You know what is dumb? People who smoke while driving. Why should they be allowed to smoke while driving but we can't talk on the phone while driving? Its basically just as reckless.

Home Sweet Home

So this last weekend I went down to St. George to visit my family and take some things down because I'm going to be moving home for the summer. My parents just barely bought a new house and had moved in the week before so when I got down there I showed up at the new house. When I walked in they pretty much had everything in its place, besides a few shelves and what not that my mom wanted an opinion on, and to my surprise I automatically felt at home. I was thinking that when I first got down there it would be weird driving to a new house and having things be totally different but it wasn't. I didn't have to adjust to anything (besides finding food in the kitchen!! haha) because it still felt like home. After thinking about this I realized how much family can make new situations and places seem comfortable. Family connections and relationships is what makes a house a loving and welcoming home. Life can be tough at times but all the experiences we have are so important because we can grow and mature from them, but in the end it's always comforting to know that there is home to go to where you are loved and supported no matter what (and moms home cooking is always a plus!!).

Fall English 2200 Course

Several of you have emailed me or spoken to me about my fall teaching schedule. I just found out I am teaching an English 2200 course, Intro to Literature, and I expect it to be a lot of fun. We will learn a lot about literary forms and genres and then apply that knowledge to discussions of really great literature. My hope is that after taking the class, you will never again read a poem, story, novel, or play in the same way again. If you have enjoyed the reading we have done this semester and would like some more in-depth discussion of literature, please come aboard.

This class is an HH course, which means it satisfies your general Humanities requirement, which all majors require as far as I know. If you are an English major, this will count toward your electives requirement. If you are one of those people who takes a course now and again just because you want to (gasp!), this might be a good one, too.

If you can't take the class (or don't want to), I would appreciate it very much if you would help me to spread the word that I am teaching it (the catalog just says "STAFF," a rather innocuous word that is not likely to inspire anyone). I'll be putting up some posters over the summer as well in case you want one for your refrigerator.

The details: English 2200 Section 001, TR 1:00-2:15.

Cheers. I'll see you on Monday. Remember: LIBRARY, Room 206, 11:00-1:00.

Painting a picture with words

As I was reading through the posts to make enough comments and such to not lose 5% of my grade by not being involved enough it occurred to me the difficulty of writing fiction. There is an extremely thin line dividing good from bad. A writer must describe enough to help people build images in their minds of what is going on, while not boring the readers with too much detail. I have friends that have stopped reading books because their is too much of nothing happening. The great depth of description can stop many readers today. Our world is very now and due in large part to the large media we have people do not use our imaginations as much as we used to. I think this maybe one of the reasons why graphic novels, a.k.a comic books, are getting more attention. While I being a comic fan have always looked at this form with respect and I feel now that as it gets some it maybe for the wrong reasons.

Happiness

I just wanted to write something on the blog about this wonderful sunny day. I notice that people around me are more active, dress differently and even behave differently on sunny days including myself to some degree. People sit out on the lawn in front of the library, walk outside, eat outside and even smile more when the sun is out. While i love knowing that it is sunny outside and it does make me happy, i don't think that the weather should determine a persons happiness. Its all in your attitude about life.
An example of this was last week when Orem was hit with the biggest snow storm i had ever seen in my life. All my friends were complaining about the snow, probably because they had to drive in it and were not happy just because of snow. While i do not like snow i found in this particular example that you can find good out of bad things. It wasn't cold that day and actually the snow was beautiful to me. It made walking outside brighter and i told my friends so. I was happy that day. Have any of you experienced something like this?? do you agree with me??

Presentations - Room Change

Because our room is so small and cramped, and because it is difficult to set up a projector in that limited space, we are going to be giving our class presentations in the library. On Friday, we will be meeting in the library, room 206, NOT in PE 102. Please make a note of this and be a few minutes early. If you are presenting and have not spoken to me about what you need, please let me know right away.

Thank you, and I will see you on Friday in the library.

A change of heart

Earlier on in the semester I remember someone making a post on the blog. I don't remember who, so please forgive me. But, the post said something along the lines of how this person had recently enjoyed reading and writing since this class has begun.

I am not one who has ever really enjoyed reading. That goes the same for writing. I have always dreaded "papers" and especially "research papers." It is interesting to me how throughout this semester I have enjoyed the reading we have done and also the writing. There it is, I said it... I have somewhat enjoyed it!

I believe the reason for this is because this is the first English class I have had where the focus has been in developing my thoughts and writing a paper that is enjoyable to read. The english class I took prior to this one focused on one thing and one thing only: grammar. I know grammar is important in writing, but really, like Dr. Westover says, it doesn't matter how good your grammar is if no one wants to read your paper because it doesn't say anything interesting.

Anyway, basically this class has given CPR to a desire to write that was on its last heartbeat. Any one else concur? (I don't know how to spell concur.)

Conferences

As a reminder, we are not having class on Monday or Wednesday this week. I am conferencing with students individually in my office Monday-Wednesday. Here are the times I will be available:

Monday: 10-1
Tuesday: 10-3
Wednesday: 9-1

Also, if you were not in class on Friday, you need to sign up for a presentation time. The presentations begin on Friday. If you don't come by my office and sign up, you will be assigned a time. There is one remaining slot available for Friday. The rest of the open slots are on Monday, April 27th during our final exam time.

Thanks, and I will see you very soon.

I almost pee'd my pants laughing

I got this hilarious story today and thought that the blog would be an ideal place to share this. Enjoy!

I called my friend Andy Sable, a gastroenterologist, to make an appointment for a colonoscopy. A few days later, in his office, Andy showed me a color diagram of the colon, a lengthy organ that appears to go all over the place, at one point passing briefly through Minneapolis .

Then Andy explained the colonoscopy procedure to me in a thorough, reassuring and patient manner. I nodded thoughtfully, but I didn't really hear anything he said, because my brain was shrieking, quote, 'HE'S GOING TO STICK A TUBE 17,00 FEET UP YOUR BEHIND!'

I left Andy's office with some written instructions, and a prescription for a product called 'MoviPrep,' which comes in a box large enough to hold a microwave oven. I will discuss MoviPrep in detail later; for
now suffice it to say that we must never allow it to fall into the hands of America 's enemies.

I spent the next several days productively sitting around being nervous. Then, on the day before my colonoscopy, I began my preparation. In accordance with my instructions, I didn't eat any solid food that day; all I had was chicken broth, which is basically water, only with less flavor. Then, in the evening, I took the
MoviPrep.

You mix two packets of powder together in a one-liter plastic jug, then you fill it with lukewarm water. (For those unfamiliar with the metric system, a liter is about 32 gallons.) Then you have to drink the whole jug. This takes about an hour, because MoviPrep tastes - and here I am being kind - like a mixture of goat spit and urinal cleanser, with just a hint of lemon.

The instructions for MoviPrep, clearly written by somebody with a great sense of humor, state that after you drink it, 'a loose, watery bowel movement may result.' This is kind of like saying that after you jump off your roof, you may experience contact with the ground.

MoviPrep is a nuclear laxative. I don't want to be too graphic, here, but: Have you ever seen a space-shuttle launch? This is pretty much the MoviPrep experience, with you as the shuttle. There are times
when you wish the commode had a seat belt. You spend several hours pretty much confined to the bathroom,
spurting violently. You eliminate everything. And then, when you figure you must be totally empty, you have to drink another liter of MoviPrep, at which point, as far as I can tell, your bowels travel into the future and start eliminating food that you have not even eaten yet.

After an action-packed evening, I finally got to sleep. The next morning my wife drove me to the clinic. I was very nervous. Not only was I worried about the procedure, but I had been experiencing
occasional return bouts of MoviPrep spurtage. I was thinking, 'What if I spurt on Andy?' How do you apologize to a friend for something like that? Flowers would not be enough.

At the clinic I had to sign many forms acknowledging that I understood and totally agreed with whatever the heck the forms said. Then they led me to a room full of other colonoscopy people, where I went inside a little curtained space and took off my clothes and put on one of those hospital garments designed by sadist perverts, the kind that, when you put it on, makes you feel even more naked than when you are actually naked.

Then a nurse named Eddie put a little needle in a vein in my left hand. Ordinarily I would have fainted, but Eddie was very good, and I was already lying down. Eddie also told me that some people put vodka in their MoviPrep. At first I was ticked off that I hadn't thought of this, but then I pondered what would happen if you got yourself too tipsy to make it to the bathroom, so you were staggering around in full Fire Hose Mode. You would have no choice but to burn your house.

When everything was ready, Eddie wheeled me into the procedure room, where Andy was waiting with a nurse and an anesthesiologist. I did not see the 17,000-foot tube, but I knew Andy had it hidden around there somewhere. I was seriously nervous at this point. Andy had me roll over on my left side, and the anesthesiologist began hooking something up to the needle in my hand.

There was music playing in the room, and I realized that the song was 'Dancing Queen' by ABBA. I remarked to Andy that, of all the songs that could be playing during this particular procedure, 'Dancing Queen' had to be the least appropriate. 'You want me to turn it up?' said Andy, from somewhere behind me. 'Ha ha,' I said.

And then it was time, the moment I had been dreading for more than a decade. If you are squeamish, prepare yourself, because I am going to tell you, in explicit detail, exactly what it was like.

I have no idea. Really. I slept through it. One moment, ABBA was yelling 'Dancing Queen, feel the beat of the tambourine,' and the next moment, I was back in the other room, waking up in a very
mellow mood. Andy was looking down at me a nd asking me how I felt. I felt excellent. I felt even more excellent when Andy told me that It was all over, and that my colon had passed with flying colors. I have never been prouder of an internal organ.


ABOUT THE WRITER:

Dave Barry is a Pulitzer Prize-winning humor columnist for the Miami Herald. On the subject of Colonoscopies...

What's love got to do, got to do with it?

What power has love but forgiveness?
In other words
by its intervention
what has been done
can be undone.
What good is it otherwise?

-William Carlos Williams

"Asphodel, That Greeny Flower"

AnGrY!

So i am sitting in the library today working on my math and this girl keeps getting up and down answering the phone and yelling at the person on the other end, each time she comes back she slams her phone on the desk and disrupts everyone around her. I can tell she is upset and i am the closest person sitting next to her so I ask her if she is ok, she turns to me and says " Its none of your F@#$!*# buisness!" At first i thought it was kinda funny how childish she was acting in public, but now i was a little angry myself lol. Anyway i sarted thinking about the whole thing and counldn't help but wonder why she was acting the way she was. Of course there was something that was causeing her to be angry, but as for myself i can be very angry and not show it because i am in public. I think we show our emotions publicly when we want other people to know what we are feeling because some part of us wants help or just to be heard; however, in this girls case i am confused. I tryed to offer help and she was not having it lol. I don't know why but i couldn't stop thinking her public display of anger and what her motives were. What do you guys think?

Paint a Picture

I agree with what everyone has said.

I think the pictures are a great help to the reader. It allows the author to be more free with what he writes but still lets the reader understand. The reader can also paint a better picture in their head and then compare it to the real painting to see if they understood what they read. Pictures are also good if you are trying to clear something up in the reading and reading it over and over just isn't helping. The reader could rely too much on the picture for help to understand but I think that once they see the picture and understand it they will be able to discuss it and go into more detail with it.

Art and Poetry

Do you think having the paintings right there to refer to helps you or hinders you as you are reading the poems? Do you rely too much on them, or do they help you to understand the poets' angles of vision? Explain.

I personally love being able to refer to the paintings while i am reading the poems. I have studied these paintings and the background stories that make them significant which not only helps me to imagine what the poet is thinking but also understand why he chose to write about them with the picture next to it. Having the paintings next to the poems helps the reader to create a more solidified imagery of the poets angle of vision as he is writing; and allows the reader to understand lines in the poems. For instance in "Before the Mirrors" Updike describes the colors of Picasso's painting and while reading the description the reader can glance over at the previous page to see the intense colors of the painting itself.

And i love these paintings which makes me, as a reader, willing to listen to what the poet has to say about them; because he has included them with his poetry.

Disconcerned

They never forgot
That even the dreadful martyrdom must run its course
Anyhow in a corner, some untidy spot
Where the dogs go on with their doggy life and the torturer's horse
Scratches its innocent behind on a tree.

These lines really allow us to see how while someone is suffering, to the rest of the world it is as if it never happened. The dogs continue with their insignificant dog lives and even the horse pays no attention to the torturer on it's back. These few lines give us a perspective as well from the animal kingdom. It's interesting how just like dogs and horses we too see someone else suffering but pretend like it isn't even happening. We continue on "scratching our horse behinds" or in other words, doing the meaningless things we do everyday such as watching television. In reality, neither the dog, nor the horse can do much about what is happening. Therefore, they are not at fault. We as humans, on the other hand, can do something but yet still many times we carry on as if someone else's suffering doesn't concern us.