Humanities Seminars

This is were I will be posting about my seminars I do in humanities.

Omelas Seminar Reflection

When the topic of where did the people of Omelas go, Isabel said that she believed they went to purgatory which is after death when waiting to go either to heaven or hell. I never really said what I wanted to about it but I had to agree. What other place would be less imaginable? It's not like we go there daily or know a description about it. None of us really ever come back from there without it being a miracle. Plus it would make sense for someone who had just seen a child suffering and being  treated like that. I know I would have felt depressed and sad, maybe even a little bit angry. People were will to hear Isabel's thoughts but i didn't really see anyone really agree or disagree with her, they seemed just to be mutual. I thought it was the only idea that had enough proof more than theory behind it, and didn't make you think too much.

Happiness is different for everyone. To make one person happy, it may make another sad or angry. When little children are frolicking around and having fun, parents and older people often say energy is wasted on the young, because there are so many other things a person could do with it, that would be considered productive. It sometimes will anger another to see a person using precious time and energy to take the time to play or try to be happy, whether it be four wheeling or snowboarding. So based off these examples I would have to agree that we have a bad habit of considering happiness stupid, but the people of Omeles didn't, everyone seemed to be happy for everyone or at least be happy because of them. A good example in the article is when the boy plays his flute, “People pause to listen, and they smile, buy they do not speak to him, for he never ceases playing and never sees them, his dark eyes wholly rapt in the sweet magic of the tune.” That is the difference between a fairy tale land our reality. They are always happy, and we, we never seem to keep our happiness for long. I mean how many people have you met that are always happy and content. I know I haven’t met many.

But that is mostly only from other people’s perspectives. If you were that person having fun, you would think that your time spent on being happy was worth it. I know I wouldn’t deem my happiness stupid, would you? The people of Omelas, I’m sure didn’t deem their happiness stupid, but the only people who did deem it stupid were the ones who realized what the cost was, and that was when they normally walked away in the short story, thus “They leave Omelas, they walk ahead into the darkness, and they do not comeback.” I too would deem my happiness stupid if it were at the harm of anyone else, and I could see the effects on the person. So though happiness may be great and joyous and to most the greatest thing to cherish, there are still those people who see the consequences of it, and would find it stupid to be happy at other’s cost. I would have to agree with both statements that happiness may be stupid when time or energy is wasted or when at the cost of another, but I also would not deem it stupid when I was enjoying it myself.

When the story flipped to the child in the basement, it made me think of the reading from last year called feral children. This was about a young girl whose mother never took care of her and placed her in the upstairs of a barn or in an attic. She would be fed every now and then but couldn’t speak and acted like an animal, for she had never been raised to know better. I found this very similar to the child in the basement in the article. But these two children were kept for two very different reasons. The child in the basement was for other people to see and then be thankful for what they had, and to also know what happiness truly was. The child in the attic was mostly just bad parenting and that the mother was abused by the father. In the story it was an interesting twist, but when you know that a child like that is in the world or was, it adds a whole new level to reading about it in a fiction article.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Geopolitics Child Seminar
This was an interesting seminar on the painting Geopolitics Child painting by Dali. There were many interpretations of what everything meant. Some people thought white men were destroying the world and leaving certain countries untouched.Others talked about how the woman was unveiling what was happening and showing the people represented by the child. I had to agree with both these statements.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Being Peace Seminar Reflection

During seminar when the group was discussing the future and the past, someone said that the future still needs to be considered when working with the present, which may have been Ian or Daniel and it made me think about a saying my mom had told which was “In two days, tomorrow will be yesterday.” In a way that made me think that the future isn’t as far away as people normally preserve the word future and that those moments pass by that you will never be able to use again, as said by Kelsey and Tara. So when the subject came up in seminar that we should use every moment to the best, I had to agree. I’ve heard the saying “Use every moment wisely, but do not get caught up on deciding” Before, But until we really talked through it in seminar I really never thought about it till now.

The whole time from when I was writing the seminar pre-write to the end of the seminar, I was thinking of the movie “The Peaceful Warrior.” I had watched this movie at the beginning of the year with my mom and little brother. This move was based off of a true story and was about a man in collage who has been training to be in the Olympics since he was young. At the beginning of the movie it portrayed him as a jock mentality who did what he wanted. Well on night when was sleeping he had a dream that when he went to the Olympics he would shatter his leg and then some man he couldn’t but his shoes was just sweeping up the pieces. Well and ways the owner of those shoes belonged to an older man you serviced other at a gas station. The young man when walking away from the gas station, this strange man did and incredible feat, when the young man looked back the guy was standing on the top of the gas station. The young one always came back to that gas station until he was soon learning from the Person I would call a Buddha in disguise. The lessons that he taught  this young man throughout the movie were “There is never nothing going on,” “The experiences are not in the destination but in the journey,”  “Do not dwell in the past or the future we live in the present” and to fight what is inside us that gives us boundaries. Every one of these lessons I could connect to something written in the article. The first and third lessons he taught are the same as the seventh Mindfulness training written in sixth chapter Interbeing of the book Being Peace by Thich Nhat Hanh.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Dulce Seminar Reflection  

During the seminar Tyler talked about how when fighting in a war or battle, you would fight differently depending on what you are defending. If it is your country you would still fight, but if it were your family or even people, you would do everything in your power to try and protect them. I would say that what you are fighting for could influence the way you fight and act towards a war. If it is something you care about you are usually motivated more to defend it. I know I would be to if it were something I cared about.

When reading poetry I have learned that when you go back and read a poem over again you usually catch new little things in the poem that you missed the first time. In the line “If in some smothering dreams you to could pace,” When I first read it I had thought the author of the poem was saying what had happened to the man felt dreamlike and unclear, but as I had read it over and over again during coaching, I found that it really meant the author was trying to pull you into the poem and experience it yourself. Also reading a poem with your peers helps you find a deeper meaning to parts of it, such as the line “Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud.” Well when I read this, I thought It meant that the fluid coming from the guys lungs just tasted bad because it was mixed with maybe stomach acids, but when we coached in groups and we read over that line, Tucker pointed out it was probably the gas turning the lung fluid green. So I found with reading a poem over and over again with peers, really helps one figure out a deeper meaning to many poems.

No I believe it is never sweet to die for your country, but yes it may be right, but only in certain circumstances. I would never find it sweet to die for your country. Many times you suffer a bit before you die and it is usually a painful death. Back in world war one and two, some people would slowly die on a battle field because no one could help or sometimes find them. Others it was just a very painful quick death like the man in the poem, his torture “Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues.” I could never see death as sweet. I would almost find that masochist. Dying for your country can be justifiable though. In many ways it is the right thing to do, but only if it is for YOUR country. If you are fighting to protect your country from another then it would be right, because you are fighting for your home and its laws. You are fighting to keep what is rightfully yours.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Roots of War Seminar Reflection

Someone made the argument that war is actually getting better instead of worse through time, and I had to disagree with this because though it may be getting humane wise.  The weapons are more powerful and they don’t need to rush head first in battle.  The

I didn’t really have any thoughts on the topic because I just passed it over in my head because of other events, but as we got more into the seminar I began to actually have ideas on the subject such as how I thought that all in all war could never actually be uprooted and be gone forever because of all the little conflicts that aren’t really considered war, such as fights between people or acts of violence. Because of all the smaller things that lead up to war it would be nearly impossible to get rid of it.

We kind of passed over the topic of if whether or not it is hard to make someone kill another. Well I just recently read this book called the Hunger Games and for the girl in it. It was all based around survival. She would only kill if it mint saving her life except for one case where one of her friends had just been killed and she automatically killed the boy who did that without a second thought. So therefore I think that it really depends on the situation one is in.

I think I did good in getting my opinion through and speaking in the seminar but I seem a little shy at the moment. I think I need to work on getting over that stage fright again so I can get back into the game and actually be a part of the seminar.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Seminar Reflection for Jihad v.s. McWorld

The seminar went over great. It was interesting to see where everyone stood on Jihad vs McWorld, I was glad most stood on Jihad's side. I find independence is important to many people whether they know it or not. One point I wanted to be a little more clear on is nationality identity. nationality has become almost a brand. Like candy mad in Switzerland is supposed to be good because its from there. Even some people use their Nationality to say they are better than others. So I think the text is a little off or wasn't thought about.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Reflection for a Seminar Slaughter House Five

      My reaction in this was really not that big on this seminar only because it took a while for me to get into the end. There was one thing where I agreed with something that was said by Bryan and Hannah and that was that time can go forward but in different directions. This told me that it can and that is one of the things that I got out of this seminar

In the seminar I had no change in thinking during it because what my thinking is that time goes forward but in different directions, but still forward because though you can change things that might have happened in the past that can be changed in the future, like patching things up with a friend or with family. You can do that, but you can’t go back. It isn’t changed because nobody gave me a chance to actually believe them.

A connection that I got from this seminar was many other projects and other papers that we have done and how we say that if we could, would we change what we did. This is because I know that we want to change things that have happened but we can’t. There are things I want to change about what has happened in my life and those simply were moving to Cascade Village and getting bad grades in my years of school. I wanted to change them all but it won’t happen because the past is the past and it has happened. One more was a time line in general, because on a time line you can see the things in the past, but you can’t go back to change it either. We can also see what we have done in the past which sometimes, could be a good thing.

In all honesty, I think that this was by far the one seminar that I couldn’t complete, because when I talked I was too quiet and was come in on the worst possible parts of the seminar. This was not at all my best and was really bad. Always in the bad though, come some good things that I did and those were trying to bring people like Seth and Tyler in the conversation twice in a row. Another was that I think that I turned the conversation a little bit when I finally spoke aloud about saying that we all have a tiny bit of Billy in us, saying that we all had (or have) a little crazy and passive in us, how we all are. Though I didn’t do that well, I think that I did do some things that made up for my speaking than last times. I’m planning on raising my volume, and being more active all together in seminars from now on. This is a goal that I’ve needed to get down for a while, but am starting to do more frequently, so I’m getting back on track.