For the seven or so undergraduate students, it's a sign you've taken an obvious initiative in your education by reading this blog. If you're glancing this outside of a lecture class- where its mustard yellow color looks ugly and scholarly enough to be a website relating the professor's discussion- you're probably a nerd.
There's nothing wrong with that of course, but being an English nerd for its own sake is such a waste.
You're a member of Generation Y I'll assume. It's your duty to feel a sense of entitlement for things you may have earned in only the loosest sense of the word.
What better way to cruse through life than by scaling the ivory towers so oft decried by the blue collars. You did go to college to escape the misery of your parents and grandparents right? Hell, by being an English major you've essentially thrown the bird to every other major on campus.
Nursing? Psht, keep the bed pans and nonstop whining to yourself. Communication Arts? As if. You prefer to actually create something rather than regurgitate the same tried scripts and camera angles. Math? I'll bet those theoretical equations come in real useful when figuring out just how much you stand to loose in this economy.
I would insult the Computer Science majors here too, but I fear what my world would be like without my spellchecker. They escape a beating... this time.
You, the English major, see that whole physical labor or 9-5 world and proclaim your decision with one simple word:
"Nah."
With this in mind, there's no better way to assist your journey through the world of academia than by buddying up with a professor.
I'm not talking a buddy cop movie whereby they yell at you on how much a loose cannon you are, but in terms of developing your skill set and honing on what subdivision of English you wish to pursue while studying here they become an invaluable asset.
Those four years go by fast, it's best to make them count.
Check with a professor whose class you enjoy on what other sorts of projects you can get involved in. While actually writing
is kryptonite for many English majors, becoming involved with academic conferences, working with a newspaper, or seeing what sorts of odd jobs you could pick up are only a few of the ways you can pad out that resume.
Trust me, you need that padding.
If you're looking for a few ideas on how to get some delicious fluff on your resume, look into the following. Keep in mind most of these programs are ones I've been personally involved in, but they're pretty universal.
The Western MA Undergraduate Shakespeare Conference- We all have to write about the possibly bisexual/nonexistent/cyborg bard they call William Shakespeare, so why not put your papers on him to work? Each year a conference hosted by region colleges provide undergrads a chance to present their papers, usually with a different theme. Ask Dr. Lisa Gim for more information.
Route 2- It's the literary publication of the school. Perhaps Dr. Ian Willams told you about submitting in a soft plea after a silent tear rolled down his cheek. In short, it takes your poems and short stories and publishes you in a booklet bound by (possibly) real horse glue. There's nothing to loose here, so send some submissions in. Just remember to give your submissions the once over before handing them in, the editorial staff doesn't consider inserting a semicolon into words as creativity.
The Point- Dr. Doris Schmidt's proverbial four-year phoenix. The Point continues to go dormant, flare back up, and become dormant once more. There's no reason now for it to be trapped in such a cycle however. Currently working on the paper is offered as a class and offers a starting point in the Adobe InDesign software. In the real world of writing and publishing, this is the definitive software to learn. Earning a few credits to pick up a useful skill would seem like a decent deal to me. With most of the Point staff graduating soon too, there's ample opportunity to leave your mark on the next chapter of the little paper that could. There's also conferences to New York to network with other student papers.
These conferences are also great to feel an overwhelming feeling of depression consume you when you realize their papers are granted 40k by the school every year. Shoutout to that school rep I talked to from northern NY: I hate you.
Sigma Tau Delta Annual Conference- This is, in this writer's humble opinion, the big kahuna of conferences. For the past few years students of FSC have flown out to hotspots (and by that I mean the cities in American with nothing else going for them) to present their school papers and creative pieces to a group of experts and their peers. Check with the Sigma Tau Delta at their by weekly meetings or with Dr. Aruna Krishnamurthy.
By now I've probably killed at least 10, maybe 20 if you're slow, minutes of your lecture. Tootles till next time.
Wednesday, March 18, 2009
Sunday, March 15, 2009
Bloging by Logging In
Hello, this is a post from the other blog writer here.
Since Patrick seems bent on tipping the golden cow the moment we descended from the mount, I figured I might as well chime in a similar fashion. Excuse the brevity of my reasoning compared to Cuff's, I'm studying journalism at the moment. A journalist attention span is limited to 250 words or less, exceptions being granted on Sundays.
1: Ender's Game
This is a terrible book with a terrible premise and terrible writing. It's so terrible that its poor writing rubbed off on me and produced that atrocity of a previous sentence. Look, in the 1970s when this was written it may have been golly-gee whiz-bang exciting. Today, however, the idea of two 12 year olds taking over ARPAnet is just silly. Joke's on Card though. Children never used
the internet to further themselves. Of course, with the advent of Wikipedia, maybe Card was ahead of his time and foresaw these children toppling all of academia via poorly written articles which cite Fox News and Newsweek as sources. See, he rubbed off on me again. That's a classic run-on back there.
2: The Harry Potter Series
It seems kind of pitiful of me to claim that I hate a series of children's books, but I do. I don't hate them really for what they are, the nature of fantasy being long in the tooth aside, but I hate them on the basis of spreading fantasy novels like wildfire.
You see children, let's have a sit down here with Uncle Tim. Fantasy and Sci-Fi only work if there is something greater than the core narrative at play. What's also important is that no one cares about the hero's quest anymore. It's done, it's over, it suffered, died, and was buried just so we could remove it from our memories.
Instead, people want a fall nowadays. This is what makes Fahrenheit 451, 1984, Beowulf, and The Green Knight so great. The characters go on a journey, sure, but they all let themselves down in a certain capacity.
Above all, however, these works leave your imagination at work. Potter, Lord of the Rings (yeah, I'm going there), and modern pulp novels attempt to explain things which are better left to the readers imagination to fill in the blanks. It's the classic question when reading a novel not set in our world: "Why does this exist?" The best response is, as always, "plot dicates it, you figure it out." I, as a reader at least, don't care about your explanations for the shlock you invent. Give me a decent character instead.
Wow, so far I've fulfilled the stereotypical 21 something male demograpic for reading. Such is life I guess.
That's really about it for books I hate in all honesty, so lets get to some other meat on this post bone.
Today I want to tell you about my internship. Considering the institution I'm currently interning at has mandated that all employees take an unpaid week furlough at somepoint in the coming year just to save money, you know the industry is in dire straights. That's a story for another time though.
What I find fascinating about working at the paper, however, is a pocket Conservative resistance I never realized existed in MA of all places.
Considering where our little college is located, this shouldn't come as too much of a surprise to readers of this blog. Lord knows what happens in the boonies of the Ayer/Shirley area. Still, my internship is located at a collection of suburbs north of Boston, a place I'd have expect to be blue to the core.
From our editorial staff, to our opinion section, to every single call I've handled with our "call in" feature, folks believe that paying a tax for anything is akin to severing the digits of their first born.
Of course, the spectrum of political beliefs which comprise this nation (you may pick only one of two however) are what make our country great. I cannot for the life of me though understand how anyone in this day and age can unironically type the phrase "welfare queens in caddies" without simply self combusting. It also disappoints me that I didn't hear the noise coming from our editorial department as any professional op-ed writer who can be paid for typing that is simply a paradox within our reality.
My red flag waving liberalism aside, I cannot help but feel depressed because, outside of a little monthly that carries all the credibility of The Onion, we're the only paper within the area. Where is my liberal bias going to come from? The Globe?! I'd be lucky if that thing will still be left standing overnight.
Of course, I could just be bitter at our readership as they called Fitchburg State College's teaching program "nothing but a vocational school for Masters degrees". I shouldn't be too mad though, as this same individual also believed that having schools be completely privatized was the best way of handling education.
Sometimes I wish I could lie to myself that well.
Well that about does it for now. If you folks want more endless musings on things not relating to FSC and it's English department, feel free to check out Mass Time Waster- my blog on video games. Truly a subject which matters. It's currently being written for credit in another class, so I can somewhat justify writing over 1k words on manchild toys.
Well this was a long first post. See you all soon.
Since Patrick seems bent on tipping the golden cow the moment we descended from the mount, I figured I might as well chime in a similar fashion. Excuse the brevity of my reasoning compared to Cuff's, I'm studying journalism at the moment. A journalist attention span is limited to 250 words or less, exceptions being granted on Sundays.
1: Ender's Game
This is a terrible book with a terrible premise and terrible writing. It's so terrible that its poor writing rubbed off on me and produced that atrocity of a previous sentence. Look, in the 1970s when this was written it may have been golly-gee whiz-bang exciting. Today, however, the idea of two 12 year olds taking over ARPAnet is just silly. Joke's on Card though. Children never used
the internet to further themselves. Of course, with the advent of Wikipedia, maybe Card was ahead of his time and foresaw these children toppling all of academia via poorly written articles which cite Fox News and Newsweek as sources. See, he rubbed off on me again. That's a classic run-on back there.
2: The Harry Potter Series
It seems kind of pitiful of me to claim that I hate a series of children's books, but I do. I don't hate them really for what they are, the nature of fantasy being long in the tooth aside, but I hate them on the basis of spreading fantasy novels like wildfire.
You see children, let's have a sit down here with Uncle Tim. Fantasy and Sci-Fi only work if there is something greater than the core narrative at play. What's also important is that no one cares about the hero's quest anymore. It's done, it's over, it suffered, died, and was buried just so we could remove it from our memories.
Instead, people want a fall nowadays. This is what makes Fahrenheit 451, 1984, Beowulf, and The Green Knight so great. The characters go on a journey, sure, but they all let themselves down in a certain capacity.
Above all, however, these works leave your imagination at work. Potter, Lord of the Rings (yeah, I'm going there), and modern pulp novels attempt to explain things which are better left to the readers imagination to fill in the blanks. It's the classic question when reading a novel not set in our world: "Why does this exist?" The best response is, as always, "plot dicates it, you figure it out." I, as a reader at least, don't care about your explanations for the shlock you invent. Give me a decent character instead.
Wow, so far I've fulfilled the stereotypical 21 something male demograpic for reading. Such is life I guess.
That's really about it for books I hate in all honesty, so lets get to some other meat on this post bone.
Today I want to tell you about my internship. Considering the institution I'm currently interning at has mandated that all employees take an unpaid week furlough at somepoint in the coming year just to save money, you know the industry is in dire straights. That's a story for another time though.
What I find fascinating about working at the paper, however, is a pocket Conservative resistance I never realized existed in MA of all places.
Considering where our little college is located, this shouldn't come as too much of a surprise to readers of this blog. Lord knows what happens in the boonies of the Ayer/Shirley area. Still, my internship is located at a collection of suburbs north of Boston, a place I'd have expect to be blue to the core.
From our editorial staff, to our opinion section, to every single call I've handled with our "call in" feature, folks believe that paying a tax for anything is akin to severing the digits of their first born.
Of course, the spectrum of political beliefs which comprise this nation (you may pick only one of two however) are what make our country great. I cannot for the life of me though understand how anyone in this day and age can unironically type the phrase "welfare queens in caddies" without simply self combusting. It also disappoints me that I didn't hear the noise coming from our editorial department as any professional op-ed writer who can be paid for typing that is simply a paradox within our reality.
My red flag waving liberalism aside, I cannot help but feel depressed because, outside of a little monthly that carries all the credibility of The Onion, we're the only paper within the area. Where is my liberal bias going to come from? The Globe?! I'd be lucky if that thing will still be left standing overnight.
Of course, I could just be bitter at our readership as they called Fitchburg State College's teaching program "nothing but a vocational school for Masters degrees". I shouldn't be too mad though, as this same individual also believed that having schools be completely privatized was the best way of handling education.
Sometimes I wish I could lie to myself that well.
Well that about does it for now. If you folks want more endless musings on things not relating to FSC and it's English department, feel free to check out Mass Time Waster- my blog on video games. Truly a subject which matters. It's currently being written for credit in another class, so I can somewhat justify writing over 1k words on manchild toys.
Well this was a long first post. See you all soon.
Carrot cake? Carrots? Same nutritional quality to me.
Somewhere lost between Jackie Collins and William Faulkner is good writing. I'm sure of it. You don't find many knitting circles talking about a Faulkner classic that just tickles them pink, just as you don't find many pipe-smoking literati wearing ascots talking about the latest trashy Jackie Collins book that kept them up all night. Do Faulkner and Collins both serve their purpose? Sure. But are both good writers? Eh. Somewhere lost between the mental candy of Collins and the synapse-firing overload of Faulkner is a happy medium of writing.
I'll probably be excommunicated from the religion of literature for saying Faulkner does nothing for me, but so be it. Math textbooks have kept me more excited than most any Faulkner story. Maybe it's the force-feeding of Faulkner that loses me. When my mother tried force-feeding me beets as a child I rebelled. Faulkner = beets. My only redemption is that I don't rebel against Faulkner just to embrace the lusty nature of Jackie Collins. If Faulkner is beets then Jackie Collins is an ice cream sundae dessert on steroids. But I'll pass on getting literature diabetes as well, thanks.
Debates over good and bad taste are as old as humanity. I'm sure cave dwellers 20,000 years ago argued with one another over charcoal drawings of fish and horses on the cave walls. Today, we have people arguing with Gwyneth Paltrow on her own blog about books she, Madonna, and supermodel Christy Turlington say are good. (I don't know what part of that last sentence disturbs me most--that Gwyneth Paltrow has a blog, or that Christy Turlington is telling me what books to read.) So, if Christy Turlington can sashay down the runway and then turn around and tell me to read The Sound and the Fury by Faulker (as she does...here), then I can turn around and argue what's as equally overrated. Here are a few random strays to get you going:
1.) Catcher in the Rye, by JD Salinger: I've come across more pubescent angst in a Miley Cyrus song than I ever read in this book. Yet, again and again and again I'm told this book cuts to the bone on examining society and human relations. Maybe it was cutting edge when it was published in 1951. "I Love Lucy" still had Lucy and Ricky sleeping in separate beds after all, so maybe society wasn't ready for Holden Caulfield getting reprimanded by a pimp. Still, I don't see the genius behind it. Shakespeare had cross-dressers 350 years earlier, so it's not like touching on taboo issues was only broached by Salinger.
2.) The Twilight books: Like lawyers and mosquitoes, blood suckers in the form of vampires never did anything for me. A literate 6th grader amped-up on Little Debbie snack cakes and 7-Up could probably conjure up a more interesting premise.
3.) Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison: Morrison is a great writer, don't get me wrong. Sula? Good stuff. It's just that Song of Solomon feels as realistic as a Days of Our Lives plot line. But if this is all it takes to be considered for the Nobel Prize for literature, then I can't wait to win my own in about 30 years. I could use the money.
4.) The Poky Little Puppy by Janette Sebring Lowrey: Hey, don't knock it. The Poky Little Puppy kept me captivated as a wee one. But the devastation I had at the conclusion of the book when he goes to bed without strawberry shortcake and feels very sorry for himself cut too close to the heart. Here was this puppy--a rebel ten times more powerful than Holden Caulfield--and he gets his comeuppence at the end. Can't we send our children off to bed on a high note??
5.) Anything by Mitch Albom: Like The Poky Little Puppy, only for adults, and more ruthless in trying to convey a "lesson." Pretend The Poky Little Puppy decided to die at the end for no other reason because he led a misbegotten life and didn't hug his children enough. Then you get a Mitch Albom book.
That's it for now. If you don't mind, I need to go see what Christy Turlington and Gwyneth Paltrow are telling me to do next. They promised a "yummy meal" at the end of their best books blog post, so I've got my fingers crossed for a tasty Sunday meal in store!
I'll probably be excommunicated from the religion of literature for saying Faulkner does nothing for me, but so be it. Math textbooks have kept me more excited than most any Faulkner story. Maybe it's the force-feeding of Faulkner that loses me. When my mother tried force-feeding me beets as a child I rebelled. Faulkner = beets. My only redemption is that I don't rebel against Faulkner just to embrace the lusty nature of Jackie Collins. If Faulkner is beets then Jackie Collins is an ice cream sundae dessert on steroids. But I'll pass on getting literature diabetes as well, thanks.
Debates over good and bad taste are as old as humanity. I'm sure cave dwellers 20,000 years ago argued with one another over charcoal drawings of fish and horses on the cave walls. Today, we have people arguing with Gwyneth Paltrow on her own blog about books she, Madonna, and supermodel Christy Turlington say are good. (I don't know what part of that last sentence disturbs me most--that Gwyneth Paltrow has a blog, or that Christy Turlington is telling me what books to read.) So, if Christy Turlington can sashay down the runway and then turn around and tell me to read The Sound and the Fury by Faulker (as she does...here), then I can turn around and argue what's as equally overrated. Here are a few random strays to get you going:
1.) Catcher in the Rye, by JD Salinger: I've come across more pubescent angst in a Miley Cyrus song than I ever read in this book. Yet, again and again and again I'm told this book cuts to the bone on examining society and human relations. Maybe it was cutting edge when it was published in 1951. "I Love Lucy" still had Lucy and Ricky sleeping in separate beds after all, so maybe society wasn't ready for Holden Caulfield getting reprimanded by a pimp. Still, I don't see the genius behind it. Shakespeare had cross-dressers 350 years earlier, so it's not like touching on taboo issues was only broached by Salinger.
2.) The Twilight books: Like lawyers and mosquitoes, blood suckers in the form of vampires never did anything for me. A literate 6th grader amped-up on Little Debbie snack cakes and 7-Up could probably conjure up a more interesting premise.
3.) Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison: Morrison is a great writer, don't get me wrong. Sula? Good stuff. It's just that Song of Solomon feels as realistic as a Days of Our Lives plot line. But if this is all it takes to be considered for the Nobel Prize for literature, then I can't wait to win my own in about 30 years. I could use the money.
4.) The Poky Little Puppy by Janette Sebring Lowrey: Hey, don't knock it. The Poky Little Puppy kept me captivated as a wee one. But the devastation I had at the conclusion of the book when he goes to bed without strawberry shortcake and feels very sorry for himself cut too close to the heart. Here was this puppy--a rebel ten times more powerful than Holden Caulfield--and he gets his comeuppence at the end. Can't we send our children off to bed on a high note??
5.) Anything by Mitch Albom: Like The Poky Little Puppy, only for adults, and more ruthless in trying to convey a "lesson." Pretend The Poky Little Puppy decided to die at the end for no other reason because he led a misbegotten life and didn't hug his children enough. Then you get a Mitch Albom book.
That's it for now. If you don't mind, I need to go see what Christy Turlington and Gwyneth Paltrow are telling me to do next. They promised a "yummy meal" at the end of their best books blog post, so I've got my fingers crossed for a tasty Sunday meal in store!
Thursday, March 12, 2009
Where to start?
Quotes are always a good way to start off something new. You grab a quote by someone more famous than yourself and use their words to make your point. English majors love using quotes for multiple reasons. Quotes sound deep. Quotes sound profound. They're a lifetime's worth of wisdom in one tidy sentence. But English majors also love them because they're lazy. I should know, because I was one. Starting essays off with a quote by someone more famous than myself was my bread and butter. Staring at a blank Microsoft Word document for 45 minutes usually didn't inspire me, but grabbing a quote by Oscar Wilde always helped, if only to put ink on the page.
Ahhh, we won't start this blog off with a quote though. This is a blog, not an essay. It's the trashy cousin to the elegant essay. This blog is meant to be a venue for English majors past and present from Fitchburg State College to let their mind mosey and meander, all without fear of being graded or worrying about grammar.
In short, this is an English department after all. That includes writing. Lo and behold, blogs require writing. What you get is a match made in literary heaven. We have literary journals and school newspapers already, so why not a blog? So...here's a blog. Will we mock ourselves? Yes. Will we mock famous writers? Yes. (And then we'll wonder why they won't visit our campus.) Will we take oursevles seriously? No. It's a blog, not a Leo Tolstoy epic. It'll be random and irreverant and quirky. And hopefully it won't been shut down in two weeks.
So, enjoy. Even if we didn't start this off with a quote, it promises to be good. Or at least marginal. Or at least capable of distracting you for two minutes. And that's a start.
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