Metamorphosis up to page 45

I read up to page 45 of metamorphosis and it was good. This section was all about Gregors relations with the family. The section ending was seriously awesome (I stopped on page 47). It ended with Gregor being enticed by Gretes violin playing, the lodgers seeing him, them saying they've wouldn't pay and the father closing and locking the door to do I don't know what with them. Gregors reaction to the music was extremely emotional even for a human-he really felt strong love and admiration for his sister.  this whole section was about how Gregor was still wanting to interact like a human, and that's very significant. Also, Gregor is dying from various wounds, specifically the apple lodged in his back. Quite ironic. I'm really enjoying this book. It's a quick read, it's deep, and its subtle. I would like to read it in German, tha would be fun.

Essay writing

I have overcome my challenges in writing, but I have come upon a new one. I used to have great ideas but was never able to express or argue them. Then, last year and this year, I figured out how to argue my point and say what I wanted to say. In the hamlet essay I really honed in my arguing, but wasn't bold enough. In the Austen essay I pulled a lot of different things together and managed to express them well, but wasn't bold enough (and was too informal). And the most recent essay was not bold enough and you didn't like how I expressed one or two of my points. I think what I need to work on is boldness. I can express myself and write good sentences and not be too informal, and tackle the small things that come up, but apparently my problem now is boldness. My means of expression has become less bold, and I need to work on that. My writing has gotten much better, but I still don't know how to fully express what I want to say. When I know exactly what I want to say, I say it well and am bold, but when I don't I get caught up in intricacies and don't outright state a claim. The only thing that can help me is practicing and keeping boldness in mind when writing. Personally, I'm happy with my writing now and don't really feel the need to improve it, but prudence dictates that I should. Yeah, so English is fun.

Metamorphosis up to page 35

This week, I read up to page 37 of the metamorphosis and it was great. This book is weird just like I. On page 26 (I think) we hear of the father's saved money, and that's good. Then Gregor starts to climb on the walls and ceiling and leaves the "white stuff" everywhere. We hear about the escapades of Grete going into Gregory's room and immediately needing to breathe at the window. Gregor puts a sheet over the couch to conceal his frighteing figure from Grete. His sister decides to make Gregors life easier by moving out all of the furniture. At first, Gregor is really excited about this and is very thankful. His sister enlists the help of the mother (who is elated to see her son agin). The mother thinks that it would be better to keep the furniture there so Gregor can have some semblance of humanity. Gregor likes this more and decides to side with his mother.but, the plan to remove the furniture proceeds. Once all of the furniture is gone and his mom and sister are in a different room, Gregor decides to climb on top of the picture of the woman in fur to save it. Once the mom sees this, she gets scared, faints, and Grete helps her. Gregor flees into a different room. He waits and then the dad comes home. They have a cute little walk around circle of centension and then th dad starts throwing fruit at Gregor. I think that's enough for me blog.

Metamorphosis up to page 25

These ten pages made me feel bad then good. First Gregor comes out of his room and tries to make peace but ends up terrifying everybody. Then his father shoos him away with a cane, his feet, and a rolled up newspaper. The he waits around in his room, sleeps, wakes up to find milk and white bread, hates it, loiters for hours, notices the fear and caution and silence of his family members, and then waits around some more (but this tome, under the couch). Then his sister brings him a shmorgus board of garbage and fresher foods, he loves the garbage and treats the fresher food like you would trash mixed in with your food. I'm not ready to interpret this story yet, and here's why. The plot and writing are too good, I'm too invested in the story, if I did analyze it it would be obvious and not fun, and I've never been able to ever through a book without predicting the ending based on my analysis (so why not try it now). I'm enjoying this book. It's weird, but its fun.

Another Socratic circle discussion

I liked it.

The group dynamic: it was the best that it could be. You effectively separated us into a group with our friends and people at or around our intelligence/ performance level. And the discussions flowed nicely: we talked, we analyzed, we thought, all that good stuff. There was one problem though:the activity seemed forced. Our discussions weren't spontaneous explorations of philosophical thought relating to our course content, we were following guidelines. And, we knew we were being braded on our performance. Without the otter two factors, I don't think this discussion would have precipitated, and I think that we would have had a more meaningful conversation. Going back to group dynamic, the forced and pressured nature discouraged some from speaking and made others dominate the weak ones (myself included). There were awkward pauses because we had to move on with the conversation but knew not how. And the conversation wasn't very deep. BUT, all of these are primarily a result of our nature, not the setup of the activity (although that certainly had an influence).  The activity was great and it helped us connect with the text. I just think that WE could have done a better job at overcoming our teenagerness

First metamorphosis blog

I read up to page 15 of the metamorphosis, and it was good. I can already tell there will be a lot about how people and companies are like bugs and colonies and we're all just pawns and have no real free will and aren't allowed to really think, and all of the degrading, bad things about companies and industrialized society. So far, all that's happened is Gregor woke up and saw that he was a bug and was late for work. Then he thought and tried to get out of bed and couldn't. And then his boss came and he still couldn't get out of bed. His sister knew that he had turned into an animal and now she is getting people to help him. There will be a lot of deeper meanings in this book, and that will be helpful for analyzing with a random book of my choosing. Okay, that's my blog

works cited

I think i figured out how to cite the Freud essay thing. Well, i hope i did it right because i already turned it in

Freud, Sigmund. Civilization and Its Discontents. 1930. Trans. Joan Riviere. Philladelphia: Kno Textbooks, 2007.