When this project fell at my feet, I was indifferent on what movie to choose. I typically enjoy horror movies. I’m not sure why but psychological thrillers have always interested me. I sat for a while and thought about the best scary movie I had ever seen but I couldn’t choose! Halloween is a classic (that piano track will scare the pants off me forever), Sinister is gut wrenching and the plot twist is incredible, and Silence of the Lambs will have me on the edge of my seat no matter how many times I watch it. Although all of these are great movies, I still could not pinpoint my favorite. It didn’t dawn on me until I had a conversation with a fellow scary movie buff at my dinner table. My dad, just like me, is obsessed with scary movies. My boyfriend wont watch them with me and his wife wont watch them with him so we watch them together. He was talking about all the movies that were around when I was a baby and then, it came to me. My favorite horror movie was definitely The Sixth Sense.
In this gripping thriller, Dr. Malcom (Bruce Willis) is a middle aged psychologist treating an 11 year old boy named Cole. Cole has been having hallucinative episodes ever since he was a young boy. As Dr. Malcom and Cole find new ways to cope with Cole’s “hallucinations”, Dr. Malcom learns a terrifying secret about Cole’s condition. Though this secret has to do with Cole, it exposes Dr. Malcom to something significant about his own life, or lack thereof. Possible writing assignment: Though The Sixth Sense has multiple scenes foreshadowing the plot twist, you might miss them the first time you watch it. Watch the movie a second time over and look for these clues that lead us to the plot twist. After watching the movie and seeing all the foreshadowing, reflect on it. Identify the three most important foreshadowing moments in the film leading up to the plot twist. Explain how you think each of these moments contribute to the plot twist and why. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VG9AGf66tXM
0 Comments
When I was younger, I had a fixed mindset and I believed that I could only go as far as my mind would let me. As I grew older and tackled new things with the support of my parents, my mindset transformed. I started to enjoy being independent and I liked doing things on my own. I enjoyed having a job and making my own money because things always felt more valuable to me when I earned them myself. As I got farther into high school and college I adapted a growth mindset. A growth mindset helps me to succeed at DCCC because I don’t believe that my intellectual improvement has a ceiling. I don’t look at challenges and view them as something that makes me dumb. I enjoy facing challenges head on because once I complete them, I feel a sense of pride within myself. I believe that a growth mindset helps me to succeed because I feel that I can do so. As long as I feel I can succeed and I put in the effort required, I will succeed. As a young girl in elementary school, I lacked skills. I couldn’t focus, I had little to no ability to remember things, and I had a serious lack of motivation. With all my teachers labeling me as one of the lazy kids, I was left in the dark. I remember wanting so badly to do well and make my parents proud. I would sit at the table and look at my math sheet and I would have no idea what to do because I couldn’t remember what we had learned in class. I would get so frustrated with myself that instead of asking for help, I would just become angry and upset and I would end up crying wondering why I had the inability to listen in class. A few years of countless fights with my parents, teachers, and administrators asking me why I couldn’t just do my work. I felt lost. I wanted more than anything to do well. I’m not a religious person but the first time I ever prayed, I prayed that God would help me to focus so that I could acquire good grades. I didn’t want to be a failure. I didn’t want to be an “attention seeker” or “unmotivated”. I never wanted to be any of those things but because no one took a closer look, I ultimately became those things and eventually thought of myself as those things. I had little to no confidence and believed I was stupid. I took it upon myself to figure out what was wrong with me because I was so tired of wanting to succeed and not being able to. I did some online research and after a few hours of taking quizzes and assessing symptoms, I knew what was wrong with me. My parents are amazing people, don’t get me wrong I love them. They have made sacrifices for me that I will never be able to repay them for but for some reason when I went to them with this, their reaction wasn’t exactly what I had pictured. I didn’t get sympathy and I didn’t get a trip to the doctor’s office. My father was young and so was my stepmother and I don’t blame them for reacting the way they did. They thought I wanted attention and they thought I was making excuses and looking for a way out. We fought over this for a few months and each time ended with me slamming doors and throwing things around my room because god damn it, I just wanted to be able to focus in class. At my annual physical at Broomall Pediatrics, I made my parents leave the room and I talked to my doctor about this on my own. At 15, I came to my doctor begging her to get me tested. So she did. She reviewed my symptoms and asked my teachers for summaries on my behavior and effort in class. After all of that was put together, my doctor called my family in for an appointment. I went in with my father and stepmother and listened to the doctor tell me what I already knew. I had ADHD and I needed to be put on medication. I still remember my step mother crying saying she wished they would have done something earlier. Having a growth mindset has helped me to reach many of my goals. I feel confident in my work and I have the motivation to get my work done. I like to try and believe that not everything I do is fueled by my medicine. As they say, you can lead a horse to water but you can’t force it to drink. My medication leads me to the water, but I am ultimately the one who decides whether or not to drink. If things don’t come easy to me, I don’t run scared I just face them head on. I see challenges as an opportunity to succeed and I set goals for myself. I am no longer the scared little girl that looked at every challenge and thought “I can’t do this.” At the end of the day, whether you think you can or you can’t you are probably right. In “The Perils of Growth Mindset Education”, Alfie Kohn is exploiting what he believes to be the errors in Carol Dweck’s research. He believes that Carol Dwecks research was too general, “The problem with sweeping, generic claims about the power of attitudes or beliefs isn’t just a risk of overstating the benefits but also a tendency to divert attention from the nature of the tasks themselves”. This also ties into his belief that the problem today does not live within the children, the problem is due to a flaw in what/how the children are being taught, “An awful lot of schooling still consists of making kids cram forgettable facts into short-term memory.” In “Teachers, Parents Often Misuse Growth Mindset Research”, Carol Dweck defends her theory against those who believe growth mindset fails but are actually using it the wrong way. "As the growth mindset has become more popular and taken hold, we are beginning to find that there are pitfalls," said Dweck. "Many educators misunderstand or misapply the concepts." She goes on to explain the concepts of a growth mindset further. Dweck denies generalizations such as praising effort alone, “Praising effort alone, she says, is useless when the child is getting everything wrong and not making progress.”, telling kids to try harder, “Effort, Dweck says, is only one route for a student to make learning improvements. If a student doesn't have strategies for solving a problem, or the necessarily skills, or the steps for completing an assignment at his fingertips, all the effort in the world might not help.”, and repeating mindset jargon, “Dweck cited a recent Stanford Ph.D. thesis by Kathy Liu Sun, now a professor at Santa Clara University, which found that students continued to have fixed-mindset thoughts in math class when their teachers mouthed growth mindset phrases but didn't change their teaching practices.”
After reading these articles, I understand the differences. One with a growth mindset believes they can become smarter and wants to learn. Students with fixed mindsets believe that if they don’t understand something, it is because they are not smart enough and they never will be. A student with a growth mindset sees a challenge as a goal to reach. A student with a fixed mindset will come upon the same challenge and see it as a monster. Students with fixed mindsets tend to run from challenges and accept failure. I consider myself to have a growth mindset 100%. I was not always like this and it took time to get to where I am today. In elementary school, I was top of my class. I excelled mainly in reading and was always two levels ahead of the rest of my class. Though I was an amazing reader, my skills in math were not where they should have been. I was praised for reading and I was told that I could do just as well in math if I just tried as hard as I did with reading. The flaw with this statement, that I had heard 1,000 times, was that reading came easy to me and math did not. I did not have to work hard to excel in reading so if I applied the same amount of effort to both areas, obviously I would not do well. I struggled all throughout middle school to the point where the area I had exceled in, reading and spelling, was also starting to deteriorate. I didn’t know why I couldn’t memorize my times tables and I didn’t know why I couldn’t finish long division problems in two minutes like everyone else. For the first time, I was faced with something that didn’t come easy to me. Because I had been raised thinking that I was smart because I could read well, I now thought I was dumb because I could not do math well. My grades suffered all throughout middle school and six months of the ninth grade. Six months of people telling me that I was just lazy and that I just wanted negative attention. At my physical, my doctor talked to me about my classroom experience and why I wasn’t doing well. I took a few screen tests, got notes from my teachers explaining my situation, and within a few months I was diagnosed with ADHD. All of the sudden, I wasn’t “lazy”. Now, to my teachers, I was just “different”. My doctor prescribed me with a medication called Vyvanse. When I started taking Vyvanse, my world changed. I was motivated and I was happy to do well. I attacked challenges head on and enjoyed creating goals for myself. Throughout high school and my college experience, ive stayed on Vyvanse and I still believe that I have a growth mindset. I have outgrown the corrupt belief, posed upon me by my middle school/high school teachers, that I cannot perform as well as others just because of my disorder. Halfway through my freshman year and I work two jobs, bought my own car, and have recently been invited to join DCCC’s honors society. I just have one question for my teachers who knew me when I was “lazy”: Still think I’m lazy? When composing my hiraeth project, I worked alone. I believe this was a good approach because I work best when I am alone and do not have any distractions. For my final draft I will most likely ask for thoughts from my parents because I believe this could help me expand the emotion I use in my hiraeth.
The most difficult part of my writing process was putting down my phone and not looking at it the entire time or stopping to check messages when I got bored. I overcame this obstacle by turning it off and putting it aside while I wrote. I did not do this in the past but I will continue to do so in the future as it helped a lot. I wrote this project at different times. I wrote some during my q-time, some while the child I nanny was having his screen time, and some on weeknights after work. I believe this was a good approach as the fragmentation of the time allowed me to go back and reread my work with a fresh mindset. I wrote this project at different places. I just had to make sure it was somewhere quiet. This is a good approach because I focus much better with quiet. I will continue to make sure I am in a quiet environment when writing in the future. I chose to write about this hiraeth because it is the most prominent loss in my life and I believe it is the things we lose that shape us. I also wrote about this because it has affected my life greatly and, while it has had some negative impact, it has driven me to make positive changes to myself and my lifestyle. My writing process includes these 6 steps:
I scaled the multiple groups of college runners hoping to spot him as the announcer called for his event. I recognized his curly hair in the sea of competitors as he made his way to the starting point. The boys lined up next to one another as the red sea of college kids began to part, revealing the track. One by one they got in starting position, each of them taking one last glance at their supporters before attempting to reach their personal goal. I waved, hoping he would spot me. Eventually, his hazel eyes met mine. He had always been more of the suffer-in-silence type, but underneath his male genetics that forced him to bury anything that could come off as weak, I sensed his bubbling anxiety. Years of living with, arguing with, and relying on him allowed me to read him like a book. I noticed the same gloomy aura that plagued his being whenever my parents fought. I had spent years trying to tread water with anchors chained to my legs and he’d helped me get rid of them. He would always say “no matter what happens, everything will be okay”. He constantly found ways to keep me afloat, even when he was drowning. Today, his anchor was the fear of losing everything he had worked toward. I kept my eyes locked to his as the announcer raised the gun to the sky. Moments before he pulled the trigger signaling the boys to run, I mouthed “no matter what happens, everything will be ok”. The corners of his mouth lifted as he turned his head and stared straight. His face became tense and I could tell he was motivated to win. I held my ears as the announcer pulled the trigger. The outcomes of distance races are hard to forecast because there’s so much time for change. After about 10 minutes, I saw a uniform in the distance about to claim first. I squinted my eyes trying to make out who it was. Suddenly, I noticed the same hazel eyes that had been fearing loss just a few minutes before. He smiled as his stride picked up and he began to sprint to assure his victory. Oh no. I realized there was someone right behind him that he did not see. I screamed “RIGHT BEHIND YOU COLLIN! RUN!!!” His grin faded as he turned his head and saw the boy shortly behind him in pursuit of the same thing. He picked up his speed. I was amazed by how much his endurance had grown. He crossed the finish line a few seconds before the other boy. When his foot went over the line, I felt a wave of pride spill over me. The happiness I felt watching him succeed was unlike anything I had felt before. He ran off the track quickly and I ran into his arms. “I’M SO PROUD OF YOU!” I told him. He smiled and told me he couldn’t have done it without me. That was one of the happier moments in his college career.
*about a year later* “So how are you? How is it here?” I asked him. I leaned back against the uncomfortable chair in the lobby. The lights were low. The floor was covered with a brown rug. The secretary sat at the desk and looked over every few minutes. “It’s good. I’m fine” I saw his eyes which were always the window to his emotions. He looked down and avoided eye contact. He looked tired and his eyelids were hanging lower than usual. I rested my hand on his shoulder. He slowly looked into my eyes and for the first time, I wasn’t the one with the anchors anymore. It was my turn to keep him afloat. “Don’t feel ashamed. Don’t feel embarrassed. It’s just me… I thought your ugly ass would be a little happier to see me.” I tried to poke fun with him but my attempts were clearly failing. He chuckled, obviously faking it. I saw his A.A. notebook peering out from behind his pocket. “Did you meet anyone new in here?” I asked with a hopeful tone. “Bunch of addicts.” He shrugged off my attempt to make positive conversation. “You aren’t allowed to judge them.” I told him. I felt bad just a second later, realizing it might have been harsh. “I’m sorry” I said, “I know your trying and I know this isn’t easy.” I tried to be sympathetic. “No you don’t.” He said sharply. He rolled his eyes and slumped into his chair. He sighed. I knew at that point nothing could be the same. Nothing had been the same since I told my parents he needed help. Our relationship took a hit when he started taking money from me to buy alcohol and coming home drunk at 4pm. A part of me just feels bad and another part of me wants to tell him to man up and deal with it. “How’s the kids?” He asked me. I felt hopeful that our conversation would turn around. “Mia and Brady are good. They’re getting so big it’s crazy. Riley is good too. She’s taking the divorce well I think… every time I try to talk to her about it she tells me that she’s happy. She says they don’t fight now that they aren’t together.” He nodded slowly and thought for a second. “Mom?” I sighed. “Still having a midlife crisis. Riley has become my responsibility whenever I’m there. I think she’s lonely” He looked at me and agreed. “You gotta be there for her.” He told me. For a moment I thought he’d returned to his original role. The big brother role that gave me advice and let me vent to him. “I’m trying. I also have school and work.” He rolled his eyes. “Doesn’t matter. Family first. Always.” His hands fidgeted. He pulled his 1 week sober A.A. chip out of his pocket and began playing with it. I held out my hand hoping he’d let me see it. He looked at me and hesitantly placed it in my hand. I could tell he took pride in it and valued it greatly. “This is just the first step. You’ll have a lot more of these pretty soon.” He took it back and shoved it in his pocket. He doesn’t like receiving praise for things. He’s hated attention for as long as I remember. In elementary school Mr. Tracy , our principal, used to announce all the birthdays over the loudspeaker. Collin would get there early on his birthday just so that he could remind Mr. Tracy to skip his name. “I gotta get back for a meeting in five.” He told me. I stood up and hugged him. As I held him, I reminded him, "no matter what, everything will be ok." I could tell he needed it. I watched him walk through the door into the meeting room. I walked over to the desk to sign out and peered in the room. I saw him sitting in a chair in a circle with other addicts. I grew upset realizing how sad he was. I hated how much he resented me for telling our parents. I know our relationship can never be the same. We go months without speaking, but I do the best I can to be there for him. I would give anything to go back to that track meet. I would give anything to see him happy again. His anchors are weighing him down and I know they are heavier than mine. It's my turn to help him swim. “…as he rode out of sight, ‘Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night!’” My grandfather closed the big book that I had listened to many times before. I spotted my brother in the corner of my eye trying to steal one of Santa’s cookies. I tattled, of course. My mother scolded him and my grandmother told her to let him be. She always had a way of defending us even when we were wrong. The drive down to Philly had been long, but it was worth it to hear my grandfather’s groggy voice recite an old story. We did this every year that we spent Christmas with our mother. She would lug all the presents to my grandmother’s house and we would sleep there so that we could be together on Christmas morning. I was in my nightgown, which was patterned a red and green plaid. Looking back, I realize it was absolutely disgusting but hey, it got me in the Christmas mood. Not to mention, I was 8 so I didn’t have much of a fashion sense. The fire crackled every once in a while, interrupting the sound of chatting adults. The only thing that changed since last year were the adults I was surrounded by. The year before had been my father’s year and this year was my mother’s year. They’d take turns with holidays. Me and my brother just tried to ignore them when they argued. Collin and I sat near the fireplace and felt our backs warm up. We always knew we were too close when it started to burn, but we love the warmth. I still enjoy that feeling to this day. Our younger sister, Riley, had been put to bed a while ago. We were young but we had already been through a lot together. He was always reminding me that even when it got bad, I should remember that there are people who have it worse. He had a way of helping me realize the good in my life. I asked him what he thought Santa would bring him. He said he wanted a new skateboard. He’d spent all year uploading videos to Youtube with his friends. They would pick a location, take video of themselves skateboarding there, and then Andy (my brother’s friend) would edit everything on his laptop. They thought it was great. I thought it was dumb. A Christmas Story came on the television. Me and my brother sat on my grandmothers soft brownish carpet with glasses of soda and watched it all the way through. I spilled my soda. I went on mission impossible to clean it up without anyone noticing. The carpet was brown anyway (no stains=no evidence). It was getting late and the adults started to shove off. My stepfather finished off his beer and gave some drunken goodbyes. My mother would end up arguing with him about it a few days later, but for now it was easiest just to order him to bed. Cousins said goodbye and we said we would see them tomorrow for Christmas dinner. Clanking of dishes and the water running hummed in my ear from the kitchen as I tried to listen to the ending of the movie. My grandfather gave us both a kiss on the forehead and went into bed, as he always did earlier than anyone else. My mother sent us to bed with hugs. I drudged up the stairs to the guest bedroom which I hated. It was always so scary in there. The closet didn’t have a door and I hated that I could see into it. It was a deep closet so all I could see was dark in the corner of my eye when I laid in bed. I jumped under the covers and felt the top of my pillow warm up. The heater was right behind the headboard and when I slept in that bed, my head was always the warmest part of my body. I would wake up sweating behind the ears and freezing everywhere else. Although my body shook with excitement, eventually I fell asleep. I don’t remember falling asleep, but I remember the way I felt trying to do so. I was craving a Christmas morning with presents and happiness and love. The next morning, I got exactly that. It’s been a while since that night and I still remember it. It’s my last memory of a Christmas where I believed in Santa. The last Christmas where I fell asleep believing in something innocent. There are a lot of things about that scene that make me want to cry, but then a lot of things that make me want to laugh. Sometimes, when I put myself in the scene enough and remember what it was like, I forget about all the reasons I can’t have it again. Even if it’s just for a short while, those moments are bliss.
My initial understanding of the term hiraeth makes me think of being homesick. A hiraeth seems like it would be the missing puzzle piece that some people talk about. A longing for something you have lost that cannot be replaced or a time you cannot go back to. This makes me think of the way a woman that lost her father at a young age would feel during a father daughter dance at a wedding. Thinking of an example of a hiraeth I could use from my life, while trying to avoid dishing out a sob story, is a bit difficult. Things that come to mind when I think of a home I cannot return to are the things I have lost. Most of us have those things in common. The things that you have lost, I believe, are the things that shape your desires and your behaviors. Do you ever remember simply having something? Imagine you’ve lost a bracelet you’ve had for years. Can you go back and remember every single day that you wore it and the things you did while wearing it? Probably not. Though you can’t remember every single moment you had the bracelet, I’m quite certain you remember the moment you realized you had lost it. It’s the lost things, lost people, and lost qualities that we remember the most. You’ll always remember the things you lost. I’m going to give you a list of things that you may or may not have gone through. Make a note of which events you recall and which events you do not.
-the first time you got an A on a test -the first time you had sex -the first time you helped your parent(s) clean up after dinner -the first time you went to an amusement park -the first time you fell in love -the first time you were truly heartbroken -the first time you did your own wash -the first time a loved one passed away -the first time you finished an essay on time -the first time you failed a class or had to attend summer school -the first time you relapsed or did something you said you would never do Think about which events you recalled. Though which events you recall are based off your values and what is important to you, I’m sure you remembered more of the events in which you lost something than the events in which you might have gained something. We remember losing things because usually when we lose something (innocence, sobriety, a loved one) it impacts us in a new way. It makes us feel something that we’ve never felt before. Loss, based on the severity, changes people. If most of the things you remembered are bolded, you remembered the events in which you lost something. Whether it be innocence, pride, or a loved one, that loss impacted you. That said, my area of focus on my hiraeth assignment will end up being something I have lost, a home that I cannot return to. That is my understanding of the term hiraeth. |
GillianBlog for English Comp 1 Archives
May 2017
Categories
All
|