My name is Keilah Bradley. I am a flute major in the music department. I am focusing for now on flute, sax, and getting my BME. Later I plan to get my master in conducting and move on to my doctorate. I am currently a junior here at Buff State.
I have heard about The Lord of the Rings since it came out on video, but since my family wasn’t into it, I never was either. My goal by the end of this semester is to have developed an appreciation for the works of Tolkien. I am on the way to this as I loved the second half of The Return of the King. Maybe if I learn more about it in this class and through discussions with the rest of the class, I will end up loving it. I do have to say that in ninth grade we were made to read The Hobbit and I really enjoyed it. At the time, I had absolutely no idea that there were more books to follow it.
As for discussions in the class, I would like to learn a little bit more about Middle Earth and what Tolkien was thinking about as he wrote about it. I think it will be interesting to talk about the similarities and differences between the movies and books because there are so many things to think about. Some are big and some are small but it is fun for me to see how the slightest difference affects the rest of the story in each.
By the way, I absolutely love Harry Potter. This makes it difficult for me to understand why I am not a huge fan of LOTR. I do think that is interesting that Dumbledore and Gandalf seem very similar. Maybe if we discussed what we think the overlapping ideas and themes may be in the two different sets, I would become more interested in LOTR. Part of why I can’t focus on the books so well is partly because I can’t keep the names of the characters straight. If anyone has any hints or tricks for me please let me know!
Though I may have a long way to go learning appreciation for LOTR, I am excited to take this class because I really think that it will help me out in the long run. I think that it will help me keep an open mind which will help me not only with this story, but also with so many more gates in my life.
Keilah Bradley? August 28, 2008, at 07:34 PM
