Graduation

Last week, I graduated from Bakersfield College. Two years and $12,000 dollars later, I look back on the experience and wonder: was it worth the time, expense, and stress. It is easy to look at the statistics regarding community college graduation rates and feel a sense of accomplishment. According to commonly reported statistics, only 19% of Bakersfield College students graduate and only 7% graduate within a “normal” time period. I graduated in two years (a normal period of time), and I maintained a 3.23 GPA over 80+ units. And it wasn't easy. Most semesters, I took an overload of units that required approval from the counseling department. Over the course of four regular semesters and one summer school semester, my attendance was nearly perfect, and I missed few assignments. But, are grades and graduation really the best barometer of what I learned at Bakersfield College? After all, Professors sometimes give grades that are not deserved, and I sometimes submitted assignments that did not fully reflect my understanding of the material. The most important lesson I learned at Bakersfield College is not reflected in my GPA, and it is certainly more valuable than the $12,000 two years of school cost. I learned a lesson that, if learned earlier in my life, would have been much more valuable than it is today. I learned that despite adversity, despite seemingly insurmountable circumstances, I can actually finish something I start. There were many days I woke up and felt like not going to school, not doing assignments, not breathing. Unless you have experienced depression and suicidal thoughts, there isn't really anyway I can describe to you what they feel like. A lot of people think depression means sadness, but I wasn't sad, I was just completely indifferent. Yet, day after day, I made my way to the Bakersfield College campus. I fought mental battles that would have caused some people to give up. But, after a lifetime of giving up, I knew that this was one task I had to complete. Not because there was some magical pot of gold at the end and not because it would lead to some great job and a wonderful future. I had to complete this task because it was important to me. Over the past week, I have asked myself repeatedly: is there one thing you can point to that you learned at B.C. that is worth the time and money it required to get to graduation? My answer is, yes. But, what I learned can't be found in a textbook, and it didn't come from a lecture. Don't get me wrong, I learned amazing things from the professors at Bakersfield College. One of the first classes I took at B.C. was Professor Paula Park's English class. Professor Parks taught me the value of community, and the fact that as bad as some think they have it in the United States, there are people in much worse circumstances around the world. Dr. Barton opened my eyes to the world of literature that I never knew existed. Under Dr. Barton's tutelage, I learned that reading Poe, Hawthorne, Eliot, and others is about more than what is on the surface of the story. When reading, you have to become a detective to discover the hidden meaning (or lack of meaning). And from Dr. Trujillo, I learned the value of having an offensive instructor. His constant belittling comments and not so subtle jabs gave me renewed motivation whenever I felt like giving up. But the most important and valuable lesson I learned came from the lectures I gave myself. It turns out that I taught myself a vital lesson about commitment, perseverance, and follow through. In high school, I was on the Speech & Debate team. At the top of all of our debate material, we put a quote that was suppose to represent our thinking at the time: if at first you don't succeed, try, try again, if you still fail, give up, no use being a damn fool. There is a certain amount of arrogance in the quote. As if we can just keep trying, quitting and moving on to the next thing. But, eventually we have to find something important enough to us that we keep trying and never quit, and never surrender to doubt or criticism. When we find that something, sometimes, the pay off doesn't come in tangible form. It isn't money in our pockets. It isn't a great job. The pay off is in learning something new about ourselves and the world we live in.

T.S. Eliot's "Preludes"

Imagery in T.S. Eliot's “Preludes”

The great modernist writer T.S. Eliot was a student of the French poets Valery and Baudelaire. As a result of their influence, images from French urban landscapes find their way into Eliot’s poetry. Eliot uses the imagery of these landscapes to convey emotions to his reader. He termed this method of imparting emotions: objective correlative. In A Contemporary Guide to Literary Terms, the term is defined as a method by which a writer “in order to produce a particular emotional effect” incorporates “images, circumstances, and incidents” into their works that correlate to the desired emotional effect they want to produce. The correlation of these devices to the particular emotion is objective because the writer does not contribute his/her emotions or feelings; instead, the writer relies on the universal nature of the “objects, situations, and chain of events” (Barton and Hudson, 139). In “Preludes,” Eliot utilizes specific images to engender feelings of monotony, desperation, loneliness, and despair in the reader.

In the opening stanza, Eliot uses objects and situations, as well as a chain of events to create a sense of quiet desperation in the reader. The setting for the story is a “winter evening” (1) in the city. The imagery of a “winter evening” immediately evokes in the reader a feeling of gloom, but to compound those feelings, Eliot litters the landscape of the city with “grimy scraps,” “withered leaves,” and “broken blinds and chimney-pots” (6-10). By using objects that create an image of decay in the mind of the reader, Eliot imbues the scene with feelings of desperation and loneliness. Also, in this opening stanza Eliot lays the groundwork for the repetition of a chain of events that will reoccur throughout the story in order to emphasize the monotony of the inhabitant’s quotidian existence. This chain of events begins at “Six o’ clock” with the “smell of steaks in passageways,” and concludes with “the lighting of the lamps” (2-13). While the reader may think the smell of steaks is enticing, Eliot compares the smell to a burnt-out cigarette (4). The repetition of the routine has taken the joy out of even the simplest pleasures. With the scene and mood set, Eliot moves on to describe the condition of the inhabitants of this urban landscape.

In the second stanza, Eliot demonstrates the hopelessness of the inhabitants by reducing them to undifferentiated hands and feet. The scene in the second stanza is the same urban landscape as above, yet morning has brought the masses out into the “sawdust-trampled street” (16). The inhabitants of the city are described only in terms of their “muddy feet” and “hands/that are raising dingy shades” (21-22). The reference to the shades draws us back to the feeling of despair evoked in the first stanza by the “broken blinds” (10). Furthermore, Eliot explains that the people live in “furnished rooms” (23), which do not allow for self-expression. Throughout the remainder of the poem the people are described only in terms of body parts that touch the city’s surface. Their individual lives are of no consequence. They are defined by the city they live in and nothing more. The third stanza reinforces the feelings of loneliness and despair by describing an individual alone in a room projecting images of the city onto the ceiling (24-29). Eliot draws us back to the chain of events in the first stanza by describing the light from the street lamps that “crept up between the shutters (31). The continual reference to the objects in the first stanza is a reminder to the reader that the inhabitants are trapped in a never ending cycle that the city dictates. At every turn, the people are met with reminders of the hopelessness of their situation. The seeming delight of the smell of cooking steaks is countered by the fact that they have lost their appeal because they are eaten nightly. The relief that might come from sleep is coupled with the “thousand sordid images/of which your soul was constituted” (28-29). Not even in sleep can the tortured citizens escape the clutches of the gloomy city or their monotonous lives. Eliot never explicitly tells the reader how he/she should feel about the predicament of the people in the city; instead, he relies on repetition and imagery to foster these feelings.

The final stanza draws the reader back to the opening scene by invoking familiar objects in order to reinforce the despair, and loneliness of the city’s occupants. The mention of “six o’clock,” “square fingers stuffing pipes,” “newspapers” is intended to remind the reader that this chain of events is a loop that repeats “infinitely” (51). Here again in the closing stanza the reader is reminded of the lack of humanity in the city when Eliot states:

His soul stretched tight across the skies

            That fade behind a city block,

            Or trampled by insistent feet. (39-41)

The city block and the masses in the streets extinguish any humanity. As a final reminder of the despair and monotony, Eliot employs a simile to draw us full circle “the worlds revolve like ancient women/Gathering fuel in vacant lots” (53-54). This is a reference to the “newspaper from vacant lots” (8) mentioned in the first stanza. In the closing line of his poem, Eliot uses the objects and situations from the first stanza to bring the reader full circle to the beginning of the chain of events. The continual, unbreakable, chain of events highlights all the negative emotions experienced by the inhabitants of the city.

            The greatest writers find a way to draw their audience into the story. More than simply making a character or situation relatable, T.S. Eliot’s use of objects, situations, and events to give rise to particular emotions requires the reader to become emotionally invested. How should one feel about “grimy scraps,” “broken blinds and chimney pots,” and “withered leaves?” (6-8) How should the reader interpret the monotony experienced by the residents of this city? The beauty of Eliot’s writing is that he does not tell the reader how to interpret these images and events; instead, he allows the reader to form his/her own emotions.

Works Cited

Barton, Edwin, and Glenda Hudson. A Contemporary Guide to Literary Terms. 3^rd Ed. Boston: Wadsworth. 2012. Print

Eliot, T.S. “Preludes”

Review: "2001: A Space Odyssey"

Okay... I have to watch a couple movies for English 2. Today is 2001: A Space Odyssey. I thought I would post reviews of each movie, and I will, but I found these reviews of 2001, and since I could not have said it better myself, I am posting them.

2001: A space odyssey is amazing. It is amazing that anyone could ever survive the horror that is this movie. It literally gave me a migraine. I mean I am all for the beautiful cinematography and wonderful imaginitaive directing and all but maybe there should have been more writing involved. I’m pretty sure the script went something like this:
CLOSEUP: giant sperm shaped (see implications later) space ship moves across screen (25mins)
PANORAMA: Even bigger phallic shiped space suit moves across screen (35mins)
PAN LEFT: Tall but very narrow mysterious black object stand still and issues weird chanting sounds, don’t touch it, it’ll scream
VOICEOVER (One of two idiot astronauts): Heavy Breathing (22 mins)
MONTAGE: Multiple shots of Oklahoma and Arizona landscapes with many different colored filters
CLOSE UP: star child (giant embryo planet)
* the sentient being that represents humanity at the dawning of a new universe is an idiot who supposed holding his breath would save him from the vacuum of space – where did he buy his degree?
There was probably a total of seven minutes of dialog in this film, half of which are delivered by a faceless computer.
It is unfortunate that this is the first SF Stanley Kubric film I have seen but I can’t even imagine watching another one without a burning desire to overdose myself on vicodine. If ever you were looking for a wonderfully long torturous, anti-drug advertisement, this is it!

Three hours of my life I will never get back. I love sci-fi and had high hopes for this movie, but to say I was disappointed would be like saying 2000lb bombs make smoke.
This movie is SO DAMN SLOW! I forced myself to watch this “masterpiece” that i had wanted to see for so long, thinking it would end up a new favorite. And it was a piece… of something; every slow, drawn out, endless second of it! You could easily edit this movie down to 5 minutes.
2001: A Space Oddysey should be retitled- 2001: Real-time Space Flight Torture Test Oddysey From Hell, Prozac Edition
Example:
Wanna know how long it takes to exit a space ship for routine ship repair? FOR FU%#ING EVER!!!!!!!!!
Example:
Wanna see the same scene of the moon rotating in the same damn window framed in grey with no edit or cut away for 10 damn minutes with the same damn music playing over and OVER and OVER AGAIN?
CAN I GET AN EDIT?!?!? OR A BULLET?!?!
PLEASE?!?!?!
2001 is aggravating!!!!! I was screaming at the movie to hurry the fu%# up!!!!!!!!!!! Do I need to know (and SEE) that it takes 5 WHOLE MINUTES for a hatch to open up into space? DO I?!?!?! REALLY?!?!?!? AND HOW MANY TIMES DO I NEED TO SEE IT?!?!?!?! WAS ONCE NOT ENOUGH?!?!?!?!
Add in 30 minutes of Dave unplugging/killing HAL (sooooooooo slowly), 25 minutes of astronauts holding there helmets(?) in pain from the annoying alien dog whistle/radio signal with accompanying choir/orchestra music (scene does NOT CHANGE EVER!!!!), a 40 minute trip thru a crayon-colored time-warped hyperspace Dr. Who tunnel with still shots of Dave trying out for Madonna’s “vogue” video (if you like drugs, you might like this part of the movie), and 2 or 3 months of real-time space flight (with elevator music), and you have the DULLEST MOVIE EVER MADE!!!!!
I dont know what was harder to watch, 2001:a space oddysey or an episode of the Teletubbies. I love Bladerunner, even though it is slow at time, its one of my favorite movies. This one sucks badly