final. blog.

* What have you learned throughout this course? What do you know now that you didn't know before? What have you gained?


What have I learned throughout this course? Hmm.. I think that's kind of a loaded question. I think that I was lucky enough to learn a lot throughout this course, at least a lot more than I thought I would. For one this course definitely made me open my eyes to different kinds of books. When I first took a look at the reading list for the semester I was a bit intrigued, I recognized some of the titles so that immediately made me a little more excited about the course.  Push, Yo, and The Vagina Monologues were the first books that caught my eye because they are some of the more well known books on the list. I hadn't heard of any of the other books.  I found the first two books, 19 Varieties of Gazelle, and Krik Krak, to be extremely boring, after we finished with those I was kind of like, "ugh here we go again, another boring english class," but as we got into The Vagina Monologues that's when I really started to get into the course.  After reading one book that I liked I found the other books to be not as bad.  So I think that played a big role in keeping me open to the other books in this course.  This course also kept me open to different writing styles.  Fun Home was by far the most interesting book in terms of it's style.  I had never read a graphic novel before so that was very different for me.  I found that I am not a big fan of graphic novels, I found it a little difficult to pay attention with all of the pictures and words everywhere.  19 Varieties of Gazelle was a poem book which I also found unappealing.  For me it was difficult to connect the poems because it wasn't really a story. Well it was but not in a normal sense. Each poem told a different story but they all didn't directly connect which made it unappealing for me.  Something that I found out throughout this course that I didn't know before was that I enjoy the writing style of vignettes.  The Vagina Monologues, I am an Emotional Creature, and 2 or 3 Things I Know for Sure, were some of my favorite books during this course and they were all vignettes. I'm not exactly sure what it is about this style that's so appealing to me. But I like how each story is its own.  It's longer than a poem so I can start to get lost in it, but it's not so long that it starts to get boring.  With each of those books I found myself able to related to many of the stories which made reading them all the more fun.  Something I also found out was that I really dislike books that I can't find any way to connect to.  Some of my least favorite books were 19 Varieties of Gazelle, Krik Krak, and When the Emperor Was Divine, and I think that the reason I wasn't able to really give those books a chance was that I couldn't find any connection, so immediately I was standoffish to those books.  What I have gained the most from this course is an appreciation for different styles, authors, and topics.  I have a favorite woman author, Jodi Picoult, but Eve Ensler has shoved her way into my heart with these two books and the movie that we were fortunate enough to see.  She has opened up a new way of looking at things for me and it something that I will keep with me forever.