Course Reflection

This being the last day of class, I've decided for my last blog post to be a course reflection. I've really enjoyed being in this class. It has probably been my favorite this year. Most of my classes are lecture based where the professor speaks at you as opposed to 'to' you. Its refreshing to be in a class that encourages discussion. Also the level of intellectual stimulation is awesome. I love a class that makes you think and I believe that's what this class is all about.

South Park

Ever since we watched South Park in Class, I've been seeing it with new eyes. The show has always been really funny in my eyes, but now it just seems that much funnier. Its fairly obvious most of the time that the show is satirical, but now I look for deeper meaning in everything. I'm writing this post while watching the episode about the different atheist alliances. Its funny because God has been eliminated from the vocabulary and has been replaced by science. Which changes nothing about the weight of their words, just the semantics.

English Projects from Other Groups

All of the other groups in the class did an excellent job on their presentations. I especially like the group's presentation on Facebook. It was a very effective presentation because it was funny, which kept the audience involved, and it was something that everyone in the class was able to relate to. I'd like to think that our presentation was an effective one, but we probably should have prepared a little more. However, I feel like each group brought something unique to the table which helped deepen everyone else's understanding of the subject matter.

Religion

Hot button topic. I generally avoid talking about it but, while I'm thinking about it, I'll write about it. Christianity is a funny entity. It's a religion based on immaculate conception, resurrection from the dead, and an almighty being who made the world in six days. I believe all of that, I am a Christian, but I think it's funny how some members of the Christian flock have the balls to say that other religions are crazy. Really? Look at your own religion. I digress. The holy text of Christianity is the Bible. When you attend church, you are told how to interpret the bible. I believe that meaning is something that you have to find for yourself. If there are people out there who are Christians, but never interpret the Bible for themselves, how can these people find meaning in Christianity? I'm not a biblical scholar by any stretch of the imagination, but as of late I've attempted to read the Bible and reflect on it a couple times a week. I want to find the meaning for myself I suppose. Thank God I don't live in the middle ages, otherwise I'd be a prime candidate for burning at the stake or some other medieval method of dispatching the heretics. I guess what I'm wondering is if looking for meaning in a faith based idea is folly. Maybe so, but I think I'll keep trying, if nothing else I'll be well informed.

Much Love,

Nate

Movies

Aside from music, movies might be some of my favorite things in the world. Film is a medium where the intellect of an author and the passion of an actor run head-on into each other to create something amazing. I love movies that make you think, not in the way a spy thriller with all of its twists and turns or a historical movie with all of its facts and allusions make you think, but movies that produce a truly cathartic experience for the viewer. I could name hundreds of movies that I like. I recently attempted to make a top five favorite movies list on one Facebook application or another and I simply couldn't do it. I'm going to try again and explain why I chose each of the movies.

1) Fight Club- The story of a man coming to self awareness. Not to mention the awesome fight scenes. I love the way Edward Norton's character doesn't have a name. How can he when he doesn't know who he his.
2) Requiem for a Dream- this movie left me feeling absolutely numb. I literally stared at the TV for ten minutes after the movie was over. Addiction isn't relegated to drugs and it can drive people crazy.
3) There Will Be Blood- well, it has Daniel Day Lewis in it, so it's going to be emotionally intense. I like it because it shows that human nature can take you to and over the top, but that a uni-faceted nature will quickly take you over the top
4)The Big Lebowski- Cohen brothers, enough said. I like this movie because you can pretty much make it mean anything, which also means it can mean nothing. I like to think that its an allegory of US foreign policy in the 90's with the Dude being the new government, Walter representing the governmental hangover from Vietnam, and Donnie representing the American public.
5) Animal House- there's really no deep meaning here, and that's what I love about it. Sometimes its refreshing to watch a movie that just "is".

So, there you go.

Much Love,

Nate

Books

In keeping with my general library/English theme of my last few posts, I feel as though I should discuss books. Cooper Library has somewhere around half a million books. Right now a 4:30 am I'm sitting in the middle of a mountain of information (or the peak because I'm on the sixth floor). I wonder how many times some of these books have been checked out over the years. How many minds have they shaped and expanded? How much knowledge has secreted from this building? Its almost mind boggling to walk amongst the book shelves. Each one of these books is someone's life work. Someone spent years writing some of these books which are walked by everyday. I would imagine that writing a book is one of the biggest contributions that someone can make to society; their influence can last forever, their ideas can shape or break a society. I've actually attempted to write a book. Nothing utterly profound like Hemmingway or Hawthorne would right and certainly no two thousand page monstrosity like Tom Clancy would crap out, but a book nevertheless. I failed; it's really hard to write a good book that means something. But lots of people have done it before. I'm sitting in a cathedral dedicated to the authors who came before me.

Much Love,

Nate

Brother Micah

I'm sure everyone has heard about Brother Micah, his rants, and the trouble that he was causing at various places around campus. I never actually saw him in person, but from what I hear he basically damned everyone around him to hell. He called all the girls whores and the guys were all doomed to burn for eternity because they were perpetual sinners outside the grace of God. This pissed a lot of people off. I heard countless conversations over the course of three or four days in which people were debating his message and his methods of delivering it. If I hadn't recently found that Brother Micah seemingly makes money by working up a crowd into a fever pitch of anger, and then suing the first person to lay a hand on him, I would think that Brother Micah might have been a rather effective evangelist. Obviously he takes a generally dim outlook on the youth of the world, but he got people talking about something that isn't generally discussed outside of certain situations: God and religion. People like Brother Micah are catalysts for change, whether they mean to or not. I would almost guarantee that God was mentioned more in the three days that he was on campus than the subject had been talked about all year. It got me talking, and I'm relatively hesitant to break into a theological discussion outside the walls of church. He's a con artist and, I assert, a raging lunatic, but he got me thinking. Maybe that's the purpose he serves on this earth.

Much Love,

Nate

Mrs. Sexton

I had a teacher in high school named Marie Sexton. Mrs. Sexton is a Rock Hill legend. She's the teacher who would fail you if you looked at her the wrong way and she told people that. She's the teacher that gave valedictorians their only sub-B grades in their entire public school careers. She's that teacher that told me I would fail her class ten minutes into the first time I ever stepped foot in her classroom because I "projected a negative attitude into her learning environment". She's the teacher who turned me into the writer and literary thinker that I am today. I pretty much skated through English classes up until my sophomore year at Northwestern High School. I read a lot when I was younger and always seemed to have a better grasp at the English language than most kids my age. I had heard for nine years that I was a great writer, and then Mrs. Sexton rocked my world. My first paper received a resounding "F"; I was crushed beyond belief. When I approached Mrs. Sexton about the grade after class, she told me that I couldn't get an "A" in her class by simply throwing big words and complex sentence structures at her. In a nutshell she told me that my writing sucked because I saw the world as a place inhabited by things waiting to be re-defined with bigger and better words, and that to be a good writer you have to define things. I took that to heart, I started to look at the world differently. I think that the book Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton was the first book that I read where I attempted to read more deeply into the story. Why are his pajamas red and not another color? Why did he crash into this type of tree and not this type of tree? These are questions that I asked myself and I found that reading was a whole new ballgame now. Ultimately I made a "D", a fact which kept me from receiving thousands of dollars in scholarships and numerous school district awards, but I feel as though I took something from that class which can never be matched: the ability to find meaning in the words of great authors and thinkers.

Much Love,

Nate

College Changes People

College changes people. It's a fact. I've seen my friends from back home change in both good and bad ways. I've seen those that were on top fall to the bottom and those who were overlooked in high school rise to the top of their respective situations. I feel as though college has a place for everyone and that the choices you made before you arrived on campus as a wide-eyed freshman largely determine your fate. One particular case would be a friend of mine who was a genius in high school. The kid simply dominated anything school could throw at him, and he had to put forth no effort to do this. His self-image was shaped by his intelligence, he was the smartest and that was that. He got to Clemson and realized that kids like him were a dime a dozen, and since he never really worked to expand his horizons in many other fields, he has fallen into an odd sort of obscurity; one that he seems to realize more than anyone else. Another one of my really good friends from high school showed up to campus and seemed to draw confidence from the largeness of his new surroundings. I, however, remain seemingly unchanged. I've always tried to roll with the punches, and I guess I've spent my whole life attempting to adapt to changes situations, and I'd like to think that I've done that here. I suppose my change has been more strongly recognizable in my intrinsic responsibility and work ethic than in my personality. It'll happen to me eventually, I just hope I choose the terms.

Much Love,

Nate

Procrastination

I'm a through and through procrastinator, but I'm in a rehab program of sorts. This rehab program is known as my freshman year at Clemson University. In high school I didn't study, I rarely started working on projects before the night that they were due, and I enjoyed an odd sense of satisfaction from all of this. Procrastinating for me was almost an excuse to not be the best, but to still seem fairly impressive. I could turn in a paper I spent two hours on and make five points lower on my grade than someone else who might have poured over it for days. I always made myself believe that it was worth the five points to have enjoyed a little more free time than my worry-wart classmates. I'm realizing now that my old ways simply won't cut it anymore. Pardon my language, but it's pretty hard to bullshit your way through college. I'm sure it has been done, but I doubt I want to try it. I'm starting to find the same sort of satisfaction in finishing a paper three or four days early that I used to find in finishing a paper three to four hours before it was due. College changes people (another topic I will explore in further blogfests) and I am among those who have changed.

Much Love,

Nate

The Library

I've spent a lot of time in the library this year. A lot of time. When people say that they are going to the library, you automatically assume that they are heading to at least a few hours of drudgery and boredom; they are people doomed to die amidst the flames of hellish academia. I'm beginning to see things a little differently. The library is a social hotspot if you try hard enough. During study breaks I can descend one flight of stairs and find five people that I know, all in the same position as me. It really makes it hard to complain about the work you have to do after you spend awhile in the library. I might have to type a couple papers and finish up some random assignments, whereas the guy at the table next to me is pounding out a ten page paper that's due in four hours and he hasn't slept in three days. It puts the entire college experience into perspective, nay, the library embodies the spirit of college. It's the place you go to either get ahead or catch up, to change your academic fortunes, or go to simply make yourself feel like a better student. These discoveries by no means are going to encourage me to spend any more time in the library than necessary, but they will help me to enjoy the time I do spend there that much more.

Much Love,

Nate

English Multi-Modal Project

As my group and I sit here putting the finishing touches on our multi-modal project, I have realized that I never really took the time to get to know the people in my group before we started working together. Certainly working with someone brings you closer together, but I feel as though I drew some unfair conclusions about the members of my group. I would now consider all of these people my friends, something I couldn't have said a mere week ago. Realizing this now, I wonder how many other opportunities I've missed out on by drawing and sticking to unfair first impressions. This project has helped me to realize and embrace the old addage, "don't judge a book by its cover." I've heard it a thousand times but now I know it and believe it.

Much Love,

Nate

Why I'm In College

Why Am I in College? Why have I chosen to attend Clemson University as opposed to staying at home? Obviously, I'll throw out the cliche answer: I'm here to get a good education which will allow me to be a fully functioning and successful member of society. That's the truth, well at least part of it. I'm also here to learn to live alone and to make myself a more self-sufficient individual. In the discourse of this year long experiment known as the freshman year, I've spent a large amount of time involved in activities outside the realm of academia. Some might see this irresponsible, but I've seen theses activities (pledging, playing guitar, etc...) as opportunities to grow as a person. Class is why I'm in college, but all the other stuff that comes with college is why I'm at Clemson. I put forth my best effort in my classes, at least the ones with which I find interest, and I do my assigned work. College is a growing experience and I feel as though the diploma is the ultimate goal, but I'm not in college to lock myself in my dorm and let these four year (or more) blow by me. So, what I guess what I'm trying to say is that I'm in college to grow and learn and those two activities aren't relegated to the classroom or even campus.

Much Love,

Nate