Day Three Individual Presentations

Unfortunately I was unable to make it to class for the second day of individual presentations, so I am skipping to the third day. Once again, I really liked all of the things that people talked about and had to say. It amazes me that although certain topics were discussed by more than one person, each presentation was very different. A number of people wrote about how taking this class has changed them, but it has affected each and every one of us in a different way.

One presentation that stuck out to me was Biz's. It is funny because the first thing that came to my mind when I learned that we were going to read Ovid's Metamorphosis was Kafka's book. I had actually even though about writing my paper on it as well, although I would have taken a very different approach. Her idea that both Luscious and Gregor's transformations were caused by their soul settling in its correct form. I thought that her comparison of the two books to The Golden Compass series was an interesting one. I would not have made that comparison had she not pointed it out. Her approach was a very different and interesting one, and I enjoyed hearing it.

Another presentation that I liked a lot was Chloe's. I can totally relate to her desire to want to be children again sometimes. Although I still thoroughly enjoy the Harry Potter books, the innocence and dreams that we had as children was a great thing. As kids all girls dreamed of being a princess and finding her prince. Fairy tales became reality through our imagination and we could be whoever we wanted to be. Last night I watched "Bedtime Stories," and at one point Adam Sandler says something like, "There are no happy endings in real life." The children insisted that the bedtime stories that he told had happy endings. Like the children that Chloe speaks about, they feel that anything can happen in stories and that such things do happen in real life. They have an innocence about them that keeps their outlook on life. It is not until we become adults that we become disillusioned and can no longer find the wonderful/magical parts of life. We know that life is suffering. This loss of innocence is sad, and I too often wish to have it back.