Literary Fiction and Empathy

How can reading fiction help you understand others?  Use Hamlet as an example to explore your own thinking process and reactions to a character's innermost thoughts/struggles. 
      Reading fiction can help you to better understand yourself, others, and the world around you.  It helps you in this way as reading fiction has the capability of bringing the reader much emotion and letting you feel apart of a nonexistent world that can feel very real.  You begin to feel attached to some of the characters as you read through their life experiences and struggles and see yourself beginning to relate to the characters' personalities and lives.  Also, giving the reader the power to step out of the picture and become an outside witness alters their thinking when they step back into the picture, making them more understanding of why people say and act the way they do.  As I am beginning to read Hamlet, I am able to relate and feel a connection to the story in this way.  As I read through Hamlet's thoughts and inner struggles with not being able to effectively express his emotions, I can really relate to this as I have a hard time showing emotion all the time.  When someone hurts me, I usually don't show it and bottle things up until I break.  In this same way, Hamlet bottles up all the emotions he is experiencing with the loss of his father and the betrayal of his mother and uncle.  You'd expect him to break, but he doesn't.  In this way, we are alike.  Hamlet seems to be a very strong-minded character and I hope to be able to relate to him more as the story goes on. 

TO BE OR NOT TO BE

HAMLET: ACT III SCENE I

 

To be, or not to be: that is the question:

Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer

The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,

Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,

And by opposing end them? To die: to sleep;

No more; and by a sleep to say we end

The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks

That flesh is heir to, 'tis a consummation

Devoutly to be wish'd. To die, to sleep;

To sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there's the rub;

For in that sleep of death what dreams may come

When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,

Must give us pause: there's the respect

That makes calamity of so long life;

For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,

The oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely,

The pangs of despised love, the law's delay,

The insolence of office and the spurns

That patient merit of the unworthy takes,

When he himself might his quietus make

With a bare bodkin? who would fardels bear,

To grunt and sweat under a weary life,

But that the dread of something after death,

The undiscover'd country from whose bourn

No traveller returns, puzzles the will

And makes us rather bear those ills we have

Than fly to others that we know not of?

Thus conscience does make cowards of us all;

And thus the native hue of resolution

Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought,

And enterprises of great pith and moment

With this regard their currents turn awry,

And lose the name of action.--Soft you now!

The fair Ophelia! Nymph, in thy orisons
Be all my sins remember'd.

VOCABULARY #6

abase - verb cause to feel shame; hurt the pride of
abdicate - verb give up, such as power, as of monarchs and emperors, or duties and obligations
abomination - noun an action that is vicious or vile; an action that arouses disgust or abhorrence; a person who is loathsome or disgusting; hate coupled with disgust
brusque - adj. marked by rude or peremptory shortness
saboteur - noun someone who commits sabotage or deliberately causes wrecks; a member of a clandestine subversive organization who tries to help a potential invader
debauchery - noun a wild gathering involving excessive drinking and promiscuity
proliferate - verb cause to grow or increase rapidly; grow rapidly
anachronism - noun an artifact that belongs to another time; a person who seems to be displaced in time; who belongs to another age;something located at a time when it could not have existed or occurred
nomenclature - noun a system of words used to name things in a particular discipline
expurgate - verb edit by omitting or modifying parts considered indelicate
bellicose - adj. having or showing a ready disposition to fight
gauche - adj. lacking social polish
rapacious - adj. excessively greedy and grasping; devouring or craving food in great quantities; living by preying on other animals especially by catching living prey
paradox - noun (logic) a statement that contradicts itself
conundrum - noun a difficult problem
anomaly - noun (astronomy) position of a planet as defined by its angular distance from its perihelion (as observed from the sun); a person who is unusual; deviation from the normal or common order or form or rule
ephemeral - adj. lasting a very short time; nounanything short-lived, as an insect that lives only for a day in its winged form
rancorous - adj. showing deep-seated resentment
churlish - adj. having a bad disposition; surly;rude and boorish
precipitous - adj. characterized by precipices;extremely steep; done with very great haste and without due deliberation

Vocabulary #5

1. shenanigans - secret or dishonest activity or maneuvering.
2. ricochet - a glancing rebound; spring back; spring away from an impact
3. schism - division of a group into opposing factions; the formal separation of a church into two churches or the withdrawal of one group over doctrinal differences
4. eschew - avoid and stay away from deliberately; stay clear of
5. plethora - extreme excess
6. ebullient -  joyously unrestrained
7. garrulous -  full of trivial conversation
8. harangue - a loud bombastic declamation expressed with strong emotion; deliver a harangue to; address forcefully
9. interdependence - a reciprocal relation between interdependent entities (objects or individuals or groups)
10. capricious - determined by chance or impulse or whim rather than by necessity or reason; changeable
11. loquacious -  full of trivial conversation
12. ephemeral - lasting a very short time; anything short-lived, as an insect that lives only for a day in its winged form
13. inchoate - only partly in existence; imperfectly formed
14. juxtapose -  place side by side
15. perspicacious - acutely insightful and wise; mentally acute or penetratingly discerning
16. codswallop -  nonsensical talk or writing
17. mungo - cloth made from recycled woven or felted material.
18. sesquipedelian - characterized by long words
19. wonky - inclined to shake as from weakness or defect; turned or twisted toward one side
20. diphthong - a vowel sound that starts near the articulatory position for one vowel and moves toward the position for another

Everything Is A Remix

• remixing started with hip-hop music
• taking an original piece and altering or changing the image of it
• traditionally, creativity was divine
• remixing takes much creativity
• light bulb represents a moment of insight
• 3 elements: copying, transformation, and combinations
• copying- taking a piece and copying it in the same way  
• transformation- creating variations from an already existing thing  
• combinations- taking existing stuff and merging them together
• Star Wars is the monomyth
• ideas contain other ideas within them

Character Study 1

       As I'm reading my acceptance letters from Cal Poly and Santa Clara University, I can't help but feel lost in my inability to decide for my future.  Cal Poly is within my comfort zone.  My sister has attended that school for two years now, along with many of my other friends.  It's so close to home and I know that town and school like the back of my hand.  My whole family is hoping I choose to go there so I can stay as close to them as possible and be safe living in the same town as my sister.  After a couple years of attending Cal Poly, I would share an apartment with my sister, something we have always wanted to do.  But, what if I want to go out of my comfort zone? What if I want to try something different and start my own path?  It'll allow me to branch out and start a life of my own on such a beautiful campus that offers the major I aspire to study. The only thing holding me back is the idea that I will be so far away from my family and the small town that has always been all I've ever known.  Once I make my ultimate decision of which college to attend, I will begin my journey.

My Dashboard

After reading about and looking at the new idea for the website "Netvibes", I have decided not to use it.  I do appreciate Dr. Preston's effort in helping us to become more organized and showing us the future technological styles of our college education.  But, I feel like taking the time to make this new website will only overwhelm me more with all of the school work that I already have. I feel that I am already well organized other than the fact that I am a huge procrastinator when I comes to some of my schoolwork. But, overall, I get my work done eventually because I always have it in the back of my head until I do.

Canterbury Tales 1

• written documents were rare 
• most people were illiterate
• characterized many cities, castles, long days
• Latin- the unifying language at the time 
• a series of stories that make up a larger story
• about a pilgrimage to Canterbury 
• each story is told through a different characters perspective 
• characters vary from all social statuses (aristocracy to peasants) 
• tales filled with contradicting personalities with roles in the society 
• his son was very much like him
• the Knight- honorable and heroic 
• the monk was ironically fat (supposed to live in poverty)
• the merchant was knowledgeable but in debt; portrayed as a very honorable man 
• the cook- arrogant, pompous, selfish man
• the lower class- mostly described with indirect characterization. 
• the doctor- knowledgeable but in it for the money; wasn't religious as the bible frowned upon science 
• these stories told the irony in society in the way that societies expectations were lived down through the dark side of human nature 
• very complex characters throughout