HI, ladies!!
Sunflower, Cosmos and Gloriosa
Thank you very much for yesterday’s most interesting and worthwhile feminism theory lecture. I sincerely respect you for your broad knowledge and hard work. I was happy to enjoy such wonderful time with you, and I’d like to learn these theories deeper in order to examine our current situation as women.
Summary: Free love 1
Swedenborg---his doctrine of conjugal love implied the eternal, spiritual affinity of a man and a woman.
George Sand---the most widely read of all foreign authors in England.
(‘Fhalanstery’ at Royal Henry House)George Henry Lewes & Agnes
with Thornton Hunts, the Gliddons and the Samuel Laurences.---they were said to have lived in a co-operative household run on Fourieresque principles. After Agnes bore two children by her husband’s close friend, George Henry Lewes lived with the writer George Eliot for 24 years. Their partnership wasn’t the kind of free love union.
So, see you next. Bye!
8 comments:
Hi, ladies!!!
I just wondered whether or not your daughters complained to you about your going away to the meeting at my house leaving them to themselves on a public holiday, Cherry. Sometimes children of your daughters’ ages do so.
Children make complaints, occasionally in a horrible way, against their parents about what they are doing for whatever they are committed to. To tell you the truth, I did… My mother became a voluntary probation officer recommended by a middle aged female neighbor, an experienced officer, when I was a young teenager.
My mother devoted herself to her mission, visiting those in probation and doing paper work submitted to court for them. In my mind I really respected her for her voluntary work, but physically she became so busy looking after them and I thought to myself she paid less attention to me but more to young delinquents.
My anger, surprisingly enough, turned to the neighbor. I hated her so much, since at that time I believed she was trying to separate me from my precious mother, to the extent that I did not want to see her face and actually ignored her when I saw her on the street. Shame on me!!! I was a horrible young teenager, I know, I know.
She is deceased now. Whenever I remember her, I deeply apologize to her in my mind. She helped my mother whenever she needed help as a novice probation officer. I should have appreciated her kind assistance for my mother.
Well, it’s almost time to cook supper, my fascinating friends. Bye for now. Have a lovely Tuesday evening. Night, night…
Hi, ladies!!!
It’s Wednesday, November 26, 2008, and it’s been a beautiful autumn day, hasn’t it? I went grocery shopping around noon and realized how pleasant the weather was today. How about you? Did you go out in the day time, my lovely friends?
I received a wonderful piece of news late this afternoon that Sunflower had passed the first grade interview test of the Practical English Proficiency Test. I acknowledge how hard she had worked to pass both of the written and interview tests. What was most amazing to me was that she was never discouraged in the past when she received a reply of not being successful from the STEP office. She always appeared to me that she believed one hundred percent that she would pass the tests by all means before long. She moved forward all the time, putting the notice of being failed behind her in a very skillful way. I don’t know her secret how to deal with such despondency, but she had been miraculously positive.
It is hard to get over hardship and we will never be inured to difficult experiences, and nevertheless we have to keep on living, and we know we will, being well aware that our lives ahead are full of adversity and affliction. Contradictory and illogical, isn’t it. There is no solution for our life problems. Alas, alas…
Sunflower, congratulations on your success in the tests. I’m so delighted about this great achievement of yours.
It’s getting late, my precious friends. Have sweet dreams… Goodnight to you all.
Dear Cherry and friends,
Hello.
Congratulations, Sunflower and Cosmos!
How delightful and encouraging to know your achievements! The results you’ve got today are well-deserved rewards.
Come to think about this, we’re really lucky, being blessed with valuable resources: an excellent teacher, Plum, and highly-motivated peers who seek guidance from Plum.
Today, I finally finished reading Poovey’s The Proper Lady and the Woman Writer.
*----------------------------------------------*
• 7 “The True English Style”
This chapter analyzes Jane Austen’s Mansfield Park and Persuasion. Fanny Price, the heroine of the former novel, epitomizes the Proper Lady who “is dependent, self-effacing” yet Fanny is “apparently free of impermissible desires.” (p. 212)
Poovey points out the potential contradiction between self-effacement and this kind of desire. Every Austen’s heroine necessarily possesses such desire, though not directly showing or letting the reader expect to reveal it until climaxes or happy endings. Without this implication, Austen’s novels cannot be dramatized.
Poovey further elucidates that Austen adroitly avoids the contradiction by setting different dimensions for each problems plotted in stories. The trick is that a problem in one dimension is, or at least can be seen, solved in another dimension. The most symbolic setting is the division of the private sphere and that of public.
However, Austen admits in her novels women’s situation is confined and alludes that even if heroines seem assertive and powerful, such power does not contribute social change.
• Conclusion
By analyzing three women’s writings, Poovey clarified “the discrepancy between the premises of bourgeois ideology and the satisfactions that life in bourgeois society actually yields.” (p. 241)
To say more explicitly, the former is the possibility expected by a woman who lives as the Proper Lady; the latter means that society in reality does not yield her rewards because of her limited power.
While emphasizing that “many of the same values and inhibitions [that Poovey examined] persist, sedimented deep in the layers of our culture and our unconsciousness,” Poovey concludes that we still be able to learn that decorum or propriety “cannot completely stifle the energy of the imagination or wholly blunt the edge of criticism.”
Hi, ladies!!!
Plum, and Alice, thank you for your warm and kind words.
A dream surely comes true.
It’s no exaggeration to say that this success contributes to my nice and diligent friends with whom I’ve been working together having the same goal. Interaction with these friends has given me tremendous energy to keep going without giving up as being hopeless.
I’m so advantaged to be able to have a stimulating and productive time with my mentor, Plum and friends I’ve been in friendly rivalry with.
It's interesting to note that we’ve really found ways to improve our English while we worked together for STEP.
For example, we practiced making an “instant” speech about a wide range of topics for two minutes in front of my friends. At first I’m so shy, nervous, and frightened to speak but after numerous practices, I gradually found myself to become less afraid of speaking before friends. I came to expose my real self.
Solidarity and friendship are what matters.
I strongly believe that I'm one of the most privileged women in the world because I belonged to this great NWSRG with a superb and amazing teacher as well as friendly and helpful friends.
Thanks a milolion.
Hi, ladies!!!
It’s Thursday, November 27, 2008, and it has been cloudy and it may rain at any time, I’m afraid. But this weather is not so nasty, because there is no north-westerly wind, which is typical of Nagoya in winter, blowing.
Last night I was so excited to receive two fabulous pieces of news: Sunflower and Cosmos had passed the STEP tests that they took in October (?) and November.
Especially, Cosmos was often sick in 2005 and got a broken arm in Kenya and wore a cast for a half year in 2006. She had not been in good shape in quite a long time. Once or twice she looked suffering from a severe headache and a terrible nerve pain. However, she always came back alive and worked harder than before. She is a very gentle, kind, and warm-hearted lady.
Jokingly and laughing, she says that she is strict to others but too kind to herself. But that’s totally wrong. She is hard on herself and often spoil others.
When spring comes, we can get together and celebrate them as well as Alice and Magnolia who were successful in their individual test last year. I just cannot wait!!! Come on, spring. Run, I would like to see you as quickly as possible.
Well, I will go back to work, my precious friends. Have a lovely Thursday evening…
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