Procrastination

In all honesty I have a terrible case of "senioritis" or procrastination that all seniors use as an excuse for being lazy. While I know that being a procrastinator is wrong, I enjoy sleeping and watching movies on Netflix rather than doing homework ahead of schedule. However, that could be the case of my ADD. When I read the article you asked us to read, I thought that the author was 100% correct in describing what it feels like to be a procrastinator. Even though it is "bad" to put off something for so long, it can be rewarding depending on the situation. Regarding Hamlet, his decisiveness is actually okay. His decision to kill Claudius or not is life changing, and therefore should be taken with caution when contemplating if he should or shouldn't go through with his plan. When people say that "procrastination is a bad habit", I don't think they realize that not everything can be done immediately because there are consequences to everything. Hamlet is able to understand this without directly stating this. His indecisiveness is actually good and shouldn't be condemned. There are moments when procrastination is good such as Hamlet contemplating his plan to kill Claudius. However, there are moments when procrastination can set you back, such as me writing this blog post and I keep playing with my phone or find music videos to watch on YouTube. In Hamlet's case, he's doing society a favour in taking his sweet time to kill Claudius.    

Act V - This American Life

The podcast for This American Life about Act V really changed what I thought of Hamlet. I, for one, do not like Shakespeare and have always had a hard time understanding what he means in most of his plays. The members of the prison, however, were able to understand each character better than I can; or at least have a better perception on the characters. What I loved the most about this podcast was that you hear from different people what they think of the characters. For example, Big Hutch explains that Hamlet doesn't really have a dilemma when it comes to killing his uncle. This decision is something that you do or you don't, not should I or should I not. The prison members, however, are able to see much more into the souls of the characters through their own experiences. This, I believe, makes Shakespeare's characters more alive for me than reading the play and then having a discussion in class. They each understand an aspect of the characters and the play through the crimes they've committed themselves. One of the prison members explains that he doesn't think he's a bad guy anymore and wouldn't commit another crime, but he killed someone and doesn't think he belongs anymore. He connects his own crime to the play in that he doesn't think that Claudius is a bad guy but rather as someone who's made a mistake. I think the personal connections to the play is what makes this take on Hamlet so interesting, that anyone can find a meaning to the play and now I think that I can understand the play thanks to the men of the Missouri Easter Correctional Center.

J. Alfred Prufrock & Hamlet.

J. Alfred Prufrock and Hamlet are two different people who resemble the lives of many people. They both experience the feeling of self doubt. They cannot make their own decisions on their lives and their deaths. My belief on their ways is that they aren't much different from each other.
You see Hamlet contemplating whether or not he should kill Claudius  and then you also see Prufrock debating if he should go for his love or not because he has all the time in the world. Both of these characters are going through an internal struggle with decision because they cannot make a knowledgeable decision.
Knowledgeable doesn't mean that they have to be smart, but that these characters can't think for themselves. They let everything else factor into what they want to do. For example: Prufrock blames time in not making a decision. He has too much time and can wait until the last minute of his life to tell his love that he loves her. Hamlet, he lets his family and other outside sources factor into him not killing Claudius (yet).
Things like these show that Hamlet and Prufrock aren't too different from each other. They each have internal struggles with the outside world that prevent them from making the decisions that they can either benefit from or let them ruin their lives. The negative and positive consequences will never be reached if they don't make a decision and not let the outside world factor into their own lives and thoughts to let them move on to what they want to do and with their own lives.