Misfits

Hey, everyone! I hope you all had as good a Thanksgiving as me (I spent much of it at my Gran's house watching the Patriots game all over Detroit). Anyway, when I got back to Tuscaloosa, I decided to clear out a few things from my television "to watch" list, and one of them was Misfits. It's a sci-fi heavy show from England about a group of juvenile offenders who gain powers after being struck by lightning. I will warn that the language is pretty rough, so if swear words offend you, don't watch! I really liked it, and since there are only ~10 episodes, you can knock out the whole series so far in a few days. I linked the trailer in the title.

My Final Post?

Seriously guys, why didn't anyone remind me to post something last week? Very disappointed. It's ok, I was in a tryptochoma anyhow. I'm shocked that this semester is nearly finished, and now have to find something to discuss on this blog. Excited about Dr. Who tomorrow, and look forward to finally saying I've seen more than one episode.
For those of you still watching "The Walking Dead" I've attached a link to the title of this blog. The link takes you to an interview with Norman Reedus, the crossbow wielding zombie killer. In the interview he takes a side on the Zombie vs. Vampire debate we discussed earlier. Although he doesn't go into great detail it's still awesome to find someone on the outside debating the same things we do.
Well, my papers about finished, and the Four Lokos is trying to kick in, so it's best I get off here and get back to the paper.

Fear Itself

While writing my paper I have come across a question that I hope you fine folks can help me with. My paper aims to argue that Marcus in Little Brother is actually a terrorist and I have found ample evidence to support this. However, I wonder if you personally would still consider someone a terrorist if their actions were terrorist like in nature, but this was not their original intent.

For example, Marcus only wants to prove that the Department of Homeland Security is flawed and immoral. He attempts to achieve this, however, through a series of pranks that are ultimately more harmful then anticipated. Since very few people are actually aware of his purpose, they become afraid of what is happening and link his actions to terrorism. So his original intent is misunderstood and has unforeseen consequences. Does that mean he should still be considered a terrorist?

Doctor Who-itis

As I'm sure none of you remember, I'm writing on the butterfly effects of time travel as seen in particular episodes of Doctor Who. In preparation for this paper writing I of course had to re-watch these episodes (along with several other episodes)! My fiance is here visiting at the moment and he is a know Who-Hater. It's been troublesome. So I threatened him with sleeping on the couch and he eventually caved and started watching it with me. Now he's hooked! I'm totally glad I got that Netflix subscription and that they stream Doctor Who.

Anyway... the point of this is to let you guys know that Doctor Who-itis is out there and its contagious. Prepare to be infected tomorrow!

The walls closing in

Hey everyone. Sorry its been so long since I last posted. Modern science (you know, things like the internet) are still science fiction in places like my grandmother's house where I spent thanksgiving. But enough of that, on to business:

My paper will be focusing on suffocation and claustrophobia in Boneshaker. I'll be looking at how these features work as plot devices in this story, but one other thing I am potentially interested in doing is comparing these themes across other texts. Andy had suggested "The Yellow Wallpaper" as one other story featuring this sense of suffocation and smothering quite prominently, but I was wondering if anyone else had any other suggestions. I'd also welcome any insights on how you think these things play into Boneshaker itself. I'm sure there are plenty of things I haven't thought of, so please throw them out if you've got them. I hope everyone had a good Thanksgiving (despite Bama losing), and best of luck on the papers. Thanks!

My Paper Topic

Since a few of you guys are doing this, I thought I'd go ahead a put my topic on here in case anyone has any suggestions. In case you've forgotten (which I'm sure you have) I'm working with the short story "Going Deep" by James Patrick Kelly. I'm looking at it as it relates to different themes in psychology and I'm going to try to look at articles in a few psychology journals to use as secondary sources. I'm still trying to decide exactly what types of ideas, themes and relationships to examine. Any thoughts, ideas or comments are greatly appreciated!

Containment as a paper topic

I spoke about my idea for the final paper in class the other day, but I just wanted to put it here on the blog in case anybody had any more suggestions for me. My topic was concerning the issue of containment of contagion, specifically as seen in Coldtown and Boneshaker. I appreciate any ideas you want to share.