Recap: Hanging Out!

I didn't do a recap last week, but now I don't really remember what happened the week before... I was still in dreamland after Super Con!

This past week:

• The week before last week, I finally caught up with several dear friends :)
• Studied a lot
• Had three midterms
• Had Starbucks and Pizza My Heart with a couple of friends with ochem
• Had Starbucks and went shopping with a couple of other friends
• Bought a new dress
• Finally booked the Europe trip
• Had iHop!

Now I need to study for Part II of my French midterm and write my French speech before I can get to working on Chapter 14!

Whoops

I guess I've neglected this blog for awhile.  I blame midterms.  

I am so excited, though, because it turns out I'm going to Europe this summer!  Geneva and Paris!  I've been to London... when I was a baby.  So for the first time I'll actually be aware that I'm in Europe and recall what happens there.

It's strange because Europe and America seem to go hand-in-hand so much that I feel like I've been there plenty of times.  It feels so familiar - perhaps it's because of all the movies that glorify the European scenery...

In any case, I haven't actually, but now I will!

And of course, not only will I be exposed to cute guys, incredible European architecture and artwork, etc., but I will also be able to research Europe so I can represent it more realistically :)

We're All Wicked

G.K. Chesterton said, "Children are innocent and love justice; while most of us are wicked and prefer mercy."

This is very true.  We're taught to value fairness.  This is why there's the entire justice system - to make sure everyone gets what he deserves - nothing more and nothing less.

However, my philosophy class was watching A Clockwork Orange - this is the story of an inherently wicked young man named Alex who enjoys violence and debauchery to the point of getting off on them.  He steals, fights, rapes, and even kills.  He's a truly evil person and while that should be enough to make us turn against him, his role as "protagonist" (to use that word loosely) causes the reader/viewer to sympathize with him - at least to a degree.

He is eventually caught and imprisoned.  While serving his fourteen year sentence, he begins reading the Bible.  People (such as the chaplain) believe this is reforming him.  In reality, he's enjoying fantasies of joining in on the perversion in the Old Testament and the crucifixion in the New Testament.  Alex is chosen for a treatment that will condition within him a physical aversion to violence and rape - when he's faced with either, he feels pain and sickness.  

Of course this doesn't mean he's actually reformed inwardly.  Rather, he cannot act on his natural tendencies out of the desire to keep the pain and sickness at bay.  This, in turn, results in him being rendered helpless.  He cannot fight back against people who are attacking him for revenge.

The "eye for an eye" theory makes it reasonable for these people to attack him.  He's kicked out of the house and beaten up.  He stumbles to the closest house, which is the home of a man he stole from and crippled, whose wife he raped (she died shortly after that ordeal). 

 

This man deserves his revenge - his entire life was turned upside down because of Alex and his "friends" (who actually get their own revenge on him).  It's karma, right?

Yet, I couldn't help but feel sorry for Alex.  He got out of prison, out of the treatment center, and the bad things just escalated.  He left home because his room was rented out to a man (who I couldn't help but think was a jerk, even though what he was saying was true).  He gets beat up by a vagrant who he beat up once with his friends.  Then his friends, who he constantly forced his authority on beat him up.  It's karmic justice.

But still, I couldn't stomach that.  I felt sorry for this guy who had stolen, raped, and even killed.  I kept thinking he didn't deserve it, even if he actually did.  I wanted him to be shown mercy.  So does that make me wicked because I felt pain for a wicked individual who reverted to his old ways in the end?

Was It All Just A Dream?

Why is it that when something fantastic happens, sometimes it feels completely unreal?  It becomes wrapped in a dreamlike haze, like something carefully placed in a store window to be seen, but not touched.

It's true that your memory of an event changes the moment after the memory occurs - nothing you recall, even when you believe it's engraved in your mind like a high-quality photograph, is exactly as it was the moment it happened.  Although, photographs do fade too.

In some ways, this is a good thing.  Imagine if you could relive the painful memories - your hostile break-up, or a beloved grandparent's funeral.  The ability of memories and the emotions contained within them to fade is a blessing in some ways because of this.  Who doesn't have something he would like to forget?

However, there are some memories we want to cling to like a movie we can play over and over again with the exact dialogue, the exact emotions, the exact expressions.  Unfortunately, it isn't just painful memories that fade.  The good ones fade as surely as water trickles out of your cupped palms.

So what is it that gives the really amazing memories a dreamlike quality when you look at them later?  Is it the fading away of the memories or something else?  Is there some other facility of the mind that seeks to capture the memories we treasure most and lock them away for safekeeping as accurately as possible?  Is it because we're looking at them in a glass case that they seem ethereal?

A boat, underneath a sunny sky

Lingering onward dreamily

In an evening of July--

Children three that nestle near,

Eager eye and willing ear,

Pleased a simple tale to hear--

Long has paled that sunny sky;

Echoes fade and memories die;

Autumn frosts have slain July.

Still she haunts me, phantomwise,

Alice moving under skies.

Never seen by waking eyes.

Children yet, the tale to hear,

Eager eye and willing ear,

Lovingly shall nestle near.

In a Wonderland they lie,

Dreaming as the days go by,

Dreaming as the summers die;

Ever drifting down the stream--

Lingering in the golden gleam--

Life, what is it but a dream?

-Life is But a Dream, Lewis Carroll

Milestone #1

I finished Chapter Eleven.  This means I've also finished Part One!!  This is so exciting!  I feel like writing really does require blood, sweat, and tears.  Even though this is still a really, really, really rough draft and I still have a ways to go, it's still really meaningful.

Current Stats

Part: Part One, complete

Chapter:  Chapter Eleven, complete

Pages:  148

Words:  38,486

Infallibility

It's good to be trusting, but not too trusting.  I guess I'm too trusting - or up until now maybe I've been too naive to question the way society is structured.  Or maybe that's not it at all.  Maybe I don't want to question it because, even if it isn't perfect, at least it functions well.

I was just thinking about the fact that even doctors make mistakes.  Not an epiphany by any measure, but just something that I've never really thought about before.  Feeling sick?  Oh, just go to the doctor.  Of course the doctor will know what's wrong.  However, in reality, doctors do make mistakes sometimes - unlike, say, House (although I haven't watched any of this season, so I can't say if he does or doesn't make errors in this one).

I'm not trying to single out doctors.  I just mean people in general.  In any profession.  No matter how much education they've had or how high of a degree they hold.  They can still mess up.

I guess I'm trying to say that it's important not to put blind faith in anyone, but take everything with a grain of salt.  Cliches, yes, but they're cliches for a reason - because they make sense.

Recap: Super Con!

Let's see... what happened this past week:

• I had a midterm in ochem.
• We identified the smells of esters in ochem lab - that was fun:  we smelled banana, peach, raspberry, nail polish remover, and wintergreen (that one was my favorite).
• I finished Ch. 9!!!
• We ate quiche and did origami in French class.  Fun :)
• I finished Ch. 10!!!
• I went to Super Con...
• I met Vic Mignogna!!!!
• I met Crispin Freeman!!!!

Awesome week :)