Please visit the pdf version of the poem below.
Though most people found this particular exercise the EASIEST, I actually found it to be the hardest. Shelly was testing us into more "commercialized" forms of writing (or writing that biases English majors over Science majors, two drawbacks for me!), which I think is superb for me and really taking me out of my box of writing for exploring the human-environmental condition. Shelly and her husband are currently working on adopting classical pieces of Literature into musicals (hence Shelly was going to New York the next day, perhaps to meet up with folks like Gershwin, sheeh). Everyone in the class had to choose a classical piece of literature, choose a key segment of the literature and create a musical piece. It doesn't need to rhyme. Amen. Sadly, my Crime and Punishment choice was not listed on Shelly's list posted in the front of the room--which had classics like Hamlet, Catcher and the Rye, To Kill a Mockingbird, The Stranger, Forest Gump, etcetera. Shelly was open to letting me do a Subconscious Tribal Chant for Raskolnikov in terms of whether he truly converted to Christianity or changed his ways due to a changed environment? Mine was a dark, psychological-environmental thriller. Many others were very lively and hilarious. Oh well. Though Shelly liked very much what I created within the half-hour time frame.
The question of the day is, why did my mind gravitate toward Crime and Punishement, of all the pieces of literature I had been exposed to in my life? First of all, I was in a very dire situation during my high school year, which was the same time I was reading Crime and Punishment. Raskolnikov went through Transformation, as I was forced to go through transformation to survive from Anorexia. And thirdly, I have come to realize that I have come to absorbe so much in terms of the way how Dostoyevsky thinks--the themse of emotions versus reason, science and reason versus religion. Raskolnikov was a young, complex character that needed change, just as I did. I was and I am Raskolnikov. I have become the essence of Raskolnikov just as Ray Bradbury became Herman Melville (at least for a short while)--at least partly. I think our egoes are completely opposite though. Raskolnikov had a Mega Ego problem and I had the Absence of an Ego, and had to formulate and Build and Ego. *Geeze* Wow.
Nice to know I can pull off some Bullshxt from my xss within a half hour. I am sure my AP/IB English Teacher, Ms. Ellen Fauver, will be pleased to know what I did! I'll send this blog to her some day soon!
If I had a second chance, I would create a musical climax for Al Gore's Inconvenient Truth. I already have a rough draft for a song. I just have to dig it out of my computer and finish it!
If I had a third chance, I would have written a musical for The Myth of Sisyphus, Part II. A Formula for Change, not Maintaining the Status Quo.
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