From the first few pages that I have read, there is a lot I was able to observe. In the first few lessons, we were able to get a good understanding of greek tragedy and the structure of the plays. I think this was vital for my understanding as it provided a good foundation for my learning. When reading the play, it further built on my understanding of how plays were structured. It was also useful to know-how the plays were designed to fit the spaces they were to be performed in. It added to this aspect of imagination that the audience at that time should have had. With this in mind, it allowed me to view Oedipus from a different perspective. Reading the first scenes was not an easy read; even the introduction was difficult to understand. However, as I saw this timeless theme of fate and human character, it all started to make sense. I was able to make links to what I’ve previously understood and I furthered my understanding of why greek tragedy is such an influential form of theatre.

The morals that Oedipus carries fits into why it is a greek tragedy but also gives the audience this sense of catharsis. I relate this catharsis feeling with after a good cry. At a really stressful point in time, crying sometimes relieves this pressure and makes me feel refreshed. I get the sense that the reason the audience ends up with this feeling is that they relate to Oedipus on a certain level. As I learned in the previous lessons, we briefly covered this connection that the audience has to a play which contributes to the timelessness of Greek tragedy. This idea can be applied here where Oedipus is a near-perfect character. However, he has this one flaw that takes away from this perfection. In this case, I believe Oedipus’s main downfall is his denial or in some aspect, determination. After Tiresias describes how Oedipus is going to drive himself to his own downfall, he constantly speaks of being in denial as to what Tiresias is outrageous in his words. However, it is also his determination to not let that happen to him, which leads him to banish himself.

After watching this play, it can be predicted that many felt catharsis as they could very well be in Oedipus’ position. I think overall, that is the scariest part of Greek tragedy. It is how the play relates so closely with humanity which instills this fear.

This plague is taking over my home; my precious land! With no food, people seem to be falling sick. The land isn’t full of happiness anymore…it is stripped. A wasteland! My true Creon, I must send him to find out more. For the Oracle can see farther than we can. The Oracle is someone we can trust, unlike those flimsy philosophers who claim they know more.

What is this horrible message that Creon has said? Well…it seems I am the only one able enough to save our home of Thebes. The message sent by the Oracle replays in my head over in over. I am the land’s avenger, I must do this. This King who has brought corruption to our land! But this one source could be the key to it all! I could restore fertility and make the land beautiful and full again. Oh, but where on earth will I find them? Is it so hard to trace?

Has Teresia had no shame? Isn’t she appalled by such a story? She talks constantly about this truth? Soon I will be able to find out but I don’t understand why she wastes her time on such futile words. Anger erupts within me. He doesn’t admit defeat through the anger of my eyes. I will bring light to the land, how could I be the murder? How can I avenge this light and also bring this darkness? All he does is spill lies.

Starting from the beginning of the prologue, Shakespeare expresses the idea of fate. Fate is one of the significant themes constantly bespoke throughout the play. The downfall of Romeo and Juliet’s love is probably the most popular and obvious one. There is so much written in the stars about the predestination of these two “star crossed lovers.” In addition to this line, Shakespeare then adds another line ending with these three striking words: death-marked love. In just these first lines stated in the prologue, it foreshadows the ultimate fate of eternal death.

However, the prologue isn’t the only thing that convinces us that death is the two lover’s fates. It is also the continuation of the tensions between the Montagues (Romeo’s family) and the Capulets (Juliet’s family). As the reader, I know background knowledge on the plot of this play “Romeo and Juliet.” What I didn’t realize is that there is no notable reason why these two families are feuding. It seems that they are just doing it because…well just because. This unexplainable quarrel might also point to how simply their paths were never engineered to be this way.

In the fight between both families set in the market, it is clear that this event was pointless. Pointless for the logical things, but not pointless for the play and the viewer watching it. In this opening scene, it not only shows how serious the dispute between the Capulets and Montagues are but it also shows the qualities of both the families–It gives evidence for the first line: “Two households, both alike in dignity.” I think this line in the prologue is extremely important as it gives reason to why these families have so much hostility and why they still do. It all comes down to the fact that they are both stubborn and just want to one-up each other. By being perceived as better, it gives each family respective pride.

This can be seen in their language and actions amongst each other. For instance, Sampson bites his thumb. Translating this action into modern terms essentially means he is giving a middle finger. With a slight shock, Abram asks if he is quarreling. This meaning wanting to physically fight each other.

The reason this does not fully break out into a fight immediately is the carefully selected words each character replies with. While biting his thumb, Sampson replies that he is biting his thumb, but not specifically at Gregory. It shows a sense of dignity, elegance, and cleverness. With both families trying to bear each other’s responses, they add polite language such as “sir.” This could be viewed as a petty remark to set forth the manners and how well educated each family member became.

Overall, it was determined from the start that Romeo and Juliet would never find their happy ending. The two lovers who share such a strong attraction and attachment put up a worthless fight against the repelling attitude of their families.

The Veldt – Ray Bradbury

When first reading through this short story, I was extremely confused. It made no sense how a 30,000 dollar house back then, would have a thatched roof and how they would live in the middle of a bare African safari land. However, reaching the end, it made more sense. I realized that the genre of the story was more science fiction than reality. The nursery described in the story seems to be some kind of virtual reality room where the kids are able to play. When David Mcclean(the psychologist) was introduced to the story, one of his first initiatives was to turn the “mechanical, electronic navels” off. This is one point where I truly started to understand the context and setting of the story.

In his technique, I noticed that he does a lot of description and does a lot of showing rather than telling. I find this fascinating as I still am able to grasp the main point and plotline of the story with descriptions and am able to understand the characters through reactions to certain statements. For example, how each individual parent felt about locking them in the “room” alone. In addition, I was able to analyze the children’s personalities and how they are both “headstrong” and independent children.

What I still can’t figure out is how the story ends. It ends with the parents stuck in the room but since it is a virtual reality room, it can’t really do any harm? The mother of the children seems calm as she offers tea in her last line.

The Yellow Wallpaper- Charlotte Perkins Stetson

In my opinion, this story was easier to understand. It shows the growth of insanity from a woman possed by an illness. As her doctor has instructed her to have no activity, she becomes bored. From this boredom, she notices strange things around the room and records them in a secret journal.

One of the things in the room is the yellow wallpaper. She seems heavily intrigued by this as the yellow wallpaper has a strange pattern she is disgusted by. Later in the story, it is revealed to be a woman behind bars.

Throughout the book, the lady imagines things such as bars on the window. This connects back to the yellow wallpaper as the wallpaper too has bars with a woman who is seemingly stuck and suppose to somehow get back. As the story progresses further, the woman only becomes more insane and thinks that she is that woman trying to escape the house.

Whilst reading the story, I was intrigued by her use of words and the way her character develops. At first, the main character is disgusted by the wallpaper, but then grows to love it? Does this spring just from boredom or from her insanity? Or is it from the constant bickering that goes on about how she cannot do anything active? There is never a specific reason, her sanity just continues to increase. In addition, towards the end of the short story, the persona constantly repeats the word creep. Whether it is the action of creeping or her personality being creepy. The most peculiar part is that she finds it calming…the creeping.

The one question I have after reading this short story is why John (Jane (the persona’s) husband) faints. After constant banging at the door, he just suddenly faints? That does not make any sense! The weirdest part is that Jane feels no remorse. As if her emotions have been turned off. She finds it burdensome that he is disturbing the peace of creeping.

Here is the link for my Writer’s Fortnight Article on a google doc: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1uQu5joR4fSm1uB59RNKBo6Di9RnhXKuqtt30bEuPw9A/edit

A Silent Challenge
A victim of Bipolar Disorder

This photograph represents how quickly one with bipolar can switch emotionally. 

Bipolar is like a predator. At times, the brutal creature lays low at rest just waiting for its next attack. It leaves the victim alone. In this time, their personalities and feelings blossom with a slight glow. Other times, it bites, leaving marks all over its prey. The victim suffers as it is drained of happiness. The trade-off of emotions leaves the soul deprived. 

Emma Nicholls, a psychologist, and therapist in mental health, drugs, and alcohol, remarks that bipolar sparks major mood shifts as well as episodes in depression and manic phases where energy is very high, a very unstable condition. 

About 46 million people worldwide struggle with bipolar. Even here, in our own UWC community, members have been impacted by having this condition or even knowing somebody who does. 

A person in our UWC community, for example, witnessed a person she held very deeply in her heart transform into a complete stranger because of bipolar disorder. A member of her family, Emily (real name not in use for privacy), was eventually diagnosed with bipolar disorder.  One could describe Emily as an angel; her kindness was displayed around every aspect of her, and the respect others had for her was immense.  

Due to Emily’s illness, completing daily tasks started to become an issue. Keeping her marriage intact, raising a child and other aspects in her personal life started to fall apart. Responsibilities piled on but every waking moment, her energy, memory and concentration started diminishing.

Through a study conducted by The University of Texas Health Science Center, sixty-nine bipolar people who matched demographically, underwent an impairment test. Thirty-four people had a history of psychotic symptoms, thirty-five people had no history of psychotic symptoms. Additionally,  thirty-five healthy patients were tested. Test subjects with bipolar were found to have episodic memory and shorter attention spans. In those with psychosis, they were found to have difficulty on a functioning level. 

Walker. Craig F. A patient removes several pills from her prescription bottle. Digital image. AmericanPress. AmericanPress, 29. Jan. 2019. Web. 10. April. 2020. 

According to Dr Jeanne Segal, an expert in psychology and sociology, there are multiple methods that one can use to help cope with this consuming illness. Getting involved with professional treatment, following routines and therapy etc. One thing to avoid is self-medication or ingesting certain products that may affect manic phases and episodes. 

Unfortunately for Emily, although she was receiving professional treatment, therapy and medication, it was not enough. She started self-medicating with alcohol and drugs.

Reported by the National Epidemiologic Survey on Alcohol and Related Conditions (NESARC), self-medication was seen highest by those with Bipolar disorder with 41% out of the total people that underwent the survey. 

Is it really Emily’s fault? Should it be the prey always watching it’s back to see when the predator will stop lurking in the background and actually attack? With no one looking out for those with targets on their back, of course they would just like to forget and live in a blur. Anyone would want to save themselves from pain. 

Getting professional help but having no one around is a real struggle. There is a lack of support. Even in tough times for perfectly healthy beings, we always need someone around to help us, to push us further, to get us through hard times. Sometimes, to guide them. 

With Emily undergoing all these changes in her life, having the people closest to her drift away is hard to watch. It hits harder to feel them slipping away.

People close to Emily have distance themselves because of the lost hope. Emily’s step to consistent self-medication has built a wall between her and society in general. Bipolar does not simply strike the person suffering with it, it pounces on everybody surrounding him/her.  

What is needed is support for the victim of bipolar. Values such as diversity and acceptance play a big role in the UWC community. Everyone is supportive of differences such as culture, race, those in the LGBTQ+ community and more. However, all we can provide is links and posters raising awareness to those with mental differences. 

In this environment that is blessed with so many materials and resources, there is so much more we can do to help create support for those who need it. Guidance Counselors are not sufficient as it is one on one. Yes they get the support from a professional, but is one person really enough to impact someone or somebody that feels alone or feels as if everyone is slipping away from them? 

Emily’s psychosis started increasing and her paranoia only got worse. Her paranoia surrounds her thinking that everyone was out to get her. Science and psychology has proven this plausible. Because of the multiple changes in mood, thinking is altered and therefore results in what is known as psychosis (hallucinations and delusions) and paranoia. 

In this way, the lurking predator has once again attacked. Not only in leaving a scar but changing a mentality and thinking. It has kindled a fear of not only herself but for someone around her. 

Emily’s paranoia has manifested itself to drive her to keep her child’s own passport away from him. Although it seems that she is trapping her son, her belief is that after she gives him his passport, he will leave her. And if Emily has one fear, her fear is losing people close to her.

For those similar to Emily in our community, we need to do more to help raise awareness. Even if there is the slightest chance of making a difference, we should take action. Go back to metaphor. An idea such as a support group that encourages reaching out might be able to help. But without trying, how will we know? 

Bipolar is a fierce and dangerous predator that threatens families, friends and community. It is not Emily’s fault that she hallucinates and that this has evoked fear. The fact that she is trying to protect the ones she loves demonstrates her good intentions and that she shouldn’t be blamed for being a “crazy person.” 

In daily life, you might come in contact with those who are also victims of this invisible disease. But don’t simply walk away and give up on them. Fight for them and at least attempt to help them. Those lost sufferers cannot overcome this illness alone. They need others to help aid them and get them at least for a couple seconds back to who they once were. 

Help the prey fight against the predator, don’t let the predator consume the prey. 

For the past two weeks (and what feels like longer), we have been writing and researching for our final Writer’s Fortnight Project. Some of the topics I learned about, I was able to apply while writing this article. From my understanding of Ethos, Pathos, and Logos, I was able to identify some of the parts to create a successful article. In addition, I was also able to use my knowledge of what journalism is to help develop my article into something interesting to read.

Throughout the process and feedback given to me by my peers, teachers, and mentors, I learned a lot about how research and personal opinion can change the article and give it a purpose. In my first draft of my article, the feedback I got was that it was simply retelling the story. It seemed I needed more research and opinion. After going back the second time, I felt more successful. With my statistics and research backing my opinions and story, it gave it purpose and seemed to be a more meaningful article. The feedback and comments also allowed me to make new connections! I realized how important it was to have a central focus point and to get the research that backed it up.

In terms of my ATL’s, I hope I do score high in this section. In my first draft, I thought it was a well thought out article. However, although it was a story, it did not meet the criteria for an article. Although it upset me, I felt I was able to continue and was determined to make it better. Having seemed to accomplish this in the end, it made me proud of what I had written. I was surprised how I did not just simply give up and redo the whole entire article but instead use the good parts of my article and rework it.

I think the ATL that was most effective was the self-management ATL. This is because it took a strong mindset, time management, and other personal factors to make this article come through in time for the due date. To have managed this big project is quite a big deal and regards mainly for each individual.

For my attainment mark, I hope to reach at least a 6. This is because I believe I used the human carousel story in an effective way to give the reader something real and emotional to connect to but did not overdo it like my first draft.  In addition, I kept a pretty consistent metaphor throughout my article comparing Bipolar to an attacker and a person carrying bipolar to a victim which gave the reader something to visualize. Throughout my article, I infused pieces of data and research to make my article more reliable and trustworthy. In this piece, I feel that I really turned my final draft around from the first draft I did and am very proud of that. I hope I reach the level that I put in my head.

Barbara Reid came to our class to tell a riveting story about a perfect marriage that ended in a tragic-ly ever after with a little boy, Sam, 12, stuck in the middle. Reid told us about Sam’s world and how it came to be. It started with a happy marriage of Reid’s son and daughter in law; highschool sweethearts. Almost out of a movie, right? However, when faced with PTSD, Reid’s daughter in law, Kelly, took a dark turn. For Sam, he was only 4 years old and didn’t know what would hit him in the next years to come. After being consumed by PTSD, Kelly lost touch and concept of responsibility and turned to illegal drug use to help her cope with her symptoms. As an effect, her marriage fell apart into a million pieces of shattered glass left for no one but her son to pick up. Sam jumped through and out of schools until in 5th grade, he finally completed one full year of school at the same place. When the decision was made that Sam’s father was to take custody, Kelly’s paranoia resulted in Sam being ripped away from the house in the middle of the night and to be surrounded by two unstable adults. Then again, Sam’s mother was taken away from Sam from something other than PTSD. Kelly was sent to a medical facility. And from all this back and forth, sometime in the middle, Reid’s son had gotten remarried to an unloving stepmother. As Sam calls his grandmother he asks her “My house is a sad house, right?” and “‘ I’m a sad boy aren’t I grandma?”And with his parent’s relationship’s pressure relying on the strength of his shoulder’s, Sam is trapped with no escape through the court. Without a passport, how could he leave to stay with the one person showering him with love…his grandmother.

She was told she wouldn’t be able to walk properly…and then she did.  Elizabeth Jackson, now the parent of two, seemed to have her life planned out in a total number of 6 steps and all before the age of 30. She knew she was going to go be an engineer by going to university at which the armed forces would pay for her and then she would find a man with qualities like a prince and would get married and live to have a perfect family like those ones on TV shows. Moreover, by only the age of 16, she had left school and gotten an apprenticeship at engineering sight in which she was the only female to ever receive one and was ecstatic to start. Sadly, life gets in the way and one cretinous mistake ended up pushing her storyline back a little bit. One minute her feet were locked on peddles moving in circles, faster and faster with anger fueling her and the next her hands were grabbing onto the breaks and bright lights were blinding her. Then she woke up and those blinding lights were now hospital lights. From the waist down on one leg, Jackson had been paralyzed. For the next 6 months, Jackson went to physiotherapy and all sorts of different types of tricks to build up muscle while tears constantly were on the brim of her bottom lash line. Remember that apprenticeship? She had to give it all away. One morning, a miracle had seemed to be in the air and Jackson was walking again. Although she didn’t go on to be an engineer, she found a new passion in teaching.

From today’s guest speaker, I learned a big part of her life story. Growing up with a single mom is tough, to say the least; both for the mom and the child(ren). I learned about the judgment (insert name) faced growing up, but also how this event shaped her life and molded a lot of both the individual and parenting characteristics. Whilst hearing her story, I thought of two ways I could take this story. Previously, I had already decided I wanted to do a feature. You know, really get into the thoughts and actions of a girl like her.  Knowing this information, I carried on making more choices until I got to this stage. I’m not sure whether to take it from the perspective of the mom or the speaker herself, insert a name.

Over the last couple of classes, I learned that in media there are three major, different types of news: soft news, hard news, and features. The difference between these three is minor yet they make a big impact on people. Hard news can be described as time conscious and fact-filled news. From reading several articles labeled under hard news, I observed the similarities. In these articles, the writers tend to write in short paragraphs to catch the reader’s attention. I believe hard news is almost like a message alert; a buzz where one can read it quickly and comprehend it without thinking. However, it seems most impactful when the message is delivered instantly. It also seems like topics that are crucial for the “world” to understand. Topics such as environmental issues, subjects affecting the economy or politics. Contrarily, soft news and feature articles seem to be about human interests such as sports, fashion or gossip. In my perspective, hard news steals most of the spotlight and soft news and features can be viewed as the background singers. To put it into literal terms, soft news and features are more like background information. They are stories that not everyone needs to know, it’s more from self-interests.