Katie Simpson

Its kind of weird that I’m writing this already, not going to lie. The year flew by, but not with out its obstacles, which you will soon experience. Trust me. I KNOW, you’ve already heard a thousand rumors most bad, maybe a few good ones hear and there. But if you’ve heard any in-between listen to those people cause odds are those are the people who have done fairly well in this class. I’m not saying i got an A in this class, cause I didn’t but I think it is achievable. I how ever slack every now and then, which is not good but hey, it happens. But if you don’t then your going to be just fine.

My first bit of advice is never question the assignment, just freaking do it! Harsh i know but its the best advice you could ever hear. There’s always a method to her madness, always. I can honestly say this is the craziest English class i have ever been in, and it was an experience but i feel like I’ve accomplished something cause I made it out and with some dignity, I might add.

Next is to pay attention, cause if you do your gonna learn alot. She knows what she’s talking about so give her that. Even if yall dont get along just participate or do your work. And if your like me, more of an observer in class, try and work outside of your comfort area, cause when I did i actually had a little bit of fun. Just dont get to crazy.

BLOG! What else can i tell you young children, but to do you blogs and do it right, and on time. In the beging i really didnt enjoy blogging but later on it grew on me. If you cant sleep one night, go and free post and type about your lack of sleep. Its really not that hard, and sure you might feel alittle dorky “blogging” but you’ll get over that real quick i promise. 

Do what your suppose to do and the year will go by quick, and next thing you know. You’ll be typing the exact message you just read.

God speed young grasshoppers…

In this part i found it strange that Ros would go up to the queen and scare her, even though it wasnt her he thought it was. I just didnt think they had that type of relationship where that would be exceptable behavior. Then see that Hamlet is going to Ophelia, and we dont see their talk but after the talk, Ophelia runs out crying. So, we know that Hamlet has just broken up with her,and the Player are practicing for the play. This section has been much more about plot and making it so much easier to comprehend then the previous parts where its all about interpreting Ros and Guil and their personalities.

Then we learn that Hamlet has killed Polonious and they are ordered by the king to go and find Hamlet and the body. Then they cant decided which way to go, which was funny, but shows how they cant make decisions on their own and how co dependent they are. They are also talking alot about death and “joking” about how they are going to die and stuff it seems light hearted at the time, but after they keep mentioning it we get the vibe that they are going to die soon, especially because the king is going to send Hamlet away to England but plans to have him killed and Hamlet plans to send Ros and Guil in his place, so im pretty sure their going to die in England.

This reading was much like the other ones, lots of back and forth conversation between Ros and Guil. Their relationship makes them seem like one person, much like they are in Hamlet. To the other characters they are interchangeable. Their tone in this part is very playful at one point, which is a major post modern theme. They also are talking about death and mentioned being “killed” by Hamlet which I in the text means like verbally, but i believe it might be foreshadowing something to come maybe explaining the title of the play.

They also discuss Hamlets well being with the player that has been summoned by Hamlet to perform for the King in order to get a reaction. The player thinks that Hamlet is love crazy because he talked to Polonius, and Ros and Guil thought it was grief, but this shows that Hamlet really doesn’t trust them enough to tell them the whole story, because they were sent to spy on him at one time. They also take out the coin and start to flip it, showing how easily they can switch emotional gears, so I dont think they feel affected by all the drama that is going on. They continue with the back and forth banter throughout the play keeping a lighter tone.

To live or not not live- is what im wondering

Is it better to suffer in your mind

My situation is unfortunate

Should I take on this impossible task, against my uncle(sea)

Ending our relationship, I would die

Dying, from the loss

Hurting from the situation

He’s family but still not right

Is it wrong to want to die

Dying would be more peaceful

Think of what it would be like to be happy through death

After leaving our bodies behind

But no disrespect

Why do we put ourselves through so much unhappiness

who would go through life for so long

someone hurts us, and we take it

A love one hurting us, and no justice

No one has done anything

He was not worthy

He himself quit

What a stab? Who can hold a burden

Life takes a toll on you

But what comes after death

The afterlife is unknown, never discovered

No one knows, its scary

So it makes us scared to try and find out

We dont go because we dont know

The knowledge that we are scared to find out make us cowardly

And so we are naive

The thought of all this makes me sick

This is a big issues creating drama

And its going into a path that is not good

It looses its main cause, wait

Ophelia is coming,

Let all that i said be remembered

1.) Hamlet is meeting Ophelia, but he is being watch , so before this he is feeling so overwhelmed by all of this. He is contemplating death, because he has been so torn up over the death of his father, and that his uncle was the killer.

2.) Hamlet at this point is speaking to himself, so his audience is the reader and so he is trying to convince us of how miserable he has become. And that because of the situation he must take extreme measures. His secondary audience is himself, he is trying to reassure himself that his actions are justified. And that he is contemplating death on a count of how terrible this is all making him feel

3.) The purpose is to show his instability so far in the play. That the farther he goes into the murder of his father, the more he wants to die. Him as a person is weaker and the grief is not helping him, it also shows his character flaw his in ability to act, because he always says he wants to die but never does it.

4.) Pathos: Hamlet is definitely appealing to our emotions line 72 he talks about death like its sleeping, like it would be a good and comfortable thing. Line 80 he is comparing love and law, and how love hurts you so much and the law needs to step in and help. Line 86 talking about death like it is a land not discovered, so he is making death the better outlet than facing your conflicts

5.) He uses imagery line 66 about going against a sea, meaning his uncle. Comparing his uncle to a sea. line 73 comparing death to a dream. Alliteration, line 84 bear bodkin. Line 86 comparing the after life to a land undiscovered.

6.) Its a very powerful speech, it definitely showed me where his head was at now in the play. Which is good because it sets up his later actions, and almost justified them. But you can tell he is very shaken up and young and doesn’t know what to do.

Ros and Guil, begins with a game of chance. Ros is the chance taker, calling heads every time Guil flips the coin. Guil seems to be the more logical of the two, he goes off on Ros for breaking the record and then stopping. While Ros talks about death, and how things can be unexplainable. Like your nails, and beard grow even after death, and talks about life as well. He likes things that are unusual like getting heads every time he has flipped the coin.

Its definitely post modern because, the language is contemporary, its very deep in the out look on life and death. Has some foreshadowing of something terrible might happen like in Hamlet. They both are very dark stories, that show the after life and the things we can explain in life, the supernatural aspects of the world. They have some integration of Hamlet in the play, so they obviously have a connection between the two tragedies. And I feel like there is some tension between Ros and Guil. Because they are so different in personality so that might link back to Hamlet, in that the people closest to each other will betray you.

So i think our school volleyball tryouts are this coming week, and for the first time I’m not freaking out. Cause we’re gonna be the seniors, so we get to run things which is scary but I know were going to have  so much fun. This year we get to pick the theme, the music all of  our activities and it amazing. I feel like Ive been waiting for this moment my whole life and now that its here, it feels unreal. I remember seeing all the senior girls my freshmen year, thinking wow! They are so old, and Ill never bee as good of a player as these people. But the funny thing is I don’t feel old enough to be a role model for these up coming freshmen and I know i will have to be, so we’ll see how it goes.

I have a great feeling about this year game wise, our four senior girls are all great players and i know the upcoming 11 grade girls are going to step it up and fill those other to positions to their best. Its looking like we have a strong team which is very exciting cause it makes the season so much more enjoyable. So over all my mood is super happy.

Well I really feel i dont know that much about drama, or plays for that matter. But the only things I do remember about Shakespeare is that his plays are tragedies, meaning something bad happens in everyone of them. Either someone dies or everyone dies like in Romeo and Juliet. Drama in general, to  me it means conflict is the stories main driving force. What keeps the play going is that something goes wrong and later they find a solution, well sometimes. It reminds of cause and effect.

Plays are dialogue between people so there’s not much inner though in the literature, so it tough to figure out what the characters are feeling. But Shakespeare uses these monologues, where one character is talking and just pouring their hearts out. He uses this to express emotion, which helps the reads get into the heads of the characters. His plays are usually dark, so I’m expecting Hamlet to be creepy, and twisted and so far what we’ve read in class, it sound kind of depressing, so no surprise there.

For my paper I decided to compare the Franklin’s tale to Perceval. They are both Courtly Romances, so the story lines are similar to each other. Both of them follow a certain pattern, and that’s why they remind me of each other. I’m not going to compare them together but use Perceval as a base and show how the Franklin’s tale is a converted Courtly Romance. Because Perceval is an older more original courtly romance the Franklins tale shows the marriage aspects and how the view of love has changed.

Im tyring to make this more of a non formal explanation of my view on how the two are related to one another. And showing the change in how Courtly romance changed. Because Franklin’s was more focused on the reformed outlook on marriage and Perceval is the typical courtly romance, with the Knight, the lady love, the fighting and the bad guy. Imlooking at both stories from all the different angles tyring to point out the changes that have occurred over time.

It was a very laid back weekend, which was just what I needed. Friday me and my friends went to dinner at Kona which was so much fun. They have the best music there and we sang along with it, it was very bad singing but still alot of fun. Then we saw death at a funeral, it was possibly the funniest movie Ive ever seen. My sister said that it was a remake of an older British film, which I plan on renting because I sure that version will be just as hilarious. Seriously we didnt stop laughing it was that funny.

Woke up fairly early on Saturday to go to Abby’s race, I was going to do the fun one mile but got there to late so I ended up doing the 5k. It was 3.1 miles I believe. But we were drenched afterwards it was so dang hot outside, it felt like summer. Then I laid outside and enjoyed the sun as much as I could it was lovely. Then today I did absolutely nothing, but sleep until one o’clock, it was much needed sleep time i must admit. And watched a lifetime marathon. It was a very low key weekend.

So, comma usage is definitely one of my big uses in English class. Teachers have always tried to teach me how to use them but I can never really get it right.  Even my sister, mom, and father have tried, but it has  become a useless feat. For me this blog is very uncomfortable, solely because I kind of dont know if Im using my punctuation correctly, but I asure you I will try my best. Grammar and I have never really gotten along, it would not be well my strong point some would say. Mrs. Duke, my current English teacher gave us this seemingly impossible task to improve our writing skills, and well I think it could be working.

We will soon find out. I did however put this blog off only because of my fear, and loathing hate for grammar. That is all.