Well most of what I’d like to say about this course has already been said.  To get right to the point, the only real problem with this course was in fact the same problem that plagues every good course at UBC; students do not have enough time to do it justice.  At first, I felt this was reason enough to criticize the structure or instruction of the course, but over time I have come to the conclusion that there can be no other way.  The course needs to be challenging, to have a broad scope, to be innovative.  It is up to the student to prioritize and rearrange their responsibilities in such a way as to get what they want from the course.  Because of my own obligations I spent less time on this course than I could have.  That was a choice I made, and it will doubtless affect both my grade and the sum of learning I leave with.  

    That having been said, I did devote a sizeable chunk of my time to the readings, and even to the blog and Wikipedia projects, and I do feel as though I have taken a great deal from this course.  My point is simply that it was my choices that mattered, not the structure of the course itself.  

    I found the WIkipedia project to be demoralizing and frustrating, at least until we had a reasonably coherent article to work with.  I had a great deal of difficulty determining what existing information on the article was useful and what should be deleted, and I found it endlessly irritating not to be able to add information that I knew perfectly well to be true, simply due to a lack of academic sourcing.  Once we had a solid grounding of these sources the entire project became much more gratifying.  My favourite part of the experience was watching Jon and other students defending the merits of the project to the Internet at large, especially because I feel they did so with extraordinary eloquence and reason.  It is the lack of those two things that have kept me from participating in participatory projects online, and it was a relief to see that YouTube comments are not the only indicator of life on the internet.  

    I have enjoyed this course, and do not feel that much needs to be changed in future years.  Hopefully, should the experimental aspects of the course be attempted again, students could learn from our successes and failures.

The General in His Labyrinth was written in a very unique style.  This is the first novel of Marquez’s that I have read, and so I did not know quite what to expect.  It took me some time to adjust to the dreamlike style of narrative and the rapid transitions between recollection and current events.  However, this was no more challenging than figuring out who was speaking in I the Supreme. 

The most interesting segments of this novel were those when the General wanders off in the night.  His solitary walks are evocative of the kind of calm madness that I imagine overcomes the very powerful.  The encounters the General has in these moments seem to be the most genuine, the most visceral.  When he is surrounded by his closest allies he often behaves strangely, lashing out at a man one moment and praising him the next.  When he is alone however, he is unarmoured and unarmed, unable to deflect the verbal barbs of dissenters and unequipped, not to mention unwilling, to strike back.

Another element of the General’s ongoing mental decay is his fleeting fixations with minor irritations, especially those that are beyond the scope of his power.  In the pursuit of peace he blames flowers for ill-health, the flow of a river for his delirium, and the playing of fifes for his losing streak.  What I enjoy most about this is the remarkable way in which his soldiers, aides, and friends take his strange requests in stride.  No one seems perturbed by his irrationality, and even Palacios seems largely unconcerned with the General wanders off naked in the night.  Again, I get the feeling that this sort of behaviour is a common symptom, if not a requirement, of the sort of personal charisma that people like Bolivar possess.  There is so much force and conviction in them that their every action is an unstoppable one, no matter how strange – even to themselves.