Personal response to "Romeo and Juliet" by William Shakespeare

"Romeo and Juliet" by William Shakespeare is some of my favorite plays. Therefore, I really enjoyed reading from this very romantic play. In my opinion, the part we read in class is the best part of the story. This made the class even more enjoyable. The English language in this play is from the early modern period. Therefore, I sometimes found it bit hard to understand at first glance. On the other hand, there was several of the English words we got explained in class that was very similar to Norwegian, and hence, easy for me to understand. The story of Romeo and Juliet is still amazing and current as the theme of forbidden or unhappy love is prevalent in every culture and social class. Reading the transcript also made me recall drama classes in College where we played this part of the play. I also remembered one of my favorite films called "Romeo + Juliet" featuring Leonardo Di Caprio and Claire Danes. I include a clip of my absolute favorite scene of the 1996-film and please listen to the fantastic music. It gives me goose pimples every time I listen to it...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_y9Vd4tGPi0

Personal response to "The riddle of experience vs. memory: Daniel Kahneman on TED.com"

I really enjoyed this clip called "The riddle of experience vs. memory: Daniel Kahneman on TED.com" as it made me think in a different way. I had never thought about the difference between experience and memory in this way. I also appreciates Kahneman's various and good examples on what he talked about. What I did not like so much was the pictures presented to me at Google images when I looked up the word "colonoscopy". I did not know what this word meant and I must say that the pictures showing on my laptop repulsed me. Thus, I lost my lunch appetite..

Nevertheless, the outcome for me watching this clip was positive as I learned that happiness may be analyzed and interpreted in at least two different ways. One based on the actual and concrete experiences and variables such as income etc. whereas the other is all about what a person perceives or memorizes.

Here is the link to the clip: http://blog.ted.com/2010/03/01/the_riddle_of_e/

Personal response to "Beowulf"

Some years ago I was on student exchange to Paris and saw the film "Beowulf" by Robert Zemeckis in a French cinema. I liked the film very much, so I was looking forward to read the excerpt in class despite Nathan's warnings about the text being difficult to read. So far, I must say that Nathan was right. The text seems difficult to understand as we almost get every second word explained. Nevertheless, I recognize some of the aspects from the film in the text. I liked the story in the film "Beowulf", so, as long as I get the difficult words explained in class I expect to like the text as well.

Personal reaction to "2011: A space Odyssey"

I really enjoyed watching the movie "2011: A space Odyssey" by Stanley Kubrick. One of the reasons why I liked the movie is that Kubrick utilizes the powerful music like "Thus Spoke Zarathustra " by Richard Strauss to create the extraordinary and fascinating mood of the film. Further, the music is being played several times during the film as it supports the theme of the film; human evolution and our dependency of technology. I am also amazed by the great animations and graphics that were used in this film considering that the film was made in 1968. The animations and graphics still seem modern and contemporary. Stanley Kubrick was very prophetic when he predicted that the humankind would depend so much on technology and some of the devices the characters use in the film bear resemblance to the modern devices like the iPod we use today.

What I did not like so much about the film were the slow pace and the lack of action. In comparison to contemporary films of the 21-century, with upbeat pace and typically a lot of action, I find "2011: A space Odyssey" too slow.

All in all, I liked the film very much.

A perfect surprise on a rainy day

Yesterday, the weather was very windy and it rained a lot here in Vancouver. I got soaking wet riding my bike from school. When I finally got home, my dog, Gordon, was very happy to see me and he expected me to take him for a walk at once. I thought to myself, “well, all my clothes are wet anyway,” so we went out for a short walk in the neighborhood. Returning to the house, the landlord called me and said that she had some post for me. In her hands there was no small postcard but a huge cardboard box with Norwegian stamps on it. I got so excited and could hardly wait to open the box till I got inside. My dog seemed to sense my excitement and started to rump around in the apartment wagging his tail at a high speed. I saw the box was addressed to me from my mother and I opened the box carefully. Inside I found Norwegian candies of every kind. There were potato chips, different types of chocolate, caramels, a special Norwegian brown cheese made of goat milk and liver for the dog. I placed all of the items on the kitchen table to watch them and realized that I was smiling from one ear to the other. Then my boyfriend entered the apartment with an annoyed grin on his face as all his clothes was dripping of water. I showed him the surprise on the kitchen table and his sad look turned into a bright white smile. We were both standing in the hall, smiling and holding each other despite the fact that we both got wet from his dripping clothes. Living abroad, it is really strange how you learn to appreciate the small things from you own country like the goat cheese. This was a perfect surprise on a day where the rain did not seem to have an ending.

Thank you Mom!

What happens after the story of “The Killers”ends

The story called “The Killers”, by Ernest Hemingway has an open ending. Here is my suggestion of what George, Nick, Ole Anderson, Max and Al do after the story ends.

First, I think George will continue to work in the restaurant as usual, but he and his colleagues may discuss the incident with "The Killers" during future lunch breaks. Second, Nick will start to look for a job out on the country side as he feels that he have had enough of his life in town, saying; “I’m going to get out of this town”. Third, Ole Anderson realizes that his life will end very soon as he probably has double-crossed somebody in Chicago, and know that somebody traces him down. Max and Al will manhunt Ole Anderson until they find him, and then they will kill him, easily, as he lies on his bed waiting for the vengeful bullet.

This ending will release the tension and and give the story a proper dénouement.

Personal response to “The Epic of Gilgamesh”

In order to give my personal response to “The Epic of Gilgamesh”, I discuss different attributes of the story.

My first impression of “The Epic of Gilgamesh” was that I liked the story and the way the unknown ancient author writes. The author writes concise and in forms of short verses, which I appreciate. He uses a lot of repetition in his writing style like when he repeats “Your form are not different, you are just like me”, “…Sleep like a fog already breath over him” and “At twenty leagues they broke bread, at thirty leagues they stopped for the night”. I also liked that the author uses a lot of similes and metaphors like when he compares sleep with a liquid that spills over; “No sooner had sleep spilled over me, than forthwith you touched me and made me awake!” Further, he also uses a lot of similes. One example of this is “The ocean grew calm, that had thrashed like a woman in labour, the tempest grew still, the Deluge ended.” Here, the ocean is compared to a woman that gives birth. What I liked the most about the unknown author’s writing is that he uses imageries to describe things so that I can imagine how things in the story were like. Finally, the author uses symbols like the number seven and snake which makes me think of stories from the Bible.

What I did not like so much about the story was the abrupt finish and the ancient language. I believe the reason why the author suddenly shifts to describe Gilgamesh’s hometown is that the author wants to convey to the reader that Gilgamesh realizes that he, eventually, will not live for ever. The language was sometimes hard to understand as some words were old-fashioned and unknown to me.

To sum up, I liked the story and the way it was written, but I found the ending a bit difficult to understand and some of the vocabulary ancient.

Interviews about writing

In order to find out other people’s writing habits and use of social media, I interviewed four persons on the West Mall on October 3, 2011.

The first respondent I interviewed was the Canadian boy named Alfred. He told me that he kept a personal paper diary in which he wrote weekly. Alfred did not use any social media, which I found surprising based on this young age. Further, he told me that he did some reflective writing on a monthly basis. When I probed him about this, he explained that he usually was at home when he wrote and that it helped him learn things about himself.

My second respondent was a Canadian girl named Sarah. Like Alfred, she kept a paper diary, but she wrote in it every second day. She did not have a blog herself, but she frequently followed her friend’s blogs. She told me that she did reflective writing every second day, whenever she wrote in her diary, and did so because she thinks it helps her organize her thoughts. She even told me that, sometimes, when she reads something she has written, it makes her change her mind.

The third person I interviewed was a Taiwan lady named Chin. She also kept a paper diary in which she wrote weekly. She did not either use social media, and seldom did reflective writing. Nevertheless, she told me that whenever she did, it helped her improve herself.

Finally, I interviewed Julia from Canada. She told med that she posted in social media on a monthly basis but and that she preferred using instant messaging to communicate with friends. Further, she said she does reflective writing on a monthly basis and that she does this when she is at home. She told me that it helps her to sort her thoughts and that it helps her to evaluate pros and cons to a decision.

To conclude, I was surprised of my respondents’ high rate tendency to keep a paper diary and their low use of social media. It seems that people do reflective writing at home and that the frequency varies a lot.

How is Luz portrayed in comparison with Jig?

In order to explain how Ernest Hemingway portrays Luz in comparison with Jig, I analyze his two stories "A Very Short Story" and "Hills Like White Elephants" respectively.

Luz is a World War I nurse who falls in love with a soldier while she tends him over the course of three months in a hospital. She agrees to marry him, but after the soldier returns home to the America, Luz writes a letter to him saying that she has fallen in love with an officer and that she will marry him the next summer. She also describes the love of the soldier and her self as a love of “a boy and a girl”. We can see that Luz is in power letting the soldier down. Later, she writes to the soldier that the officer did not marry her after all, but now the soldier ignores her. In this manner, she first was in power over the soldier, but eventually he dumped her. I believe Hemingway wants to convey to the reader that playing with a man’s love can be costly. In my opinion, Hemingway portrays Luz a simple and a bit loose and relentless to her soldier-boyfriend, and hence, she gets more attention from the soldier than she deserved.

On the other hand, creating the character Jig, I believe Hemingway wants to convey to the reader that women not always get the attention and the respect they deserve in a relationship with men and the complexity of a woman’s mind. Jig is in a relationship with an egocentric man; who does not understand her need for love, respect, and attention. This may reflect that the author wants to convey to the reader that women may be important in men’s lives, but that men tend not to give them the attention and respect they deserve. This can bear resemblance to the more recent James Brown and Betty Jean Newsome’s well known song “This is a man’s world” claiming that “This is a man’s world, but it wouldn’t be nothing without a woman or a girl (Wikipedia 2011a).” An example of this maltreatment is when the American man in “Hills Like White Elephants”, ignores the fact that people have died from abortion surgeries and oversimplifying it by telling the girl “It’s really an awfully simple operation, Jig”, in order to get his will. He cunningly tries to manipulate the girl to undertake an abortion six times before the girl vehemently responds, “Would you please, please, please, please, please, please, please stop talking?” She says “Please” seven times, which is one time more than the man has tried to convince her to have an abortion. This may illustrate that Hemingway wants the reader to realize that the girl is capable and willing to decide for herself what to do with the fetus. Relentlessly, the man continues by saying “But I don’t want you to” and “I don’t care anything about it”, which illustrates that he neither listen to, nor respect the girl.

Hemingway portrays Jig as being dependent of and dominated by her man. One example of this dependence is; despite the fact that the Jig and the American man in the “Hills Like White Elephants” have been traveling a lot, she does not understand the Spanish-speaking woman, and therefore has to ask the American “What did she say?” In contrast, Luz wanted to stay in Spain and was economically and socially independent of the soldier setting up a new hospital.

Hemingway portrays Jig as the protagonist and as a round character that develops during the story, while Luz is flat and the antagonist in “A very short story”. In “Hills Like White Elephants”, Jig develops from being the girl who asks the man all the questions to becoming the girl who provides the man with all the answers. In contrast, Luz is eventually turned down by her former love, the soldier.

To summarize, in “Hills Like White Elephants”, Jig is empowering her self standing up for her rights while Luz looses her power as she is turned down of both the officer and the soldier.


References:
Hemingway, Ernest. “A Very Short Story”. Handed out in class.

Rock, Claudia and Suneeti Phadke. 2007. Style and substance, 2nd edition, ÉDITIONS DU RENOUVEAU PÉDAGOGIQUE INC., Canada.

Wikipedia.2011. Available from URL: . Downloaded September 27, 2011.

My reflections about the movie "Being There"

Please follow the link and start the video so you have the right background music:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lyJwbwWg8uc, then read my blog...

The Hal Ashby directed movie “Being There” (1979), based on the 1971 novella written by Jerzy Kosinski, looks at the difference between perception and reality. The plot is really about how Chance, by just listening, nodding and smiling, is being misunderstood by people who eventually makes him a candidate for the president election. His name, Chance, may even reflect the fact that chance means luck, and that Chance comes far by simply just “Being There” at the right time and place, just as the title suggests.

When Chance is evicted from his home, the music playing in the background is a jazzed up version of the opening of Richard Strauss’s “Thus Spoke Zarathustra.” This music has lately been used in several productions to symbolize a new life, a new product, or that something big is happening in for example TV-commercials. The music piece was generally known as the theme music in Stanley Kubrick's 1968 film “2001: A Space Odyssey”. Nevertheless, the music piece is actually referring to the fictionized prophet, Zarathustra, descending from his mountain retreat to mankind. In the case of “Being There”, I believe the music piece reflects Chance entering the reality, his new life outside his home and his isolated garden. The music is originating from the German philosopher Friedrich Nietze’s philosophical novel “Thus Spoke Zarathustra.” It deals, among other things, with “eternal recurrence of the same” (Wikipedia 2011). In “Being There”, Chance is met with “I see” and “I understand” very many times talking to other persons. This is a recurrence of words and eventually misunderstandings.

It seems like Hal Ashby was inspired by this novel as he used several cues from the bible in ironic ways just like Nietze, making Chance walk on the water, the garden and the gardener symbolizing paradise and God, “the room upstairs” symbolizing heaven etc.. In Nietze’s novel, a central irony of the text is that Nietze mimics the style of the Bible in order to present ideas, which fundamentally oppose Christian and Jewish morality and tradition. Zarathustra’s roundelay was sat as part of Gustav Mahler’s Third Symphony in 1895-6 with the original title “What man tells me”. I find this is very ironic as this is really the essence of the movie. What is it that really is being said? And what are the pre-conceptions of the people surrounding Chance?

In the movie, I believe Chance is better off than most people he meets without having their pre-conceptions about ethics and morals. His lack of these societal denominators makes him do strange things simply because he does not know how to behave or respond. I think that this attribute eventually will be discovered, and that he will end up worse than the people around him. For instance, at the end of the movie Dr. Robert Allenby says to Chance, “you really are a gardener, aren’t you?” This may indicate that the doctor finally understands Chance direct and childish way of acting and loses some of the respect for him. He is no longer creating a finer and more developed perception of Chance than the reality.

Nevertheless, I think this is a nice story that tells us that one may come far with listening and smiling, but also that one should be aware of one’s pre-conceptions as they may not correspond with the reality.

Christopher and the Grizzlies

Hi.
Here is a picture taken of my boyfriend, Christopher, on the top of Grouse Mountain, in North Vancouver. Back home in Norway, he nickname among friends is actually "Bjoenn", which means bear. Nevertheless, this picture shows how big these bears are compared to Christopher who is almost 2 meters high... This spring I went to a bear hunting course in order to become a licensed bear hunter. In the course I learned about the biology of bears and had to shoot on bear blinks. The latter was quite difficult because the area in which to point for a lethal hit is very small and the blinks was sometimes moving. On the most difficult blink, I had to shoot four lethal shots within 4 seconds (including the time you need to reload the weapon). Eventually, I managed well and was actually interviewed by the local newspaper as there are very few certified female bear hunters in Norway.

I have a huge respect for these animals, and having the ability to hunt bears does not necessarily mean that I ever will. Nevertheless, it is nice to know what to do if I should meet a bear training my dog in the Canadian woods.

What writing means to me

I enjoy writing, but compared to many of my friends, I will probably write less nonsense on facebook and blogs. My boyfriend, Christopher, and I created a blog in order for our families, friends and colleagues to be able to follow us while we are here in Canada. If you are interested in more information, you may look up our blog on http://chrisbjoenness@blogspot.com.

I do not keep a diary, but I sometimes post small accomplishments on facebook like "Yeah, I hiked to the peak of Mount Seymour (1500 m high)". Writing in social media makes me overcome the challenge with 9 hours time difference to Norway. In this manner, people who care about me and are interested in my life may follow me on Blogger.com and on facebook.

About me

Hi.
My name is Henriette Eggen. I am a 27 years old Norwegian girl who lives in Vancouver. This fall I study English at the English Language Institute (ELI) at the Unniveristy of British Columbia in order to improve my reading, writing, listening and speaking skills. I believe fluency in English will help me succeed in business.

My personal interests are hunting, dog training, scuba diving, horseback riding, mountain hiking, cycling, listen to music and reading.

I have a boyfriend named Christopher and a gordon setter named Gordon Royal. You can see my blog at http://chrisbjoenness.blogspot.com for more information (in Norwegian) and pictures we have taken during our stay here in Vancouver.

If you want to get in touch with me, please look me up at facebook. Henriette Eggen is my username.

Have a nice day!

Regards

Henriette