Combine Institutions

The combine is a large machine that is used to harvest grain on many farms.  The combine cuts up the grain real small.  The psyche ward that is shown in Cuckoo’s Nest is portrayed by Chief Bromden as a combine.  The chief feels that it is a combine because all of the patients in it have no authority and are thought of as inferior.  They are made to feel like they are being cut to pieces emotionally.  It is not only the patients that were belittled in the Ward.  Even the Doctor was a victim of the Big Nurse taking away the manhood of each and every male in the ward.  McMurphy is just as vulnerable as every other male on the ward since the problem was not of personality but instead it was based upon gender.  The patients did not see the full extent of the problem and believed that McMurphy was different because he would never give up.  For awhile McMurphy was able to withstand the punishments from Big Nurse but eventually just like every other man in the ward, he would be forced to lose hope and give up.    

Many institutions are run similar to this where the people do not have many rights and are belittled by authority figures; however an institution should not by synonymous with being run like a combine.  In many institutions the main goal is to help the people instead of making them feel weak.  The decision if an institution is considered a combine is not black and white.  There are many gray areas that depend on how each and every institution is run.  Schools for the most part should not be considered combines because the students are meant to be helped.  On the other hand authority figures in some schools may make some rules that are not in the best interest of the students and which take away some of their rights.  Some authority also feel that the students are inferior to them, which in a way is true, however for a school to be run as smoothly as possible, a teacher has to be able to identify with students and treat them somewhat as equals. 

Psych School

Framingham High School is run very similarly to the psych ward in Cuckoo’s nest.  Nurse Ratched does not care about the wellbeing of each of the patients and only cares about the ward running smoothly.  Nurse Ratched tests different dangerous medicines and procedures on her patients.  She does not care what happens to her patients except that they behave.  I have seen something similar going on at FHS.  I am not accusing Mr. Welch of not caring about his students but he could be doing a lot more.  For example my sister is a sophomore in the marching band and like many other people in the band is having trouble getting enough credits to graduate.  Many band students have to quit the band in order to get all the credits to graduate.  My parents have tried to get my sister to quit band for one semester so that she can get enough credits, however my sister is completely against quitting band at all.  One of the possible solutions that the band has is making varsity sports (or just sports in general) to count as gym credit.  Actually playing a sport teaches the student more about teamwork and everything else learnt in a gym class.  I know that the band has been trying to talk to Mr. Welch about the situation and he seems to just be ignoring them.  It doesn’t seem like he’s saying nothing can be done about the situation, but it seems more like he doesn’t want to do anything about finding a way for the students in band to get enough credits to graduate.

            The vice principals at Framingham High School most closely relate to the Black boys who help out the big nurse.  I feel that overall the vice principals at FHS are not very well liked.  There are some vice principals that are not too bad, just as Mr. Turkle was nice to Chief Bromden, however there are some who are not as nice.  The black boys and the vice principals are the people who make sure everyone is doing as they are told.  The vice principals are the ones who are able to punish the students while the black boys also give out punishments.  The punishments at school are nowhere near as severe as at the psych ward but you get the idea.  After just getting back from a girls hockey game where a fight almost broke out I realized that the vice principals and the black boys almost act as referees of sporting events.  They are the people who stop fights from happening.  A referee is meant to break up a fight right away and the same thing goes for a vice principle or the black boys. 
            The guidance counselors and also the teachers at FHS are sort of like the male doctor at the psych ward.  These people for the most part are there to help you.  The doctor’s main job at the psych ward is to try his best to help the patients.  Another similarity is that teachers, guidance counselors, and the doctor get there power from someone else.  They get there power from the big nurse and black boys which correspond to Mr. Welch and the vice principals.

Simply the Symptoms are gone, not the illness

Some people believe that when the symptoms of an illness go away the illness is cured.  This is an assumption that is often made, however I believe it is untrue.  My mom is a Neurology nurse at Saint Elizabeth’s (not the same hospital as Walter Freeman).  My family also watches a lot of medical TV shows like the House, Royal Pains and Gray’s Anatomy.  I am not obsessed with these shows like the rest of my family, but I still watch them occasionally (As a matter of fact one of the few times I watch Gray’s anatomy was yesterday).  I should not be basing my opinion off of TV shows because they are not always accurate, however that is what I am going to do.  In these shows symptoms of a disease going away occasionally means the person is cured, however in many cases the person gets worse when a symptom goes away.  I also know that in real life a person may seem like they are better and be released from the hospital, however they come back a short period of time (it may be days, weeks, even months) later suffering from the same exact symptoms as they did the first time.  If a person with a disease gets better for a period of time it does not mean that they would not have the same problem in the future.  Some diseases do not even show symptoms until they are too late.  A doctor or nurse may send a person home after their symptoms from a certain disease cease to exist at that moment in time; however that does not mean that the person who has the disease is cured of the disease for the rest of their life.  It means that the person is not showing the signs of the disease at the moment and doesn’t say if the disease is cured or not.

Failing to explian why i like specific movies

Star Wars (All)

The Star Wars movies are probably my favorite movies of all time.  I have so many star wars things it is not even funny.  I have so many star wars action figures, video games and you get my point.  Almost every Halloween I used to dress up as some Star Wars character.  Darth Maul is one of my favorite characters.  I mean who wouldn’t like an evil guy with spikes on his head?  The clones are my other favorite characters.     

Harry Potter (All)

When I was very young my dad read the first few harry potter books to me and my sister.  Later I started reading the books on my own and I loved both the books and the movies.

Lord of the Rings (All)

A family friend got me to watch these movies and I thought they were great.

Step Brothers

I saw it for the first time at camp this summer and I thought it was very funny

James Bond (Casino Royale)

I like the action of James Bond movies and this is the only one I have seen in a Movie Theatre. 

Back to the Future (All)

This was an extremely funny movie, what else is there to say?

Rocky (All)

I have watched all (except the last) of the Rocky movies and they are very inspirational.  They show that you can be successful if you put in the effort and work very hard.

Ferris Bueller’s Day Off

Pretty sure I watch this one with my sister during a really long car ride. The movie was great because it was really funny.

Bill and Ted's excellent adventure

This movie was funny and I couldn’t stop laughing

Mission Impossible (All)

The Mission Impossible movies all have a lot of great action in them.

I don't know why it is so hard to explain why i like these movies. I know it shouldn't be

hard, but for me it is

Themes of a Salesman

A major theme highlighted in Death of a Salesman is how men and women were viewed differently in society.  Women at the time had very few rights.  Men were usually well respected while women were not respected.  Men did all of the work to acquire high monetary status for their family.  The job that women had was to make life better for their husbands. 

Two themes that go hand in hand in the story of Willy Loman are time and success.  Time is never on a person’s side.  Willy Loman knew that he was old and was going to die pretty soon.  Willy wanted to die successfully which is why he worked so hard.  He felt that he failed in life because he was not successful, and he was running out of time quickly.  Willy also lived in the past and wanted ever so much to be able to go back and fix his mistakes so that success would be possible.

                Another theme that is revealed in Arthur Miller’s novel is the decision of doing things fairly or cheating.  I think of Charley and Ben representing the Angel and Devil on Willy’s shoulder respectively.  Charley and Ben were both successful businessmen however Charley did everything by the book while Ben had no problem cheating.

DOAS (1-40)

Willy tried to teach Biff and Happy that hard work is necessary to succeed.  It is not likely that a person would become successful without doing something to get that far in life.  He also taught his children by example of his brother Ben that it is also a good thing to know exactly what you want.  You have a better chance at success if you have goals and are focused on completing them.

These are two great lessons for a father to teach.  I am taught these lessons by my parents all the time.  They tell me that I need to work hard to get where I want to be.  I do not like hard work however I know I need to do it to be successful.  They also tell me that now is the time when I should be figuring out what I want to do in life.  In order to find the right college and job you must know what you like to do and what you would want to do in the future. 

In many cases when a person constantly contradicts themselves they would be thought of as a liar.  I do not believe this is the case with Willy.  Willy has trouble remembering things which is why he is so inconsistent.  Willy cannot help his contradictions.

Linda chooses to just ignore Willy’s contradictions.  I believe that this actually hurts Willy because Willy would have no other way of knowing that he contradicts himself.  On the other hand Linda should not accuse him of lying.  The best possible thing that Linda could do is to gently inform Willy of his inconsistency.

TGI - (Thursday)

Okay I need to think of what to write about for this blog.  I cannot write about movies because I have already done that before.  I am not going to write about the essay because I believe that I have already sort of done that already.  I cannot really remember many other things that we have talked about in English class this past week.  One of the reasons is that I was not in class on Thursday.  Thursday will be my Blog topic. 

Thursday was a good day for me.  It was a day 3 with period order BAEFG.  My two electives are B and F period.  I started off my day working on trying to finish up the Harry Potter board game that I wrote about a couple of Blogs ago for Graphic Communications class.  Next semester I have Computer Graphics 2 after taking Computer Graphics 1 last year.  I cannot wait for that class.  Second period as everyone knows was English.  Like a few other people in the class I was able to skip English because we had a rehearsal for the NHS induction Ceremony that was later that night.  Then I went to E period Physics with Doc Seeley.  Doc Seeley is so funny; I’ll just leave it at that.  Now it is time for my second Elective.  I have Desktop Publishing F period which is usually pretty fun.  The only problem with having F period fourth is that I have 4^th Lunch and am always hungry in the computer lab where we are not allowed to eat.  Last period (G) for me is History.  History because of Conklin is my favorite class.  I am so glad that I have Conklin this year.  I had him last year and I have him again now.  On Thursday in History I started a group project with AJ, Jake McKinnon, and Joey Salvin.  I did not have to do a huge amount of work in any of my classes on Thursday.  It was a great day. 

Thursday night was also great.  Thursday night I got inducted into National Honor Society.  It is a great honor and I hope to get involved more because of it.  When I picked my three choices for Teacher inductors I picked Conklin as my first choice and my Freshman English teacher Ms. Popp as my second.  I was a little disappointed that I did not get Conklin, but I was happy that Ms. Popp wanted to induct me.  I was afraid that I would mess up or something but everything went smoothly (at least it did for me).  Ms. Popp on the other hand had to run around the Auditorium in front of everyone after inducting me in order to induct Nick Draper.  Nick was standing on stage with nobody to induct him and the next thing you see is Ms. Popp running as fast as she could from the left side (if you’re on stage) of the Auditorium  to the right side.  That was the only thing about the ceremony that did not run smoothly.  However embarrassing it must have been for Ms. Popp and Nick, it was funny.  Mrs. Corcoran wanted us all to write thank you letters to our teacher inductors.  What better way to do that than to write a teacher appreciation letter in English class the next day.  While I was writing the letter in class I was trying to remember who I wrote it to last year.  I believe that answer was Ms. Popp.