Progress of Perspective

In an effort to tie in both Renaissance ideas and the progress of this Humanities class, I find myself looking toward novel modes of experiencing realities. If anything has been learned the whole semester it has been finding the progress of my perspective. Over the past few weeks I have found myself like Hamlet. In class I think tremendously upon myself as to whether or not teachers or the people who play out my education are experiencing the same reality as myself. I’m frustrated by the perspective that says awkwardness and frustration is only acceptable by the authority, when I am contemplating educational suicide. Is there weeping that says I don’t deserve this, more real than mine of the likewise concern? My reality states that structure and first tries is giving way to artistic plots that have grown weeds in the plans of my knowledge. The response is to take vengeance on the one thing dear to them. Angered I plan to shred all understanding of pain and frustration, applying the angered point of my ballpoint not my bodkin to the lines of an essay. I want to kill the essay!! I want a chance to take vengeance for my perspective and no longer sit back on the nonsensical excuses of a tired brain and a bad mood. My vanishing point lies deep within my words. I am the renaissance artist controlling where I want eyes to give notice to depth and complexity of the times.

System Overload

The midterm offered its frustrations and painstaking studying for some people but for myself I noticed that I could use more preparation and internalizing of the material. Finding relations between the respective artistic and cultural qualities of each of the places we learned of was not all that complicated rather remembering the factual aspects that threw me off. The danger in this kind of writing or test-taking is that you find yourself basing each culture off of your own interpretation and not how it would have been viewed in their societies. Granted the end result can prove to be okay, but that in itself is not true comprehension of the culture. What kind of steps does it take to improve this knowledge? I believe at some level it takes a personal responsibility to ask questions in class and research some on your own to get those deeper comparisons within the cultures. The nature of the course itself does not really set us up for this rather, and by no means is this a professor’s fault, it sets us up for surface level fact based information and both the students and professors are overwhelmed by the shallow end before they even take a dive in the deep. The solution I believe is an overhaul of the entire class structure but this can be saved for another blog for now I will resolve to furthering my knowledge as much as I can in the current system!!

Worrying Wisdom

Interestingly aggravating - that’s what I would have to say was the total experience of this past weeks midterm preparation. By no means do I mean the test was ridiculously hard but rather the lack of confidence or need to worry I saw in many of my classmates made me frustrated. Having talked with many of the people in our class and having known many of them my entire life, I know that they are capable enough to do well on a test, yet they worry. If there is one thing I can say to the nature of education is that all too often either by outside pressure or by class structure, schooling has become a vacuum sucking the confidence out of student by use of overload. Methods by teachers and personal expectations create disarray around any test time for any class that drives me insane. The constant asking of questions that were based off of pure anxiety, in the moments before the test was aggravating. Regardless of the make up of the test the materials have been set before each and every one of us and we just have to go out and perform and deal with the results when they get here. This concept of predicting and expecting certain results before an action is an overwhelmingly aggravating ideal in American culture and is way different from the cultures we have learned of so far in Humanities. We seem to want accolades before accomplishment or a curve before we commence. The reality is, at least for me, that whatever the result is I can always do better, if I take this approach to a test I don’t worry. Moreover, if any worry should be placed on my life it is that I become anxious when I am not improving in all aspects of education. I am never going to achieve perfection and am in constant need of getting better at everything. Perhaps I was blessed with excellent teachers that have instilled in me this mentality or life situations are producing in me wisdom but regardless I still say, as my heritage would, “Que sera sera”. Whatever will be will be…

Endurance Training

Odysseus has many qualities both spiritual and physical I would love to have. Traits like cunning, wit and obedience our characteristics I find myself dabbling into from time to time, with occasional success, but it is his faith and endurance that I desire to make more common in my life. In the lab portion of class last Thursday I came across a quote that as a student and as a man demonstrates the enduring character of Odysseus, it reads: “and the waves swirled it way, stripped bare and snapped the mast from the decks-but a backstay made of bull’s hide still held fast, with this I lashed the mast and keel together, made them one riding a makeshift raft as the wretched gale winds bore me on and on”. The brilliance of Odysseus here is that he makes and deals with something from nothing. What is presented before him he does not let hinder him rather seemingly, with guile or cunning, endures it to his advantage.
As I ponder on that and trace over what we have done in class so far I have noticed that endurance is becoming the underlying theme, drone or canvas of our class with the melody and style being our actions played out over it! Let us face it no one wants to be in class at such a weird hour but we have to develop a rhythm to our study that fits the frequency, better yet, wave that is guiding us through humanities. Endurance is getting through those three hour class periods and listening past the not so peaceful siren in the tone of some teachers voices as well as communicating and trusting in classmates enough to bounce ideas off of them that will, in the long run, get me to home to a A.

Magnolia Leaves

Question and answer portions of any speech or presentation regardless of the topic can become surprisingly interesting, like the question of Dr. Armstrong's education history the first day!Some questions are deep and well thought and some refreshing or random. The random ones seem to always catch a laugh but never really inspire intense thinking; Saturday at the Hindu Temple Society of Augusta was different. The random question became the most important (at least to me).
A girl in the middle of the seating area of the temple a good distance from the presenter asked a question about the leaves above every door and if there was a significance. The question was random because the topic at the moment was about the representation of the Idols, nonetheless, it was answered by the lady. In short, the leaves above each door represent the sweetness and purity of Hindu worship and the beginning of a festival. Traditionally however those leaves are those of a mango tree but given the lack of a substantial mango trees in Augusta they choose to use magnolia leaves. Now on the surface level this meant nothing to me then I thought about it and it seems to me that despite personal beliefs people may have, we all put up substitutes for what is best or original in our lives; using magnolia leaves instead of mango to justify our own festivals. Essentially what I mean is we settle for things that are not meant for us or are a quick fix to a simple problem and never consider using what is best or what worked in the past. On a more basic level we can relate this to a dating relationship. People, in their need for love, and given the lack of “substantial opposite sex trees”, often fall victim to settling for a “magnolia” partner who instantly gratifies their needs never considering or searching for the optimal alternative and sweetness of a mango. In the context of Homer’s epic the Iliad and more specific the chariot race, we see the same settling. Menelaus won the race but for some reason the king settled for less and chose to honor another before him. It may be enough for some people to simply go with the moment or seize the day, but I’m in it for eternity and will not be content with settling for the ordinary. Thus is my goal in Humanities to finish the race and not settle for an ordinary understanding of the material. The remedy is to consider the original, the tradition or the things that have worked before. For many of us, despite what we want, not settling seems to be listening to our parental figures’ advice or those whose wisdom has been plenty before us and have shown the endurance needed to run the race and not bail for the obvious gratification.