English Major Syndrome

As an English major, there are times when I get English Major Syndrome. This is something I termed and diagnosed in myself. It usually occurs about half-way through a semester. Here are some symptoms I have found:

• Wanting to pick up whatever monstrous volume I am currently studying, pound it against my head, and scream, "I DON'T CARE WHAT THIS GUY WAS REALLY TRYING TO SAY!" Or, "WHY COULDN'T SHE JUST SAY WHAT SHE WANTED TO SAY?!" Sometimes it gets really annoying trying to find "hidden" and "deep" meanings in texts you care absolutely nothing for. Then again, other times it can be really cool when you find something and suddenly it all clicks and there is peace and goodness in the world. Like when I read the short story, "The Cove." At first, I was unprepared for the direction the story took. Then when I reached the end an idea formed in my head. "Oh my gosh! The realtor is a serial killer! It all makes sense now!" (Then I thought, "Eeeww. What a creepy dude.") That was a good day.
  Then you read something like Henry James and the world isn't so peaceful and good anymore.
  
• Wishing I could duct tape certain people's mouths shut because I don't want to hear their opinion on every little thing. So what if you think Mark Twain's ending of Huckleberry Finn sucked? I don't care! So what if The Jungle reminds you of the time your daughter was trying to date someone? I. Don't. Care. And I don't feel the need to apologize for my own comments because I don't comment enough to get on people's nerves. So ha!
  
• Finding literary concepts in everyday life. For example, I was watching a movie. Quite content and forgetting about my English problems when boom, bam, literary theories came into my head. "Oh, but if we deconstructed it then it could have this meaning. Or if we looked at this from a Marxist perspective, it has the biggest totalization effect EVER!" Sometimes I feel like literary theory has ruined my life.
  

The cure for English Major Syndrome? I'm still looking for that.

Assignment Doing

So this is me, trying out this nifty feature on Microsoft Word for my class project. I hope it works. We shall see.

Hansel and Grettel

I thought of something funny in my British Literature class today and instead of raising my hand in class I just kept it to myself. But I'll talk about it now. We were discussing different ways to end fairy tales, or a way to make them different and have a different meaning. Someone mentioned Hansel and Gretel and I thought of story for it. So here goes . . .

Once Upon a Time, there was a family that lived in the woods. The mother and father had two children. Their names were Hansel and Gretel. Hansel and Gretel were spoiled children. They ate all the food their mother made then demanded more. She tried to satiate their appetites, but the more she cooked the more they wanted. And they wanted sweets too.

One day, the mother died. And after an acceptable mourning period, the father remarried. This woman though, would not give in to Hansel and Gretel's outrageous demands. She tried in vain to make them eat healthy and to exercise as they were both quite overweight. She would send them walking through the woods with a basket of a small portion of wheat bread and cheese for lunch. Hansel and Gretel were by then accustomed to sweets so they thought the bread and cheese were disgusting. So they would take it piece by piece and leave it on the forest floor on their daily walks. This also proved helpful in finding their way home.

Hansel and Gretel heard a story about a house made entirely out of candy in the forest. So naturally they wanted to devour it. When they went on their walks they would often search for this house but without success. One day though, they found a house made out of vegetables and saw an old, but nice looking lady tending the large garden. This woman saw them and demanded that they stay with her until they learned how to eat healthy. She locked them up and forced them to eat fruits and vegetables day in and day out. Hansel and Gretel hated her for it. So they devised a plan.

When the old woman was tending the large fire, Gretel ate through her celery prison and pushed the poor old woman into the fire. Hansel could not force himself to eat the disgusting celery so Gretel found the key and let him out. They then ran all the way home!

Over their time imprisoned, they had lost a lot of weight because of the strict diet the woman had them on. Their step mother was very pleased with their looks, but they were still rotten inside. So when they were arrested for the old woman's death, neither she, nor their father, were very sorry for it. And they all lived happily ever after.

So it's kind of silly, but that's the point. It made me laugh in my head when I thought about it.

In The Beginning

I am doing something I thought I would never do. But I bet that's the way most people start blogs and I don't want to be boring like other people so forget that! As you can read in my profile, I started this blog for an assignment for my Content Management class. For my final project I need to, well, manage a bunch of content. So I'm using a blog to do this. I'll let you know in six weeks how that goes. If anyone is even here reading this.