Literary Kinds course

As was (I think) suggested in class today, I watched the last episode of Season 5 of House ("Both Sides Now"), in which House overdoses on Vicodin, hallucinates most of the episode's events, and is finally checked into a psychiatric hospital, and moved on to the first episode of Season 6 ("Broken"), which follows House's adventures in detox and then in the long-term psychiatric ward.

My problem with the "House's Brain/Wilson's Heart" 2-part episode is thus: not a single one of those doctors recused him or herself from that case.  In the real world, I'm pretty sure that's called "malpractice."  I know that Amber was unconscious, and I'm sure she trusted all of them implicitly.  However, there's a saying in law that a lawyer who represents himself has a fool for a client.  In medicine, where it is often much more emotional, it is absolutely unexcuseable that none of those doctors took themselves off the case, especially as each of them at one point or another realized they shouldn't be working on it.

I finally finished reading my translation of "The Arabian Nights."  My text did not include a closing of the story of Shahrazad and the king.  The final story within the frame was unusual in many ways.  "The Story of Jullanar of the Sea" contains four strong female characters that balance the power of the four male characters.  The plot is also atypical in that it has elements very similar to the frame story.  There is a powerful monarch who takes lovers for a limited amount of time and then permanently maims them.  However, in the story within the story, the gender roles are reversed; the woman is the powerful partner.  The male lover, the hero, is able to escape from her harm.  It is a happily after ending, not unlike the translator's note about

First, let me apologize to anyone who wanted to use yesterday's class notes to write her paper today.  Sorry!

In yesterday's class, we first went over some administrative things, as well as referring back to previous discussions via quotations from guest speakers and other English department faculty.  Please look at those on the Class Notes from that day.

 The huge theme of "Private Lives" was, well, about lives (and parts of lives) that were no longer private. Frankie blogged about everything, including her medical options. Her audience was permitted to know everything (almost) about her. In the end, it was something very personal that Frankie had not shared with anyone, online or not, that saved her life. House, on the other hand, was an unwanted voyeur in Wilson's past (and private) life, imitating Frankie in posting Wilson's secret throughout the hospital. On the other hand, when Wilson finds out that House is reading sermons written by his biological father, he keeps it to himself, privately discussing the matter with House rather than revenging himself  by announcing it publicly. 

While watching the "Privacy Matters" episode of House, I was first very excited to see Laura Prepon acting again, having not seen her in anything since I stopped watching "That '70s Show."  After that, I was frankly concerned with her character's behavior.  I frankly like her reasoning, that we as people behave better when we know we're being judged.  I think it's very much like one of the theoretical articles we read earlier this semester where the blogger altered his habits because he was blogging and sharing them with the internet.

Because I love reading in bed, I bought a paperback copy of Arabian Nights at Barnes and Noble.  I thought that this text was especially appropriate to read in bed before sleeping.  I was with the king and the younger sister, a fellow listener.  The stories distracted me to the point of losing sleep or oversleeping the next morning.  The interlaced serial nature of the text was incredibly addictive.  I found myself craving another tale and another tale after that.  A like bites of a cake, each forkful delicious...