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I will be thirty-four in fifteen years, which seems closer than I had realized, the more I think about it. The ultimate dream I suppose would be to live in Brussels or Antwerp or somewhere in Belgium, working as a journalist or in international relations. Key word being 'dream'; I kind of have to get through that whole non-fluency in French problem first. We'll see.

It's difficult to pick out a few works from the whole list of things we studied. I feel like everything was so interconnected, as if joined by this invisible network of threads (in good 'ol Post-Structuralist fashion), but some works were more striking than others, especially when side by side.

1. I really think I'll always remember facets of Nabokov's "Good Readers and Good Writers" and Azar Nafisi's lecture. I initially really struggled with the concept of sympathy versus empathy as a reader and how they were different, but I think now I can distinguish the two and use this lesson to improve my skills as a reader and see literature as "the space in which we all recognize each other."

2. Oh, "Areopagitica" and Blue Velvet... Really made me not too fond of Milton for a bit, but when we started talking about Paradise Lost in class, the idea that good cannot exist without evil, although rather simple (and elegant in its simplicity) was actually almost a revelation to me. Then David Lynch and Blue Velvet really helped to embed the idea further in a truly unforgettable fashion.

3. Little Lo and dearest NWA. Just the very fact that both this beautiful, intricate prose by a master of language and this marketable, catchy pop culture product share so much in common really amazes me. Before taking this class, I never would have been able to see the similarities between them. Going beyond just these two works, a foundation has been set in my mind that I think will help me to see the similarities between other seemingly dissimilar works as well.

4. Literary Theory. At times this was so difficult to get through, and it took me a very long time to catch up, but I finally did it, and in the end I was glad for it. It really helped provide a nice historical perspective on how analysis of literature has evolved. It also shows that we should keep our minds open and maybe regard our current way of analyzing literature as just another step toward the "best" way, although how it can evolve further is beyond me.

All right, some massive reading to do on some terribly depressing subjects like Palestinian refugees.