Seminar Prewrite SH5
CJ Harrison
The plot of the novel was that Billy Pilgrim was in Dresden and lived it. It told what he had gone through and what had happened. It was also about how war changes you and how effective it is on your memory and how it turns you into a entirely different person.
I think the author chose to use science-fiction in this book because usually it makes it more interesting and it keeps the reader in tune because they don't always know when it's science-fictional or not. I know that I didn't know some of it was science-fictional because I was so into it that I didn't really pay attention to it. Now that I think of it, I'm glad it wasn't so straight forward because I liked how much detail he put into it, it made it more interesting to read and a lot more easily understandable.
Pg. 25 Paragraph 3- I think this is important because it kinda explains what it was like for Billy after the plane crash and how he started to struggle a little bit.
Pg. 83 Paragraph 3- I think this is important because it goes from the T's to Germans so quickly you start to think that the T's are German people and that he is hallucinating.
Pg. 182 Paragraph 1- I think this is important because it goes back to when billy was in the plane crash.
Pg. 182 Paragraph 2- I think this is also important because it goes into detail on his wife getting in a car crash and how she reacted to the plane crash.
Pg. 17 Paragraph 3/4- I think this is important because it goes into depth on how Billy was learning more about his past that he had forgotten.
Seminar Pre Write (Buddhism)
CJ Harrison
1) I definitely feel that the reason that in our modern society, we don’t want to be in touch with ourselves because were afraid of what we are going to become. I do agree with this and I know that I have definitely been afraid to change who I am because whenever I feel like I don’t like something or I feel like I am hanging around with the wrong people I always think about the negatives about it and I think how bad it would be since I enjoy certain qualities about those people. It happens to everyone once in their lives unless their perfect which I doubt. But the main reason I am trying to get at is that when you’re young trying to find the friends that suit your liking. But when you’re older it’s like playing popcorn, you try one group but you aren’t pleased with them so you jump into another group, so on so forth. That is the main reason people are so afraid to be in touch with ourselves, we try so hard to find the one thing that pleases us and when we think of leaving that behind and finding ourselves and totally changing we get so fearful because were leaving that one thing that fills our interest bar.
2) I think that the one mindfulness training that would affect me most if I were to start following it is the seventh mindfulness training. I feel like it is impossible for me to not plan my future and to just live in the moment. It’s kind of like getting an assignment where there are no boards or anything with information on it to tell you what you’re doing today. That would make me go crazy, but I would say the positive would be, being able to focus on one thing at a time and not multiple things at one time which could overwhelm you if you have too much work to focus on. Overall, I think that it would be really hard to start following it, but after a while of doing it I would learn to get used to it.
Seminar Pre Write
CJ Harrison
2) “Gandhi and King taught us to look in a fresh way at the nature of power.” This means from my perspective that you have to look at how much power you have and what you use with it. It’s more like analyzing how much you can hurt or help someone with that power by just thinking about the possible outcome of what you should do against what you know is wrong. An example of this would be if you are in a super market parking lot and someone punches you in the face, you going to think instantly to hit him back, that’s an act of violence, however, if that same guy comes up and punches you instead of fighting and hitting him back, you could stop his fist by grabbing his arm after he attacks and going on from there. It’s simple things like that you have to think about before acting because you could go to jail for fighting back and actually injuring him opposed to yelling out help and trying to stop him from helping you.
3) I think Humor would be most effective because not only will it make people laugh and make them happy but it also brings hoy into others and it gets passed on from person to person. The one that I think would be least effective would probably be symbols because it is pretty much just labeling and separating. To me it doesn’t make sense but overall I think that it would be the least effective.
Seminar Reflection
CJ Harrison
One thing that got me to thinking was when Josh and Geoy were going back and forth about Billy Pilgrim's beautiful lie. I hardly heard what they were saying but it got me to think how they came to the conclusion when Geoy said “He cant change anything so therefore it is a beautiful lie.” this really got me because I was thinking that Billy really couldn't change anything because as everyone was saying that he was either too afraid to or that it would hurt him to change anything because he doesn't want to go through again and see what happened in the past and in the future. For some reason it just interested me because they came to the conclusion so quickly that I just wondered, is that true? I was going to ask that question but I couldn't find space to talk because everyone had an idea to get out and it just flew rite by me and it ended up in the next question. But I definitely think that what they were saying really was the beautiful lie of Billy Pilgrim.
I don't think this book is an anti war novel because he is describing something he went through other than the Tralfamadorians being there. But he is basically just trying to tell a story of when he was in the plane crash and in the hospital, as Hannah was saying “he was reading all these weird books and it was getting to the point were he was believing what he was reading.” I do agree with this because it's true, while he was in the hospital he was reading things and came to the conclusion where he would believe what it was telling him. Speaking of him believing things, when the Tralfamadorians had come into the book and after reading the book you start to think that they connect somehow to war because it says on page 83 2&3 paragraphs it kind of confuses me because it says the Tralfamadorians tell Billy to take his clothes off and then it said that a German had measured him. You start to think that the Tralfamadorians are actually the Germans because of this, and they take him back and forth into time that he sees when he was with the Germans and that the Tralfamadorians are always switching off between talking about them then switching to Germans. It seems a little confusing but going back to the hospital, I do not think that Billy Pilgrim was kidnapped by aliens because as I said he was reading books that caused him to believe what they were saying and that his brain wasn't completely functional at the time. So he was inhaling information and I believe that he was exhaling it in his sleep because he didn't actually move because if he would have been moving physically, then everyone on the plane would have realized that he just left out of no where. You would think it is really obvious because you think that he couldn't have moved at all during his travels because people would obviously realize that he was gone. But like at the wedding he had gone to the bathroom and when he had returned they were saying “where have you been all this time?” This really got me to thinking because he didn't just disappear the whole time but it was like he was dreaming but every second had counted in the real world so he was basically just 'living in the dream.'
Billy wanted to believe in the Tralfamadorians views in time and free will because he was traveling in time with them and he wanted to believe that he actually was going back in time and seeing what had happened. He also wanted to believe in free will because he had the power to basically say, forget it, I don't want to die, I want to see it and move on with out actually having it happen to me. It kinda ties into what Vonnegut's truth of war is, because he gives a lot of detail about what he went through but added a lot of humor to it like Deanna was saying. It was kind of a source to lighten the load of him talking about a rough experience he had gone through. It also says in the book that Billy couldn't change anything and part of the reason he couldn't was because he was scared and didn't want to know what had happened to him before and after the thing that he had changed. I mean I can see how Billy could relate to us in some ways because I know that he gets in a plane crash and then starts going back and forth in time but in reality his mental health has actually caused him to be so much different than humans because for how he goes through things. I mean, if humans have a struggle, then they either get over it or talk to the other person about it but Billy tends to go through it with writing and making things of it, unlike what humans would do. So overall I would say that Billy is way different than us humans because of how he reacts to his surroundings.
One thing that was said in the seminar that I could really relate to is definitely when Deanna was talking about how Vonnegut used a sense of humor in his book to kind of lighten himself from talking about the subject because it was hard for him. I could relate to this because I hear people saying like, “oh my parents are so awesome and I have a great family” or, “oh I'm glad my parents aren't divorced.” This actually really upsets me because I have to deal with people feeling bad that my parents are divorced and that they are lucky there's aren't. I've also found myself making jokes about it because it takes a huge wait off of me and it makes people laugh but when people ask it's a really difficult subject to talk about so that's kind of what Vonnegut is doing because he accumulates humor into his time of distress kind of like what I do. But his is more serious of a matter.
I would happen to believe that AQotWF can connect in some parts of SH5 because in both books it talks about war and what happened in war but you can also see a distinction that both of them have that many people don't see. You can tell by all the violence that happens like Lazzoro killing a dog in chapter 9 and Paul killing his own comrade in one of the chapters. I guess both books have different times when they share a similar sequence as I just explained. But also creating a totally different story line for instance, SH5, they get bombed, AQotWF people are getting bombed and both characters survive. I could go on for a while giving you what both of them have in common by what happens in each book but all I have to say is that their both similar because both characters are kind of mentally unstable and both have struggles throughout the book.
Seminar Reflection
CJ Harrison
Part one (analysis):
What does it mean to live in the present moment? For me, to live in the present moment is to live life at the fullest every moment you can but it can also be argued that you can’t plan ahead but that’ not true. You can plan ahead because obviously you can’t fully live in the present without worrying if you have something you need to do today or whatever it may be but you can look a few minutes ahead and plan what you’re going to do next. Living in the present means to be satisfied with what you are doing right then and there but also being enthusiastic with what you want to do next when you’re done with what you are doing.
Now, Do I live in the present moment? I would tell you no, and here’s why. First off, I constantly think of football. Oh I get to play football after class today or oh the game is on tonight or oh my football class is on Tuesday/Thursday. I can’t stop thinking of football. Secondly, I look forward to playing video games with my friends later this evening. Getting to play video games in the evening is one thing look forward to doing in the day and even the next week I think of it nonstop. Finally, I can’t stop thinking of the homework that I have later that day or later that week. Overall I believe that I don’t live in the present moment because I am constantly thinking of what I’m going to do later today or later this week, I really haven’t sat down and just enjoyed being in that one spot for so long.
Part two (creativity):
Illustration on separate piece of paper
Seminar Reflection
CJ Harrison
Reaction:
One opinion that was made is when jack said that war now is not as bad as it was cause the technology takes away from the psychological input or something like that. I thought that was really interesting because it's true. I was gonna share something like that because there is a new naval ship that doesn't use maned turrets like they used to, it is controlled by a chip that is planted in the airplanes on the ship to tell it that it's a friendly plane. But when an enemy plane comes in it shoots a rocket and guides it to the plane by a laser the follows the plane until it's destroyed. But the fact that Jack brought that subject up was incredible because there is now other way to say than basically that war has changed by technology allowing soldiers to kill an enemy without looking at them. And I thought it was pretty cool because I did bring up the guy who brought his partner back to base camp and got an award which he gave to the family and I thought those things are both great examples because the snipers had spotters, I mean they always have but now we don't have to use a sniper rifle to kill someone from a long distance, we could easily use a missile or use a remote controlled airplane with turrets and shoot them, I mean technology has changed so much it's like we barely have to fight and let the technology take care of it all. I guess just the whole thing was interesting because I learned that there are all kinds of ways to look at war and how it effects different people.
Detailed response:
In the seminar one question that we elaborated on was “Was Paul's death the best thing for him?” and everyone that got a turn to talk pretty much said yes because he had everything he wanted. All his friends were there having a great time with him and so on so forth. But in the end when his friend Kat died he just thought his life was over because there was nothing left for him. And that is kind of true in the sense of seeing all your friends die and your the only one left with no one to talk to. Also, he did kill his own team mate with his bare hands which was a really hard thing to go through. So I could definitely see how everyone pretty much agreed that it was a great decision but I think it really wasn't the best idea for him.
You see, he has a whole family back home who loves him and cherishes him which no one else could do. I mean in the book he said somewhere that it wasn't a good idea for him to go on leave. But also like jack was saying that it's really hard for people who come out of the war to be able to make more than 2 decisions which were life and death, Given a grocery store they would go crazy because there are so many options for them. I mean ya it would be really tough but what if Paul wouldn't have died and went home and adjusted to the environment. Got back to reality and had gotten a wife and lived an awesome life. I guess for some people, they think outside the box, but sometimes not far enough to say like, oh this and this, or, oh, that and that, which could make for a huge conversation given the rite time to say it. But for me overall I think Paul shouldn't have died because all his friends died because think of his future and getting more friends which wouldn't be the same but still better than dying.
Connections:
one thing that I could really connect to that we talked about was when jack had said that this guy didn't know what to do when he was given so many options when he went to a grocery store. I actually have and uncle or something close to that who came back from war and just had been totally out of control and almost killed someone because he was so used to the environment of war that his mind went crazy an just resorted to violence cause that's all he knew what to do. And it makes you wonder that, what would have happened if he actually became a more violent person. I mean, I'm pretty sure when he heard about war, he had to leave or he would think and remember what it was like in war and how he was told to kill someone and watching them fall painless because they had no feeling in their body after he shot them. Honestly, it really makes you scared because the only thing you would think that he wouldn't mad at was weather he wanted chicken or pork chop for dinner. So overall, I really thought of my uncle when jack said that quote and I quickly realized how true it is and how much it changes a person.
page 221 3rd paragraph. “Every gasp lays my heart bare” I think that this quote represents the truth of war because in war every breath yo take could be your last and the truth of war is that your last breath is the first breath of struggles and accomplishments. Cause you know when you take your last breath is when you have flashbacks of all the good times you had in your life and how you lived so free and happy. So I think overall this quote, for me, was the quote that represents the truth of war because it reminds you to always think your actions through and live every moment like it's your last.
