Intelligence at its Finest

I don't really have any inspiration for this blog. I did end up going to Cedar Rapids on Saturday. I shopped with my mom and per usual, didn't find the elusive pair of jeans that I am continually searching for. We left the mall and went back to Grandma's house. Aunt Stacy was there so we chatted awhile until she left and then dad started dinner. While dad was slaving away in the kitchen, mom and I went to Old Navy and to the good ol' Hy Vee to get some groceries for grandma. While at the courtesy counter, renting a movie, I had a conversation with the girl working behind the counter. She wondered why I was in CR because when I showed her my drivers license, it said Urbandale. She explained to us that she used to life in Waukee and then moved to Montana and back to CR to attend Coe.

It was also a marathon spanish day for me yesterday. I started my spanish homework in the car, then I did a little after dinner while everyone else was talking, and then I spent another 2 hours working on it while the family watched a movie. I did, however, learn a plethera of new spanish words. The book we have now is different from our old books, so the vocab is different. For instance, La Frontera, means "the frontier." Now, I asked myself, why on earth would I need to know the spanish word for "frontier." My mother said that I could talk about Thanksgiving in spanish now. That is all fine and well, but the spanish people don't even have a "thanksgiving" so to speak. I guess if someone ever asks me about our history, I can say that we moved on "la frontera." I have actually been learning quite a few new spanish words lately. Probably because my brain is finally leaving summer mode and entering the state where it knows it has to work. Which, sucks because I actually have to think now.

Speaking of thinking, I think that some of the people in my AP English class should have thought before they signed up. We read Oedipus, granted, it was Sopecles who wrote it, but, I heard some pretty bonehead things said in response to the text. This wasn't my first time reading it so I was a little advanced in my knowledge of the plot, but there were people that had no idea what was going on. The story is pretty sick and twisted. Oedipus was exiled to the country side because of a prophecy that said his fate was to kill his father and marry his mother. Since he was exiled at such a young age, he had no idea that the people he called "mom" and "dad" weren't his biological parents. So when he kills a random man on the road, he has no idea that is it his dad. Then he goes back to his home town and answers the riddle of the Sphynx. He is the hero and is crowned king. He then marries his mom and bears children with her. All of a sudded the city has this horrible plague and Oedipus sends Creon, his brother in law, to the gods to get the answer. The answer is that he must find the murderer of Leius, Oedipus' dad, whom Oedipus has killed but doesn't know it. When Oedipus finds out that he is in fact the murderer, and that the prophecy has come true, he gouges his eyes out with pins from his dead wife's/mother's clothing. Jocasta, Oedipus' mother and wife, killed herself after she found out the prophecy was true. So now we have a blind, murdering, king, his dead queen, and his children whom are full of incest. Sounds like a good time to me. Oedipus wants to be sent back to the mountain where he was left as a child because he says he must live out his fate. I don't remember if he does go back to the mountain or not, I didn't really read the end. But there you go, a brief summary of the classic Oedipus The King.

I also learned a lot of new vocabulary in Oedipus the King. I didn't look up any of the words I didn't know because it would have taken forever and I got the jist without the help of those words. However, I have decided to add my own little quirk to the end of my blogs. I am going to write a word and it's definition at the end of each blog. This word will be one that I have learned for the day. As they say, "you learn something new everyday," so I am going to enlighten you with a little high school learning.

ENGLISH
Word: Auspicious
Definition: Marked by success; fortunate; prosperous

SPANISH
Word: Bosillo
Definition: Pocket