Blog 5 Cuckoos Nest

The hospital did cause Bromdens problem not his past. His paranoia is from the way the hospital treats the patients. He sees more then the other men do because they think he's deaf. He gets to hear behind the scenes information when he cleans the back room while the staff talks because they think he can't hear him. Which is probably why he is so paranoid. He gets a glimpse at the truth that is destroying all of the patients. They say that Bromdens paranoia and his mental instability is due to the war. They are saying that his issues are from shell shock and that things he saw and went through during the war. I argue that the ward is responsible for his "problems". He also is treated differently because he is thought to be deaf. Hes is neglected and I think that the things they say right in front of him that they think he cant hear, the hurtful things, definitely effect him and probably causes paranoia as well. When he hears them all talking about giving lobotomy's or how they think the patients are close to nothing that would most definitely effect anybody. Nurse Ratched is messing with all the men in the ward. Of course Bromden has some effects from the war. He has seen things that most can't even imagine, but the way he is treated in the hospital caused the damage he suffers from. If Bromden never went to war his paranoia might not be as bad, but is he never went to the ward his paranoia wouldn't be as bad either. Nurse Ratched tortures these men. In the very beginning of the book they force Bromden into the shower and they force shaving on him. He went into the "fog" and probably does has the more vivid and crazy hallucinations because how terribly he is treated and that could be his brains way of trying to make sense of what is going on. He also pictures the nurse as a combine machine in the beginning of the book with multiple metal arms. He feels this way because of how controlling she it towards everyone. When the black boys are walking towards him he tries to disappear into the wall trying to hide from the men when they are trying to force him into the shower, that's how he is coping with the way he doesn't have a say in how his life runs anymore. Having no control over your own life would take a toll on you without a doubt and because of that Bromden is worried about everything all the time as he should be.

Blog 4 Cuckoos Nest

My favorite character in the novel is McMurphy, because of his will to fight against Nurse Ratched. I personally love the way that he just doesn't care about the way the Nurse is trying to control them and stands up to her. I love how McMurphy talks back and laughs in the faces of the people at the ward. I really liked when they were making him brush his teeth at certain times and he just said "god forbid someone brushes there teeth five min till 630" making fun of them. He doesn't care if they get mad at him because he sees through the combine and what they try to plant in the heads of the patients. I like that McMurphy tries to communicate with Bromden even when everyone says he deaf and can't even hear. I like that he treats Bromden like a normal person, because he is even if he was deaf, he still is a normal person. He respected him when no one else knew any better then to not talk to him. I like the kind of person McMurphy is. His spirit of rebellion. One of my favorite things that McMurphy did in the book was break the glass. McMurphy was fed up with the Nurse and all she was hiding behind her wall, and he walked up and hit the glass and broke it. He pretended that he didn't even see the glass and  it was an accident to break it. He wanted to make a statement to the other men in the ward that even though they are just patients and the Nurse and staff is in charge of them they don't have to take it. The staff hides the real world from the patients and McMurphy metaphorically broke that boundary. He is that person to push the boundaries and thats why I like him. I like that he isn't afraid, even in the end of the book he acts brave when he knows he is either going into shock therapy or getting a lobotomy. I also really liked when he tried to get all the men to vote on getting the right to watch the World Series. He wants to see the outside world and he wanted the men to see it too. I like that he fought for everyone to have a good time. I also like that he tried so hard to get everyones vote to watch the game, and he did, but then Nurse Ratched said that the votes were too late, but he did fight for what he wanted and fought for the other men in the ward.

Blog 3 Cuckoos Nest

The ward is a microcosm for society. The way the ward is ran in order to corrupt the patients more then they already are, is the way our society works. People with authority have the power to manipulate, and that is exactly what Nurse Ratched does, and society. There are boundaries put up to "block out" people lower then others. The boundaries don't necessarily mean walls or fences, its a mental block. Society fills are heads with ideas and thoughts that are wrong and misleading, like they are meant to be. Society puts up a wall to hide the truth from people. They only let us see what they want us to see and hide behind a "curtain" with the things that truly are happening and the things are truly are begin effected. The same thing is happening in the hospital. The Nurse and everyone working the ward with the Nurse are hiding behind the truth and keep reality from the patients. But this mental block that is trying to be done can be broken and McMurphy shows us that when he punches the glass window at the hospital that the Nurse and the workers work behind. They don't want the patients seeing what they are giving them or information going on in the real world. They want to hide it from them. Nurse Ratched brain washes all the patients literally and mentally over time. She gives them pills that literally makes them all out of it and they don't know what is going on, but they way she treats them mentally brain washes them. As does society, when they try to hide the truth from the people. One example is war the way society shows the public, society makes war seem like a noble outgoing and that everyone is left with respect and in a great way, and thats not the case, just like we read in The Things They Carried. Society and the Ward do this in the same way, putting on a front to hide the truth. The ward represent the way the outside world works on the inside. They hide behind lies to benefit themselves (society, ward).

Blog 2 Cuckoos Nest

The argument that Nurse Ratched is crazier then the patients can go both ways. I guess it can be  said that she technically isn't as crazy as the patients because she technically seems sane. She doesn't have the problems that the patients have, she can speak clearly, unlike Billy, she can hear fine, unlike Bromden(so they think). She seems to be put together having everything on such a tight schedule, everything in order every day. Nurse Ratched always has a perfectly white put together uniform to work in, and has a certain way she runs everything. In some eyes I can see why she might seem sane. But in my opinion I think she is the craziest of all of them. She is a machine, the combine, she is insane for the way she needs everything to be ran in the same order. Nurse is obsessed with order, which to me seems pretty crazy. She forces the men to take pills against their will. When Taber stands up to the  nurse asking what pills she is trying to have him take, which seems perfectly logical to me, she treats him like a child for not wanting to take medicine that he doesn't know what is it. She tells him she will give it to him one way or another. Thats crazy of her, she drugs the men to make them unaware, she shelters them from whats real and life. She won't even let them watch the world series. Her mind set is crazy. She seems calm and collected which she is but only because of the fact the she is crazy. The way Nurse Ratched has a grip on these mens lives and can control them, and the fact that she feeds off it, is insane and not healthy, she needs more help then the men inside the ward. She's addicted to control and you can see it eating at her when McMurphy tempts her and pushes her the wrong way. McMurphy stands up to her for himself and for the other boys. He knows that they aren't being treated like they should and doesn't take it from her and will push her limits. When he does you can see her freaking out(even though it isn't shown). She keeps still and just gets a different look in her eyes. So in conclusion yes, i can see the fact that "technically" in societies eyes she is sane, but when you think about her actions and the way she runs, she is crazy.

Blog 1 Cuckoos Nest

My least favorite character of the novel is easily Nurse Ratched. She is overly controlling and likes to manipulate the patients in the hospital. She likes to make the patients feel like they are "smaller" then they are, "'Miss, I don't like to create trouble. But I don't like to swallow something without knowing what it is neither.' 'If Mr.Taber chooses to act like a child, he may have to be treated as such. We've tried to be kind and considerate with him. Obviously, that's not the answer...You can go, Mr.Taber, if you don't want to take your medication orally' "(35). She wouldn't tell Mr.Taber what type of medication he was taking and, of course, he fought back, but she acts as if he is in the wrong and she won't tell him and will force it on him because of his unwillingness to take it. She likes to force things the patients don't want on to them. In the beginning of the novel Nurse Ratched forces Bromden into a shower and shave room. "If you yell its just tougher on you. I hold back the yelling. I hold back till they get to my temples"(13). This is when they are putting him in the shower. She likes to make the men feel like they are just a part of her machine, the way the hospitals runs is very orderly and in line and she doesn't like anything less of that. I don't like the way she treats the men, I don't think anyone likes the way she treats them. She likes to run their group therapy sessions too, she doesn't want anything to be said or herd that she doesn't approve of and Harding points that out; " Is this the usual pro-cedure for these group therapy shindigs, a pecking party"(70)? Harding points out that the way the group therapy is run is like a pecking party, relating it to chickens pecking until the patients crack. Even the group therapy ran by Nurse Ratched is torturous to the patients in the ward. She doesn't do anything good for the patients nothing helpful, only harmful. Thats why she is my least favorite character, reading about the way she disrespects the patients and her control over human beings as if they were animals is bull shit. I don't understand where this control she needs to have came from? Maybe when she was younger she had no control over her own life and is taking it out on these men, or maybe she's just a crazy person. She doesn't have a right to talk down on men especially men in psychiatric need.

Transcendentalism Final

Final Exam - Confidence

Real Beauty 

Since the beginning of time confidence has been something every person has had to deal with. Walden once said "I learned this, at least, by my experiment;  that if one advances confidently to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours"(Walden handout. 32-34). Walden was saying that if someone just has the confidence in ones self then they will be able to accomplish anything they want. In the video dove put on they wanted to see the women's confidence and how they portrait themselves. They acknowledge that most people don't see themselves for all they are and that shows when the women explain their faces to the person sketching them, the pictures are very dull. However when strangers explain the women the picture comes out beautiful and spot on. When the women saw both of the pictures next to each other they were taken back and realized how poorly they see themselves compared to others. Confidence impacts everything at it always has been that way. Both Dove and Walden connect this idea about confidence being everything, and how much better you can be and how much more you can accomplish with confidence in yourself.

"Dove Real Beauty Sketches". Youtube. Dove, Apr. 14, 2013.

Final Exam - Nonconformity

BE YOU

Transcendentalist have always talked about the concept of nonconformity. Nonconformity is stepping out of the box, the what everyone else is doing, and stepping to the beat of your own drum. Walden said exactly that " If a man does not keep peace with his compassions perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured of far away"(Walden handout. 67-68). Let people be them is what Walden is saying, and let yourself be you. People try so hard to be in the norm and fit it that they aren't finding the happiness found when being yourself. This is still a common problem today, people want to "fit in". There is a series of motivational speeches that I found and I shared one of them because he relates it to people that are looked up to. I think that is very important in inspiring people to be who they are, if they can look up to successful people who did their own thing they will be inspired to do the same. The narrator of this video says "When you become the right person you begin to separate yourself from other people you will succeed...you study other people but be by yourself find yourself". Another line I like that he says is "When people that don't like you don't bother you...EJ I don't like that you do this, ' I don't care I'm living for me' ". He is telling people to stop worrying about being what what you think other people want and just be, be you! When you truly have that "i don't care what anyone thinks, I'm happy with myself" feeling you have pushed past conformity and fitting in and can be truly happy. Both Whitman and the video are saying this and connecting the same idea. The video does a goo job of connecting to people this day in age with the same idea Whitman had.

"MOTIVATION-BE THE BEST YOU". Youtube. BodyNBeautyFitness, July 22, 2012.

Final Exam- Nature

Circle Of Life

Nature is one thing that has never, and will never, change. That's the beauty of it. No matter what craziness happens in this world it will always start and end the same way. Whitman says " Or i guess the grass itself a child, the produced babe of the vegetation"(Whitman handout. 45-46). It is saying everything starts as a seed, a baby, a grain, and grows. Everything is this world starts as something small and builds. And then it will fall and die because thats the cycle. The cycle does continue though. The video I want to share with you is showing the most spectacular places all over the world and the beauty nature has. Every place that was shown in that video started as something small, and turned into the beauty it has now, but will at some point die or end, but in one way or another carry on. A great example is; when people die they get buried in the ground and with time become part of the soil. With time grass will grow from the soil. A flower will grow in that grass or a tree, the tree that creates oxygen for people now to breath. It's all a cycle that is infinite. Nature is great because it will always be simple. Things are born, live, and die.

"Circle Of Life - Nature". Youtube. Scoot aloo, Jan 15, 2011.

Final Exam - Free Thought

Life is Easy, Its So Easy and Fun

People have always been caught up in the latest and greatest. We as a society have always had a problem with that and always will. It's wasting our lives away. Walden says " Why should we live in such a hurry and waste of life"(Walden handout. 89-90). Why do people always try to be better and try to be faster then the next? They don't realize that they are moving so fast they aren't taking the time to look around at the joy and beauty they are missing. It's a sad yet beautiful theory. Every person since the beginning of time has moved too fast and that is what transcendentalists are saying; look around and slow down. The video I shared a man named Jon Jandai is sharing his story about how he found happiness. He grew up poor with very little, went to a university and was looking at the way people were eating with plastic and throwing it out, and studying to build on the land, and that's not what makes him happy and he left. He went back home and did things the way that makes sense to him. He talks about how people spend so much money on houses that they have to pay off their debt for 30 years, but he can just spend two hours a day stacking bricks on each other and have a house in two months and comparing himself to the man who spends money they have to pay off for years and say "compared to him i have 29 years and ten months of free time". He also talks about how he would save his money for a month to buy a nice pair of pants and then he came to the realization that why spend that time and money on a pair of pants "why do we need to fallow fashion you'll never catch up". In the end of the video he says a few very inspiring things; " i feel free when i think like this...i don't worry about much and doesn't have fear he doesn't need to make himself like anyone else he is number on.. how do we make it easy? we don't know how to make it easy anymore because we complicate everything." This man has overcome transcendentalism and found happiness in himself.

"TEDxDoiSuthep-Jon Jandai". Youtube. TEXDxTALKS, Aug 3, 2011.

Blog 6 Into The Wild

1. Alex has a very strong and very different view on life then most people do. Alex sets out on the journey and leaves everything behind and take off into the wild on the hopes of making it to Alaska. He leaves everything behind, EVERYTHING. He burns his money, gets rid of his ID's, and sets off. Alex says, "rather then money, faith, and fairness, give me truth". Alex got accepted into Harvard law school but he has a different idea for what he wants to do with his life. He wants to have nothing but him self and him self being all he can rely on, and that is exactly what he does. Alex also says he doesn't need anything besides "leafs and berries". I somewhat do agree with his idea of not needing all the money and all the perks of life. But I would not like to or be able to do what he did, I don't think many people would be able to. I think that people these days definitely have a lot more then they need, but on the other hand people really do need more the "leafs and berries". It is nice to have a house to live in, running water, heat, food, clothing, and Alex pretty much leaves all of that behind to be one with nature.

2. There are two arguments about what Alex did; some people say its stupid and foolish, others say he is living his life to the fullest. I think that "living life to the fullest" can be polar opposites in different peoples eyes, and that's why the two opinions of Alex's journey are at two different ends of the spectrum. For Alex, yes he was absolutely living his life to the fullest. All Alex wanted to do was to have experience this self-reliance feeling and make it to Alaska, despite not making it and dying, he died living his life to the fullest just the way he wanted it to be. He wanted to find what he thought was the truth. "rather then money, faith, and fairness, give me truth". He found that truth in the wild. The people who think Alex is being foolish aren't seeing the big picture. they say he'll never make it, he'll be back in no time, etc. But that isn't the point of this expedition for Alex. Alex wants to feel alone and have to figure it out on his own, I think the reason why Alex is searching for this "truth" he's looking for is because he had a lot given to him as a child. He rejects a new car his parents tried to give him, because his works just fine. He doesn't need all the "fluff" in life all the money all the cars all the clothes. He doesn't want it. Alex has a great view on life in the sense of greed. And the people who are saying that hes being stupid are just looking over the deeper meaning of what Alex is doing.