The Future (UGGGG!)

I am one of the many who countlessly stresses about the future. Not just the next week, although thanks these so call “midtermish exams” that’s hell, but the real future. For example, what they hell am I going to do after college, what will be my career, will I get married and have kids etc. I feel this hovering pressure from the future constantly saying, “yo Kylie, get you shit together so you can be successful and happy.” What does that even mean? Is my life going to be measured in terms of how much money I make, or my general happiness, well no, but yes. Let me explain. I believe that we are all manipulated by the “American Dream.” We know what it means, that there is this path to infinite glory that we all have the potential to attain, but the problem is “this path” clearly indicated that there is only one path. We really have one/ no choice at all. We are pressured from parents, friends, and college, that in order to live a fulfilling life we need to have a good job, and be financially stable, of course that is important, but honestly that’s bull.  I feel that we have been trained and manipulated to believe that the American Dream revolves around money and power. So much of what I am deciding on what to major in is due to what will get me the best job in the future, not necessarily what I want to do. It is so hard to shake that pressure because it is so dominate. I just think people would be so much happier here and everywhere if they really started to find their own path and not the one we all so eagerly try to take, because for a lot of us that path only bring misery. Long story short, we all need to find what WE want to do and be the directors of our OWN lives.

Choosing classes for next semester

Choosing courses for next semester is a great example of how limited choice can be. I’m sitting here at my computer searching through the course catalog struggling to decide what to take. I only have to take one course for my major which most people would call a blessing, but I’ve found myself wishing I had more mandatory classes. I’ve found much of the course catalog to be uninspiring and part of me wishes I had someone to just tell me what to take. I’ve asked friends for suggestions and even had my parents look through the listings themselves. Even though there are dozens of departments with dozens of courses each, I don’t feel like I have many options. On the whole I can only take higher-level courses within my major. Many 200-level and above courses have prerequisites, which means I can only take courses in departments in which I’ve taken the introductory course. This forces me to find another department to focus on besides my major. Therefore should I be minoring? Minoring puts me on a predetermined track, which decides many of my classes for me. That’s what I was asking for earlier so maybe that’s a good thing. I started with a 200-level course this semester and I really enjoy it, but if I want to get the minor I need the intro-level course, which honestly does not excite me. Do I take a course I’m not that excited about to earn a seemingly arbitrary title or do I take another 200-level course that I think I will enjoy much more? Employers would like it if I had a minor, right? It shows focus, right? These are the questions that will continue to run through my mind for the next two days and I’m sure beyond. Right now I feel like I have huge choices to make and I won’t know if I made the right decisions until after the choices are made. This feels a lot like House of Danger. In the end does it really matter which choice I make?

Your Choice?

Similarly to Hiromi, I’ve felt a huge sense of manipulation in regards to housing for next year. Yes, we are given choice. Who do we want to room with? Light side or dark side? Choice.  But, all of these choices boil down to something that is out of our hands: our lottery number. Once that random number is assigned, our “choices” either plummet or soar. However, even then, you’re limited by what year you are. If you’re a rising sophomore with a good number, you’re still very limited simply because of how many years you’ve attended Hamilton. Our decision is based largely on factors that are completely out of our control, and we must simply make a choice given those restrictions. We’re also influenced by our friends, or by upperclassmen that insist that you’d never want to live there, and that you should definitely try to live here. Just when we think we know what we want, our opinions are swayed by what others are saying, where our friends are living, or maybe just by our number crushing any hope of what we thought we wanted. We have a choice, but once many of those choices have already been made for us.

Do we want the freedom of choice?

With the housing lottery and class registration right around the corner, the idea of choice and manipulation has been everywhere. As I was discussing the housing lottery with many different people there were many ideas going around. Many people complained about the system and wished there were a better system. People were talking about how other schools do it online as opposed to in person. A lot of people simply wanted to put down whom they wanted to room with and rank the buildings in order of where they wanted to live (similar to the first year housing lottery). Many people complained that they wish they had more options in the housing lottery yet the idea they came up with was letting the computer do the work. Many simply do not want to deal with the stress of making a choice.

            This is also similar to how registration manipulates us. Some classes are only offered at certain times or during certain semesters and many classes conflict with each other. We are also manipulated to choose classes from a set list.  At the same time, it also works out because I wouldn’t have been in this class if it weren’t for the manipulation of the registration system.

            Even yesterday with the bomb threat incident, people had the choice to obey the warnings to stay indoors or to go outside at your own risk. Many people chose to go outdoors because it was just too nice out. Whether this is smart or not, many people failed to be manipulated by the several warning after several hours. This one unknown person proposed a threat to our school and manipulated our ENTIRE day: classes were cancelled, exams were moved, and the whole day was discombobulated. Most of the time we are all indoors yet when we are told we have to stay indoors it is very different.

            In all these cases, we want the freedom of choice but we don’t really know what to do with it when we have the freedom. Often this freedom causes great stress amongst us students. Even when deciding what essay to choose, we struggle to come to a conclusion, but it is nice to simply have the ability to choose. Personally, I do admit that I complain when I don’t have the freedom to choose, but often times I do like when things are set and manipulated because I am an indecisive person. Although the examples I chose are extreme and not daily choices we make, I want to work on not being manipulated by daily things and act on my own choice.

The Paradox of Choice

As an Economics major, all of my instincts were going crazy during Friday’s class. I realized that Truth, Lies, and Literature is essentially based off of the principals of Economics. The most fundamental assumption of economics is that “people will behave rationally”. Applied to econ, this simply states that people will buy things they need, or that consumers will not overpay for goods. Truth, Lies, in Lit challenges this assumption. Even though we have been primed our whole lives to follow authority, Janelle challenges us to not take anything for face value. This is a new concept for a lot of us (definitely myself) and is perhaps a reason we have had such a hard time choosing our assignment that is due tomorrow.

That leads me to my next economic topic: choice. There is a theory in economic thought that states that the more choices we have, the happier we will be. After all, who wants to eat mac and cheese every night? However, psychologist Barry Schwartz provides another interpretation of choice. He states that over the course of history, the amount of choices we have been subject to has increased exponentially. Now we have thousands of different options to choose in everything we do from eating to watching television. He calls this theory the “paradox of choice”. Although we should be happier being able to choose what we want to do, we are actually overwhelmed by the stress of having to make a decision. Another point he made that I thought was interesting was that we can never be sure that we made the right choice. Take, for example, our recent offered choices for the upcoming assignment. I want to do topic 1, but topic 3 also seems interesting. If I choose to do topic 1, the whole time I would be thinking about what it would be like doing topic 3, or if it were easier. This leads us to feeling more dissatisfied with decision-making. Choice and manipulation are two powerful things. I find that when I step into class each day, I need to strip myself from my economic thought, and instead open myself to new possibilities, as this class is not structured like anything I have previously taken.

Here is a Ted Talk about the Paradox of Choice. It’s pretty short!

http://www.ted.com/talks/barry_schwartz_on_the_paradox_of_choice?language=en

Manipulation

Well, if any of us were having trouble finding ways we are manipulated in our everyday lives, yesterday's bomb threat solved that problem. The supposed bomber and shooter threatened our safe environment, manipulating us to think that a package in KJ was a bomb and that we were going to be victims of a shooting. We were no longer in control of our own safety, and that was scary. The act of one phone call sent students and faculty into hiding on the most beautiful day of the year. And then there was the domino effect it created: classes canceled, papers pushed back, deadlines changes, ect. Manipulation is not an isolated act. Of course, a bomb threat and lockdown is an extreme example of manipulation that is not (thankfully) common.
Before yesterday's events, I was planning on writing this blog post on our need for manipulation. Janelle gave us the option to come up with our own essay topic, and it sent us down a rabbit hole very much like the one in Aura. We had trouble deciding on a topic, and I myself, began wishing that she had simply told us what we needed to do and how to do it. Having a choice was intimidating because, as students, it is rare that we get to design our own education. Sometimes manipulation can eliminate chaos, not cause it. 

Facebook group

Hey y'all!

In class on Friday we talked about making a facebook group to discuss what we wanted to do for the upcoming chapter addition assignment. I don't think anyone has already attempted this, so I'm going to go ahead and make a facebook group and try to add everyone to it. Also, I don't think anyone said that they don't have an account, so this should work.

We can use it to talk about and vote for which option we want, how we're going to coordinate possible meet-ups, etc.

P.S: Hung Hoang and K.C. Kelly- I did some extensive stalking but I can't find either of y'all on Facebook. Add me or someone else and join in on the festivities!

Paper 2... OPTION 3!

Dear All,

This repeats what I sent earlier in an email to each of you, but I thought that by posting it to our blog this would allow you to converse more immediately about it via the comments function -- and thus arrive at a decision:

I want to clarify:  just as the paper 2 assignment instills (however playfully, illusively) a "choice" w/ regard to what text you can write on and how many words you can use, my offer to you of coming up with another/different paper 2 assignment is also a choice. In other words, I'm not judging you either way, with regard to the choice you ultimately make. I just want you to make an informed, conscious one, rather than one merely dictated to you. (And I want you to experience that the possibility for determining your own evaluative approach to the course material does exist... and what the ramifications/implications of this might be.)

That being said, it occurs to me that a third option (thus far) for your paper 2 assignment could be that you, in fact, write a critical paper defending the choice you would have made for the assignment, had you had to choose b/w either my "defend your own paper" assignment" or your "boardgame" assignment. In essence, then, for next Wed (4/15), you would bring a draft of this defensive argument with you to class and we would workshop this. A relatively straightforward assignment, yet also with a creative edge. This might be the most effective way to approach this assignment of "choice," as it were, b/c it hinges not on you developing a separate creative piece or inventing a new boardgame, but on the critical defense of why you would have chosen the one assignment over the other. Articulate the steps of your reasoning, replete with the thesis that says what you chose and how you plan to argue the choice and a conclusion that follows up with what you learned as a result of writing about choice as you did. Thus, you could argue for/bring into articulation the decision-making process that would have led you to execute one project over the other -- without actually doing either one -- all while engaging in a fairly analytical, self-aware approach to why you arrive at the decision(s) you do! (For my purposes, this then also allows us to hold in class next Wed the discussion about defensive, persuasive writing [and thus also offensive -- as in playing offense, not being crude!] that I do believe is an important discussion to have.)

I welcome your feedback!

j

Cards Against Humanity

Just thought of this for the communal game. Here we can see The Nannersman and friends playing probably some of the most offensive cards possible in one setting. The goal of the game is to win the most rounds. The rule for winning can vary and card contents can be either critical observations of the texts we read. Or they can be racist, obnoxious, offensive, but in good faith. That's all I have so far.

Have a look and let me know what you guys think.

Miscellaneous sticky notes

Wow. I’m kindof mindblown right now. I’m in that post-finishing a book state where you’re still trying to process everything that you just read and everything is coming back to you and making sense. That was one weird story.
              Whenever I read a book, I always put sticky notes on pages where I just notice something odd happening or something that I think is or will be important later on. My very first sticky note was on page 39 at “’Excuse me,’ you say, looking at the two extra places, the two empty chairs, ‘but are you expecting someone else?’” When I first read that it stuck out to me as odd. My first thought was that maybe the fourth chair was for the servant. Now, it makes a ton of sense that the chair was there for the late General Llorente.
              Next, I noticed two instances when Senora Consuelo did not appear to know what Senor Montero was talking about, like the cats and the garden. This made me think that perhaps she was slightly senile and living in the past, or living in some type of different environment. I’m still not exactly sure why those two instances occurred.
              Now, I have a lot more sticky notes and I feel like I could talk about every one for a long time, but I’ll just focus on one more. On page 91, Senor Montero sees Aura in the kitchen cutting up this animal. Then, he goes into Senora Consuelo’s room and sees her making the motions of skinning an animal. Even after finishing the book, this still confuses me. Was Senora Montero directly controlling Aura’s movements and actions? Or was Aura doing what Senora Montero did herself when she was that age- like, is Senora living in her past right now? I’m very confused on this at the moment. I’m excited to find out what others think in class tomorrow.

Hidden Clues

I just finished reading Aura and I cannot tell whether I liked or disliked the novel. It was definitely very creepy and mysterious. On p.73, I wrote a note to myself that maybe Aura and Señora were the same person. After I made that guess, every action that Aura and Señora took and all the observations Felipe was making only supported my hunch. What I didn't notice until later on in the novel was that Felipe was the husband.

After the realization and big reveal of Felipe and Aura's true characters, I realized how many clues I had missed. From the very beginning, Felipe noted that "all that's missing is your name" (Fuentes, 5). Then, so many different events from the beginning of the story rushed into my head. The color green is also is constantly observed and was one of the biggest clues for me personally.

This novel reminded me of "An Occurrence on Owl Creek Bridge" from the beginning of the year. While there were so many clues in the beginning of the novel, I did not catch them or question any weird or peculiar actions until after I found out the true identity of the characters. Upon finishing the novel, I still question what the point of the novel was. It's also interesting to note the effect of an epigraph before reading a story and the way you read it after finishing a novel. There is also a cat on the cover of my book with green eyes. I am not really sure what the significance of the green eyes or the cats is in this novel. I also wonder why the author chose to keep things in French. I still haven't really thought of a good reason for why the author chose to use second person either. Perhaps because I just finished reading the novel a few minutes ago, I still have a lot of questions to sort out in my head.