education is overrated

  Finals week is always a blessing. I'm apparently the reigning champion of procrastinators.  My work load isn't all that bad, considering I quit Japanese sometime in the middle of the semester, but I did manage to save three papers for my other classes till the last minute.  I ended up writing through the night, first for American Studies and then a reflective piece in the morning on Rumi.  I ended up e-mailing it and I got a little bit of much welcomed praise.  Things like this make my day: ----- - Thanks Bryan. I enjoyed the class a great deal--I really found your willingness to think about these ideas and be honest and open in discussion to be important to the success of the class. You are a smart and thoughtful student--best wishes in your future studies and in life in general.

I still have a couple of your papers–especially your Walt Whitman-esque poem from the first project. The Whitman poem is excellent, and the connections you made in your Gilded Age paper showed a comprehensive grasp of the themes we have been talking about. 

Good luck in the future, and keep thinking.

Jeff

  Earlier in the semester we had the choice between a)writing a paper on the Transcendentalist movement in the midst of the westward expansion, or b) create my own original artwork in the style of my choosing that reflects the ideas of Transcendentalists.  So I wrote a quick poem before class where I tried to emulate best I could a Walt Whitman prose piece, reflecting the time frame:


<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt 27pt; TEXT-INDENT: -27pt"><SPAN style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US">O, this mighty fortress built upon eloquent words and powerful ideals spewed from soft lips,<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" /><o:p></o:p>

<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt 27pt; TEXT-INDENT: -27pt"><SPAN style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US">This nation, carved from a continent and gilded with ambition and deceit-filled purpose, with your settlers never settled in their ever-changing notions of will!<o:p></o:p>

<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt 0.25in; TEXT-INDENT: -0.25in"><SPAN style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US">Your people, scattered and numerous across the plains and the mountains, the cities and the countryside, who have grown up with a distance that has failed to set them apart from a nation, tiring and romantic all the same,<o:p></o:p>

<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt 0.25in; TEXT-INDENT: -0.25in"><SPAN style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US">This young mindset, charismatic and naive, brilliant and baffled alike, and though through many faltered steps you have not ceased to believe strongly in yourselves, <o:p></o:p>

<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><SPAN style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US">And hardships, they have not been few,<o:p></o:p>

<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt 0.25in; TEXT-INDENT: -0.25in"><SPAN style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US">Struggles far and large, stretching the extent of this country’s vastness, but it is through this toil that your cheeks grow rosy and body restless, feeding the spirit of this land,<o:p></o:p>

<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt 0.25in; TEXT-INDENT: -0.25in"><SPAN style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US">From the defeated scalawag groaning under the pressures of the other-worldly north, knowing not another way to make his livelihood, who interred his progeny for the ideals that he knows true,<o:p></o:p>

<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt 0.25in; TEXT-INDENT: -0.25in"><SPAN style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US">Blessed be the Yank that has not permitted this vessel to break in two, and has gone lengths to see that freedom and liberty are extended to all of God’s creatures; a challenge that extends beyond the battlefield,<o:p></o:p>

<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt 0.25in; TEXT-INDENT: -0.25in"><SPAN style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US">May you rise against the difficulties that await!<o:p></o:p>

<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><SPAN style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US">To the freed men, weeping with joy at the sight of a generation born into freedom!<o:p></o:p>

<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt 0.25in; TEXT-INDENT: -0.25in"><SPAN style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US"><SPAN style="mso-tab-count: 1">      and to those children, beaming with veneration for their fathers, and hope for their futures!<o:p></o:p>

<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt 0.25in; TEXT-INDENT: -0.25in"><SPAN style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US">Yes, <?xml:namespace prefix = st1 ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" />st1:country-regionst1:place<SPAN style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US">America</st1:place></st1:country-region><SPAN style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US">, frothing at the mouth with hysteria and genius, the garden of a great people; loathsome and proud, amiable and generous; you are all of these things,<o:p></o:p>

<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt 0.25in; TEXT-INDENT: -0.25in"><SPAN style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US">With startling ambiguity you exist, for you are the wicked and the heavy at heart; the chain that binds and the torch that lights the way,<o:p></o:p>

<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt 0.25in; TEXT-INDENT: -0.25in"><SPAN style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US">And as I sit here in my reverie, change do you still, moving forward and backward concurrently in your narcissistic godliness, with all your juvenile follies that are sure to make you grow wise and mature in your years, <o:p></o:p>

<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt 0.25in; TEXT-INDENT: -0.25in"><SPAN style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US">This is my hope for you, st1:country-regionst1:place<SPAN style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US">America</st1:place></st1:country-region><SPAN style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US">.<o:p></o:p>

—- – -

As far as I know, I'm done with Lansing Comm. College.  Funny, every single one of my professors were MSU profs too.  I saved like $20,000.  Thanks LCC!

Life of Bryan © Bryan R., 2024