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[katelyn-phillips]

Blog #9

One of my first thoughts after reading “Empathy Exams,” was that it reminded me of “Are You My Brain Double?”. The part when they talk about what parts of the brain are engaged when hearing another person’s story and empathizing with them, was similar to when the girl told her story and found someone with the same brain pattern as her when telling the story. The two stories are similar because when the brain feels pain certain areas are engaged, and those happen to be the same as when you empathize with someone who has felt that pain.

I also think this story relates to fiction because one of the greatest things about fiction is living through the character and empathizing with what they are going through. Fiction is so popular, in my opinion, because the characters get to do things most people don’t do on a daily basis, and that’s what makes it so entertaining. Empathy is important because it helps us feel connected and closer to the characters in a book, or even the people in our lives. 

This connects to the medical professionals and the actors portraying ailments because if the doctors don’t have empathy toward the patients (or actors in this case), no one in going to want to open up to them and they may not have the whole truth in order to correctly diagnose them. As a pharmacy student, I think this story was so interesting because I have never thought about how important it is to empathize with the patient in order to create a trusting relationship, but it makes so much sense. The medical professionals need practice to help empathize with actors so, when the time comes and they have real patients, they can empathize with them and correctly identify their ailments. If they can’t empathize with the patients, they won’t be able to diagnose the patients, or worse, incorrectly diagnose them.

[katelyn-phillips]

Blog #8

If fiction lies its way to the truth, then in the story “A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings” the truth is human nature. Human nature is that we don’t like the unknown. The people in story aren’t sure if the angel is an angel so they are mean, and careless with the angel. The angel doesn’t match up to their records of angels so therefore it cannot be one. I think this is ignorant because how can they be so sure that their previous records of angels are correct? The lies in the story are how the people act around the angel. They throw stones at him, and brand his sides, and sell tickets to come watch him. They are acting inhumane to this angel, but what if he really is an angel? Saying that fiction and pretend play are practice for real skills is applicable to this story. I think the pretend play of this story are how the characters act towards the angel. If he is really an angel then maybe he was seeing how people would treat him, it’s almost like a test for the afterlife. Maybe if they aren't treating him right in the real world, they don’t deserve to go to Heaven in the afterlife.

[katelyn-phillips]

Blog #7

They argued that pretend play and fiction is an adaptation instead of a byproduct. It is argued that fiction is an adaptation because everyone has it and everyone experiences pretend play at around the same age. Fiction becomes an essential part of life because of how much time we spend thinking about situations that haven’t happened, or fictional tv shows or movies, etc. “Viewed against this background, fiction as “false” information no longer seems quite so strange or different from the other types of information humans are designed to actively represent and maintain.” This is a big argument because it is saying that fiction is necessary for our everyday life, just like true information. I believe that it is an adaptation instead of a byproduct because most everyone has the same cognitive functions to understand fiction and like fictional situations, as well as know the difference between fictional and real life situations. If it were a byproduct, I think that, some people wouldn’t react the same way. In the situation that was given about the snakes, and how people avoid all snakes just because there are venomous ones, some people do their research and don’t avoid all snakes because they know which ones are deadly. With fiction, no one steers clear of fiction just because it is fake, everyone has fiction in some part of their life whether it be books, or movies, or even just dreams and situations they come up with in their heads. Overall, I think fiction is an adaptation for the human population.

[katelyn-phillips]

Blog #6

For our workshop we all emailed our stories to each other and printed them out for ourselves and annotated and wrote comments on our own time. Then we got together and went over main ideas on what we were confused upon or what needed more detail or clarification. After the workshop was over, we gave each of our annotated stories back to the writer so they could see any other little comments that we made and didn’t get to discuss together. I think that this worked pretty well for our group, we had a hiccup of when the stories should be sent by, but in the actual workshop everyone seemed prepared for it by coming with questions and comments and any other helpful tips. I thought I got a lot out of the workshop because now I could see what the reader’s might be confused on and what I need to fix to make my story even more successful. I liked being able to give tips to others as well because then they could see what was successful in their stories and what might need a little more tweaking to get the point across. Sometimes we think parts are clear, but they actually aren’t and workshops open your eyes up to that. Overall, I did really enjoy workshopping other and getting workshopped myself. It was a very helpful discussion with my peers.

[katelyn-phillips]

Blog #5

Some differences of fiction and nonfiction are the truth and what is made up. A similarity is that in life, what’s fiction and nonfiction is mostly determined by what you believe. The audience has a complicated sense of trust for someone who tells them they’re lying to begin with. The audience knows they will be deceived, therefore they are prepared for it, yet they are aware that it is a lie. When the audience is promised that they will be told the truth they believe it, but in the example of magic, I personally, always have some doubt. Theoretically people should believe that they are being deceived from the start and feel more comfortable with that. People in the film are so forgiving of dishonest liars because they still want to believe in the magic of the tricks and deceit. People are more unforgiving of the honest liars, like The Amazing Randi, because they don’t want to believe that these things are made up and fake, they want to believe in magic and something greater than themselves. I think more people are interested in fiction over nonfiction because it allows them to believe in something fake and be transported to that place of magic. With nonfiction, you know what you are going to get from the start, nothing is of surprise to you. 

[katelyn-phillips]

Blog #4

1. I believe Amy Tan’s essay is postmodernist because she just writes for herself, and many people come up with other interpretations and basically put words in her mouth. They interpret her writing as more feminist than she intends, and they believe that she writes about the immigrant experience and the history of China.

2. I think that people should not think about what Tan’s intent was when reading a story, one of the most wonderful things about writing is that it can be interpreted differently from every person that reads it. It speaks to different people in different ways and you might not discover it if you only look at the author’s intent.

3. I think her explanation of why she writes is sufficient enough because the reasons she writes and what she writes about are important to her. She even says that if you don’t like it there are plenty of other things to read. People are reading into her writing more than she intended because that’s what we are taught to do. We are taught to analyze and find patterns and themes in everything that we read, the fact that she doesn’t intend for them to be there is moot because other people can find them and argue their relevancy. 

[katelyn-phillips]

Blog #4

Story and morality have many things in common. When people read stories they always put themselves in the characters shoes, and we judge the characters based on the morality of their actions throughout the story. The TED talk relates decision making and brain function to stories. It tells about how people judge moral decisions based on how the story is written or portrayed. Morality is based on how the person was raised and ethics are formed from the social systems that the person grew up in. People who grow up in the Catholic church are raised to think that abortion is morally wrong, though other people don’t think much about it, or believe that it should be the mother’s choice. Why are some people raised with different morals than others? What makes different people believe different things are morally or ethically right? Based on culture, religious belief, and many other factors, every person is bound to come out with a little bit different beliefs than the next person. Lots of factors effect the way people perceive morality and ethics. Why are some people able to walk away from Omelas when others choose to stay, even if they know the child is suffering for their gain? Is there another town in the story of Omelas that the other people do move to?

http://academic.regis.edu/tleining/pdfs/5%20Lecture%20Stories%20and%20Morality.pdf

[katelyn-phillips]

Creative #1

Facing the crowd, squinting slightly at the bright lights directed at my face, I can barely hear the warming applause over my own heartbeat.  I have practiced hundreds of hours and been to countless dance classes in order to prepare for this: my first time performing on a stage. It was exhilarating and terrifying at the same time. The music begins and my mind goes blank. I have no idea what move comes first and my queue is coming up. Somehow, my body starts the synchronized movements without a problem. I hit the opening counts effortlessly and before I know it the performance is halfway through. I mentally remind myself to smile and keep the audience entertained. I move gracefully around the stage along with my other classmates, moving in harmony. The bass matches my heartbeat and the music is blaring in my ears but I can see from the reaction of the crowd that we are doing well. I see out of the corner of my eye a brown haired girl trip and fall to her butt on one of the harder moves. I try to concentrate on hitting the moves myself, but I can see her get to her feet and turn a few shades redder. As I turn to dance to the back of the stage I can see that I’m 2-counts early, and I scold myself internally. I quickly get back on the right counts and collect myself for the rest of the dance. When the music comes to an end, I dramatically strike the ending pose, my face painted with the biggest grin. For a first performance, I know I nailed it.

Performing has become a part of who I am. I would be nothing without dance recitals, competitions and halftime performances. After my first performance, I was hooked. I joined my high schools dance team and we performed at least once a week, along with long hours of practices. I was in heaven and my dancing had improved so much.

Taking the stage for the first time on the dance team, all the same nerves rushed back into my body. Crouching in our opening pose, I couldn’t stop shaking, from nerves and adrenaline, and my heart was racing. As I waited for the music to tell me to start dancing, I went over the opening in my head. When it was time to dance, our team hit the beginning section without a flaw. I transition to the back of the stage and continue the routine. When we hit our group toe touch I can see that the left side is faster than the right, a pang of disappointment hits my heart, but I know we can recover from this. I continue with the rest of the dance picking up momentum and confidence. The rest of the performance goes off without much of a hitch. Just a few minor count errors. As the music ends, the crowd bursts into a round of applause and I can see the section of our parents jump to their feet with huge smiles on their faces.

As the years go by, I grow tired of going to practices, and as the hours drag on so does my patience. Each day I force myself to attend practices, but I’m always the first one to arrive at performances. They are still a novelty to me.

As my last year on dance team winds to and end, and our last performance is right on the horizon, I start to regret all the practices I didn’t cherish and the days I spent in less than happy moods. As I take the floor for the last time on senior night, my eyes start to water as I come to the realization that I will never dance on this floor again, I will never dance at another basketball or football game again, and I will never dance with my best friends again. Dismay washes over me but I push it away as the music begins, only letting myself focus on counting the beats and making this the best performance of my life. My last dance was hip-hop style and I was chosen to have my own solo in the middle. When my solo comes, I take one last deep breath and set my mind on killing this performance. I smoothly transition from a side stall into a toe touch and the crowd goes wild. I can hear the student section screaming my name. I look over and give my friends a confident wink. The music guides my next moves and we transition to the last formation. As the music begins to fade we all hit our ending pose, panting in unison. As the crowd erupts with cheers and applause, a wave of emotion courses through my body. That was my last time dancing. I can’t believe it. But I just killed it. We just killed it.

[katelyn-phillips]

Blog #3

One of Pinker’s theories in ‘Art and Adaptation’ is that literature should “delight and instruct.” In Orozco’s ‘Orientation.’ I felt delighted, in some senses, to read it.  It didn’t quite give me the “warm fuzzy” type of delight, but more of the “can’t wait to read what is said next” type. Orozco makes a point of describing each character individually. We get no sense of what they look like or what they sound like, but we do get the very intimate details of their lives told to us. It is a shocking way to characterize and it definitely took me aback as a reader. The short story was also a little instructional. The narrator not only gives the details of these people’s lives, but he tells us what to do and what not to do in each situation. You can heat food in the microwave, but not cook it. Do not let on (that you know other peoples secrets). If you let on, you will be let go. Don’t talk to Anika Bloom. Enjoy the view while photocopying. All of these things are instructions on how to get by while doing the job.

I do believe that Pinker is on to something when he quotes that stories are meant to delight and instruct. It may not be the typical sense of the words, but nonetheless, it delighted and instructed me.

[katelyn-phillips]

Blog #2

Anders is first portrayed as an ill-tempered, smart-ass guy. Throughout the whole beginning of the story, Anders is also very stupid. It’s like he doesn’t realize that the bank is actually being robbed and that the men have guns. He makes many poorly timed remarks. It seems like he can never stop criticizing people. Because we have such an ill view of Anders so far in the story, it doesn’t hurt the reader to hear that he has gotten shot, it was almost predictable. What does surprise the reader is what visions Anders sees while he is dying. The things that come to his mind aren’t the huge, life-altering events that the reader would assume him to see. It’s actually the opposite. The most trivial memory that Anders has is described for the reader, a summer day playing a pick up baseball game. It tells a lot about Anders’ character. Maybe the reader was too quick to judge him. Maybe he's not that bad of guy after all. His reaction to ‘they is’ is also quite interesting to the reader. It seems like such a strange thing to be captivated with, so much so, that it would be your last living memory. What event in Anders’ life made him so rigid after that day playing pick up baseball?

All the memories that we were told didn’t go through Anders’ mind must’ve shaped him into the austere man that he was that day. The suicide, his first love, his wife, his daughter, none of those things seemed to impact him in his last few moments, but those were the things that made him who he was today. 

His true self is actually a kind spirited boy, who is fascinated over the minor things, but he has come to grow a shell around that Anders. He lets the world only see the Anders that has been hardened by life, not the carefree boy in the summertime with his friends. The ending was that summer day because I believe that when you die you become your true self for one last time. You see the moments that you were truly you for, not all the ones that shape you into a different person. How else would you finish your last seconds on Earth?

[katelyn-phillips]

Reading Blind

Atwood’s personal stance at writing and telling stories is very interesting to me. “We’ve led them to believe that prose comes in visual blocks. not in rhythms and cadences; that its texture should be flat because a page is flat; that written emotion should not be immediate, like a drumbeat, but more remote, like a painted landscape: something to be contemplated” (Atwood 1397). Personally, I agree with this, when people tell stories, they are animated and full of emotion, we seem to have lost this in the process of writing more stories than we tell. In the past, the only form of stories were the ones passed down and told by each generation. Now, with so many different forms of entertainment, stories have been pushed back only to the pages of books. In addition to that, the school systems have beaten all the creativity out of what stories the kids still had inside them. Even on creative writing pieces, there had to be a format to follow. Overtime, that format has been engraved into our brains and now it’s all we know. Trying to get back the creativity and the essential parts of writing and telling stories is proving to be a harder task than imagined.