 Christmas is in the air, so that must mean that the time for finals and stress is here. Looking back, this semester has been pretty good. At the beginning, I thought I would have trouble juggling all the classes, even though I usually got 18 credits and this time I only had 15. The big difference was that I had a lot of writing assignments due every day or every week, but I managed. My classes were hard because of that, but not impossible.
I liked the fact that, for two mornings a week, the first thing I got to do was write. Writing in a lab was definitely different, but good different. I liked all the topics we got to write about. I find it very interesting the fact that all of us were writing about the same things, at the same time, but our posts turn out so diverse from one another. That's one of the things I like about writing, our life experiences make up our style and our point of view because like Dr. Seuss: "No one is you-re than you." It's quirky, funny and a bit silly, but it's true; we can see it in all the things we wrote about. These posts speak volumes about who we are and who we want to be.
I can't choose which one of the posts was my favorite assignment because it's a four-way tie. I loved writing the movie reviews, especially the one about Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. I also absolutely enjoyed writing about the music we like. It was interesting seeing everybody's different tastes in music and the reasons behind their choices. Another one of my favorite posts was the one about our sayings because I found out the way I talk comes mostly from TV shows. I'm like a walking TV encyclopedia. The last post I absolutely loved writing about was the revolutionary person; mine was Walt Disney. I chose him because since I can remember I've been a Disney girl, meaning I know and love almost everything that has to do with Disney. I'm not even kidding. Plus, I am going to Walt Disney World in two weeks, so that post definitely put me in the Disney mindset.
Even though I liked writing about a lot of things, there's always something we don't like to write about. For me, it was the post about the philosophers or thinkers that are in our field. Why? Because it reminds me of all the stress they have caused in my life.
All in all, this was a great semester! Happy Holidays, guys!
 If I hadn't gone done the road of being a bookworm, I probably would've gone through with being a vet. However, if I go back farther away than my senior year, I could have chosen to study Music. Oh, well... Things happen for a reason. But I would never, ever study to become an accountant or something along those lines. I'm good at math, but that doesn't mean I like it that much. After a while, it's just a jumbled up mess of black and white. I didn't choose to be a vet because I love animals so much that there were things I know I couldn't bring myself to do. For example, I know I couldn't have been able to euthanize an animal, and if I did, the guilt would eat me alive. I know myself, and I know I couldn't do it. I would've repeated, like a broken record, that it was for his own good, but that wouldn't help at all. But, let's forget about that, and let's just take a trip to a parallel universe where I am a vet (hopefully without the mental traumas...). I could take one of these jobs: Field Service VeterinarianAdoption Center VeterinarianVeterinarianSome important people from this field are: 1. Claude Bourgelat - He founded a veterinary college in the 18th century. 2. Peter Charles Doherty - He's an Australian veterinary surgeon, who has won awards for his research including the Nobel Prize. After taking a career test, I found out that my personality type is INFJ, also known as "Author". I guess I chose right after all. INFJ's are strongly driven to help others. These are serious students and workers who really want to contribute. They make good therapists and ministers. 1% of the total population.
A lot of philosophers and thinkers are involved in the Comparative Literature field. These people dissect what others do or what they did. To them, what's important is the how and why, not the what. Some of them are these:  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
He was a novelist, poet, playwright and philosopher. He's better known for his two part drama, Faust. He is also one of the greatest contributors of the German Romantic Era.
In his work, Weltliteratur, he emphasized the idea of World Literature. This being the seed of what we know now as Comparative Literature.
 Theodor W. Adorno
He was a Modernist philosopher. He wrote about many things about Kant, Freud, what he called "negative diallectics", but he also wrote literary essays. These essays, however, talked about more Classical literary works and not just the modern ones. His greatest work was the Aesthetic Theory. In it he examined the classical themes of aesthetics, the artwork as a socio-historical phenomenon and the concept of "beautiful semblance". With this as his support, he claimed that the negation of society in modernist art is linked to philosophical aesthetics, due to the fact that art struggles against passivity and conformity.
 Walter Benjamin
He considered himself a literary critic, since he thought he was unfit for the title of "philosopher". He inspired Theodor Adorno greatly with his work. In fact, it was Theodor Adorno one of the people who revived Benjamin's career, after WWII. His greatest essay was The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction. In it, he introduces the concept of "aura", which is the characteristic of manual production of the artwork unique to the original object. He also was interested in mass culture and the city.
 Edgar Allan Poe
He's better known for his poems and short stories, being the father of the detective stories, his use of the macabre, and so on. However, he wrote the essay titled "The Philosophy of Composition". In it , he tries to explain how good writers write, and he uses his most famous poem, "The Raven", as an example. People are divided on how he meant this essay to be read; some think it's a satire and other think it's an essay with no hidden meaning behind it.
 Charles Baudelaire
He was a poet, better known for his collection of poems titled Les Fleurs du mal. He also wrote essays and translated Edgar Allan Poe's work. He was praised by authors like Victor Hugo (Les Misérables, The Hunchback of Notre Dame) and Gustave Flaubert (Madame Bovary). He was inspired by Paris's urban life because, unlike other Romantics (meaning people from the Romanticism period), he thought that art must create beauty from the most "non-poetic" situations. Walter Benjamin celebrated his work, and he also included it in his own.
 Jean-Paul Sartre
He won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1964, and he was a philosopher and a playwright, as well. He explored existentialism. He sees man as being alienated, condemned to freedom because freedom forces him to define himself. The only salvation is art. He no longer sees Literature as an art form that only describes characters and places, but as something that's concerned with human freedom, in general.
 Originally, Comparative Literature was going to be my minor. Originally, I wanted to be a veterinarian. "Originally" was a long time ago. After a summer of writing, I came into my senior year of high school and I was doubting "my path". Then, one September night, I changed my mind. I wanted to follow my dreams and my gut instinct. Because it all boiled down to something that made me happy and not what everybody else thought I should be. I chose this field because I love to read and I love to write. I love how an author can transport someone to a whole new world. The most challenging part of this field has been the courses in theory, which I disliked greatly, and the never-ending question: "What do you with that degree?" I get asked that every time I say what my major is, and every time people think my only career choice is to be a professor. That's not true. It's one of the possibilities, but not the only one. Once I graduate, in a year--hopefully--after I finish my minor in Italian, I'd like to move to either L.A., New Haven, CT or New York City. I'm leaning more towards the first one, though. Why these places? Because I have a greater chance of being able to dabble with a master's degree in top universities (Yale, NYU, UCLA) and other things I'm pursuing in what is called "the business", meaning performing. After I graduate, being realistic and all, I'll get a job working for a store or something, until a career opportunity opens up, since they are hard to come by. Although some people think that anything that's involved with the arts (writing, acting, performing, etc.), you're going to be starving for a long time or for your whole life because it's hard. And I'm not going to lie. It is hard, but that doesn't mean I'm going to give up on it because writing (be it songs, essays, short stories, etc.) is something I've always liked and has always made me happy. Is it secure? Not by a long shot. But, is it what I want? Yup. These are some job postings I found that I could actually apply for: Writer at NBC UniversalStaff Writer
Freelance Writer
Junior Journalist
I've talked about what I want so much. How about what I don't want? There's a scene on the movie Valentine's Day, where Anne Hathaway's character (Liz) is caught doing something that doesn't sit well with her boyfriend. Just go to this link and listen to this scene. I most certainly do not want to end up like that, at least I don't have a student loan to pay off.
Writer's block... Sometimes it happens.
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