The labors and loves of the germanic gods are done so there’s not much to do tonight. That’s good because, frankly, I’m pooped! I think the best bet for tonight is to get into a nice beverage of some kind, a nice comfy bed and maybe a little bit of a read until sleep!
I’m feeling a little guilty because after all my excitement about the Modern Poetry course, it just isn’t grabbing me. I’m considering just doing the reading and feeling guilt-free about the rest. Seems like there must be a sweet spot between the extremes of being too remote and being too hyper/over the top – for teachers of online courses. Not that our SciFi teacher is remote or hyper. He’s pretty close to that sweet spot. He gave us a nice pep talk this week about how being right isn’t the mot important thing about interpreting what you read.
I downloaded this video for future reference and here’s what I jotted down from the end of Dr. Rabkin’s talk:
…you’re responding to how the power is projected in the plot and in so doing you’re cooperating with that to give the story a more nuanced patterned reading. Are those readings right or wrong? Well, I have my own views on that, but what’s important is not what I think, or what you think. What’s important, is in a way, at first what we think but ultimately because we make up things, we make up fantastic things…we make up fantasies. And because we make up these fantasies, what’s most important is how we think. And you’re doing a wonderful wonderful demonstration of how fertile and fantastic is the human mind.
Guess I better go. I have to review Bradbury and come up with something to write about for the Fantasy/Sci Fi class.
