Medicine and Ethics, WCP 231: Let me get my notes out for a little better recounting of the incident. Un memento por favor.
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Here they are. The entire class period centered around Death and Grief, and I must say, it was highly entertaining and quite happy. Funny how that works. Oh, before continuing. On Monday, we are holding a memorial service in Kumler Chapel for all those people that we have studied this year who have passed on. It's at 11am for roughly an hour and various people will be doing various creative-type things to express ourselves on such a subject. It should be nice, and I'm actually kind of looking forward to it if that doesn't sound too weird and disturbing.
Anyhoosiers, back to the class period of this day. Death and Grief. We began by doing a creative activity, in which she (being my prof Muriel- PS- a Segue...A cool thing about Western. ALL of the professors want and expect you to be quite casual and call them by first names and stuff. I think that's cool. Not many people with Doctorates are ok with that.) Anyway she wanted us to create a metaphor for these two concepts. Creativity certainly is not my forte (And for Hilary's sake, the bunny I painted as a little kid doesn't count lol). I was pretty pleased with myself though. I suppose they're incredibly cliche. But I'm ok with that. And here they are. Death: The last leaf on the trees of Autumn falls to the ground and gives way to new life. So maybe the wording needs to be redone, it seems kind of awkward but we didn't have a lot of time here
people. Grief: The tumultuous waves of the sea crash against one another until received calmly at the shore. (PS: We put these one overheads (do those even still exist? I haven't seen them since like junior year of high school!) and this is always nice for those of us lucky enough to be left-handed- it's a bad picture, but trust when I say there is overhead marker EVERYwhere)Some other interesting metaphor's that had been brought up from the idea of grief was drying off with a wet towel and a scream in the darkness. It was a really interesting conversation that developed because it turned out that a lot of people had very similar ideas behind their metaphors. The idea of death usually had something to do with some kind of change and a type of closure. It was looked upon as a good thing for the most part, and a very natural process. Grief on the other hand had lots of negative connotations and usually revolved around processes that served no real purpose or didn't accomplish anything and as an unnatural process. I never really realized how unanimous it was that death was seen as a relatively good thing...It's the grief that's really the culprit. Interesting I thought, kind of put things in perspective more. This led to a discussion of the many different types of funerals and such which I never really thought about either. There are your standard religious centered funerals, but then you also have jazz funerals which are fairly popular, those that decide they want to do the preparing and burying type activities themselves, and wakes among others. Jazz funerals seem pretty cool...The body is accompanied by slowish jazz music, it's buried, then the music breaks off into celebratory happiness. Some families feel comforted by doing the dressing and stuff themselves when preparing the body and it makes sense that it would be much better upon the grieving process. I was personally very attracted to the idea of the wake, and I think it is what I would like to have done. It's pretty much, putting it simply, a party at the dead guy's house. It's a celebration of the person's life and a way of keeping the body company between death and being put to rest. I would like to think that people could be happy upon my passing and that there would be enough people around who cared that an awesome party could be commenced in my honor. Who wants all that sadness in their memory? Obviously people are allowed to have their nice quiet moments of reflection and whatever, but overall, I think people should enjoy some wining and dining and some rock & roll. That is what I want.
Random segue: I really heart Ellen DeGeneres. Her little part in the new satellite radio commercials makes me laugh. Quite heartily. Especially her comment about wanting to be Amish. Oh Randomitity. I heart thee.
Back to the events of the day...Medicine and ethics ended, I bundled up, tuned into my iPod and trudged across campus in the wintery goodness to my BMZ (Botany, Microbiology, Zoology) class. Which is hell, to say the least. I hate that class with a passion. It's boring and just blah. It doesn't make me feel like the smartest person in the world. There are three different prof's that kind of teach their own specialties. One of them is a guy who I really dislike with quite a passion if nothing else just because he annoys me to no end (although, he did play "They Might be Giants" one day in class and that did bring some bliss and if it was anyone else would have scored some massive points) and the other professor doesn't speak english. He was nice enough and cool, but I couldn't understand anything he ever said and that made it quite difficult. The third professor however I really like. Her quiz's are quite difficult because she likes to make them fill in the blank without a handly little word bank and I'm sorry...but I don't remember silly terms that easily when they're long complicated words I never use. Anywho, I really like her. And she is filled with randomitity. And now, some Quotes: (I think a lot of the humor comes from how she stated the following, but on their own still rather funny in their random way)
- Turning around from the board, she was talking about how, as odd and unbelievable and some people seem to think it is, people are animals as well. Which she followed by: "Think about a giraffe driving a car. *long pause* That's CRAZY!" It was really quite funny.
- A couple slides later, in a slide that had random different types of animals, we were discussing what makes an animal an animal. One of the pictures was a cat. "This is Edgar. As you can see, he's very well-fed. *long pause* Sigh, my first born!"
- In talking about cell division and mitonic cleavage: "I know, it's a time in your life when you've got a lot going on with cleavage." At this point, I think I fell in love.
- In talking about different types of animals, there are those that are "less sophisticated" and have one opening for both the mouth and anus. Then, we discuss "more advanced" animals that have the separate openings for the mouth and anus, to which this was added to such creatures: "Now with Christmas and all that mistletoe, Phew. Wouldn't want the mouth-anus guys."
I came back, did some more chilaxing, working out, showering, and then a loverly evening commenced with my friend Laura. We wanted to go bowling, but they didnt have open bowling going on, so we decided to get some food. I needed to go to the devil that is known as Wal-Mart to pick up some boring generic yarn for a class project and some cool yarn for my own indulgence. There's a Subway inside so we ate there. It apparently only employs people with serious malfunctions. They were quite incompetent. But anywho, I had a nice half sub and some yummy soup. Despite the incompetence. While driving back, we went through Uptown Oxford
and it was just so pleasant in the fluffy snow and bright glowing gorgeous Christmas lights that decorated the town. We decided to stop at Starbucks and man what an awesome decision. Apparently, Starbucks is amazing. They were giving away FREE Peppermint Mochas. We were 
not aware of this originally, but it was quite the wonderful discovery. I went in there and asked for the Grande Peppermint Mocha (I decided to be adventerous. I normally get the peppermint hot chocolate during the time of holiday greetings) and the cashier stated, "Well, if you get the Tall, it's free." How could I pass this up? And it was crazy delicious. And Free. As we exited the establishment de Free Coffee Goodness, Christmas Carols Commenced and we entered the fluffy snow goodness once more with hot peppermint mocha in hands, keeping them warm.All of this, has definitely led to happiness. And now...it can only go up. Tomorrow will be the loverly choraliers concert and I can see the talent of many of my friends. It will then be followed by a weekend which can only be pure bliss, I'm sure.
Then a week of hell. Damn. But I'll worry about that later.
For now, I am happy.
Peace, Cherries, and Oodles of Noodles,
Brandon
Currently Listening to: Squirrel Nut Zippers - "Hot"
1 comments:
Um, yeah, upon review, I must have posted on the wrong blog...I get confused I guess...
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