Blogging Around

Alli wrote about blogging this year in a Metacognition blog. She focused on the overall experience of the blogging and specifically the Blogging Around prompt.

Hey Alli. I really liked your take on blogging this year. You gave a really great overview of (I think) everyone's feelings at the beginning of the year. I agree that blogging helped us develop our writing skills but still kept it open to interpretation. I also like the prompt blogging around for the same reasons as you do. It reminded me how many smart people there really are in Academy, and that even those that usually don't talk have many ideas. I found it really interesting that even in the blogs where we were all writing about the same thing, each blog came out differently. It was amazing to see the different ways people think about the same things. You've also inspired me to go back and look at my past blogs, which I have yet to do, so thanks so much!

Emily wrote about her suggestions for blogging in her Metacognition blog. She also talked about her whole impression of the whole blogging experience.

Hey Emily. I really liked all of your ideas. I also agree that some of the really good blogging prompts weren't used, and that more freedom in blogging would be beneficial to the thinking process. I also agree that even though we do not necessarily like the blogging prompts they are beneficial to our thinking. Thank-you for reminding me that blogs gave an open stage to continue conversations had in class, because that is a very important facet of the experience. I also agree with you on the subject of grading, and how it facilitated a free environment. Nice job!

Metacognition: Blogging

All this year, blogging has been a good way to develop thoughts. It helped me think about important things, and made me develop random passing thoughts into something I could actually use. My thinking was not always the best while writing the blogs, but it was genuine, and free. It was relaxing to sit down and write about something that was open ended, but with enough structure so that I could know something to write about within five minutes of sitting down at my computer. I think that some of the prompts should be changed or discarded, and some added. The Best of Week blog should be used sparingly. Captured Thought, Connection, 360 degrees, iMedia, It Matters, should be used more. I had trouble with the Change of Mind blog (and did not enjoy writing them) because I had to change my mind about something, and if your mind had not been changed about things from the recent things than you had nothing to write about. Dialectics should also be explained better. Overall I think the blogging was a good opportunity for everyone to practice their writing and expand their thinking.

Best of Week: Perspective

During the week, in class, we talked about the importance of part 2, and the perspective of the doctor. He observed Micheal K and took note of things that made Micheal a more rounded character. We got to see Micheal better when looking through the eyes of someone else than when following him around in 3rd person. On page 151, the doctor imagines what he would say to Micheal. I am the only one who can save you. I am the only one who sees you for the original soul you are. I am the only one who cares for you. I alone see you as neither a soft case for a hard camp but a human soul above and beneath classification, a soul blessedly untouched by doctrine, untouched by history, a soul stirring its wings within that stiff sarcophagus, murmuring behind that clownish mask. You are precious. Coetzee shows his mastery of irony for in the end, Micheal (or Micheals) is the savor, the doctor's messiah. The doctor cares for Micheal is body, but he cannot heal him in spirit, because to Micheal, there was never anything to heal. His body may shrink to just fragile brittle bones and sinewy muscles but his soul stays constant. Only through the doctors eyes can you see this, he is the only one who sees Micheal's originality. In the end the doctor is left begging for an clue, an idea, from Micheal. He wants to know the answer, although he really had no question, just an obsession. He needs it be acknowledged, for him seeing Micheal as he truly was, was meaningful, to himself (and unbeknownst to him, to us). He felt that, but he had become so dependent on Micheal that he could not know for sure. Micheal had hardly said a word to him, but through his actions, his purity, he changed this one life. One can live with that.

What if people lost the ability to Love?

What if people lost the ability to love? What would our world be like? I am sure that today a great amount of suffering is caused by love, but there is also a great amount of happiness. On the surface, one might think that erasing love would just make it more neutral, but considering this complicated connected world, I don't think it would end up a level playing field. Without love would other things connected to it disappear? Things like family, compassion, romance, tears, appreciation. Almost every book, poem, or movie considered great now would be wasted on this new generation of cold-hearted machines. Every society on earth would fall apart, change, to be replaced with a new way of life. Religion would be completely scraped, or at least geared more towards personal gain. Without love, there is no need for compassion for others or piety or friendship unless it is to benefit yourself. Love creates connections, without it people would have no relationships based on anything other than personal gain. In the end, people who possessed the hardest exterior, who had the least amount of love in them in the first place would rise to the top. When no one can love, those that can do it with the most profit, who are the greediest, can rule this new world. There would undoubtedly be those that remembered love, that wanted it again, but how could they get something so precious back? People would no longer suffer because of love, but a greater amount would suffer from war, from famine, from greed. Although thinking about this is admittedly pessimistic, I think its valid (or at least interesting). If something inside the human brain or the human machine enables us to love, couldn't that part brake? Couldn't it disappear? In order to calculate the importance of something possessed, we must also acknowledge the things (good or bad) we would endure if it were lost.