A picture represents just a thousand words......

The topics that sparked my interest of this week were about how bias is also present in pictures.

"A picture represents a thousand words", after this week, I think that quote needs an adjective describing not how many words, but instead what kind of words the picture conveys. It is interesting, no one is capable of not having bias. So the accurate representation of the picture depends on what your bias is or if you have a slightly open mind, what the photographer/artists' bias was while capturing that moment. I think this connects back to the compare-contrast in-class essay we did on the birds. The two authors had different backgrounds and therefore different perceptions of the birds. With that in mind, no one can take the same message from a picture, it will remind people of different moments, like Mrs. Dalloway, they will float from memory to present time connecting various sights, sounds, feelings...people.

Perspective is really what makes our world go round. Going past the literary world, into other fields, if different people hadn't thought of the same problem in a unique way, we wouldn't have the technology, food, music, language we are so fortunate (and unfortunate) to have access to now. (Unfortunate because: #thedress). From differences in what God rules us, to how to use a piece of cloth, perspective has shaped how the humans have evolved.

I want to go on about this, but it doesn't seem right to. That's just my bias, make your own as you please.


If you know why the gif is there.... kudos!!! :)

feeling peevish

This past week we watched the movie, The Hours, a film loosely based on Mrs. Dalloway.  I'm glad that we did see the movie, it is always interesting to be able to compare and contrast and try to find linkage between books and movies. In the whole movie, there was this one line that for some reason stood out to me...

"So that's the monster"

Julia Vaughn, Clarissa's daughter mutters it to Sally, as Laura walks into their apartment.
Richard's physical ailment of AIDS doesn't seem to be the reason for his illness. The real reason is because of how heartlessly Laura abandoned him, her child, her son. What mother can bear to leave her children? I don't think I understood exactly why she did it. There was an experiment done with a monkey and her child. The scientists took the pair to a swimming pool, and placed them right in the middle, with just a rod. At first the monkey was keeping her child above her, away from the water. But gradually as the hours wore on and the level of the water rose, there came a point where she left her child and took the rod to reach the deck. (Please note that this experiment didn't take place during modern times, it took place during the time of kings and empires.) Both mothers, the monkey and Laura, left their children, as much as I want to condemn them, I can't, it was a matter of survival. I feel utmost sorrow for them, and as well as disdain.  I really don't want anyone to face such a decision.

There was also the matter of Richard, Laura, Sally, and Clarissa having read the book.

Seriously.

Clarissa read the damn book. She knows that Septimus goes out the window. Yet she stands there perplexed as to why Richard is sitting on the window ledge, after having called her "Mrs. Dalloway".
Yes, I know, having this happen to them, links the book, and the people together, like Clarissa Dalloway feels linked to everyone in the book.

But come on. WHY??!?!

It is agonizing to watch something fall apart slow motion and knowing you can do nothing to save it.

Why not 4 am?

It is a serene night; it is quiet and warmer than before. Almost like the night a few months ago, it was when I was green to studying and decided to befriend the early hours of the morning. 4 a.m. with fog outside like a scene from the movie Casablanca, with the mood as nostalgic. "How many secrets can you keep? There's this tune...". Light reverberations from the master bedroom can be heard, every intake of breath, a snore. I never used to sleep after my dad slept, and wasn't used to trying to drown out the snores that cut the calm like a pebble in a still lake. If only he could stop. Even now it is constant, hardly a night goes by without a snore. By now it has become a part of the night, a rhythm of familiarity. A welcomed reminder. Every night spent, wearing down on the spot on the rug, so much that there is a faint difference. No difference to those that have not been a part of the night in a small, lit room,(the only one still lit on the whole street), just to the owner of the rug, only to me. The four walls are a part of me, leaving this....this small haven....will rip apart and add in a new part of me. Hopefully the next small room is as comforting as this one. A solace. Even if the circumstances are as unpredictable as they can be. Hopefully its Ann Arbor and not anywhere else. I don't want it to be anywhere else. Hope, is not all I can do! I have more, I am more. Hope will not be the decider of where I spend my next four years. I can't let Hope be the decider. Too many other people that have Hope deciding for them. It's too long of a wait. No, not a wait, a race, its always been a race. Why a race? Was there no other way? Why race and not something like bridge? Instead of mindlessly sprinting to the destination, not caring for those around, continuing on to the only finish line, why not use some teamwork, a unique method, multiple ways to victory, and maybe a little luck. Its a game, not a race. "...crawling back to you", the song fades in and then away, a bass guitar holding on till the end. Its too early, not late enough, dawn peeks through.

Stream of Consciousness

The phrase itself sounds like a ramble. It doesn't seem to stop until finally you reach the last consonant, 'ss'. I was interested in finding out how the literary style of stream of consciousness came into being. So here is what I found...

Dorothy Richardson, born on May 17, 1873, was known as the "pioneer of stream-of-consciousness" her writings would later become a strong influence for Virginia Woolf. Richardson was way ahead of her time and was a very independent lady. I feel like she is the embodiment of what Modernism was, she wanted to express herself, took a different approach to life, even went almost as far as raising a child out of wedlock. (This child would have been an already married H.G. Wells', but unfortunately, Richardson suffered a miscarriage).

Richardson wrote a novel, that "stretched 12 volumes" in just stream-of-consciousness. 12 volumes.
And we thought one novel was hard.....

Speaking of, Virginia Woolf had a awesome passage personifying the sisters "Proportion....and Conversion"(100). I was quite giddy over it in class. The passage perfectly put the the Doctor in his place, alluding to his "sense of proportions", and revealing that the trauma Septimus faced was chaotic and unyielding. Even a small reminder of the war was enough to send him into a spiral of horror. The psychological deterioration and pain, in my opinion, is the worst type of experience anyone can have, worse than physical pain. After all, half of physical pain is the psychological aspect. So the quote, "Sticks and stones may break my bones, words will never harm me", is fundamentally wrong. I wish it were true.

Words can harm, but keeping hurtful words and traumatic experiences ingrained in the mind is the path to human destruction.

The coherence in this post was at an all time high.


(Link to Dorothy Richardson down below)
http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/dorothy-richardson-pioneer-of-stream-of-consciousness-is-born