The Heart of Redness

So, I am reading this book right now for my World Writers class (ENGL 4330) and we have been studying authors from South Africa. It has been one of my favorite classes at Utah State so far because of the vast amount of knowledge I have gained about apartheid in South Africa and the history of South Africa. We have mostly been reading novels by J.M. Coetzee, but we do get a glimpse of other South African novelsts at times, which can be relieving as reading books from one author alone can sometimes be awfully repetitious. However, the book we are concluding with, The Heart of Redness, written by Zakes Mda (pronounced "zaykes emdah") has not kept my attention in the way that most of Coetzee's novels have. Mda uses words that I cant pronounce, which makes it difficult to read and hard to keep up with. He's basically mocking the Americna inside of me by including all these clicks in every character in the book. Anyway, the reason I am writing about this is because the central conflict of the novel is about the Believers and the Unbelievers. These two groups are both against each other in every way shape and form. No matter what they must do to disagree on something, they will do it. It makes me think of my life and how I can sometimes be very stubborn in what I do and say. Even though my stubbornness may not be as drastic and overwhelmingly annoying as the believers and the unbelievers, I still understand that I need to be understanding of other people's beliefs. In this past general conference, President Monson talked about loving everyone and being accepting of those who are not of our faith. I think it is wise counsel and I really have been trying to be better at being less stubborn and more conscious of other people's feelings and beliefs.

In other news... School is obviously getting stressful. Finals are coming up and I have a bunch of projects that are piling up. Luckily, one of my biggest projects was due today, a 15 page Multigenre Research Paper. It was a different experience for me. I still dont think I comprehend exactly what a multigenre research paper entails, or if I completed the assignment correctly, but I did have a fun time doing it. This assignment really allowed for me to be creative and branch out. I loved making the pieces different and exploring that creative side of me that I sometimes have a difficult time exposing. I enjoyed it, although it has taken up all of my time the last 2 weeks. I thought it would be easier than an expository essay, but boy was I wrong. It was so interesting and fun that the only homework I ever wanted to do was writing for my MGRP. Anyway, now that the mgrp is out of the way, I have two more essays to finish, two unit plans (which will be the death of me if I dont get them finished soon!), and two final exams... all coming up in the next week and a half. CRAZY!! I feel like my brain might sell out on me because i will constantly be writing and researching and planning and studying for the next 12 days straight.

speaking of... I need to go write a paper. I had some pictures to post, but for some reason blogger is struggling and it wont allow me to. pictures to come... adios