Christopher R
This is not a visit to an unwell person over the break but the time which I visited an unwell person over thanksgiving break.
It could probably be the worse place that anyone would want to visit and have to see someone they love. A nursing home reminds me of a hospital but a couple times worse because when people go to the hospital the idea is people in the hospital get better. When people go to nursing homes the idea is that they have some kind of sickness where they can’t take care of themselves and usually they are elderly so they are close to death anyway. Hospitals can be viewed as a place of protection whereas a nursing home is viewed as a place (very little) hope. Walking through the nursing home to get to your loved one is the worst part of the experience. It feels like a jail, the people are stuck in their rooms with the door open and it’s extremely hard to reframe from looking. Everyone seems so helpless and the way that they stare out the door as people walk by gives off the idea that they don’t want to be there. After viewing all these people being in a very unhealthy state, made me feel like I could become sick aswell by association. It isn’t very often when you see a lot of sick people all at one time. Walking down the halls of the nursing home knowing that more than a few people have died there is also uncomfortable because being around unhealthy people is usually a title given to nurses and doctors.
“Somewhere, over the rainbow, way up high” said the woman in the wheel chair that smiled from ear to ear but revealed no teeth. Being surrounded by sick people made me feel as if they were going to die sooner than later. It seemed like they were already dead. The things that people are predominantly able to do such as walk, talk, have “sane thoughts” is what you start to do at young ages so not being able to do this makes it seem like they are less than human. The nursing home was more of a prison of people in very bad circumstances, compared to the hospital where the idea is to go to recover and get treatment. Then after seeing other sick people who are complete strangers I got to see the person who I actually came to visit. You have to watch as they struggle to do things that came naturally before. I couldn’t count the amount of times she said she had recently seen someone who in actuality had been dead for years. There are memories of the person and all the things they use to do, and these are compared to who they are now, unable to take care of themselves and having many physical and mental difference makes you feel helpless.
She was in a wheelchair, unable to move her legs at all; she had a heart condition where she needed to have a peacemaker. Her face became drastically darker, all of her skin under her neck became tough, she wasn’t able to eat and sleep. In fact at one point it seemed she was so close to death because she wasn’t able to talk and her son tried to take life insurance on her so in case she did die he would get all the money. This was probably the worse I have ever seen her, someone who was able to take care of 9 children and a husband and herself, is now the same person who is unable to things on her own and is around the kitchen on holidays asking how she can help.
Then I noticed the people that work there are always positive, the calendar outside of the room has a list of events, these people who to me come off as dead are scheduled to play kickball (even the ones in the wheel chairs) go to dances, attend church and do other activities I would never imagine they could do or would want to do. Why would an old woman with a heart condition wake up and want to play kick ball or dance. But as I think about it while writing this it makes me realize that if people who were in nursing homes went there and just waited to die the time between them arriving and actually dying would also be a lot like death. Giving people the options to do things they use to do gives them a chance to continue living instead of a room to count down the days until death.
Thursday, December 30, 2010
Monday, December 27, 2010
Homework 26
Christopher R 12/27/10
1. The idea of death is kept in hospitals.
2. How you’re supposed to react to death.
3. The idea of whether or not children should be exposed to death in the family.
4. Death is something people don’t talk about.
5. A poor person in France can have a longer life than a rich person in the United States. (http://www.ined.fr/en/everything_about_population/graph_month/life_expectancy_france/) (http://www.google.com/publicdata?ds=wb-wdi&met=sp_dyn_le00_in&idim=country:USA&dl=en&hl=en&q=united+states+life+expectancy+graph#met=sp_dyn_le00_in&idim=country:USA:FRA)
I think Sicko was a good film to talk about the history of health insurance and the disadvantages that the health insurance companies have but it doesn’t really talk about the dominant social practices of death. I think the thing that helped the most was when Evan’s mother came in to speak about her personal experience. This is because when you have someone dictating to you about how they feel about death through a screen it aren’t as emotional or sentimental as when you are face to face with someone. Getting to hear the person as they sit right in front of you, and share something that is usually seen as a topic not to talk about there is more to be learned. Especially from my point of view, I have never had anyone close to me die and that shields me from the actual emotion that a death in the family could bring. It’s much easier to understand and sympathize with a person who you now, never see anything wrong with them and then hear about what they had to go through as they speak about death in their family.
The question that has gotten to me this whole unit is how you are supposed to act when someone close to you dies. There are so many different kinds of people in the world and to say that someone is supposed to act a certain way about someone else is perplexing. Personally I have been to a few funerals and some of them were the funerals of family members but I had never had never cried. At the funeral it seems like everyone feels they have to cry and most of the tears are exaggerated. People jumping around the church and falling to the floor is not a notion that will bring the dead person back so what’s the purpose of sobbing about their non-existence. Another question I had is what the origin of a formal funeral is, the actual purpose of a funeral because I feel like these two things would give me an idea of why so many people use funerals as a way of saying goodbye. If there is any other popular form of remembering the dead and if so why isn’t it as televised? I think the way we can go about finding this would be more research but as for the way people are supposed to act I think it has a lot to do with what people see in the media.
1. The idea of death is kept in hospitals.
2. How you’re supposed to react to death.
3. The idea of whether or not children should be exposed to death in the family.
4. Death is something people don’t talk about.
5. A poor person in France can have a longer life than a rich person in the United States. (http://www.ined.fr/en/everything_about_population/graph_month/life_expectancy_france/) (http://www.google.com/publicdata?ds=wb-wdi&met=sp_dyn_le00_in&idim=country:USA&dl=en&hl=en&q=united+states+life+expectancy+graph#met=sp_dyn_le00_in&idim=country:USA:FRA)
I think Sicko was a good film to talk about the history of health insurance and the disadvantages that the health insurance companies have but it doesn’t really talk about the dominant social practices of death. I think the thing that helped the most was when Evan’s mother came in to speak about her personal experience. This is because when you have someone dictating to you about how they feel about death through a screen it aren’t as emotional or sentimental as when you are face to face with someone. Getting to hear the person as they sit right in front of you, and share something that is usually seen as a topic not to talk about there is more to be learned. Especially from my point of view, I have never had anyone close to me die and that shields me from the actual emotion that a death in the family could bring. It’s much easier to understand and sympathize with a person who you now, never see anything wrong with them and then hear about what they had to go through as they speak about death in their family.
The question that has gotten to me this whole unit is how you are supposed to act when someone close to you dies. There are so many different kinds of people in the world and to say that someone is supposed to act a certain way about someone else is perplexing. Personally I have been to a few funerals and some of them were the funerals of family members but I had never had never cried. At the funeral it seems like everyone feels they have to cry and most of the tears are exaggerated. People jumping around the church and falling to the floor is not a notion that will bring the dead person back so what’s the purpose of sobbing about their non-existence. Another question I had is what the origin of a formal funeral is, the actual purpose of a funeral because I feel like these two things would give me an idea of why so many people use funerals as a way of saying goodbye. If there is any other popular form of remembering the dead and if so why isn’t it as televised? I think the way we can go about finding this would be more research but as for the way people are supposed to act I think it has a lot to do with what people see in the media.
Sunday, December 19, 2010
HW 25 - Response to Sicko
Christopher R
Michael Moore tries to use the film Sicko to explore how the American health care system works and the people who are pulled through the cracks by the big bad money hungry health insurance companies. Viewing health insurance companies as an organization that tries to make money opposed to helping people Michael Moore also tries to bring out the differences between the countries that have socialist health care, showing the benefits of having free health care for everyone. Sicko also uses views the history of the way that health care came to be in America.
1. First Lady, Hilary Clinton tried to make strides in helping Bill Clinton get to a better insurance policy for Americans but couldn't because of constant anti-socialist health care propaganda.
2. A rich person in America has a lower life expectancy than a poor person in France.
The people in France do have a longer life expectancy than Americans, according to the sources, the life expectancy at birth continues to grow. The life expectancy for someone who is born in 2010 in France the life expectancy is 81. There are far less articles that are current about the United States life expectancy however many reports says that it is 78. As far as the poor versus wealthy, I don't think this is an actual statistic but based of the 81, 78 average and knowing that the highest 20 percent of income was 42, and the lowest was 2.8 compared to the United States rising poverty rate the amount of the top 10 percent in the United States would be close to the bottom ten percent in France. With these two groups of people the French (ON AVERAGE) would have a longer life expectancy.
And according to this graph compare to this graph, since 1960 the French have been above the United States in life expectancy.
The ideas and feelings that struck me the most crucial were the many different ways that you could be denied from getting health insurance. Most health insurance companies are advertised as places where no one gets turned away, however knowing that some companies have people to go through your history finding different things that could have even been treatable and deny you for these things confuses me. When hearing about this I immediately thought about what Evan Wood’s mother said about not having health insurance but being able to get full treatment for her husband for free. Then I thought about this compared to the woman from the movie who found someone in her husband’s family that could be a perfect person to get bone marrow from. However they were denied for this and subsequently her husband died of the cancer that he was fighting. Companies are denying people for things that they have had in their past and because if it they are suffering now or even worse they were suffering, and now the families are the people who have to deal with the companies decision. Because cancer seems to be one of the more dominant cases that people need treatment for it reminds me of the Cancer Treatment Center of America commercials that are always on television (I know you don’t watch television) talking about never turning down anyone, also start to make me skeptical. Knowing that people who are advertised to help you are people who just wants money is scary.
The most important excerpt that was shown in the movie, were the exposures of the propaganda that was constantly being shown as well as the politicians such as George H. Bush, George W. Bush, and Ronald Regan, referring to the health care. When George H. Bush said ask a Canadian, I felt like he was trying to install fear, into the people he’s supposed to be leading. Then when showing how much bush was brought out for and what Ronald Regan said showed that these people who were elected to help us have other intentions on how they will use the power that they do have.
Michael Moore tries to use the film Sicko to explore how the American health care system works and the people who are pulled through the cracks by the big bad money hungry health insurance companies. Viewing health insurance companies as an organization that tries to make money opposed to helping people Michael Moore also tries to bring out the differences between the countries that have socialist health care, showing the benefits of having free health care for everyone. Sicko also uses views the history of the way that health care came to be in America.
1. First Lady, Hilary Clinton tried to make strides in helping Bill Clinton get to a better insurance policy for Americans but couldn't because of constant anti-socialist health care propaganda.
2. A rich person in America has a lower life expectancy than a poor person in France.
The people in France do have a longer life expectancy than Americans, according to the sources, the life expectancy at birth continues to grow. The life expectancy for someone who is born in 2010 in France the life expectancy is 81. There are far less articles that are current about the United States life expectancy however many reports says that it is 78. As far as the poor versus wealthy, I don't think this is an actual statistic but based of the 81, 78 average and knowing that the highest 20 percent of income was 42, and the lowest was 2.8 compared to the United States rising poverty rate the amount of the top 10 percent in the United States would be close to the bottom ten percent in France. With these two groups of people the French (ON AVERAGE) would have a longer life expectancy.
And according to this graph compare to this graph, since 1960 the French have been above the United States in life expectancy.
The ideas and feelings that struck me the most crucial were the many different ways that you could be denied from getting health insurance. Most health insurance companies are advertised as places where no one gets turned away, however knowing that some companies have people to go through your history finding different things that could have even been treatable and deny you for these things confuses me. When hearing about this I immediately thought about what Evan Wood’s mother said about not having health insurance but being able to get full treatment for her husband for free. Then I thought about this compared to the woman from the movie who found someone in her husband’s family that could be a perfect person to get bone marrow from. However they were denied for this and subsequently her husband died of the cancer that he was fighting. Companies are denying people for things that they have had in their past and because if it they are suffering now or even worse they were suffering, and now the families are the people who have to deal with the companies decision. Because cancer seems to be one of the more dominant cases that people need treatment for it reminds me of the Cancer Treatment Center of America commercials that are always on television (I know you don’t watch television) talking about never turning down anyone, also start to make me skeptical. Knowing that people who are advertised to help you are people who just wants money is scary.
The most important excerpt that was shown in the movie, were the exposures of the propaganda that was constantly being shown as well as the politicians such as George H. Bush, George W. Bush, and Ronald Regan, referring to the health care. When George H. Bush said ask a Canadian, I felt like he was trying to install fear, into the people he’s supposed to be leading. Then when showing how much bush was brought out for and what Ronald Regan said showed that these people who were elected to help us have other intentions on how they will use the power that they do have.
HW 24 - Illness & Dying Book, Part 3
Precis-Throughout the experience of the death of my brother, my family, my mother, my husband, and myself went through an array of emotions. Some taking it more heavy than others. My brother was diagnosed with HIV/AIDS and the limited amount of help available kept most hope for a recovery as just hope. Most people in Antigua who do have AIDS would be able to tell you about the lack of help, so when he did die there wasn't as much of a feeling of grief. People knew this would happen, changing the way they felt about it. The relationship I had with my mother and my brother wasn't a normal relationship, for the most part I didn't like them. Me and my brother had an unusual relationship and when my brother died I didn't feel like i loved him. I only knew him for the first three years and the last three years of his life. After his death he looked nothing like he did before becoming sick. His skin changed, his lips and all body features seemed to be dead. My brother had died, my father, and my mentor which changed me but to them I would like to say thank you.
Quote-"And my brother died, for he kept dying; each time I remembered that he had died it was as if he had just at that moment died, and the whole experience of it would begin again; and my brother had died, and I didn't love him; or, at any rate, I didn't love him in the way that I had come to understand love" (Page 148)
"I expected Mr. Shawn to read, and so when I first heard of my brother dying and immediately knew I would write about him, I thought of Mr. Shawn, but Mr. Shawn had just died, too, and I had seen Mr. Shawn when he was dead, and even then I wanted to tell him what it was like when he had died" (Page 197)
"My mother's house after he was dead was empty of his smell, but I did not know that his dying had a smell until he was dead and no longer in the house, he was at the undertaker's, and I never asked my mother about the smell of the house." (Page 177)
'Not really more than a week after he was buried in the warm and yellow clay of the graveyard in Antigua, I resumed the life that his death had interrupted, the life with my own family, and the life of having written a book and persuading people to simply go out and buy it" (Page 152)
Thoughts- I feel like the end of this book goes against the idea that most people feel the way death is SUPPOSED to be. I feel like the word SUPPOSED is something that goes against the name of the class SUPPOSED would mean something is normal because thats how it should be. With the idea that NORMAL is WEIRD it makes me feel like this story fits perfectly with the idea of the class. Looking at other perspectives of things in life is what this book does. If your brother were to die people expect you to be grieving and upset, which is something that Jamaica Kincaid could have written about. However she admits that she only knew him for the beginning of his life and the end. There isn't much feeling that she has compared to NORMAL people because she has only known her brother a short amount of time. And because she references not loving him I feel like its an alternative to the way people feel how you HAVE to cry even when people don't know the person. If she loves her brother at a different way where she barely loves him according to what she knows love to be, theres a more accurate depiction of death delivered in the story.
Quote-"And my brother died, for he kept dying; each time I remembered that he had died it was as if he had just at that moment died, and the whole experience of it would begin again; and my brother had died, and I didn't love him; or, at any rate, I didn't love him in the way that I had come to understand love" (Page 148)
"I expected Mr. Shawn to read, and so when I first heard of my brother dying and immediately knew I would write about him, I thought of Mr. Shawn, but Mr. Shawn had just died, too, and I had seen Mr. Shawn when he was dead, and even then I wanted to tell him what it was like when he had died" (Page 197)
"My mother's house after he was dead was empty of his smell, but I did not know that his dying had a smell until he was dead and no longer in the house, he was at the undertaker's, and I never asked my mother about the smell of the house." (Page 177)
'Not really more than a week after he was buried in the warm and yellow clay of the graveyard in Antigua, I resumed the life that his death had interrupted, the life with my own family, and the life of having written a book and persuading people to simply go out and buy it" (Page 152)
Thoughts- I feel like the end of this book goes against the idea that most people feel the way death is SUPPOSED to be. I feel like the word SUPPOSED is something that goes against the name of the class SUPPOSED would mean something is normal because thats how it should be. With the idea that NORMAL is WEIRD it makes me feel like this story fits perfectly with the idea of the class. Looking at other perspectives of things in life is what this book does. If your brother were to die people expect you to be grieving and upset, which is something that Jamaica Kincaid could have written about. However she admits that she only knew him for the beginning of his life and the end. There isn't much feeling that she has compared to NORMAL people because she has only known her brother a short amount of time. And because she references not loving him I feel like its an alternative to the way people feel how you HAVE to cry even when people don't know the person. If she loves her brother at a different way where she barely loves him according to what she knows love to be, theres a more accurate depiction of death delivered in the story.
Wednesday, December 15, 2010
My Brother by Jamaica Kincaid Precis' Part 2
Precis- 2 Months would pass and my brother would only become more sick. The body that he use to have seemed to be just that, the body that he USE to have. His lips were extremely chapped and his body was very skinny. The body that he had before was very skinny but the way that he looks now isn't the same way. Before he seemed like a healthy person and the kind of skinny that he has now makes him see like he is very close to death. As he got worse and his body started to fall apart on him he died. I was told this by my husband, when he first started to tell me about my brothers death I thought it was someone in his family. When he told me it was my brother i felt relived knowing I would be able to handle death in my family easier than my husband.
Quotes- "His death was imminent and we were all anticipating it, including him, but we never gave any thought to the fact that this was true for all of us: our death was imminent, only we were not anticipating it...yet. (Page 92)
'When my husband woke me up, he said, "Sweetie, come, come, I have to talk to you. In the dark of the room I could see his face; that isn't really possible, to see something like a face in the dark of a room. (Page 99)
"Dalma just called, Devon died." And when he said "Devon died" I thought, Oh it's Devon who died, not one of his relatives, not someone of his, this is not someone he has to grieve for." (Page 99)
Thoughts-This book seems to be very raw and that makes it very true and I would guess if you lost someone close to you this could be very easy to relate to. The only thing that confuses me is the calm tone that Jamaica always has. You always hear about people crying when they are told about someone close to them dying but Jamaica faces everything that usually brings heartache around her with a calm head. He father also died but she doesn't seem to convey any of her feelings at the time and when she does those feelings are always described with calm words. She never seems to be mad or upset she is always expecting the worse so everything thats bad that happens to her is just expected.
Quotes- "His death was imminent and we were all anticipating it, including him, but we never gave any thought to the fact that this was true for all of us: our death was imminent, only we were not anticipating it...yet. (Page 92)
'When my husband woke me up, he said, "Sweetie, come, come, I have to talk to you. In the dark of the room I could see his face; that isn't really possible, to see something like a face in the dark of a room. (Page 99)
"Dalma just called, Devon died." And when he said "Devon died" I thought, Oh it's Devon who died, not one of his relatives, not someone of his, this is not someone he has to grieve for." (Page 99)
Thoughts-This book seems to be very raw and that makes it very true and I would guess if you lost someone close to you this could be very easy to relate to. The only thing that confuses me is the calm tone that Jamaica always has. You always hear about people crying when they are told about someone close to them dying but Jamaica faces everything that usually brings heartache around her with a calm head. He father also died but she doesn't seem to convey any of her feelings at the time and when she does those feelings are always described with calm words. She never seems to be mad or upset she is always expecting the worse so everything thats bad that happens to her is just expected.
Tuesday, December 14, 2010
Homework 21 part B
Chris,
There were a few grammatical/spelling errors in your post, but overall I felt like you got most of your ideas across well. Your last paragraph was thought-provoking, I would imagine that if you were in such late stages of cancer that you would know that you would die fairly soon. And really, when you are that sick just about all you can do is lie in a bed. He could barely eat and needed morphine, I doubt there was much he could have done differently Chris.
Your paragraph about the stigma that is associated with people who have AIDS was very relevant to our group right now, because in Jamaica Kincaid's book that is a very important theme. I think there are parallels to that social disassociation in nature, the sick and dying are shunned in many animal groups, and are usually culled from the herd. Maybe there's some base instinct to avoid a sick person that stems from a survivalist need to avoid getting sick yourself.
(Comment from Lucas London)
Hi Chris!
I think you tackled some really tough subject matter very gracefully. You made it clear that although you've never been in such a position, you can still understand the range of feelings someone experiences when someone close to them passes away. Your line "The pain of seeing someone almost helpless ... wheeled away by a celebrity guest doctor" really struck me, because it hits very close to home. As a teenager in America, I'm no stranger to the horrors of fatal illnesses; it's hard to watch TV at night without stumbling across at least one show romanticizing hospitals and sick people. It tends to make people desensitized, so that when they come into contact with real-life death experiences, they're shocked by the level of seriousness and loss.
I'd say you could improve your writing by getting a little passionate. You come off as a tad stiff, like you're concentrating more on using nice words and concise sentences then you are on conveying your ideas. Get passionate! Think about what you're saying, and let the reader in on your thought process. It's a lot more relatable that way. :)
Comment from Isabel Jenkins
chris,
I think you answered the question Andy posed thoughtfully, fully and in a very organized manner. I think this was pro aswell as a con. I think your post can be more interesting when you find an insight you are either knowledgable about or curious about and persue it to the best you can. I very much enjoyed the second to last paragraph and the last one I thought it was the most insightful and you could have definitly expanded on it. I think that you should try to think deeply on the topic itself rather than precisely following a rubric. The rubric helps when ur struggling no doubt, but if you want to improve your own insights and make it more interesting for myslef think deeply and try to find a passionate idea you have. when u love the idea the reader loves reading about it. hope my comment helps
Comment from John Tabor
Lucas,
I think you have a lot of good thoughts and I agree with a lot of what you are saying here. You do a good job of answering the questions but there is no third paragraph to talk strictly about your thoughts on what she said and not the thoughts that she relayed to us.It was also easy to see how your thoughts connected to the thoughts of the speaker and I like how it is easy to tell the difference. I know that when some people try to do this, it can be confusing to find the point of views that they have opposed to the points of view that someone else had. I think that this work could have more "beauty" if perhaps you have had a personal experience with someone dying and maybe talked about that. There is also the chance that you haven't had this experience and if not I also feel that knowing your internship is in a hospital, you could talk a little bit about that when you make the reference to the doctors in the hospitals. Only because I was there when Beth was talking and I know a lot about her views and the assignment says to talk about that but when addressing beauty I personally feel that it is easier to have some sort of natural beauty when you talk about something personal because everyone has a story and telling by the ability of your writing it would be interested to feel some of your personal views. That could also make it more passionate making it that much better.
(my comment to Lucas)
Hey John,
I like a lot of what you said and I think you got a good point across about what Beth was saying and you did a good job answering the questions that Andy presented. Also, when I know that you most likely had some of the feelings that Beth had and you mention that when you say, "Before my own father died I felt more distanced from him he wasn’t the same image of my father I had when I was younger". But even though this could just be something that may be to personal for you to want to talk about I feel like even though you compared your feelings to Beth you could go more into depth about the differences and the similarities of how you felt with how Beth felt. The question does ask you to compared both of these things and I think you do address this but for someone who has experienced this I thought maybe you could bring up something that you thought she might have felt that you felt. As for the beauty in the work and the insight, I feel that you also bring something up that is very smart about the norms changing, which is something that I didn't really think that much about when she said he was a "stay-at-home dad". Besides this, the one thing that I thought could have made your blog better was just going more into depth IF you feel comfortable with that about your experience because that would have brought out a lot more beauty in this assignment.
(my comment to John)
Hey Burt,
I think that the strongest paragraph you have in this was the second paragraph. In that short paragraph I think you stated something that not many people have stated in their blogs and it is one of the most key pieces to what was being said by Beth. You mentioned that we normally don't see people die. I think this was the beginning of a really good paragraph but you failed to make a follow up statement about this. I think your work could have been much better if you would have talked about this more or staying home helping someone more considering that you said it was something that jumped out to you immediately. Posing some questions and trying to dig deeper is something that I really encourage you to do for the remainder of the blog post. Also you seem to answer the questions pretty well but the questions do say compare and contrast the insights that you have and I would like to see how some of what you think. Then for the questions you do ask, I feel like some of these could have been questions that you tried to answer when you talk about other things in the beginning of the post. So what you overall need to focus on for later is expanding on your ideas because they will probably be good, maybe adding in something from personal experience and making sure you compare and contrast your thoughts. Doing this will completely answer the homework question.
(My comment to Jasper)
There were a few grammatical/spelling errors in your post, but overall I felt like you got most of your ideas across well. Your last paragraph was thought-provoking, I would imagine that if you were in such late stages of cancer that you would know that you would die fairly soon. And really, when you are that sick just about all you can do is lie in a bed. He could barely eat and needed morphine, I doubt there was much he could have done differently Chris.
Your paragraph about the stigma that is associated with people who have AIDS was very relevant to our group right now, because in Jamaica Kincaid's book that is a very important theme. I think there are parallels to that social disassociation in nature, the sick and dying are shunned in many animal groups, and are usually culled from the herd. Maybe there's some base instinct to avoid a sick person that stems from a survivalist need to avoid getting sick yourself.
(Comment from Lucas London)
Hi Chris!
I think you tackled some really tough subject matter very gracefully. You made it clear that although you've never been in such a position, you can still understand the range of feelings someone experiences when someone close to them passes away. Your line "The pain of seeing someone almost helpless ... wheeled away by a celebrity guest doctor" really struck me, because it hits very close to home. As a teenager in America, I'm no stranger to the horrors of fatal illnesses; it's hard to watch TV at night without stumbling across at least one show romanticizing hospitals and sick people. It tends to make people desensitized, so that when they come into contact with real-life death experiences, they're shocked by the level of seriousness and loss.
I'd say you could improve your writing by getting a little passionate. You come off as a tad stiff, like you're concentrating more on using nice words and concise sentences then you are on conveying your ideas. Get passionate! Think about what you're saying, and let the reader in on your thought process. It's a lot more relatable that way. :)
Comment from Isabel Jenkins
chris,
I think you answered the question Andy posed thoughtfully, fully and in a very organized manner. I think this was pro aswell as a con. I think your post can be more interesting when you find an insight you are either knowledgable about or curious about and persue it to the best you can. I very much enjoyed the second to last paragraph and the last one I thought it was the most insightful and you could have definitly expanded on it. I think that you should try to think deeply on the topic itself rather than precisely following a rubric. The rubric helps when ur struggling no doubt, but if you want to improve your own insights and make it more interesting for myslef think deeply and try to find a passionate idea you have. when u love the idea the reader loves reading about it. hope my comment helps
Comment from John Tabor
Lucas,
I think you have a lot of good thoughts and I agree with a lot of what you are saying here. You do a good job of answering the questions but there is no third paragraph to talk strictly about your thoughts on what she said and not the thoughts that she relayed to us.It was also easy to see how your thoughts connected to the thoughts of the speaker and I like how it is easy to tell the difference. I know that when some people try to do this, it can be confusing to find the point of views that they have opposed to the points of view that someone else had. I think that this work could have more "beauty" if perhaps you have had a personal experience with someone dying and maybe talked about that. There is also the chance that you haven't had this experience and if not I also feel that knowing your internship is in a hospital, you could talk a little bit about that when you make the reference to the doctors in the hospitals. Only because I was there when Beth was talking and I know a lot about her views and the assignment says to talk about that but when addressing beauty I personally feel that it is easier to have some sort of natural beauty when you talk about something personal because everyone has a story and telling by the ability of your writing it would be interested to feel some of your personal views. That could also make it more passionate making it that much better.
(my comment to Lucas)
Hey John,
I like a lot of what you said and I think you got a good point across about what Beth was saying and you did a good job answering the questions that Andy presented. Also, when I know that you most likely had some of the feelings that Beth had and you mention that when you say, "Before my own father died I felt more distanced from him he wasn’t the same image of my father I had when I was younger". But even though this could just be something that may be to personal for you to want to talk about I feel like even though you compared your feelings to Beth you could go more into depth about the differences and the similarities of how you felt with how Beth felt. The question does ask you to compared both of these things and I think you do address this but for someone who has experienced this I thought maybe you could bring up something that you thought she might have felt that you felt. As for the beauty in the work and the insight, I feel that you also bring something up that is very smart about the norms changing, which is something that I didn't really think that much about when she said he was a "stay-at-home dad". Besides this, the one thing that I thought could have made your blog better was just going more into depth IF you feel comfortable with that about your experience because that would have brought out a lot more beauty in this assignment.
(my comment to John)
Hey Burt,
I think that the strongest paragraph you have in this was the second paragraph. In that short paragraph I think you stated something that not many people have stated in their blogs and it is one of the most key pieces to what was being said by Beth. You mentioned that we normally don't see people die. I think this was the beginning of a really good paragraph but you failed to make a follow up statement about this. I think your work could have been much better if you would have talked about this more or staying home helping someone more considering that you said it was something that jumped out to you immediately. Posing some questions and trying to dig deeper is something that I really encourage you to do for the remainder of the blog post. Also you seem to answer the questions pretty well but the questions do say compare and contrast the insights that you have and I would like to see how some of what you think. Then for the questions you do ask, I feel like some of these could have been questions that you tried to answer when you talk about other things in the beginning of the post. So what you overall need to focus on for later is expanding on your ideas because they will probably be good, maybe adding in something from personal experience and making sure you compare and contrast your thoughts. Doing this will completely answer the homework question.
(My comment to Jasper)
Friday, December 10, 2010
My Brother by Jamaica Kincaid Precis'
FIRST PRECISE
Precis- The affect of AIDS is extremely powerful in Antigua, how fast it is spread around, the amount of people that already have it, the lack of support to try and stop it, and the lack of medicine and doctors willing to treat people with it. So many people are contracting AIDS from not knowing enough or not listening to the advice given about the prevention of AIDS. My brother has been diagnosed with AIDS from the way that he looks to the way he acts and things he done have all changed. Having AIDS in Antigua, makes you close to death, people don't get treated when they have AIDS because it is seen as a waste. My brother has been hospitalized and might not be able to survive with the small amount of medical people addressing the point.
Thoughts-"He said that people who are not HIV=positive give up too soon on the people who are, but that he tried to keep everybody alive, because you never know when a cure might come along. He said that --you never knew when a cure might come along-- and I could not tell if, in that he as asserting native Antiguan foolishness or faith in science" (Page 35)
"Afterward two men asked him for a lift, and when they reached a certain part of town, a part of town where prostitutes live, they asked to be let out. Dr Ramsey asked them if they had condoms and they said no. He asked them if they had not listened to anything he had just told the, and they said to him yes, but they would rather die than leave the butter women alone." (Page 39)
"When I called Dr. Ramsey I asked him if he would meet me at the hospital and examine my brother and give us, his family, medical advice as to what we could do, what we could not do, what we could expect and, perhaps, when to expect it." (Page 32)
Thoughts- I have a hard time connecting to the ideas that are being brought up in this book. As for the way that the book is written I completely understand but that idea that someone with AIDS is almost forgotten about. Also the idea that people who know what AIDS is and have such a plentiful amount of AIDS still have people having unprotected sex. In the United States we have programs to teach kids about AIDS in the 6th and 7th grade, free condoms everywhere, and hospitals that make it their motto to never give up on people who have a disease such as AIDS. Apparently at this time in Antigua it was common for AIDS to be something that many people have but I would also guess if it was some sort of epidemic then many people would be more afraid of catching it there would be a high amount of medicine to make this easier to live with. Whereas in the United States people are taught at young ages about this there are still many people in Antigua (during the time of the book) where adults have to be educated.
Precis- The affect of AIDS is extremely powerful in Antigua, how fast it is spread around, the amount of people that already have it, the lack of support to try and stop it, and the lack of medicine and doctors willing to treat people with it. So many people are contracting AIDS from not knowing enough or not listening to the advice given about the prevention of AIDS. My brother has been diagnosed with AIDS from the way that he looks to the way he acts and things he done have all changed. Having AIDS in Antigua, makes you close to death, people don't get treated when they have AIDS because it is seen as a waste. My brother has been hospitalized and might not be able to survive with the small amount of medical people addressing the point.
Thoughts-"He said that people who are not HIV=positive give up too soon on the people who are, but that he tried to keep everybody alive, because you never know when a cure might come along. He said that --you never knew when a cure might come along-- and I could not tell if, in that he as asserting native Antiguan foolishness or faith in science" (Page 35)
"Afterward two men asked him for a lift, and when they reached a certain part of town, a part of town where prostitutes live, they asked to be let out. Dr Ramsey asked them if they had condoms and they said no. He asked them if they had not listened to anything he had just told the, and they said to him yes, but they would rather die than leave the butter women alone." (Page 39)
"When I called Dr. Ramsey I asked him if he would meet me at the hospital and examine my brother and give us, his family, medical advice as to what we could do, what we could not do, what we could expect and, perhaps, when to expect it." (Page 32)
Thoughts- I have a hard time connecting to the ideas that are being brought up in this book. As for the way that the book is written I completely understand but that idea that someone with AIDS is almost forgotten about. Also the idea that people who know what AIDS is and have such a plentiful amount of AIDS still have people having unprotected sex. In the United States we have programs to teach kids about AIDS in the 6th and 7th grade, free condoms everywhere, and hospitals that make it their motto to never give up on people who have a disease such as AIDS. Apparently at this time in Antigua it was common for AIDS to be something that many people have but I would also guess if it was some sort of epidemic then many people would be more afraid of catching it there would be a high amount of medicine to make this easier to live with. Whereas in the United States people are taught at young ages about this there are still many people in Antigua (during the time of the book) where adults have to be educated.
Tuesday, December 7, 2010
Homework 21
Christopher R
1. Not being able to seek health because the lack of health insurance
2. (The sadness in her voice in different moments of the story)
3. Not being in denial but hoping for the best.
4. Difference in reaction from both children.
5. Husband’s body changed completely, unlike in movies.
6. Surrounding her husband with artwork that he had created
7. Introducing him with his artwork then his kids. Not being described by just a disease.
8. Being the one who wants to care for her sick husband 24/7 not having doctors do it for her.
9. Letting Evan be exposed to one of the worse times in his dad’s life.
10. Telling her husband to let go because his body would be much use to him.
Number Five: When people who don’t have direct experiences with someone dying, such as myself there’s some sort of confusion of what this would actually be like when it does happen. So what most people get their views from on they see people dying and handling this is the television. It’s almost as if the world of television and anyone who “resides” there can influence the way we live in “real life” and how we react to things that happen to us. She mentioned that while he was in the worse stages of his cancer, he didn’t look the same and all the bones in his body were showing. She also mentioned that the entire process was long and heart-wrenching. I’ve never had anyone close to me die but watching someone die who had be one of the closest people to you couldn’t possibly compare to a two part episode of family matters. The pain of seeing someone almost helpless in the position where they couldn’t talk anymore has to be a far more devastating than having to wait to the next to watch one of your favorite characters get wheeled away by a celebrity guest doctor. Personally I haven’t experienced any death as close as to losing a husband; I’ve never lost an immediate family member. My view of how losing someone closes to me can’t even be compared to someone who has gone through, so even if I try to think of how it will be its most likely nowhere nears the pain people must feel.
Number Seven: After people get sick the only thing they can be defined by is there illness. It starts to become there personality. Instantly someone who has AIDS is now recognized by this because of the large part of the day that has to be dedicated to keeping diseases under control. After the disease starts to change a person’s body, now this person is also physically associated with the disease. Why the disease starts to infect your body it also infects the way people see and treat you. By introducing someone who is sick to another person by the work that they have, it creates the idea that this person is more than the disease because they did do something BEFORE they became sick and they will be something after everything is said and done. Personally if I was being introduced to someone while I was in one of the worse states in my life, I wouldn’t be want to be viewed by my lowest moment, just like Beth tried to do I would want to be loved for the things I have done, the people I have help, and anything I have helped created. The day you die is the lowest moment that a person is viewed (or at least seconds before you die). If everyone went around thinking about the worse times someone had there wouldn’t be any reason for accomplishing anything. All the hard work done in life would be lost once death came, instead of preserved for the people close to you.
The biggest Idea that Beth’s presentation sparked was, referring to the last ten days of her husband’s life as, “The last ten days”. This really got to me because when someone is sick they may know they are going to die but there is no expiration date. So the people who succeed this person and use terms like “the last ten days gives me a weird feeling. Even though these were the last ten days I feel like if Beth’s husband knew that he only had ten more days he would have tried to use them differently. So referring to this as the last ten days just seems like a inaccurate way of referring to this.
1. Not being able to seek health because the lack of health insurance
2. (The sadness in her voice in different moments of the story)
3. Not being in denial but hoping for the best.
4. Difference in reaction from both children.
5. Husband’s body changed completely, unlike in movies.
6. Surrounding her husband with artwork that he had created
7. Introducing him with his artwork then his kids. Not being described by just a disease.
8. Being the one who wants to care for her sick husband 24/7 not having doctors do it for her.
9. Letting Evan be exposed to one of the worse times in his dad’s life.
10. Telling her husband to let go because his body would be much use to him.
Number Five: When people who don’t have direct experiences with someone dying, such as myself there’s some sort of confusion of what this would actually be like when it does happen. So what most people get their views from on they see people dying and handling this is the television. It’s almost as if the world of television and anyone who “resides” there can influence the way we live in “real life” and how we react to things that happen to us. She mentioned that while he was in the worse stages of his cancer, he didn’t look the same and all the bones in his body were showing. She also mentioned that the entire process was long and heart-wrenching. I’ve never had anyone close to me die but watching someone die who had be one of the closest people to you couldn’t possibly compare to a two part episode of family matters. The pain of seeing someone almost helpless in the position where they couldn’t talk anymore has to be a far more devastating than having to wait to the next to watch one of your favorite characters get wheeled away by a celebrity guest doctor. Personally I haven’t experienced any death as close as to losing a husband; I’ve never lost an immediate family member. My view of how losing someone closes to me can’t even be compared to someone who has gone through, so even if I try to think of how it will be its most likely nowhere nears the pain people must feel.
Number Seven: After people get sick the only thing they can be defined by is there illness. It starts to become there personality. Instantly someone who has AIDS is now recognized by this because of the large part of the day that has to be dedicated to keeping diseases under control. After the disease starts to change a person’s body, now this person is also physically associated with the disease. Why the disease starts to infect your body it also infects the way people see and treat you. By introducing someone who is sick to another person by the work that they have, it creates the idea that this person is more than the disease because they did do something BEFORE they became sick and they will be something after everything is said and done. Personally if I was being introduced to someone while I was in one of the worse states in my life, I wouldn’t be want to be viewed by my lowest moment, just like Beth tried to do I would want to be loved for the things I have done, the people I have help, and anything I have helped created. The day you die is the lowest moment that a person is viewed (or at least seconds before you die). If everyone went around thinking about the worse times someone had there wouldn’t be any reason for accomplishing anything. All the hard work done in life would be lost once death came, instead of preserved for the people close to you.
The biggest Idea that Beth’s presentation sparked was, referring to the last ten days of her husband’s life as, “The last ten days”. This really got to me because when someone is sick they may know they are going to die but there is no expiration date. So the people who succeed this person and use terms like “the last ten days gives me a weird feeling. Even though these were the last ten days I feel like if Beth’s husband knew that he only had ten more days he would have tried to use them differently. So referring to this as the last ten days just seems like a inaccurate way of referring to this.
Wednesday, December 1, 2010
Homework 19
Christopher R
At first I asked my mother what she thought about death and dying as well as illness. The first thing so she got a piece of paper and start to write down what she thought. She wrote “Death is a very sad moment in our lives. We all have to go through it and we have to grow up with our brothers and sisters and uncles, and cousins and mothers, and fathers but they all have to die”. So I told her that with all the people in our family that died there has to be more to her feelings about the topic. I would think that someone who has had so many deaths so close together that there would be more emotion to it then something that could go into a dictionary. So after starting over a couple of times I started to extract some of the feelings I think she had been holding back and she even started to tear up in some of the conversation we were having.
Two of her best friend’s one of my godmothers died. Not recently but both of them were really close to my mother and she was always there with both of them while they were close to death. One of them named, Denise was my mother’s childhood best friend. She became ill from cancer. She had cancer in her breast and progressingly became sicker after being diagnosed with this. Her breast was removed and it seemed like things were starting to get better because the cancer had started to go away. But my mother recalls seeing her at her worse where she had to go to her friend’s house and do all of her cooking and all of her laundry. Even though she knew when someone has a sickness like this even though she can hope and pray that she gets better or there is a cure you have to know this person will most likely die. After her breast was removed, the cancer came back in Denise’s lung and it started to spread to her brain. This made Denise turn blind and things started to seem worse from here until her sight came back. While she was saying this to me I thought about how the emotional rollercoaster of someone being sick could really affect the loved ones of this person. Then the cancer started getting worse and Denise died. This was my mother’s best friend; I could only imagine how much sleep someone could lose from this. Then another one of my mother’s friends died.
I would imagine that a broken heart could only be mended when the thing that broke their heart was forgotten. If this was true I could only imagine what kind of condition my mother is in. Within the next 5 years, another one of my mother’s friends passed away. In the conversation she said, “When someone is sick and they die it’s not as hard because you have time to come to the conclusion that this person is going to die, when the person just dies out of nowhere it really hurts”. Her best friend Barbara also died and no one knew where she was for 2 days until she was found dead at the bottom of the basement stairs. This constant loss that my mother was feeling really started to build up when he aunt died, her brother died, her mother was sick, her sister was sick, and her other sister was diagnosed with cancer. “One person can only take so much pain” , when she said this it makes people think about how hard living is because you have to let go to the ones you love most. When all of this happens at the same time it makes it even worse because you’re letting go to everyone you love at once.
My mother and her mother and most likely many generations before them believe in Christianity and she brought up the idea of seeing someone who had been alive to welcome you into heaven. Although I believe there is a God I don’t know exactly what part of Christianity I believe in. So I guess the teachings of religion changes with me. I was baptized but I don’t know a lot about my religion. My mother brought up this prophet like idea that her aunt presented to her before she died. Her aunt predicted what would happen. Words from my mom: “She told her daughter that she was going to be buried between one and two because she wanted people told able to get there, and she told everyone it was going to rain, but when we left our house it was bright and clear outside. After the pastor preached her funeral, there was a big dark cloud hanging over the church. Everyone went outside to bury her body, when everyone was outside and the pastor commenced her body back to the earth, I was standing there talking. There was a strong wind and everyone felt it because it was a cold wind so people said ‘that was Aunt Lucille saying goodbye for the last time’. Then while we were eating it started to pour hard for 15 minutes. Everyone had known about the prediction about it raining and believed it was a prophet like statement.”
In regards to the people who raised her, “I guess you can say, they are both very religious they were brought up very religious. They believe everyone meets their maker, and when death comes they accept it. We have to accept it. You don’t try to question why, but we were brought up to not question why. Everyone has to die because of the second judgment day and that’s what I was taught.” I think my mother’s family taught her a lot about what she believes now a lot of people where she lived had the same beliefs. Me, being someone who lives in New York I got a more multicultural view on death and illness. Even though I’m with my family most of the time when things like this do come up I get a better and wider perspective on what people think.
I also really like the line "death ain't nothing but birth in reverse" I don't agree with it but I like the idea of it.
At first I asked my mother what she thought about death and dying as well as illness. The first thing so she got a piece of paper and start to write down what she thought. She wrote “Death is a very sad moment in our lives. We all have to go through it and we have to grow up with our brothers and sisters and uncles, and cousins and mothers, and fathers but they all have to die”. So I told her that with all the people in our family that died there has to be more to her feelings about the topic. I would think that someone who has had so many deaths so close together that there would be more emotion to it then something that could go into a dictionary. So after starting over a couple of times I started to extract some of the feelings I think she had been holding back and she even started to tear up in some of the conversation we were having.
Two of her best friend’s one of my godmothers died. Not recently but both of them were really close to my mother and she was always there with both of them while they were close to death. One of them named, Denise was my mother’s childhood best friend. She became ill from cancer. She had cancer in her breast and progressingly became sicker after being diagnosed with this. Her breast was removed and it seemed like things were starting to get better because the cancer had started to go away. But my mother recalls seeing her at her worse where she had to go to her friend’s house and do all of her cooking and all of her laundry. Even though she knew when someone has a sickness like this even though she can hope and pray that she gets better or there is a cure you have to know this person will most likely die. After her breast was removed, the cancer came back in Denise’s lung and it started to spread to her brain. This made Denise turn blind and things started to seem worse from here until her sight came back. While she was saying this to me I thought about how the emotional rollercoaster of someone being sick could really affect the loved ones of this person. Then the cancer started getting worse and Denise died. This was my mother’s best friend; I could only imagine how much sleep someone could lose from this. Then another one of my mother’s friends died.
I would imagine that a broken heart could only be mended when the thing that broke their heart was forgotten. If this was true I could only imagine what kind of condition my mother is in. Within the next 5 years, another one of my mother’s friends passed away. In the conversation she said, “When someone is sick and they die it’s not as hard because you have time to come to the conclusion that this person is going to die, when the person just dies out of nowhere it really hurts”. Her best friend Barbara also died and no one knew where she was for 2 days until she was found dead at the bottom of the basement stairs. This constant loss that my mother was feeling really started to build up when he aunt died, her brother died, her mother was sick, her sister was sick, and her other sister was diagnosed with cancer. “One person can only take so much pain” , when she said this it makes people think about how hard living is because you have to let go to the ones you love most. When all of this happens at the same time it makes it even worse because you’re letting go to everyone you love at once.
My mother and her mother and most likely many generations before them believe in Christianity and she brought up the idea of seeing someone who had been alive to welcome you into heaven. Although I believe there is a God I don’t know exactly what part of Christianity I believe in. So I guess the teachings of religion changes with me. I was baptized but I don’t know a lot about my religion. My mother brought up this prophet like idea that her aunt presented to her before she died. Her aunt predicted what would happen. Words from my mom: “She told her daughter that she was going to be buried between one and two because she wanted people told able to get there, and she told everyone it was going to rain, but when we left our house it was bright and clear outside. After the pastor preached her funeral, there was a big dark cloud hanging over the church. Everyone went outside to bury her body, when everyone was outside and the pastor commenced her body back to the earth, I was standing there talking. There was a strong wind and everyone felt it because it was a cold wind so people said ‘that was Aunt Lucille saying goodbye for the last time’. Then while we were eating it started to pour hard for 15 minutes. Everyone had known about the prediction about it raining and believed it was a prophet like statement.”
In regards to the people who raised her, “I guess you can say, they are both very religious they were brought up very religious. They believe everyone meets their maker, and when death comes they accept it. We have to accept it. You don’t try to question why, but we were brought up to not question why. Everyone has to die because of the second judgment day and that’s what I was taught.” I think my mother’s family taught her a lot about what she believes now a lot of people where she lived had the same beliefs. Me, being someone who lives in New York I got a more multicultural view on death and illness. Even though I’m with my family most of the time when things like this do come up I get a better and wider perspective on what people think.
I also really like the line "death ain't nothing but birth in reverse" I don't agree with it but I like the idea of it.
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