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.

Blogging Around Part Deux

On Katie's post, Connection: King Lear and Poverty
"Though, yes, there needs to be people who go out there and actually ACT to create change, I disagree with you that money can't help. Who says that when you donate you're not doing good? The big causes we all think about now would be nothing without the rich backers who chose to make that their pet charity. Sure, they might not be doing it for the right reasons, but when the results are achieved (as much as they can be), who's to say who did more to help it?"

On Anna's post, iMedia: Levi's Commercials
"Most unfortunately (not really) I disagree. I guess it's cool that they're using these powerful imaging stuff and whatever, BUT WHERE IS THE ADVERTISEMENT? Personally, I've always hated Levi's commercials. Because of the fact that they never advertise their product. Why go spend millions of dollars to NOT advertise? Stupid. I saw a Levi's commercial once that was literally 1.5 minutes of a car racing around a desert and kicking up dust. I was thinking, "Greeeat, another Audi commercial." Then, a "real american man" gets out of the car, they zoom in on his butt and LOOK, he's wearing Levi's. Flash their logo and it's peace out.
No. You can't do that. It doesn't count as an ad. They might as well go spend their money on PSA's rather than the fake commercials.
Not sure why I felt the need to rant about that. Oh well, must go post my blogging around now."

iMedia: Annabelle's Wish

Connection: King Lear and Richard III

Here's a connection...they were both written by Shakespeare.

Only kidding!

But really, the thing that struck me most about both plays is the ambiguity about the "good guys" and the "bad guys." During Richard III as he's basically making a staircase out of the carcasses of his family and friends, Shakespeare intends for the audience member to have a little queasy part of their stomach sympathizing with him. When you watch all he worked and killed for come crumbling down around him, some of the audience is enjoying the karmic retribution, while others are feeling kind of bad for the guy. I mean, he's born a hunchback and nobody likes him, then finally once he gets some power for himself it all gets yanked out from under him.

It's similar in King Lear. I don't know who to feel bad for, who to hate, and who to sympathize with. I'm pretty sure the only person I can 100% qualify as good is Cordelia, and who knows, in an act and a half she can turn out to be a massive jerk. Even though Cornwall gouged Gloucester's eyes out, he was an enemy of Regan, who is turning out to be bad and an enemy of an enemy is a friend, right?

Now do you see where I get confused? There's such a thin line between good and evil and most of the characters are perched precariously on that line.

Thanks, Shakespeare. Now my brain hurts.

Dialectics: Medieval vs Renaissance Thinking

Reading King Lear and studying history sparked my curiosity to really nail down the differences between medieval and renaissance thinking, and what makes them so thoroughly different. I'll run through main points of thinking and the two can have at it.

Religion:
In the middle ages, religion was the highest form of law. It controlled politics, and many wanted to create a unified Europe under Christian rule. This was also (unfortunately) the time of the inquisition, and they weren't too nice to those who believed differently. In the renaissance, however, skepticism was on the rise. Not hard to believe, since many popes were corrupt, the state became superior to the church, and the reformation was in full swing. It's harder to have full confidence in your powerful church when the facade of its superiority is crumbling and people are pointing out its flaws.

Literature:
During the medieval period, books were hand-written and largely patronized by the church. Since most of the subjects were religiously based, there was little criticism or provoking literature. Not only was this true, but it was largely written in Latin and the vast majority of people were illiterate. The literacy rate improved slightly in the renaissance, but they also began to translate things into other languages and write about secular topics. The printing press allowed for mass distribution of literature and the authors tended to go back to their Greek and Roman roots.

Family:
In medieval times, there was virtually no divorce (since that's a no-no in the Catholic church) and marriage was lots of times arranged for economical purposes. Later, during the renaissance, people started to marry for love, and divorce became a little more popular, though most people stayed married.

Women's Status:
Going along with the shift to love-based marriages, in the medieval times there was a relative sexual equality, where in the renaissance period there was a huge double standard. The woman was supposed to make herself desirable to the man, and prostitution became more rampant. Their legal status was crap, and only the highly educated could be considered even a little important.

Politics:
In the middle ages, the church and politics were intertwined, with the church governing everything, but in the renaissance period the state became separate, with the "new monarchs" asserting their rule over the state churches.


So there we go. What's the big difference? In the middle ages, they looked for a man who was an expert in one subject. In the renaissance, they wanted a man with virtu, or a man who was well-rounded. Their polar-opposite thinking not only allows for some cool debate (though we're a little to late to hear the REAL thing) but it creates a nice dynamic in King Lear.

Metacognition: Kite Runner Essay

If you sawed open my head at the moment I was writing my essay, you'd probably have a seizure if you're epileptic. Or even if you're not. I swear, sometimes I think strobe lights are flashing and there is an entire rave in my head waiting to bring me off on a tangent or distract me. For this essay specifically, I sat down and powered out about half of it, and then my brain rave took off and I couldn't focus. Was this because I'm possibly/probably insane? Maybe. But I had just written about guilt, and failed attempts at helping Sohrab. I think that the time the little ravers in my head chose to act out was significant, seeing as this is the break where my essay goes from Amir's failures to Amir's awesomeness.
When I write, I can't sit down and write a whole essay, or even necessarily write in the order it's going to be in in the final essay. My thinking pattern is a scattered one. Is this effective? Sure, it gets done. Maybe it's not the most efficient method of thinking, but it's definitely the easiest for my brain to grasp. During the break I took from writing my essay, I actually was reading A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, which I think helped me not only to get my mind away for long enough that I could come back and focus without getting a brain overload, but it allowed me to focus on writing through reading another writer's work.
So is my writing style effective or efficient? Maybe not for others, but it is for me. I know how my brain works, so I can follow my train of thought until the final paper comes together, but it's probably hard for others to do the same, so that's definitely something I will work on in the future.
And now the ravers in my head are calling me away, so I can go not do my other homework. :)

Blogging Around

To Anna's connection:
Well here's my comment, regarding both this blog post and responding to Jordyn's. Though they talk little about Bella's childhood, they do talk a lot about Sirius', and since they come from the same family you can see how they are much the same. Anna, I think you're absolutely right, and the little we know about both Assef and Bella's childhoods illustrate your point well. You said, "Assef grew up in a country where fighting had been a way of life for centuries and Bellatrix lives in a fictional world where the limits of one‘s imagination are tested." and I agree, but even if you think of Bella as a real person, she really has grown up in a society where fighting and fear was absolutely normal. Voldemort's army simply terrorized the wizarding world and everyone is afraid...even to simply say his name. They actually had remarkably similar upbringings, except for Jordyn's already stated point of Assef dominating his parents and Bella simply being taught by hers.

ps. I love you for making a connection to HP.

To Katie's It Matters:
I WHOLEHEARTEDLY AGREE.
Though I must say, I have read/watched most of the things you rag on, I completely agree. At the moment, I am finding time between homework and everything else to read A Tree Grows in Brooklyn. Why? Because I want to. I have so many friends who commonly say "I don't read." or "That's too many pages, it'll take me forever." What they don't know is that the power of words is MUCH more than what a director can pour into your mind in 2 hours. When you read a book you get to know the characters, and there are many times when I'll find myself trying to think of something a particular friend did or said and realize that I'm thinking of an event in a novel. Reading is such an integral part of life for me, my mom and I did the same thing as you and your mom. I can't imagine my life without the books I hold so dear. Plus, where would movies be if they hadn't come from books first? I don't know of any movie that can do more than what a book can, or that can bring you more joy. I simply don't understand why people don't find joy in reading...maybe they just haven't found the right book yet.

Connection: The Kite Runner and The Color of Friendship

If you've ever met a girl between the ages of 12-18 who owned a TV in 2000, odds are you've at least heard of the movie The Color of Friendship. Yes, it was a Disney Channel made-for-TV movie. Yes, my nerd is showing by blogging about this. and Yes, it is a wonderful movie.
Just to fill in those who HAVE been living under a rock for about a decade, The Color of Friendship was a movie that ran on Disney Channel starting in 2000. In the beginning of the movie, you meet Mahree, a white South African living in apartheid South Africa. She lives in a mansion, with her parents and her housekeeper, a black woman named Flora. Even though she considers Flora to be her best friend, she still holds deep-seeded racism that she has been raised with. Later, she goes to America with the hopes of living with a white family there. The family she does get placed with though, is the Dellums family. Piper, a girl Mahree's age, and her father, Ron, a congressman, were also hoping to get a black South African girl to live with them. Both parties are surprised, and it takes a while for them to warm up, but they go through the traditional Disney storyline of becoming friends and reconciling their differences.
Needless to say, this is a wonderful movie, but how does it connect to The Kite Runner? Well, the relationship of Hassan and Amir is very similar to the relationship of Flora and Mahree. Though she considers Flora her best friend, Mahree still is on the benefitting end of apartheid and is a wholehearted supporter of it. When she moves to America to live iwth the Dellums, she treats them like her servants until she starts to learn that the color of their skin does not automatically make them subservant to her. Hassan and Amir have almost the same relationship. Amir and Hassan might be best friends in someone else's eyes, but to Amir, Hassan is just his servant. It takes finding out that they were half brothers to make Amir see Hassan as an equal, and even then it is begrudgingly. Amir does not go through the Disney Channel happy machine and learn his lesson, but he does move on with his life. In Hassan's letter, it is obvious that Hassan forgave Amir, however undeserving Amir was. This makes it harder for Amir, because he wants to strive to be the person Hassan was in his father's eyes.
Thinking about the similarities between these two relationships makes the relationship in The Kite Runner easier to understand. Seeing how similar the white master, black servant relationship is to the Pashtun master, Hazara servant makes it easier for an American reader to understand. We are so informed about the civil rights fights in America and many people are very informed about Africa, especially apartheid South Africa. Many Americans, however, are far more uninformed about Afghanistan's social issues, and I can confess that I didn't know as much as I should have before reading this book. The relationships between Hassan and Amir and Flora and Mahree make for an interesting comparison between the different racism-powered regimes the world has seen.

Best of Week: Human Nature

In Friday's discussion, we talked about the power that others hold over us. When Assef raped Hassan, his two friends (who disapproved of the act) just stood by and watched. We talked about different studies where, when given a position of power, people will do crazy things to others. Mr. Allen brought up the Stanford Prison Experiment, which I had never heard of before. But when he started explaining it, I realized I had heard of it before. In an episode of Veronica Mars, My Big Fat Greek Rush Week, her boyfriend Logan and best friend Wallace are allowed an opportunity to get out of a 20-page essay for their psych class. Anyone who volunteers for a study and is on the winning team is exempt from it, and the losers only have to write a 10-page essay.

If you watch from 2:10-4:06, you see what happened in the show. The video clip doesn't show it, but in the end of the episode, they show the prisoner who gave away the fake address taking notes for the guard who was especially abusive towards him (Shawn from Boy Meets World), and saying that he's a "pretty good guy." Human nature is such an absurdly complicated topic, and I can't even begin to scratch the surface in one blog post, but I thought that it is such an important topic in Kite Runner that it deserved to be addressed. People's willingness to do wonders when given a position of power (like the experiment Mr. Williams talked about) is amazing, and makes you wonder what you would do when power-crazy. Most people would like to say they would hold true to their morals, but the question I leave you with is: Would you?

Change of Mind: Loyalty

A big theme in The Kite Runner is loyalty. As I read the book, I am amazed at the amount of loyalty (or lack thereof) the characters show. Hassan shows amazing amounts of loyalty towards Amir and his father, even through the roughest of times, while Amir couldn't care less about the boy he had grown up with. Previously, I perceived loyalty as an absolutely necessary character trait. But when I saw where Hassan's loyalty got him, it made me seriously evaluate my feelings. Hassan had unwavering loyalty towards the family who had provided everything for him and his father, and rightly so. But Amir, his supposed best friend, had absolutely no loyalty to Hassan. Amir's only loyalty was to himself (and in a more god-like sense, his father). When he watched his best friend (though he won't admit that they are best friends) get raped, his first instinct was to make sure his kite hadn't been damaged. Amir didn't take a second look when he met up with Hassan after, the only thing he could think of was getting home as fast as possible to show his father the kite that Hassan retrieved for him. Hassan's unwavering loyalty became its worst when Amir hid money and the watch in Hassan's bed to frame him and get his family kicked out. Amir didn't think twice about how they would get by without the steady job that Baba offers them, and he was really surprised when Baba forgave Hassan. Amir thought that Baba and Ali had the same relationship that he and Hassan did, but obviously they didn't. When Hassan left, Amir didn't even shed a tear, but Baba fought tooth and nail to get them to stay. Reading this really made me reevaluate loyalty. Obviously, it's a really important characteristic, because without loyalty you'll never gain anyone's trust. But this specific case shows us that the most innocent of people can be duped by someone claiming to have their best interests at heart. It's hard to think about your friends doing this to you, but it makes you want to think about your relationships with people. You don't just want to assume everyone's out to get you, but you also need to evaluate how you feel about people. The characters in the novel are over-exaggerated to make a point, but they also represent the deepest darkest parts of us, and their desires. To a point, I do identify with Amir, because when I was younger,  I was always the bossy best friend. But his lack of loyalty made me want to be physically ill when I was reading the novel, and it makes me sure to never get even close to that point with anyone.