My Final Blog (of far too few)

First, a few words on today's presentations
Everyone did a fantastic job, particularly given the time crunch (I feel greedy for presenting as long as I did on Monday).
Highlights of interest for me personally:
-Kayla's closing remark, "Myth is human nature in story."
-Ishi (sp? not that it matters in orality), the last Indian to emerge from the wilderness as recent as 1911, a living exhibit of oral culture. Brought to us by Lisa.
-Two-tongued Charlie's comments about boring lists brought a nice reply from our Shaman. Lists did not exist to inform, rather to evoke a trance in the listener.
-Joan described words, and our obedience to them, as a chain reaction. We tend to obey words for the sake of politeness.
-Jana gave a wonderfully Oral (with a capital O) presentation on the power of names for the namer and the named. She moved around, conversed about and with specific people, and gave an interesting lesson overall. Never forget the meaning of "Thermal Pollution."
-Steve discussed the his failures in writing a Raven myth. The Myth itself sounded very classic from the excerpt, but his main self-criticism was the lack of cultural meaning. I think he's on the right track, I'd be curious as to the result of this project if the various lessons were grounded in modern day living?
-Parker of the Outback discussed elements of orality manifesting through films. I would really like a sequel to this about videogames.
-Chris the scribbler told the spectacular story about the monkey. Hooray for storytelling! The story was being retold from the first printed version of it straight from the source, his father. Now if only he could have learned the story well enough to tell it without his notes, then we'd have some serious storytime.
-Kari also spoke on the power of naming, but focused more on historical issues, rather than modern. Interestingly, she left off by mentioning "Spirited Away" which fits perfectly with many f the themes from Kane (the girl crosses to another realm, must give something up to do it, must learn the customs of the other realm, and so on.)
-Kate gave us Tristram Shandy and its attack on literate rules.
-Bri discussed T.S. Elliot's "Four Quartets" and also referenced...MY PRESENTATION! Hurray for more connections.

This course has brought many great topics to my attention, and many great books to my need-to-get-to list. I will certainly be making use of memory theaters from now on, (though I'll never forgive elementary school for not teaching me this technique, given that every assignment back then was list memorization!) Another major element I will take from the class is speaking and presenting more traditionally. By this I mean without notes, though with preparation, such that I can adapt and interact with the audience. I love it, I simply need more practice doing it. I'd really like to improve my storytelling capacity.

All of you enjoy yourselves and if I never see you again (though there's only a 2:3 likelihood of that unfortunate future) remember me through your mythlines. I'm never more than six degrees of separation away!