On Friday night, my friends and I had a party. We haven’t had one since the end of February so we were all having withdrawals. I felt like I hadn’t seem everyone for an especially long time because I wasn’t able to go to the party in February due to midterms so it was nice to spend some quality time with my friends.
As usual, we just enjoyed each other’s company with lots of fun conversation. We talked about books we recommend and we even made plans for almost the entire year, taking a lot of the guess work out of our get-togethers. We have some fun things planned in the next few months so stay tuned for the recaps. I’m very excited!
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Saturday felt like a big day of nothing, honestly. I didn’t get up until late because I didn’t get home from the party until around 1:30 am. And, Corey and I just hung around home for most of the day. We cleaned, I did some homework (very little), and we went to Office Max to buy some Post-its to help me with annotating for my summer term class. Wait … what? Summer term class? You probably thought summer term didn’t start until June 21st. You’re right. It doesn’t, but I already have homework for that class.
I received an e-mail from my summer term class teacher last Wednesday. Here’s a little tidbit of that e-mail:
Welcome to English 295 for the summer term! This may seem a little premature, but I wanted to give you a heads-up as to what we’re doing. This course is on “writing literary criticism,” … and so I’ll be asking you to examine texts from the inside out, moving from basic summaries of the text you choose to work with to a critical examination in light of a theory or issue which you find particularly prevalent in the text.
… [I]n the event that you aren’t aware yet, the set of texts we’ll be working with for summer term is (drum roll, please) The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. … I’m telling you this now because within the first week of classes, I’ll have asked you to finish reading all four books and make a decision about which of the [four] you want to focus on during the term…. I think it’s fair to give you all a chance to start reading now so that you won’t feel overwhelmed by reading in the first week.
There you have it. I not only have to keep up with my full-time job, church calling, and homework for my current class (which isn’t light I might add), but I also have to read The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings in the next five weeks and remember enough to be able to critique them using different literary criticism theories. It was nice of my teacher to give us some time to accomplish this, huh?
Don’t get me wrong. I’ve always wanted to read these books. I even tried reading The Hobbit seven or so years ago. (I couldn’t get past page 42, but I wasn’t an avid reader back then.) I’m just stressed to the max with trying to make sure I get them done in time. Luckily, I don’t have to go to Girls’ Camp anymore so I’m going to take the time off work that I would’ve taken to go to camp and use it to read!
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On Sunday, Corey and I went up to Aymee and Dave’s, my niece and nephew-in-law, so Corey could watch the LOST series finale with them. All three of them are huge fans, Aymee and Dave since day 1 and Corey since this January. (Corey watched the first five seasons on Hulu in January to gear up for the final season. I would’ve joined him if I didn’t have as much homework as I did/do. I did see a few episodes here and there so I knew enough to get by, but not enough to have a firm grasp of the show or all the characters.)
I really enjoyed the series finale. I thought it was well done and I cried several times. Corey sent me this link earlier today. It’s a guide to the series finale and helps you understand what happened and how it affected the entire series. I think it’s quite insightful.
About Jenni Elyse
I checked out that link for LOST. It was very helpful!
I’m glad it was helpful. It definitely wasn’t as fun as your limericks, though. I had Corey read them and he thought they were great. He’s just a lurker, though, so no commenting.
I’ve always found the Lord of the Rings to be slow and a bit dull. Good luck with that!
The meet ups you guys have seem like so much fun. It makes me wish I lived in Utah so I could join in.
Hang in there with the reading… I know you can do it!!! I loved those books when I read them many, MANY years ago and still loved them on the next re-read. There are so many great themes and lots to analyze! Plus now you can watch all of the movies back to back if you need to refresh your memory. They aren’t word for word the same… but close!
Andrea – I wish you could join in our fun too!
Shauna – Everyone has been telling me that the movies are pretty close to the books. So, I have at least a good foundation of the stories to begin with.
I didn’t know you had to read all three LOTR books. I thought it was just the 1st one. That makes is even worse. Those books are so wordy I had to reread a sentence (which was it’s own paragraph) too many times to make it worth reading. I really hope you can get into them. So many people are able to & hopefully you’ll fit into that category.
Parties are always fun, and for your assignment. All I have to say is that I am NOT jealous. But I am interested to hear your reviews on them.
I’m glad we did a mini lost party. Corey was so sweet to do the polar bears. They were so cute. And Aubree was so happy she had one waiting for her when she woke up. I did enjoy the finale. Although I couldn’t stop thinking “titanic”. But I also cried A LOT. The show is really good with emotion. We had lots of fun. And can’t wait to see you this weekend.
Christie – I’m hoping I fall into that category too. I guess we’ll see.
Aymee – It was a lot of fun to hang out with you for the finale, and I’m glad Aubree was so excited for her polar bear when she woke up. I can’t wait to hang out with you this weekend either!