Monday, May 05, 2008
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Poems, Loans, and Laptops
- The beating-of-head-against-wall feeling has not ceased. I swear I am spending so many damn hours on this lesson, trying to read, understand, and evaluate modernist poetry like The Waste Land. I read this poem awhile ago, and my first thought was, “What the hell?” I feel similarly having read it again and trying to study it. I read it through once, then read it again spending heavy time in the footnotes tracing down his millions of allusions. I really, really liked “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock”. But damn if “The Waste Land” don’t just baffle the hell out of me – why and how this particular poem is considered a masterpiece, other than its inherent obtuseness. I feel low brow and dumb, and then figure, screw it, I’ll do what I can do.
EDIT: Grr. Finished the essay for the lesson. I came to the IHOP at midnight to force myself to finish it! I will happily not have to deal with analyzing poetry for awhile. I’ve never developed an appreciation for poetry other than the usual foray into Frost when a teenager, and while I might eventually, especially as I’ll be immersed in a lot next semester in my “British Romantics” class. But it seems like older poetry will be easier to understand right off, and enjoy. Here’s hoping.
- Hubs and I spent part of the night figuring out our financial plans for the near future, mainly, in what kind of loan we are going to get for our immediate schooling (we can’t get federal loans until we officially enroll in our master’s degrees next year, we both have about 4-5 leveling classes in the meantime). We finally decided on a home equity loan, and Dragos is going to shop around at banks to see what’s the best one to go with. Thankfully, we don’t have any undergrad debt, so all in all, between the loan we are taking now and the federal loans we’ll do in a year, it will be a total of about $35,000 for both our degrees combined. This seems pretty reasonable and doable in the long term.
- We went this weekend and bought me a new laptop for my birthday!!!!!!! Hubs hasn’t gotten it all fixed up yet, but should have it ready by Tuesday (actual b-day). I will take pics – it is cute and smaller 13 inch screen (which I wanted), has a comfortable keyboard and touchpad layout, and has all the specs Dragos wanted. Mine has been biting the dust for awhile now, and I’m so excited to have the new one to cart around for school next year!!!
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Comments (9)
Okay, my memory on this is a little fuzzy, but let me tell ya something "interesting" about the Waste Land. Like you, I think it's the biggest pile of nonsensical crap known to man. I loved Love Song. It reads, out loud, really well. Anywho, Waste Land was Eliot's eff you to his critics. It was sort of an...artistic statement. There was some criticize of his poetry at the time. So, he decided to screw with them--the chucks of the poem, not written in English, were taken from other sources. (Basically, if anyone else did that, it'd be plagarism.) And here's the kick--Eliot didn't speak any of those languages. So, he had NO idea what he was throwing in there. He just threw a bunch of crap together. So, Waste Land, is just a compliation of literary garbage--everything and the kitchen sink.
Yeah, I know--it doesn't make me like it any better, either. *grin*
Yay for the laptop!!! Can't wait to see pictures!
Ooh, a new laptop! That's so exciting. I'd really like one of those myself. Mine is only about 3 years old, but it's so freaking slow! I tried buying more memory for it, but couldn't get it to work.
The Waste Land is some pretty tough stuff. I enjoy it, but don't really attempt to understand it. Poetry tends to get me on a level just a little below my conscious and rational level--or perhaps a bit above. At any rate, I tend to feel, rather than think about, poetry. And of course, The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock is absolutely fabulous. T.S. Eliot is one of my favorite poets.
RYC: I justify my near-daily popcorn habit by focusing on how it's high fiber. :)
And, is modernist poetry supposed to make sense?
now I really want to take a poetry class next fall... sheesh... I love all that abstract garbage... LOL...
YEA!!! for the new laptop... my desk top is still out of commision and really I just have to get my lazy arse to the apple store to figure out what's wrong w/ it... but while I'm there I know I'm just going to be drooling over the new laptops.... I really have been thinking about getting one... BUT I really don't have the kind of money to spend of such frivolus things... and good job w/ the loan... that's a really good deal!
Yeah, older poetry is better, IMO. It seems to be more concrete. I've read a few recent poems, and wonder if the trend is turning back that way.
Congrats on the new laptop!
M-kay. I think you need to expound on the biting of the laptop dust. The freaking thing BURNS YOU IT'S SO HOT! Geez Louise.
In Stockton Unified, the school district I grew up in, there was no 'usual foray into Frost' (unless Frost is a weapon reference (pained smile)). That said though, I agree that one should do what one can do.
Meh. I always thought of modern poetry as I thought of modern (classical) music. It can be any damn thing that I want it to be as long as I explain it well enough.
$35K for 2 master's degrees is pretty good if you can keep it to that. I'm in the hole $48K (and that's after paying for 4 years) for my law degree, and I don't even want to talk about what BF owes. It's unfortunate people have to borrow so much for school, but I'm thinking you guys can definitely handle $35,000.