Imaginary Invalid

I attended the Southeastern production of the Imaginary Invalid on February 25 and watched the entire play.

The Imaginary Invalid I thought was well done by our fellow peers. This was not only a play but it was a musical. This play also had dancers to brighten up the play which I thought was very clever and very entertianing. The thing that stood out to me the most was the costumes. I loved the bright colors and the styles that they word to represent the late 19oo's.

Though I thoroughly enjoyed this play I often wondered why Professor Corrigan would have us attend the play. Was it to support our fellow class mates (Juliet was in it)? Surely it was not just for pure entertainment...Suppose he wanted us to get something out of this play. So as I watched the play I tried looking for the reason. I couldn't find one till the end of the play. Towards the end the Brother was telling the father that instead of listening to everyone else's advice he should just "become a doctor himself." The Father didn't understand how this could be because he was not trained as a doctor; he had no idea how to be a doctor. Then the last scene you see the father having his ceremony and giving fake answers and get's his diploma. The Father was able to recieved his diploma because none of the other doctors really knew what they were saying and the Father was able to make up fake words. Since no one understood each other who could say whether the Father was right or not?

To me that was the purpose in which I saw the play. We owe it to ourselves to get the best education that we can so we are able to be what we can be. If no one had an education then how are we to be in the same level. We would all be ignorant of the world around us. I suppose if everyone was ignorant then we would be on the same level. Then eventually someone will want to learn and when someone learns something then the rest of the world would be off balance. To fulfill our potential we must resume the responsibility to understand the world God has given us. Daniel Selby says "Education is learning what you didn't even know you didn't know."

When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd

In the poem When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd I see that through out the story he has transittioned from the fear of death to embracing death. Ath the begining death is symbolized with darkness and how the gray-brown bird sings in sadness. The colors fade away as the coffin is walked across the grass. To him death meant a loss of something great, in this case Abraham Lincoln. A great man with so much to give to the world and had given so much now he is gone, to be buried. I feel like that was where it ended for Whitman. Once you were buried that was the end of a person, you have lost something important.

Then as you read the through the story you see he starts to change his mind. Colors starts to come back and towards the end he starts to realize that death is a factor in living. "Comyly lovely and soothing death, undulate round the world,serenely arriving, arriving." Everyone must die. It is just a part of living. What is surprising is a few lines down it is as if Whitman is embracing death. "Dark mother always gliding near with soft feet, have non changed for thee a chant of fullest welcome?" To accept death is a place that everyone must get to but to embrace death is a special understanding. Is it that he finally realizes that death doesn't only have to be a time of sadness? At a person's funeral many great things are said about a person and how they lived. Perhaps when a person is dead that is when you realize how much they influenced your life. Perhaps he embraced death because he sees that after death occurs is when a legacy can live on. Abraham Lincoln died, yes, but his legacy as the 16th president lives on forever. Maybe Whitman sees that even in death a person still lives in their legacy.

pass

cemetary

I went to Lakeview, Tiger Flower, and Roselawn for this field trip and I stayed for at least 40 minutes.

Went I heard about the field trip to the cemetary I thought that it was a pretty interesting way to approach a poem. I went pretty open minded and tried to get the most out of it. I walked around looking at the names and dates of those who have past away. I have not had many close people who have died so it was not an emotional experience. I still tried to image what it would be like to be the one in the ground. 70 or so years from now I too will be died and buried away. What will people think about me? What will they have to say about me and what did I do for them? Will they visit me and think of me often? The cemetary is also a place of peace. Many people find the cemetary a scary place to be but in fact it is quite the opposite. My roommate had to take me there and she thought it was creepy but if you think about it the cemetary is the most peaceful and safe place one can be at. Everyone is dead so there is no one there to harm you. As we go through our daily life we forget about the future that will come out way. By the way we treat each other and go about our day we think we will live forever. Going to the cemetary helped me to take a breathe and reflect on the kind of life I live.

When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd

When Lilacs last in the Dooryard Bloom'd was an extremely long poem. Unlike the Living Cookbook this poem has a lot more to say. Though this poem was long it had a lot of beautiful descriptions and imagery that you could paint with your mind as you read.

Lilac blooming perennial and drooping star in the west

O shades of night- O moody, tearful night!

Stands the lilacs-bush tall-growing with heart-shaped leaves of rich green, with many a pointed blossom rising delicate, with the perfume strong I love

Over the breast of the spring, the land, amid cities, amid lanes and through old woods, where lately the violets peep'd from the ground, spotting the gray debris, amid the grass in the fields each side of the lanes, passing the endless grass, passing the yellow-spear'd wheat, every grain from its shroud in the dark-brown fields uprisen.

Over the rising and sinking waves, over the myriad fields and the prairies wide

And carried hither and yon through the smoke, and torn and bloody, and at last but a few shreds left on the staffs (and all in silence), and the staffs all splinter'd and broken.

These are beautiful imagery that Walt Whitman painted for the death of Abraham Lincoln. Though the poem was long, I personally do not think that if he cramped all of his thoughts into a page would have painted a picture as he did here. Like Professor Corrigan states "If a poem is summarized then perhaps in the process of summarizing a poem we truly loose the essences of a poem as it is to be." Looking at all of these (and many more in the poem) you could not sum up the images that Whitman must have seen in his mind as he wrote. Walt Whitman used many old English which makes the poem even harder to read it was a nice touch. It made the poem even older, like in Abraham Lincoln's time.

Cookbook

On friday for class we got to experience a poem. When I hear that we had to read a poem I groaned a little bit inside. I have never fully understood poems, most of the time I don't understand their meanings. THey don't make any sense to me and I automatically want to scan over them.

This poem was different. It was about an onion. Yes, an onion. The most insignifcant piece of veggetable known to man. Is it even a veggetable? Well regardless I'm wandering what makes someone want to write about an onion and on top of that what makes our teacher want to make us read about an onion. I read the first time...ok that was weird. Then he makes us evaluate it. I'm still wondering what he's going at. Then we read it again, he reads to us and at this time it starts making more sense. Is this writer talking about an onion? Perhaps she is just simply talking about the signifcant of an onion or is she talking about the pains and insifigant she felt? Is she talking about a group of people or an event that she experienced? As we read along I start digging deep within the story and I realize that perhaps this poem is a representation.

I have always read a poem just to get it over with. Now I realize that to understand a text you must read it several times and not only do you read it but you must experience and take it further than the words. For the onion we saw our teacher cut up the onion and we got to smell it. This brought the story out to life. I actually grew an appreciation for onions. More than that I have grown a deep appreciation for poems.

evaluating Joel

Joel is a representation of God and his people. The tie between us doing what we want to do and what God wants us to do. If we read this carefully it is a love story that God has written to us. Though when it says "what the gnawing locust has left, the swarming locust has eaten; and what the swarming locust has left, the creeping locust has eaten. and what the creeping locust hast left the stripping locust has eaten." Now we're reading this and asking, "How is that a love story?" God is the lover crying out to his children to return to him. He knows that he is the only we should be worshiping. The warns us that the returning of Jesus is coming and that we must repent. If we don't then it maybe too late but God doesn't want it to be too late for us. He wants us to have a chance, and second and third chance. As the story goes on it shows the compassion God has for his people. "Now return to the Lord your God, for he is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger, bounding in loving kindness and relenting of evil." Just as a lover would gently and kindly beckons his children back to him. Showing that his intent is not to destroy us but to keep us safe. Joel also talks about the end of time when Jerusalem will be restored again. When all of the promised of the Lord will come in full swing. There will be flowing of milk and honey, a paradise for his people who follows him. For his children in whom he has been chasing after for so many years.

Joel could also the time on this world. The beginning of Joel is the begining in the Old Testament with God warning his children like he does so often. This is when he is talking directly to his children. The middle of Joel is God present. With us now, when it states "It will come about after this that I will pour out my Spirit on all mankind...before the great and awesome day of the Lord comes." The Holy Spirit didn't come until Jesus so I've concluded that it would be the present. Towards the end of Joel is the next coming of Jesus where he will renew Jerusalem. This is what is to come and Jesus will come back as the great Savior for the world to see.

Joel

The book of Joel is really God's warning to his people. Just like in the dessert when his people were turning away from him, God will punish his people if they don't turn from their evil ways. Over and Over again God will warn them, with prophets and his words. God doesn't want to punish his people, he loves his sons and daughters but just like a parent punishing their child from doing wrong God must punish us.

This applies to us even to this day. How is it that God will give his children all of the warnings yet we still will not hear him, nor do we turn from our evil ways. I think about how we will sit here and read God's word and say to ourselve "how blind must the Isrealites be not to see what God is trying to tell them. How can you be doing exactly what God is telling you not to do and how could you complain and worry when God has always taken care of you?" Many times I will read The story of Noah and how, through Noah, God warned those people over and over to repent. In the dessert God told his children over and over again that he will take care of their needs such as the mana from the sky. When things got hard them would wished to be back in Egypt even when God will tell them that he will take care of them. I often wonder if that is what God is telling us today. "How can you worry about your day when I'm providing for you? How can you question my exsistence when I've shown you myself over and over agian?" Of course he understands our heart and does not think we are stupid but we must be. We have more evidence than the Isrealites in the Bible. We have their stories to read from and should that not be enough evidence for us to be in faith?

The things they carried

"The things they carried were largely determined by necessity...can openers, pocket knives, heat tabs, wrist watches, dog tags, kool aid, lighters...together these items wieghted between fifteen and twenty pounds." The soliders carried gum with them, of course gum doesn't weigh that much, in fact it doesn't weigh that much at all. But then you have the salt tablets which doesn't wiegh that much either. But you put alot of these items in a bag, and of course by itself they dont weigh alot but together little by little the weights add on, soon after a soliders are carrying up to fifteen to twenty pounds.

This story is like a representation of a person who has alot of baggages. We go through life and maybe someone hurts us so we hold onto this resentment. Then something happens to us and we feel ashamed, we feel anger, we feel alone. All of these feelings are things that we carry with us through the journey of life yet we don't realize how much they weigh. We may not even realize that we carry the resentment or the anger, or the loneliness, it doesn't really show itself in our daily life. But years after years we feel heavy, we feel like we're carrying the world on our shoulders and we can't even stand to carry our own head. We get angrier at the fact that we feel so heavy but you can't just throw those things out. We've been carrying them for so long, we don't even know we've been carrying that same anger on our back. We think we have forgotten that person for something they've done to us yet when they do something new that is hurtful to us we coil back all of those times they hurt us. We haven't really forgiven anyone. The truth of the matter is we just moved on, we pushed those feels aside not really dealing with them. But what we really did is put it in our bag and carried it with us till we have the opportunity to pull it back out to use against that person who hurt us. Don't let the sun go down on your anger, everyday throw your junk away so you can carry the important things in your life with you like love and memories.