Funny Sonnet, Kind Of, Not Really

The sonnet form is old and full of dust

And yet I want to learn to write one well.

To learn new forms and grow is quite a must,

But I will learn it quickly, I can tell.

And so I sit, today, with hand on iPad,

Composing three new quatrains with a rhyme.

The rhythm flows like the wind a tad,

The A-B-A-B form consumes my time.

But I’m not done until there’s fourteen lines.

One ending couplet, after three quatrains.

I’ve tried to write this new form several times.

The effort’s huge; I have to train my brain.

But I persist, my fourteen lines now done.

I wrote my poem; my sonnet work is won.

*I tried adding a picture of Shakespeare with fratty sunglasses on, but my iPad won't let me.

Donnie Darko vs. Frankenstein

source: google images

I tend to try and connect things at first seem to be unrelated at all spectrums, but I can normally find a common thing that can associate one with the other. I just watched Donnie Darko, for the millionth time, last night and was simultaneously thinking about Frankenstein at the same time. I realized that both Donnie and the monster relate in very similar ways. Both the monster and Donnie receive little attention from their creators and that results in negative behavior. Obviously, Donnie struggles with psychological issues but I feel  that the monster does as well because of the lack of proper development.

Another connectin I made between the monster and Donnie is that both understand the feeling of being alone, as Donnie says, "She said that every living creature on Earth dies alone." Although Donnie is not technically fully alone like the monster, he feels alone in that he is the only one that can understand his thoughts and actions because of his mental condition. It's almost the same for the monster because he is also the only one that knows why he does what he does.

Both Donnie and the monster do bad things and live a lonely life, but it is the fact that they both die alone which is where the real connection is seen. No matter what they could have done, it was inevitable that they were going to die alone. It was a matter of deus ex machina for both of them which led to both of their deaths. The act of God for Donnie was the wormhole and the act of God for the monster was his creation from nothing. Although both of these characters represent a different genre, there are similarities in characteristics that one can learn from from both of these works. Both of their stories are tragic, and they both end in death, but it is important to take away that both of these fictional works will somehow improve one's intellectual abilities.

 source:google images 

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

Just this past week, I watched the movie "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind". It was really late at night and I had nothing else to do, and so I went out on a whim and ended up staying up for most of the night because of the movie. This was a movie where I didn't look at my phone once because it was so engaging; it was slightly humorous, emotionally perplexing, and extremely thought-provoking. The main question I came up with after the end of the movie was if I would ever have someone's being literally erased from my mind so that I would have no memories of them ever again.

Just like everyone else, I've been through a lot, and to think of erasing certain people from my life would seem logical, right? After a long while of thinking, I decided that no one should ever erase anyone from their life because memories should be learned from and cherished, because you only have ONE past and ONE future. There are obviously some embarrassing, upsetting, or even emotionally hurting memories, but those should never be erased because there is something to be learned of them.

There were a lot of twist and turns in the movie involving emotional conflict, but I feel that the main theme that the movie tries to portray is that it is just better to go on with your life living and accepting your past. You can only get better, you know?  Since I am wanting to pursue psychology in my future studies, I found that this movie was really important for me to see, and I'm happy that I randomly decided to plop down on the couch and spend the night watching the movie. I see that it's important, in psychology, if I happen to be a therapist, to make sure that the patient forgives but does not forget. Forgiving is one thing, but forgetting is another...

I would somehow like to connect this to Frankenstein but I honestly can't. Either way, the movie was quite enjoyable and I see myself watching it many more times with the convenience of Netflix...

If you haven't seen the movie, here's the IMDB: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0338013/

Monster In Me

I've been contemplating, lately, about what it would be like to hold such a burden of having created a monster. My past post about Frankenstein was about my views toward how Victor is essentially a parent who has abandoned his kid. I've been pondering over what it would be like to even create such a creature that scares humans away. I've come to a point where I can understand that Victor was horrified and why he can't fully accept such blame for the death of two people. It's hard to carry a burden that you never even expected to have ever carried, and inVictor's case, he never realized that his creature could be a monster and that his monster is responsible for the murder of a child and an indirect murder of a young lady, both in relativity to Victor. Before Victor left for college, he was the hope and pride of the family, and he psychologically doesn't want to let go of that view that his family has of him. I think that if he were to confess the truth about the monster that his family would shun him and that he would regret having ever told his family of his creation.

I then try and imagine the monster's view of everything. (I have not read chapters 11 and 12 yet). I see the monster as a creature who knows his presence horrifies people. But not only does it horrify people, it horrifies his own creator. After some mental damage, there is a place that a mind can be satisfied with knowing that the monster will never be immersed in real life.So knowing this, the monster acts as an animal surviving in his surrounding. After all, we are all mammals and programmed genetically to have the will to survive.

I think I now see both points of view of both Victor and his monster, and I can't sympathize with eier because both of them turned out for the worse.

Presidential Debate Poem

"Another clear difference between the two of you"
Sweat dripping down their faces
Could be so wrong in so many ways
When can America, again, be tried and true?

"I had five seconds before you interrupted me"
Exclaimed Obama urgingly
Intensity is clear in this debate
Just an example of the land of the free

Take the time to clear your mind
And open up just a 'lil bit
To the policies and thoughts of Obama and Romney
These two are one of a kind


PS: Be understanding that it's hard to write a poem on the presidential debate! I thought it would make an interesting post though.

Rebecca by Daphne Du Maurier

Rebecca by Daphne Du Maurier could possibly be one of my favorite books. It's set in the early 1900's and is about this paid aquaintance whose name is never revealed. Her story starts off with taking care of an awful woman and then she meets this man of the name of Maxim Du Winter and they both fall in love. Although he is much older than her, he proposes to her and she quits her job of being an aquaintance and travels with him to his mansion in Manderly. She constantly feels that she is filling the shoes of his deceased wife, Rebecca. She feels that she is being neglected by Max and has the want to conform to the life he once lived. Little did she know, his hatred for his deceased wife is the only reason he is somewhat distance withe his new wife. Smaller problems and conflicts come up in the novel, but when Rebecca's dead body is found in a sunken ship, controversy arises. He has to explain to his wife that he is the true murderer of Rebecca, and the wife feels closer to him and actually has the sense that she is married to is man. Through dramatic trials and hard evidence, Maxim fully claims "innocence" ans moved on his life with his wife, but on their way home they find that Manderly has been set on fire by the evil Ms. Danvers. The thing that strikes me the most is that the main character's name is never once revealed throughout the whole novel. I see this is because she didn't necessarily have a profound identity and could never be pinned as a certain character. She was always unsure of herself and willing to conform for the sake of her own well being. It's important that her name is unknown because then she would have been seen as a profound character with a big voice when in fact her opinion barely mattered at all to anyone. I can kind of connect this to Frankenstein in the sense that the creature was never given a name because his opinion didn't necessarily matter at all, because Victor was going to do whatever HE wanted to do. Although I wasn't technically supoosed to make a connection from Rebecca to Frankenstein I found a perfect comparison of the whole "no name" thing. If none of you have read Rebecca, I highly suggest you do so. It starts off slow but gradually crescendos into a dramatic piece of literature, just like Frankenstein.

Frankenstein Connection

So I am writing this on my iPad in attempt to be resourceful, so please be understanding if the format isn't perfectly correct (Apple problems). This blog is going to be about my general feelings toward Frankenstein and how I'm able to connect it to the daily life I live. Whenever I originally saw that we were going to be reading Frankenstein in AP Literature I wasn't too excited. I had never seen Frankenstein as an intriguing book and had my mind set that I wasn't going to like it. In all honesty, the first three letters bored me to death and my mind was made up about the book. Around  the 3 rd chapter I started to warm up to the subject and saw the book as something more than this crazy guy making a monster. Whenever Victor created Frankenstein, I started to develop a certain emotion towards the creature. My motherly instincts definitely kicked in and I've found myself rooting for Frankenstein and disliking Victor. It seems to me that Victor is like a mother with extreme post partum depression and I just can't wrap my head around the fact that he essentially abandoned his own child and was completely satisfied doing so. As a woman, teenage girl, young adult, whatever you want to call me, I could never anbandon my own child, ugly or not, the girl/boy would still be MY creation that I endured. So moving on...whenever Frankenstein murdered William I could only feel sympathy for the creature although I am still unaware of why Franky killed the poor boy. I imagine a kid in an adult body growing up without parents and trying to learn things in his/her own and this just enduces a certain compassion that I have for children both good and bad. I think I'll be able to connect this to my life, since I want to be a children's therapist, in that I should understand the background of the child before I can make any assumptions about their behavior. I should fully comprehend their background and have a firm grasp of where they come from and how they grew up before I can actually truly help them. Because what's the point of therapy if the therapist has no idea what your mindframe is like? I think this book, Frankenstein, will, in the long run, benefit me an help me in my goals to get a PhD in Psychology.