The End of Small Font Books (IR)

So, as we just finished the very dense novel Heart of Darkness, I find it only fitting that I also finish my independent reading book The Scarlet Letter as its font and page length rival that of Conrad's. It was really difficult reading both those books at the same time as while the page amounts weren't small, the amount of words and details was at times very annoying.

The novel overall was okay, but personally I was very bored with it. That's not to say that it was bad, not at all. I just wasn't as interested in this book than my last independent reading book and found it a little boring. I don't know why, but for most of the book I was really disinterested and couldn't get into it. Now, there were some good things that came out of Scarlet Letter. I will admit that the story is a very interesting idea and I enjoyed learning a little more about the Puritan culture. For those of you unaware, The Scarlet Letter is the story of a woman, Hester Prynne, who lives in a Puritan Community and commits adultery with someone. She is then forced to wear a Red A on her clothes as a sign of shame and be shunned by the community. I also really enjoyed how this novel was written in a "modern" way. Since this book was written back in 1850, many would expect it to be very dense and a little hard to follow. Surprisingly, it's the opposite. The book was (for the most part) easy to follow and wasn't as dense as many people would imagine. Weirdly enough, this book was easier to follow than my post 20th century book (Sound and the Fury).

Really, I can't give an honest opinion on this book as it was an interesting story, I was just too uninterested to care about it or ever get into it. If this sounds like it would be an interesting story, by all means read it. Honestly, I think reading Heart of Darkness put me off of it as the font and page styles are very similar and it reminded me of the densest book ever.

Heart of Darkness and La Noche Boca Arriba (CC)

So, as we move forward into Heart of Darkness,  I made a connection to this story and a short story that I read in AP Spanish Lit last semester called "La Noche Boca Arriba." It was a very weird story about a guy who gets in a motorcycle crash and is taken to a hospital. However, when he goes asleep, he has dreams that he is in a world where he is an Aztec being chased by other natives trying to kill him. As the story progresses, he beings to realize that he is loosing distinction between reality and imagination and is unsure which world is the true world, ending the story on a cliffhanger as to whether he died or not. It is a good story and for those of you who don't like Spanish, look it up in English as it is a good story.

As I read Heart of Darkness, I made the connection to "La Noche Boca Arriba" because of the contrast between the natives and the Europeans. The main character is sort of like Marlow, who sees both the worlds of the White people and the natives/Aztecs. There is a contrast between the worlds that begs the question which world is truly right. It was really weird when I made the connection as I realized that in both stories, both these worlds are contrasting against one another in front of the narrator and it makes for some very interesting imagery and storytelling.

Overall, there wasn't a whole lot that I could connect to, but the idea of the two different worlds coming together really got me thinking. It is something that really got me thinking and still intrigues me as I write this blog post.

Why Binge Watching is So Right and Wrong (FW)

So, I am currently doing a review blog for my senior project where I review both movies and television shows. So far it has been really fun, but there is one thing that both annoys and fills me with joy, binge watching.

For those of you unaware, binge watching is where someone watches episodes of a television show or multiple movies in a row continuously and not do anything. Now, I am not new to binge watching myself. I started doing it a lot back in late 2013 with Breaking Bad and Game of Thrones, both of which are really great TV shows that everyone should watch. So far for my blog, I have binged on the entire second season and first half of the third season of the TV show Arrow and the first half of the spin off show The Flash (both of which are great). Really, I think binging is best summarized in this CollegeHumor video.

Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ohtRFAat-WM

However, it has come to my attention that there is a certain element to binge watching that allows it to be both good and bad.

When binge watching (at least for me) one is trying to catch up on all the previous episodes so I can be up to date and will avoid spoilers or you just enjoy the show so much that you can't stop watching, which I have also done. The thing that annoys me with binge watching is that for a while I am so far behind everyone and have to watch all the episodes to catch up. Unfortunately, they are usually hour long episodes and it takes a long time. When I finally am all caught up I feel happy for a moment until I realize that I am depressed for many reasons, the main being that I now have to wait for more episodes which is annoying and the other being I now have a ton of free time. I experienced this when I first finished watching all of Breaking Bad. I was so happy to have finished, until I realized that I now had nothing to do and that made me depressed. So then I binged on the first two seasons of House of Cards and they were great. Then the cycle repeated itself. It seems that I am truly only happy when I am wasting through episodes one at a time and it annoys me that this is now the only way I can watch TV.

If you have any suggestions on really good TV shows to watch, please leave some in the comments. I have already watched Breaking Bad, House of Cards, Game of Thrones, Arrow, and The Flash.