Geez, This is a tough assignment. However, I prefer this over the synthesis essay ANYTIME. That essay was brutal, for me at least. I hate to sound cliche but a "journey of a thousand miles begins with one step." Ok, the other 999 miles are tough to but still... I have read all my stuff and made an outline but I keep modifying it. There is so much I could say but I feel like I have to stay close to the prompt... I chose reading Invitation to a Beheading by Vladimir Nabokov. I felt like I was on shrooms for awhile when I started reading it. People change into other people, in-laws drag their furniture into a prison... Weird stuff but I liked it. The prompt states that I have to find parallels between the world the main character Cincinnatus creates and The world of the Iran Republic. Easy enough, but what is hard is that I have to state why Nafisi and her students are heroes because they chose to not fit in. I don't know what happened but I ended up going on tangent about the illusions of the world and what not. In the end I had to scrap the first couple of pages because they were so off topic. All my hard work was wasted in a a sense. Sometimes it's very hard to stay true to the prompt because the issue you are asked to write about brings to mind all the other concepts that go along with it. I know when I was writing my synthesis essay on propaganda, I wanted to incorporate things about the Iraq War in it but I also had to scrap out that concept because it was taking over my work. It's like I am trying stuff a whole bunch of apples in my mouth at once because they all taste delicious. That's what I wanted to do with the synthesis essay but I didn't.
Well back to the last essay... What I really also have a hard time doing is finding the right research to go with it. I found some good articles that could help me but when I read and reread them, they turned out to be lacking the material I needed. So now I have to go find some new material again... Awesome. That's my fault though, I find the research to be one of the hardest things to come by. I can always twist things to my advantage but the work is so much easier if the right materials are present. But I like the challenge this essay has given me because it forces me to expand my critical thinking. I think alot but it's not always in the critical style mentality. Besides, I really liked both the novels I had to read so this is bit a bit of work and pleasure, so I will stop complaining. So, I am going to bust my booty this weekend and do the best I can. That's all I can do.
I can really relate to the title of your blog this week. We can only go the thousand miles one step at a time. This was a tough assignment but I found it easier than some of the other writing assignments as well. I chose to do my paper on Women’s Rights in Iran so the sources were not too difficult to find. This was supposed to be the harder of the two options but quite frankly I just did not have the time to read another book so I thought this research would go quicker.
ReplyDeleteMy biggest challenge was finding the time to sit and dedicate to the project. I prefer to write during a larger block of time because if I have to keep leaving the project, I find it hard stay focused and keep my thoughts flowing onto the paper. I did finish my first draft about 1 am this morning which is way past my bedtime but it was flowing so I didn’t want to stop.
I would have liked to have found the time to read some of the books discussed in Reading Lolita in Tehran. Maybe over the Christmas break I can find time for some leisurely reading!
Your reply to my blog drew me here, and boy, its good to see that I am not the only one that has chosen this topic and ran into some difficulty. When I look at how Cincinnatus relates to the girls in the novel, I look not at who they are, but what have they done. The similarities are easy to find when you look at what each character has done, and rely less on the individuals themselves.
ReplyDeleteNobokov's novel is one that at first makes you feel as if you read something wrong. The words he chooses are expertly weaved so that you automatically accept the writing, realize your mistake, question it, find an answer, then you even progress to questioning your answer. As I read the novel, I found that if I just ignored the rules, ignored the outer influence on Cincinnatus, I could then find out who he was. Ignore his woes about his sentence, and listen to the words as he reaches out to others. His letters portray the person he is, his refusal to bend shows his courage. I find that underneath the boundaries of our own lives, when we compare the essential fabric of our own society with that of Cincinnatus, we can find what he is trying to express through his letters.
I agree!! This was an extremely difficult assignment. I felt that we had it pretty easy though because she gave us like four weeks notice, which would have been nice if I would have chosen to take that time to actually work on it. Instead I looked at it and was like shoot it is not due for a long time so I have nothing to worry about until it is like five days before and I am freaking out because I have not done anything for this project. Then I think well at least I have this week then I realize it is Thanksgiving and I am like "Ah Crap". So I definitely would have preferred to work on any of the other essays that we have done than this one. I had a great fear of it. In fact I dreaded the moment I decided that I needed to start it. To my surprise It was easier than I thought. I was able to make connections and take stuff from my work. I felt like wow I did not know that I would actually find any interest in this project. To be honest I actually chose to do mine on Gatsby and the only reason I chose this one was because I thought that this would be the only topic that I could write five pages of information on.
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