Blog Post for 2/8/15

I read the rest of the Tocqueville book -- I am beginning to understand why it is important to have some knowledge of historical events even in today's world. The more I learn the more empathetic I find myself becoming towards the individuals who went through the events described within the poem. This is something that can be considerably beneficial for my career goals: the more information I have on an event that strikes an emotional nerve, the higher the chances are that I will be able to relate and help somebody overcome the turmoil of a similar situation. This is especially helpful because I am pursuing hospital administration (and plan on studying abroad) there is a high likelihood that I will run into people of many different backgrounds.

I was even more excited to read some more pages of "Writing Down the Bones" -- even though I have completely given up on the idea of it coming into the bookstore. One thing that I found very interesting was the mention of 'Shout, Applaud'. It could be difficult to successfully recommend a book of poems written by a group of mentally retarded women from Norhaven, but the way Goldberg spoke of the book had me researching where I could read a few more excerpts. I never pondered the thought of syntax in writing much. The whole rearranging of words (ice is dry, etc..) was really eye-opening, I thought it was a great way to show how to exercise syntax.

One of the quotes I loved: "We are not ruling the world. It is an illusion, and the illusion of our syntax structure perpetuates it." This spoke to me because I had recently saw online a very powerful image that also related to the flourishing sense of egocentricity that humans have been watering and fertilizing with development of our "me, me, I, me, I, me" language.