Metacognition: The Things They Carried Essay

I read The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien last year in English class. This book was a lot different then any of the other books I've read, because it required a whole new level of thinking. We did many worksheets and interpretations of this book, and it was really hard because this book was really hard to understand. But the more we talked about it, and the more I read, it became more clear. When I wrote the final essay on the book, I had a lot of knowledge and I could kind of think differently, which really surprised me, because I usually don't understand things like that because my mind isn't very complex at all. I had to think about story truth and happening truth which occurred a lot in his book. But I feel like my usual way of thinking is very general and common. This might have changed my thinking for one particular assignment, but not forever. I don't really like my own mind, because Its so un-unique. Like the creative side, creative ideas and observations don't really come to me that easily, and that is something I'd really like to fix.

Best of Week: Living Writer's Lives.

Last week, we discussed an essay called Sea of Information, which is a good title because it did have a lot of information! But in that whole essay, someone found one excellent idea that was a huge part of the discussion because it was so important. This was the idea that reading gives us access to lives we haven't lived, and will probably never live. This really makes me think about how differently each person's life can play out. And also when we talked about how most people believe that when you share a story like that, there is absolutely no body who has had the "exact same" experience as you, and that is really special to have a moment like that. I believe that nobody can tell a story better than the person who lived it, and then when its shared, everybody listening can feel like they were there and "live someone elses life" for a moment. That is something really cool about reading stories like that, because you just get a change for a while, and we can make-believe that were experiencing something new that we may never actually get to experience. But thats the joy of reading I guess, and maybe I can apply that to my thinking next time I read a book I think is bad, or boring. I'll just put myself in that person's shoes and pretend that its my life, and I'm telling the story.

Connection: Philo T. Farnsworth and Charles Darwin

When I read the this article about Philo Farnsworth, I couldn't help but feel really bad for him. I mean, he had this amazing idea thats is one of the most popular things nowadays to own. But he just didnt know how to go about it the right way, so he failed. People stole his idea and made it bigger, and he wouldn't even take what he can get. He turned down the money and was never going to give up. Then I was sad to hear it didn't workout and he went into deep depression and alcoholism. I cant exactly think of a person who had this same exact experience, but I know that this kind of closely relates to Charles Darwin's story and how Alfred Wallace came up his same theory of natural selection right about at the same time too! I mean thats kind of annoying, now he has to share the credit and everything, but its not as bad as Farnsworth. If he had just thought it maybe a little sooner, it would have been 100% his, and he would be way more successful. This really is good advice for me and probably everybody! Now I know if i have a complex invention, maybe get some help with it so I dont lose it to smarter people. That would make me really mad, so I would do whatever to get a share somehow. And if its a simpler idea, than try to come up with it as fast as possible and have no hesitations when it comes to publishing. We can learn a lot from these philosophers, that may help us go farther with what we believe in. But most importantly, dont let anyone else get in on your idea!

Change of Mind: Wall-E

Last year, in English class, we watched the movie Wall-E as part of our transcendentalism unit. I never really knew what that movie was about, I kind of just thought it was about a bunch of robots just running around and stuff. I guess thats why I never really rushed to see it. I had no idea that the movie would be about our economy and that its kind of mocking us. I know our economy is bad, but I didn't really understand the dangers until I saw this movie. I was really ignorant to the fact that this was actually not a kids movie, and it teaches everyone a very good lesson on how pollution and all the craziness is gonna wipe out the whole planet one day. So after seeing this movie, I really saw the world in an amazing new way. That our Earth is brittle. And its slowly falling apart, and the movie tells us that we all have to work together to make it last. That means we will have a manifest function, and that is a good thing! So I'm really glad this movie was brought to my attention, and I would suggest everyone to see it. It will really show you whats wrong with this world, and give you a new perspective on life and how fragile it is. It happened to me and I'm sure it will give everyone a change of mind!