My life in the present and the past

My name is Katey Lee Crystal. I was born in Burbank, California in April of 1986. My parents Sharon and Harry met at work and are still together today, happily married for 26 years. I was raised in La Crescenta and all my life I thought anything outside California to be foreign. I was comfortable under the protection of my parents and a culture where my beliefs were affirmed and accepted.
All that is past possesses our present. In Classical Literature there are hundreds of stories that can easily be related to life today. By looking at ones’ own life many events can easily be compared to stories written thousands of years ago. This goes to show that humanity is a body of people with the same concerns and interests. Whether someone is living in 4 AD or 2007 AD, many ideologies in each society are the same because they are based upon ideas that have been built upon over thousands of years.
Growing up I read many stories about different places in the United States and the world at all times in human history. After reading many stories I began to see similarities to current events in the news as well as in my own life that sounded similar to stories of the past. When I got to college my whole world got thrown upside down. I met people from all parts of the country and couldn’t find another Californian no matter where I looked. These people had very different upbringings and I was able to connect more and more of the past with an array of stories I heard in the present.
When I visit the place of my roots it feels more and more foreign to me every time I return. People on the West Coast simply cannot see my desire to live in such a desolate place. I tell them they don’t know what they are missing and high tail my way back to Montana as fast as my 1992 S-10 Blazer or jet airplane can take me.
I feel like Bacchus. He tells everybody he is a god and many fail to believe him. He punishes the skeptics. Although people might denounce my lifestyle and believe the acts I find interesting hard to believe I will not go to great lengths to inflict pain on those who don’t understand. Bacchus or Dionysus is the god of wine and the promoter of civilization, a lawgiver, and lover of peace which are all things that I can apply to myself.
I am also similar to Athena because I’m a daddy’s girl. Athena was Zeus’s favorite child whom he gave birth to from his own head. My dad definitely gives me the benefit of the doubt whenever a dispute is at hand. Athena is the goddess of civilization, wisdom, weaving, crafts and the more disciplined side of war.
I am sure my mother feels like Demeter. Montana is Hades and I am Persephone. Demeter is the mother of Persephone and the story told of them is a story of their love which has been disrupted. After being swept off my feet by going to a foreign land, my mother became quite sad to lose her youngest daughter. My mother, like Demeter “pulled her vail over her face and sat in quiet sorrow…just pining for her daughter (Ruden 9). Her job of feeding and clothing me was over. However she still has the liberty to see me at certain points in the year just as Demeter gets to see Persephone two thirds of the year.
My decision to leave my mother was a choice I made, and I was not taken away against my will by the devil. I am just like Persephone who “still hoped to the tribes of gods again, and her dear mother, and this hope soothed her brave mind in anguish” (Ruden 4).
If I had to relate a story to my father it would be the rape of Europa. I was an unsuspecting junior in high school looking for colleges to attend. When Europa first gazed at Zeus disguised as a bull she thought “he is so shapely, so unthreatening…she is afraid to touch him…at a certain point Europa dares to sit down upon his back” (Ovid 72). I decided that I needed to get out of California so I applied to schools in a few states beside my own. I visited Montana and fell deeply in love. I came here and cannot go back no matter how I try. My father misses me so much just as Europa’s father ¬¬¬¬¬¬Agenor does in The Metamorphoses. There is nothing that will bring me back to California. Now that I am out in the world I see how great it is never to return-permanently.
After graduation I plan on becoming a teacher and a freelance writer on the side. By telling stories to the children I teach I’ll be able to make them brighter and more ambitious. They will see the world and talk about it in order to ensure that their own story and impact on the world be maintained. It is all a repetitious cycle in life. One is born and has life experiences while they are educated. Then they tell their life stories, die, and are remembered.
By documenting events in ones’ lifetime correlations with the past are much easier to recognize. George Steiner says that “men and women re-enact, more or less consciously, the major gestures, the exemplary symbolic motions, set before them by antique imaginings and formulations. Our realities, as it were, mime the canonic possibilities first expressed in classical art and feeling” (Steiner 108). As far as journalism goes I want people all over the country and possibly the world to read the stories I write and become inspired. After reading my work I hope people get out and try the things I’ve talked about. Hopefully after enjoying that experience that they might not have tried otherwise they will remember me forever as a muse.
As Diotima says in her speech in The Symposium, Homer, Hesiod, and the other good poets have left behind stories that make them immortal. When one writes down their beliefs they are ensuring their identity for the rest of time. Art is the most important way for events to be remembered forever.

all you need is love

The beatles are a renown band around then world. However some fail to see the conection of the Beatels to Antigone. Antigone was deeply attached to her family. Her mother, father, and two brothers were killed and Antigone didn't care what it took to defend her family. She was willing to die in order for her brother to maintain the respect he deserved. She did it for love.
In Lysistrata the women loved their husbands so much that they were willing to deny them sex. Some might think this was a harsh move but they did it in the name of love. By preventing war they would ensure their husbands lives therefore ensuring the longevity of their love.
In the Symposium Socrates claims that Diotima taught him all about love. In the Symposium the subject that is discussed throughout the whole book is love. Although each philosopher in the Symposium has a different origin of love and idea about love, all must agree that is one of the most important component of humanity.

manmade laws v. devine justice

In society today there are laws that people must follow. My question is whether or not these laws are necessary. For instance, in California there used to be a six month law which makes a 16-year-old that just got their license unable to drive with people in the car for six months to get comfortable with driving. Now a 16-year-old has to wait a year before they are able to drive with someone in the vehicle. In most other states this rule does not apply. In some states abortion is illegal. In some states gay marriage is legal. How does one state differ from another. These aren't devine laws but laws made up by old men in the United States. How do these men get the power to make the laws that citizens must follow. What would Creon say about these laws. More importantly, what would Antigone think? Would Antigone be willing to die in order to drive with friends in her car upon receiving her license? Would she be willing to die if she were denied the right to wed a woman?

"When I have fears that I may cease to be"

When I have fears that I may cease to be
Before my pen has glean'd my teeming brain,
Before high piled books, in charactry,
Hold like rich garners the full ripen'd grain;
When I behold, upon the night's starr'd face,
Huge cloudy symbols of a high romance,
And think that I many never live to trace
Their shadows, with the magic hand of chance;
And when I feel, fair creature of an hour,
That I shall never look upon thee more,
Never have relish in the fairy power
Of unreflecting love;-then on the shore
Of the wide world I stand alone, and think
Till love and fame to nothingness do I sink
-John Keats, "When I have fears that I may cease to be"

First of all this poem is a Shakespearean sonnet, inspired by Shakespeare which was inspired by Ovid. This poem is a desperate attempt by Keats to preserve his short life by recording it before its too late. He knows that everything wonderful in life is temporary. He believes in melancholy which is the idea that with happiness comes sadness. This poem was written in 1848 during the romantic period in Britain. Although it was written more than a hundred years ago one can still read it and realize how beautiful but temporary life is, and how important it is to record the beauty as well as the ugly parts of life that people in the future can look at in order to realize they must do the same. Recording life in order for the future to see what the past thought of as important is the best contribution one can give to society. Keats might have has the slightest clue that in 2007 people would continue to read his work in awe.

Crazed Revolutionaries

In Antigone Creon calls the girl a crazed revolutionary who has no place speaking against men. This is one of the first times the idea of women revolting against the rules of men has occurred in writing. To ensure justice of mankind woman throughout history have been awfully courageous. When history began to be written down, woman had little power in the world. Their soul purpose was to bear children and then feed and clothe their family. However as the world has progressed woman have become more and more important as a whole in their society. In Rwanda there was a huge genocide by the Hutu's against the Tutsi lasting 100 days where 500,000 Tutsi were slaughtered in attempt to kill a whole race of people. In the process seventy percent of the men were killed. Before the genocide occurred woman in Rwanda had few rights and responsibilities. Woman were not allowed to inherent land. Today this right is given to woman. Now woman hold public positions and are building roads to try to make their country better. Many women were raped by soldiers during the raids. In this process many of these woman acquired the aids epidemic. Many woman lost their children, parents, husbands, and families. After this huge tragedy many of these women are still in high spirits. They say that after the horrible event, at least they achieved more freedom then they had before. Just like Antigone, these women had to be very strong and go through rough times in order to make an impact on the world. It is amazing that in order for positive changes to be made in the world, great sacrifices must be made. The suffering of a few makes a difference to many. By reading accounts in history people can prevent themselves from making similar mistakes in the future.

the moral of the story is the story

The moral of the story is the story. So many people are worried about what art is that they deprive themselves of seeing the world in any other way but the norm. In the story Ulysses, James Joyce chronicles the day in the life of a few people in Dublin, Ireland. Joyce uses a stream-of-consciousness technique full of puns, parodies, and allusions ultimatley giving rich characterizations and broad humour to his work. When his work was initially published it was banned in Great Britain and the United States.
If one attempts to read Ulysses expecting it to have a structure similar to ordinary writing they are in for a surprise. The way Joyce writes makes the initial reading of this story quite difficult.
The point of the this blog is to show that although a piece of work might not be classified as 'sticking to the normal structure,' it still shows the audience something important. If the audience shuns a piece of work because it doesn't have to proper structure then they are depriving themselves of something fantastic and possibly life altering.

The Golden Ass

This story is set up in the same way as Ovid's Metamorphoses. Greek gods and Greek culture are incorporated into a lot of the stories in The Golden Ass. I found myself making connections between a lot of the stories I read which are translated from latin to english by translator Robert Graves. Unlike the Metamorphoses, the stories in the Golden Ass are seperated my chapters which are composed of around ten pages. There are frame narratives a lot in both stories. Both stories are filled with tragedy, comedy, love, and many transformations. Lucius, the author wrote this story in the year 160, 152 years after Ovid's masterpiece. Lucius of Patrae is the lead character and narrator throughout the story. The Greek text has been lost.