The Commonplace Book: A Personal Window
Maybe this is a contentious opinion, but I absolutely adore the concept of a Commonplace Book. I'll admit, when we first started making them last semester, I struggled with keeping up with it and couldn't imagine what writing quotes down in a notebook would accomplish (sorry, Dr. Way.)
Now, I think differently. I use my CPB outside of class, and I almost always carry it with me now. Sometimes the mood will strike, and I'm inspired to write something down from some movie from my childhood I randomly remembered. In this way, my book filled up quickly, much quicker than last semester, when I was writing stuff down to the wire. I completed it almost two weeks ahead of the deadline, and I just kept adding more beyond what was required. And that's never happened to me before. Me, Sydney Van Dyke, continuing work on a previous assignment just because she wanted to? Unheard of.
My CPB is clearly divided into two part for each of the two semesters I've spent working on it. The first half is pretty rough, which is understandable considering that I didn't know what I was doing with it. The second half, to me anyway, has a clear purpose to it. A lot more of my pages are filled; and not just that, but filled with quotes that I actually loved, not ones that I just wrote down as a tally mark for the assignment.
More than anything, the second half of my CPB shows my descent into Shakespeare Hell. I know that Shakespeare was all we read, so of course most of my quotations would be from those plays, but looking through them I couldn't find a single one that I didn't wholeheartedly believe belonged there. I had maybe one quotation from Shakespeare in the first half, but he completely took over the second half, situated nicely with my many, many, many anime quotes.
My favorite comes from The Merchant of Venice, when Antonio says, "My purse, my person, my extremest means/Lie all unlocked to your occasions." Like... homoerotic subtext aside, this is such a powerful line about friendship. I adore it. Antonio is ride or die for Bassanio, and that is a fact.
Overall, I would say that my CPB is like looking into my soul. I flip through the pages and think, "Yeah, this is something I put together." It's a small glimpse into the topics, themes, and emotions I prioritize, and by looking at it as a whole, I think people can conjecture what type of person I am. It couldn't have been made by anyone else, and maybe that's why I love it so much. Everything I love fills the pages in my awful penmanship, but it's so deeply personal for it.
So, yeah. I love the Commonplace Book assignment and will vouch for it forever. I'm gonna keep filling mine up until it falls apart and then start another. I doubt everyone feels as strongly as I do or even got as much out of the assignment as I did, but I certainly hope at least a few did.
Now, I think differently. I use my CPB outside of class, and I almost always carry it with me now. Sometimes the mood will strike, and I'm inspired to write something down from some movie from my childhood I randomly remembered. In this way, my book filled up quickly, much quicker than last semester, when I was writing stuff down to the wire. I completed it almost two weeks ahead of the deadline, and I just kept adding more beyond what was required. And that's never happened to me before. Me, Sydney Van Dyke, continuing work on a previous assignment just because she wanted to? Unheard of.
My CPB is clearly divided into two part for each of the two semesters I've spent working on it. The first half is pretty rough, which is understandable considering that I didn't know what I was doing with it. The second half, to me anyway, has a clear purpose to it. A lot more of my pages are filled; and not just that, but filled with quotes that I actually loved, not ones that I just wrote down as a tally mark for the assignment.
More than anything, the second half of my CPB shows my descent into Shakespeare Hell. I know that Shakespeare was all we read, so of course most of my quotations would be from those plays, but looking through them I couldn't find a single one that I didn't wholeheartedly believe belonged there. I had maybe one quotation from Shakespeare in the first half, but he completely took over the second half, situated nicely with my many, many, many anime quotes.
My favorite comes from The Merchant of Venice, when Antonio says, "My purse, my person, my extremest means/Lie all unlocked to your occasions." Like... homoerotic subtext aside, this is such a powerful line about friendship. I adore it. Antonio is ride or die for Bassanio, and that is a fact.
Overall, I would say that my CPB is like looking into my soul. I flip through the pages and think, "Yeah, this is something I put together." It's a small glimpse into the topics, themes, and emotions I prioritize, and by looking at it as a whole, I think people can conjecture what type of person I am. It couldn't have been made by anyone else, and maybe that's why I love it so much. Everything I love fills the pages in my awful penmanship, but it's so deeply personal for it.
So, yeah. I love the Commonplace Book assignment and will vouch for it forever. I'm gonna keep filling mine up until it falls apart and then start another. I doubt everyone feels as strongly as I do or even got as much out of the assignment as I did, but I certainly hope at least a few did.
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