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== England, the two-taps Country, [[User:Joern Esch|Joern Esch]] 19:13, 10 December 2007 (CET) ==

Christmas shopping...oh dear. Every year it is the same nonsense and every year I jeopardise my good intentions of not buying too much rubbish whose way of being produced is almost impossible to retrace. I will not be such a bore and go into detail how much we compromise the idea of Christmas by following our capitalistic yearnings. It I just quite interesting that there seems to be no difference between the way English and German Christmas shoppers go utterly berserk when it comes to buying the last piece of manufactured crap. The reason this similarity strikes me is not because I have perceived of the English as an entirely different culture, but I have seen them as rather reserved in their way of going about publicly visible things;i.e. if they are sober and not however involved in a sport event. Everybody you just merely touch on the street immediately apologises; any given occasion where you have to wait for anything: people form a proper cue (even if it is raining and there is no roof). For the most of you this might not be new. Neither is it to me, thus I was really surprised on the absolutely aggressive way the English handle their Christmas shopping, which is so similar to an Advent weekend in Oldenburg's pedestrian precinct.
Before I went to buy presents for my dear ones, I was at school. Today I assisted in two year 11 (age 15-16), a year 10 (age 14-15) and a LOVELY year 8 (age 11-12) groups. All of these groups are - in their own ways - really nice and fun to teach. Asking the same questions over and over again, however, is not so much fun. I will not be able to lead a smalltalk conversation in Germany when I return, since I am sick and tired of questions on name, age, home, hobbies, and favourite music. Well, this is what the teachers want me to do; this is what I am being paid for; and this is what the kids are going to be tested at.

I have to go now, since I am quite hungry and the Simpsons are about to begin,

cheers 



== England, the two-taps Country, [[User:Joern Esch|Joern Esch]] 16:48, 9 December 2007 (CET) ==

Nothing much has happened today, since I spent most of the day in the kitchen reading and correcting a dissertation (not a PhD Thesis) of a friend of mine. Initially I wanted to start writing things for my thesis in History, but the correction took quite a while. I also went to the Tesco nearby to get some things for the house (toiletpaper and milk etc.). Tesco is one of the biggest supermarket chains in England, and - as almost everywhere else - one is always asked for a clubcard. Quite annoying and I really don't feel like giving away my personal shopping habits, thus I do not own a club card. I am fully aware of the fact that customer anonymity is rather an illusion, but I do what I can to preserve my private sphere.
I am still quite uncertain about how I will stucture my final thesis and in how far I can employ Foucault's and Bourdieu's theories, thus I decided to start of from a descriptive approach and see how far I can get from there.
Tomorrow I will be working at school again. I work on Mondays, Tuesdays and Fridays, so I have some sort of a "mid-week second weekend" which is quite nice, so I can go to concerts or play poker tournaments in a nearby casino. My work basically includes preparing games or other small speaking activities for the pupils and walking around the classroom and helping with exercises. It is quite alright t work like this and the loan is fairly decent.
I will head home at the 20th and stay at my mom's place. Christmas obligations and seeing my family are the main reasons for that. I do look forward to say "moin" again to people without being looked at as if I were some kind of major weirdo. Mostly all of the other assistants are from southern Germany, so they do not know how to communicate adequately :)
As I have said before, nothing much has happened and my thoughts on my final thesis cannot be discussed here, thus I conclude with wishing all of you all the best,

cheers

==England, the two-taps Country, [[User:Joern Esch|Joern Esch]] 16:49, 8 December 2007 (CET)==
Well then, Blog... dunno really how to do this. I have recently found out about myself that I tend to find out about how to do a thing before I do it. Before I cook, I consult a cookbook or a recipe; before I write something academic, I read theories and theories about the topic; thus, I should actually have read something about how to blog, before I began writing this...but i decided I won't.
So you will have to cope with my blog as it is and if I do not write in agreement to the rules for blogging, i.e. if there are any, well, bear with me.
It is already more than two months ago that I left Oldenburg and went to Leeds. ''The'' major advantage for me, in comparison to other exchange students or foreign language assistants (FLA), was that I already knew somebody here. I had met Naomi three years ago on a surfing trip to Biarritz and we stayed in touch since. As soon as I heard about my provisional implacement in Leeds (where she studies contemporary dance) I texted her and she offered to live in her house, since there was a vacant room.

Alright, Leeds it is!!! Leeds as a city is fairly difficult to describe. It has, as most English cities, these brick, terraced houses, which I am particularly fond of. Leeds will most certainly never become a touristy place like York or other cities where you can go sight-seeing. There are, apart from some exceptions like the Town hall, few pompous buildings that people can take pictures of. Leeds' architectural charm is rather subtle. If one looks up to the houses' gables, one can find a very nice Victorian touch. One can see little variations in most of their architectural style, the applications used, etc. Generally speaking, Leeds seems to quite suiting for my aesthetic preferences. Leeds is one of the cities in Yorkshire which grew rapidly during the Industrialisation. I really like things that show men's manipulation, thus a city with the 'fingerprint' of the industrial revolution meets my gusto.

I will end with these impressions now,

cheers


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==[[User:Jessika Thiele|Jessika Thiele]]: On Poetry, Wednesday, 11th December, 2007==

Last weekend I went through the complexity of Wycherley's ''The Country Wife''.It was not as simple as I thought...though it is definitely a funny play I had my problems with forcing all thoughts into an excerpt.
I could talk about this Comedy for some hours...every little detail seems to be important but...still we are not allowed to write a whole essay about it.
The last two lectures of Literature honestly...how to say it...bored me.
The topic 'novel' is definitely not my favourite one and I am glad that we continue with Shakespeare today and with Wycherley next week.
Desperately I try to write the excerpt and other things before Christmas days.I see I will never succeed. It just already took me too long to write the first excerpt. 
It's some kind of shame that we only can use one text of the two for the excerpt. I was really interested what Markley said in this ''Rise of Nothing'' and when the teacher puts one text already on the site then the fairness should allow that the second text is there too.
Well,maybe it's only a matter of planning and a matter of time which I learned in here is more complicated than anywhere else.
I cant even plan some kind of holidays for two weeks because I never know when I will write tests (so called Klausur) in the free time after the semester.
So,one is chained to this place and the studies for three years.
But some things cant wait for three years.
I need time to publish my book...to correct the mistakes first and then find someone who publishes it.
I need time to write poetry and besides all this I need time to write all the other things which the teachers want me to write.
That reminds me that Literature cant be that boring...because I never had time to write a poem during that lecture.
Though it definitely is an enrichment to my knowledge and my poetry.
I will see what's said about Shakespeare today and will lean back to enjoy the words about this great gentleman.

==Jessika Thiele: On Poetry, Wednesday, 21st November, 2007==

Somehow in the lecture yesterday there was a deep unrest in the room...It was pretty hard to concentrate on the lecturers words.
I tried to be specially attentive because sometimes it happens that I turn my back to the topic 'Novel'. 
I am an author myself and it's also interesting to see the roots of Novels...at least there is the same mess of names as in Poetry.
But frankly my thoughts are still with a totally different word...
Already at last weekend, when I had a look at the topic 'The Rise of the Novel' the word 'Rise' made me think.
Obviously some students expected to hear about the total beginning of the Novel...(Oh sometimes we wish it would be so simple in history...get an exact day and exact name of the author and exact name of the title...We would keep it all in mind...write it down in the written test and get our perfect mark for it.)Nevertheless we shall be glad that history is not that simple...so we can open a debate about everything.
Well, back to the rise...I would like to copy the definition of the word I found in my dictionary: rise,rising,rose,risen :1 to get up from a lying,sitting,or kneeling position; 2 to move from a lower to a higher position or place.
That may be enough as a definition of this word.So rising is not the beginning though ''a lying position' can also be some kind of beginning. So now I suppose the rise is meant to be the beginning of the debate about Novels. 
So what was before Robinson Crusoe? Novels, romances, dramas!? All together!?

Maybe Robinson Crusoe deserves an own category of literature...It's not a typical romance neither a typical novel. Perhaps that was the special trick of DeFoe's writing...it looks as if it is a romance and shocks the readers with its signs of a novel(in my eyes that's what makes a book interesting: special elements of writing which differ from every other book of the past.)
We try to force the book into a category...instead of having endless discussions about which category it belongs to ,we can keep it easy and give it an own category. 
It would demand some more work and confusion to invent some more categories of literature but it may help us in our discussion.

Mr. Simons mentioned another point which attached my attention immediately...female authors! 
I honestly doubt that we shall put Robinson Crusoe into this area ...so called proto novels most prominently by female authors(third version). Female authors deserve a special seperated part of literature.
Perhaps a good point to seperate the rise from novels written by men from the rise of novels written by women. The problem we just face here again when we start dividing and dividing...we can also continue cutting the writers into seperations (rich or poor; educated or uneducated (in the time we are talking about there rich and educated was definitely linked))

Before I close this article I may find some more words about the end of the lecture (the questioning time)
The audience laughed about Mr.Simons word ''higher educated readership''. What was there to laugh about?
At university we are part of a higher educated readership and it's indeed a part of our lecture to differ between fictional and non-fictional writings.
Of course,it takes a lot of reading till we really can see what's true and what's fiction but with every book (mostly modern novels-the topic of our following lectures) we get a little closer to this aim.

[[User:Jessika Thiele|Jessika Thiele]] 11:50, 21 November 2007 (CET)

==Jessika Thiele: On Poetry, Wednesday, 14th November, 2007==

Here we go...at a cold cold Wednesday night...Recovering my impressions from the yesterday's lecture and from a line of a friend of mine: She said that Literature is the most confusing course of the whole English studies.
Frankly, I can understand her but only because I know that literature is such a wide field and that's why it seems complex.
I also admit that after the lecture of literature I was even more confused about my main question...

What is Poetry?...

And what's the difference to Poesy? 

Why do you use two different words? 
Poesy so soft and Poetry so strong...almost an illusion because Poetry is mostly fragile.
I fear I need to find out first 

'What WAS Poetry?'

Was it Opera? No, not at all...

There was more than Opera and more in the Poets heads than a play on a stage. (Sometimes poetry should be hidden in a small chamber and never get out...especially not on a stage...you can compare it to a prisoner whose head will be cut off in front of hundred people)

I try to figure out what the Poets of that time thought. Were they happy with the stage? 
And another question rising in my head: What about Drama? 
So all Poets in that time got a connection to Drama (or at least to a play on a stage in a theatre)?

I suppose I already asked far more questions than one can answer...some surely will be answered by the tutors in the lectures and some will be answered by myself.
I dont know...when I think of Drama and a theatre then Shakespeare comes into my mind. Even the hundred years old books of Shakespeare's plays on my bookshelf may not give the answer to my dearly beloved questions. Simply because Shakespeare was not a poet...though...he wrote some poems I dare to say he was definitely not a poet as we know the word 'Poet' today...

So was he called a Poet in his time!?

So far the tutors in any English course were avoiding Shakespeare...his character...his time and his surroundings.
I remember something my English teacher said last year: 'When I was studying I hated Shakespeare and I still hate him.'
As an admirer of this great man I was shocked.

How can an English teacher ever dare to say she/he doesnt like Shakespeare?

Sure, I confess his plays and thoughts are not modern today BUT in his time his plays and thoughts were a revolution!

Well, I guess in the end literature is worth a discussion about its own definition...but it's not worth having a debate about the beauty of literature because every piece of Literature is beautiful!

[[User:Jessika Thiele|Jessika Thiele]] 20:21, 14 November 2007 (CET)

==Jessika Thiele: On Poetry, 6th November, 2007==
I am not sure what this blog is for but somehow I felt a strong urgent to write something in here...about the [[2007-08 BM1 Introduction to the Critical and Scholarly Discussion of Literature, Part 1|lecture of this afternoon]]. The word 'Literature' in the historic background...it deeply fascinated me that we all talked about the same thing hundred years ago...just had another word.

Frankly there was one moment when I almost cried during the lecture...not because I was desperate or so sad or fed up with the content. No!

I deeply sighed when the tutor asked the rhetorical question: Why do we give our attention to poetry?
I am studying English in the first semester and I am a poetess myself.Started writing some years ago.I even dare to say I am a good poetess...modern but good...and my first day in Oldenburg I spent in the library ... stumbling across books which tried to give me an answer on: What is poetry?

I found a book about Keats therories of this topic...that he used the word 'Sensitivity' to describe this rhythmic expression of feelings.

For so many years I was writing verses...lines...deeply meant to be philosophical...and suddenly at my first day in Oldenburg I was confronted with the question of my entire being.

I suppose it's obvious now that I really love poetry and it's not only verses or rhyme or any other well written nonsense to me.
I appreciate English language in its deep sense and it strucked me deeply inside when I heard people laughing about this language...making fun of it. 

Doesnt this language deserve our respect?

Pityful I thought about this question for a while and I came to the conclusion that all the people there had a reason why they took those English courses...in a modern way this reason can be defined as respect. I admit my respect towards language is quite different...

Anyway, I return to my first lines and to the question why we give so much attention to poetry...I may answer it one day when I found a satisfying answer on 'What is Poetry?' or I will just get an answer from the tutors in further lectures...I hope that the tutors will come to the simple end that they say 'Poetry deserves our attention because it reflects the feelings of individuals towards a hidden topic in a special time of history...in a special period.'

[[User:Jessika Thiele|Jessika Thiele]] 20:02, 7 November 2007 (CET)

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