Final Exam Notes

·         Sinister – left-handedness

·         Logos - Word

·         Questions from Group presentation

5) What was the song at the end credits? White Wedding – Billy Idol

2) Who’s Oprah compared to? Zeus

1) How many versions of myth? Infinite

3) The shameful  truth = title to Magus silent film

6) The characters: Pirate, irish, Viking, cowboy, Egyptian, Chinese

4)The last words – “That’s all folks!”

·         Teresa and Tori’s blogs

·         All that is past possesses the present

·         Every answer is a form of death

·         The ritual of Adonis – the death of a person at too young of an age, an occasion for mourning

·         James dean, jim Morrison, elvis Presley

·         Sacrifice – to make sacred

·         The collective unconscious

·         Eliade and the chuang chou butterfly

·         When you eat and drink think of me – holy communion

·         The god game, everything is fiction

·         Eurydice

·         Orpheus, a defined musician. Play music to overcome death

·         Bhagvada Gita

·         The swerve

·         Eschatology

·         Metempsychosis

·         Cicada – rapture of music, muses taught humans how to sing

Disney Pegasus

While kids often wish for a magic pony, a unicorn, or Santa Claus perhaps, I always wished I had Pegasus. The Disney version of Pegasus, of course. Hercules is one of my favorite Disney cartoons, but I was jealous that the demi-god got to keep him and ride him, and be his best friend! 

In case most of you didn't know, Pegasus is a winged horse and is Hercules' personal steed. Zeus described him as, "a magnificent horse with the brain of a bird". 

Pegasus was created by Zeus using clouds as a gift for his newborn son, Hercules. That night, however, Hercules was kidnapped. Pegasus did not reunite with Hercules until the now-teenager, went to the Temple of Zeus. Zeus summoned a fully-grown Pegasus, while telling Hercules of their history.

Nicholas Urfe

Drawing near to the end of the Magus, my rage was undeniable. Fowles wants readers to realize their part in reality with a heavy dosage of fiction in this book. It's almost a mind game as if..

Most of us can come to an agreement that Urfe plays this mysterious role and Fowles has been leading us on in a constant wonder. 

Just like how Sherwood mentioned in one of his posts, Urfe's reality is turned upside down and the world of myth swallows him whole. Urfe never knows who to trust from the start to the end; which I agree. 

"If Rome, a city of the vulgar living, had been depressing after Greece, London, a city of the drab dead, was fifty times worse. I had forgotten the innumerability of the place, its ugliness, its termite density.. ...It was like mud after diamonds, dank undergrowth after sunlit marble,"

Each time, Urfe attempts to "mask" himself  with a new identity, he is "reminded of the existential dictum that he is 'condemned to be free'". He goes on following "bad faith" and operate "inauthenticity" until the end, where he finally "concede" that he is helpless...

source: Jay's Analysis

A Dream

When I was younger, I was easily terrified. My family used to be very superstitious. "Don't look in the mirror at midnight because 'something' else will look back." Just plain old ghost story would do some serious "damage" on me, especially when it was time for bed. "Hey, mom! Can I sleep with you??!" Mom locks door to her room. 

hmm..

Every night when I was in my childhood years, I would have recurring nightmares. (Guess I should re-title this blog post). Nightmares which involved very dark emotions and grief. I did not understand then what they meant and why they happened. But I was so scared. I never talked about it to my parents or to anyone, because everything was better again when dawn broke. In my dreams (nightmares), I would be crying my heart out. When I finally twitch and wake up, I realized I probably didn't scream that loud, because back then, I was rooming with my sister and she slept like a log..

"She was looking at the act of looking. ..it the place where another person looking will find 'the image of himself looking',". (Calasso 209)

Now, after reading Calasso, I related it to dreams. When you are dreaming, somehow you actually are looking at yourself in that dream. It is very vivid at times and then your alarm goes off, and you realize it had always been just a dream. 

NIKE

"..while Nike fluttered around her with a crown in her hand," (Calasso 226)

Nike is one of my favorite sporting brands. Who knew it was Greek until this class, Thanks to Mythology 285!
In Greek Mythology, Nikey is the winged Goddess of victory both in battle and peaceful competition. She sat at the side of Zeus and is a mystical presence, symbolizing victorious encounters, Nike presided over history's earliest battlefields. 


A Greek would say, "When we go to battle and win, we say it is NIKE."


"The Nike 'swoosh' embodies the spirit of the winged goddess who inspired the most courageous and chivalrous warriors at the dawn of civilization."

MSU Bobcats!

Clumsy, trouble-maker

Yes. That was me. I was a little girl, annoying, and clumsy. I could not carry a glass of water across the living room without spilling, I could not walk proper enough to not trip on something or get caught in something and fall on my face. 


"Nice to see, good to hold; once broken, considered sold!"
Isn't that how the saying goes? When you walk into a store full of glasses, cups and other fragile items, if you touch it and you break it, YOU BUY IT! I was warned, NEVER to touch anything when walking into stores like these. I'm surprised I never broke anything in any store I've been into. But, I broke many other things I didn't have to buy...


My dad is a big fan of horses. He would have portraits, paintings and also statues of them all over the house. Sometimes he would have statues of rhinos too (the most fragile ones of course). One day, one of his rhino statues was sitting on the counter top. Being the usual me, curious and "itching" for something to grab, I went and touched it. I laid my finger on its pointed and sharp horn; and off it came, broken. My dad, in his usual response, went ballistic on me. "You are so clumsy!! You are so clumsy! Now I have to fix it! It's gonna look horrible now! You can't do anything!" ...talk about "verbal abuse". (Nah my dad loves me anyway). I was told not to do a lot of things but did them anyway.. and got definitely got in trouble..


I learned in one of my college classes that all these were part of growing. My bones were growing, my muscles were building and learning to coordinate with other parts of my body. So THAT'S WHY I WAS SO CLUMSY, DAD!

"I'm just a baby, see, too small and tender-footed for such work. And I've hardly heard of oxen. All I want is mother's milk, hot baths, warm blankets, lots of sleep. I'll even swear an oath: NOT GUILTY!" Words of Hermes, after the mess he had caused, after just being born for a day.

Earliest Memories

1.) The time when I caught the Chicken Pox in kindergarden. 


The first girl who caught the Chicken Pox; her parents clearly didn't know what it was and didn't think it was a big deal and still kept her coming to school. (On the bright side, I got to miss school for a week or more!) :)


2.) I love Barbie dolls

Those bright pink colors on their mini houses, bathrooms, closets, pink dog....
Those extremely cute tiny clothes!
I used to get extremely jealous of my classmates who had prettier dolls and cuter barbie clothes, when they bring them to class. I would save up a lot of money just to buy more barbie dolls. I remember asking my grandmother for her sewing kit when I was 7, so I could sew my own barbie clothes. (It was quite a success! My grandmother was very proud of me) :)
Eventually, I grew out of it... :(


3.) The "Baby bouncer"


The old-school baby bouncer (that consisted of a hook in the ceiling and springs that holds on to the "bouncer") was my best friend. I spent most of my toddler days and childhood at my grandparents'. After kindergarden ended for the day, that's where I took my naps. When I grew too big to sleep in the bouncer, I would still sit in it and pretended it was a swing... 

Best invention ever! (According to me)

4.) My first asthma attack


I was probably 9 or 10 when I first had asthma. At night, in bed, I would be wheezing when I sleep. My parents stayed up all night just to take care of me because my asthma was not just any regular asthma. It was the "silent killer". 

"I was to have no sense of time for the next five days. When I first woke up I did not know how many hours had passed." (The Magus 490)
What feels like just yesterday, when I was back home, living with my parents, had no worries but go to school and play. Days and years have gone by so fast; and I'm in college now playing college tennis, living my dream...