Guest post: Looking back at memories

The following post is from one of my classmates. Check out her blog, Change is Permanent.

"Just as a prelude to what I am about to discuss, it may be a little hard to understand at first, but stay with me.

Ever notice that when you recall a memory, you aren't looking at other people from your own perspective, but from an outsiders view? In other words you are reflecting at the scene as though you are looking at a fish in a fishbowl. You see the situation from a third person perspective as opposed to first person.

While it is possible to think about memories from a first and third person perspective, the idea that we are sometimes the "outsider" of our own memories intrigued me. What does this say about human nature? Does this outsider view reflect how I have changed as a person?

In a study done by Cornell University, faculty had subjects reflect on their present selves and their high school selves. They had the subjects rate themselves on their social skills before and after high school, invoking a third person perspective. The study concluded that the "third-person recall produces judgments of greater self-change when people are inclined to look for evidence of change, but lesser self-change when they are inclined to look for evidence of continuity." This third person perspective seems to be a way of reflecting on the past as someone different, someone who you weren't before.

This isn't to say that we are changed people because of the way we view a memory. But it may reveal something about how we feel about the people or the place in the memory. This weekend I caught myself recalling my trip to Israel in the third person. While I have no bad memories from the trip, I am not as close as I used to be with the people that were there with me, so this space between us may be creating a third person perspective. So next time you catch yourself recalling a memory from an outside perspective, take a step back and ask yourself why."

A bad case of

(via Katey Lynn)

senioritis: a disease that affects every human being who has ever been a senior in high school. A senior with typical symptoms: not doing homework, not caring that they're not doing homework, not going to school because they're just not feeling going through the dragging process of attending classes that day, they don't pull out their assignment notebook until Sunday night at 11:30 (commonly confused with severe cases of procrastination), etc. They say the disease is contagious; airborne in fact. Seniors who haven't been hit yet, you're part of the lucky bunch. Seniors who have already been hit, you've probably been hit hard. And according to urban dictionary, there's only one cure: graduation. 

How can seniors become so apathetic so suddenly?

I was once a junior and boy does that feel like forever ago. A year can change so much. One moment I'm taking the ACT and the next I'm sending in a $300 enrollment deposit, confirming the next four years of my life. One day I'm pulling out my hair from all the stress that comes with US history homework and the next thing I know I don't even care about the C I get on my Calculus quiz.

The concept of time is a complex idea. In reality, you can only move forward with it. You can turn back clocks but you can never make it the same exact time as it was before. It will never be this date, this time ever again. This whole idea, I'll admit, scares me. The fact that I can't relive, that is. I can't relive that moment when I took the ACT (not that I'd want to), I can't be 16 again, I can't legally drive a car for the first time again, and I can't go back to how it used to be.  I can only look forward to what's ahead. And there's beauty in that. There's beauty in the mystery of the future. Change can be depressing, sure, but it can also be beautiful. There's so much to look forward to: graduation, college, pursuing a career that you want. It's all scary. But we can't escape the inevitability of change. It's the only thing that is consistent. So we might as well accept it, embrace it, and make the best out of the moments we have because there's no way to escape what we can't control.

The Hunger Games, an eco-critical approach

What is eco-criticism? According to Peter Barry's Beginning Theory: An introduction to literary and cultural theory, some things eco-critics do include incorporating concepts such as energy, balance, symbiosis, and sustainability of resources. Eco-critics also examine the concepts of life vs. death and collective ethical responsibility.

I went to watch The Hunger Games on Saturday and I couldn't help but see things with what seemed to be this eco-critical perspective. I found this idea too prevalent to pass up such further investigation. I'm interested in how having this perspective shapes the way I understand the movie as a whole or how this understanding differs from viewers without knowledge of eco-critical theory?

First off, I must confess that I watched the movie without first reading the book. Therefore, my whole perspective of The Hunger Games is based on the movie. However, I heard from several of my friends, huge fans of the books, that the movie stayed true to the novel for the most part and that they were very content with the cinematic version.

(The following paragraphs are what one could call a spoiler alert. If you haven't read the book or watched the movie (and plan to), I suggest you stop reading right here.)

What automatically captivated my attention was the lead character, a girl named Katniss Evergreen, and her distinguishable feature of self-reliance. Not only is she clearly portrayed as the family pillar, but she also has an indisputable connection with nature. This display of the connection between humans and nature is very important in the eco-critical theory.

The woods in which Katniss escapes to hunt for game gives off a sense that the greenery is secure and familiar to her. It seems natural for her to swiftly pull out a bow and arrow and aim for the large deer 20 feet away. Although she has the intent to kill the creature, I could tell from her lifestyle that hunting is a very natural part of her life and that any means of accessing food to survive is a necessity. This situation is also patterned through other characters in District 12. Gale, Katniss' best friend, also hunts to support his family.

When all the tributes are finally set into the arena for the games, they are forced to adjust to the way of life in the forest. Katniss proves her extensive knowledge of nature in saving Peeta from eating poisonous berries, climbing trees to escape danger, using the mockingjays as a means of communication, and her overall ability to stay alive.

One other largely important aspect of the eco-critical approach present in the film is the whole concept of life vs. death. The games are a battle to the death. Regardless of who you are fighting, you must kill or be killed. There can only be one winner. It was captivating to watch the kids in the games, who seemed utterly terrified, become so malicious and intent on killing another kid with the same bad-luck to survive. Some kids formed an alliance with each other against the others. The games remind me of the "entertaining" gladiator fights and how there could only be one crowned victor. Only one could live. Only one could die. That provides an interesting balance to the games, and obviously (sarcasm) brings sensibility to its overall purpose. When Katniss and Peeta create an imbalance in the system by both winning the games, all hell breaks loose. Well, all hell is about to break loose. And now we wait in anticipation of the second movie.

In summation, The Hunger Games can be looked at very eco-critically and I would like to think that it is a very reasonable way of understanding its madness. Vicious tiger chases and all.

Good Riddance

Regrets: we all have them, no matter how much we tell ourselves not to. Two months from now, I'll be graduating. In four months, I'll be entering the collegiate realm. In five, I'll be an "adult". 3 major events in my life are going to happen in less than half a year. That thought has me up all night and distracted all day because in truth, I do regret a lot of things that happened in the past four years. It's trendy and cliche to insist that having regrets would only further complicate our lives; without them, we wouldn't be able to learn from them. Sometimes I think that having regrets can be a good thing. Having a regret means that one acknowledges a mistake, a bad decision, a wrong path taken in their life. That acknowledgment and acceptance is the first step towards ensuring better decision making in the future.

When I read this article, I wasn't surprised to find "education" and "career" as the top two categories of regret. In fact, I felt rather reassured that those were the two biggest regrets of the people surveyed. 1. I could and should have pushed myself harder in my studies in high school. I don't know how different my life would have been if I did, but since I get this question a lot, I say that I would do the past four years differently if I could. 2. I haven't found my passion, but I know my interests and I'm trying my best to pick a career that I succeed in and love simultaneously and more importantly, not regret.

Regrets can tear us up and bring us down. Regrets can make us understand and appreciate. Regrets: we can choose to ignore them and move in a different direction, or we can recognize them and move forward.

Addicted on acceptance

In the novel Tuesdays With Morrie by Mitch Albom, Morrie explains to Mitch that one way to deal with pain is to completely immerse yourself in that painful sensation, allowing for the full ability to detach yourself from that feeling.

This blog post by Lance Dodes harps on a similar idea which I found quite interesting: in order to become "un-addicted" to something, you must not repress your thoughts about your addiction. Dodes explains that one cannot simply push aside thoughts about, say, a yearning to drink excessively. By fully recognizing your need to drink, you have then become aware of your problem. Convincing yourself that you don't want to drink makes the problem worse in the apparent lack of self-recognition and acceptance. The easier it is to accept these thoughts, the easier is becomes to predict their onset, and therefore the easier to disengage with that obsession, reliance, and addiction on something, whatever it may be.

Psychoanalysis: The next years

2012. Later this year, me and my six hundred some peers will be graduating from high school. Tomorrow will be March. 3 months have already gone by this year which means that there's only technically 3 more months until it's all over. Only 3 more months left and yet I'm still undecided on not only a college but also a career.

When we were younger, it was okay to want to become a teacher or a musician or an Olypmpic athlte. It was okay and even encouraged to chase those dreams. I don't know when it was, but there was a point in time when those dreams morphed into reality. I always dreamt of becoming an Olympic volleyball player. I know of senior students who would make fantastic teachers but aren't pursuing that career because they know it's exceptionally difficult to land a job after college. However, I do know students who are going into college with the intent of majoring in education because they know that's what they will succeed in. Although I'm 110% supportive of those kids and their motives, I do understand where the first group of students are coming from.

Ostensibly, the nation (as well as the world) has recently been struggling economically. Our nation's leaders have failed to pull us out of debt and it's affecting everyone. As incomes significantly drop, college tuition continues to rise. Gas prices are increasing and for the most part increased taxes are hitting Americans hard. A lot of high school seniors (myself very much included) are currently feeling the pressure to get on the right track now. Even though I hear things like "follow your dreams" and "don't let anyone tell you that you can't do something" I still hear voices in my head telling me to do the more realistic things. Don't act. Don't teach. Don't become an audio engineer; even that doesn't pay enough. These thoughts...are they my own? Are they my parents'? Are they society's? What should I DO?

My parents told me to find a path on which I would be successful. Whatever it may be, whether or not it's my dream, ensure the utmost success out of it. I find conflict here: what if my dream is to play international volleyball for the rest of my life? I mean, I'm not going to lie. I have thought about that. But then I have to ask myself like I was taught: will I be successful at it? That much I cannot guarantee. So here I am declaring a psychology and international relations major and minor respectively, hoping to become a successful child psychiatrist. Hopefully I'll find ways to play volleyball and travel when I'm not in a therapy session.

I know these times are tough and I don't even have a steady job or a family to support. I only hope that I can come to terms with what I have learned from my parent's advice and society confines while simultaneously remembering what I've wanted to pursue since 5th grade.

Biopreparedness and Xenophobia

Humans and animals alike are biologically prone to developing certain sensory aversions in association with various conditioned responses. In my psychology textbook was an example of humans generally associating sudden shock/pain with external stimuli such as lights and sounds. In contrast, humans typically associate physical illness such as nausea with intrisic stimuli such as food or water. These associations make humans more prepared for survival. For example, someone who gets food poisoning from spoiled Chinese food is more likely to not eat food that smells like just like it, therefore decreasing the likelihood of getting food poisoning a second time. Someone who has never eaten spoiled food is at a higher risk of food poisoning because they have never smelled or tasted spoiled food. This represents biopreparedness at its best.

Not only do humans learn taste aversions, but aversions to certain environmental stimuli as well. The idea that motivated me to write this blog post was the concept of people learning to fear members of different ethnic groups. Upon mild research, I found the idea of xenophobia, or the fear of foreigners (and more specifically to those of different cultural groups than your own) intriguing. At first read, the idea seems laughable. A fear of foreigners? Pshh. But really, taking the concept more generally, I don't think it's necessarily the fear of foreigners as it is the fear of foreign ideas.

Someone of a different skin tone assumes a different background which assumes different experiences which ultimately assumes different ideas and perspectives. How much in common does an Italian-American have in common with an Asian-American? Skin tone, hair color, eye color, height, build, and a lot of other physical features. But that's it. So why would there be any barrier be present between the two? Why at my school cafeteria do I see a table of ten Asian-American kids seperated by a table of ten Polish-American kids seperated by a table of ten Latino-American kids? In my opinion, it's not because our school is discriminatory or racist and it's not because those students are 'fearful' of the other students. It's because anyone would naturally prefer to live in a comfortable environment surrounded by people who share common interests, ideas, experiences, and outlooks on life.

Fret not. We aren't living in a xenophobic America. In a stereotypical high school setting, the artsy kids, Asian kids, jocks, nerds, and other labeled groups typically surround themselves with members of their respective groups because they have that much in common. Creating friendships which overlap such groups are certainly present, but I would think that initiating such a friendship starts with some degree of 'fear' of clashing ideas.

It would be false of me to assume that my Filipino self has nothing in common with someone of an Irish background. Xenophobia is exactly that: a phobia. It's something that can and should be overcome. It's the only way for barriers to break and acceptance to grow.