EDIT: This blog will stay up, but will no longer be updated. Only the WordPress blog will be updated, so please follow!
I've moved to WordPress! As of last night, in a fit of pure impulsivity. Yeah, that's not a real word.
So please follow me over there at http://michelle391.wordpress.com/. Same address only 'wordpress' in place of 'blogspot'. This blog will probably come down in about a week or so, but all posts, comments, and tags have been imported and now exist on wordpress. I've also put out an all-call, taking requests for topics to write about - so go over to wordpress, click the follow button, and leave me some ideas!
Monday, August 1, 2011
Wednesday, July 6, 2011
In Boxes Made of Ticky-Tacky
I've written a lot about higher education, money matters in particular; The Road to Hell is Paved With Good Intentions (the "worth" of college education), Life Has Meaning Only in the Struggle (my very first post; about financial aid), and, well, everything that has the tag "college" on it. Which is a good 60% of my posts. Yeah, I did the math.
But now there's something that never really struck me as an issue - secondary education. As in, everything that leads up to college, starting with middle school. The idea of a sub-par high school whose students lack opportunity was, to be perfectly honest, unfathomable to me until very recently. And it's almost entirely because I was fortunate enough to graduate from one of the fabulous opportunity-ridden high schools in America, Auburn High School, who was ranked as the 77th best public high school by Newsweek in May 2006 according to Wikipedia, but this number is most likely much higher now - Schooldigger calculated AHS to be 23rd out of the 359 schools on the site by combining the average test scores in math and English. And AHS has steadily produced above-average test scores; City-data.com has every statistic you could think of from 2006, 2007, and 2008 in individual bar-graphs. I've linked it for anyone as curious as I am, but it's rather tedious (seriously, if you've charted that 97% passed, do you really need a separate chart stating that 3% failed?), and even breaking the distributions down by ethnicity, gender, and grade level.
But we're actually a whole lot luckier than we think, because public schools in the South in general are struggling quite a bit just to pass their kids off as proficient. If I remember correctly, the documentary Waiting for Superman alluded that Alabama has one of the lowest percentages of proficiency in math in the United States, with 18% of 8th graders passing as proficient, and going on to peg more southern states as fellow stragglers. And in the CNN documentary, "Don't Fail Me: Education in America" (available in six parts on YouTube), Soledad O'Brien's interview with now former Tennessee governor Phil Bredesen, actually revealed that parents had been lied to about the proficiency of their students. In particular, for 8th grade math (no idea why this particular age group and subject is so focused on), parents were told that 84% of students were proficient, while the number was actually 22%.
But here's a more relatable (spellcheck tells me that's not a word, but I like it anyway) example, this kid Shaan Patel, the CNN documentary, had a similar naive mindset (Best thing, btw, when O'Brien said to Shaan, "Your brother is autistic?", he reflected, "My brother has autism, yes." @Kayla Coggins/Special Friends). On the subject of calculus, he was under the impression that most kids in high school take calculus - not that ridiculous of an idea, right? But it turns out that only about 16% of high school students in America get to take calculus [According to Soledad O'Brien in the documentary; I have actually found a statistic that cites the U.S. Department of Education's finding that 14.1% of graduating seniors in the class of 2004 took calculus (that article is not to be confused with David Bressoud's earlier article which claimed that the statistic was, in fact 16%. But I trust the former [and the Dept. of Education])]. Disclaimer: My parenthetical usage was unintentionally reminiscent of Jonathan Safran Foer.
Waiting for Superman was a documentary that criticized a number of public schools who are "failing" their students - by not providing an adequate education that would prepare them for higher education, which in this documentary actually refers to high school, then ultimately college. It suggested is that there exist a number of schools in the US that practice something called "tracking", where students are divided early on into "tracks" based on test scores. Remember when we had to take that math test in the 6th grade that assigned us into Algebra, Pre-Algebra, and basic math for the next year? Yeah. It happened. The documentary explains it perfectly in 54 seconds. And the cartoon is pretty cute. Basically, there are three main tracks: the high track leads to becoming doctors, lawyers, and business executives, the middle track leads to "skilled" jobs like accountancy, and the lower track is for menial labor. But this system was devised for a post-war era, where the majority of jobs were, in fact, menial blue-collar positions. Therefore, only 20% of students were expected to go to university and be put into boxes made of ticky-tacky. This is the high track; another 20% would follow the middle track, and the remaining 50% would be directed to the lower track. Unfortunately, times have changed and now demand is high for ticky-tacky - but because the US isn't producing enough, they look overseas for engineers and researchers. This is why unemployment exists - there are jobs, but in the high track, and people just aren't qualified enough to fill them. It isn't enough to have 50% of the population be farmers anymore. Looks like we're all made of ticky-tacky in the end.
So here lies secondary education, between the proverbial rock and a hard place. Honestly, I don't see a clear, effective solution to improving the education system. Many thought that Bush's No Child Left Behind act in 2001/02 was the answer; it mandated that, in exchange for regular funding, each state set standards for education that are to be met by designing standardized exams for students. But the thing is, the states can alter the standards that they set - so if the students are underperforming, they simply lower the standard for the next year and say that the kids are up to par. Or they just don't get money. Like in that one episode of Family Guy.
President Obama has proposed a blueprint, outlining reform of the NCLB act. Honestly, the talking points just seem like powerfully phrased statements in favor of making things better. Throw in some large monetary figures, and you've got yourself some pretty heavy promises. Obama's got this idea called "Race to the Top", in which states submit applications for grants - essentially pitting states against one another in hopes of getting them motivated to make changes - but each state's application is just another set of powerfully phrased goals and promises.
Many efforts have been made for education reform - and many efforts have crashed and burned, been shot down, or slowly faded away. Google Michelle Rhee, for goodness sake, the now former D.C. Chancellor of Education. She had passion, confidence, and huge ideas. But she was also involved in a scandal concerning the suspicious alteration of standarized test answers in DC. And she fired a crapload of people. And she has since tendered her resignation as chancellor. Go big or go home. So maybe Obama's plan isn't so bad after all. He seems to make a lot of promises with considerably less delivery - but the thing is, eloquently phrased goals have an inexplicable emotional effect on people. He promised change, and it made people listen to him - because they wanted change. Inspiration can have a lasting effect on people. So maybe "Race to the Top" will crash and burn. Or get shot down, or slowly fade away. But at least I can have faith that someone will try again.
Try again, fail better.
But now there's something that never really struck me as an issue - secondary education. As in, everything that leads up to college, starting with middle school. The idea of a sub-par high school whose students lack opportunity was, to be perfectly honest, unfathomable to me until very recently. And it's almost entirely because I was fortunate enough to graduate from one of the fabulous opportunity-ridden high schools in America, Auburn High School, who was ranked as the 77th best public high school by Newsweek in May 2006 according to Wikipedia, but this number is most likely much higher now - Schooldigger calculated AHS to be 23rd out of the 359 schools on the site by combining the average test scores in math and English. And AHS has steadily produced above-average test scores; City-data.com has every statistic you could think of from 2006, 2007, and 2008 in individual bar-graphs. I've linked it for anyone as curious as I am, but it's rather tedious (seriously, if you've charted that 97% passed, do you really need a separate chart stating that 3% failed?), and even breaking the distributions down by ethnicity, gender, and grade level.
But we're actually a whole lot luckier than we think, because public schools in the South in general are struggling quite a bit just to pass their kids off as proficient. If I remember correctly, the documentary Waiting for Superman alluded that Alabama has one of the lowest percentages of proficiency in math in the United States, with 18% of 8th graders passing as proficient, and going on to peg more southern states as fellow stragglers. And in the CNN documentary, "Don't Fail Me: Education in America" (available in six parts on YouTube), Soledad O'Brien's interview with now former Tennessee governor Phil Bredesen, actually revealed that parents had been lied to about the proficiency of their students. In particular, for 8th grade math (no idea why this particular age group and subject is so focused on), parents were told that 84% of students were proficient, while the number was actually 22%.
But here's a more relatable (spellcheck tells me that's not a word, but I like it anyway) example, this kid Shaan Patel, the CNN documentary, had a similar naive mindset (Best thing, btw, when O'Brien said to Shaan, "Your brother is autistic?", he reflected, "My brother has autism, yes." @Kayla Coggins/Special Friends). On the subject of calculus, he was under the impression that most kids in high school take calculus - not that ridiculous of an idea, right? But it turns out that only about 16% of high school students in America get to take calculus [According to Soledad O'Brien in the documentary; I have actually found a statistic that cites the U.S. Department of Education's finding that 14.1% of graduating seniors in the class of 2004 took calculus (that article is not to be confused with David Bressoud's earlier article which claimed that the statistic was, in fact 16%. But I trust the former [and the Dept. of Education])]. Disclaimer: My parenthetical usage was unintentionally reminiscent of Jonathan Safran Foer.
Waiting for Superman was a documentary that criticized a number of public schools who are "failing" their students - by not providing an adequate education that would prepare them for higher education, which in this documentary actually refers to high school, then ultimately college. It suggested is that there exist a number of schools in the US that practice something called "tracking", where students are divided early on into "tracks" based on test scores. Remember when we had to take that math test in the 6th grade that assigned us into Algebra, Pre-Algebra, and basic math for the next year? Yeah. It happened. The documentary explains it perfectly in 54 seconds. And the cartoon is pretty cute. Basically, there are three main tracks: the high track leads to becoming doctors, lawyers, and business executives, the middle track leads to "skilled" jobs like accountancy, and the lower track is for menial labor. But this system was devised for a post-war era, where the majority of jobs were, in fact, menial blue-collar positions. Therefore, only 20% of students were expected to go to university and be put into boxes made of ticky-tacky. This is the high track; another 20% would follow the middle track, and the remaining 50% would be directed to the lower track. Unfortunately, times have changed and now demand is high for ticky-tacky - but because the US isn't producing enough, they look overseas for engineers and researchers. This is why unemployment exists - there are jobs, but in the high track, and people just aren't qualified enough to fill them. It isn't enough to have 50% of the population be farmers anymore. Looks like we're all made of ticky-tacky in the end.
So here lies secondary education, between the proverbial rock and a hard place. Honestly, I don't see a clear, effective solution to improving the education system. Many thought that Bush's No Child Left Behind act in 2001/02 was the answer; it mandated that, in exchange for regular funding, each state set standards for education that are to be met by designing standardized exams for students. But the thing is, the states can alter the standards that they set - so if the students are underperforming, they simply lower the standard for the next year and say that the kids are up to par. Or they just don't get money. Like in that one episode of Family Guy.
President Obama has proposed a blueprint, outlining reform of the NCLB act. Honestly, the talking points just seem like powerfully phrased statements in favor of making things better. Throw in some large monetary figures, and you've got yourself some pretty heavy promises. Obama's got this idea called "Race to the Top", in which states submit applications for grants - essentially pitting states against one another in hopes of getting them motivated to make changes - but each state's application is just another set of powerfully phrased goals and promises.
Many efforts have been made for education reform - and many efforts have crashed and burned, been shot down, or slowly faded away. Google Michelle Rhee, for goodness sake, the now former D.C. Chancellor of Education. She had passion, confidence, and huge ideas. But she was also involved in a scandal concerning the suspicious alteration of standarized test answers in DC. And she fired a crapload of people. And she has since tendered her resignation as chancellor. Go big or go home. So maybe Obama's plan isn't so bad after all. He seems to make a lot of promises with considerably less delivery - but the thing is, eloquently phrased goals have an inexplicable emotional effect on people. He promised change, and it made people listen to him - because they wanted change. Inspiration can have a lasting effect on people. So maybe "Race to the Top" will crash and burn. Or get shot down, or slowly fade away. But at least I can have faith that someone will try again.
Try again, fail better.
Tuesday, December 7, 2010
Orbis Non Sufficit (The World is Not Enough)
In retrospect, I wish I hadn't used the title "Arm Yourself Because No One Else Here Will Save You" for an entry over the summer. That line is from the opening song to Casino Royale, referring to - you guessed it - the dangers in espionage. I used it as a metaphor for being knowledgable about lifestyle decisions and ethics.
So here's another James Bond title, and another question of ethics.
Tonight there was a lecture by a retired member of the CIA, Jim Olson. He's written a book called Fair Play on the ethics of espionage and the lengths the CIA will go to to provide for national security. He grew up in a small town in Iowa and had dreams of finishing law school, finding a nice Iowa girl, settling down, and having a family. But in his last year of law school, he was contacted and recruited by the CIA. He went through years of training - physical training, psychological tests, crash courses in language immersion, skill building. Everything we've ever dreamt or seen in the movies from jumping out of airplanes to using innocent looking gadgets as deadly weapons. Over the next 31 years, Jim would meet his wife Meredith, also a CIA officer, and have three children - all while on assignment overseas. They moved a lot, and took a different job every time they got a new assignment, and therefore a new cover. Jim noted how difficult life would have been if Meredith hadn't also been involved with the CIA and understood the sacrifices.
For the length of time that they served in the CIA, neither Jim nor Meredith told any of their friends or family members about their true work. Jim took various covers as everything from a banker to a fertilizer salesman - Meredith's father just thought he couldn't hold down a steady job. It wasn't until the Olsons were undercover in Vienna, Austria and had a terrorist issue a death threat against their family that Jim and Meredith were forced to tell their oldest son about the nature of their work, in hopes that he would help look out for his younger siblings. They finished their assignment in Vienna safely.
But it wasn't his exciting life, nor the extent of his clandestine career that Jim came to lecture about. He posed the question: how ethically correct are the decisions that the United States Government makes in terms of acquiring intelligence and protecting the country? He set up several real situations and had us vote "yay" or "nay" on whether or not the decision was morally correct. All of the situations presented really happened.
First: It is against CIA protocol to treat people inhumanely or to practice espionage within US borders. So, somewhere overseas, the CIA enlists the help of other foreign allies to kidnap the head of a dangerous terrorist group, place him in a windowless room of an abandoned building, and beat him until he reveals the identities of his group members. The CIA did not participate in harming the terrorist, but they organized and funded the kidnapping. Right or wrong?
Answer: We, as audience members voted by a show of hands. Roughly 80% of us voted no, this was not morally correct, while 20% voted yes. But what did the US think? Well, let's just say the terrorist revealed the other members who were subsequently arrested and executed. When Jim asked if anyone would like to comment on their decision, people expressed frustration. A man lamented that he felt uncomfortable voting without knowing exactly how dangerous and volatile these terrorists were. Another older man was enraged that the US would even have been involved in something as reprehensible as torture. This guy was pissed. But he couldn't deny the fact that the US, indeed, was involved.
Next: Another well known terrorist group leader is known to be in a certain place. It is not possible to kidnap him, or arrrest him. With the extent of his dangerous work in mind, is it okay to employ the use of explosives or other technology and assassinate him?
This is the one that kills me. I voted no, it's not okay to assassinate people. I was among the 25% of the auditorium that thought so.
Some situations dealt with faith, Notre Dame being what it is. Is it ethical to take a cover as a missionary, or a member of the clergy? You would still be spreading God's Word and doing good works - you just wouldn't really be a missionary. And you would be using the relationships that you form to gain information and access to terrorist religious sects. I was sitting next to a priest who lived on campus. He was very friendly, obviously glad to meet someone to talk to. He had spent time working overseas in Africa - as a legitimate clergy member. I watched him out of the corner of my eye as we voted - me for using religion as a cover, and him against. The rest of the auditorium was split 50/50.
There were also situations of a different sort: like, there's a female CIA officer. She's joined a local tennis club in hopes of recruiting future CIA members. However, a government official from another country frequents the club as well. They form a friendship, playing sets and having lunch. The female officer notices that he might want more than friendship - and is prepared to seduce him in order to recruit him to the US. Ethical?
Then, there was the case of a terrorist who was secretly feeding information to the CIA. He demands that the US provide him with a prostitute, or he'll stop helping. Jimmy Carter was president at the time. He said okay.
Another was about sex and blackmail: There's a member of an Iranian sect who came to the US and frequented homosexual bars and engaged in homosexual activity. The FBI picks up on this and alerts the CIA to his presence. The strict Muslim policy of the terrorist group would be enraged if they found out the man was homosexual - he would be fired, to say the least. Should the CIA contact the man and threaten to tell his superiors about his sexuality unless he provides them with information?
You know, there was an article in TIME magazine last summer, back when my dad had that subscription. I remember topics of waterboarding. All kinds of ethical, controversial fun. Then there was one, which I have dug up for the sake of sharing the tenet of kindness. There was an Al-Qaeda operative that was captured and held in a Yemini prison for about a year. His name was Abu Jandal, and he was Osama bin Laden's chief bodyguard. The FBI came in to question him, unsuccessfully. He was uncooperative and difficult. And he didn't eat any of the cookies that were served at the meeting. One of the FBI officers learned that Jandal was diabetic, and couldn't eat sugar. So the next meeting, the officer brought him sugar-free cookies. The big bad bodyguard was touched. He softened. And started talking.
No form of physical or psychological torture was required.
So here's another James Bond title, and another question of ethics.
Tonight there was a lecture by a retired member of the CIA, Jim Olson. He's written a book called Fair Play on the ethics of espionage and the lengths the CIA will go to to provide for national security. He grew up in a small town in Iowa and had dreams of finishing law school, finding a nice Iowa girl, settling down, and having a family. But in his last year of law school, he was contacted and recruited by the CIA. He went through years of training - physical training, psychological tests, crash courses in language immersion, skill building. Everything we've ever dreamt or seen in the movies from jumping out of airplanes to using innocent looking gadgets as deadly weapons. Over the next 31 years, Jim would meet his wife Meredith, also a CIA officer, and have three children - all while on assignment overseas. They moved a lot, and took a different job every time they got a new assignment, and therefore a new cover. Jim noted how difficult life would have been if Meredith hadn't also been involved with the CIA and understood the sacrifices.
For the length of time that they served in the CIA, neither Jim nor Meredith told any of their friends or family members about their true work. Jim took various covers as everything from a banker to a fertilizer salesman - Meredith's father just thought he couldn't hold down a steady job. It wasn't until the Olsons were undercover in Vienna, Austria and had a terrorist issue a death threat against their family that Jim and Meredith were forced to tell their oldest son about the nature of their work, in hopes that he would help look out for his younger siblings. They finished their assignment in Vienna safely.
But it wasn't his exciting life, nor the extent of his clandestine career that Jim came to lecture about. He posed the question: how ethically correct are the decisions that the United States Government makes in terms of acquiring intelligence and protecting the country? He set up several real situations and had us vote "yay" or "nay" on whether or not the decision was morally correct. All of the situations presented really happened.
First: It is against CIA protocol to treat people inhumanely or to practice espionage within US borders. So, somewhere overseas, the CIA enlists the help of other foreign allies to kidnap the head of a dangerous terrorist group, place him in a windowless room of an abandoned building, and beat him until he reveals the identities of his group members. The CIA did not participate in harming the terrorist, but they organized and funded the kidnapping. Right or wrong?
Answer: We, as audience members voted by a show of hands. Roughly 80% of us voted no, this was not morally correct, while 20% voted yes. But what did the US think? Well, let's just say the terrorist revealed the other members who were subsequently arrested and executed. When Jim asked if anyone would like to comment on their decision, people expressed frustration. A man lamented that he felt uncomfortable voting without knowing exactly how dangerous and volatile these terrorists were. Another older man was enraged that the US would even have been involved in something as reprehensible as torture. This guy was pissed. But he couldn't deny the fact that the US, indeed, was involved.
Next: Another well known terrorist group leader is known to be in a certain place. It is not possible to kidnap him, or arrrest him. With the extent of his dangerous work in mind, is it okay to employ the use of explosives or other technology and assassinate him?
This is the one that kills me. I voted no, it's not okay to assassinate people. I was among the 25% of the auditorium that thought so.
Some situations dealt with faith, Notre Dame being what it is. Is it ethical to take a cover as a missionary, or a member of the clergy? You would still be spreading God's Word and doing good works - you just wouldn't really be a missionary. And you would be using the relationships that you form to gain information and access to terrorist religious sects. I was sitting next to a priest who lived on campus. He was very friendly, obviously glad to meet someone to talk to. He had spent time working overseas in Africa - as a legitimate clergy member. I watched him out of the corner of my eye as we voted - me for using religion as a cover, and him against. The rest of the auditorium was split 50/50.
There were also situations of a different sort: like, there's a female CIA officer. She's joined a local tennis club in hopes of recruiting future CIA members. However, a government official from another country frequents the club as well. They form a friendship, playing sets and having lunch. The female officer notices that he might want more than friendship - and is prepared to seduce him in order to recruit him to the US. Ethical?
Then, there was the case of a terrorist who was secretly feeding information to the CIA. He demands that the US provide him with a prostitute, or he'll stop helping. Jimmy Carter was president at the time. He said okay.
Another was about sex and blackmail: There's a member of an Iranian sect who came to the US and frequented homosexual bars and engaged in homosexual activity. The FBI picks up on this and alerts the CIA to his presence. The strict Muslim policy of the terrorist group would be enraged if they found out the man was homosexual - he would be fired, to say the least. Should the CIA contact the man and threaten to tell his superiors about his sexuality unless he provides them with information?
You know, there was an article in TIME magazine last summer, back when my dad had that subscription. I remember topics of waterboarding. All kinds of ethical, controversial fun. Then there was one, which I have dug up for the sake of sharing the tenet of kindness. There was an Al-Qaeda operative that was captured and held in a Yemini prison for about a year. His name was Abu Jandal, and he was Osama bin Laden's chief bodyguard. The FBI came in to question him, unsuccessfully. He was uncooperative and difficult. And he didn't eat any of the cookies that were served at the meeting. One of the FBI officers learned that Jandal was diabetic, and couldn't eat sugar. So the next meeting, the officer brought him sugar-free cookies. The big bad bodyguard was touched. He softened. And started talking.
No form of physical or psychological torture was required.
Thursday, September 2, 2010
They Burn in Our Brains - Become a Living Hell
Couple of confessions:
First, to recap something from the last post, "Hoping for the Best". Recall that there was a lobotomy case in the late 1940s where surgeons blindly severed blood vessels in a woman's brain in hopes of curing her eccentricity and making her fit into their idea of normal society. Well, a couple of days after I wrote that post, I had a scientific method activity in my physics-theater class (a class based on examining the presence of scientific principles in plays and such). In small groups, we had to make educated guesses at the contents of a sealed shoebox. We could shake it, drop it, throw it - just not open it. The first girl in my group picked up the box, shook it a few times, and declared that she thought it was a CD. Every subsequent person followed in suit, and agreed that it was a CD. For some reason, I just didn't want to agree with everyone else - even as the experiment continued and it became more apparent that it was, indeed, a CD. I held out for Tupperware lid.
Later in class, I thought about how my disagreement affected everyone else - my opinion was out of place. It was different. And it was wrong. I thought about how people in the 20th century would have looked at me. And I resolved that every day from then on, I should try to do at least one thing every day that's out of the ordinary - something out of place, something untraditional - something that would warrant the 20th century to stick a scalpel inside of my head.
Tonight, we had the traditional Lewis Hall Freshman Welcome. We went to the chapel (every dorm has its own chapel) and listened to our rector and hall staff talk about the emphasis on feeling at home here. Then we broke into floor sections and were given necklaces with the Notre Dame crest on one side and the Golden Dome engraved on the other. Then our RA threw a box of tissues into the center of the circle and proceeded to hand out letters. Letters from parents, or in my case, a letter from my RA, Kayla. I read the card and looked at the little fridge magnet she bought me. I finished and caught Kayla looking at me. I smiled and mouthed "thank you", seeing as how she'd written me a card so I would have something to read while the other girls cried over letters from their parents. I knew she pitied me. And I let her.
You see, I just happened to check the mail on the day that Lewis sent my parents the letter over the summer, asking them to write me a personal letter about how proud they are of me. I had seen the Notre Dame logo and opened it without looking at who it was addressed to. I played with the idea of giving them the letter. Explaining that I had opened it on accident and therefore ruined the surprise. But then I thought about it some more. My school had to send them a request for them to tell me that they're proud of me? I threw the letter away. Over orientation weekend, I got into a fight with my dad. I resorted to not speaking to him unless absolutely necessary - and even then, I wouldn't look at him. When the parents were asked to go into the chapel to listen to our rector Layla give a presentation, I quickly and clearly said, "If anyone asks you to write me a letter, don't. I don't want you to."
Everything went exactly as planned. But when I saw the trouble that Kayla went through, I felt horrible. I thought about confessing to the circle, but decided against it when I saw how affected my section was by their letters. Honestly, the idea of me crying in public repulses me. That's just how I am. The idea of showing emotion to strangers is...well, less than ideal. But wait: I would rather be pitied than display sentimentality? What the hell is wrong with me?
Maybe someone really should sweep a scalpel around the inside of my brain.
First, to recap something from the last post, "Hoping for the Best". Recall that there was a lobotomy case in the late 1940s where surgeons blindly severed blood vessels in a woman's brain in hopes of curing her eccentricity and making her fit into their idea of normal society. Well, a couple of days after I wrote that post, I had a scientific method activity in my physics-theater class (a class based on examining the presence of scientific principles in plays and such). In small groups, we had to make educated guesses at the contents of a sealed shoebox. We could shake it, drop it, throw it - just not open it. The first girl in my group picked up the box, shook it a few times, and declared that she thought it was a CD. Every subsequent person followed in suit, and agreed that it was a CD. For some reason, I just didn't want to agree with everyone else - even as the experiment continued and it became more apparent that it was, indeed, a CD. I held out for Tupperware lid.
Later in class, I thought about how my disagreement affected everyone else - my opinion was out of place. It was different. And it was wrong. I thought about how people in the 20th century would have looked at me. And I resolved that every day from then on, I should try to do at least one thing every day that's out of the ordinary - something out of place, something untraditional - something that would warrant the 20th century to stick a scalpel inside of my head.
Tonight, we had the traditional Lewis Hall Freshman Welcome. We went to the chapel (every dorm has its own chapel) and listened to our rector and hall staff talk about the emphasis on feeling at home here. Then we broke into floor sections and were given necklaces with the Notre Dame crest on one side and the Golden Dome engraved on the other. Then our RA threw a box of tissues into the center of the circle and proceeded to hand out letters. Letters from parents, or in my case, a letter from my RA, Kayla. I read the card and looked at the little fridge magnet she bought me. I finished and caught Kayla looking at me. I smiled and mouthed "thank you", seeing as how she'd written me a card so I would have something to read while the other girls cried over letters from their parents. I knew she pitied me. And I let her.
You see, I just happened to check the mail on the day that Lewis sent my parents the letter over the summer, asking them to write me a personal letter about how proud they are of me. I had seen the Notre Dame logo and opened it without looking at who it was addressed to. I played with the idea of giving them the letter. Explaining that I had opened it on accident and therefore ruined the surprise. But then I thought about it some more. My school had to send them a request for them to tell me that they're proud of me? I threw the letter away. Over orientation weekend, I got into a fight with my dad. I resorted to not speaking to him unless absolutely necessary - and even then, I wouldn't look at him. When the parents were asked to go into the chapel to listen to our rector Layla give a presentation, I quickly and clearly said, "If anyone asks you to write me a letter, don't. I don't want you to."
Everything went exactly as planned. But when I saw the trouble that Kayla went through, I felt horrible. I thought about confessing to the circle, but decided against it when I saw how affected my section was by their letters. Honestly, the idea of me crying in public repulses me. That's just how I am. The idea of showing emotion to strangers is...well, less than ideal. But wait: I would rather be pitied than display sentimentality? What the hell is wrong with me?
Maybe someone really should sweep a scalpel around the inside of my brain.
Thursday, August 26, 2010
Hoping For the Best - Just Hoping Nothing Happens
On Monday, I went to a soccer game on campus. It was weird without a section of screaming boys beating an African drum and heckling the other team.
Although there were vuvuzelas.
Blogger doesn't recognize "vuvuzela" as a word.
Anyway. I left a little after the second half started and walked around, trying to associate myself with campus before classes started the next day. It really is as beautiful as everyone says it is. Even to a girl who's used to humidity in 90 degree weather and thinks that anything below 70 is a bit chilly.
I went to the library. The giant building with the mural of "Touchdown Jesus" facing the reflection pool. I just wandered around - wanting at first to find copies of my favorite books, but settling for wandering when I failed to locate anything but reference books.
I found myself in the basement somehow, surrounded by tall shelves - some with mechanical handles that fold them like an accordion to conserve space. When I'd given up on finding anything entertaining, I started to head back. I don't even remember why I stopped, but I did. And, somehow, I found myself in the middle of the medical book section. I remembered seeing the section highlighted on a map somewhere, but I had actually decided against the idea of actively searching for it.
I flipped through a few books. One on the history of thoracic surgery, something on psychology, others on puberty, etc. But then I came across a book entitled Last Resort. And I picked it out. It had a subtitle: Psychosurgery and the Limits of Medicine. Intriguing.
It was about the practice of lobotomies - cutting out a portion of the brain in hopes of fixing something - anything. Katy, stop reading. I scanned the table of contents, then began to read a chapter on how the times have changed and lobotomies are no longer effective. I lost interest quickly. But for some reason, I really wanted to hold on to this book.
So I went back to the beginning, and I read the first chapter, the introduction. It was entitled "A Stab in the Dark". The chapter described a case in 1947 of a thirty-three year old woman who had undergone brain surgery. Any by "brain surgery", I mean the doctor drilled two holes, one on each side of her temples, into her skull. He removed the pieces of bone, and inserted a blunt scalpel into one of the holes. He swept it back and forth, severing some of the tissues that hold the lobes together. Then he repeated it on the other side. If he didn't screw up any major blood vessels, he sewed up the ends of the tissues and stuck the pieces of bone back in. Operation complete.
And do you know why Miss Jane Doe had her brain cut open and stitched back together?
Society deemed her a failure. Her marriage failed and ended in divorce - solid proof that she couldn't fulfill her role in society as a housewife. She, herself, began to believe that she could never function in society the way she was expected to. She grew depressed and developed mental disorders like anxiety and hallucinations. Oh, and she experimented with women a little. Another societal no-no. And so her family committed her to a mental institution. Where she was poked and prodded and treated, to no avail. Now, this is a direct quote from the book: "...these doctors believed that by destroying a portion of [her] brain they might make life for her more bearable as well as transform her into a better person" (Pressman).
Because she didn't already fit into everyone else's idea of what was normal.
Although there were vuvuzelas.
Blogger doesn't recognize "vuvuzela" as a word.
Anyway. I left a little after the second half started and walked around, trying to associate myself with campus before classes started the next day. It really is as beautiful as everyone says it is. Even to a girl who's used to humidity in 90 degree weather and thinks that anything below 70 is a bit chilly.
I went to the library. The giant building with the mural of "Touchdown Jesus" facing the reflection pool. I just wandered around - wanting at first to find copies of my favorite books, but settling for wandering when I failed to locate anything but reference books.
I found myself in the basement somehow, surrounded by tall shelves - some with mechanical handles that fold them like an accordion to conserve space. When I'd given up on finding anything entertaining, I started to head back. I don't even remember why I stopped, but I did. And, somehow, I found myself in the middle of the medical book section. I remembered seeing the section highlighted on a map somewhere, but I had actually decided against the idea of actively searching for it.
I flipped through a few books. One on the history of thoracic surgery, something on psychology, others on puberty, etc. But then I came across a book entitled Last Resort. And I picked it out. It had a subtitle: Psychosurgery and the Limits of Medicine. Intriguing.
It was about the practice of lobotomies - cutting out a portion of the brain in hopes of fixing something - anything. Katy, stop reading. I scanned the table of contents, then began to read a chapter on how the times have changed and lobotomies are no longer effective. I lost interest quickly. But for some reason, I really wanted to hold on to this book.
So I went back to the beginning, and I read the first chapter, the introduction. It was entitled "A Stab in the Dark". The chapter described a case in 1947 of a thirty-three year old woman who had undergone brain surgery. Any by "brain surgery", I mean the doctor drilled two holes, one on each side of her temples, into her skull. He removed the pieces of bone, and inserted a blunt scalpel into one of the holes. He swept it back and forth, severing some of the tissues that hold the lobes together. Then he repeated it on the other side. If he didn't screw up any major blood vessels, he sewed up the ends of the tissues and stuck the pieces of bone back in. Operation complete.
And do you know why Miss Jane Doe had her brain cut open and stitched back together?
Society deemed her a failure. Her marriage failed and ended in divorce - solid proof that she couldn't fulfill her role in society as a housewife. She, herself, began to believe that she could never function in society the way she was expected to. She grew depressed and developed mental disorders like anxiety and hallucinations. Oh, and she experimented with women a little. Another societal no-no. And so her family committed her to a mental institution. Where she was poked and prodded and treated, to no avail. Now, this is a direct quote from the book: "...these doctors believed that by destroying a portion of [her] brain they might make life for her more bearable as well as transform her into a better person" (Pressman).
Because she didn't already fit into everyone else's idea of what was normal.
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