Metacognition: Jane Eyre Writing Assignment

This writing assignment was an interesting one. It culminated in a lot of yelling and a lot of random words. When you're working with your friends, this is usually what happens. But then, when you're working with strangers, you have a completely different issue. But actually, we got about half of our assignment done the first time we sat down as a group to work on it. Nirali, Anna, and I got together, slept over, and were up for...a while working on it. But maybe the late night giddiness worked well for us, it let us get out ideas that maybe we wouldn't have said before. Working online in a group doesn't really work for me, and I think my group members felt the same. So we needed the time together to work on that, which was hard to find. I don't like that group projects in every class are increasingly being left to us on our own time (which is sparse, for many of us) because it is hard to find time that everyone is available, and working over the internet just doesn't work well for creative collaborative assignments like this in my opinion. But all in all, this assignment worked well. We started out each taking one person, but ended up writing each others', so that kind of fell apart after the first few lines. But I think the editing was the best part of our collaborative effort,  because we each took a part and read it out loud, so we had a double safety net to make sure that things didn't get past us. Looking back, I didn't mind this project. It wasn't my favorite ever, but it also wasn't a horrible mind-wrenching experience.

Metacognition: Reading Jane Eyre

I actually liked Jane Eyre a lot, and it's probably about 23% because it was such an intellectual break from the last few books we've read. Not saying that it wasn't intellectual, just that the way I read it is a lot less taxing on my brain. The language was easily comprehensible for me, whereas Shakespeare is harder for me to understand, therefore I have to read it slower (and I'm impatient). I liked the story a lot, and even though the ending had flames shooting out of my ears at first, I'm starting to try to understand the reasons for it and how it makes the story end well. Altogether, I thought that this book was a good one to read at the time we read it, and I liked it a lot. I think that it suited my brain well, and Jane reminds me some of myself which always makes me like a character more. I was worried coming into it because we were emphasizing the feminist nature of the book, but it's not a modern feminist book, which I had forgotten while gritting my teeth at the mere mention of feminists (NOT the ones that fought for my rights, the ones today that have reversed sexism).

360 Degrees: Abortion

No, this isn't creepy deja vu. This is me piggybacking off of Alex's blog post, since as I started to write her a comment I realized I was pretty much writing what I needed to for this post. So...
1. Rape, incest, dancer to the mother, etc: I agree, to an extent, but for the rape/incest thing, there are ways to stop a pregnancy from ever happening AFTER the fact, and those things are not abortion.

2. The mother is unable to care for a child economically:  Because you get pregnant doesn't mean you have to keep the baby. There are 1.5 million American families that want to adopt a child. That is almost double the 820,151 abortions that were performed in the US in 2005.

3. Having a baby seriously messes up your life when you're young: In fact, not having a baby when you're young (and by this I mean having an abortion) can seriously mess up your life later on. Not only do many of the girls who make this decision (when they really don't have the wisdom or life skills to do so) have psychological problems and regret later on, but it can actually affect your health. Having an abortion leads to a greater chance (2x the risk) of an ectopic pregnancy, or when the pregnancy occurs outside of the uterus. You also have an increased chance of miscarrying later in life or developing PID (pelvic inflammatory disease).

4. Abortion decreases crime: I don't have any statistics to add to this, I just think it's very iffy logic. It seems like a lot of maybes, because there is not a direct link between abortions and the decrease in crime, it is merely coincidental that they happened roughly 20 years apart. Also, criminals aren't all 20 years old. There are many who are older, and many who are younger.

To wrap up, I'd like to talk about a few things that Alex didn't address.

5. The definition of life: Don't get me started on Roe v. Wade (basically, the Supreme Court said that they couldn't prove something, then contradicted their own standards by ruling like they had definitively proved against it), but if we use the murky definitions of death to determine the even murkier definitions of the beginning of life we can see that most abortions would be illegal. If you measure it by heartbeat, you can see a fetal heartbeat by the 18th day in the womb. If you measure the end of life by brain activity, then by 10-43 days (when the fetal brain waves are shown) many abortions would be illegal.

6. It's part of the mother's body: Alex sort of addresses this, but it doesn't make sense to me. The fetus, though dependent on the mother for the first trimester, is a completely different life form. It is a new human, not some growth "like the mother's appendix." It has separate DNA, therefore it scientifically is NOT just some other part of the mother's body. It is a new person simply residing inside of her.

7. It's not like it does anything to the baby: Actually, studies have shown that the fetus CAN feel pain, or at least discomfort. At 8 weeks, if you stick a fetus in the palm with a needle, his mouth opens and he moves his hand away. I don't know what else he would be reacting to... They have also shown through use of movement detection and fetal heart rate monitoring that both are affected when the fetus is "in pain."

I can give you all of these reasons, but this is a moral decision for most people. I believe that it is wrong probably because I value all life, no matter how small ("A person's a person, no matter how small." -Dr. Seuss). I believe abortion has started to become far too blase in our culture, and it is being used by some as a method of contraception. This is NOT what it is, and probably most (if not all) of pro-choice activists would agree with me on that.

But every time I am confronted with this issue, I think of a what if situation. What if my mother had aborted me? I wasn't a planned baby, my mother was on birth control at the time. But she loves me all the same as any other parent loves their child, and I know that. But those other children were denied this wonderful thing, and that bothers me that they weren't given the same chance as I was.

An Inconvenient Truth: Big is Beautiful

"Big is beautiful" seems to be the new anthem...most notably with an actress like Gabourey Sidibe being nominated for an Oscar. Now, don't get me wrong. I'm not advocating things like the Ralph Lauren model who was photoshopped to look so skinny that her head and hips were roughly the same size. But it bothers me when something is being glorified, like being way too big for your own good, and it is being called okay and even 'beautiful." I'm a naturally thin girl, so I guess I have no experience of what it's like being fat, but I do know what others (and even myself) think and say about those people. It's not good, and I can't imagine it feels very good to not be "normal." I can try to understand this, so I understand where the mindset of "big is beautiful" comes from, but it irks me that something that is not good for you is being glorified. This is not at all about people who aren't rail thin, but aren't overweight either. That IS beautiful, but it's also not big. This is leading people who aren't super skinny to think that they're fat. But back to the original topic...glorifying being obese. This is NOT good for you, and even if you don't get health problems like diabetes directly from this, it can wear on your joints and cause different other problems later in life, or even put you at risk for serious things like a heart attack. This "big is beautiful" approach is leading people, like a woman in New Jersey, to WANT to be morbidly obese. This isn't right. It just really bothers me when something like this, something that is no doubt going to harm you in the long run, is being called okay and beautiful.

Dialectics: Harry Potter and Jane Eyre

Harry Potter:

• Parents died when he was young
• Left with his uncaring aunt and uncle
• Abused by his cousin
• Finds refuge in a new school

Jane Eyre:

• Parents died when she was young
• Left with her uncaring aunt
• Abused by her cousin
• Finds refuge in a new school

Weird how many similarities there are between the two, right? I mean there are obvious differences (although wouldn't it be awesome if Jane could just Wingardium Leviosa Mr. Brocklehurst right out of there?), but they have very similar stories. I am now curious to ask J.K. Rowling if she was at all inspired by Jane Eyre. They both come from very similar backgrounds, but when they get to school and into life they start to diverge paths. Jane goes through 8 years of learning and teaching, whereas the second Harry gets thrown into school he begins to grow up. Jane needed the time to be petty and learn from those around her, whereas Harry, an 11 year old boy, was forced to square off against arguably the most powerful wizard ever (besides Dumbledore, of course). Harry's timeline can be seen as a very squished version of Jane's, though. Where Jane takes years and years to grow up and learn about life, Harry does it in a couple of months. Although it takes him 7 years to fully complete his task, Jane at 18 and Harry at 12 are about the same maturity level. It's kind of a cool comparison to look at, since at first glance you would never think that these two books had anything in common. But when you look closer, many of the basic details and ideas are similar which leads to some interesting thinking about both novels. When I finish Jane Eyre I am excited to look back and see if I still think the same parallels are evident throughout the whole book. 

Blogging Around

On Jordyn's post about Ke$ha:
I have to say, I disagree with you about the disintegration of popular music. When Elvis first became popular, parents thought that his music encouraged sex and hip thrusting and all of those forms of evil. The forms of evil that are focused on are what has changed. Since our society has become more accepting of open sexuality, this is where popular music has turned. I get your point about autotune, but it has almost turned into its own instrument, which I actually think is cool.
I was also suprised to find out about Ke$ha's intelligence, as she does portray herself differently. (I think my reaction was "omgwtfpolarbear?!") But hey, at least that means that it was her concious choice to make music like this knowing that she COULD make something else, rather than her lifestyle being actually dictated around waking up in the morning feeling like P. Diddy. I'm sure her dentist doesn't appreciate her hygene habits :)
On Lauren's post about Food, Inc.: 
I absolutely LOVED this movie, as I am super interested in the exploitation of our food. Lots of it I've heard before, but I love that it's getting a stage that it hasn't in a long while. This is the reason I became a vegetarian...our food doesn't even start out as an animal anymore...people manufacture it from before it was born to become a Chicken McNugget.
If this interests you, read or listen to some of Michael Pollan's stuff. He writes a lot about issues with food like this and other things (like "organic" food and how it actually impacts the environment...surprising). 

Best of Week: Cathedral

I'm going to be honest here, I didn't like this short story. What I did like, however, was the discussion it lead our class into. We talked about the preconceived notions that the narrator had about the blind man, and how he had to let go of them to have his epiphany. I'm not going to lie and say that I never use preconceived notions to judge something or someone, but it's a pet peeve of mine and I work hard not to do so. Many of the things he said about blind people were ridiculous to us, but many of the things we assume would seem ridiculous to others. It's cool that the story takes a man that the narrator had all of these negative emotions toward and made him the catalyst to the narrator's epiphany. It shows that you may need people who you originally passed off as not being useful or able to do something new. It makes me happy to see that the author thought about not only the realization that the story led the character to, but what it would hopefully lead the reader to.

Metacognition: First Semester

This first semester was an interesting one. I learned both my limitations and just about how far my mind can stretch. English class helped me to learn about myself and educate myself on topics where I was severely lacking. My thought processes were...scattered, as always. My mind never rests, it is always going somewhere and doesn't like to stay on one topic for long (that isn't saying that I can't make it do so). I'm never able to do only one thing for a long period of time, which is why I'm sitting in a pile of partially done homework assignments and haven't crossed off anything on my to-do list.
This semester has gone well, altogether. I am proud of where I have gone and I have learned a heck of a lot more than I started with. I've not only gained knowledge of formulas and how to calculate the molar mass of an element, but I've learned about people and different cultures and lifestyles that I'm almost ashamed to say that I hadn't known about before.
With The Blue Sweater, I connected with Jacqueline Novogratz and learned about her journeys and how a simple girl from the suburbs can really go out and help people.
In Kite Runner I learned about the Afghan people and their plights which I am sad to say I was fairly ignorant about until now.
We're now getting into what I think will be my favorite unit, poetry. I love poetry. Maybe because I love music so much. But probably because of the way I was introduced to it. Spoken word poetry was my first love of the genre and will always have a very special place in my heart.
This is to say, I'm happy for where I've come since the beginning of the year and genuinely excited for the rest of the year.