Final thoughts

I absolutely loved this class, and I'm not just saying that to get a good grade..I have never had a class quite like it..I love the idea of nothing really being wrong, you're never "wrong" you just see things differently and are not marked off because of that..I feel that I am a much better writing using the tools that were taught throughout the course, especially about the opening and closing paragraphs, to make them pop out and be interesting and end with a bang. For some reason, I feel that I will take that lesson away the most out of all of them.

I also never liked poetry before, never thought I was good at it, and certainly never wanted to write any poetry, but now that I have learned how to go about it the right way, I actually enjoyed it, and I think the poems I wrote were pretty good. I am thinking about entering them in the writing contest, which is something I never would have thought possible before this class.

I feel that I have had such a good experience that I want to change my major now from math to english, I loved it that much. I feel that I am much more cut out for the english realm now and look forward to taking more classes. I can only hope they are as good as this one.

Videos

I watched the video of Vik Muniz and how he makes art out of everyday things. I really enjoyed watching this and learning about his life and how he started doing projects like this. When he told the story of being shot, I was amazed that he was able to pull himself up and get to the united states and do what he does.

I also like his descriptions of creativity and how he sees it in everything, even on the fur of a dog, which I thought was hysterical. Some of my favorite images were the half tomb stone for someone who isn't dead yet, the clouds, wire drawings that look like pencil drawings, ,but my favorite was when he took white sugar and put it over black paper and made pictures of children. I thought that was a one of a kind thing that you won't see anywhere else. It was great.

The next video I watched was Ueli Gegenschatz soars in a wingsuit. I like how the people start out telling us about their lives and what they did to make them want to do what they are doing. The paragliding, skydiving and freediving are scary enough, but what he does is just scary, but amazing. Wingsuit flying looks just like flying like a bird. I would have never of believed it was possible to be out there actually flying on your own like a bird. His favorite was base jumping, which seems nuts to me, but he really seemed to love it. The shot of him on top of the air balloon was especially cool.

Even though I find it very sad that he died doing these tricks, I'm sure he was very happy with his life and doing what he loved to do. We may not understand it, but we can respect him for the achievements that he made.

Open Mic

I throughly enjoyed open mic night..for some reason I was not nervous at all, I guess it's because I have such good classmates :) I thought everyone did a great job and it was a good avenue to stand up and share our work. The hardest part for me is actually writing whatever it is I'm going to be reading, so once that part is done, reading it is the easy part.

I was sitting more towards the back and it was a little hard to hear some people..I would suggest maybe a day before the event to go and practice with the microphone and the sound system to see how it works out before the actual night of.

Overall it was a great experience and nice break from the classroom.. I would definately do it again.

Killing Yourself to Live (final)

Now that I have finished reading the book, I thought the end was better than the beginning. I still think the whole project of chasing after dead musicians is pretty stupid, it made a bit more sense to me by the end. I found myself arguing with the author throughout the story, mostly about the music in the book. I think Led Zepplean is much better than either the Rolling Stones or the Beatles and I like Free Ride better than Slow Ride but I think the interaction kept me more interested in the story.

As a reader I felt a little left out of the story when he talked about different songs or groups that I had no idea what he was talking about, which was about 60 percent of the time.

The best part of the story for me was when he was talking about Kurt Cobain because I remember when that happened and how sad I felt for him. It always amazes me that people can feel that bad that they have to kill themselves. It was such a waste of a great talent. He just started to show his real potential and Feels Like Teen Spirit will always bring back the day he left us.

He also seemed to jump around the story an awful lot which was sometimes hard to follow. Overall, it was interesting enough that I wanted to finish it, but I wasn't so engrossed in the story that I read it in one day.

Killing yoursel to Live

What struck me the most during this part of our reading was when Chuck was describing the relationship he had with his friend and his friend's death from cancer. I thought this was just another great example of how music impacts our lives. Chuck really didn't give his friend's death a second thought at the time that it happened; however hearing his friend's favorite song by The Replacements, or in fact any song by the replacements, had such an emotional impact on him. And although he admits it may be something else going on in his life, it is still the music that brings the emotions out of him.

What's happening

My mom came to visit from New Jersey for the last two weeks. I was supposed to go to Cancun with my sister for the spring break, but she decided to take her boyfriend instead. My mom was coming to stay with the kids and when the trip fell through, we decided to still have her come and stay. I try to see my mom every 3 to 4 months or we will both go crazy. Our week was filled with going out to dinner, Sibley Gardens, Outback, Steak and Shake, Applebees, ect and bowling, movies, the Lightening Thief, and catching up. I took her back to the airport on Tuesday to go home. I will be going back to NJ at the end of May since it will be my 40th birthday and Bon Jovi is opening up Giant Stadium so I have to go see that.

My daughter started playing softball on her school team and I'm real excited about that since I played softball from middle school all the way through high school. I can't wait to go watch her play.

I also just found out the my son may have a mild case of Tourett's syndrome, don't know if I spelled that right. We are just in a wait and see period right now. Hopefully it's just something stress related and he will be o.k.

Post secret

I had no idea that this website existed and part of me thinks this is the saddest thing I have ever seen, but then the other part things that it's great that people who have secrets such as these have somewhere to go and get it out. The one that hit me the most was the one that said something like I'm an alcholic but I go to AA to have a family. Boy, that's just sad in one aspect that this person has no one outside of AA to go to and talk to, but at least AA gives him a sense of family, which is a good thing. I just don't think I would go on this site again, just too depressing, but if I had a secret that I had to get out somehow, maybe I would post it, hoping that would help.