Monday, May 02, 2005
My Final Paper
instead of just quoting it like i did in the previous post, i'll post the whole thing right here. at the moment, i don't have a good file host and blogspot sucks, so oh well.
To be honest, I never really understood Ong. Half of the things he said would make sense and then the other half would just confuse the stuff I thought I already understood. Excerpting Ong and explaining only one sentence is a good tactic to prevent confusion. It seems to me that there is no way to understand his sentences when strung together. I liked Yates but the reading was a little dense. I felt I could skip over the slightly more boring paragraphs while reading the more interesting ones and still understand everything that was being discussed. Some of it seemed a little bit archaic and when yates would dip into Latin and Greek for more than a paragraph, despite a background in Latin, I lost interest quickly. Kane was great.(strange, but great) The point I liked most was that agriculture has ultimately destroyed culture and I loved seeing it relate to the thesis argument. Performing the chapters was also a fun way to interact with the class while expressing the material. I think(most of) our presentations expanded on the earlier class memory projects and it was nice to see them all of the class work tie together so neatly. But I wish we'd had more time presenting Kane. I would have liked to have heard from each person their take on the chapters they had presented. For example, the stuff I didn't get a chance to say:
Complementarity found in Myth can be represented in the story of Branwen Daughter Of Llyr. It begins with double complementarity by describing a king and his brother and then two brothers on his mothers side all standing around a rock. While still in the first paragraph, the story describes the two who are half-brothers to the king as total opposites. Each one represents one of the Myth narratives: Nissyen represents the narrative of dreaming, associated with animals, fertility, the spirit of the earth, and the sacred feminine while his brother, Evnissyen, represents the narrative of doing, associated with men, aggression, the use of tools, and naming. These two narratives serve to express in story the power humans have over the earth. When used together, represented by the marriage of Branwyen and her children, adventure is represented by the battle her brother wages for her honor, disappearance is represented by the deaths of just about everyone(most of all bran), and death is represented by the celebrating of life and everything that happens to brans dead head. The last story structure, winter and death, is complemented with cheering and joy and we see the final complementarity within the structure of story, that of life and death.
The story structure these narratives use is another form of complementarity. The life cycle as lived by these people followed the four seasons, beginning with spring, following with summer followed by autumn, and ended with winter. This was the pattern of life and stories reflected it by following the structure of birth, adventure, disappearance, and then death. In this story, birth is represented by the marriage of Branwyen and her children, adventure is represented by the battle her brother wages for her honor, disappearance is represented by the deaths of just about everyone(most of all bran), and death is represented by the celebrating of life and everything that happens to brans dead head. The last story structure of Branwen Daughter Of Llyr, winter and death, is expressed with cheering and joy and we see the final complementarity within the structure of story, that of life and death complementing each other.
That was my little prepared three minute speech I didn't get to give.
The class assignments were wonderful. I didn't see how important they really were until these last few weeks. The memorization of the top 100 book list, as performed by everyone, taught us that we can memorize and we can do it in many different ways. This complemented the Ong reading nicely. While Ong shows us the ways in which memory works and that oral cultures are being misunderstood and killed, this memorization exercise allowed us a taste of the oral culture experience. It helped me to see how the ways of an oral culture might fit into my life today.(contrary to Ong, who must be wrong) The notion that a hybrid of the written and the oral cultures is possible helped me by creating an atmosphere ready for imagination. The epic poems we constructed for each other was a wonderful example of bringing our written world into the spoken. I wish I had spent more time on an epic which I could have recited to the class. Of my four pages of epic-like poetry(two memorized), only one was readable to the class. The rest was just too risque.
At first I didn't like the idea of an e journal. My harddrive had crashed and, in my entire life, I've had an inability to finish journals or even keep them going. I passionately hate the idea of maintaining one. This turned into a good experience, though, because it made me realize two important things: 1) journals aren't completely evil and 2) this is the only way I'm going to develop my writing to the point where it will be interesting
enough to market. I must continue to blog and I have two good ideas for future blogging.
The memory exercises we've done through class have helped me in enormous ways. I test better, I feel smarter, I have something fun to do at work, and the more I do them the easier they are. I've figured out what does work for me and what doesn't. on account of my memory retrieval difficulty, pattern recognition is very difficult for me. Objects appear to be easier for me to remember than areas. An example of this would be the test question requiring us to remember #10, Alice In Wonderland. #8, Tao Te Ching, is my coffee pot and #13, Pale Fire, is the small dim light above my sink. I remembered these instantly. It took me three minutes to remember that Alice In Wonderland is my kitchen counter(because it represents so much culinary adventure). When I am faced with association memory tasks, I must use objects and not areas.
I've also come to better understand the way I remember patterns. In high school, my sensei commented on my execution of moves as never being the same way twice. My best friend Dan, who was also in Aikido with me, was a physical memory "genius". It would take me two or three tries, at most, and we would be able to replicate a movement the same way every time no mater when he was asked to perform it. Consequently, I now see just how well my high school Aikido "blended" with my opponents. I used to think I was terrible with my physical memory and now I see how I can turn it into a strength. When memorizing the Bobby Fischer chess game, I found it much easier to memorize the physical movements of the pieces instead of the chess notation of the game which dictates how the pieces should be moved. Of the physical movements of the chess pieces, I memorized the feeling of the patterns more than I did the individual movements. This has caused me to see the game as a series of consequences and not as a series of choices.(I understand the clear distinction between the two as they relate to chess but that would be the subject of another paper) I've had several strong revelations this semester and this one is perhaps the strongest. Everyone at chess club has wondered what's happened to me and what I've done to improve my playing. Even I am amazed with this.
Strangely, the material we've covered in Oral Traditions seems to be popping up in my other classes. In English 308, Multicultural Young Adult Lit, my term paper deals with two books we've read and, oddly, in each a central father figure is named Solomon and is illiterate. What are the odds!? Song Of Solomon, by Toni Morrison and Gabriel's Story, by David Anthony Durham are stories about the shifts in black american culture in the 19th and 20th centuries. Stories such as Brer Rabbit An Brer Fox are referenced and come straight out of the developing literate cultures where few can read and a heavy reliance on the Oral exists. Discussing material from one class in another class always feels strange but I expected it with my native american law class. How could a government break the verbal pact it had given? I had a much fuller understanding of just how offended certain tribes were when the federal government broke their word.
I wish I could take this class a second time. I would put more effort into the memorization assignments. I see their effects and their benefits as far outweighing the additional time it will take me to meet the memory successes of others. The readings are provocative, with a bit of philosophy, and exactly the material I enjoy discussing. This class is one of the most valuable classes I've taken as it has helped me to better understand my place in this world. I dream of being a writer but I must first learn about humans talk to each other. This class has helped me to begin to understand that.
To be honest, I never really understood Ong. Half of the things he said would make sense and then the other half would just confuse the stuff I thought I already understood. Excerpting Ong and explaining only one sentence is a good tactic to prevent confusion. It seems to me that there is no way to understand his sentences when strung together. I liked Yates but the reading was a little dense. I felt I could skip over the slightly more boring paragraphs while reading the more interesting ones and still understand everything that was being discussed. Some of it seemed a little bit archaic and when yates would dip into Latin and Greek for more than a paragraph, despite a background in Latin, I lost interest quickly. Kane was great.(strange, but great) The point I liked most was that agriculture has ultimately destroyed culture and I loved seeing it relate to the thesis argument. Performing the chapters was also a fun way to interact with the class while expressing the material. I think(most of) our presentations expanded on the earlier class memory projects and it was nice to see them all of the class work tie together so neatly. But I wish we'd had more time presenting Kane. I would have liked to have heard from each person their take on the chapters they had presented. For example, the stuff I didn't get a chance to say:
Complementarity found in Myth can be represented in the story of Branwen Daughter Of Llyr. It begins with double complementarity by describing a king and his brother and then two brothers on his mothers side all standing around a rock. While still in the first paragraph, the story describes the two who are half-brothers to the king as total opposites. Each one represents one of the Myth narratives: Nissyen represents the narrative of dreaming, associated with animals, fertility, the spirit of the earth, and the sacred feminine while his brother, Evnissyen, represents the narrative of doing, associated with men, aggression, the use of tools, and naming. These two narratives serve to express in story the power humans have over the earth. When used together, represented by the marriage of Branwyen and her children, adventure is represented by the battle her brother wages for her honor, disappearance is represented by the deaths of just about everyone(most of all bran), and death is represented by the celebrating of life and everything that happens to brans dead head. The last story structure, winter and death, is complemented with cheering and joy and we see the final complementarity within the structure of story, that of life and death.
The story structure these narratives use is another form of complementarity. The life cycle as lived by these people followed the four seasons, beginning with spring, following with summer followed by autumn, and ended with winter. This was the pattern of life and stories reflected it by following the structure of birth, adventure, disappearance, and then death. In this story, birth is represented by the marriage of Branwyen and her children, adventure is represented by the battle her brother wages for her honor, disappearance is represented by the deaths of just about everyone(most of all bran), and death is represented by the celebrating of life and everything that happens to brans dead head. The last story structure of Branwen Daughter Of Llyr, winter and death, is expressed with cheering and joy and we see the final complementarity within the structure of story, that of life and death complementing each other.
That was my little prepared three minute speech I didn't get to give.
The class assignments were wonderful. I didn't see how important they really were until these last few weeks. The memorization of the top 100 book list, as performed by everyone, taught us that we can memorize and we can do it in many different ways. This complemented the Ong reading nicely. While Ong shows us the ways in which memory works and that oral cultures are being misunderstood and killed, this memorization exercise allowed us a taste of the oral culture experience. It helped me to see how the ways of an oral culture might fit into my life today.(contrary to Ong, who must be wrong) The notion that a hybrid of the written and the oral cultures is possible helped me by creating an atmosphere ready for imagination. The epic poems we constructed for each other was a wonderful example of bringing our written world into the spoken. I wish I had spent more time on an epic which I could have recited to the class. Of my four pages of epic-like poetry(two memorized), only one was readable to the class. The rest was just too risque.
At first I didn't like the idea of an e journal. My harddrive had crashed and, in my entire life, I've had an inability to finish journals or even keep them going. I passionately hate the idea of maintaining one. This turned into a good experience, though, because it made me realize two important things: 1) journals aren't completely evil and 2) this is the only way I'm going to develop my writing to the point where it will be interesting
enough to market. I must continue to blog and I have two good ideas for future blogging.
The memory exercises we've done through class have helped me in enormous ways. I test better, I feel smarter, I have something fun to do at work, and the more I do them the easier they are. I've figured out what does work for me and what doesn't. on account of my memory retrieval difficulty, pattern recognition is very difficult for me. Objects appear to be easier for me to remember than areas. An example of this would be the test question requiring us to remember #10, Alice In Wonderland. #8, Tao Te Ching, is my coffee pot and #13, Pale Fire, is the small dim light above my sink. I remembered these instantly. It took me three minutes to remember that Alice In Wonderland is my kitchen counter(because it represents so much culinary adventure). When I am faced with association memory tasks, I must use objects and not areas.
I've also come to better understand the way I remember patterns. In high school, my sensei commented on my execution of moves as never being the same way twice. My best friend Dan, who was also in Aikido with me, was a physical memory "genius". It would take me two or three tries, at most, and we would be able to replicate a movement the same way every time no mater when he was asked to perform it. Consequently, I now see just how well my high school Aikido "blended" with my opponents. I used to think I was terrible with my physical memory and now I see how I can turn it into a strength. When memorizing the Bobby Fischer chess game, I found it much easier to memorize the physical movements of the pieces instead of the chess notation of the game which dictates how the pieces should be moved. Of the physical movements of the chess pieces, I memorized the feeling of the patterns more than I did the individual movements. This has caused me to see the game as a series of consequences and not as a series of choices.(I understand the clear distinction between the two as they relate to chess but that would be the subject of another paper) I've had several strong revelations this semester and this one is perhaps the strongest. Everyone at chess club has wondered what's happened to me and what I've done to improve my playing. Even I am amazed with this.
Strangely, the material we've covered in Oral Traditions seems to be popping up in my other classes. In English 308, Multicultural Young Adult Lit, my term paper deals with two books we've read and, oddly, in each a central father figure is named Solomon and is illiterate. What are the odds!? Song Of Solomon, by Toni Morrison and Gabriel's Story, by David Anthony Durham are stories about the shifts in black american culture in the 19th and 20th centuries. Stories such as Brer Rabbit An Brer Fox are referenced and come straight out of the developing literate cultures where few can read and a heavy reliance on the Oral exists. Discussing material from one class in another class always feels strange but I expected it with my native american law class. How could a government break the verbal pact it had given? I had a much fuller understanding of just how offended certain tribes were when the federal government broke their word.
I wish I could take this class a second time. I would put more effort into the memorization assignments. I see their effects and their benefits as far outweighing the additional time it will take me to meet the memory successes of others. The readings are provocative, with a bit of philosophy, and exactly the material I enjoy discussing. This class is one of the most valuable classes I've taken as it has helped me to better understand my place in this world. I dream of being a writer but I must first learn about humans talk to each other. This class has helped me to begin to understand that.
# posted by Mick @ 11:03 PM 
