reminds me of Oscar Wilde.
          I am not certain if  I like the education system we have. I am not certain if it is the best way to learn. I mean cramming your head full of facts does not allow good Memory retention and writing ten to twelve longer papers a semester  will not guarantee quality. But what would I know? Maybe it does.  Oh well never mind that.

Please Hold......  I am currently consulting the shade of Coleridge, I shall attempt to get back to you as soon as possible.

         Fine then I am not consulting him, there may be something against that in the Church Canon. But all I want to do is to ask Coleridge to finish Cristabel. I mean this lazy poet leaves perhaps one of his most interesting poems unfinished. When he finished things like The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, Which was slightly boring and somewhat over the top.  I mean a guy randomly kills a bird and is cursed to a long and cruel life starting with all  his shipmates killed. Or Kubbla Klan. It is short, sweet, exotic and with no plot. Sorry I really have to say I prefer ballads and stories to lyrics about watching paint dry or even worse about someones feelings as an adolescent. Spare me, Spare the world.

            But although Cristabel creeps me out, especially at one point (I'll give you a hint it was the same point more or less that freaked Shelley out too, actually mine is just a little later). It was very interesting and now it is very aggravating when he leaves his heroine under a spell from an old young snake woman  who has difficulty walking over thresholds. Although I have to admit in part one of the things that tantalizes me about the story is that it is unfinished. But it also happens to be the only thing by Coleridge that I can appreciate.

            Oh right, I perhaps ought to finish what I was saying in my post about a week ago. Realism. What I do not like about realism is there tendency to take themselves far to seriously. What I do not like about   romanticism is that it can be overtly flowery and they have a tendency to take themselves to seriously. I mean have a little fun at your own expense once in awhile.

            I mean just because it is realistic does not make it great literature nor does it mean everything that is not a hundred percent realist can not be good literature.

From the depths

             From the depths of the deep I arise. Okay that is somewhat repetitious.
             Well I am back to blogging because I am a low life who needs to post a literary diary on the computer, that is somewhat lame.
              But I have realized that college is the place for self fulfillment and learning your own personal identity. Thus far I have learned that not only to I belong to AIDA (a secret society devoted to, ohh never mind), I am also the superhero known as Flash. I have very little idea of who this entity is except that he likes to wear lots of red and that he has wings on his helmet. Oh and also he is a guy, which is just a little bit of a problem. Moving on.
                  It's all fine. Batman lives next door to me. Apparently we had reached a level of geekdom that I had hitherto only aspired too (blogs do not count).   I am also reading the romantic poets and the moment. I like Burns and I do not mind the rest of them as long as they stick to a story. But when you read some of their more repetitious and dramatic and mushy feeling ones, well the result is not pretty.
            One's eyes begin to glaze over and you continue reading wondering when will this ever end. Spare me your platitudes for lost innocence. Perhaps a platitude for lost intelligence would be more welcome in their case.
            But perhaps what the romantics needed in their poetry was more battles and less drugs. I'll give them that they have an excellent ability to manipulate the English language, but seriously I wish they would not have to burden the world with more poems about lambs and shepards.
             So fine I am not particularly interested in most poetry. Also I prefer the older stuff to the newer stuff most frequently. This constant need for realism is taxing and very Victorian. I do not mind realism in the right context but at the same time it is over rated.
            Wait did I just complain about realism and romanticism in the very same post? I have problems. Which I shall no doubt explain later.

           I am beginning to read Pilgrim's Progress. Actually it is more accurate to say that I am planing to read Pilgrim's Progress. I am not reading it because I think that it will be any good, rather because I am sure it will be stupid. It is precisely the same reason why I tried to read Harry Potter. I did not have the perseverance to finsh it. Just so I can back up my complaints of it and so I would know what they are talking about when it is mentioned.
            That is horrible, I am not even trying to read about it to enjoy it or learn about it or even show off by my knowledge about it. I want to complain about it.
            This dilemma perhaps can be accounted for by my life. I have nothing much to complain about in my everyday life and there is in my personality a distinct necessity to gripe about something. Therefore I go out of my way to complain about literature. That perhaps explains this whole blog.

As usual I have no idea what I am going to write about

         I could write about Beloved that is another book I have to read for classes. It's kindof dumb and very grotesque and somewhat pretenious. To be fair I do not like this vaque writing style where you are not sure what point in the story you are at. It is just jumping all over the place and all over time. I mean I can flippin read Dickens who jumps all over the place, but at least there is a definite story line going.
         People have this mistaken notion that if I can not understand it, it must be intelluctual. That is not true. Sometimes things are hard to understand because they are nonesence. At the same time sometimes something is very intelluctial and one can not understand it because of the actual cleverness in the book. But at the very least through study and being read by smarter people then me, one can find a fairly definite meaning.
           Basically what I am saying is that just because something is hard to understand does not make it 'deep' or clever. Vaque can be just a lack of thought or lack of communication skills. Complicated themes within a work will make it harder to understand but the easier it is to understand, even with the complicated themes, shows a definetly better writing style.

well then

        Well I ought to be doing many things including continuing work on my last paper for the Dickens class. This is a fun class, I have to say. I am now reading Our Mutual Friend, I like it if only for the reason that it is the only novel in this class that I had not read before or the ending was somehow ruined for me. That is the problem with classics. To many people know of them and have to in some way make sure you know the ending or some major plot point. One form of literature that is notorious for doing so is parody's. I despise parody's unless the person has something to say. It is easy enough to make fun of someones work. It is hard to point out the actual flaws in a work and show why they are flaws and at the same time be funny. That is the only type of parody that should be given any note. By my way of thinking.
       Anyway Our Mutual Friend is interesting. Very confusing, but that is just Dickens and very long, which is also just Dickens. It is a mystery about greed (I know, how original), with murder (again, original), secret identities, (never saw that one coming) crippled people (okay that's new) and romance (blahhh....). So yes I am very excited to finish it and criticize it. Criticism is the more fun  then reading anyway, well not quite. It depends on the book.

Sorry about not writing

                 Sorry about not writing in well pretty close to forever. I have just not had the energy to do so with taking so many credit hours and writing a novel and occasionally directing my sisters play. I even  had to put world domination on a back boiler just so I could write this.  Still not sure if it was a good trade off.
                Since I am writing this anyway I might want to add that I think snow ought to stay in the winter and not bother us poor distracted souls in April (April showers seem to have turned evil on us killing May flowers, twisting the hearts of small children, and big ones, and in general being a blasted nuisance).
              I am now going to write two long essay for the amusement and gratification of my teachers. I can not believe one can make money out of being sadistic, (knowing the papers most students write it probably comes closer to masochism).
           On that singularly uninsightful note I must leave you. "Parting is such sweet sorrow"---sweet because you are reading this sorrowful because I have already endangered your sanity as it is.
         

Try to be optimistic

             Wow, schools been literally been killing me. Since midterms are almost over things should be slowing down for me. I may have nothing to write about, but things are slowing down.
              I have just been rereading Regina Doman's books. They are surprisingly well written. Highly improable, but considering the fact she straight out admits they are fairy tale stories I have nothing against it. The characters are well drawn and likeable. Rose may have been a little too perfect and focused in on by everyone within the world of the novel Waking Rose, but still it was not to bad. Another problem was that in the first book the writer starts to develop the mom's personality, which was interesting, but she really faded into the background so much that the girls almost seemed to have been orphans. Other than that I found the series concerned with the Briers and Dennstons as the main characters interesting (those would be Shadow of the Bear, Black as Night, and  Waking Rose.
              My favorite character is easily Fish. Although Blanche started out as my favorite character. I think Fish and Blanche are proably the most well drawn characters in the books, with Rose as a close third.
            Although I liked the Midnight Dancers it lacks some of the charm of the original characters, although it definetly kept the fairy tale like charm of everything. One of my friends complained how Rachel, the heroine of the book, did an extremely stupid thing to expose her sisters to what she did. My problem was not in that. It was a really stupid thing to do, yes. But it was handled in such a way that between it's being a fairytale story I did not mind it.
                The problem I had was the fact that the hero, Paul, did not tell thier father right off. Those girls could have ended up in very serious trouble if he had in some way failed to take on a large group of young men. Another problem was that Paul was just to perfect. Rose had faults and people pointed out that she was doing some things wrong. Paul did not seem to have any faults, nor was he (if I remember correctly, which I may not since it's been a long time) a very well drawn character in this one.
                Still overall I enjoyed all of her books that I have read and I hope she continues to write, which is high praise from me since I hate the majority of Romance stories and I hate an even greater majority of modern literature (and Lord spare us from most American writing). Warning for those of you with sensitive paleates the books are very romantic, but in a fairy tale way, so she can get away with it somehow.

I was really hoping

that my blogs title would not be a self fulfilling prophecy. I have precisely 15mins before I have to go to class. So this shall be a brief post.
            Sorry I have not written much in a long while, but I have been trying not to get behind in my school. Even my novel has suffered neglect lately. So has my room now that I think about it. Although I have just finished a bizarre alien story a few days ago. It was fun writing it and I gave it a little bit of an O'Henry ending. I think more authors should work harder on the ending's. Not necessarily have them always be surprise endings but they should make a person feel a little accomplishment having read it. Or make people think or flipp'in anything except make a person question why they finished the book. There are some books that make me think that I should have stopped a chapter short of finishing the work because for such a good beginning and middle of the story the ending  is disappointing and too predictable.
          Sometimes there is the problem of making the story's ending unpredictable in a predictable way. I mean yes the person tried to make it unpredictable but failed because too many people made thier story unpredictable in the exact same manner as this author. And I really have to go now,

Lovely day

             The sun is shining (above the covering of clouds), the grass is green (when I say green I mean it has the potentiality of becoming green) what little of it is left. the trees reach out  like bare skeletons to the uppermost parts of the sky hoping to pierce the clouds, and miserably failing. Everyone is red, cheery and ready to strangle you (that could be my imagination). Wind is gently blowing past people and knocking them off their feet, or the ice. Such a day makes one feel as if it is good to be alive. 
                Yes in fact I am rambling and yes I am serious as to its being a good day. Some days one doubts if the sun is shining behind the dazzling curtain of evaporated water.
                By the way deconstructionism is dead. I am Nieztche and it is dead.

I hate the deconstructist theory

                The Deconstructist theory is the theory that says of language that language is fluid and we can never really know what the meaning of a text (this is a literary theory for those of you fortunate to never come across it). They deny that there is an objective and correct meaning to any text. They say words change from era to era (that is true). They say that there are many ways to interpret a sentence (that is also true, but we can usually figure out what the intention of the author or speaker, by the context, by the inflection, by the social understanding and by the person themselves). Is it an exact science, no. Can you understand to a certain extent, yes. Are you going to make mistakes, yes.
       Furthermore  I am not sure what the reason for deconstructive theory‘s deconstructing a text. If meaning is fluid than dosen't this deconstructionist writing need to be deconstructed? Then that other deconstruction needs to be deconstructed. It is just a theory that you can go on and on, because there is really no starting point.
            You cannot make a good argument without a basis that there is no proof of. They are trying to undermine that basis.
         If you want to say there is no at least somewhat objective truth of a text, then what is the use of any criticism, if you throw out logic, how can one be expected to argue? If language is so fluid then what is the use of talking?

Charicutures

         I have found that like most people I have a fascination for caricatures. Not the ones done in artwork because those are usually really ugly. I am talking about characters in stories. That might be why Dickens is still being read. I mean do we read his works for realism? Not really. For some historical value, yes that is one reason we still read stuff like Dickens. His characters may not be particularly realistic, but they are interesting.
          One of my goals in what I am writing is to make some characters like Dickens. I do not want to copy them, but I want to use the method that he used for that particular subject. Insofar as the rest of my writing is concerned, I doubt it will be anything like his. But someone told me that the best way to learn how to write well is too read good literature.
         Now there is too mistakes people make about the classics's. One is too assume they are boring. Dickens can be hilarious, and for those of you who like dramatic literature, their is always the Bronte sisters. Although the passion that they portray in their books, makes me laugh. Jane Austen and Elizabeth Gaskell, as of yet, seem to be the only romance writers that I can thoroughly enjoy. Then there are some other exciting books that are dramatic and adventurous books like Zorro, Captain Blood (yes his last name seriously is blood, isn't that brilliant?) and the Scarlet Pimpernel. The Scarlet Pimpernel also makes me laugh.
              The other problem is just because they are old and are called classics does not make them great literature. I hate Robinson Crusoe. Although, I am glad it exists, if you ever read the Moonstone you'll understand why. There other books that are just not well done, that although as an English major I am glad I have read, I would not necessarily recommend them to the public at large.

I have this very difficult class

The sad thing is that it is an intro level class. Just reading through a chapter that is a little under a hundred pages of technology related things is hard fot me. I have a disturbing feeling that many of the people in the class are doing it for an easy A. Whereas I am thinking that it will be harder than my 400 level classes. Se le vi. Which is French for I can't spell (no not seriously).
         I have a word of advise to all of those concerened with your own welfare to
               Never tell a masochist 'do unto other's as you would have them do unto you'. No I am not being randomn.

It's been awhile

        Hello, between being busy for awhile and not very consistent access to a computer (I think I've fixed that) has slowed down my blogging. Still here I am. Actually, I am taking an interesting class this semester on Victorian Literature. More specifically on Dickens's. I love Dickens and I hate Dickens. There are so many problems and mistakes in his books, but they are brilliant mistakes. Besides he was just beginging to explore the serialization method of writing novels.
          I have also been studying the Victorian time period (well hello,  it is a class on Dickens). I have a somewhat similar regard to that time period as I do for Dickens. It was about the 'triumphing' of puritans and meateralism. At the same time there was so much good. And they had a few brilliant writers. It was also the time that education became more accesible to the masses. But then the Utiltarian philosphy that came out and we are still struggling with to this day also appeared.
                   So, yes I hate it and love it.

Is Narnia an Allegory?

              I thought that since the newest Narnian movie seems to be such a success and people who have watched it tell me I should see it, I decided that I would write about the books.
             So back to my original question is Narnia an allegory. No.Well, if we took The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe by itself then yes it is an allegory. However the other books make it or at least Aslan less of a Christ figure (no I am not off my rocker). Aslan is not a symbol for Christ, in the series he is Christ. The definition of allegory I learned is that it tells a story through symbols, it uses archetypes.  Actually, I have found a good  for allegory on wikipedia (don't tell my teachers, please) Allegory is a figurative of representation conveying meaning other than the literal.
               The thing is Aslan, is literally in the books, Christ, not a represantation of Christ. In the last chapter of The Silver Chair Aslan tell Eustace and Jill the next time they came to his country (heaven) they would stay. Therefore he must be the same redeemer for both worlds. In the last chapter of The Last Battle the book describes how Aslan is changed in wonderful ways when everyone had gotten into heaven.  Finally in the last chapter of The Voyage of the Dawn Trader Aslan tells Lucy and Edmund that he is known by a different name in their world.
                  Is the stories close to be an allegory? Definetly. Am I being picky in pointing out that it is not quite an allegory? Well Yeah! Does it matter? You can be the judge of that. People can make a job out of being picky, although the ideal is to be paid for that job.