Divided

One of my most memorable political events was during the 2006 senate elections. I just remember watching T.V. and being completely taken back by how split our country really is. I mean, come on. Out of 100 seats the democrates control 49, the republicans control 49, and independent parties control 2. That is almost a perfect line down the middle. Its terrifying for me to actually see that our country is completely divided in half. It seems that we as a nation are at the cross roads. One choice is bringing people together and acting as one group of people, or splitting further and further apart.

What would you choose?

Memories

This week we listened to "Radiolab". This segment was about memories and the ability to erase them. Can you imagine what it would be like to no longer remember? How can it be that one moment we can remember something so vividly and the next it is gone. If we were to erase memories or have the ability to control what people can or cannot remember what would happen to us? Who would "control" us and what would we be allowed to remember?

I also want to point out from our discussion when it is right to have the ability to erase memories. In my opinion, never. Memories are the building blocks of who we are and no matter how bad or awful an experience is we have the ability to learn from it. That's what is so great about our minds. We can experience something (whether directly or indirectly) and separate the good and bad. We learn to repeat the good and then try to make sure we never have to go through the bad part of it again. I guess what I'm trying to say it why would you want to keep making the same errors over and over again. It was like the mice who kept shocking themselves because they couldn't remember the sounds. Do we as humans want to keep shocking ourselves again and again?

Moving On

One of the questions that Mr. Bolos put up on his blog was

"How is it that people can go about their days so easily like nothing happened...?"

Now, please don't judge me and my viewpoints, but i think that there are some very good reasons why we should continue our normal lives. Firstly, nothing ever gets accomplished when we live in the past. Sure, one of the most important things that life has taught us is to learn from the past, but when we completely stop what we are doing and only focus on something that has already happened, we're not living our own lives. Besides, the past is the past and there is nothing in out current power that can change what has already happened.

Think about this:

A person and I were driving on the highway and we saw a car with a special license plate for September 11th. All of the sudden this person says to me "Sami, I know I'm going to die. Thats a given. But when I do I do not want you to spend the rest of your life mourning me. It will only make your life and everyone around you miserable. Sure, I want you to mourn me, but what I really want you cherish are all the experiances that we shared. Both the good and the bad."



This completely blew my mind. I guess after all of the what I'm trying to say is: Don't let the past control you, but keep it filed away in your mind so when the time is right to remember it you will always be able to use it for a better future.

Points of View

While working on our character collages this weekend I noticed how different my opinion of my character (David WalksAlong) was from my partners. While reading the book I thought of him as a selfish person who only looked out for number one: himself. How else could you explain the way he threatened Thomas or not even bothering to visit his nephew in prison? In my mind, he was a selfish, greedy man who liked the idea of power but was too lazy to do anything with it. As my partners and I were discussing our conclusions I was amazed to see how differently they viewed WalksAlong. Both of them thought he was a lovving man who would do anything to help his uncle. I was flabbergasted! How could they think that?! Didn't they read the exact same text as I? What could they see that I didn't? It was only after talking with them that I realized how diferently each person can absorb the words and paint a picture in their mind. It was a total wake up call for me and I realized that there are many diferent sides to everything. I wish that one day we could pick one character (He or she doesn't have to be a main character like Thomas or Victor) and see how everyone pictures that person in their mind. I think it would be extremely intresting to do.