Here's where we get to know each other! My name is Joy and I'm currently a Sophomore at UWM, majoring in Elementary Education. I'm 24 years old and just returned to school this past fall after a 4 year hiatus. I'm sure it would be much more exciting if I could say I spent that time backpacking through Europe (I'm sure it would have helped me out in this class at the very least) but in reality I spent it in the United States Army (which was a whole different experience!!) I must say I learned a lot about myself through those years and will never regret that time. I spent most of it stationed in Virginia on a tiny post called Ft. Story. I also did a 15 month tour in Iraq and that was where I celebrated my 22nd and 23rd birthdays. Long story short, I completed my enlistment and moved back home to Milwaukee where I was born and raised. I have a fairly large family of 4 sisters (one being my twin) and 7 nieces and nephews. I have no kids myself and no immediate plans for any, but I couldn't imagine my future not including a few.
I signed up for this course specifically because I have no background in Irish literature or history- or anything -and I would love to learn more. I'm always open to discovering new cultures and finding out new perspectives. In general I enjoy reading most anything, so why not zero in on a specific theme? It's very hard for me to chose a favorite novel, just as it's hard for me to pick a favorite movie, song, etc. I'm always stumped when asked a question like that because I tend to like so many that I can't bring one specific example to mind to tout above the rest. I suppose to pull one from recent memory, I could say I really enjoyed reading The Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett. The novel revolves around the construction of a cathedral in medieval England. Although it may sound pretty boring by my description (sorry!) it pulled me in. This probably happened because I'm very much a history buff.
As far as my expectations of a novel- I try not too have many. This way it's easy not to be dissapointed if the story doesn't fit into a specific mold. I do need it to be something that can keep me enthralled though. It's hard to keep going if it doesn't grab my interest somehow.
My history with English classes have been basic through high school and then Creative Writing and Amerian Literature up to 1900 while here at UWM. In the American literature course, we read short stories and poems from some of the earliest American authors, starting with Christopher Columbus (Letters), up to Herman Melville and Emily Dickinson. I feel this class will be different because it seems we will be spending more time on fewer works and dissecting them as a whole, rather than covering a lot of material with just a brief overview and introduction to each.
My background in Irish literature is non-existant, as I stated before, but I know that my experiences through previous literature courses and literary explorations outside of the classroom will provide me with an interesting perspective. On the opposite end, maybe my lack of background will enable me to share a fresh and unbiased opinion to our future discussions? I suppose time will tell.
I belong to a few online communites, as I'm sure most UWM students do. I have accounts with Facebook, Myspace and Livejournal (although I must admit, Facebook has somewhat bullied it's way into being my top priority as far as these sites are concerned and the other two accounts have been sadly neglected these days) I find Facebook to be very useful to me, since I've made friends with so many people from different backgounds who are in all different parts of the world at any given moment and it's great to have a medium that allows us all to still stay connected. Since it's my most visited site, I'll also post it as my link to share:
http://www.facebook.com/
It's also hard or me to chose one place I would like to go, since I want to visit so many!! My goal is to visit as many places as I can before I die, although I'm off to a slow start. Staying with the mindset of HAVING to chose one option, I would go with anywhere in Italy. To share what I've already been able to see, I'm posting this picture I took at Dair Mar Elia Monastery in Mosul, Iraq (taken on that 22nd birthday I mentioned earlier!) The picture doesn't really give the grandest impression, but for me it was amazing to be able to walk through it. The monastery was built in 595 AD, the oldest Christian monastery in Iraq. It was breathtaking for me just to be in the midst of so much history.
Youtube- this took me forever. I wanted to share something amazingly groundbreaking or fall on the ground funny, but it just didn't happen. Anything I really found funny probably wouldn't have been appropriate, so I thought I would look for something that was Irish related- that was a massive failure. So as it ends, I've forced these dancing monkeys upon you all and beg your forgiveness (they're good for at least a LITTLE chuckle, right?) I'm not as tech-saavy as I would like to be, so I'm not sure if I'm doing this right. To cover all bases, I'm going to post the URL and the embeded code, so the video should at least be accesible in some way...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=44Y-_JAjAwE
