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The Pardoner’s tale

Sunday, March 22, 2009

I am a little confused on what we are supposed to write about… I thought our last blog was on this but I am not really sure if I read this correctly so here I go.

The Pardoner is a man who basically tells stories to make money. He can convince any one of anything. At one point he tries to convince people into thinking that there is a magic well that can solve any problem you have ever had. It is ridiculous the things he says in the story. He is a huge hypocrite and convinces the reader that drinking, gambling, and using God’s name in vain will send you straight to hell. He seems to emphasize how bad these things are way too much in the story which leads my group and me to believe that he is talking from experience and that he must have some knowledge of the bad side of all these sins.

He is also a hypocrite by the way he says in order to tell a story he must have one or a couple drinks before. After saying this later on in the story he says how there is no difference in a drunken man and a crazy man, while he himself is either tipsy or even drunk. This man is a fool and not a trust worthy source of knowledge to start paying attention to.  

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What we’ve been doing!

Sunday, March 22, 2009

So far in the last couple of class periods my group and I have been studying the Pardoner’s tale. We started off with a rocky start. None of us knows what exactly to do and some of us not knowing exactly what the point of the story were made this project seem extremely hard. We have each been assigned to research individual topics about the story and time period so we can put it all together for the presentation.
We have also come up with several quotes supporting different themes and topics about the book to put together into a picture of the events that have taken place in the story. I am not very confident right now about how far behind we are with the project, but I think if we use the rest of our time wisely we will be able to pull off a good presentation.

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The Pardoner and other ideas

Friday, March 13, 2009

My tale I had to read was the pardoner. It was about a man who liked to preach all kind of different stories.. even some that he completely didn’t believe in himself. In this story he tells the reader why the love for money is so evil. He says people become greedy and loose track of what is important in life when they are blinded by the amount of money they do or can posses. The Pardoner talks bad about people who drink which is hypocritical because before the story started he said the only way he could start was if he had a drink. This character is so ridiculous and just preaches to make money and to see if people will listen to him.

The next two things he says are sinful and you should not do is gamble or use gods name in vain. Both of these seem like things he has done. Which in fact he does say that at one point he did posses some of these qualities, which proves the fact that his whole righteousness skit is completely fake and this whole preach is based off of horse poop. Anyways I enjoyed learning to hate this character, and I think out of all the stories the class had to read this was the best one.

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            This character is super hypocritical. He has such strong statements against these things, and he is so dramatic that it seems like there is a story behind why he is so in opposition to them. Either that or he is just lying to tell a story people will actually listen to, like he says in the beginning. Another thing that makes him a hypocrite is how he says drinking is bad when before he even starts preaching he says he has to have a drink. This was a huge error. I he had not done this then the reader would not have to question any of the other things he is saying. But seeing that he says drinking is a sin and that there isn’t anything different between and crazy man and a drunk man but he himself drinks, makes the reader see that he is lying and could be lying about everything else.

            For ideas about the project I think we are going to vary it up. We are going to do some hard and some not as hard things for the class to do. We have decided to take some of what we have done in class and apply it to our situation. For example we are thinking about doing some sort of game like we did for Beowulf, and another thing we might do is some reading quizzes. This is all just rough ideas but I think we are all pretty confident with the story and are going to be able to come up with something good!

 

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14th century and C tales!

Tuesday, March 10, 2009

 

During the 14th century there were a lot of drastic changes in Europe. Some of these changes were in the Church, medicine, social, new diseases and in the military. The Famine crisis of 1315 had a huge impact on these changes. When the Plague infected Europe it was terrible! This had a huge shock socially and medically at this time. The upper class had a ridiculous plan of locking all of the sick people up. But the lower class had to actually deal with the sick people which meant more people would get sick, which in the end caused a lot more people then necessary to die. All these dieing people had an blow on the social community. There was a tremendous drop in the population. There were so many deaths that they actually had to start making people go around daily just to pick up the dead. (For example in Monty Python at one point there is a man going around saying “bring out the dead”. Although this is really funny this is actually what was going on at the time!) These deaths also affected businesses which effected people’s welfare. If all sorts of people were dieing, who was going to be left to do the work they can no longer do? And if they do no find anyone to do the job how is that business going to keep up with all the extra work put on the few people they have left? This was a serious issue during this time.

            The change in medicine was vast! Doctors were trying all new techniques to cure people. They were using herbs and spices and they actually thought it would work. They had a treatment that could check for Phlegm, yellow bile, black bile, and blood. If all of these things were balanced then that meant the person getting these entire test done was perfectly healthy. This seems like a lot of work to do just to figure out you are healthy but I guess back then you are better safe then sorry!

            The Great Famine of 1315 was the beginning of a lot of crises that hit Europe around this time. This caused a lot of death and changed the before growing population to a fast decrease in percentage of living people. What started it was the bad weather which influenced the bad crops for farming which didn’t end until 1316. During this time  there was a huge problem with crime, disease and death. People often didn’t have enough food to eat so their lives were estimated to end after around 35 years. When the great famine hit that number dropped to 30 and then when the plague hit it dropped to 17.

            Farming was hit hard during this time. The rain usually just stays around during the spring and summer but this time it just kept raining and staying cool throughout the year. This made it very difficult to farm. Because it was almost impossible to come up with any good crops of course the value of these crops went way up. After the increase in value of food many people could not afford it so they just went hungry. People were forced to have to start planting nuts, bark, roots, and edible plants so they would at least have some food to eat during this period of time.  People were pushed to drastic measures. Some had to slaughter their animals, eat seed grain, and in some cases abandoning their children and making them figure out how to live on their own at an early age! What a horrible thing to have to deal with as a child. Not only did you just get kicked out of your house but now you have to figure out how to get food and shelter during a time where there is a shortage of both.

            Ok so now to a lighter note about the C Tales. The general prologue was pretty interesting! It gave a brief overview of all of the characters. I think it is pretty cool how Chaucer did this! I had marked on each page when ever a new character was introduced so I could easily go back and for in class and this really seamed to help! We have been doing a lot of work in class on this part so I guess it is pretty important. My person for the film strip was the Summoner. When I first read over this part when I was reading the general prologue he did not really stand out to me. But after I had to look at him in detail, figure out what the most important things about him were weather it was his looks or just the way he mistreated other people made me really realize how bad of a person he was. Doing all of these extra things in class on this book has really helped me understand the book better. Another example of how our class work helped was what we did today. We had to read one of the stories ( mine was on the Pardoner) and then fill out this sheet on what was most important in the story, what were some of the major quotes, and sum up what you thought it all meant. Then as soon as we got to class we had to join the groups of people who had all read the same story and re-due the paper we had done for homework. It really helped me get different perspectives on the story. I had my own ideas of what it meant but my class mates had completely different ideas that really opened my mind. Anyways I think I have started this book off to the right start, staying kept up with the class and all, so I am pretty confident about what is to come!

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ok so this is me trying to use the vocab and still sound normal.. well kinda normal

Monday, March 9, 2009

Ok so this weekend I had a pretty big meat at LSU. It was big for me because the college recruits from LSU and NC State were there to watch me and some of the other girls. I went to floor first super nervous. I had to make sure I had cadence in my dance and made sure my movements had enough enamor to make an edict by the time I had finished. After my routine I didn’t have any insensate if they had enjoyed my routine or not, but after seeing my pretty good score I figured they liked it. You could tell which recruiter was which by the vestment they wore. Usually when they show up at meets like this one they wear their schools logo all over, just like this time they both had their individual school t-shirts on to indicate where they were from.

After the meet I ended up talking to the LSU coach about how she felt about running the meet and how she thought her team was going to do in the next competition. She ended up giving me a soliloquy about how well she thinks her girls could do but they are all pretty hurt right now so it wasn’t looking too good. I knew that after I had talked to her she could tell I had made bravado by actually going up and talking to her casually and calmly when really I was freaking out! Haha I am not a good person to talk to important people. Well I mean I am because I won’t make any strictures against the person or anyone or show any blasphemy towards them.

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Ballad not so much

Wednesday, February 18, 2009

I have been trying really hard to come up with a ballad.. but i have failed to do so. I have actually sat down and tried rhyming but i can’t  even do that. I am just not one of those people who can make a clever rhyme up easily. So until i can this is all i have. Sorry Mrs. Duke.

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WOGA!

Monday, February 16, 2009

Ahh so this weekend was a big one for me! I had to go back to Dallas for a second weekend in a row. I had one of the biggest meets of the year on Saturday. I have been training so hard for it. A lot of the college coaches go. Including Georgia and LSU! It was very important that I do well at this competition to prove that I do well under pressure and that I am a good gymnast that would be a good addition to a college team.

            So we start on vault.. BLAHHHHHH. I mean like I’ve been doing ok on vault. It’s not my best but I still usually pass with a pretty good score. I was first up. Which always means you will not be getting a super high score. (Judges don’t just throw out the big scores to the first group they see. Because if they see a better vault and have already given a huge score to someone with not as good of a vault then they have to give an even more outrageous score to that person, and they look suspicious that way.) So of course I being first I didn’t get one of those super high scores, but still a decent one.

            After this we went to bars. Because our group was so huge we had to split it up into an a and b group. I was in the b group. Of course my whole team got to be in the a group and I was placed in the group with all the girls who can’t even speech English ahh. It was horrible. Especially when they took up all of the warm up time so I didn’t even get to have a proper warm up, then I had to go last. I was really freaking out. I usually like to hit a perfect warm-up before competing, but surprisingly I got up on the bar and completely forgot about what had just happened and I competed my best bar routine all season!

            Since we are going in Olympic order beam is next. This event is usually my best event, but last weekend surprisingly I fell on a skill I never fall on and that threw me off so badly at this meet. When I got on the beam to perform all I could think about was how I fell last week. I was so scared I was going to fall again I could barely move. I didn’t fall but I still know I could have competed a better beamL

            Floor is last. This has been a difficult event for me, given the fact that I just got a new routine and lately I have been putting too much power in my tumbling passes that I comply over rotate and fly off the floor (like last meet). But anyways I am in the first group and am so glad for it! I hit all of my passes! And manage to remember all of my dance too!

This was a huge learning experience for me. It really put me under a lot of pressure and I proved to myself and the college coaches that I can do very well under pressure!

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We got to watch a movie this week!!

Monday, February 16, 2009

During the week we got to watch the movie Monty Python and the Holy Grail. I was sooo excited that we were watching this. We got to break down the movie into separate categories, which really made me see the movie in a different perspective. Then we had to go back to Perceval and each group was assigned a different thing to do. My group had to pick out different quotes from the story that involved things about Perceval and Culture. This was really hard for me to do. I am really bad at finding culture. But I think by doing this assignment it has helped me catch on to what culture really is.

            Another assignment we did was when we were given different scenes in the movie. Mine was the scene with Sir Lancelot and the prince being forced to marry a girl with a very rich father. I had to write down what happened in the scene and then interpret what it meant. This was really difficult for me. I am not creative and not too deep when it comes to English so I had no idea what it meant. After this we all had to present what we thought, and by doing this I got a lot of really great notes! We started a power point that we are still working on. Dumbly I didn’t know that Mrs. Duke was going to send it to us so I have been making the same PowerPoint on my computer the whole time. By making this power point we are really breaking up the book into several categories that is making it a lot easier for me to understand the book.

 

 

 

 

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A successful day!

Sunday, February 1, 2009

Today Rosie and Gabby came over to work on our Beowulf game. We had already decided that we were going to make it a game that was a lot like candy land and shoots and ladders put together. We came up with the idea of making several questions that the players have to answer in order to win. In the game they are going through the same journey that Beowulf went on. They first start off arriving in the land of the Danes where the story of the swim against Breca comes up. If the player lands on the correct spot he/she has the option to skip the fight against Grendel, or go on to get trapped and loose a turn. After that the player if rolling lucky again can skip ahead on the new sword Beowulf finds, or get trapped and loose a turn from Grendel’s mother.

Now the player has one more task to do before winning, they have to defeat the dragon. Like the other times they can have a lucky roll land on the correct spot and get to escape the dragon without interaction. But if they roll on off they are trapped and forced to fight the dragon and loose a turn before heading off to Beowulf’s death, which we made into a nice heavenly place!

Although I have explained this in an extremely confusing way, it is a pretty impressive game, and I am really excited about playing it tomorrow. We spent a lot of time on it, and are all three happy with the way it turned out!

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Shrek’s Journey as a Hero!

Monday, January 26, 2009

Shrek is a heroic story and has many similarities to Beowulf…

 

Before the journey: Shrek is a grumpy and unhappy living in his swamp. He does not have any relationships with anyone other then the other wood animals that he just gets mad at for trying to be nice to him. It is not until the animal’s entire storm his swamp, when he goes and finds the king and is sent on a quest where his journey begins.

 

Call to adventure: The animals are pored into Shrek’s swamp, and disturb the peace. This makes Shrek extremely mad, so he goes and complains to the king. The king then says that if he can go rescue the princess, Fiona, from the tower guarded by the huge fire breathing dragon, then he can have his swamp back all to himself.

 

Refusal to call: Shrek gets the princess and starts on his journey back. He ends up falling in love with her and doesn’t want to bring her back to the king anymore he wants to keep her for himself.

 

Crosses threshold: Shrek and the Fiona have a misunderstanding and the king ends up coming to get the Princess from Shrek. Shrek has to realize that she is a princess and he is just an ogar and they will never be together.

 

Challenges and temptations: After the king takes the princess away from Shrek to marry her, Shrek feels extremely lonely and really misses her. He wants her back but at the same time he wants her to be happy and live her dream of marrying the king.

 

Approaches: Shrek goes back to his swamp and tries to get over the Princess. But when he is not able to forget about her he starts his plan to get her back.

 

Ordeal: Shrek has to get through all of the security to get to the wedding. Then he ruins the wedding by stopping them right before they kiss and formally become husband and wife.

 

Rewards: Shrek stops the princess from marrying the ungrateful king.

 

Road back: Shrek is able to be with the Princess without any trouble from the king.

 

Return:  Shrek can live his life with the princess happily ever after!

 

 

 

 

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