TCITR 7-12 (chapters)

• If I was just kicked out of school, I would just go home. I'm not scared of my parents THAT much, and it's the most comfortable option I have. I would be fed, and I wouldn't really have too much worry on where to go next.
• Jane is important to Holden because she's really the only person outside of his family who isn't too much of a "phony" to him. He doesn't quite know his feelings about her and how important she is to him, or at least in what he says, but he wants to call just about every second he's away from her. And he could NOT get his mind off of Stradlater, a Holden-certified "moron", being with Jane in the coach's Buick. She's almost in the running for being as important to Holden as Allie was.
• I don't think people are always ruining things for me, and I can't think of a time someone has ruined something for me off the top of my head. However, I think it's very true for Holden - he gets the most amount of crap thrown at him, and once he finally settles somewhere, people ruin that for him. He's had Pencey ruined for him, Bernice and Marty and the other one ruined his experience at the Lavender Room or Club or whatever, and Lillian ruined his time at Ernie's. The streak even continues after this reading!

The Catcher in the Rye questions through chapter six

• To be unique is to have characteristics unlike anyone else, or just have extremely rare characteristics. I feel that in the story, no one is truly unique except for Ackley and Holden. Everyone else is just part of the school in slight moderation, and they are all very similar. Jane may be unique based on what Holden described, and also maybe the fact that he likes her, but I don't have enough information on her to know whether she is unique compared to everyone else.
• To keep individuality in the adult world is not go by any one's rules. For example, Holden has a great amount of individuality because he hates to be like anyone else, and he doesn't even care that he isn't even going to school anymore. Ackley has individuality because he never does anything that people tell him to do - he never brushes his teeth, he never really ever does anything that you want him to do with common sense unless you yell at him. It's very hard to keep individuality in the adult world, especially with all the various scruples littered silently everywhere today.
• I don't really have a favorite person, but if you put a gun to my head, I guess I would say my mom. There are very few similarities I can find between her and Allie - my mom doesn't go against what's expected of her appearance, and it's not that she's mean, but she wouldn't exactly be described extremely and outwardly nice, or at least with people that she's more comfortable with. But my mom does get good appraisal from her colleagues at work, much like Allie does  from school. And she is also one of the most intelligent people I know. It is much more street smarts than book smarts, but the book smarts she has include everything she would possibly need to live in the modern world, and she's also very resourceful. Otherwise she isn't really like Allie at all. Plus, I don't feel I know Allie enough from Holden's description of him, so it's kind of hard to make a comparison.

Odyssey books whatever we had to do to finish it

I am finally done with the Odyssey and looking at other posts by people I have followed in this class I am only the third person to finish it. This isn't anything new to me - I was actually surprised to see that two others had other had already finished it. But to the book - no, poem - itself. They actually used a different name for Dawn! Instead of rosy-fingered Dawn, they called it at one point rosy-fingered morn, and then they said gold-enthroned Dawn. I was surprised that Dawn was in a gold throne - she seems like a minor goddess, and where would they get her a gold throne. Next, is Rumour, mentioned late in the book, a metaphor, a goddess, or was it just a typo that it was capitalized? Also, is Mentor - the form that Minerva takes so often in the book, probably the most favored of all her forms - a real person that Minerva is copying, or is Mentor completely made up, and so is the whole story about him? It also seemed odd and abrupt when Ulysses was at war for on the last page and it just ended immediately. Except for the gory description, I thought it was awesome how Ulysses just whipped around after shooting through the twelve axes and killed Antinous. Just why didn't the story get into the part where Ulysses brought the oar to that weird country, sacrificed a bunch of animals, and slowly died somehow? I didn't really want the story to get much longer, but it was still a question that was floating above my head in the end.

Books XIII-XVII

Finally a reading without crap and fluff in it! O.K., I'm going to try to do this briefly. First, I'm going to talk about Neptune. It seems likie he would have tried harder than just turning the boat into a rock. And what will happen to the Phaeacians? They didn't deserve that! But I am still glad that Ulysses came home. Minerva turned him into the anonymous beggar, and it was annoying that he had such an intricate story when he didn't even have a name. Next, I found it so touching when Telemachus came back to Ulysses and they were crying. Random question: Why do all gods and goddesses get to control the wind?

Next, why did Argos the dog die as soon as he recognized Ulysses? And how did Argos recognize him? Then Ulysses begged all the suitors for food and such. This seemed risky, and afterwards when they said that the beggar might be a god or goddess, that made me realize how stressful that lifestyle would be, constantly worrying about your actions to please Jove. And lastly, Penelope wanted to hear the beggar's story. It seems like she would have heard enough stories by now, and they were false. I wouldn't even start to think that they were being honest no matter how nice they seemed. That's where it left off, so I tonight I'm going to start reading ahead. Happy reading, everyone!

Odyssey Books VIII-XII

I liked this passage. I was especially glad to have gotten the full of Ulysses's story. It was very blurry up to that point, and all I had known was that Neptune was mad at Ulysses and Ulysses had been trapped with Calypso. But out of all my reading, I couldn't keep my mind off the gruesome description with Cyclops, or Polyphemus. First disturbing paragraph, "The cruel wretch vouchsafed me not one word of answer, but with a sudden clutch he gripped up two of my men at once and dashed them down upon the ground as though they had been puppies. Their brains were shed upon the ground, and the earth was wet with their blood." It still went deeper into disturbingness, but I don't want to be reminded of anything more. It was also disturbing when they were twisting the peg into his eye! This isn't right, it's down-right disturbing - people had too much fascination with violence back then, a sick obsession and I hate it! I suppose people still find entertainment in violence, but this isn't right. If it's this disturbing with Cyclops/Polyphemus, I'm not sure the death of suitors will be so nice either. . . This has lowered my judgment of this book, and I'm downright angry at it right now.

Revelation of note!!!

I tried to comment on people's posts on my older, windows XP computer, but it kept denying access to comment. However, I did it on a modern windows 7 laptop and it worked! Hooray!

Books 5-7

This was really good! But I have some annoyances and questions. The gods keep guiding people and telling fates, but at other times it is stated that they have no control over humans. So do they have control on humans or not? And gods in this are so human-like that they reproduce, fall in love, etc. with humans!? That's pretty weird. . . But probably the most annoying, simple thing, is how rosy-fingered Dawn keeps appearing, every morning. So only dawn gets to take the form of a goddess? That's so unfair and annoying! Why can't their be ashy-fingered night, or orangey-fingered evening, or dandeliony-fingered evening! Plus, why does it have to be the fingers? It seems like it would be rosy-cheeked, or something along the lines of that! Also, what is a nymph? I've recollected (or what ever the word is) that a nymph is some sort of inferior, evil god or goddess, but that's just an inference - what really is a nymph? From all what I know, it's just some sort of bug here on earth, but what is it in Greek /Roman mythology? One last thought - what's going to happen for the last hundred or so pages if Ulysses is so close to getting home already? No spoilers, Josie and Ethan! (I don't think I used any periods - just exclamation points, question marks and multiple periods in a row. . . gosh, my fingers are numb!)