Independent Reading Entry 19

The Primer of Freudian Psychology begins with the early development of the personality with the introduction of the id, ego, and super ego. All of them have been outdated for a while but i can see how the ideas of each of them were completely viable for the long time that they were. Each offers a completely reasonable and, frankly, amazing first attempt at solving the mysteries of the mind. Many of his subtopics in each of the three systems follow natural and noticeable human tendencies. Some such as tension reduction, the idea that every natural instinct and reflex is designed to reduce tension and discomfort (like eating when your body tells you you're hungry), and wish fulfillment, the idea that the id creates images of a tension reliever in the brain in attempt to temporarily stave off discomfort, are very applicable to daily life for every human being. So, although technology has allowed us to move beyond the theories of Freud, his ideas live on and continue to make me think every time i read about them. I see psychology being a part of my life for the rest of it. It is a great mystery how the mind works and even if i think i am leaning towards majoring in business in college psychology will still be a major part my business career because i will need to know about people and what they react to in order to help my business.

Independent Reading Entry 18

Since finishing and being very pleased with Bill Bryson's A Walk in the Woods I have begun reading A Primer of Freudian Psychology. This book is basically a summary of Freud's work and ideas. He pretty much founded the field of psychology and began one of the most interesting fields of study to me. I have always been very into psychology, my dad being a forensic psychologist, and there has just always been an intrigue in figuring out how the mind works. The book is organized very well and though it is a very small book it takes much longer than you would think to read it. There is so much information packed into the small print that it takes two or three times of reading to really absorb the information. Freud published volumes and volumes of work and attempting to summarize even a portion of his work would be difficult but this primer accomplishes that. The information is clearly written once you understand the basis of it and it keeps me interested. Pretty much all of Freud's ideas have been disproven or more has been discovered since his time but that doesn't mean his ideas aren't, at the very least, genius and offer a new view of the mind and its development.

Independent Reading Entry 17

Bryson, Bill

Bryson and his travel companion had been hiking for weeks and were exhausted and overwhelmed by the trail. They were fitter than they had been in a long time and were having a good experience but they realized how much they had done in comparison to the entire trail. They reached a lodge in Tennessee, i believe, and there was a large to scale 3D map of the trail in one of the rooms. They saw where the beginning was and saw where they had reached after their tireless efforts and they were less than a quarter of the way through. This was discouraging but also eye opening and brought them down to earth. They knew they would never be able to do the whole thing. They were behind schedule and struggling to continue and eventually decided to just skip a large chunk of the trail. Bryson got to see his family and was incredibly happy for that and once they got home they greatly appreciated all of their comforts from their home. Bryson hiked on the trail doing day hikes with his car for the time in between the two parts of their trip and began to enjoy these day trips.

Independent Reading Entry 16

Bryson, Bill
A Walk in the Woods

Since I began this book I've been thinking of attempting at least part of the Appalachian Trail at some point in my life. With the climate change occurring and other ecological problems eating away at a lot of the trees and natural beauty of the American wild, as Bryson described, it seems that the sooner the better. The statistics of people who actually complete the trail are astounding and, to me, pretty realistic. Had I not read this book and gone out to the AT i know I would have had a completely different perspective. This book has given me probably the most realistic view of the trail from personal experience of a completely realistic person. I know i am more in shape than Bryson is at his age and doing this but it is less about that than pure mental endurance. The many factors that occur on the trail are more than just being tired.

The level of appreciation that Bryson seems to have attained from his experience is very humbling and great. I have had experiences that have made me more appreciative of the life i live but on the trail the level of appreciation at even the smallest things, like a hamburger after a week of eating only noodles, is far greater than i have had to experience. His description's of the small things that you get after the extreme deprivation of being on the trail make me want to go for months on the trail because of the value of the luxuries in life afterward.

Independent Reading Entry 15

Bryson, Bill
A Walk in the Woods

After the intense ending of the LeCarre novel that was a spectacular action filled ending i went on to begin the outdoors guide written by Bill Bryson. I had read some of Bryson before and was aware of his comedic genius and was glad that his style of humor continuously showed up in this novel. His subtle, and sometimes not as subtle, sarcasm and various other ways to display humor keep me turning pages. As well as the entertaining humor the information that he includes about the trail and everything involved with hiking the trail is expertly included and there's just enough of it to be interesting and not overbearing or boring. all the information he gives the reader is incredibly novel to me and the geographic info has educated me of some extremely strange occurrences that have happened in the U.S. So far my favorite bit has been about a town in New England that was over tons and tons of coal. There was a fire one day on the edge of town that caught a small chunk of coal on fire. The flame spread to eventually light the entire underbelly of the town aflame. As the whole town began to crumble into the earth with children nearly falling into eighty foot craters the government came up with an evacuation plan. The town is still there today and is almost completely uninhabited. A ghost town. When Bryson walked through the town his reaction and description were entertaining. I've learned a lot so far in this book.

Independent Reading Entry 14

The Spy Who Came in From the Cold
Lecarre, John

The novel is in the process of setting itself up completely for the end. I am not really sure what is going on in the beginning but more and more information builds up and it is clear that he leaves it up to the reader to organize it all. I cannot understand which side anybody is on because of conflicting and difficult to understand false identities and intentions. It seems that there is always a hidden motive that the higher ups do not inform field men even as important to the cause as Leamas and therefore the reader does not find out until Leamas does. So when Leamas is sent to do something or when someone thinks they are doing one thing when they are really doing something for the opposite side and the reader is caught up in all of the confusion. It is incredibly interesting to watch the workings and the lying of the business of espionage. The bosses keep even their own men in the dark in order to effectively carry out a plan. The fight between socialism and capitalism is ongoing and everyone is against one another. Most spies die very young as described by Leamas but he is now in his fifties because of "luck." Leamas knows the tricks of the trade and it carries him through the book and through endless confusion and tricks.

Independent Reading Entry 13

Unfortunately I left Scar Tissue in a bathroom at the A terminal in the Philadelphia airport recently. That really disappoints me because it was shaping up to be my favorite book that i've read in a long time. I had brought it as my main source of entertainment on the two day trip and was incredibly not entertained the whole time. I plan to buy another copy of the book soon so i can finish it.

In the mean time I read The Spy Who Came in From the Cold by John LeCarre. My uncle suggested it to me on the trip that i went on where i had lost my previous book and i began reading it right away. He described it as the best spy novel ever written and so did Graham Greene on the back of the book. Graham Greene was a British spy for a while but became an author later in life and i have enjoyed the books that i've read by him so i trusted that this would be a great novel. It started off a little over my head in some parts and it began somewhat slow. Not that there was a lack of action i just couldn't put it together until much later on in the book. Alec Leamas is the main character of the book and he is rarely referred to as Alec and almost always referred to as Leamas. This i think is to give a greater distance from the reader to the main character who is an aging field man that is an alcoholic with no real ups or downs. His numbness and lackluster are apparent in the novel but he is still incredibly smart and good at what he does.

Independent Reading Entry 12

Kiedis, Anthony
Scar Tissue

The whole time he was doing all of these drugs he never lost sight of the importance of school. He really enjoyed school and was a good student. His teacher told him in middle school that he was a really talented writer and he says he never forgot that and probably was influenced heavily by it to write this autobiography. Although he would be incredibly high almost all the time outside of school he almost never did any drugs at school. He got good grades and went to a good college in California but he was unable to take care of himself or demonstrate any moderation after his childhood and dropped out mostly because of his drug use. He also writes that he just didn't get along with the teachers or the set up of college but i came to the conclusion that he was already to enveloped in the drug scene.

His musical career did not start with singing. He met his future bassist for the Red Hot Chili Peppers in high school, Flea. They became great friends and coke buddies and with the music scene to help influence them they began to inject coke interveniously. Their musical career got off the ground with a spontaneous one song show at a small club that people loved. From then on they climbed up the music scene.

Independent Reading Entry 11

Kiedis, Anthony
Scar Tissue

He has started on his later childhood once he has moved to California with his dad. His dad is a very well known man around the town. Partly because he is always at the VIP table at the club scene with rock stars and movie stars and partly because he sells cocaine and many, many other drugs. Every drug in the book he is selling. In fact, whenever he would make trips up to visit his son in Michigan his son would get so excited and never knew until around age 13 that those trips were actually large scale marijuana transporting runs. This lifestyle rubbed off heavily onto Anthony and before long he was completely enveloped in it.

He had become a habitual marijuana smoker around age 11 but the first time he had gotten high was at age 5 when his dad blew marijuana smoke in his face. He and his friends would always raid his dad's stash and he would always be kept up til six in the morning on school nights when his dad would refuse to make his friends leave. He would end up taking qualudes and doing cocaine and one time around age 13, heroine. His childhood was incredibly fast paced and it caught up with him eventually.

Independent Reading Entry 10

Kiedis, Anthony
Scar Tissue

Beginning the autobiography of the lead singer of the Red Hot Chili Peppers i knew what to expect with his childhood and behavior but seeing the facts laid out in a surprisingly well-written format was incredible to me. He grew up in Michigan most of his young childhood but occasionally spent time with his dad in California. The immense drug use and partying tendencies of his father rubbed off on him and he was caught up in the middle of so much of it. His mom was often unhappy and felt that she had nobody except her son, Anthony. Once she remarried with a man that Anthony was not a fan of Anthony believed she was doing better and was happier. So he decided to move to California with his dad permanently. he still came back in the summers but the California lifestyle took him over.

He begins with a prologue where he depicts his Hepatitis C treatments from a woman injecting a natural medication introveiniously. He describes how a few years back what would have been in the seringe was china white heroin or very potent cocaine and it is meant to catch the reader very off guard but i had heard of his drug use and wasn't too surprised. It was still a very interesting way of beginning the book and foreshadowed his path into drug use throughout his life.

Independent Reading Entry 9

So the first part of his plan is carried out and he has a discussion with his wife. She talks lovingly to them and they are both quite high on the methane that is leaking. He almost forgives her and tries to plan to run away somewhere with her. But he comes back to reality quickly and goes to light the lantern. The plan is nearly complete for him but there is one last thing to do to destroy the past and all it's banality and pain: light a lantern. He kneels down to spark it and explodes into the air. While in the air he acknowledges how there are no great moments in the world anymore but that this exact moment that he is propelled through the air the moment is great. This just shows how in a rut he was because in order to experience anything great there needs to be an enormous methane explosion for him. The entire second floor was blown off of the house and what's left of the first floor is charred and burning walls and furniture.

So he concludes the book with his exit of the mental asylum and he and his neighboring mental patient travel to Virginia to live in her house. They plan to carry out Lance's idea of starting a new world with new values and ways of life. You put down the book leaving Lance getting what he wants and feeling that he accomplished, in a strange way, his goal. He is more aware and awake.

Independent Reading Entry 8

Percy, Walker
10/2/08

The thrilling conclusion of the book reveals the reasons for his institutionalization. He makes a final decision to get concrete proof of his wife's cheating and moves into the bedroom where she and a possible lover are staying for the night of the hurricane. He wanders around the property in the furious winds beforehand and you get a sense of the chaos going on outside to compare to the chaos going on inside. He moves slowly into a dark room and hears both the winds howling and another howling. Percy does a good job at writing to put us in Lance's trauma and confusion with the inability to distinguish the two types of howls going on. He then moves farther into the room to discover a "beast with two backs." Once he sees this he pushes himself down onto the two of them and wraps his arms around them which was an incredibly powerful image of pain displayed by him. He never actually says his feelings he just sort of tells us what happened and the physical things that were occurring. This reinforced the whole numbness that has been displayed throughout the whole boo but it also made it more powerful because of the intensity of the scene. He still feels nothing when one of the worst things imaginable is witnessed. He starts to fight with the man, with a continued numb apathetic description, and he ends up on top of him with the man laying under him on his stomach. They chat a little while the man attempts to calm him down. Lance however is unmoved and Percy writes this so effortlessly. The man is about to tell Lance what he believes is the issue but "we never heard what he was going to say because i was slitting his throat." That is literally how the murder is written. It is incredibly intense.

Independent Reading Entry 7

Percy, Walker
10/1/08

The conclusion of the book was incredibly exciting. In the midst of a hurricane Lance is increasingly caught up in his newfound openness and freedom and commits to a plan. The reader is unaware of his plan and he never quite says it to us but you become aware of what he's doing as he's carrying it out. He was betrayed by his wife and is numbly upset and holding on to an incredible amount of anger even though he does not show it. Because of this he reconfigures the gas pipes in the basement of the mansion and routes the methane to the air conditioning. Nobody is aware of the leaking gas and after a run in with Raine, Lance's wife's attractive friend, he ends up committing adultery with her. This confused me because aside from a held back flirtation that they had between them i would think that after such a traumatizing feeling that he got from his wife's infidelity he would feel different about this kind of act. Apparently not though because of the intense descriptions in the scene and the overall feel of the scene. He has developed a different outtake on sex since being in the mental asylum and the description of the sexual experience is shown as attempting to find a secret out from your partner. This intrigued me although i did not quite put together the metaphor.

The whole ending scene had a very surreal feeling to it and Percy definitely did this on purpose. The methane was getting into people's lungs and affecting the thought cycles of everyone. To show this, Percy used vague diction and many similes and metaphors. His ability to describe what's going on while still keeping the feelings of vagueness and a lack of clarity added to the chaos of the final scene.

Lists

My Favorite Things:
1. Snowboarding
2. Soccer
3. Guitar
4. Travel with friends
5. Any other sports

Things I Would Like to Know More About:
1. Philosophy
2. Business/Money
3. Music/Music Theory/Guitar
4. Football

Independent Reading Entry 6

Throughout the book there have been sections where the narrator talks about the woman in the cell next to him and her connection to his ideas for the future. His ideas about how the past is gone and limited by the inability to change it and how the future is infinitely open with infinite possibilities. He constantly is voicing his opinion on today's society and the lack of honor in both genders. But his plan for the future is to begin a new culture where it is easy to tell the honorable men and women from the dishonorable. He plans to (try to) change society to be more defined rather than the milky lines between "lady" and "whore." This idea stems partly from his bitterness towards his wife's cheating but the woman in the cell next to him have had equally if not more troubling experiences that cause her to possibly have the same mentality as him.

The woman is a victim of rape and he describes this experience's effect on her as causing an absolute reversion to innocence. She has become pure from suffering the most impure act inflicted by someone else. Lance had attempted to communicate with her but had been failing because of her numbness and shock after the act until recently in the book farther away from when she had been assaulted. They had a conversation for the first time and he discussed her leaving with him wherever he went after they were released from their rooms. She was open to his ideas and stressed the phrase "new life." They both are connected in that they believe in the future and feel strongly about leaving the past.

Independent Reading Entry 5

Percy, Walker
9/17/08

Lance, the main character and narrator, continues to describe his situation and his emotions about his situation. He and a family friend Elgin set up hidden cameras that aren't the highest quality in the bedrooms of his wife and suspected lover(s). What he discovers in the murky forms of people on the screen is that his wife is not with a previous lover anymore and is in a way relieved. But then a second figure enters the room and he gets proof of his wife's infidelity. His proof causes him pain and his newfound sobriety since his suspicions of his wife came about is ended with some "capsule" that causes him to experience an out of body and "away from pain" feeling. I think that his clarity and new views on life that were uncovered by his mounting suspicion caused an unfortunate build up of unfelt sadness and once the truth was proven the pain was too much.

It is always hard to tell, though, whether what he is feeling and describing is actually his true feelings. His credibility always seems to be at least partially skewed because of his strong emotional bias. He says himself he doesn't want to remember these hurtful times in his past so i believe that some of what he is saying is held back from the sheer difficulty of expressing himself fully. Getting all of one's emotions out is always hard to do, especially this intensity of emotion, so i sympathize with his possible skewing of details and feelings but it does hurt his credibility.

Independant Reading 4

9/11/08
Percy, Walker
Lancelot

The main character begins to narrate his actions after he discovered his wife's infidelity and before the present time when he is in a mental asylum. He and his faithful and incredibly smart servant, Elgin, begin devising plans to spy on Lance's wife to try to get proof that she is unfaithful. It was intriguing to see their approach and the text shows their steps they take to get to their final plan that they actually follow through on. You read as they develop their plan and i thought it was a good rhetorical strategy to follow along with them as they work out the kinks. It showed the problems with the plan that we as the reader may have thought of and acknowledged and fixed them for us to see. Percy has many good ideas and well written passages in this book.

A lot of his good ideas come in his explanations for the crumbling of recent society. His friend that is visiting him in the mental asylum does not think he is very credible because from his point of view Lance has turned into a rambling mental patient. His explanations for his "craziness" and his thoughts about the faults in the world seem fully justified and backed up in his long narrations. Percy's writing puts out all of the intelligent suggestions and proposals on how to change society and phrases them in an extremely believable and understandable manner. I've really enjoyed reading this book thus far and will look forward to the conclusion of the story.

The Volcano

Dear Mom,
You must remember the volcano during the Costa Rica trip we took when i was in eighth grade. Not the one with the giant green lake filling the bottom of the crater, the amazing view of the forest on all sides, and the green expanse of the valley past the enormous rocky slope down towards the sulfur water... No I'm talking about the one where it was cold, raining, and just barely tolerable to slip up the gravel-like rocks of the outside of the crater after slumming through the wet "trail" under ominously hanging, dripping, muddy branches. It would have been quite beautiful and an extremely positive, unique experience from all of the other many American trails that I've hiked had it not been for these conditions. I was fascinated by the fact i was in an exotic, Central-American country and I feel that if I had been a little older I would have appreciated this trek much more, but I feel that I was really trying to appreciate it at the time.

There is a feeling embedded in my memory of this volcano and the effect it had on me. I remember the feeling of being extremely wet and cold on the top of the blustery rim and being absolutely unable to do anything about it; a small sense of helplessness overpowered by the distracting freeze. We were at least a mile and a half away and my windbreaker was doing anything but break the wind. I remember the feeling of resentment towards you for somewhat childish reasons, but at the time they felt very plausible: you had given me my windbreaker before the trip when you assured me it was immensely effective. In the end it became immensely wet. I had not packed more than a pair of jeans and this windbreaker to protect me from cold weather and somehow in my mind found a way to blame you for that. "Why didn't you tell me it would be cold in Costa Rica?" I would think, when deep in my mind I knew you had warned me to pack a couple extra things just in case.

I remember a feeling of excitement and joy also in my far-off adventure in the jungle. I really felt lucky that i was the only one of my friends to ever walk this path. I've always been intrigued by exploration and new things or places so when you told me we were going to Costa Rica I couldn't wait the five months there was 'til the trip. It was thrilling just to be somewhere where I knew nothing about and to see a different culture. Being there and only knowing one semester of Spanish was as big a thrill as any of the rest of the trip. I wanted to ask the guide how long 'til we would be back but I didn't quite know how to and I didn't want you to think I was suffering that much. I remember you were slightly drier than me in most places and that your raincoat looked like the Hyatt compared to my Motel 6 jacket that i was stuck in. You were always willing to comfort me along the way and to this day I can't tell if that fueled my resentment towards you or if it really did assure me that we'd be dry and safe soon.

Since arriving home safely and being in the unlimited familiarity of the English language I have thought about this experience whenever Costa Rica or the word "volcano" is mentioned. The hike has taken the place in my brain of the old, cartoon versions of all the volcanoes i had seen on television and it is because of this that I thank you, Mom. It is so prominent in my memory because of the mix of all of these feelings that I will never forget the adventure. All of the negative feelings have been thoroughly reflected on in my mind and any resentment just follows with the wet and cold, and when I think about the experience I have found that I do not get a wet and cold feeling. I simply get visuals of an ominously beautiful tunnel through the trees and standing on the first active volcano I had ever stood on and the intense feeling of fulfilled exploration. It is this fulfillment, that the experience is completed and that we made it through to a drier time in our lives, that makes the experience so important to me and to our relationship. You took me on a wild ride in another country and it is one of the most unique experiences I've had. For this I thank you and want to remind you that you're extremely important to me, and not just because you take me places.

Independent Reading Entry 3

Lancelot
Percy, Walker
9/4/08

As i continue to read farther more and more interesting ideas are mentioned in the book. The narrator and main character continue to describe his past to his friend and he explains that he cannot remember many things about his story. But then he goes on to say that he can remember he just does not want to. It's not that the past has too much pain to acknowledge, it's just that the past is so banal. He uses the word banality to describe the past and uses the metaphor of a tape to describe time. The past is already laid out and restricted in the limits of what has already happened and it cannot change. The present is the "tape head" that flows through everywhere. He says how the less complex and complicated that one's "everywhere" is the better they can handle and grasp everything. His cell is simple and not overwhelming and he agrees that it's all he can handle. But the future is limitless and amazing in his eyes. The future is clear and pure and open. His ideas are very intriguing and it keeps me reading, especially the way he explains and writes his ideas.

Independent Reading Entry 2

Percy, Walker
Lancelot
8/26/08

As the book continues you discover more about Lance's life. He explains how he hit the peak of his life around his college years where he was a Rhodes scholar and held the record for longest touchdown in the state of Louisiana. He talks about the times that he first met his wife that is now cheating on him and about when he discovered that she had been unfaithful. He saw his daughter's blood type on a form and figured out that no matter what his wife's blood type was there was no way their daughter could have had that blood type if he was indeed the father. AB cannot make an O type baby. I thought that this was a very interesting way of discovering something like this but what was even more interesting is how he reacted and felt about the discovery. He describes not a feeling of anger, shock, or even betrayal or sadness; he simply explains that it sparked a "worm of interest" in him.

From this somewhat numb discovery he begins to realize his life has been a simple routine that he has almost never broke away from. He stops drinking and smoking and he makes an attempt to stray off the well-beaten path. This was very intriguing to me and it reminded me of the movie American Beauty: a numb businessman coasting through life that suddenly wakes up and change the way he lives. His lack of emotion for his wife and the discovery of her cheating is later clarified when he describes the feeling of "like" and not love that he felt for her. They shared joyful moments and were ecstatic when together, but his first wife was the only one that he says he was "in love with."

Walker Percy's Lancelot

Lancelot
Percy, Walker
1977

8/21/08
Lancelot
My junior year lit teacher handed out books to each student in the class based on what he had seen of our personalities and interests in literature. He chose this book, Lancelot, for me because of my psychology interest. It begins in a cell of some kind and the main character claims he is unsure whether it is a prison or a "nuthouse." The main character is the narrator and the text is him explaining his thoughts and experiences to an old friend. He doesn't want to remember certain events of his past because they are too painful for him and even doesn't let himself recognize his old friend in the beginning because he brought up too much pain.

The narration from the main character's discussion was somewhat monotonous at the start of the book. There has yet to be dialogue so when his friend would say something the text would be something like "What's that you say? You say this? Well let me answer this question of yours..." Not to that extent but it got pretty tedious to read. As the plot developed it became tolerable and much more interesting. I can see that the book will become full of conflict as he recalls his past experiences unwillingly and the psychology of it all is quite apparent. His story involves unfaithfulness and his strange analysis of the emotions he felt from this unfaithfulness. I'm very interested in finding out how he got to this "nuthouse" he finds himself in.