Half an Hour till the final...

So the final for this class begins in 35 minutes. Looking back over the last couple of months, I realize that this class was one that relates to everything. It is almost daily that I find myself speaking about the class, Shaman Sexson, or oral traditions in general. I learned a lot this semester and I am glad that I took this class at the beginning of my college journey. I look forward to many more classes with Dr. Sexson. And hopefully some with you all as well. However because most of you are farther along in your studies, I am doubting this. Good Luck on the test, and Good Luck in everything else.

Personal Presentations

Way to go everyone! I have been extremely impressed by all of the paper topics people have come up with. I think that the most interesting is the first one we heard about Super Heros. That was really really interesting and I found my self with a lot of questions about Super Heros and comic books in general. Very  well done! 

Presentations

In response to the Boundries group presentation: Great Job! 

I really enjoyed the different skits. All of the boundries you picked, I could relate to, which made it easy to keep up with. I also liked how you incorporated the muses into the presentation at the end. I must admit that I did not understand it when it was happening, but it came together very nicely. 

It would have been very difficult to manage that many people. Its amazing how well it worked out with that many people.

Paper Idea's

For my final paper and presentation, I was thinking about doing  something with music. I am taking a Jazz literature class and we talk about the oral tradition in that class as well. I don't know what I would focus on, but it is just an idea. If anyone has another idea, or some ideas that would help me along, suggestions are greatly appreciated!

Thank you and I hope you are all doing well on the papers and group projects :o)

Memory theater

First off, it took me a while to figure out what I wanted to memorize. I played around with 50 good books, but I figured that if I did not know the plot line, it was going to be difficult to make an association in my house. So I continued to brain storm and came up with doing the top 50 places to see before you die. This was cool because I had actually been to some of them and two, I lived in, so those were easy. 

The way that I constructed my memory theater, was to assemble it without being in the place in which I would place the objects. I chose my house. So while sitting in my Mysteries if the Sky class, I went through the list and placed the locations around my house. Even though I had never been to some of these places, it was easy to picture them and either make the connection with a familiar sounding word, or a similar looking object. Some just could not be associated, and I had to remember them by the oddity itself. i.e. putting Mt Cook National Park in my closet...

I am confident however, that this system is a damn good one. I have yet to use it in another class and I have not yet astounded anyone with some good trip ideas, but I am sure that this memory system will be useful again.

Situational rather than Abstract

When we concluded the class today talking about the last item of Ong's list, I felt right at home. It does not occur to me how many "place-fillers" are used in language. The people who are around me often, enjoy reminding me that "like" is not a good thing to put in one's sentences. 

The girl was NOT like, the girl said. This is the phrase I hear weekly. Much less often now because I am being conditioned into a different habit. 

Another filler I have noticed recently is when people are listing something off they something conclude with, "blah, blah, blah." This is one that always caught my interest. I never knew why one would say that. But I suppose that people are more focused on the abstract, instead of the situation. We often forget to provide specifics when telling a story. Because we are in a written culture I believe that we, as Dr. Sexson mentioned today, want to get straight to the point. We omit the details in order to get the story over with, so we can save more time. There is no longer a need for just siting around and listening to a good story.

50 memorable things to memorize

For this assignment, I have chosen to memorize the top fifty places, people should see before they die. I am interested in this because I have always loved to travel and I think it would be a good list of things to be able to rattle off when I tell people where I want to go next. 

For my memory palace I have chosen to use, of course, my house. I can envision everything in it from the rooms to the pictures on the wall. After all I have lived here for six years. I also distinctly remember my sister ( a Dr. Sexson alum) walking through the house, rattling off MSU's top one hundred... The Complete Works of William Shakespeare was on the door knob.

I find it amazing, that my sister walked through the house over and over again, looking quite odd I must say and from then on I have wanted to be an English major, or at least take a class from Dr. Sexson.

My first memory

Today we talked about first memories and how early one can expect to have real memories. But I am fairly sure that my first distinct memory is not one I remember from pictures or stories.

I fell in a hole. 

A very big hole. 

We were walking along in the woods, my little legs trying to keep up with my big sister and I just plummeted. That is all I remember. But man that memory stands out.

Flyting

On the subject of flyting which was discussed in  class today, I did not have much to add. I have never been in a situation where this has occurred. My only "colorful" comeback is just calling the person a jerk. I do not have much experience in this area, probably because growing up my siblings and I did not fight. The only examples I can add, are ones that are seen in the movies. Hook was already mentioned and I must agree whole-heartedly with that example. It is an amazing illustration of a good fight. 

With all of the historic events occurring I feel as if memory is extremely important. This day is going to be one that we tell our children and grandchildren about in years to come. The first black president. Wow. 

Second Semester Here We Go...

First couple days of class went pretty well. So far, I am really interested in all of the topics of discussion across the board, which is pretty good for the first few days of syllabus-looking. But by far I am the most excited for this class. However, this whole Blog thing will be interesting. I am a little challenged when it come to this, so I have no idea what I am doing, how to put up pictures, or any of that. How about everyone else?

First Day

Well I don't know about others in the class, but I was absolutely blown away by Dr. Sexson's memorization. Batting one-thousand on a task like that is pretty amazing. I can barely remember the names of the nine muses.
On our Friday meeting I was extremely interested in the idea of ephemeral stories and how by simply writing the conversation between the roommates down, the story becomes timeless. When Dr. Sexson talked about the stories potential to disappear with death, it made me wonder how many amazing stories have been lost over time.