The Last Blog

I have enjoyed this class very much. In fact it is one of my favorite classes that I have taken in college for the two years that I have been here. Professor Sexson did a great job of engaging everyone into the discussions. Material that I did not think that I would find interesting were actually quite the contrary. The Lady with the Pet Dog turned out to be one of my favorite stories although I was dreading reading it at first. I like that Professor Sexson challenged us with "The Brothers Karamazov". It was hard to read, but I am glad that I did finally finish it. I also really enjoyed reading everyone's blog posts. Many people had some very interesting things to say. I am sad that the class is coming to an end, but would like to take at least one more class from Professor Sexson before I graduate.

Individual Presentations

So far people are doing a great job on their presentations. There have been a variety of approaches and each one works well. I really liked the first presenter's presentation. She knew what she was going to say and did not seem nervous at all to speak in front of everyone. The presentations that I am looking the most forward to are Garrett's and Ashley's. I think that each of them will put an interesting twist on to their presentation and it will be very enjoyable to watch.

Group Presentations

I think that everyone did a great job on their presentations. All of the groups were very creative with the presentations that they put together. I really like group 1's idea of having a debate about the statement "There are no boring books, just boring people". This was a great idea, but I think the debate got a little out of hand and went off into a different direction that did not argue the point that they were trying to make. At the end of the presentation, the people in the classroom did not know what team to vote for and were confused at what the actual outcome of the debate was. I thought some of the people in this group were trying to keep on topic and made some interesting points, but others were getting off topic. One presentation that I especially liked was the group who made up the skit about the "unoriginal story". It seemed like they worked really hard on getting the script together, and it made a lot of sense. They incorporated a lot of things that we learned in the class into their skit, and it kept me very entertained. In other words, it "knocked my socks off".

pg 287

At this point in the book Alyosha is taking notes about Father Zossima's life. At this point the man that killed a woman is about to confess his crime to everyone in the town. I think that this man should be put into jail since he is obviously not over his killing ways. The night before he confesses he comes back to kill Father Zossima, but thinks better of it. If Father Z were anybody else, I think that the man would have killed him. I wish that people would have believed the man when he confessed his horrible crime, and that he would have been locked up.

Rebellion

On page 227 Alyosha reveals why the chapter has it's name. Alyosha claims that Ivan is rebelling from God. I agree with Alyosha, but Ivan seems to deny this claim. This entire time he has been trying to convince Alyosha that God can not be real and this in itself is rebellious seeing that Alyosha is a monk.

pg 224

Ivan and Alyosha are still in the pub during this part of the book. Ivan tells Alyosha that he does not care about the sufferings of grown-up people since they have already eat the apple. He then goes on to tell yet another gruesome story about a little boy who is torn to bits by wild dogs. I am getting a little sick of all of these horrible examples of the suffering of children! Even Alyosha says that the little boy deserved to be shot for accidentally hurting the paw of a general's hound. Can we get on to something a little bit more happy please?

pg 221

Ivan lays out a terrible scene to Alyosha on this page. I think that I was just as shocked as Alyosha was when he hears the story of the crimes committed by Turks and Circassians. I do not know if this is a true story about nailing people by the ears and shooting babies in their mother's arms. Later Ivan says that people seek satisfaction by inflicting pain on others. I think that this might be true in some circumstances, but not all people take joy in the pain of others. Sure we might laugh if someone falls on a patch of ice, but I would not be laughing if that person were seriously injured. I most definitely would not take pleasure in hurting others myself. I can hardly squash a bug let alone kill a person. I do like this section however, Dmitry brings up some good points and Alyosha has some good arguments as well.