Tania’s Introduction

Hey my name is Tania, I’m in my fourth year here in City Tech, but I still have much more class to complete before I can graduate. I’m majoring Graphic Designing and Advertising. I want to work in a magazine business and work on layouts and editing photos and make the celebirties look “better”. Hahaha. I’m turning 21 in couple days and I’m super excited. I play sports, softball, football, volleyball, basketball, and I also watch sports, baseball, football, hockey (Mets, Giants, Rangers fan).  I used to play a lot but now I rarely do because of injury of my ankle. I play video games too. I’ve always been a fan of RPG games, fighting games, first person shooter games. I used to have xbox 360 and was really great at it but then college came and took over my life haha. Now when I have free time I like to go to sports games with my boyfriend and go out with family and friends and have fun. What I’m looking forward to this semester in this class is how to analize when reading. I tend to read quick before I can know whats going on. I litterally have to stop myself sometimes because I read so fast.

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Michael’s Introduction

Hey, my names Michael. I major in graphic design…or something along those lines, anyway I love to draw.  I also photoshop and have pretty good video editing skills. I also have a wordpress and deviaintART site. Now I’ll use this as a free chance to advertise myself ! 😀

If your interested in seeing my artwork or youtube channel click the links below:

DeviantART/ Youtube/ WordPress

P.S.- I would add images and such to make this post WAYYYYY more interesting and cooler, but I’m unsure if there’s a memory limit to the sites page.

 

 

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Kate Chopin’s “Desiree’s Baby”

Chopin’s “Desiree’s Baby”

The Kate Chopin International Society has lots of information about Chopin’s life, her work, and scholarship that has been done on her.

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The Wife of Bath’s Prologue

The Wife of Bath’s Prologue from Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales This link is to a parallel text: it shows the Middle English that Chaucer wrote in on the left, and the modern translation on the right. You should concentrate on the modern translation only, but it might be interesting to see the changes.

Here is a modern translation alone.

And here’s the original link I posted, just for kicks. I found that the line numbers on the left were distracting, so I chose one that numbered on the right. But if you already started reading this one, I don’t want to throw you off. 🙂

Here are some videos you might enjoy as you read.  Remember, you are reading her prologue, not her tale.

The Canterbury Tales general prologue, as it sounded in Middle English:

And a more entertaining version…

One video interpreting the “Wife of Bath’s Tale”

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Recreation Vs. Procreation

I’ve started the Wife of Bath’s Prologue and I wanted to discuss the theme of Sexuality vs. Spirituality. As I read Lines 58 to Lines 125 I realized how much we take the sexual revolution of the 1960’s for granted and how these lines in particular challenged Catholicism and its concept of sex. Catholic doctrine sees marriage as the ultimate role of the female and that it is through childbirth and child rearing that we do what God created us to do. Marriage is a duty thus by extension so is sex. It is done for specific reasons which include galvanize the marriage and procreating. It should not be for your own enjoyment. The Wife of Bath challenges these concepts at a period where Catholicism was at its peak and where women were considered livestock to be sold into marriage. Marriages were affairs which involved the entire family but the Wife of Bath chose her spouses and for her marriage was a kind of liberation and she enjoyed the benefits of it. Today we choose our spouses, we decide the how, when and where of our lives as women but not so long ago our great-grandmothers, grandmothers and possibly mothers did not have that luxury. In fact some women in certain parts of the world continue to be subjugated and exploited. We have a contentious relationship with sexuality and for those of us who are religious the  messages we receive from our spiritual leaders conflict with the liberties extended to us from pass victories. It is a victory to be free to choose what you will do with your body. Even though Chaucer was writing for a vastly different audience I can’t help but think about the Republican party and their policies on abortion and how relevant this is.

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So about these new post’s and stuff…

Hiya! My name is Joseph, or any derivative thereof,  Joe, Joey, J, Joey-the-snowman, Joey-the-joseph-barbera, Steve, and Joey-squarebox.  I like many things some of these things being stuff, but things are defiantly my favorite.  anyway. Video games, martial arts, snowboarding, swimming and, Music are a few of the things i like to indulge myself in. The kind of music i listen to ranges from rock, metal, thrash metal, melodic death metal, death metal,  Prog metal, metal metal, steel, titanium and even wood! Any metal really! except black metal, ewww…

I just got of working a night shift at mcdonalds all night every weekend, sounds fun righ-WRONG! Its annoying having to sleep during the day to work at night, I cant do my homework and it makes me sad and worst of all I cant practice in my fighting games! how will I ever beat infiltration… again, or aquasilk, or kailkun i think it was spelled. if you know these names I present to you one fresh baked cookie.

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Ode to Prolixity

I have this recurring nightmare about waking up in the middle ages
and trying to justify my existence (atheism and all) to the <sarcasm>
greatest </sarcasm> minds of the time that reading Chaucer
reminded me of with startling clarity.

On the one hand, it’s neat that he could rhyme all those lines and still maintain
the thread of his story. It’s admirable that, involved as it was, the prelude was
just that: a mere opener to a larger tale. It’s even (possibly) great that he imitates
his perceived speech patterns of a 14th century woman in his writing (unless that’s
just how he wrote, in which case – not so much)…

But the man spent eight hundred lines of verse talking about marriage, infidelity
and genitalia.
Granted, it might be argued that literature hasn’t really budged
far from its humble beginnings, but that doesn’t make having to read all that any
less mind-numbing.

The narrator was married five times. Three husbands were old an impotent, but rich;
one cheated; one beat her up. Genitalia are made for sex. Women aren’t all evil,
men do nitpick more than they probably should and it’s okay to be married
more than once if you feel like it… I get it.

I realize this was all meant as a parody but, jeez: a little editing wouldn’t hurt.

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I’m Smart

Hi everyone! I’m Tamir Smart! Some of my classmates in the legal dept. call me by my last name and I prefer being called that. I’m currently in my second semester of first year and I’m VERY excited about this course. There are several things I would like to accomplish:

(Yes, I’ve put it in numerical order.)

  1. Exposure to new and varied material.
  2. Improve my analytical skills
  3. Improve my grammar and essay structure
  4. Survive Toni Morrison (She’s depressing.)
  5. Get an A+ (I hope my attitude to Toni Morrison doesn’t jeopardize my grade 🙂 hehehe)

Finally, I hope we continue to keep the class lively and I’ll see you guys soon!

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Chun’s Introduction

Hey, My name is Chun. I work part time at Subway. I play a lot of video games and listen to a lot of music. I keep a dream journal next to my bed where I jot down any crazy dreams I have. It’s interesting to see how your dreams sound really crazy when you’re awake but when you’re i the dream itself everything feels perfectly normal. This is a saying that I follow to heart: “Father’s word is wisdom, mother’s word is law”

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Matt’s Introduction

Hi. My name is Maciej (or Matt).
I like to do this; I earn my keep with that;
and I haven´t been this excited about
getting up early in a while.

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