Journal #24

I do not have a very set way that I prepare for finals.  I suppose some people have a long list of things they have to do and a set way they study and prepare for the week, but I do not.  I of course study hard core.  You can always tell when final weeks are, though, because all of the girls stop wearing all of their weird make-up stuff and do not put nearly as much effort into what they look like with their clothes, in the morning either.  Now a days the way girls dress down is with leggings and a hoody, so leggings begin popping up a whole lot more through out the school.  People begin to sleep less at night and sleep longer in the morning as to study even more than usually.  For me, I stop making my lunch all together as to be able to sleep longer in the mornings.  I really like sleeping, especially during finals week.  Every night, I will usually lay out which two tests I have the following day.  I get out the study guide and every other test or quiz we have had in that class up to that point.  If it's a project that is a whole different story.  I probably will end up jamming that entire project into that night.  So fat I think I have two projects.  They both seem like they will be pretty simple to complete and have done before the due date.  I myself much prefer projects over tests as a semester final.  I hate having to stress out and study for tests over EVERYTHING I have learned that semester already.  I am an okay test taker, I just prefer projects.  So over all I do not have a set way that I prepare for finals.  I study waaaay more and am probably much more irritable through out that week.  I do not dress up or wear any make up and just focus on school as much as I possible can. 

Walden 13. House Warming

     I was assigned to read number thirteen of WALDEN.  It's title was "House Warming."  What I can gather is that it is about a man and his home.  In the beginning, it is a depiction of a man and his home.  He is gathering fruit and narrates himself and his home month by month.  "Already, by the first of September, I had seen two or three small maples turned scarlet across the pond." In the next paragraph, "The wasps came by thousands to my lodge in October."  Slowly the narrator works himself into the winter months and here he begins to tell us of the hardship himself and his home encounter.  During the winter, a few times he wishes he had something bigger and better, "I sometimes dream of a larger and more populous house."  During the winter, the narrator shares with us how much he appreciates the nature and how fascinated he his.  In the fifteenth paragraph we see what a man he really his, "Every man looks at his wood-pile with a kind of affection.  I love to have mine before my window, and the more chips the better to remind me of my pleasing work."  Towards the end of the chapter, we start to enter deeper into the narrators mind and see how lonely he is living out of town by himself.  Overall, this chapter is about a man and his house. 

     This chapter is allllll about romanticism and transcendentalism.  Nature is one of the biggest characteristics of Romanticism.  Pretty much all this guy is doing is living by himself about two miles out of town and living off the land.  Whenever he has to build something or fix something he recycles or gets it from the forest.  "It is so much pleasanter and wholesome to be warmed by the sun while you can be, than by an artificial fire."  "I picked out its many fireplace bricks as I could find, to save work and waste."  "I did not plaster till it was freezing weather.  I brought over some whiter and cleaner sand for this purpose from the opposite short of the pond in a boat."  Later he befriends fire as a companion, "It was I and Fire that lives there."  Here he finds the beauty in fire and doesn't just expect it to be destructive. Romanticism also hold poetry as the highest expression of the imagination and there are two poems in this chapter.  n this chapter, the narrator also "transcends reason and spirituality"  Our narrator really likes to put out his possibilities and reasoning and to do his best.  

    The entire work is a book called "Walden."  This book is about "By immersing himself in nature, Thoreau hoped to gain a more objective understanding of society through personal introspection. Simple living and self-sufficiency were Thoreau's other goals, and the whole project was inspired by transcendentalist philosophy, a central theme of the American Romantic Period. As Thoreau made clear in his book, his cabin was not in wilderness but at the edge of town, about two miles (3 km) from his family home."  Taken from Wikipedia.  The purpose of "Walden" is to immerse himself in nature to get better in touch with himself.  "Housewarming"  is about the narrator and the struggles of maintaining his house with out the help of normal things.  I think this represents the book very well because of how well it exemplifies romanticism through its nature and poetry and its transcendentalism through the spiritual reasoning.  


Works Cited 
Thoreau, Henry D. "Thoreau's Walden - an Annotated Edition." Thoreau's Walden - an Annotated Edition. N.p., 1854. Web. 12 Dec. 2012. 

Journal #23

I am not self-sufficient.  I don't think I am self-sufficient, at least.  Money wise, I am definitely not self-sufficient.  I have no input whatsoever, I've never had a job, nor do I have time to get a job.  My mother actually will not allow me to get a job because I have too much going on as it is.  I think that's stupid because I don't really like using my parental unit's money.  When it comes to food and making smart decisions and such, I think I am pretty on the ball.  I am a pretty excellent cook if I do say so myself.  The thing is, you need money to buy the ingredients and supplies to create said dishes.  I know what to do with the ingredients, currently I am just unable to attain them.  I am a pretty good decision maker.  When it comes to either doing something fun but stupid or somethings boring but smart, I'll probably go with the smart thing.  I can take care of myself, physically and emotionally, pretty well.  Frankly, I just don't want to.  I hate being home by myself.  HATE.  My house is very large and creepy.  Whenever I am home by myself I always turn all the lights on and the television on some cheery movie to distract myself.  I will probably never live alone; not because I couldn't, but because I really don't want to. Once I begin to attain my own income and have money that I can do what I please with, I am confident in my ability to be frugal and place my money where it is necessary and where it is not.  Once I have money to support myself with, I will be able to cook for myself; not just cook for myself, but create masterpieces for my own enjoyment as to keep myself happy.  I would also be able to keep myself healthy and make smart decisions.  I wouldn't go to bed at 1 in the morning every day and ruin my health I would be smart and self-sufficient.  

"Self-Reliance"

     "Self-Reliance and the Life of the Mind" is a literary criticism by George Kateb.  In the article, Kateb analyses Ralph Waldo Emerson's essay, "Self-Reliance."  The essay by Emerson, in summary, is of life.  It speaks of how in life you come to a point where you pretty much have a gigantic epiphany and realize you cannot just keep living for yourself, but at the same time you can't just do what society tells you to, either.  You have to find the balance between maintaining your identity, but widening your vision to more than just your own needs.  Kateb has mostly nice things to say about what Emerson wrote.  He agrees with a few things while he also contradicts a few things, as well.  
     "Emerson thinks that every important value, principle, idea (or derivative practice or institution) is permanently indispensable for life, even though any may be at odds with any other."  Here, Kateb analyses what they essay has to say about personality traits.  Emerson's opinion: every little idea, education, lesson, etc. is completely necessary for life, despite the fact certain ideas, lessons, or eduaction may not agree with the another.  He still believes that they are indispensable.  The criticism continues on to call them "forces by whose antagonism we exist."  Kateb explains this that we need to have antagonism and contradictions to learn.  I agree with this.  If we simply had people telling us what was right and wrong and we all agreed with it completely and consistently, what would we learn really?
     "Society is a wave. The wave moves onward, but the water of which it is composed does not. The same particle does not rise from the valley to the ridge. Its unity is only phenomenal. The persons who make up a nation to-day, next year die, and their experience with them."  This is taken directly from Emerson's essay "Self-Reliance."  I really like this quote a lot.  I completely agree with what it has to say.  What does it have to say, you ask?  It compares this thing we call "society" a wave.  No matter what, the wave will always keep moving, but the actually material and things that make up the wave will continually die off and be replaced.  The people, things, places, ideas, etc. that make up our "wave" right now will eventually die off and be replaced with something possibly very similar or completely different.  "To repeat: we must not expect anything simple when we take up Emerson on self-reliance. The point put in academic language is that democratic individuality is nothing simple. What, then, more explicitly, is self-reliance? What is reliance on oneself, what does it come to?"  This is taken from Kateb's analysis of Emerson's essay.  This can be related to Emerson's analogy of society and a wave.  We are not independent.  We just aren't.  We have all grown up in a world where we are all balled together into one big ball of society.  So what is Self-Reliance?
     "Self-Reliance and the Life of the Mind" by George Kateb overall gives Ralph Waldo Emerson's "Self-Reliance" a good reputation.  "I think that Emerson's answer is yes, after all is said; but he says a lot to make that conclusion uneasy. It turns out, as I hope to suggest later, that though no worldly activity, in Emerson's account, manifests the highest self—reliance, two personal relationships—love and friendship—are intimately bound with it."  In the end we see that self-reliance is pretty simple.  It comes down to the simple things in life.  It's not really a forty page essay or a thirty-five page criticism on that essay.  It's the pure, true, and just plain simple things in life.   



Works Cited 

Kateb, George. "Infobase Learning - Login." Infobase Learning - Login. Blooms Literary Reference Online, 2003. Web. 07 Dec. 2012. 
Merson, Ralph W. Self-Reliance. Rep. Ralph Waldo Emerson Texts, n.d. Web. 07 Dec. 2012. 

Journal #22

I really like snow.  It causes me great joy.  Why do I like snow you ask?  There are many reasons.  One of the reason that I like snow is because of all of the things you can create with it, such as snow men, snowballs, snow angels, etc.  I love getting all of my snow gear our of our basement and navigating my way through all of the dust and such to find my things.  That reminds me I need to get a new pair of boots...I will get on that sometime.  I love going outside with my friends and family and traipsing around in the fluffy white stuff.  Something I really hate about snow is the aftermath it always creates.   I HATE when snow melts and is all brown and gross.  I do not like it one bit.  It causes me great angst.  That is one of the very few downsides that it has.  Another upside it has is of course the snow days it creates.  I LOVE SNOW DAYS.  Why I love snow days:  I can miss school and do not have to worry about making up all the work I missed because everyone else, including the teacher, missed that day (or days), too!  It is simply wonderful.  I also like snow because it always makes make me think of Christmas!  Why do I like Christmas?  My entire family is home at that time!  My two oldest brother's live out of the state so I only see them on Holiday's.  My second oldest brother is attending college and recently got a job so he has crazy crazy hours.  Because of his crazy crazy hours he missed Thanksgiving this year and I haven't seen him since around October 30th.  My oldest brother lives in Texas and I haven't seen him since the beginning of October.  This causes me great angst because they are two of the most important people in my life.  I want them back.  They will both be back for Christmas.  Snow makes me think of Christmas.

Journal #21

There is a time in every man's education when he arrives at the conviction that envy is ignorance; that imitation is suicide; that he must take himself for better, for worse, as his portion; that though the wide universe is full of good, no kernel of nourishing corn can come to him but through his toil bestowed on that plot of ground which is given to him to till.
To me, this quote is very full of truth.  To word it in a more reasonable way, it is saying you only get out what you put in.  You cannot expect things to just happen for you.  "No kernel of nourishing corn can come to him but through his toil bestowed on that plot of ground which is given to him to till."  If you plant a seed, unless you are really lucky, your plant will never come up if you leave it to fend for itself.  A beautiful flower or flush red tomatoes will never be yours to behold.  That is, until you come to that point in your life when you realize that this is your life to live and what you want to happen will not unless you make it happen.  “When it comes to the future, there are three kinds of people: those who let it happen, those who make it happen, and those who wonder what happened.” I believe John M. Richardson, Jr. said this.  I feel like these two phrases of words are similar.  They both speak of how you are going to live life.  You have various options.  You do not have to make anything happen for yourself.  You can sit there and watch other people do it, BUT you don't have to watch people do it either.  In the first quote it talks about how you come to a point in your education where you realize you are just not content to watch people anymore.  You want to make things happen.  Yourself.

http://thinkexist.com/quotes/with/keyword/happen/