Loves...in the Time of Cholera

I’m not used to writing about or concerning myself with love, but this entire book is nothing but a love story. Not a romantic love story but an objective situational report on the status love in the lives of the main characters. It is a story about love but it is not a sentimental story about love. I suppose this is why I like the story…or can at least stand it. It’s not about idealized sentimental love. Instead, Love in the Time of Cholera shows us several different types of love and contrasts them to each other.

Like we talked about in class, there are two main types of love in the story. Florentino represents an intensely passionate, fast-paced love. He loves on sight with no hesitation. He is relentless in his pursuits…at first, but most of his flings end unceremoniously with a general loss of interest. He continually replaces his faded glories with a new short-term passion. Florentino’s love is something like a bottle rocket. Starts out big but doesn’t last long.

However, Florentino has this perpetual obsession with Fermina Daza also. Fermina is his emotional passion and obsession and his numerous mistresses are his physical passion in her absence. His affairs combined with his emotional obsession for Fermina make one whole love for Florentino.

He needs both loves to feel whole but he consciously tries to keep them separate in an effort to be faithful to Fermina. There are only two explanations for this behavior. One, Florentino has no true emotional connection to his mistresses and considers them only as purely physical and sexual relationships. Therefore, he must not consider his flings as substantial relationships and feels that they are not comparable to his love for Fermina. Two, he is a lying, deceitful fraud who is totally uncommitted to Fermina. I have no problem with his being a player but his mental disassociation of his love affairs and his love for Fermina even though he wishes to appear faithful is both interesting and startling. Through Florentino, Marquez presents physical love and unattainable love-from-a-distance.

Of course, Urbino and Fermina represent the other type of love. Their type is not passionate. It is not immediate. It can only be described as an acquired taste. They slowly come to depend on each other physically and emotionally but their relationship is almost devoid of physical passion. Yet, it can be considered no less true than any other type of love. Indeed, in many ways it is more real than Florentino’s type of love simply because it has lasted through the years. Urbino and Fermina’s love is the exact opposite of Florentino’s. Their love is slow, emotional and stable. More like a diesel engine--slow to start up but long running. However, neither type of love can be considered inferior.

This is Gary’s special edition Thanksgiving blog!

Note: For this this blog entry, I will speak…sorry…Gary will speak of himself in the third person.

Note (again): Addressing myself in third person was extremely tiresome, so I gave up. Just wanted you to know that I was going to do it.

Love in the time of Cholera is an uplifting, wonderful story about the delights of first and true love…not. It’s depressing and frightening…and quite dark. It appears to be about the neverending hope and eternal happiness supplied by true love, but in reality we soon discover that it faithfully describes neverending hope… and the subsequent neverending hopelessness. Instead of filling our hearts with hope of a chance for true and unimaginable, unrealistic love, it smashes our dreams and tears our hope into shreds with it’s sudden shift to the stereotype of realistic love and marriage. Never has the void in me that I sometimes pretend holds emotion and sentimentality been torn as it was by Fermina’s rejection of Florentino.

It’s not so much that I felt for Florentino as I felt for myself. I had committed hours of my time to reading the hundred or so pages that led up to this event. I had invested my time, which could have been spent playing FIFA or Guitar Hero, in this book believing that I was working toward a final solution to this fifty page obsession that was Florentino and Fermina’s verbal fling, but I was wrong. Dead wrong. Or very seriously wrong, at least.

I know that the book started at the end of Urbino’s life and that we knew that Fermina and the doctor get together but I didn’t know it happened like this. When so many tragic stories end with forced marriage breaking up a physical connection but leaving an eternal love intact, I didn’t expect this one to break apart in a sudden change of heart on the behalf of the hot girl. That’s not uplifting. That is devastating. Yes, devastating (and I mean the total destruction, nothing left, nuclear winter, Sherman’s march to the sea devastating). Who cares if the star-crossed lover is devastated. I am devastated. All of my attention and effort was wasted on an ending that I would have guessed from the get go. My outlook on life was not changed by Fermina’s rejection. It was sadly confirmed. If every story ended like this one, glasses would always be served half empty and the terrorists would probably be waiting for me at home.

I mean the happy ending is an archetype for a reason. Real life ends like this book does. And real life sucks. Why would I waste my actual life reading about a realistic ending. I could just watch the news. Go on, call it great literature. I call a perversion of the human spirit.

La Familia

The Compson family disintegrates because of one reason. Every single member of the family fails to live up to the expectations of their role within the family setting. Every single member fails to do their duty and sacrifice for the survival of the family. They are all too selfish, in their own particular ways, to give up their pride and beliefs and be what the family needs them to be.

I’ll start with the parents. Mother is terrible. She does not at all resemble her namesake and does not fulfill any of her position’s requirements. It’s ridiculous. I do not feel that I even have to state any evidence to support the fact that she is selfish and does not sacrifice anything for well-being of her children or her family. She treats Benjy as an embarrassment and a trouble. We could not expect a stranger to show less compassion than Mother shows towards Benjy. She had no business becoming a mother and would be a far more suitable candidate for a high-class call girl than a home-maker or a family woman.

Her favoritism towards Jason is also beyond reason and propriety. Parents are not supposed to pick favorites. That’s a given, but it’s the real world and I can’t expect every action of every parent to be unbiased. Mother’s preferential treatment of Jason is so blatant that it has become a weapon that mother uses against her family and her husband. Her favoritism for Jason also displays her lack of judgement as Jason is nothing but a bitter little stool-pidgeon anyway. Mother’s support of this cowardly, base behavior does not help the situation either.

Father is also flawed. He is detached and aloof from the needs of his children. When his children need guidance and personal reassurance—as in the case of Quentin—he offers only his often pessimistic or fatalistic opinion. Sometimes, his children need to hear a certain thing, and he offers them only an extremely limited and in some cases harsh point of view. However, he is not harsh in the discipline of his children. In fact, his forgiveness of Caddy is admirable and very compassionate but he seems out of touch with the emotional needs of all his children—Quentin in particular. He forgoes his responsibility to console all of his children and instead sticks to his logic and pessimistic disposition when confronting his family. He also fails to take control of the situation—in this case the Caddy predicament--and be strong for his family. Instead, he drowns his sorrows in whiskey and abandons his responsibility as leader of the household. He forgets the problems of the family and, in a selfish way, concerns himself only with his grievances and turmoils.

The children also contribute to the family’s demise. Each child acts selfish in his or her own way. Caddy’s initial affair with Dalton Ames, although not evil, still begins the selfish trend. She, whether consciously or not, rejects her role in the family and focuses on her own life and passions. It may not be a malicious decision but in a family environment as fragile as the Compson’s, it was a tragic choice with dire consequences. She is then forced to abandon the family when she marries. Quentin, in his own way, also decides not to sacrifice his concept of honor for the good of the family and in turns runs away from his problems, whether real or imaginary, by killing himself. He also abandons the family in this way. Jason, on the other hand, does not physically abandon the family. His providing for the family after the death of Quentin and Father are to be commended, but he has long abandoned the family in an emotional sense. He does not make any effort to emotionally rebuild the shattered lives of his brother, sister or her daughter.(648)

Stream of Consciousness in ohh look a bird the Sound and the Fury-ous monster truck

In the first section of The Sound and The Fury, we see the world through the memories of Benjy. Throughout the section, Benjy recounts his memories by stream of consciousness instead of chronological order. Faulkner’s choice of stream of consciousness writing allows for interesting psychological associations to take place within Benjy’s mind. Many of Benjy’s memories are triggered by associations within the memories themselves. Most of these memories are triggered by similarities in events or locations or emotions felt by Benjy.

A good percentage of his memories are triggered by similarities in a central focal point of the memory. In the text, a single significant object or word can be found in both the previous and triggered memory. For example, when T.P. tells Benjy that he “can’t do no good moaning and slobbering through the fence”, it triggers Benjy’s memories of Father interrogating Jason to the cause of the fence being open when Benjy escaped. Benjy’s memory is then turned to the night that he escaped through the gate, another memory association by event.

Benjy also associates certain events with each other. In his mind, certain events and impressions are combined and blurred into a single memory. The most specific blurring of two separate events in Benjy’s mind is his association of grabbing the schoolgirls and struggling to communicate with his memories of his subsequent surgical castration.

He combines the physical and emotional feelings of struggle and helplessness of both events. In both events, Benjy feels as if he cannot speak and he struggles to exhale and cry. In the escape incident, he feels as if he cannot force out the words that he wants to say to the girls. During the surgery, Benjy also struggles to cry out and breathe because of the constricting ether mask on his face. The feeling of helplessness is the common factor of these memories, so the recollection of one memory triggers the other to be recalled and merged with the other.

Benjy also recalls a part of this mixed memory at the end of the section. He mentions the bright shapes while he is going to sleep. In this instance, Benjy is associating his memory of being anesthetized during his operation with the act of falling to sleep.

Stream of consciousness writing is also extensively used in the Quentin section. Faulkner uses in an extreme manner though, intertwining memories and thoughts. The ridiculous lack of punctuation also emphasizes the chaotic nature of the human stream of consciousness. When reading, thoughts may seem completely jumbled and random, yet the content of these memories are related.

Faulkner uses the stream of consciousness method to compare each character’s interpretations and connotations of each specific event brought up in the text. Faulkner uses the same events in both sections of the text to present each character’s differing opinions and interpretations of the events by his or her stream of consciousness. Faulkner also uses many different types of mental associations to present his character’s personality by stressing their values and preferences as presented in their memories. (508)

Missing the Exit

In Joyce Carol Oates’s story, “Where are you going, Where have you been?”, the main character Connie faces a dilemma when she must choose between separating herself from her family remaining close to her most familiar environment. Connie wants to differentiate herself from the ways of her family and become her own individual, but in order to change she has to distance her family environment and her home. In the story, we find Connie struggling to maintain a position in between these two paths. We find her trying to neither forsake her roots and become independent or acknowledge her connection to her family. She must decide whether to break away from tradition and lead a free life or become part of the community and familial infrastructure that raised her.

This dilemma begins with the impossibility to completely reconcile these two paths. To choose a radical, individual life that is not “sanctioned” by the family is to seem ungrateful for the sacrifices that the family has made to raise you in one set of ways. It seems as if you were slandering the way of life of the family and stabbing those responsible for the continuation of that way of life right in the back. If you do not necessarily agree with the family customs, choosing to become a part of the family lifestyle can mean stabbing yourself in the back.

Connie struggles with this dilemma, but is indecisive until the presence of Arnold Friend (devil, dream, stalker or whatever he is) forces her down one path. Connie wants the support system of her home and friends and her conventional life, but she does not want to participate in family activities and makes no attempt to reconcile her differences with those of her family. For example, she makes no attempt to acknowledge her relationship with her sister or mother. She tends toward the path of independence but is too immature to make a commitment to this way of life and instead remains in limbo for too long. In this way, Oates shows hoe independence without the necessary maturity is a bad situation and that the decision to become independent should only be made when one is mature enough to understand the sacrifices of such a choice.

Arnold Friend represents a situation that forces her to choose a path. In this case, she is so far “behind the eight ball” that she can only go down one path. She has lost the power of choice because she has delayed too long and “flirted” with the idea of independence without serious consideration. She has lost her free will because she has denied her family for too long without acknowledging her commitment to the independent path. Arnold Friend is the last resort, and as he puts it where Connie wants to go now has been "cancelled out" and is no longer an option. To abandon the formal altogether, it’s like waiting too long to decide whether or not to get off the freeway. She has tended to continue down the path of independence. She has stayed too long in the right lane. If you miss the exit at first, you can still go across the gore point but this is a difficult thing to do without risking terrible consequences. Perhaps you hit the barrier and lose everything on both paths. If you stall even further, you cannot cross onto the exit without slamming into the concrete wall and dying a horrible death. At this point, you have no reasonable choice but to stay on your given path. Connie has waited too long and passed the gore point. She has no choice but to continue on the path to independent rebellion and follow Arnold Friend. Her indecision ends up making the choice for her.(635)

"Why does the old man need the cafe?"

Why does the old man need the café?

In “A Clean, Well Lighted Place, Hemingway presents a short, concise narrative concerning the after hours life of an apparently suicidal old man and his daily attendance of a street-side cafe. Throughout the story, Hemingway leads us to ask the question, “Why does the old man need the café?” Hemingway answers this question by presenting two characters. These characters are of course the two waiters. The two waiters answer this question by their contrasting responses and attitudes toward the old man. One waiter, the older, more patient waiter, understands why the old man needs the café while the younger, hurried waiter does not understand why the old man or his fellow server would need the café at such an hour.

The old waiter confesses to be “of those who like to stay late at the café (159-70).” He also must understand those who need the café because he is sympathetic to their plight and sees his being at the café as a sort of service to his fellow man. He says, “Each night I am reluctant to close up because there may be some one who needs the café (159-71).” He sees the café as an important service to those in need, a sort of shelter that he must keep open as long as possible.

The younger waiter, on the other hand, is more detached from the needs of the old man and indeed his fellow server. He becomes severely resistant to the consideration of the needs of the old man. He even becomes bitter as he “wishes” that the old man had been successful in his suicide attempt. Later on in the story, Hemingway does partially excuse his behavior by saying “He did not wish to be unjust. He was only in a hurry (159-58).” He does not understand the old man’s need for the café and treats him more like a drunk or an alcoholic than a emotionally dependent regular.

Now, the question “Why the old man needs the café?” has not yet been answered but the dichotomy created by the two waiters’ attitudes and their physical and emotional differences laid out in the story is central to understanding the answer to this question. First we have the young, detached waiter. He is rash and impatient and temperamental to a certain extent, but he provides a reason for his hurry to get home. He has a wife and a family and a world out side the café. The older, understanding waiter responds by pointing out that he does not have a family anymore. He even confesses to lack any sort of confidence in himself or the world. The younger waiter has a support structure outside of the café. He has separate world that keeps him from getting lonely and gives him a purpose. The older waiter and the old man lack this support structure and purpose. The café gives them a refuge where they can attain a dignified sense of order and respectful, benevolent causality. It also gives them a place in which to connect with other human beings, if only for a second while ordering a drink.

The older waiter says, “I am of those who like to stay late at the café. With all those who do not want to go to bed. With all those who need a light for the night (159-70).” The older waiter and the old man are in some sense afraid of the dark, but the dark is not simply the absence of light. It is the loneliness and purposelessness that fills the void where their support systems or families or careers used to exist. Yes, it’s the nothing (or the nada) that they avoid. They go to the café to find something to center their lives around. The old man needs the café for his support system and his routine and purpose. He does not need the brandy, but he needs the respectable light of the café to satisfy his inherent hunger for self-worth and keep the loneliness and seeming pointlessness of his life from engulfing him in darkness.

The older waiter needs the café for much the same reason. He needs it to satisfy his need for purpose. The needs of the late-night café customers become his purpose in life. He keeps himself out of the dark by working at the café. And he does understand the old man because he identifies with him and his need of a respectable, dignified place to spend the nighttime hours. Those who need the café need somewhere to belong and somewhere to matter, so that a dark, uncaring universe does not swallow their humanity. (781)

"A&P" and "Flannery O'Connor"

“A&P”

This blog is supposed to be a tool for me to vocalize my literary thoughts. Okay. Forgive me if some of my thoughts are ridiculous or over-the-top or insignificant. When I think about A&P, I imagine this great mythical battle, covering some chaotic ethereal plain. The plain is engulfed in rage as orthodox conventionalists smash against non-conformists in furious struggle. It may sound mock heroic or somewhat melodramatic but I think this image in my head sincerely compliments the effectiveness of the story and the writing abilities of John Updike. To instill the image of this epic struggle between conformity and non-conformity in my head through the description of some girls’ entering a supermarket is an amazing accomplishment. I am predisposed to imagine such glorious battle but the description that Updike offers throughout the narrative inspires such a contrast between the forces of the usual and the unique—as well as their respective generals and champions—that the archetypal image of the battle between good and evil must be conjured in the back of every reader’s mind.

To go further, A&P resembles many of our most sacred archetypes and themes in several specific ways. First, we have the girls’ challenge to authority in the form of their entering the store scantily clad and their confrontation—even if it did not amount to fight, physical or metaphorical, in any way—with Mr. Lengel, the general, if you will, of the conformist legions. Although it is not a well-defined archetype, the challenge to authority is central to many of our classic story formats. Challenging authority is a world-wide theme that has been a part of American culture forever—or as long as we have existed, which is not very long actually.

The girls also contribute to another beloved archetype of our literary age. They--actually she, as only one of the girls attracts his full attention--inspire Sammy to champion the cause of non-conformity. They become the “maidens in distress” that ultimately cause Sammy to don his shining armor and rescue the fair Queenie and her companions from the wrath of Mr. Lengel and his hoards of obedient sheep. Sammy, our knight in shining armor, and Queenie, the fair maiden to which he devotes his glorious feat of bravery, fulfill another classic archetype of our culture.

To complement the girls’ challenge to authority, we see them starting a sort of revolution or rebellion in the store. You guessed it. Another archetype. The girls, and Queenie in particular, cause a wave of sensation to overcome several characters in the story. Only one quits, but this still constitutes a social rebellion of sorts against the tyranny of the A&P autocrat and his followers. Okay, it’s no Les Miserables but it still lives up to the revolution archetype that is central to much great literature, art and history.

To imagine a Thermopoly-like battle between conformity and it’s counterpart—the girls and Sammy being the Spartans, hopelessly outnumbered by the vast legions of Persian sheep—may be ridiculous or unnecessary, but the story does fit several classic literary archetypes that have spanned literary history back to the Homeric epics of history.


Flannery O’ Connor Stories

I don’t have a particular literary aspect of Flannery O’Connor stories in mind. What struck me about “Revelation” and “A Good Man is Hard to Find” is more of an overarching theme that applies to both of the stories. In both stories, God acts through human beings, not through impressive ecclesiastical miracles or acts of awe. In both stories, God’s grace is transferred into human beings—Mary Grace and the grandmother—and then used to affect others through human interactions—the ultimate recipients of these actions being Mrs. Turpin and the Misfit. The recipients of each story react differently but in both cases it is human action that attempts to change them. Perhaps O’Connor uses this human interaction to reject the biblical notion of heavenly intervention and to instead substitute the idea that human beings are responsible for improving the world through the inspiration offered by God. The one event that may be interpreted as a heavenly action is the revelation and the ghostly processional observed by Mrs. Turpin; however, it is not conclusively stated that the processional is the work of God and not the conscious or subconscious of Mrs. Turpin. (715)

“Teenage Wasteland” and “Soul Position”

In class the other day, we talked about the theme of running away from your problems in “Teenage Wasteland.” We talked about how running way was not a good long term solution to a problem or a good long term coping mechanism. Indeed, we all know you can’t run away forever and that your problems will eventually catch up with you. Yesterday, I listened to a song that commented on this very problem. The song is called “Run”, by “Soul Position” and it talks about the necessity and eventual consequences of learning to “run away” in the inner city. It begins by pointing out the importance of running away in a violent environment. In this instance it talks about running away from guns and shooting and everything that “threatens peaceful existence.” The artist believes that running is necessary coping mechanism in life in the inner city. Donny also runs away from the problems that interfere with his “peaceful existence.” However, later on in the song, the artist points out that in other areas of life, running away causes serious problems and threatens the peaceful state of life that everyone seeks. The artist states that running away can make ones life less fulfilling and less happy. He closes by stating that in the end, he “wishes we hadn’t learned to run.” He says that running way has not solved any of our problems. Anne Tyler makes the same point in “Teenage Wasteland.” Neither Cal nor Donny solved any of their problems by running.

“Everyday Use” – A Rant by Gary

Rejecting your roots or your present situation and then acknowledging them later on seems like a kind of trend. We always hear people telling their stories of ascent from poverty or misfortune and their attaining good fortune through their own merit. The “legend” of the self-made man is an extremely fashionable and revered past at this point in time. I don’t intend to demean the self-made man story or the value of hard work in order to achieve a goal. I believe it is something of which to be extremely proud. I believe the opportunity to better yourself through hard work and self-attained merit is the basic premise behind our country. However, I do intend to point out that it seems to be kind of trendy (at least throughout history… once upon a time, the aristocracy were proud of their not having to achieve their own wealth, and the self-made men were not considered to be truly aristocratic… then later, the self-made industrialists and capitalists became the figures held in the highest esteem) to first be embarrassed about your heritage and then become proud of it later.

I cannot really support my claim of the trendy nature of being self-made, but the thought has stuck in my head since our reading “Everyday Use.” Like we discussed in class, Dee only “accepts” her heritage when it becomes fashionable. And then, her poor roots become more of a bragging point to her than a real heritage.

Again, I can’t cite a specific reference; however, in countless movies and TV shows we see characters embarrassed about some aspect of their life (more often than not this aspect is materialistic or financial or superficial) until some supernatural being or hero or the tooth fairy or Morgan Freeman in God form makes them realize that they should be proud of themselves. This is of course the moral of the story. But in real life, not everyone has such a great emotional mentor or guardian angel. So, it becomes a trend. Once you achieve success (in whatever form that may be), your roots are no longer significant and only become a fact supporting the “hey you, I can do anything better than you can” attitude of which everyone has some (this includes every motivational speaker you have ever heard).

My attitude is indeed cynical, but it applies to Dee quite well. For example, when she was a girl she could not stand the sight of her run-down shack of a house. In fact, she enjoyed watching it burn. When she returns, grown up, she takes picture after picture of her family’s new but similar shack. Her destitute background has become a talking point. She is not even interested in her family, just her family’s living conditions and history (in the form of family heirlooms). Dee believes that her family cannot (and should not be able to) appreciate their heritage because they have not reached her considered measure of success. She thinks that they are too simple to understand their heritage. She believes that they don’t know what they have and where they came from just because they haven’t seen the top of the mountain. She is too proud of her success. She can no longer relate too her family because they consider their way of life as a way of life and she considers their way of life a talking point to highlight her own accomplishments.

Hey Mr. Coon, the url is...thefirstgary.blogspot.com

The Curious Incident of the Blog in the Night Time

Often, the most recognizably human characters in a story are the most recognizably flawed or inadequate characters. What I mean is that we can identify with a non-perfect character. While most of us admire or even strive to emulate a “perfect” or model character, we are not perfect and therefore do not identify with these characters. For example, I admire and try to emulate “Jack Bauer” from “24” but he is indeed perfect in every conceivable way, and I am not, so I can not possibly identify with him on his level.
We can, however, come closer to identifying with a less perfect or flawed character. Using flawed characters, an author can allow us to identify with a character or at least recognize them as fallible human beings.

In “The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time”, Mark Haddon uses flawed characters and their actions to contrast the relatively insignificant peculiarities of Christopher. For example, throughout the book, Christopher’s behavior seems strange or foreign or even violent within the context of normal and conventionally proper human behavior. In the context of the society in which we live, Christopher’s hiding in the luggage compartment of the train or punching the police officer for grabbing him seems unacceptable. However, when compared to the flaws of his mother or father or the other characters around him, his idiosyncrasies become harmless or meaningless and Christopher’s character becomes less threatening to conventional sensibility of the reader. The contrast between Christopher’s nature and the more “serious” mistakes or flaws of the other characters such as his father’s deceiving of Christopher or his mother’s abandoning of Christopher, combined with the deeper understanding Christopher gives us of himself and his own reasoning allows us to look past his strange behavior and compare his trivial peculiarities with our own. Using these methods, Haddon allows us to identify with Christopher through the book in a way that we might not be able to do so quickly with a similar child in real life.

Haddon also comments on human behavior by using Christopher to perceive the true unaltered actions of his characters. Haddon uses Christopher’s point of view to cut through the rationalizations of characters in the story. Christopher perceives only the action, not the rationality or excuse behind the action. For instance, Christopher focuses only upon his father’s action of killing Wellington. He does not give credence to the excuses of rationalizations of his father and therefore associates his father’s murder of the dog with the possible ability to murder human beings as well. To the conventional human mind, this connection is not necessarily apparent. Christopher views his surroundings with a lack of bias in this respect.

This viewpoint may not necessarily reflect the human condition, but it does, in my opinion, set up one of the greatest ironies in the text, the irony that Christopher comes to distrust his father, who has cared for him his entire life and been completely committed to his development, and trust his mother, who abandoned him in his developmental time of need. So in the end, after a long, convoluted path of logic and examination, we realize that even this aspect of Christopher’s character is flawed and recognizably biased. An unbiased point of view may be a foundation of our civilization (or legal system) but it is ultimately impossible for us to achieve. In this respect, we see that Christopher is still recognizably human. (573)

The Letter

Hello Mr. Coon. The story of my reading history would be a short book. Therefore, I would probably enjoy it. Let me highlight two important pieces of information regarding my reading habits for you. First of all, I naturally read for comprehension. Yes, I do forget stuff but I try to acquire an understanding of the information presented in the text. However, my style of reading combined with my being a slow reader makes me a really slow reader. A long text can quickly become a grueling marathon of imaginative exercise and deep vein thromboses. And I do believe that your imagination and mind can easily be overworked and sometimes needs to be numbed by a concentrated dose of downtime.

Second, as a result of this clash between the thirst for knowledge (or stimulating entertainment) and the brain’s cry for help, I tend to read in spurts. Like many people I think, I go through a period where I want to read a bunch and then period where I want to read nothing at all. Usually, the former is triggered by a certain subject matter that I, of course, find fascinating, and the latter kicks in when exhaustion begins to take hold. I continually fluctuate by reading way more than the average amount and then way less than the average. I guess my “reading goal” is to minimize the amplitude of that change and come closer to reading a consistent amount that will not erode my desire for written entertainment over time.

I do like to imagine the world of the story in my own terms and play out the plot in my mind, but I certainly do not need any stimulus in order to drift off into my own little “happy place”, a place that would probably scare most of you. In fact, most of the time I have to make myself focus on the present or the task at hand. I guess that makes me a daydreamer even though my dreams are not necessarily all ponies and rainbows. Anyway, I look forward to taking your class this year. I think it’s going to be a great time. (359)