Month: September 2019

Emotional Intelligence Reflection

winat12632@gapps.uwcsea.edu.sg

This year I would like to develop the quality of patience, this is important to me as it allows me to have control over my emotions, and creates a better environment for my relationships. This will help me be more empathetic, positively impact my relationships, allowing me to be more understanding of others. Furthermore, this is an important tool in overcoming my difficulties as being patient allows for me to have a more positive outlook on life, looking at situations in a more positive light and being patient when things do not work out in the beginning. Patience is not only beneficial to relationships, however it is also important both at home and in the workplace. When arguing with someone, this will allow for me to be patient and evaluate the situation, thus preventing arguments from escalating.

I dislike being short tempered. I see this in myself at times during difficult situations, or during arguments. This bothers me because it negatively impacts my relationship with people, being short tempered does not allow me to take a step back and carefully evaluate the situation, instead it causes me to act without thinking. Furthermore, this makes it easy to get stressed and therefore being unable to control my emotions, this may impact future opportunities. I can overcome this by being more self aware, understanding my feelings which can prevent me from being short tempered. Furthermore, I can start by doing meditation or yoga which can help me reduce stress and negative emotions, it allows for me to take a breather a few times a week. I need to have a better understanding of myself to overcome this negative trait. Moreover, when being able to sense that something is upsetting me I need to understand the importance of taking a step back and escaping the situation, as at times that can be more beneficial than facing the problem head on.

The Importance of Being Earnest Panel

winat12632@gapps.uwcsea.edu.sgEnglish Literature

I attempted to draw this panel in the style of Bechdel, however as opposed to focusing my attention on the background I focused attention on the subject of this panel, Cecily and Gwendolyn. I chose to draw this panel, the scene before Jack walks in exposing that neither him nor Algernon is named Earnest, as it was the scene before all lies had been revealed. This panel portrayed the theme of fiction vs reality, connecting with the theme illustrated in fun home. The main character, Jack, is often shown to blur the lines between fiction and reality, thus creating his fictional brother Earnest. Similar to Bruce Bechdel and Alison Bechdel in Fun Home, Jack uses this as an outlet for his emotions that he is unable to express. Both Jack and Bruce have created alternate personalities to express themselves freely without social constraints. However, unlike Bruce, Alison used fiction to connect with her real life experiences. Bruce, Alison’s father was similar to Jack in the sense that their identities were no longer clear. Both Jack and Bruce created a fictional life that eventually became more real, thus becoming more difficult to distinguish their real identity and the identity created for appearances/social norms. For both characters, this impacted their relationships, impacting the people surrounding them as it was no longer clear. This caused Algernon to do the same, and in fun home, Alison’s connection to Literature is similar to Bruce. Furthermore, this is then emphasised as in Act 1 Algernon says “a man who marries without knowing Bunbury has a very tedious time of it,” implying that all married men are the same as Jack, creating an alternate personality, leading different lives. Portraying the message that no man is able to escape desire to “bunbury.” This emphasises the theme of social norms, the more Jack and Bruce attempts to uphold their appearance, the more they indulge themselves in fiction.

In this panel, both Cecily and Gwendolyn are oblivious to the fact that neither Algernon nor Jack are named Earnest. Gwendolyn is a character which reflects societal norms, portraying the ideal qualities thus being infatuated with the name Earnest. Both Gwendolyn and Cecily are fixated on the name Earnest that they are unable to judge their true characters, ignorant that both Algernon and Jack are deceiving them. Both characters are unaware of the situational irony. This emphasises the theme of appearances, as they are focused on the name “Earnest” thus they have created a personality suited for the name. This causes them to be blinded by their image of that fictional character. In a sense, all characters are blinded by fiction, unable to see the true reality of things.

Furthermore, if this were a graphic novel, I would be more selective of the dialogue. Emphasising dialogue that connects with the theme in the play. The dialogue would be separated in a way that in each panel the illustration for Cecily and Gwendolyn would be different, each illustration aiding in the message I am trying to convey to the readers. It would be difficult to separate dialogue as there is much less narration compared to fun home, thus needing to make dialogue more concise.