HW 31 - Comments 3

My comments on others' blogs:

Elizabeth:

My first impression of your post was that it was REALLY thorough (showed depth/insight). You explained every detail of your thinking, and what led you to your conclusion that people have tried to make the word die have less of a bad meaning.

Overall, I thought you were going to go further with it (for instance, asking people what they thought illness and dying meant), but the research you did was really interesting.

Jasper:

I really liked your post. Your research was very thorough, and you explained your reactions to it clearly. I also liked how you explained how your research led you to doing the interview (your account of the interview was good too). All in all, it was really good.

Eloise:

I was looking forward to reading your post after you gave your elevator speech. It was way more then I expected! I like how you did so much research, and the way you told the different stories.

My favorite part was your description of how hospitals isolate people and put them in a bubble, and how you brought up the idea that there should be more art related stuff in hospitals, along with better food and care, to make patients feel more comfortable.

Amber:

I really liked this part of your post:

"While taking a part of this interesting project I learned a number of things. Our society is very gullible; we trust individuals without making any attempt to learn much about them. Our society is too busy with unnecessary worries; we forget about making an attempt to learn about serious risk factors that may harm one later on. In this specific case people are willing to take a risk to put them self our a loved one in an institution with strangers who they have no clue where they come from and how big of a threat they may be. Some of the articles I read discussed that many of these residents fear of exposing these horrified accounts. It is usually their loved ones that make them do so. Not only does our society fear about exposing the idea of illness and death to the public, but we also have a fear of showing imperfection."

I thought this summed up your point well - that people don't really know what goes on in nursing homes, and that they don't bother to check. It was also a good comment on how people tend to act. I didn't know a lot about neglect and abuse in nursing homes before reading your post, and before you gave your speech I hadn't even thought about it, so this really opened my eyes. 

Comments on my blog: 

Elizabeth: 

I think that you chose an interesting topic to work off of. I really liked the question and response section, but when it came down to explaining them I was a bit disappointed. Not necessarily with your analysis, but with the way it was formatted. I kind of forgot previous answers and had to re read them a few times. I felt that you could have given some insight after each quote to keep the reader thinking.

Also, the Author of Staring at the Sun: Overcoming the Fear of Death is Irvin Yalom, not Irving Yalon.

Jasper:

This was one of my favorites. I thought this topic was related to our unit and brought up a lot in Tuesday's with Morrie. I found the answers very interesting. My favorite part was : "After reading Tuesdays With Morrie, I formed the opinion that people are motivated by possessions more then anything. However, after doing the survey and reading the dozens of answers that talked about family and friends, I realized that this isn't necessarily true." I completely agree with this, I also noticed this in the book. I think maybe on a day to day basis all people may value is material things but if you ask people to look at their life as a whole they can see things that actually matter more.. Niiiiice post

Evan:

I noticed that only Liz commented, so to help out I am commenting here as well. You picked quite a deep and complex question to answer! I really like your analysis of the texts at the start, BUT- when you recite answers such as "go to the pyramids" or "save a life" it begs for an explanation of why these answers contradict Morrie's answers. I think only if you explained the difference of age and circumstance, you'd really be on to something incredibly deep.

Looking at the interviews I must say you asked great and significant questions and in turn got (mostly) meaningful and insightful answers. I just wish that after each quote or section of quotes, you would talk a little about the mentality or the dominant social view which leads to such answers.