Assignment 0

I am majoring in English Literature. When I first got to SLU, I was very unsure of what I wanted to study. Then I took an African lit class and I decided that I wanted to be an English major. I really like learning about cultures and time periods through reading novels based on events. I also like the creative side, being able to say so much about something in only a few words.
I am from Los Angeles and it is kind of an insane place. There are so many different types of people there. I mean you could create some character in your mind and chances are that person exists in LA. There are lots of things to do which is pretty awesome. The down side is many people tend to be superficial. Some people concentrate more on the way you look rather than what kind of person you are, but there are also many nice people as well.
I really like singing and I spend much of my time singing. My dad is a musician and he would perform in clubs around town or hit the road and go on tour. Also, my mother was a night club manager for many years. Basically, I’ve spent most of my childhood in clubs surrounded by music. I think that probably why I love it so much. I also really love swimming. I was always intrigued by water as a kid and I would always be the first to take off towards a swimming pool or the ocean. When I was really little I jumped off a yacht into Long Beach harbor. That was when my mother decided that I needed to learn how to swim. Eventually, I ended up on a swim team and swam competitively for 10 years. I don’t really swim that much now though…
I found it interesting that many of the slave songs revolved around religion. Many of them spoke about reaching the promised land and life after death. This emphasis on the after life really caught my attention. I fell like the songs are very hopless. Its hard to see a group of people suffer, especially when they seem to feel nothing can be done about it. Also, since the songs concentrate on the after life, there is a lot about salvation and finding religion before death. In “Soon One Mawnin,” one line is “I’m so glad I got religion in time.” Another line in that same song is “Oh my Lawd, Oh my Lawd, what shall I do to be saved?” I think this is where many people became trapped in a sense by religion. Maybe the slaves felt they had to obey their masters or they would not be able to go to heaven in the afterlife.
I hope to learn more about historical events and African American culture, to have a better understanding of earlier time periods and what life was/is like for an African American. How views have changed or not changed with time. I think it will be interesting to see how the poerty has changed and what the subjects of the poems are.