Shelagh Neeley – Reader and Text

December 12, 2019December 12, 2019 by Shelagh Neeley - No Comments

Change starts with You

Throughout the semester in my English 203 class, there were always these thoughts in my mind, “Am I ok today?” and “Is this really WHAT I want?” These two questions rise in my mind every day now… The first question rises in my mind due to the blog posts we had to complete for this class. Some days, I didn’t have the motivation, or even the slightest idea of what I wanted to write. I would write down ideas after ideas of a blog post. They would be deleted and then that would be undone. The second question would rise in my mind due to the thought of dropping out lingering in my mind every day I would be stepping foot on the Geneseo Campus. The reason for that would be… I am not my true, real self when I step foot on campus. When I’m here, I do feel happy. Don’t get me wrong, the scenery here is gorgeous, and the people here are amazing. The thought of dropping out, scares me a bit. I am talking about dropping out because, well, I’m not myself today.

When I first started college, which was right out of high school, I was expanding my horizons, going on my own path of school, doing what I wanted. I started this journey off at Genesee Community College. I was going to be graduating late, which was fine. I enjoyed my time at GCC, it was a lot of fun, I met a lot of people that are now my close friends. I finished at GCC a year ago in the Fall, and I went off on my own path again. I applied to 3 colleges that offered my major of choice. I applied to Brockport, Buffalo State, and Geneseo. Applying to Geneseo was a decision I made on the spur of the moment, I wasn’t expecting to get accepted at all. A month or so passed once I applied to these three, and I never heard anything from Brockport. Buffalo State and Geneseo reached out to me, they wanted my transcript and some other documents. A week later I got accepted into Geneseo, the day before we were going to go to Open House. I cried that day when I got the acceptance letter in the mail, my mom cried, my dad too, and I never see him cry. All three of us were surprised and over the moon that I was accepted into my dream school.

The ball got rolling in January 2019, I was put into a total of 6 classes, which was a lot for me. I’ve never been in that many classes at one time before, unless it was in high school. Once my plan was filled out and ready, I had to wait to start the semester. Here we go. I was nervous, I was scared, I had no idea what the future held for me. When I started in the School of Education, they pushed onto me to apply to the School of Ed., so I did. I got accepted, and I had to keep my GPA above a 2.75, I told myself, “Oh, that won’t be that hard.” I did it at GCC, why can’t I do it here? There was a lot of pressure on my shoulders. Classes at Geneseo were a lot more harder than I anticipated, they have a big reputation for their Education majors, they are known for them. The classes were fun, I haven’t laughed as hard as I did when I was working with fellow Education major students.

Once the semester ended, and finals came around the corner, I knew I wasn’t going to do so well. I struggled through midterms, and through the rest of the semester. I questioned myself a lot throughout the semester, and I kept asking myself, “Do I want to put myself through this?” I ended the semester with the lowest GPA I’ve ever had, and I failed 2 classes. I decided to take one of those classes over the summer, I grew a lot during the summer, I learned a lot about myself during this summer. I learned how great of a writer I am, and I still am learning on how to grow on that. Since I didn’t do so well in the Spring 2019, I was dropped from the Education classes I was scheduled in due to my GPA, and had to take general education classes. I was kept in the classes that wasn’t pertaining to my major, English 203 was one of them.

English was my concentration as an Education major. I’ve always found English an amazing subject to look into. I’ve loved it since high school. I’ve always been the bookworm, and the one to expand my thinking to great lengths. Throughout my first 2 weeks in this class, and in my other 3 classes, the thought popped into my head on if I should change my major, so I looked into it. I decided, as of September 2019, I would be changing my major to Psychology. It was set in stone, I made up my mind. The change was nice. I do miss my Education friends and my classes, but Psychology is so interesting, and I had full support from my family.

The thought that was in my mind throughout this whole semester, should I drop out once I’m done with this semester? Is that something that I want to do? I have done a lot of thinking throughout this semester, especially these last 3 months, I have decided that it is in my best interest of my mental, and emotional health that I will be dropping out of college. I am going to be going out into the workforce for a while. I have full support of my family, and I over the moon grateful for that.

“Thank you,” I said. “I came back to this place to find something, to connect with something lost, to reunite if not with my whole self, then with a piece of it. What I’ve discovered is that this thing is not here. In fact, it is nowhere. I have learned that my name is not my name. It seems you all know me and nothing could be further from the truth and yet you know me better than I know myself, perhaps better than I can know myself. My mother is buried not far from this auditorium, and there are no words on her headstone. As I glance out now, as I feel the weight of this trophy in my hands, as I stand like a specimen before these strangely strange faces, I finally know what should be written on that stone. It should say what mine will say: I AM NOT MYSELF TODAY.”- Percival Everett.

This quote is taken from Percival Everett’s book, I am not Sidney Poitier. I find myself being like Not Sidney in a couple ways. Not Sidney went back to some place he had a lot of connections with, he wanted to find peace and solidarity there. I continued into my college career after earning my Associates to see what I could handle. I wanted to push my limits, I wanted to try a 4 year school in a way. I was testing the waters. I found quick that I pushed myself too far, and I scared myself on how bad I did. Geneseo is definitely not like GCC. Geneseo pushes you, Geneseo makes you work for what you want, Geneseo tests you in many ways. Change is good for the heart, and when I came to Geneseo, that’s what I was honestly looking for. I expected so much out of myself to put towards Geneseo, and I didn’t do that. I failed myself, but I learned so much about myself in many ways.

When I’m on Campus at Geneseo, there’s days where I really don’t feel like myself that day, and there’s other days where I’m excited to be on campus and see my friends. I’ve learned that my true self isn’t here on the Geneseo campus, sadly. As of right now, I really don’t know where my true self is. I know that part of it is in the Education major, and working with children is my passion, that’s where my roots are. I uprooted myself when I changed my major. I remember my mom telling me, “You’re going to end up going to Education. It’s your passion, that’s where you’re meant to be.” I think that’s where I’m meant to be too. When I leave, I am going to be going back to my roots. I am planning on looking for jobs in the Education world. I may not be able to be a full fledged teacher like I dreamed of, but I will be able to still work with children, and that’s something to look forward to.

“The secret to change is to focus all of your energy, not on fighting the old, but on building the new.” ~ Socretes

December 7, 2019 by Shelagh Neeley - No Comments

Witness

I’ll super, duper honest with you, I have no idea what I wanted to write about in this last blog post. I still have really NO idea what to write about. I am watching Longmire on Netflix as I type this and I have a sleeping cat whom is dreaming next to me as well. I’ve learned a lot from this English 203 class, I really have. This class was a lot of fun, and I will enjoy all of the memories from this semester, the good and the bad. I won’t get into the sappy, mushy stuff, but I made a good share of close friends in this class, they’ll know who they are if they read this. I have learned a lot about myself this semester, even this year. I have grown up as a person, I have matured over this past year, and man am I grateful to be able to say that.

While flipping through books for this class, it came into my mind. One thing that has kept me on track throughout this class, was being able to go to class, and learn something new and inspiring that Percival Everett did. Or maybe even read something by Percival Everett. There’s a poem that caught my eye in his re: f (gesture) book. The poem is in the first section, Zulus, “W is for word, for wall for standing witness, for wake. ‘Man, wird oft von einem Wort behext’” (Everett, 37) This poem spoke to me, on a personal level. Not everyone knows this, because I keep it under wraps, and hidden from the world. I’m a survivor of a Mental and Emotional relationship, from a guy that I thought loved me. It’s been 3 years since this has happened, and when I read this poem, I honestly, started to tear up.

Walls were witnesses of this abuse I endured. Those walls were powerless, and couldn’t do anything about it. I honestly don’t call myself a victim, I’ve learned not to call myself that because I don’t need pity. I call myself a survivor because I definitely did. I was strong enough one day to walk away. To walk away from the walls that were witnesses. For every waking hour, I never knew what the day would have in store for me, what HE would have in store me. I have words for this person every day, but I’ve grown up to know that he doesn’t deserve the satisfaction to know that I am hurt still to this day, to know that I cry to this day about it, and to know that relationships are still hard for me, to this day…

I am not writing this blog post for tears, don’t cry. I am not writing this post to be told, “Good for you.” I heard that a lot when I got out of the relationship. I’ve learned in the past couple years to not get attached to people so easily, to have my guard up at all times because the inevitable could happen. I am writing this blog post to show that you can do it too, I am writing this blog post to show men and women that you too can be strong, you too can stand tall on top of a hill and scream your lungs out saying “I DID IT!”. Yes, yes you did; and I am very proud of you. This blog is a voice, not just for me, but for everyone who has been a part of a abusive relationship, or who still may be. Know that I will help you, in any possible way I can. Because I didn’t when I was a part of this relationship, I didn’t when I left. Because I was so scared to anyone about the relationship, I was scared on what he might do to me, or to any of my friends.

Do know, I am a better person due to this relationship. Yes, it was a terrible and horrible relationship. But I grew once I left. I blossomed. I did cry, a lot. But I grew up and matured as a person. I’ve met a lot of amazing people throughout these past couple years, and I am grateful for them. I am grateful for myself because I am still here. I am still here BECAUSE I left. I am powerful, I am strong, I am a warrior in my own body and mind. Whatever I set my mind to; I will achieve it.

If you fall victim to ANY kind of abuse, please contact the abuse hotline at: 1-800-799-7233

December 7, 2019 by Shelagh Neeley - No Comments

Science or Love?

In my English 203 class one day, we had the chance to read re: f (gesture) by Percival Everett. We read the first section in class titled, Zulus. This section is in alphabetical order, which is an interesting thing to me for a poem section, hence my previous blog post. One of the poems caught my eye, and interested me. That poem is F poem. The part of the poem that caught my eye was the last couple lines. “F is for Frankenstein, who did not name his baby. Always name offspring. ‘De donde vienos, amor, mi ninos?’” (Everett, 20)

I remember when I first read Frankenstein in my high school college level English class. I got the Monster and Frankenstein mixed up. I remember thinking that the Monsters name was Frankenstein, I thought that the whole book was written about a monster who went around killing people. Not a doctor who created a monster, that went around killing people for love. I think this was because there’s movies out there, that depict the monster as Frankenstein, but in reality, the Monster doesn’t have a name. Dr. Frankenstein doesn’t give him a name. When my class spoke about the book, it all made sense and was connecting in my head. I reread the book on my own, and I understood it so well, and even better. This past summer, I took a Western Humanities Course, I had the chance to read this book again, and I enjoyed it all over again.

I had to write an essay on the final test of that course. In that essay I had to not only talk about the book Frankenstein, but also Man’s search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl. “Frankl speaks about his basic concepts of logotherapy and how one can apply it to their own life, and to others in their life. Frankl argues against Freud’s Pleasure Principle of self-gratification, Frankl states that you must find meaning in life before anything else happens. Which is, meaning and responsibility to others, will bring contentedness, well-being, and as a by-product, happiness.” (Neeley, 1) Victor Frankenstein, the main character of the book Frankenstein, goes through this. He only cares about himself, he seeks only for the self-gratification of himself, he doesn’t care about anyone else but himself. He’s selfish. He’s more focused on his advances in his science career than anything else. “When he creates his Monster, this definitely shines straight through, and shows that he really only cares for his benefit, he only wants everything to himself, he doesn’t want to share. He’s like the kid on the playground that doesn’t want to share his Tonka Truck with anyone else.” (Neeley, 1) Victor doesn’t want to show love, he doesn’t want to show anything, he’s not happy with anything, he’s not even with his Monster, he doesn’t love his Monster. This is why he doesn’t name his monster, like Everett states, always name your offspring, Victor did not. “Victor created this Monster, meaning, Victor should care of this monster like a motherly/ fatherly figure. He should love his monster; he shouldn’t shut his monster out of his life.” (Neeley, 1) Victor is doing this to his Monster.

The baby is Victor’s creation, his Monster. He didn’t name his creation, so, that dehumanizes his creation. It doesn’t give meaning to his Monster. Victor is “the one that made th Monster, and his creation is killing people, his family ironically, so the Monster can try to get Victor’s attention, but Victor does nothing, and stays out of it. He’s selfish enough that when the Monster asks him to create a friend, he does, but he drowns the female creation; so, the Monster can feel what Victor feels in loosing people, loosing people he cares about.” (Neeley, 1) Since Victor is so involved in his work, science, he shuts himself off of the world, and into his own. He ignores everything and everyone, including his creation, hence why he is killing everyone that Victor knows and loves. “The thing that MIGHT bring balance to Victor is for to love. For him to stop focusing on his work so much, and for him to love the Monster for who he is. According to Frankl, ‘Love is the only way to grasp another human being in the innermost core of his personality. No one can become fully aware of the very essence of another human being unless he loves him. By his love he is enabled to see the essential traits and features in the beloved person; and even more, he sees that which is potential in him, which is not yet actualized but ought to be actualized.’ (Frankl, 111)” (Neeley, 1) Victor needs to love himself first, and become fully aware of himself before he can love another human being, or before he can love the Monster. When he starts to love the Monster, he will find out that the Monster isn’t as all bad as he thinks the Monster is. Since Victor doesn’t want another to do with his creation, he ends up killing his creation and fleeing, going crazy, and ending up in the cold North Pole. Talking about a big monster, aka his creation, ending up dying on a ship. Victor ends up going through all of this due to him not being able to love himself, and love his creation. “He found the meaning life, science, but he never connected with anything but science, he secluded himself and only took benefits for himself, and his science.” (Neeley, 2)

We could learn a lot from Victor and his Monster. We learn not to take things for granted when they are put in front of us. To love everything, we are given and take in. To cherish the little things in live, and to take signs seriously. The Spanish quote that Everett mentions, “De donde vienos, amor, mi ninos?” It means, “Where do we come from, love, my children?” This is a beautiful quote, and it fits perfectly with the book Frankenstein. Frankenstein creates a Monster, that he is not able to love, that he is not able to look at. His Monster has to kill people to get his attention, and sadly, that fails. Where do we really come from? Are we an experiment that is going to be ignored for the rest of our life? Or are we just walking around aimlessly like a bunch of airheads look for love, have a couple kids in a nice farm house, and then pass away with our lover on the front porch with a beer and a cigar in hand… That’s the real question. I, myself, don’t even know the answer to that.

December 6, 2019 by Shelagh Neeley - No Comments

Structural Order

Numbers… The Alphabet… These are things that keep us organized. These are the things that keep us in order. Order means many different things to us as humans. Like alphabetical order, the way we are introduced in a roster, or when we are called across the stage to get our diploma. Numerical order as well, the way the numbers are placed on pages in a book, or in hotels on plaques for room numbers (it bugs me like crazy when they don’t go in order on one side of the hallway). The first place you really learn about the alphabet and numbers are at school, and maybe even your parents as well. I’ve never put thought into this, but we’ve dealt with numbers and the alphabet our whole lives if you think about it. You have to deal with numbers with age and the date when you must date something, like a check. You have to deal with the alphabet when you write your name, and when you write a simple word.

When I went to look up Numerical and Alphabetical up in the Bedford, it’s not there. I suppose it wouldn’t be, but as I was flipping through, I noticed that just like any dictionary, the Bedford is in alphabetical order. When went into the look up the word Order, is wasn’t in there, so I looked up similar words to order. I came across one, structure. According to the Bedford, “Often equated with form, the arrangement in a work, that is, the ordering of its component parts or the design devised by the author to convey content and meaning.” (Bedford, 426) There are many things that are connected to the word structure. The Bedford mentions that structure can be used in a Poem, in the arrangement of images or ideas, in a play, it can also be shown in novels. For me, structure reminds me of organization, order of things. When I think of arrangement, I think of a center piece for Christmas time on a table. “Oh, that’s a nice arrangement there.” Structure, for me, reminds me of when someone comments on my papers in the past from High School. “You have a great structure, and you’ve built off of it.”

One thing that I found interesting when I was reading through the structure definition,

“Some critics such as those associated with the Chicago school, have distinguished between structure and form, arguing that form is the emotional force or shaping principle that gives rise to the mechanics of structure…Other critics, particularly the New Critics, have distinguished between structure and texture…structure to refer to the general intellectual content of a poem, that is, whatever can be paraphrased, and texture to refer to the surface details of a work, such as imagery, meter, and rhyme.” (Bedford, 426-427)

This is interesting to me because there are people who see a different meaning to the word Structure. It’s going back to my other blog posts where I’ve mentioned point of view. It all depends on how you view things. Structure reminds me of a foundation. A foundation that you start off with and work your way up the ladder of writing a paper, a poem, a book, or even a blog post. You start off with an idea (your foundation), and then you do some research, either by looking things up, or flipping through a couple of books. Your research will be the branches, and the walls to build off of that foundation.

Structure for me as well can be seen as an organization word. You need a good structure to organize anything, especially heavy things. I feel like too, that you need to have structure in life. For me, structure is what you want to do in your life. “Well do you have any structure?” Being structured in life, you have your whole life planned out, you know exactly what you want to do, and if that doesn’t work you, you have the whole alphabet, in order, worked up with plans. You go day by day, going by what your planner, or your phone calendar tells you; you’re structured.

December 6, 2019 by Shelagh Neeley - No Comments

The World of Art

Plagiarism….Plagiarism is something that is frowned upon in writing. It’s also frowned upon in Art as well. In the past year, I have learned about copying and plagiarizing someone else’s artwork, basically stealing it and making a profit off of it. When I looked up the word Plagiarism in the Bedford, it led to me to the word Pastiche. The definition of this is as follows, “A literary, musical, or artistic work that imitates another’s recognizable style or pieces together a medley of often incongruous elements from a number of existing works. Pastiche may have humorous, satirical or serious intent or may simply serve as an exercise in technique.” (Bedford, 316) The Bedford also states not to confuse the two words, they are nothing alike. The Bedford states that, “Plagiarism is characterized by deceptive intent; pastiche involves open imitation or borrowing and often pays homage to its sources.” (Bedford, 316) I was surprised when I read this in the Bedford. It is splitting up the two words, making them and giving them 2 different meanings. Plagiarism and art are linked together, something that I never really thought of being linked together until last year in my Art class.

I’ve known about plagiarism, ever since I started writing papers for school. They shoved down our throats at school to “CITE! CITE! CITE!”, and the teacher would usually state that if we didn’t cite correctly, or took someone else’s words and passed them off as our own, we would be in big trouble, specially in college. This is the same thing in the art world as well. I remember when I first started talking about it in my art class, I found it, interesting. I know some artists, digital artists, that have had their art copied, traced, and sold off as someone else’s work. It is sad to see someone else’s work, art form and written form. Whenever someone copies, or traces someone else’s work, it’s not broadcasted all over the news, even though it should. Whenever this happens to one of my friends, one of my good friends blasts it on social media in an Art Awareness group, for those whom have bought digital art from this person, and who are planning on buying art from this person. It’s also just to keep an eye out for this person. Once this happens, the person whom is getting accused of course gets defensive. If you’re learning, great, trace away, copy away, just don’t sell it, and pawn it off as your own. Give credit to the original artist.

I am personally apart of the group, and I find the group very effective in the art world for my group of friends. They may not be famous artists, but they are famous to me. I have purchased some pieces from my friends whom are digital artists, I have also watched my friends go through battles with these people. They have filed court cases, and WON; go them. I enjoy looking at art myself, I find it peaceful to look at.

The reason I am on this topic because we had to do a Plagiarism workshop in class one day. This idea popped right into my head and the ball started to roll. I wrote a paper about Stolen Art at GCC, I sadly do not have the paper any more, I should’ve kept it, I made some solid points in that paper; I also had a lot of fun writing it. I personally feel that writing is an art in itself. It’s an amazing thing. It’s beautiful on how some people can word their sentences, like authors, I find that amazing on how some can express their ideas, fully. It’s like you are given a blank canvas, paper, and you are expressing yourself in writing, or even painting. Art comes in many, many forms; music, writing, painting, drawing, even talking is an art form. I listen to podcasts sometimes and those art forms in themselves. It’s a whole story, you have figure out what in the world you’re going to talk about.

Now, back to Pastiche… From what I gather from this definition on pastiche is that you are taking someone else’s idea, and you are modeling it, and forming it into your own. You are using someone else’s idea as a foundation only, and you are building up from there with your own ideas. You are citing your foundation of your idea, and then branching off from that, to cite yourself; you created it after all. I have never honestly heard of pastiche until it came up in class. I like this word for some reason, it’s satisfying to me. It’s satisfying because I now know it, I know what it means, I know what the basis of it is. I now know, that it’s not plagiarism, it’s not stealing someone else’s idea, and doing NOTHING to it. You’re taking someone else’s idea, and molding it into your own, making it unique. We could learn a lot from the word Pastiche.

December 2, 2019December 2, 2019 by Shelagh Neeley - No Comments

Can Logic be too much?

When reading Percival Everett’s book of poems titled, “re: f (gesture)” there’s a section named Logic. Logic is the shortest of the 3 sections in this book. When reading through Logic, there’s a poem that caught my attention and intrigued me. The poem that intrigued me is the 3^rd one in the section. The third poem speaks about memory, “Does my memory of you consist in parts? Simple, component in parts?” (Everett, 67)

Poem 3 is an interesting one in my opinion. This is because I’ve always been fascinated with the mind, and why we as humans do what we do. The part of the poem that sparked my interest was the first couple sentences I mentioned earlier. “Does my memory of you consist in parts? Simple, component parts?” (Everett, 67) I’ve learned that the mind does amazing things to protect us from trauma, like blocking out an event from your memory. This is like a defense mechanism for our body, and our mind. According to a Science Daily article, “According to McLaughlin, if the brain registers an overwhelming trauma, then it can essentially block that memory in a process called dissociation, or detachment from reality. ‘The brain will attempt to protect itself,’ she added.” (Science Daily) By doing this, your brain does protect itself, it protects you as well from facing any heartache, or emotional trauma. “Dissociation causes a lack of connection in a person’s thoughts, memory and/or sense of identity and it’s extremely common to experience a case of mild dissociation. For example, if you’ve recently gotten ‘lost’ in a book or daydreamed at work, then you’ve experienced a common form of mild dissociation. A severe and more chronic form of dissociation is seen in mental illnesses and rare forms of dissociative disorders, such as dissociative identity disorder, which was once called multiple personality disorder. The same way the body can wall-off an abscess or foreign substance to protect the rest of the body, the brain can dissociate from an experience. In the midst of trauma, the brain may wander off and work to avoid memory. However, not all psyches are alike, and what may be severe trauma for one person may not be as severe for another person.” (Science Daily) When a major event happens the ensues trauma, your brain blocks that memory out, basically, it crumbles it up like a piece a paper and throws it away from your mind.

One question that popped into my mind while reading this poem, can logic be a sort of trauma? Can one person learn so much, that it just becomes so much, that the person must block out some pieces of knowledge and relearn all of that blocked out knowledge. I scrolled around the web and I found an intriguing article from Teaching Tolerance. “Students who are experiencing trauma can be retraumatized in school through poorly chosen readings, activities, and assignments. Gorski offers an example, ‘I often hear from students who are learning about racism in the past tense,’ he says. ‘For instance, they are reading To Kill a Mockingbird and learning about what it was like for people of color ‘back then’. At the same time, they are experiencing racism in school and in their communities in the present tense.” (Gaffney) This can be blocked out by students, because they are learning about it in the classroom, but it’s happening out of the classroom as well. Students might be dealing with this themselves, so, the brain blocks this, to protect them. “Outside of individual lessons, other curricular structures can harm students. Kass Minor, a consultant with the Teachers College Inclusive Classrooms Project, says one common policy that does real harm is tracking, the practice of sorting and separating students based on perceived academic ability. Although tracking may be intended to offer extra support for students who need it, the messages it sends are anything but supportive.” (Gaffney) One thing I learned when I entered the education major, and when I started working with kids in general, I learned to never display their academic work on for everyone to see. It not only embarrasses the child, but it also embarrasses the family as well. This is a form of trauma that some parents, even teachers, aren’t even aware of. I know some teachers may not intend for this to be the meaning of the display, but it ends up hurting and traumatizing the child.

A quote that is stated in the article by Cornelius Minor, “As teachers, we do things for kids because they are human, not because they will thank us or because we caught them being ‘good’” (Gaffney) This quote is true; kids are humans too. Kids have faults, kids get tired of learning for an hour straight, they have a short attention span. When they see something shiny, they stare at the shiny item. Just like in the movie “Up!”, when Doug see’s, well thinks he sees, a squirrel. He trails off for a second, and then comes back to reality. Kids are innocent enough, coming from a teacher-to-be perspective, give a child a break once in a while to have them go play.

Works Cited:

“Can You Unconsciously Forget an Experience?” ScienceDaily, Texas A&M University, 9 Dec. 2016, https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/12/161209081154.htm.

Gaffney, Carrie. “When Schools Cause Trauma.” Teaching Tolerance, 2019, https://www.tolerance.org/magazine/summer-2019/when-schools-cause-trauma.

November 18, 2019 by Shelagh Neeley - No Comments

The Power of Opinions

Percival Everett’s “Body” intervenes in the kind of disciplinary tensions that Joe Moran outlines in “Science, Space, and Nature.” More specifically, the poems may be understood as arguing, criticizing, and/ or questioning the ways of Science. Science is one of those things that people shouldn’t really argue with, or debate with anyone. This goes for Politics and Religion as well. This is due to everyone has different opinions on things and everyone see’s things a much different way than you do. The way that science works is that people formulate a hypothesis, something to test, something to do multiple experiments with until that hypothesis is proven. There are multiple tests that can, and might be conducted to prove that hypothesis. There are also multiple steps that must be conducted. Those steps are: identify and define the problem, review texts that are relevant to this problem, formulate a hypothesis, something that can test this problem, construct an experimental design (a plan), conduct the experiment, compile raw date and condense it down to a usable form, and finally, present findings and conclusions from those experiments. If the hypothesis can’t be proven, they become falsified, according to Moran. “At the same time, Popper does not completely abandon science to relativism, because he suggests that, if theories are disprovable, they can be tentatively accepted until they are falsified.” (Moran, 153)

Another point of view of this, is in Percival Everett’s book, “re: f (gesture)”. In this book of 3 sections, Zulus, Body, and Logic. The part that connects with Moran’s chapter, is the Body section of this book. One thing that I found interesting was the poem about “Tongue”. It states “The fibers of muscle run in assorted directions, divided, as it always divides: extrinsic, intrinsic. Halved symmetrically, it tells another story on the other side of the fibrous septum. The extrinsic muscles originate externally, only the terminal fibers contained in the organ. The threads of either half find the interruptions, full of interposed fat, supplied by the nerves.” (Everett, 47) This poem I feel talks about the both sides of the view of how way things should be treated, the Humane way, and the Scientific way. Basically, humanities and the sciences. Each of the parties has different view points on things, just like how everyone has different view points on things. It’s just like how there are different parties in Politics and just like how there are different religions. Everyone has a different view point on things. There are multiple sides to things, specially in science according to Moran. “Kuhn’s scientific constructivism can be interpreted in two, competing ways. On the one hand, it can be seen as a radical awareness of science as the product of institutional politics and cultural contexts, in which ‘there is no standard higher than the assent of the relevant community.’ In this formulation, theories produced within discrete paradigms, such as Newtonian and Einsteinian physics are completely incommensurable because they are each engaged in affirming the truth-value of their own paradigm, and ‘cannot be made logically or even probabilistically compelling for those who refuse to step into the circle.”’ (Moran, 154) Newton and Einstein were trying to figure out the same things, so their arguments basically counteract eachother, because…. they had different viewpoints on things, on two things that they were trying to prove.

It’s just like if you were in the sky, in an airplane, looking down on the earth from a different perspective, you see a huge square, well, what looks like a square to you from the sky. But in reality, it’s a cube from the people on the ground’s perspective. You could argue with some about how that’s a square, but the person on the ground will tell you, “No, it’s a cube, I will even send you a photo of it.” But the person in the plane wouldn’t agree and stick to their argument even though there are proven facts that it is indeed, a cube. I’ve heard the statement that, “If I wasn’t there, it didn’t happen.” Well, that’s not entirely true. The world just doesn’t stop time just for you so you can see whatever is going on.

October 30, 2019 by Shelagh Neeley - No Comments

In the Eye of the Beholder

Point of view is everything. Life is all about on how you view things. This is connecting to the video created by Demi Adejuyigbe.; which we worked a group discussing this. He created a series of 4 videos on September 21^st. These videos were a series dedicated to the song by Earth, Wind, and Fire song, “September”. He let’s the song play for a bit, and then enters the view of the video. He dances in each of the 4 videos he has, and he has done this skit each year on September 21^st for the past 4 years. There really isn’t any difference in each video. The first video you could tell it was a random type of thing, he did plan it, so you can tell he rehearsed the video a couple times before doing it. The rest of the videos are well planned out, he started including props in the second video, and in the third and fourth (most recent video), he included, which was not just himself. In the most recent video, he got more creative. He let his audience question on if he was going to do a video this year, 2019, he did. His recent video in this series installment was like the 3 other videos he’s posted over the years on September 21^st. Like Schiller stated in our group each video varies in its settings, and I built off of that and stated; each video also has a different concept. Each year, it’s like he adds a video to his mini-series, he’s continuing the show. It has a different plot, but has the same meaning.

When my group started to discuss the meaning behind all this, and the meaning about discussing these videos, if you as a person have watched these videos from Demi, then you know exactly what is going to happen when you hear the music. As I stated in our group, “It’s like watching a trailer of a movie/ tv show, or reading the back (or flap) of a book, to see if you like it, and would be interested. For example, when you go to a horror movie, you go to see the movie, expecting to see horror, you’re expecting to be scared. It’s rare that a horror movie could be funny, depending on if you are used to the horror movies, unlike myself. Like, if knows song, or even knows the movie when the suspense type music starts, you’re expecting someone to be hurt, or get killed. And same with the Earth, Wind, and Fire’s song ‘September’, if someone knows the song, they will know what will happen after the music in the beginning, depending on if it’s a remix of the song.” (Shelagh Neeley, 9/29/19) Demi’s videos are like the Christmas Hallmark movies, it’s ALWAYS the same; The same plot, the same story line, the same theme. This idea is formed from a tweet, a tweet from Joel Doubleyou, “The plot of every Hallmark movie is about a career woman who is too busy for love but she has to move to a small town where a handsome loyal bachelor teaches her about the true spirt of the holiday. It starts snowing, and they kiss. There is also a dog.” (Joel Doubleyou, Nov. 19, 2018) It’s all on how you view things, it’s the point of view. The viewing is the important thing. Also, connecting to the pants meme. It’s all on how you view something. With the pants, you see a face, but in reality, they are actually pants. Despite the angle you view, they will still be pants. With the Hallmark Movies, you see a Christmas movie, with the similar plot, you will always know that it’s a Hallmark Christmas movie. When you see a special video on Demi Adejuyigbe’s twitter page, on September 21^st, you know that he will be dancing to, or doing something similar, to the song by Earth, Fire, & Wind, “September”.

September 17, 2019September 17, 2019 by Shelagh Neeley - No Comments

The One That Got Away

To some, the one that got away can be referenced to relationships, and the person that someone broke up with, or a relationship that they didn’t notice was going downhill. Or that statement could be talking about the number one; the one that got away. The way that I discovered this book was when we were determining on if certain book(s) we were given were novels or not. Our class was split into 4 groups, and each group was given a book(s), after a couple minutes passed of us talking in our groups, we passed the book(s) on. On the last turn, my group got the book “The One That Got Away” by Percival Everett, and illustrated by Dirk Zimmer. My first impression of this book was that it was cringe, but it was funny at the same time. It humored me that the title was, to me, two faced. You could view this title in a math form, or in the way that some may view it as, relationships.

I immediately held up the book to my group, and started reading, all eyes on me; it was not nerve-wracking at all; I quite enjoyed it. On first starting the book, my I was impressed, it’s a definite child’s book, that is quite adorable. The book is about a group of Wild Westerners, who are herding the number one’s like cattle, horses, or however you choose to view them. The group caught quite a big one, and they decided to go look for more, the group looked everywhere they could possibly look. The group then comes across a herd of one’s, and “They rode into the herd and threw hoolies over one, then another, until they had captured many. They put the new ones in the coral with the first one.” (Everett, 12-13) The group then went to sleep for the night. When they woke up, the men counted the one’s they caught, and noticed one was missing, one ESCAPED! So, they left their camp, and went out to look for the One that had escaped. They eventually did find the one, a top a mountain. They get into quite a pickle though, there’s a piece of stair missing. They must find the part of stairs that is missing. They do, they find it in a well, how conveniently placed! The group goes back up, and places the stair, continuing their journey up. They get to the top, finally, and find NOTHING. They then head home, discussing on how many one’s they have, eight in total. “But when they reached the coral… they had not a single one.” (Everett, 31-32) At the end of the book, there was no single one, they all combined together, since there was eight. But, in the beginning, there was 9, so, hence the title, the one that got away. If you look at how many one’s they had in total, and look at it in a math perspective, there had 8 one’s, in the one’s place.

On the relationship spectrum, the saying “She’s/He’s the one that got away” is stated a lot. I’ve even said this myself. According to urban dictionary, the one that got away means, “A person who you were originally supposed to end up with but due to a cause of fate or by consequences caused by you, the relationship failed. As time goes by, you wonder what you and that person could have been, making them the one that got away.” There’s also a song by Katy Perry, that is called “The One That Got Away”. She sings about how she met a guy during the summer after high school, they hung out most of the summer. But, at the end of the Summer, they would have to split ways, he was the one that got away due to School having to start up again, or him going off to college. In the end, the quote, “The one that got away” can be interpreted in multiple ways. Whether you are a math person, and you look into the quote as the number one got away. Or, you look at it from a relationship perspective, and look into the quote as a person got away from the relationship. If you are the one that got away, or if your significant other got away, don’t dwell on it. The relationship wasn’t meant to happen in this life, and it didn’t happen for a reason. A reason to protect you in some way. It will happen in another life. Accept that it won’t happen, and move on. Find someone who will treat you the way you should be treated. You don’t need someone right now, you have time. As stated in the movies, Transylvania, you have time to find your zing. Whether that is days, weeks, months, or years; you will find your zing.