End of semester summary

I was initially registered for a different Literature in the 21st Century section taught by a different professor. After sitting through the first day of that class and reviewing the syllabus, I knew that it wasn’t going to work for me. I went straight to the computer lab and removed that section from my schedule in favor of this one. Good decision. I had some experience writing blogs coming into this class. I have been keeping a blog on a leading NCAA track and field website called trackshark.com since last spring and I have mostly enjoyed it. At times it can be annoying, but all it entails is me explaining my training and giving some specifics and explaining them. It has provided good exposure for both me as a student-athlete and for St. Francis College. The blogs for this class, however, left my trackshark blog suffering because I certainly did not feel like writing another blog after writing 3 about subjects that didn’t particularly interest me.
Finally, last night I wrote my first blog on trackshark.com in over a month. I explained to my readers why I had not been writing, and I hope they understand. That is what I have learned that has surprised me the most about blogs; the amount of people who actually read them. I have been at track meets and people have come up to me and introduced themselves to me and told me they read my blog and like it. That was something I totally didn’t expect. Personally, despite being a big “computer person” the only reason I ever participate in the world of forums or blogs is to find answers about specific things. I’m not sure how many people actually read my blog for this class, but I would be surprised and impressed if anyone besides Professor Lennon did.
The format of the blogs rather than papers is something I definitely favor. I consider myself to be a good writer despite hating to read. Teachers often find it odd when I say I hate to read because my writing suggests otherwise. I usually write ‘A’ papers so I certainly wouldn’t have minded being forced to write a paper or two for this class. However, a 21st century literature class which will obviously deal with such modern topics and ideas that are typically brought to our attention through more than just words on paper benefits greatly from a technological enhancement. The proof is in the virtual class. I understood very little of what I read of The House of Leaves, but once I began searching for answers online and on other people’s blogs, much of it became less foreign to me. Also, I think people generally seem surer of the point they are trying to make when given the opportunity to write it down and examine it before clicking ‘submit post’. Writing a blog can help you formulate your idea and enhance it using other people’s ideas, not just the people in this class.
If I had to change anything about my blog, I would probably try to find some way to incorporate the two blogs I was running so neither would be neglected. I believe in quality over quantity. And I mean quality not just in how you write, but how much you know about what you are writing about. Meaning that if I write only 1 paragraph and someone writes 3 paragraphs about the same topic, it doesn’t mean the person who wrote more knows more about the subject than the person who wrote less. Some people just are able to express and explain what they want to say in less space. I think that is something overlooked too much by professors. The same applies to the blogs. Three blogs a week was not a lot, but there were times I felt I was writing blogs about stuff just to have the 3 blogs and maybe only 1 of the 3 was enjoyable to write.

Skip It

The main thing Matthew Megerdichian skipped when reading this book was the Introduction. He knew this probably wasn't the best idea in the world, but he fell into the trap of being lazy because the pages were numbered with roman numerals instead of regular page numbers and thus not part of the assigned reading. Likely, Matt will only go back and read it based on the feedback he gets from the question he asked on whether or not it had significane or helped the reader understand anything.
The other parts he skipped were the parts with the red words crossed out and the blue boxes from page 109 onward. Knowing Matt well, I know he is the kind of person who is not willing to strain his eyes, or use a mirror to read a book. Reading the book at all was an accomplishment for someone like him. He probably thought that if the author really wanted you to read it, then the author should have just left it as plain text.
In the end, chances are that Mr. Megerdichian is not left wondering what he might have missed by skipping these sections. Instead, he is thinking that this virtual class was in many ways superior to the actual class setting. While it took him some time to think of examples and to formulate his exact thoughts, it helped his understanding of the book more. In class, he might have been attacked or felt lost if certain topics were not explained because having the ability to look things up gave him the oppurtunity to clarify some unclear things. Also, Matt didn't get back from track and field practice until 6:30 today so he would have been late to class.

When a House is not a House

If the house in this book is not actually a house but rather a metaphor for something else, I would have to suggest that it represents the strain of the relationship between Karen and Will. Karen was never sure about their marriage and so they bought the house to try to solidify things. The house's interior continues to expand like the tension between them, but on the outside (the house's exterior) everything appears status quo.
We see this right in the beginning on pages 11-12. Karen is watching her children and waiting for Will to come home. She constantly looks out the window into the driveway for even the slightest sign that her husband will be home soon. When he pulls into the driveway, she seems very excited at first but by the time she gets to the door to meet him, she is only concerned with the water heater.
Buying a house was hardly the answer for them. That scene shows that she is basically living moment to moment, day by day. The house was an attempt to save something that wasn't meant to be saved.

Character Sketch

Billy Reston: An engineer who was injured in a freak accident. He is brought in to help Navidson explore the labrynth in his house. We find out that while he usually just observes, he can also jump into action and start 'bustin caps'.

Page 37-38 : Describes the incident which crippled Billy. An inexperienced crane operater led to his demise by cutting an electrical cable and it struck Billy Reston with the ferocity of cobras in the Jungle Book. Good thing for footnotes or else I would not have gotten the reference to the cobras names.

Page 97 : Exploration #4 - Billy Reston acts as the monitor of all of the equipment which Navidson has set up. Page 98 provides a suggestion of why Exploration #4 is told through Billy Reston's perspective.

Page 208 : We find out that Mr. Reston is strapped.

Video

Fast forward to 45 seconds into the video and watch until the 1 minute mark to understand why I chose this video.
Seriously though, It's very interesting to see why he wrote this book. The thing that struck me the most about what he said is that writers not only have to reap but also sew. He seems to fit perfectly into the stereotype of a person who is different for the sake of being different; he claims stuff like what he has done with this book is what drives the evolution of culture...that's not egotistical in any way, shape, or form.

I thought the best way to start this would be to run a Google image search on the word HOUSE. Low and behold the above image appeared on the first results page with the caption "houses that defy physics". How appropriate for a house that, well, defies physics. Page 32, "The interior of the house exceeds the exterior not by 1/4" but by5/16"" It doesn't get more physically impossible that that. A little background info on the house pictured here: It is an actual house in Poland that was built as a statement against communism.

House

Okay, so I am sitting there trying to read this book and understand what its all about, but I am having trouble focussing on some of the words every so often. In particular the word "house". Then I realized that the word "house" is blue. I'm not sure why this is, but I'm guessing it will be explained later in the book? Also, I just noticed that the word "house" in the title on the cover is blue. I'm hoping this will have some kind of significance and is just not intended to throw my eyes off. I'm not saying I have an eye problem or a reading problem; just that its something you are not used to seeing and it can attract some of your attention away from the rest of the page.

Response to 'Bombin Brooklyn'

Gentrification is definately a shame. The prices of homes and apartments throughout all 5 boroughs have been steadily on the rise for as long as I can remember. My neighborhood, College Point in Queens, has experienced its own drastic changes. Growing up, grafitti was a popular thing amongst the youth of the neighborhood. Though, like you, I never took part in the art myself, I knew several kids who did. Now before you start thinking to yourself that I must have grown up with some thugs or troubled youths, know you're wrong. Most of the kids I knew that would tag up around CP were white, middle class, catholic school educated kids. College Point used to be an area inhabitted by German, Irish, Italian, and other Europeans. In the past 8-10 years, however, I have seen many of my friends' families sell their houses for small fortunes and move out to Long Island areas such as Masapequa. But they weren't selling their houses to other families, they were selling them to land developers who were eager to knock down historic victorians that had stood for in some cases more than 100 years only to be replaced by "houses" that could hold 6-8 families. Thus the demographic of the area has changed quite a bit over that time. A lot of the grafitti has dissapeared and as the neighborhood I up in fades away. Some of my friends from the old days that still either hang out in CP or still live here have tried to bring back taggin up. I say good for them because it makes me laugh everytime I see "WRD" on the stop sign on the corner of my house.

As for Miss 17 and Greenburg, I know someone who lives in Williamsburg and her parents are faced with the oppurtunity of selling their house, likely to developers who will probably try to use Banksy to drive the asking price up. Hopefully, both of our neighborhoods will retain some of their identity.

709 pages!?!

Please tell me you are not assigning a 709 page novel. In previous posts I have listed reasons why I do not enjoy reading. I would like to add to that list the length of most works of literature. After seeing that the novel we will next be dealing with in class is House of Leaves, I looked at the amazon page only to find that the book is 709 pages!!!!!!!!!!! So we are supposed to read a textbook in 2 weeks? I don't think there is a book I would be interested in enough of such a length to think that 709 pages could be anything less than a daunting task. To me, its kind of the same principle as when a teacher gives an assignment along with a length requirement. Why can't they just say, write as much as it takes you to fully explain your answer? I think books also fall into this trap. There is always so much extra material with little relavance to the story in most books, I am fearful of how much extra "stuff" there will be in the span of those 709 pages.
And just as we were doing so well with short plays and articles, what happened?

Why I haven't blogged until now...

In case you were asking yourself, "Matt hasn't posted any blogs since last week, and now it seems that he is posting all three of the required blogs on the Wednesday of the class that they are supposed to be done by. I wonder why that could be." Well, there are a few reasons. First, I am very lazy. Second, I have been busy with a few other things that have taken priority due to their time sensitivity (getting in last minute research to make sure I didn't vote myself to Iraq in a military uniform). Third because I have begun running my website. I have created a website dedicated completely to covering the Track and Field teams at St. Francis College. (Yes I know there is already a school athletics website. There are multiple sites for the same thing on the internet all the time so why not for the SFC Track and Field team?) Google is great because it lets you design and host your website for free using their Google Sites service. The only downside is that the url of the website is begins with sites.google.com/site which hardly rolls off the tongue as most traditional dot com names do. Check it out and let me know what you think if you want to. The first official story was posted last night and it dealt with the Northeast Conference Cross Country Championships this past weekend. I was on site in New Jersey to both cheer on my teammates as well as document the event for my site.
Now, you may be wondering what this has to do with the class so here is the connection. Blogger.com is owned by Google and my site is powered by Google Sites, there you go.

Pillowman again?

Do we really have to discuss this play again in class? Admittingly, I would rather we not discuss anything at all in class because I loathe over analyzing literature, but this play is ridiculous. I did enjoy reading through it, but talking about it just seems dull; probably because the stories in the play are so weird. I'm not sure exactly what Martin McDonagh was trying to express when he wrote The Pillowman, but I hope his intentions weren't to have it picked apart for hidden meanings about what he is really saying. I think that is the one major reason why I would never become a writer. I like to write for the most part and I think I can write well when I try to, but I would definately not in some secret code that would take an english professor and a class full of young minds to several hours to decipher. I write simply to tell a story or to convey a point, and as Katurian says in Pillowman, I think that stories should be taken as just that, stories. I would argue that this is the reason that many students hate reading so much in today's world. Here is an interesting link suggesting that I am wrong about people not liking to read.

Violence, death, and killing in the 21st Century

Maybe that should have been the title of this class. September 11th, Iraq and Afghanistan past and present, and now young children. I guess it just goes to show you how much of our modern culture is based on violence. I always love when people make the argument that people who play violent video games commit violent acts. I play the same games as these kids and I know plenty of other people who do the same and none of us shoot up our school or go on killing sprees.
This play was definately good though. As sick as it sounds to admit that, but its true. I don't think it would be half as entertaining as Blackwatch to see performed live. It definately read well on paper though. I can't wait to hear what people in the class have to say about it, oh look, I don't have to wait.

Analyze the short stories

I think we should only read short stories for this class and talk about them. Some of the stories in this play are quiet interesting. Particularly the one about the man locked in a jail cell; it is something of a riddle. He knows he is guilty for a crime but can't remember what for, and when people come by and see the dead rapist and the dying murderer, they show sympathy towards them but scowl at the protagonist. I wonder what he did... Katurian says its a puzzle without an answer but I think that with the combined knowledge of the class and 3 hours to spend on it, we can surely come up with an answer I can live with.
This play is just starting to get too weird, and I kind of don't want to read it anymore so I think I will continue later or tomorrow or something.

Good Cop Bad Cop

Picturing the beginning of this play is easy because of all of the scenes in tv shows and movies with interrogations. The good cop is always trying to be nice and make it seem like you can just tell him what he wants to hear and you won't have to deal with the bad cop. The bad cop is just waiting for you to mouth off or be resistant because then he gets to fulfill his sadistic fantasies. In Pillowman, Tupolski is the good cop and Ariel is the bad cop. It is a typical interrogation in which it seems like the cops don't necessarily have any hard evidance and are trying to get the prisoner to confess to something he may not have done.
I think its comical that these cops have no specific confession they are looking for. I think that if Kutarian confessed to assasinating president Lincoln they would be satisfied by having done their job. I'm going to keep reading to see what else they try to suggest he has done wrong other than writing some sick stories about little children choking to death or getting their toes chopped off.

Anything is better than reading

Black Watch was awesome. Of course, this time I am referring to the play rather than the paper thing we had to read. I think reading it first was a waste of time. The play was so much better and refreshing considering how we had been reading so much similar stuff. The setup of St. Ann's Warehouse is very different from most theaters, and I think it contributed greatly to the performance. I'm glad that we were introduced to this play through the class, otherwise I wouldn't have known about it. I'm not too crazy about plays, but the few I have seen(all off Broadway) were great and this one is right up there with them.
One of the midterm questions should ask us to explain how seeing the performance of Black Watch helped our understanding of what we read and how the performance benefited from the "stage" setup.

Black Watch

theres nothng like bag pipes to get the blood of the irish or scottish pumping. being 25% irish and 25% scottish myself, the pipes and drums certainly have this effect on me. the image of the pipes was just about all i liked about this play...

Another War Story?

Another peice of literature we read that deals with war. I mean, I realize that 21st century literature cannot completely avoid being about war because we have been at war for most of it. It's getting a little tiresome though. I thought people used to read books to escape reality and involve themselves in a fictionional tale. As I started reading Black Watch, I felt as though I was in store for just another story about the war in the Middle East.
I typed Black Watch in to a Google Images search and came up with some interesting results...
The first is of the Black Watch in I believe in 1908.
The second is of the Black Watch in Iraq in 2004.

Customized look

Okay, so I have changed the layout of my blog page to be more personal and unique. It wasn't that difficult and now it will look different than other people's. It wasn't hard to do and I hope more people will want to read my posts when they come across my page. Also, check out the poll question on the right side; I'm anticipating some very interesting results.
I started looking at Blackwatch and I thought there were a lot of typos within the first few sentences because it didn't make any sense, but I guess that is the slang the play is written with...Hopefully I'll get used to it sooner or later.

blogging on the fly

im writing this blog from my phone as a test so it might display oddly. im coming straight from practice to class tonight so i apologize for the smell of peanut butter which will be coming from my seat as i eat my post-workout "meal". hopefully this class discussion will not turn into a political debate about mccain because politics really doesnt interest me as much as it seems to other people.

Shooting War I

I was never really a fan of comics as a kid. And while Shooting War is not exactly a comic book, it doesn't really appeal to me. I found some of the satires in the graphic novel mildly humorous, but most of it was too dramatic in my opinion. It did read very quickly though contrary to what I thought and posted here before I began reading it. I think I was able to read through it so quickly because I didn't really take advantage of the digitally created pictures. Oh well, I'm sure we will look at many of them in class.

Barnes & Noble

Barnes and Noble are liars. Their website said they had the graphic novel Shooting war in stock and that was not the case. Perhaps I shouldn't have waited until 6 oclock to walk over there to get it because since they didn't have it, and the bookstore at school closed at 6pm so I have no book now. Luckily, I have some friends in the class who have already read it. Judging by the looks of it, it doesn't seem to be a quick or easy read. I shall have to see for myself...

The part that stood out to me in the second half of Jarhead the most came at the bottom of page 183 when Swofford revealls what he later learned about the anti-chemical-warfare pills they had all been taking. He discovers that they were approved for a very strictly limited number of doses. He thinks that they took way in excess of the approved amount but explains the reasonning behind it. That if 21 pills will keep them from dying, then 42 is better, and 63 is golden. The side effects later on are unimportant because they just want to believe that they can actually do something that will keep them alive.
While this is just another example of how the government will lie to you and change the story as they see fit, it brings into understandable terms at what the pills were most likely approved for. It's probable that in the modern world of medicine that they did not know whether or not the pills would really prevent death or disease form chemical attacks but just that they would give soldiers hope and the belief that they would be okay if they fell under chemical attack; a sick sort of placebo effect.

The one prospering American Company

Google.

Most of us use it every day by searching for anything on the internet. Google has been one of, if not, the strongest technology companies for a few years now. While other companies seem to cut costs and fade away from the stronghold they've held on the tech market, Google has grown and expanded and continued to dominate almost everything. Well, now maybe everything is within their reach. Google's long anticipated smart phone software "Android" has finally materialized into this
T-mobile appears to be the first benefactors of Google's success and development. I predict and strongly hope that Android will crush the iPhone in every way. Mainly because I hate Apple and what they stand for; trying to be different just for the sake of being different. Im a very pro-PC guy.

Monday Night Football

Chances are that if you grew up in America you know what Monday night means. FOOTBALL! That's right, Monday Night Football!!! Even casual football fans go crazy when their team has the Monday night game. This week, the J-E-T-S Jets Jets Jets take on the San Diego Chargers. Unlike most Jet fans, I have not been salivating at having Brett Farve at quarterback this year. He definitely is a step up over the previous noodle-armed quarterback whose name rhymes with schmedington. I'll be impressed with 8-8 and even then what's the point of that? I'd rather see them tank and get a great draft pick then finish middle of the league, not make the playoffs, and have like the 18th pick or something like that. Oh well, my Uncle tried to warn me against being a Jet fan; everyone else in my family are Giant fans.

I jumped the gun

I jumped the gun and watched the movie version after finishing the first half of Jarhead. I think it just proved my point in the previous post about how much I disagree with the lack of chronological order. A flashback is something that can be much more successful in a movie than in a book. In the movie, the plot is presented in more chronological order, but the few flashbacks that there are(if you can even call them that) are brief serve the purpose of setting up the rest of the plot rather than interrupting it like in the book. Perhaps I am a classic casualty of my generation that would rather watch a movie or television than read, but I think it's more about presenting the story in the most understandable and entertaining way possible.

Reading Jarhead

I usually find novels dragged out and filled with needless details seemingly designed as nothing more than page fillers. Authors get paid by the page, right? Jarhead is no different. Except Swofford is writing about actual events or at least what he can recollect. I really hate the fact that he jumps around in time so often. My reading comprehension is poor enough that I have trouble following the story, but when he goes from talking about a night he spends contemplating suicide and the indirect paths the bullets might take through his body to talking about Troy's death and his funeral and his time spent in Greenville and then right back to stories involving Troy. It seems to me like the book was published as he originally wrote it. In the order he remembered it rather than the sensible order of chronology. It's not that I don't like the book itself, what it's about, or the military subject matter, rather I think it would benefit from a little re-editing to suit more of a story than a collection of memories and past events. It's actually not a bad read when there are several pages that refer to a single memory, but when he jumps from story to story I lose interest and focus.

Being a Student-Athlete

Being a student athlete on any team in any school is a very difficult thing; take it from me. I have been on the Track and Field team at St. Francis College for the past two years, this will be my third. Over those two years I have learned a lot about managing time, making sacrifices, and basically having two jobs at the same time which are constantly getting in the way of each other.

That last part is the harshest reality of a student athletes life. Dealing with the fact that your day will go something like this... wake up early, breakfast, class, lift weights, lunch, drills, class, practice, dinner, homework, going to sleep early due to exhaustion, and repeat. Oh, and then there are the days where you have night class after practice. Those are the best days. Like wednesday night when I have this class. Dinner gets either postponed or eliminated depending on how I feel when I get home. Luckily, my weekends are relatively free until late January and February when the season starts and most of the weekend is spent in a different state or on the road to a different state. For now, aside from maybe a light practice on a saturday morning, weekends are mostly spent sleeping and recovering and getting ready for the next week.

Now thats all fine when your team is winning or when you are performing well at competitions, but imagine how frustrating it is when you lose, or when you are putting in all that work and not getting the results you feel you have earned!

All that said, I encourage everyone to support St. Francis College's athletic program and athletes. At least visit the official website and click around for a bit.

Smartphones

Like most people I have become attached to my smart phone, a Samsung Blackjack II. I got it as a birthday present from my parents this past March. I always have it on me and I'm usually texting someone or utilizing its Internet browsing capabilities to read the latest sports news or some other article that just can't seem to wait until I get on a regular computer. The sad thing is when you see people walking on the street with their eyes and fingers glued to the device. I know I am guilty of that as well but at least I can text without looking at the keypad so i can see where I am going. Over the summer I was working in Manhattan and it was a regular occurrence to see someone almost get hit by a car or walk into a pole because they were busy working or doing whatever just couldn't wait.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not trading my smart phone in any time soon. All I'm saying is that some people just can't be without it. I've even heard people admit to texting while driving; now that is a scary thought.

Blogging is nothing new to me

I have been blogging since March on Trackshark.com.  Trackshark is the leading website for news, results, and information about NCAA Track and Field.  I set up a blog on there to get the St. Francis College name out there as well as to give people an insight as to what it's like competing for a small, unknown athletic program.  I wasn't sure what to expect because I always assumed that blogging was for people with too much time on their hands who needed somewhere to complain or express their opinions.  However, I think it has helped me understand myself and my own training better because writing about my experiences and how I'm feeling forces me to think of ways to improve things.  I was also surprised by the amount of people who would come up to me at track meets and tell me they read my blog and really liked it.  Apparently people actually read these things.  If you want to check it out, it can be found here...  http://www.trackshark.com/blogs/mattmega/

Bringing back memories...

When I first read the back cover of the Mercy Seat and discovered it was centered around September 11, 2001, my mind immediately shot back to that day.  8Th grade at St. Fidelis School in College Point, Queens.  Standing outside of school in the school yard that morning with the smell of a fire and just assuming it was from a small fire somewhere nearby; but then a few hours later being told by our teachers that the World Trade Center had been attacked.  After the initial shock of what we had all just been told set in they starting asking if any one's parents were firefighters or police officers or if they worked in Manhattan.  I saw many of my friends break down in tears when the principal came into class and asked them to come with him.  (Fortunately, none of their parents were killed that day.)  My mother works as a secretary in the school and her brother, my uncle was a firefighter for 23 years.  His firehouse was in midtown Manhattan on 51st street near Park Avenue.  My mother came up to my classroom and as soon as I saw her I feared the worst, but she told me not to worry and she was sure he was fine.  I spent the next few hours hoping she would be right.  My mother came down to the auditorium where we gathered for lunch and told me she had heard from him and he was fine.  It turns out that he and his truck, Engine 8, were designated to go to the United Nations in case of emergency situations such as this.  

Later that day my uncle came over to my house and I saw the stress and the pain in his face, a way I had never seen him in my life.  I have always been very close to my uncle.  He is probably the coolest person I know, one of the funniest, and he always used to come over and play sports with me and my brother and our friends.  He has always been a mix between an older brother and a second father.  And I think September 11, 2001 was the first time I hugged my uncle.  He didn't say anything to me, just came into our house and gave us all hugs.  I'll never forget that.  

The Mercy Seat takes on quite a different tone than the words you've just read.  I did enjoy reading it, which is surprising because I usually despise reading.  I found myself hating Abby because she seems like a typical woman who is always trying to make you "understand them" better because of course we never do.  For that reason I was very happy with the ending sequence when he called her to tell her its over.  Although it came off as cheesy and perhaps a little predictable, it was perfect.  Neil LaBute should be proud if he reads this blog because I am usually never satisfied by endings of books, movies, or anything.