Boys and Girls Practice IOC

May say that there was a problem, but if you download it it should work. :) 

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/0B5FDZWglXyzgTkRWV2x0LThta1U

This is Water - David Foster Wallace

The below post discusses David Foster Wallace‘s grand commencement speech delivered in 2005. In this speech he explores the ideology of how education can coincide with one’s ability to be more sympathetic, conscious and more adjusted to everyday life. The speech is packed with life lessons and real life experiences from David Foster Wallace himself. His humble and modest approach during the speech is what caught the attention of the graduating class of college students at Kenyon University.

He develops this thesis that life after college is dreadful, because of the detailed analysis of the average person’s routine that many of the graduates will soon be acquainted with. However, throughout his speech it is evident to see that the main idea he wants the students to grasp is that it all comes down to choice, and their decision to either be cynical or make the best out of things.

This relates to the allegory he creates at the beginning of his speech, about the three fish in a fishbowl. Where an ‘older fish swimming the other way say “Morning, boys, how’s the water?” and the two young fish say to each other “What the hell is water?” This emblem of the speech could have many different interpretations (judging from how one looks at things), but I interpreted as; the water symbolising life, the two younger fish are just average people who have a very pessimistic way of looking at life due to not being able to change their default settings as a human, and actually understanding their surroundings. While the older fish represents someone who has been educated and is able to alter his default setting to be able to sympathise, be more conscious and better adjusted to everyday life.

To make this more relatable and actually put it in perspective for the students, David Foster Wallace uses a bit of Logos in the allegory; where he made the ‘cynical’ type of fish be two in numbers, while the ‘positive’ fish is only one. This portrays that in life there are more people that are programmed to their default setting than to a setting that is ideal (ie being sympathetic, empathetic and more conscious).  

This speech accords with our inquiry question ‘How can literature develop empathy and emotional intelligence?’ Considering how David Foster Wallace suggests that with education one is able to alter their ‘default setting’, literature is just another piece of that puzzle. Since we spend so much time in characters thoughts and we a direct link to their emotions, it helps us with empathy towards people, actually sympathising with others rather than being skeptical. In addition it aids people with the ability to change their overview on life in total by being more conscious and more aware of their surroundings. By understanding that although you might be having a bad day there is always someone out there who’s going through worse. And it is completely my choice to either look past that point and continue to have the world circulate around me, or understand that and keep on reminding myself ‘This is water, this is water’. 

Munro Literature Reflection

Apart from enlightenment, wisdom, a boost to imagination, intellectual fulfillment and understanding of cultural diversity through creativity, there is also the mere and simple fact that this is the basis of the world we live in. Any piece of literature is a version of our society that we see every day. Such as: love, betrayal, dislike, death etc. It is real, and I believe that is the joy about reading literature. Since it that real, we tend to experience the characters emotions and actually understand how they feel at that moment. We can relate to literature since it’s not that fake, as is popular fiction books. Since literature is based so much and in depth about the characters involved, we start to be more aware of the people around us, their body language, facial expression, etc. Thus making us more socially and culturally conscious. It is important to study women’s literature because for the longest time now it has been a minority group and in the dark. Minority group means "singled out for unequal treatment." So with that being said, the more dominant group, men, would be the majority group because men have "greater power, privileges and social status." We have had so many literature pieces from the male perspective that the women’s perspective got shunned. We would get a better understanding of how our world works if we all listened and accepted what everyone had to say, and voice their own opinions through creative outlets, such as writing. The aspect of Alice Munro’s work that I enjoy the most when reading is that she really tries bringing every one of her characters to life. Not making them so far-fetched that people snap out of their zone of reading, but somehow made it really relatable at the same time. And for literature I’m glad that I noticed more on the character than the actual plot because that’s what literature is, a portrayal of our society and the people in it, at least, this is the case with Alice Munro's pieces of work. 

Man in the Mirror by Michael Jackson

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P5vz6iwV38U

·        Michael Jackson. A world renowned performer and will go down in the history books as one of the best musical artists that ever lived. One of the most substantial artists of the 20^th century with works not comparable  by others. Born in a time of discrimination (regardless of the adversities he had to encounter throughout his life), he still managed to make something of himself and actually make a change in society, and how people see the world. With songs like ‘Black or White’, which displayed an outlandish statement at the time (because of all the discrimination towards skin colour) which was that ‘it doesn’t matter if you’re black or white’, we’re all human. His main goal whilst on his journey to ‘idol’ status was to make an impact on his audience, and actually try and use his platform as a performer to better the world.

·        The narrator in this song is inevitably Michael Jackson considering he is talking to and about the ‘Man in the Mirror’, so unescapably he is talking about making a change within himself. And that he wants to make a difference, but not in a way where he wants to change the world first, in the way where he wants to change himself and then alter the way he wants the world to be, but as stated in the song he has to start with himself. The very attention grabbing convention of this song is that it was written in a way where the “narrator” from the story can be anyone who finds themselves wanting to make a change in their lives. Change isn't easy, so when I look in the mirror and see my reflection looking back at me, that is who I have to start with first. Every day we make differences in the lives of the people around us, and it is our choice whether those differences better or worse their lives. And that’s the essential gist of the song; that if you want to make change, start with yourself first.

·        In the first verse, the writer begins by creating a winter setting by using visual imagery. The writer first wears his “favourite winter coat”, turning “up the collar” as he leaves his home. The writer then uses personification in “This wind is blowing my mind” – given the wind a humanlike quality because of the word “blowing” and also serves as an image to portray his state of mind by telling the audience that in the chilly weather is not affecting him physically, but mentally because he is greeted by the sight of “kids in the street, with not enough to eat”. This juxtaposition of the writer’s wealth and the children’s poverty shows that they are from different classes; while the writer has the luxury of choosing coats, the children are not even able to get sufficient food. The writer then rhetorically questions himself “who am I, to be blind?” Firstly, this is a metaphor and hence an instance of figurative language as though the author might not be physically blind, he compares himself to one that is blind. This shows that it is probably not the first time the writer has seen the poor children outside on the streets however; he has always been oblivious and too carried away by his own personal life to “see their needs”. Hence, it is only on that day that that he realized that he has been very selfish as he kept all his money for himself.  

 The writer continues by using imagery in “A summer’s disregard, A broken bottle top, And one man’s soul/ They follow each other on the wind ya’ know” to convey his feelings to the audience. In the image of “A summer’s disregard”, as summer is usually a time when people are carefree and on vacation, and disregard means “to pay no attention to, to ignore” it might be the writer trying to portray those times of loneliness and depression he suffered because of his problems. The image of “A broken bottle top” hints that he may have had emotional issues and therefore he resorts to drinking away his sorrows or venting out on items. Besides, as a broken bottle top implies that there will be something leaking out of the bottle as the top is spoilt, the writer could also be trying to say that (given the theme of the song) he felt hope and happiness was leaking out, not only from him but from the people who were suffering physically. Also, in “they follow each other on the wind ya’know” – as the wind is very inconsistent and moves around aimlessly, he tells the audience that he was a man who was lost in his problems, but now he has found light and wants to start by changing himself to help others.  

  Lastly, in “a widow deeply scarred, someone’s broken heart, and a washed out dream, they follow the pattern of the wind ya’ see” the writer once again uses imagery to further highlight the plight of many of the people. “A widow deeply scarred” brings to mind the image of physical scars, hurt and abuse, but we understand that the writer is more so speaking about the emotional and mental hurt the widow might be going through, the stress, the pain of perhaps losing her husband, and hence financial stability. “Someone’s broken heart” – we know that technically one’s heart cannot be broken, but the author uses this painful image to bring across one’s anguish and despair – perhaps, given the theme of the song, it could be referring to the broken heart of a mother when she sees her children having not enough money to survive, or a broken heart of a child not able to pursue his ambitions due to financial constraints. Lastly, in “a washed out dream” – we think of many clothes being washed again and again till they are faded, and likewise the writer uses this effective image to bring across how an individual’s dream is faded. It evokes a sense of sympathy for the poor people out there who are unable to live normally and healthily. Rather they are swamped by such problems and it results in them being broken individuals.

·        Although the tone of the poem starts off self-reflective, and also with a hint of despair and gloom, yet all the more it inspires one to work towards being a better individual especially when we are much better off and more privileged than most. It is peppered with imagery – even “Man in the Mirror” is an image and a figurative language of speech to indirectly refer or show us that the “man in the mirror” is not anyone else, but ourselves