Hello again....What's in a name

I tried to post a comment on Bri's recent blog post...but it won't let me...so here goes a post.

I've been reading Hopscotch by Julio Cortazar. I desperately need to do this with a group...

The passage that caused me to long for this online connection and class was this,
"'The worst part of all this,' he thought, 'is that it always ends up in the Animula vagula blandula. What is there to do? With that question I'll never go to sleep. Oblomov, cosa facciama? The great voices of History stir us to action: revenge, Hamlet! Shall we avenge ourselves, Hamlet, or settle for Chippendale, slippers, and a good fire? The Syrian, after all, made the scandalous choice of Martha, as is well known. Will you give battle Arjuna? ........ Happy are those who chose, those who accept being chosen, the handsome heroes, the handsome saints, the perfect escapists.'" (19 Cortazar).

Nostalgia brought me back. The places we're going or not going don't matter too much to me because where we are is where we're going unless we choose to move from where we are. To act or not to act. Where do we go from here? How did we take all of this with us?

Seeing what Little Legs has been writing of her life on Facebook is facinating. I came back upon the line, between two waves of the sea, while trying to name a ceramic studio Sutter and I are trying to start up. The hardest part above all has been naming it and I feel as though my mind is mush. I can't make one meaningful and clever name for the ceramic studio. But the line made me want to forget what I was doing and come back to the blogs and re-read some posts. And what do I find? Bri's blog Between Two Waves of the Sea has been active and Tai has been on here. Why are we coming back to this place?

Still Happening...

So Lisa (little legs) Hiller, just posted a T.S. Eliot quote from a movie she heard. I'm sure we will all be seeing these connections as life continues and I love that Lisa posted it on the blog because that means we are all still thinking about the class in one way or another. I hope to see more, but not expecting to.

Class Notes 4/30

Announcement!

Monday (May 3rd) of Finals week at Noon Dr. Sexson announced that our papers will be graded & outside his office with comments attatched.

April 30th was the last day of class!

Every group got up and recited their memorized lines from the Four Quartets. It was awesome to see all the work people put into memorizing. It can be tougher for some people to memorize and everyone did really well. It was also a lot of pressure to say it in front of the class in the spot light if you know what I mean.

by the way
Derek's blog has finally made it on the scene after the entire semester, check it out:
http://epiphanicfits.blogspot.com/

Class Notes 4/28

Announcement!

Monday (May 3rd) of Finals week at Noon Dr. Sexson announced that our papers will be graded & outside his office with comments attatched.

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Group Presentations

First Group to Present: hand tree....and the yew tree nice colors dancing in the backgroup with our own words and then the group read aloud a story they put together from pieces of everyone's blogs and papers. It was so cool listening to the material from class be connected so thoughfully. I loved knowing that the words were familiar, and sometimes I knew whose words they were, and other times I didn't. The group was showing us the connections. Isn't that what an epiphany is a part of....a showing?

Second Group to Present: Katie Mason came in having been killed by a brick from hamilton hall...she represented the English major, and then the group had a wake where characters from our reading had something to say. They served fried chicked and cocaine. What a perfect last presentation. Elgaic and funny. Funeral....or funferal?

My Last Blog

It is midnight. The rain is beating on the windows. I am calm. All is sleeping. - Beckett, Three Novels

It really is midnight. The rain is truly beating on the windows. I am tired, but calm. Seriously, all is sleeping at my house, but as I post my blogs for both classes I know that I am up with a lot of other bloggers whose flurry of blogging in the last few hours I've seen with every blog I post, edit, and re-post I've done. I've also been trying to reread my blog, while reading the blogs of my colleagues. I'm surrounded by four stacks of horizontal books, about 7 spines per stack.

Is this really it? I am just starting to connect everything, but even then I know that the connections I make are no where near what the possibilities are. But I am leaving the place I've just started to appreciate.

We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.
Eliot, Four Quartets, Little Gidding

At least I've ended where I've started.....in one of Dr. Sexson's classes. And let me tell you I've come a LONG way. I know the place a lot better than the first go around.

It doesn't matter too much to me where I stand in terms of other people, I know that I've improved. See for yourself, here is my puny little Classical Lit. Blog with only 10 blogs for the semester: http://sclanton.blogspot.com/
I really had no where else to go at that point in my college career, but up (or drop out) and here I am.....still no where else to go but up because we've been given many things to take with us from MSU besides heavy loan repayments and a piece of paper to hang on the wall.

I'm so glad I chose to stay an extra year in college instead of cramming everything in to graduate in 4 years. I was able to really connect with the material and with my colleagues and my professors. I cannot imagine graduating without having done all three.

Thank you to everyone. I feel privilaged to have shared a capstone class with such brilliant people. I am not worthy. Thank you to Dr. Sexson who is our guide, our poet, our muse, our shaman.

Tai said he doesn't like goodbyes, and I have to agree. My nose tickles, my eyes are wet, but there are no tears. So I will see you around. I hope to hear great things about everyone in the class, I know I will.

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BTW (by the way) I will still post notes from the upcoming Wednesday and Friday classes just to finish out the year with my Class Notes Blogs.
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"as, when a storm is done, the rays of sun
strike through the raindrops and a rainbow stains
with its great curve a broad expanse of sky;
and there a thousand different colors glow,
and yet the eye cannot detect the point
of passage from one color to the next,
for each adjacent color is too like
its neighbor..."
- Ovid

Class Notes 4/27 - Group Presentations

Last Day of Class, April 30, absolutely Mandatory Attendance!

Last day of class on Friday will begin at 8:30AM and this will be our final so that we DO NOT meet finals week. We will be reciting our memorized passages from Eliot's Four Quartets.
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Two groups presented on Monday.

The first group was the group I was in. We went for creating an apocolyptic experience, one that surrounds the idea of ritual in terms of life and literature. Finding the extraordinary in the ordinary.....the epiphany in Doug's morning routine (at least for the group presentation) of shaving. Hope everyone had fun, I know we did. Thank you to my group, I had so much fun and I loved how everyone was enthusiastic and contributing! I love groups because you get to know people in the class, and it's cool if you already know them, but it is a great opportunity to work with new people as well. Thank you Tai, Amy, Rian, Taylor, Kari, and Doug!

The second group had a great skit that was smart and funny! Looking at Hamlet's life in college and his graduation.....same thing we are all about to do. I don't think I've ever laughed so hard during a presentation. I am working from memory here because I was laughing too hard to write anything down. I loved all the connections.....even if I didn't get all of them. I loved that the presentation was obviously very well crafted in terms of material in the script and necessary props. If anyone missed this presentation.....boy did you miss out!


I look forward to Wednesday's presentations!

Class Notes 4/23 - paper presentations

Anouncements!

Last Day of Class, April 30, absolutely Mandatory Attendance!

Last day of class will begin at 8:30AM and this will be our final so that we DO NOT meet finals week.

Presentations
Erin - metaphor of boxes, and she wrote a fun madlib that encouraged class participation as a summery of her paper.

Zuzu - mentors and epiphanies caused by them

Nick - our closing presenter, very appropriate as he had declined this privilage as Moses and other prophets have done.
silence as epiphany, inward turning...

see documentary Into Great Silence

FINAL BLOGS - Elegaic (lamenting; mournful; plaintive, mourning or expressing sorrow for that which is irrecoverably past, - online dictionary) A valediction (derived from Latin valedīcō "I say farewell") is the act of saying farewell, especially orally and often in the form of a farewell speech or statement.[1]
get misty as you write this.....FINAL BLOGS due Wednesday at Noon!