CORE 112: Based on a True Story?

A Spring 2014 Course Blog.

[truestory2014]

Conference Experience

I had the chance to listen to my classmates read their conference papers in class and at the actual TO conference before reading my paper, so I felt very prepared and eager to share my paper.  This was a paper that I had revised and worked through more than any other this year, and though I was happy with it upon turning it in, I found that when reading it in front of the class I suddenly became very self-conscious about it.  Our class is so full of bright, intelligent minds that I felt intimidated at the thought of having to impress them with my paper.  But upon taking a breath, the conference came to mind, and more that my fear of not living up to the academic standards of my classmates was my desire to enter an academic discourse with them.  When attending the conference, I was blown away by some of the ideas conceived and argued in students' papers, and they made me want to read the texts they were grappling with.  I found that most of them were eager to share their thoughts with a small crowd of people, making me feel like a part of a select few who will realize the true pleasure of an academic conference.  So, with my paper in hand I began entering the conversation, with a lot of conviction because I truly enjoy sharing ideas and opening my mind to new ideas.  Apparently not many wanted to share ideas with me the day I read my paper, since no one except you, Patti, had a question for me--hopefully that's reflective that I made a good argument and not that no one understood me!  Thank you so much, Patti and everyone, for an amazing, enlightening year in Core 112.

[truestory2014]

I have so much to say about this movie that its impossible to compress into one short post, so I’ll focus on the details that stood out to me the most. I thought up until now that Stories We Tell was the weirdest documentary I’d seen so far…scratch that. This is the most surreal documentary I’ve ever seen in my life.  Two things struck me about this film in parallel. One was the level of cognitive dissonance in the film. The ability of something along the lines of ‘we need to kill/exterminate all the communists, but do it in a humane way’, when the scene of burning the village is being filmed, illustrates just how strange the whole situation is. These people are all trying to reinforce their own truth, but you could tell that as they approached history, they didn’t have enough flexibility or couldn’t reach far enough, to really bridge the gap between the myths they are telling themselves, and the true horror of what they did. That said, only one of the killers repents on camera, so perhaps there are other ways of dealing with the disconnect between true and story. Apart from the overall theme of cognitive dissonance, I thought this was a story entirely told through facial expressions. The mere premise of the film made me constantly seek out signs of different emotions, feelings, or thoughts in the faces of the killers, looking for a psychological slip reflected in a facial expression that would betray their own self awareness or a change in heart. This definitely comes through when Anwar Congo breaks down and admits his crimes, but is present throughout as he seems to deal with the world in a hesitant, pained, mournful, or melancholy way. Facial expression was also incredibly important in the scene with the wire, when it seems like he truly recognizes the monstrosity of his actions. However, the most notable facial expressions of the movies were those of the ‘actors’ in the foreground contrasted with onlookers who were not in the scenes being filmed. The glimpse of smiling faces in the background of acted-out killing or cruelty highlighted the strange and unsettling reality of what was begin carried out in the past and present, and showed how little self awareness was present among those filming a movie which represented their own crimes. I’d really like to talk about more--including the focus on international justice in the movie, and the recurring theme of American films and the ‘gangster'--in class!

[truestory2014]

Yawning As the Credits Roll

From what was said in class, I expected to come out of the film (having watched it alone) deeply disturbed and distressed and scarred for life. Maybe it was having seen so many horror movies, or psychological thrillers, or just movies in general, but I came out feeling… nothing, really. Yes, certain scenes made me cringe (the one where Koto fake feeds himself his own liver and penis) and certain scenes made me question the goodness of human nature, if there is any (the one where Congo does a little song-and-dance on the same rooftop he murdered thousands of people). And yet I felt the entire production to be rather—I don’t know—boring. The decision to tell the story from the side of the persecutor and not the persecuted is a unique one, but I think there's a reason it’s not more common. History already tells us the side of the “winners” (although I’ll admit—I knew nothing of the Indonesian killings of ’65 beforehand), and so we typically look to creative outlets to tell us the side of the “losers,” of the oppressed, of those who didn’t have a voice—not to reinforce their powerlessness. However, I think my boredom came more from the recreation of the killings—reproducing them over and over again, in a western style and then in comedy and then in musical—so much so that it made what they were producing meaningless, like a commercial that plays so many times you don’t even listen to it anymore. While this sort of “meta filmmaking” can be effectivein drawing attention to the way the story is being told and who is telling it, it does little to draw attention to the story itself. And it would be really cool if this was director Joshua Oppenheimer’s whole point—to create a film in which the audience finds itself numb to the killings, and subsequently, can see how one might be able to carry out such brutality and that there is a bit of a barbarian in all of us. But based on the reactions of my classmates, as well as its “raw, terrifying, and painfully difficult to watch” consensus (Rotten Tomatoes) that won it so much critical acclaim, I don’t think it was, and that we can lend him that credit. Maybe it’s just me. 

[truestory2014]

A Brutal Truth

I found the Act of Killing to be a fascinatingly honest film, which I think says a lot about the human character. Especially in the beginning of the film, Anwar Congo, the Indonesian gangster and death squad leader at the center of our story, was more than happy to share every detail about how he came to be the most notorious man in Indonesia. He happily described his political ascent from being a street movie ticket scalper to becoming a cold blooded political killer with no reservations, primarily because Anwar was proud of his work. Pride, it appears is the most honest emotion, our storytellers want the audience to know the truth because they are proud of their past, proud of their roles as killers and gangsters that rival their Hollywood idols. Pride tells the whole story because the storyteller wants you to know every detail, every smart move they made, every government official they met and every communist they killed. The audience should see what incredible men they were for their work against the communists, so they tell you every painstaking detail. Throughout this class we have seen a lot of emotional reposes to truth and storytelling, hurt and the pain of deception from Bechdel, familial happiness from Polley, nostalgia from Didion; yet none of these storytellers could achieve an ultimate objective truth. Anwar and his cronies did because they was no confusion in their emotional connection to the story, no regret and nothing to hide, they told the audience everything because despite the heinousness of their actions they are proud of their work and they want people to know the full story. As uncomfortable as the criminals openness and pride is to the audience, we are getting a truthful account, they are showing us everything they have accomplished.

[truestory2014]

How we view killers

I have so much to say about this movie, but I'll try to focus on one subject.

I think I finally found a horror movie I enjoy. I can't say I like it, but I want to watch more. This kind of movie is a sort of intellectual horror movie, because it doesn't just try to shock your senses. Instead, it shocks your sense of self. I felt shaken the entire time because I had to look inside myself and try to see how much resembled these real-world villains. I think a large part of our discomfort as an audience came from not being able to remove blame.

I went to a presentation about law and psychology where the speaker basically argued that the murder trial has evolved into what it is today because the people want to look into the murderers eyes and determine if they see a monster or themselves. I mention this because we are so used to painting bad people as distant monsters, separated by at least the bench. We need that sense of security that society is in control or soon will be. It sucks to see a story without a happy ending keep going indefinitely. Anwar, Herman, and the other gangsters were living a moral person's nightmare, where justice was never served.

As troubling as this is, the worst part was feeling like we as Americans were at fault. I wonder how would Scorsese feel if he watched this. Throughout the movie, we not only see American commercialism essentially 'sponsoring' the anti-meritocracy of Indonesia, we continually hear these gangsters cite American movies as inspiration. Of course, all of this is in the context of them fighting our fight against communism. How can we reconcile atrocities committed, in any degree, because of us? How could the American meritocracy be an umbrella over all that evil? This is the ugliness that's hard to watch: not just what they did, but what we didn't do.

Also, the selfie. It was really hard to watch a murderer's daughter take a selfie.

[truestory2014]

When the act is over

So, I was trying to gather whether I thought The Act of Killing was an effective documentary or not.  It definitely captured me in places, my face frozen in horror at the fake-intestine-eating scene or Anwar's gags at the end, but I was conflicted by the film's last message to the audience.  At the end, I found myself feeling very protective of Anwar, a man who killed at least 1000 people.  This shows there are two sides to the story, but the rest of the documentary leaned more towards showcasing the horrors of the massacres and the skewed logic of the government.  But if the film wanted to show exclusively the cruelness of the gangsters, the re-enactment scenes would have been sufficient.  By placing the reenactment scenes with consecutive shots of the behind the scenes footage, the reenactment scenes become less effective.  The audience saw the actors putting on makeup and discussing the outlines for the scene, so by the time the scene starts we are numbed to the effects.  However, this lets the behind the scenes footage shine through more, probably the purpose of the format.  The most astonishing moments to me were when the actors treated the heavy subject matter with such lightness after a scene.  Everyone would laugh or applaud themselves after a successful fake murder or burning of a house.  This is normal for actors, who are encouraged to keep high spirits after heavy material to keep from slipping into a deep, method-acting unhappy place, but the difference here is that the killers actually committed murders like the ones they were recreating, and still could laugh about it.  Perhaps this speaks to some part of the human condition that needs to laugh to keep from breaking down.  Right now in the middle of essay and group project hell, I have to smile and not answer too honestly when someone asks "How are you?"  because I would be in danger of breaking down and crying.  So I laugh it off and promise I'll be okay.  Clearly the subject matter is MUCH heavier here, and I can't begin to imagine I know what Anwar is going through emotionally during the documentary process, but I can sympathize with the human desire to block out emotions for the sake of getting the job done.  Whether it's sacrifice your humanity or try not to cry from stress over the last three weeks of college, humans defensively throw up walls of laughter until they are forced to face reality, which is when the real throw up begins.  Anwar begins the documentary coping with his devilish deeds by dancing, and ends his journey by gagging, showing the documentary forced him into reality and out of the laughing facade the behind the scenes shots so often caught.  

[truestory2014]

The Sadism in Me

Anwar Congo repeated over and over again that we are all sadists. Almost as  inherent in our humanness as eating, Anwar seems to argue that there is a deep-rooted desire to watch other humans suffer. And maybe he is right. I was riveted as well as repulsed by the simulated violence on screen. I took great satisfaction in watching Anwar's fear when he was "tortured" and "killed" in his own film. And I felt a strange sense of accomplishment upon seeing him gag at the thoughts of his own atrocities.

But then again, maybe Anwar wasn't right. As repulsed as I was by him, as horrified by his carefree attitude and pride at his own killings, I didn't want to see him in pain. Even though I found his discomfort to be a sort of poetic justice, I cringed when I saw his body heave, and I felt an overwhelming urge to comfort him in his despair. I wanted Anwar to be happy--a crazy sentiment considering a spell in the deepest pits of hell would scarcely serve as proper retribution for his actions.

This is what makes me different from Anwar. I have a propensity for mercy and compassion. I am unable to separate the man from his humanity in a way that would truly let me enjoy his suffering. I cannot be a sadist because any gratification I get is tainted by guilt.

As for Anwar, his guilt has come 50 years too late. 

[truestory2014]

The Act of Killing

So I just finished the last 30 minutes of this movie alone, which was difficult to say the least. So many times during this movie I felt like some force was pressing down on my lungs, physically making it hard to breathe. Three such moments stand out like that for me: when Herman is pretending to eat Anwar's "liver", when the random paramilitary officer talks about how he loved to rape the girls he murdered, especially if they were 14th (a statement met with howls of approval from his friends), and lastly, when Anwar asks Josh at the end if how he felt being "tortured" is how his victims felt when he tortured them. This last one moment, however, is stuck in my mind. The look of anguish on Anwar's face when he tells Josh "I did that to so many people," is emotionally charged—I felt both sympathy and disgust for Anwar simultaneously. I also think it's interesting how the three protagonists dealt with their actions in different ways—Anwar's problematically heart-wrenching process of realization we see in the film, Herman's delight in what he did, and the other guy's acknowledgement that what they did was wrong, but his indifference in spite of that knowledge. Like many others, I don't know what to think about this film, but I do know that I will think of it for a while.

[truestory2014]

Relax and Rolex

As the wretched sounds of Anwar's gagging still ring in my ears, I can see why this documentary was hard to watch alone. The attitudes of Anwar Congo, Herman Koto, and the other killers seemed to have such inherently inverted understandings of what is right and wrong that I began to ask myself, is this how people really are and my own impositions of morality are simply the product of Western civilization? Am I being biased by thinking that they seemed barbaric and completely amoral? But obviously, that wasn't entirely the case. Although Anwar said that he and his fellow gangsters would do anything for money to buy new clothes and although Herman blatantly said that he was running for and although many of the killers, namely Adi Zulkadry, stubbornly continued to be in denial, in the end, Anwar and the other killers started to experience guilt and the reconsideration of their actions. The main reason why they were able to maintain their sanity and continue on their daily lives without more than occasional nightmares was the entrenched practice of justification. Justification worked so well in this case because of the gangsters' "creation" (more than simply classification) of the Other, which they called the Communists. With the point of a Pancasilan finger, the boundaries of this group of Communists quickly became limitless to the point where the newspaper editor explicitly said that his job was "change their words...to make the public hate them" and "human rights" concerning the Communists' executions was a serious nuisance to Anwar. Not only did the public have no choice other than to reject any association with the "Communists" but even the gangsters' themselves never seemed to have relented in their hatred of the Other. As the TV host said, "God hates Communists."

I also found Anwar's obsession with movies to be very interesting in how they significantly influenced his motive and methods of killing of the "movie theater gangsters." Anwar constantly referred to his attraction to Hollywood films, gangster films, and sadistic movies, even directly stating that he felt motivated to act tougher and more violent that the actors of those films. I mean, talk about the potential affects of video games on Anwar...at one point, the documentary seemed to suggest a correlation between Anwar's killings and Westernization (but that might be a stretch). 

Although I was EXTREMELY nervous to watch the documentary (especially alone), I found the course of the film to be very predictable. That is not to say that the content was very sickening but I certainly expected that Anwar and the killers would experience some degree of guilt, regret, and sadness as a result of reenacting the scenes, as the documentary did show. I can only hope that Anwark will finally go to a shrink and let it go.

PS. I thought it was HILARIOUS when Herman and his family, during his campaign photoshoot, yelled as "Ahh!!" instead of "Cheese!!".

[truestory2014]

Moral Inversion: the Truth I Didn't Want to See

Moral Inversion

It’s going to be a long time before I can articulate how I feel about this movie. I don’t even know how I feel at the moment, beyond shocked, horrified, and sickened. Hearing the gangsters laugh, smile, dance, and sing while they were talking about the people they had killed in such a matter of fact way made me understand what Liam meant about the darkness. I could feel the darkness creeping into my soul too, especially when Herman smeared blood in his own mouth and pretended to eat the human “liver” like an animal devouring its prey. He is less than an animal because he knows that he is cruel and relishes the pain that he causes to others. An animal kills to survive. Herman killed because he got off on it.

 I could not understand how people could be so morally upside down. The news anchor on the television program haunted me. How could she praise those killers, saying that God hated communists and that this was the reason why the movie that the gangsters made was so beautiful? What kind of world do we live in, where people can watch with admiration these “acts of killing” reenacted by men who are proud of what they did? Are they so out of touch with human dignity and the basic obligations of one human to another that they do not flinch at such utter depravity?

This movie was hell. I thought that it would never end, because each time that I thought the screen would fade to black, the movie continued with another torture scene. I think it was designed to be this way. The filmmaker wanted to make his viewers yearn for the end. He knew that we would squirm and be uncomfortable, but perhaps he wanted us to feel some part of the torture that the Communists experienced at the hands of the gangsters. I thought for sure that the movie would end when Anwar looked out over the dark water and commented about the “darkness” that is within us. This would have been a good ending, but it would also have been a predictable one. Of course the darkness of the water is a metaphor for the moral darkness that occurred in Indonesia during the 1960s. The filmmaker knew that we would be expecting this, and so gave us an ending that disappointed our metaphorical expectations. The real end is not nearly as literary. The last scene is of the interior of a deserted handbag store. Anwar has just walked out, after returning to the roof of the store where he killed Communists so long ago.  The ending does not give us any closure with grandiose comments about the darkness of humanity. The only thing it gives us is a sense of immense emptiness inside, mirrored by the emptiness of the store. There is nothing else that we can feel after watching people kill with such delight, and talk about it as if they had just spent an enjoyable afternoon with friends.

The callous way that the gangsters talked, and the laughter of the actors as the gangsters reenacted the beatings, killings, and burnings, is complete moral emptiness. People aren’t supposed to laugh when things like this happen. It made sense to me when, in the second to last staging by the Pancasila, the women and children actors were crying and emotionally drained. This is how people should feel. In a moral world, death and killing should be difficult to deal with. This was the only redeeming quality of humanity that I saw in the film, but this redemption was still more bitter than sweet. At the end, Anwar cries and asks, “Have I sinned?” He does not want “it all to come back to him.” Yet I didn’t get the impression that he was remorseful because he truly felt horrified at everything he had done. I think he was still very proud of the role he played. He was afraid of karma affecting him negatively, not disgusted with himself. Anwar is not deserving of sympathy or understanding. He says that he can feel what his victims felt, but as Josh mentions, the victims suffered much more because they knew they were actually going to die. For Anwar, it was all a movie. His life was secure. Anwar does not understand the level of his depravity, and what’s more I don’t think he ever will. There is no redemption, and this is what makes the movie so hard to deal with.

The gangsters tell their story honestly: they are unashamed of what they did, and do not try to hide behind a guise of morality. This is as true as their rendition of what happened in 1965 can get. Yet we are not equipped emotionally to handle this truth. This is a truth that I never wanted to see. Maybe I would have preferred a lie, preferred not to know what humans are capable of and the black hole that can suck in the soul. I don’t know.  

[truestory2014]

A Deep Rooted Problem

I’m still working on processing the movie I just watched, but I’m honestly not sure if I ever will, so I’ll just have to go for the tumblr post anyways. First of all, I am so confused by the cross-dressing and the scenes with the girls dancing on the bridge in various costumes. I just don’t understand what it was for or why he was also dressed as a woman many times. Confusion aside I am very glad that I went to the screening with the group—watching that movie alone would have been even more horrifying. I suppose what I found more disturbing than the individuals was the group mentality. When the men reenacted interrogations and killings in front of groups of people, everyone was laughing and smiling. They accepted and condoned the cruelty, which was both shocking and terrifying to me. The entire population seemed to believe that the mass murder of “communists” was a good thing, not a tragedy. The speech given by the Vice President contributed to this theme of public acceptance, and his approval of the paramilitary organization and their tactics is probably part of the reason the society accepts them as well. The fact that killing and violence is simply part of their culture is both tragic and concerning. It seems to me that the problem in this film is not just the killing that happened as an isolated event or the callous nature of the perpetrators, but instead the failure of the society as a whole to see the violence as a problem or to do anything about it. 

[truestory2014]

The Act of Bull-Crapping

The documentary, Act of Killing, made me sick; I had an icky feeling in my stomach that persisted for a few hours. This was the case not only because my family lived in Jakarta at the time and saw friends and relatives massacred, but also because of the impunity and “fun” Anwar and Herman experienced while performing these heinous deeds. For example, I recall a time where Anwar described his method of strangulation via metal wire as “humane and with no blood.” He then proceeded to laugh about the hundreds of people he killed up on that rooftop, while dancing the cha-cha and singing. If that’s not twisted, I don’t know what is. The cha-cha episode does not even stand-alone; throughout the rest of the documentary, there are plenty of other times where the two talk so proudly and numbly about the lives they stole.

However, I think director Joshua Oppenheimer realized this atrocity and made an attempt to show that there can be humanity even in the worst of people. At the end of the documentary, Herman strangles Anwar with the metal wire for the film they are creating. As Herman strains the wire, Anwar demands to stop, as he can’t take the emotions associated with even a fake death. He then proceeds to question the morality of his killing thousands of people, capped off with gagging and throwing up upon the his rooftop of death. In my opinion, Anwar’s sudden conviction is utter bull-crap. No way in 40 years he never considered the feelings of those he killed, or suffered some sort of emotional breakdown as a result. But somehow happened to feel all those emotions in front of the camera. Fishy, eh? Sounds like a little cinematography to me. Anyways, I enjoyed the style of the filming, but I still have no pity for those sadists.

[truestory2014]

Conference Conference Conference

Ah, the TO conference.

Writing about it is hard since, as someone with debilitating stage fright, just thinking about it makes me want to pop a Xanax. And unfortunately, this fright colored my experience to the point that I'm not sure I can really give a real evaluation of the experience.

I don't think I heard another paper on my panel, because panic. I know I was asked a question in the Q&A but I can't remember the question or my answer, because panic. I went to another panel, and I really have no idea what happened or what I heard, because panic. Suffice it to say, the vast majority of the night was spent in panic.

I wish I could say that I got something out of this experience besides a new list of books that I want to read. But honestly, the conference was just not an activity designed for people like me. Though I felt like I gained a lot from writing a paper for an audience who would be unfamiliar with my book and unable to see the words I was writing, the actual reading of the paper did not do me a lick of good.

Oh well. I suppose a little extra practice public speaking never hurts.

[truestory2014]

TO Conference

First things first: I could not believe how ill-timed this conference was for me. Not only did I not have my computer all week, but my workload in other classes and extra-curriculars made me absolutely dread this conference. So when I got there on Wednesday, I was ready to get in and get out. But as I listened to the other papers on my panel, I found myself actually enjoying the experience. It was really cool to see my peers and friends present their work on books and films that I had both read and never even heard of: my friend Francesca presented a fabulous paper on The Virgin Suicides by Jeffrey Eugenides (my favorite book), but I found myself equally enthralled by another paper on a different panel I went to on the memoir Goodbye to Berlin. Plus reading my paper and answering questions was fun too, if not unexpectedly nerve wracking. But perhaps the best part of the conference was how supportive the entires TO community was in coming out to hear the panels. I saw friends from previous classes I hadn't spoken to in a semester, and I saw my writing 111 TA and caught up with her for 20 minutes, which was so lovely--mainly because she is so lovely. So while I don't think I'll ever be cut out for real academic panels, it was fun to pretend for a night that I was, and it was great to see the entire thematic option community come out to support the conference! PS I wrote this on my friends iPad as I still do not have my computer, so forgive any spelling issues please this keyboard is the worst.

[truestory2014]

The Spoken Word Proves Unifying

To be honest, I was at first skeptical of the validity of this conference—not only because I digest things far better when I read them than when I listen to them, but also because I wasn't sure how five different papers from different classes on different works of film and literature could tie together, naturally. Yet as a presenter in the panel, “Because I Said So,” I found myself surprised at just that—how naturally the concepts from other presentations tied back to my own, such as the ability of a “plurality of voices” to mature an individual, or in my case, mature a recreation of them. The papers were similar enough in topic—i.e. challenging one’s reality—while differing in the way they each went about it—i.e. one dealt with the disconnect between objective and perceived reality, whereas mine relied upon a fundamental rejection of any sort of objective reality.

On the other side of the table, on Tuesday I attended the panel, “Tell It Like It Is,” in which the moderator intervened far less (hardly at all), and the audience members were far more participatory on their own, asking questions particularly of the panelists discussing films present in popular culture, like Aliens and Fight Club. I noted that a) You have to read about ten times slower than the way you read it to yourself in order for others to process it, which I’m still working on, and b) The audience’s familiarity with the work in question is critical to their understanding of the concepts, and consequently, their ability to challenge the panelists in a relevant way. I almost feel like it would be more interesting to have all of the panelists present on the same work of film or literature, but each with an angle that contradicts another, and have them debate and interact with one other more directly. While this has the propensity to be redundant, I feel like the repeated reinforcement of the same material, rather than jumping around from story line to story line, would allow the audience to be more engaged.  

[truestory2014]

Conference Skill Building

I always thought public speaking was one of my strongest skills, having practiced from a young age the art of vocalizing (often loudly) my opinions and ideas. However, despite my confidence, I found presenting a prewritten academic paper vocally to be an unexpected challenge. There is little natural drama in an academic piece, little narrative rhythm or scripted theatrics; thus it becomes the job of the speaker to inject their presentation with a rhythm, a process that feels unnatural when done deliberately. This presentation helped me learn how to create interest in the mundane, to make often dull academic writings engaging through speech that reinvigorates an paper with a narrative twist.

On a lighter note, I found that I throughly enjoyed the conference, finding the writings and ideas of my peers to be inspiring and thought provoking. One word of advice I have is to attend panels that continue papers on works you have previously studied, as the best reactions and audience participation comes from audience members who have previous experience with the works, and thus a better understanding of the arguments and the questions they raise. Methodically choosing your panels is the best way to participate in the conference, as it increases the Q&A discussions that really hit the core of theme exploration.

Overall, I learned a lot from this conference experience, and I hope to grow as a participant and presenter at future academic conferences. Oh, and cheers to all the wonderful presenters!

[truestory2014]

A Surprising Treat

I’ll admit, I, being a die-hard and stubborn science gal, was not very excited to sit and listen to an hour long presentation of peer-written papers (Chemistry lab reports are so much more fun!!). However, I was pleasantly surprised with my experience at the TO Conference. I attended the panel “There Will Be Blood” (Shout out to our very own Jacquie) and at first was very pessimistic. I found it difficult to follow the essays on the books and movies I had not read or discussed. It was hard for me to find a common thread as I was lacking the minute details and long discussions the writers personally had about the works. However, I really loved hearing Jacquie’s paper because I had spent so much time discussing and thinking about the movie myself. I thought she, and another presenter named Pablo really sold the show with their presentation. I noticed that both had great voice inflection and it easily made it feel less like a formal reading of an essay and more like a conscious stream of thought. I connected more easily as an audience member to their papers.

            My favorite part of the panel, however, was the question and answer session at the end. It made me realize how many intelligent and unique people are part of the thematic option program. Every topic brought up by the audience was provoking and could spark discussion for a long period of time. While I had trouble finding common threads among the papers, others easily highlighted them. It made me realize I had underestimated the conference coming in. I should have been excited to hear the ideas of my peers, not expected them to be basic and not worth hearing. It is exciting and impressive that people my age are able to create such novel ideas. I also want to give props to the people who presented. While I was very comfortable presenting in class, it would have taken a lot of courage to share personal writing with an unknown group. I am very unconfident in my writing and would have had serious trouble with that. Congratulations to all of you!