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Blog #9

I really enjoyed reading “The Empathy Exams” by Leslie Jamison. I loved that Jamison connected her narrator’s real life to the narrator’s scripted character’s life. The character scripts/profiles of the character the narrator played evolved from the fictitious character, Stephanie, until the narrator and her real life became the patient profile. The narrator and her life story becoming their own patient profile shows how a real person with a real story can become nothing more than just a story on paper, a character to be acted out. This short story emphasized a different kind of empathy. I have classified empathy as understanding and nearly feeling the emotions of other people in an effort to show compassion and sympathy. Jamison focuses on an empathy where people may not necessarily understand what a person is experiencing, but instead listens to what the person is going through to try to understand and provide support. Jamison also wants an empathy where people do not selfishly project themselves into the other person’s shoes in an effort to connect and imagine what the other person is feeling and going through. People never know exactly how and what another person is feeling or experiencing. I found Jamison’s form of empathy interesting because we read fiction by placing ourselves in the characters’ roles to determine what we would do in their positions. Trying to not project on characters is very difficult, as fiction is used to acquire skills and learn what to do in different situations that have never been experienced before in real life. We can use Jamison’s empathy when reading fiction to fill in the gaps of our understanding and think about why things happen/are the way they are in fiction, using our context from the story and our experiences. The stories that are seen in science are often the stories of sick patients. These stories are catalysts for starting research on different diseases and disorders and for doctors wanting to help others. In medicine, doctors have what is called bedside manner. Some doctors are very good with connecting and empathizing with their patients, while others can come across as aloof, cold, and focused on their job. The Empathy Exams was not only to test medical students’ knowledge of illnesses, but also to test their ability to empathize with the fake patients, in tone, manner, and voicing their concern. It is to get these future doctors to see their patients as not just patients with illness, but as human beings with real feelings and problems.

#empathy theempathyexams fiction

A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings

Fiction lies its way to the truth. So what is the truth and what are the lies in a story? The story we read in class today was about an angel that crashed into the courtyard of a couple with a sick child. The angel did not fit in with any of the ideas that people have about angels. He was old, pathetic, didn’t speak Latin, and so on. So I think that in this short story, the lies are the story itself and the truth is the meaning behind these lies. The symbolism of the story and the message it tells readers is the truth. This story warns readers about how humans react to unknown situations. Most people respond with fear when confronted with a new situation and react badly in response to that fear. This truth/message is seen in real life like with xenophobia and the Cold War. The story is not true since it has (probably) never happened in real life.

Fiction is an example of pretend play and it allows us to practice “skills” that we may or may not need in real life. Fiction loves to ask the question, “What if?” It gives us different situations and scenarios of what could possibly happen to us and the world. It teaches us how to react in those situations and how others might react to these situations. This story asked the question, “What if an angel fell to Earth?” And the story showed us possible reactions that people could have to seeing a real angel. These reactions spanned from locking him up in a chicken coop to making him a circus attraction to throwing rocks at him.

Is fiction an adaptation?

In class, we read an essay about whether or not fiction is an evolutionary adaptation. The authors argued that fiction is an adaption and not just a by product of evolution because everyone has their own artistic and aesthetic capacities. Everyone has their own way of incorporating fiction in our lives. We spend a lot of time just thinking about fiction and things that are not true, from television shows to movies to novels and so on. Everyone has their own “pretend play”. We are able to think of things as “contingently true”, such as when we read a book. When we open a book, the world within that book becomes true while we are reading it and our real lives and selves become integrated into the story. But when that book is closed, we know that the world within the book is no longer true. Even at 18 months old, we begin to form our own form of fiction through pretending with toys and dressing up.

I think that I am convinced that fiction could be an adaptation rather than a by product of evolution. Everyone has some sort of fiction in their lives and it is so intertwined with our real lives. It is on TV, movies, books, etc. Sometimes we daydream when we are bored, thinking up different scenarios in our heads. Everyone uses fiction to escape the real world. Maybe fiction developed so humans could forget about the real world for a while. Fiction serves as a distraction so people don’t die of stress from the problems of the real world. Everyone is able to understand fiction and create our own fiction, even from a very young age. We all instinctively understand and create our own fiction, from childish pretending games to popular media. Fiction is not something that is learned. Everyone knows what it is and understands it on some level their whole lives.

Blog #6

We did our workshop just like it said on the paper Professor Letter gave us, except we printed out each other’s stories and annotated them in print. We gave each other the corrections and annotations so we could revise our stories after the workshop. I think our intent for the workshop was to allow the author to hear different interpretations of their story and to ascertain the points in their story that are confusing or boring to readers. Authors also got to see if their intent and meaning came across. I think our workshop went well. Everyone got good feedback on what they did and did not do well in their story. There were good discussions and everyone had questions to ask. I enjoyed the experience because of our discussions. They allowed me to see other interpretations of everyone’s stories and my own. I feel I got better feedback in this workshop than I would have if authors were allowed to speak in the discussion of their stories.

#writing workshop

An Honest Liar

Fiction is unreality based in reality while nonfiction is truth and facts collected to inform someone about something. Fiction is hypothetical situations, people, and events based on some sort of truth. To me, fiction is more for entertainment while nonfiction is to learn about something and collect information. If a person announces that he will be lying from the start, the audience knows they cannot trust what they say or do. The audience is ready to be deceived and can trust that the person is lying. Audiences trust people who say they are telling the truth. They believe that they are being genuine because that person has never given them any reason not to believe them. Personally, I would believe that the liar is lying and the truth teller is telling the truth. People are forgiving of dishonest liars because they never set out to tell the truth. They only deceived to deceive. Everyone lies and are used to being lied to. But people are unforgiving of honest liars because they use deception to prove something. If someone has been lied to and they believe that lie, taking away their reality and challenging their belief in something would make someone very angry. Beliefs are powerful, precious ideas that everyone has. Challenging or disproving their beliefs challenges their reality. When audiences are reading fiction, they know that it is just a story and not real. When audiences read nonfiction, they trust that the facts presented are reliable.

#anhonestliar

“In the Canon, for All the Wrong Reasons”

1. I think that Tan’s interpreters are more postmodernist than humanist. Like postmodernists, they looked for things that Tan did not say in her writing. The interpreters were giving their own personalized commentary and interpretation of Tan’s stories. Their ideas were no where close to what Tan had intended or meant in her stories.

2. I think the author’s intent affects readers. If readers are told before they read an essay, novel, or short story, readers will notice evidence of the author’s intent in the text. In my English class, we read interviews of the author of the novel we were reading before we started reading it. We learned his intent for the novel and how he was trying to portray his main character. I noticed it affected the class’ and my reading of the story because we noticed details that the author had mentioned in his interviews. But knowing the author’s intent beforehand did not affect our personal way of reading the story. We still made our own connections and interpretation of the novel.

3. I think that her explanation is sufficient because she says she is basically writing for herself as her therapy. She is not writing for anyone other than herself or for any other purpose than the one she intended.

Blog Post #4

In class we discussed "The Ones Who Walk from Omelas" and watched a TED talk on the part of the brain that interprets other people's thoughts and feelings for us. Morality controls stories. Many stories, especially fables and children stories, have an overall moral lesson to be learned. Our morality influences how we view and feel about the story, the events that are happening, and the characters' actions. As readers we bring our own morals to the story as we put ourselves in the main character's shoes. We either find ourselves agreeing with the choices that the characters make based on their own set of morals or we find ourselves disagreeing with them and viewing their actions as morally wrong. This could influence our opinion of a story. After a little research, I found that language is a huge factor in how we create our moral judgments about a situation or character's actions. Firstly, how the story is specifically worded is what affects our moral perception. In an article I read, people were told two very similar scenarios about a corporate executive making a decision about a policy that would impact the environment. They had completely different reactions to the scenarios even though the only difference between the two were a few words. In another article that I found, reading a story in a different language than your native language affects how you view the morality of the story. The article was about a study that had many multilingual German, Italian, and English speaking students read a story in their native language and one in another language they were fluent in. They found that a "distance is created between emotional and moral topics" and students elicited "less harsh moral judgments."

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/side-effect-test-how-morality-affects-your-world-view/

http://nautil.us/blog/the-hidden-connection-between-morality-and-language

#the ones who walk away from omelas #morality

Creative Post #1

Welcome to your first marching band practice, freshman! I am so excited to welcome you into our little family. My section sits over there. Your section sits right here. You should have your instrument and music at all times. Memorize the music fast or we will replace you with someone who knows it. You have until the end of band camp next week. Right now you are probably overwhelmed by the cacophony of the band warming up. The blaring blasts of the trumpets, the shrill shrieking of the flutes and piccolos, the squeaks of the clarinets and saxophones, and the deep vibration of the low brass and percussion thrumming along your sweaty, nervous skin can be over stimulating at times. It doesn’t help that the band room is so crowded and hot. What has always bothered me the most is being so hot and sticky that you are suctioned to the person next to you. Wait. I take that back. It’s the smell that gets me. A lot of people forget to wear deodorant or they sweat so much their deodorant doesn’t work. I’m not saying any one group does that (cough cough the percussionists) but please be courteous and wear deodorant. When we are in the band room, we are so close together we can smell everyone. The smell of bad personal hygiene is an invisible, green undercurrent that threads through the room and fouls up everyone’s senses. Seriously. If you stink, put some deodorant on.

Anyways, the two gentlemen standing by the exit are our band directors, Mr. Bone and Mr. South. Mr. South is from the southern United States, from Texas to be exact. He came here because his wife makes way more money than he does as some researcher at a big company and her job required her to relocate. South loves his old school and his old band students way more than he loves us. South is ambitious. His old band was really, really good. One of the best in the state. We used to be too a long time ago. We are not good enough for him and he longs to be back at his old school in Texas. Mr. Bone is a trombone player that originally hated band when he first started it. Eventually he grew to love it because he found his family in band. He and his wife met in band in college. His family became his bandmates, his fellow directors and staff, and his students. The small, huddled group of students near the directors are the leaders of each section. These are the people you have to report and listen to all year without any sass. There’s Anne, Anna, Paige, Kaya, Derek, Bryce, Jordan, James, Carl, Jacob, and Noah. Each of them are constantly stressed thinking about the new season of marching and the pressure that is put on them to make their sections perform well. They are all a little tense right now because of the love triangle that is going on in their group of leaders. Anne is in love with Noah, but he is in love with Carl. Carl is in love with Anne. Anne despises Carl. Carl thinks Noah is irritating. Nothing like unrequited love of teenagers to make things really awkward. Many of them like Anne, Kaya, James, and Carl want to be music teachers one day, and are contemplating auditioning for the new drum major position to get some experience.

Drum majors are bossy and I can definitely say for sure all of those people are bossy as hell. Here’s what you need to know about each section. Drum majors are like older, favorite siblings that think they know everything. The flutes are all quiet, girly girls and any guy who joins is assumed to be gay. The clarinets are the same way. (The flutes and the clarinets have been praying to the band gods for a boy to join their sections). The trumpets are the worst. They are loud, obnoxious, and usually the die hard marching band freaks. They get way too excited over a simple box form while the rest of us just wish we were in bed. They are like the youngest child in a family. Manipulative, loud, outgoing, and major attention seekers. Everything has to be about them. The saxophones and the low brass are just weird. They are generalizations. Gossip fuels the band at times. That flute player, Lindsay, wonders why she would do band when she is already so busy with many other activities and honors and AP classes. She is trying to get a full ride to college because her parents won’t help her with school costs. She’s really freaked out by it. Jim in the saxophone section is considering killing himself because he thinks he has no friends despite all of his section mates who would do anything for him. Emily, a clarinet, is praying to God and is thanking Him for this band even though she didn’t really want to be in it at first. And to quote the Breakfast Club her home life was “unsatisfying”. It was here that she found her home. It is here that many find their homes. Like Josh, Aaron, Lauren, Austin, Lily, Molly, and so many others. Practice starts soon. My sections sits over there. Yours sits here. Are you enjoying your first practice so far, freshman?

#marchingbandforlife

Blog #3

“Art and Adaptation” is an essay by Steven Pinker that analyzes the arts and how they play a role and have a purpose in our lives. Pinker brings up multiple theories on the functions of art and fiction. Pinker asks the readers to decide if the stories they read simulate life, delight/instruct them, have set goals the characters must accomplish, and so on. Orozco’s “Orientation” is a short story about a new employee’s work orientation, narrated entirely by the employee’s trainer. I think that Pinker’s theories about fiction simulating life and delighting/instructing us apply to “Orientation”. This short story emulates life because in reality there are work orientations, cubicle offices, and people that share similar situations to the characters described by the narrator. The lives of the workers that are described represent real things that happen to people. The story “delighted” and entertained me through the descriptions of the office workers’ lives. I enjoyed it because it was not a happy story, really. Not every worker had a happy life like some gushy, predictable fairy tale would have. This story was also an instructive piece. The new employee was receiving instructions on how to do their job and on the interactions they may have with their fellow coworkers. The audience could learn from the warnings of the narrator and “mentally take notes on the outcomes of the strategies and tactics” the narrator recommended to deal with each situation mentioned in the story. Additionally, I felt that this piece applies to Pinker’s ideas about gossip. This piece was driven by the need to give and receive knowledge. Gossip is the “favorite pastime in all human societies because knowledge is power”. The narrator was informing the new employee about all of the workers’ emotions, quirks, and general lives. The narrator told the employee who to avoid, who was in love with who, and so on; this knowledge gives the employee an advantage when interacting with his coworkers so he knows how to behave and avoid getting into a potential situation that could get him fired.

#steven pinker #orientation

Blog Post #2

There are many adjectives that come to mind when describing Anders from “Bullet in the Brain”. Mean, stupid, rude, critical, sarcastic, and jaded are a few that come to mind. These adjectives are what most readers initially associate with Anders. Throughout most of the story, Anders is rude and sarcastic to everyone, including one of the men that was robbing the bank he was at. Pissing off the bank robbers with guns is not a good idea unless you are stupid or have a death wish. After one too many bad comments, a bank robber shoots Anders in the head. Before the bullet could completely kill him, Anders saw one last memory dance through his mind. Anders’ last memory is what changes the reader’s view of him. Anders did not see his wife, his daughter, his first lover, or the suicide he witnessed. Instead of all the major events and people in his life that changed him, he saw one hot summer afternoon playing baseball with other boys. Anders was fascinated with the phrase “they is” that Coyle’s cousin said. A weird phrase to be captivated by, but Anders loved it.

From this memory, it appears that Anders is not the complete jerk readers initially thought, and there is more to him than the sarcasm he wears like armor. It gives the reader a glimpse of Anders without all of his sarcasm and mean comments. I think this memory shows Anders’ longing for life to be the way it was that hot summer and for him to be who he was at that point in his life. Over time as Anders became bitter and hardened by his life, the young spirited Anders disappeared little by little and became tucked away in a corner of his subconscious. Anders built a wall of sarcasm and rude comments around him to assimilate into the critical nature of his work as a book critic. Anders hates clichés. He was amused by clichés that the bank robbers used like when the robbers said “dead meat”, “bright boy”, and “capiche”. After so many years of reading books with the same clichés and plots over and over again, Anders became deprived of originality. He sees the world as redundant so he is critical of everyone and everything he sees. I feel that Anders was bitter about his life because it was filled with the normal milestones that everyone fulfills: college, marriage, kids, a nice steady job, and so on. Anders hungers for originality so that is why in his last moments he did not see any of his cliché milestone life events in his last moments alive. Despite the façade of mean spiritedness that Anders shows to the world, his true self is kind spirited and hungers for originality. That summer day was a bright spot of originality and individuality amongst the conformity of clichés of Anders life.

I interpreted the ending the way that I did because, at some point in time, everyone longs to go back and relive a part of their life, whether to do it over again or just to experience a great time in your life again. Also, no one wants to live a boring, redundant life. Everyone changes many times throughout their lifetime based on their experiences, but their true selves are always inside them no matter how much they change. What would you think about in your last moments on Earth?

#bulletinthebrain

Blog Post # 1

“We are likely to accept these stories as being on the same level of reality as the kitchen stories. It’s only when we are older that we are taught to regard one kind of story as real and the other kind as mere invention” (Atwood 1399).

This quote really resonates with me because I was a child that was “likely to accept these stories as being on the same level of reality” as the stories I heard my parents tell each other (Atwood 1398). I remember being that child and when I had to learn the difference between reality and fiction. As a child, my parents read stories to me about everything. Dragons, handsome princes, damsels in distress, and princesses were common topics in the stories that my parents wove for me. My favorite stories were about the Little Mermaid. I believed that magic and fairy tales were true. Stories that I told my friends and pictures that I drew always involved some sort of magical and fantastical plot. Going to Disney World when I was at that point in my life only reinforced my belief that my storybooks were true. I had met the characters in person, so how could they not be real? But eventually everyone has to grow up and learn that things like magic and fairy tales are not true. Fourth grade was the point in my life where I began to differentiate between reality and fantasy when I was told that Santa Claus was not real. Now I have a 3 year old sister named Sophie. She shares in my childhood love of stories and princesses and is always asking me to read her stories about Anna and Elsa from Frozen. She is another child that believes her books are on the same level of reality as the stories she hears our parents tell. As I watch her grow, I hope that she can hold on to her child mentality for as long as she can because when you believe in magic anything seems possible.

#FYS 016

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