Happy block break everyone! I definitely meant to write this post either last night or this morning, but found that I needed to give myself a little bit of a break before writing this! Although our final paper for this class was fairly short (especially since my last block ended with me writing my thesis), the idea of writing yet another something right after I finished my paper was more than I really wanted to do! Anywho, I hope you’ve all made it through the end of the block and can take some time to relax and rejuvenate before jumping into the last block of this school year!
We spent all of this week work
ing on our final papers, so I don’t have much to talk about on the reading side of life! Over the weekend, we were originally supposed to read a novel called Trace Elements of Random Tea Parties, but our professor decided to make that an extra credit assignment (read it and write a reflection) because we wouldn’t have the time to do the novel justice. I (along with quite a few of my classmates it sounds like) decided to read the book, mostly because I’ve quite enjoyed the readings for this class, but also in part because I was already part way through it! I can’t say it was my favorite thing we’ve read this block (that award probably has to go to Brando Skyhorse’s The Madonnas of Echo Park), but it was still an interesting read! Of all the books we read, this book and the collection of comics, The Girl from H.O.P.P.E.R.S dealt the most explicitly with sexuality. I didn’t spend any time comparing how the two works grapple with the issue, but it would definitely be a good thought experiment! They’re both somewhat gritty representations, but beyond that I don’t really have anything to say!
Our final day of class was a peer editing day. Whether intentional or not, I was partnered with another senior (not an English major though) and we’d both written our papers on the same short story. For all that it was a peer editing exercise, it was kind of exciting reading another paper about this particular short story. It’s all of ten pages, yet our papers went in two completely different directions! Although that can sometimes be a bit disconcerting, I think we both felt pretty good about it because we knew that at the very least, we’d picked a somewhat controversial, but definitely arguable thesis, which is kind of the whole point of those kinds of papers!
I hope you all have a wonderful week! With the class over, this is my last blog post, so thank you to everyone who has read it! I hope it’s been enjoyable and informative!
