El Fin De Semana

A Spanish video project I just finished editing.

Rebuttal Bitch

Have a character espouse a viewpoint on life with which you very much disagree, but have the character argue it well, citing examples from her life to buttress her stance. Resist the temptation to make her sound foolish or harsh. Write this in the third or first person, from the narrative.

Gays cannot be married. How am I supposed to explain to my children that a man and a man can be together when the bible tells us otherwise. If gay marriage were to be legalized, a straight man could marry a straight man just to reap the federal benefits from the marriage. It's just not the way God intended it. A penis fits perfectly into the vagina. It is meant for procreation and a child brought up in a straight heterosexual marriage will be more stable than one brought up in a homosexual marriage. Also, if we allow gays to raise children, what's stopping them from teaching their kids to be gay. Because it's obviously a choice. Right?

The DCOM Lab

11/20/2012
Describe the place where you are sitting now. Freewrite the details you observe -- and push yourself to observe many details. Describe the people you can see, the architecture and the furnishings. Use your senses. After you've written down what you see, close your eyes and focus on sounds and smells. Now open your eyes and pull the description into a few paragraphs.

The room is like next-gen white. Everything is clean and simple. The Mac in front of me is about two inches thick and the modems are quiet as shit. Katie is typing sporadically next to me. She's on twitter, though, so it shouldn't continue for much longer. She's wearing a blue skirt-sweater with stockings and boots. The unused Macs in front of me day dream about color squibs. The lights are florescent white. The tables are finished wood. It actually looks like the inside of a genius bar at a Mac store. Random clicking can be heard around the room as if we're helping the computers communicate to each other via Morse Code.

Recurring Dream

11/29/2012
Write about a dream you’ve had again and again. When did you first have the dream? When does it recur? What do you think it signifies?

I remember dreaming about these orphans on a train a few times when I was little. I run after the train, but no matter how fast I ran, I never caught it. The orphans would just continue to stare at me. They wouldn't even help.

my psych teacher says that the train is supposed to represent penises or something. I think it's more of a fear of failure. Or failing because no one wants to help me succeed.

Something's Wrong...I Can Feel It

11/27/2012
Think of a wild coincidence that has occurred in your life. Now write three-four paragraphs and develop the incident, giving us the necessary background information and specific details.

My best friend Connor and I had been living in a small one-bedroom apartment in Jersey City for the last two months. We were both working at the same restaurant in New York City and this happened to be one of the few nights we were able to come home at the same time and relax.

A long time ago, Connor and I had gone out to get some food while both of our girlfriends were left to sit in our apartment together. They had never made an effort to hang out together, but we still liked to consider them friends. Apparently, however, the two bonded over some gossip while were gone. Now I think everything would have been fine if Connor's girlfriend, Kristen, had not broken the ever sacred girl-code of not saying anything to anyone about what was said during gossip time.

At around 11:30 I called Lexi to say goodnight and Connor proceeded to make me some drinks. Connor waited until I was incredibly drunk (he was a bar-tender so he happened to be very good at doing that) to tell me that Lexi cheated on me at the very start of our relationship. I couldn't believe it until he told me that Kristen told him after she was gossiping with Lexi. I proceeded to get belligerently drunk to the point where I started throwing up in our bathroom. It was around 5 in the morning when I received a phone call from Lexi, who was half awake somehow. She was mad at me for not calling and saying goodnight to her. Through my drunken stupor I managed to tell her that I did and that she could even check her phone.

The only thing I was left to believe that night was that Lexi and I had forged such an incredible bond over the nine months that we were together, that I was able to wake her up in the middle of the night while I was distressed about our relationship. And that could only mean that I still loved her, regardless of what was true or not.

3 Idiots

I feel like a real work of art is meant to move you to your very core. Very few artists have been able to do this for me, but I can honestly say that it has happened more than once. That being said, there is no other film in the world that has moved me like 3 Idiots did. It's a Bollywood film that runs around 3 hours long. I came upon it randomly one night at a Redbox in New York City and decided to rent it on a whim. I saw the movie, cried around 6 times, and then immediatly ran down the hall and forced one of my friends to watch it with me. That was the first time I've ever felt compelled to watch a three hour long movie back to back. A year later I happily watched it again with my parents.

The film is so incredibly well written, unbelievably creative, and well acted. If that's a word. I can't begin to endorse this movie enough. You just need to watch it all the way through. Feel free to skip through all of the weird dance numbers though.



The official trailer of the most awaited movie - 3 Idiots

HD Quality Video

Starring: Aamir Khan, Kareena Kapoor, Sharman Joshi, R. Madhavan and Boman Irani

Produced by: Vidhu Vinod Chopra

Directed by: Raju Hirani

Releasing on: 25th December, 2009

Farhan Qureshi, Raju Rastogi

Pia

'Rancho' Shamaldas Chanchad, Farhan Qureshi, Raju Rastogi

Death at a Funeral

11/8/2012
Recall a funeral you've attended and write about it. Did anything unusual happen at the event? How did you feel? Describe the situation -- who, what, when, where, why and how -- in three to four paragraphs.

I've never been to a funeral before. Well I might have, but I was probably too young to remember. I have been to a viewing though. One of my closest friends in high school recently lost his dad to a freak accident while he was water skiing.

It was one of the most surreal moments of my life. The whole day was sunny and clear, but when the viewing was about to start, it began to pour outside like I've never seen before. Inside, I saw a few familiar faces except most of them were crying profusely. We came inside and saw what looked like an auction for a dead man. A man I once knew was lying in an open coffin with his face construed in an artificial smile while his family stood before him and accepted everyone's apologies. I hugged Mike for a full minute and the only question I could bring myself to ask him was if he was there when it happened. He said no. After an awkward moment of silence, we started catching up on old times; wondering how we've been, if we've played tennis recently, how long he's going to be around for. It was hard for me, especially because I had never held a casual conversation before while a dead guy rests behind me. Plus, it was the father of the kid I was talking to!

We left and saw a few of my old classmates come in. I said hi and walked out to the car with my parents. It was still raining. On the drive home, though, it stopped immediately.

Wedding Crashers

11/6/2012
Recall a wedding you've attended and write about it. Did anything unusual happen at the event? How did you feel? Describe the situation -- who, what, when, where, why and how -- in three to four paragraphs.

Wedding Crashers was a pretty cool movie. Although I still have yet to try out Will Ferrel's method of picking up women. "I think your friend Chazz is a little crazy man...I also think he might be a genius."

The Stick Game

Write about an event from your childhood through your adult eyes.  Add perceptions that you could not have known at the time.

Back when I used to live in Virginia, my brother and I would often invent our own sports to entertain ourselves on the long summer days when playing video games were considered a shameful activity in the midst of such beautiful afternoons. I remember these games to be sporadic manifestations of our imaginations combined with our battle to overcome the monotony of daily life. Often, they would come to fruition out of our usual competitive nature with one another; even though most of the games we invented never seemed to have any real goals in the first place. Our parents were always against us seeing any ‘R’ rated movies growing up, however, violent action movies were never a problem. This was also before the era of violent video games so we had to use our imaginations to fuel our need for an aggressive output. That being said, this particular game we invented seemed to be the one to end them all. The destruction of our youth.

            I can’t exactly remember what this game was called, although I do recall what it consisted of. I imagine it arose from the type of dispute we always had over ‘who got who, first’ every time we shot at each other with our pointed fingers. That was how ‘The Shooting Game’ came to be called ‘The Stick Game.’ I’m sure you can figure out where this is going, and it pains me to think that we didn’t at the time. If you’ve ever heard your parents tell you not to do something because there was a chance someone could get their eye poked out, this was one of those situations. Nevertheless, the game consisted of throwing sticks at each other while hiding behind two adjacent trees. The object was to try and dodge the other player’s stick while trying to hit your opponent at the same time. Let’s just say my brother won after I dove out from behind my tree and connected my left eye to his stick.

            As soon as this happened, I ran inside and cried to my mother like a little girl. I was then rushed to an eye doctor to see if there had been any real damage to my retina. I could only imagine the hell my brother was going through at home with my crazy father, despite the game being his idea in the first place. According to the doctor, my vision appeared to be fine, which made me wonder why I was forced to wear an eye patch over my face for the next two weeks. Although I knew how ridiculous it made me look, I kind of liked looking like an Asian pirate baby. I suppose it made me feel like a man who now had a cool battle scar and a good story to tell his friends at the lunch table. After I came back, however, my dad pulled my brother outside by his sleeve as I walked into the house. My brother began crying after he saw the patch on my eye.

“Look at him!” he cried, “Look at what you did to your brother!” It was then that I felt something strange come over me that I had never felt before. At the time, I couldn’t exactly describe it. It wasn’t sadness or empathy. And it wasn’t even the sight of my brother breaking down over such an unforeseeable accident. It was my father. It was the first time I had actually seen him give a shit about my general well being. I mean, I knew he was doing this to teach my brother a lesson, but it was over something that he’d done to me. Something that might’ve actually caused me permanent damage for the rest of my life. It was then that I knew why I started to cry in that moment. My father might act like he hates me sometimes, but there was something in him that caused him pain at the sight of me actually getting hurt. What was this feeling? And why had I never seen it before?

My Washington Sq. Performance

Write about a recurring public gathering you attended in a place you visited. It should be a very pleasant memory, and could be a baseball game or street fair, an outdoor concert or historical reenactment. Put yourself there by freewriting or clustering, allowing your mind to wander back. Write about the people you saw, the smells in the air. You’ll be amazed by how much you remember once you begin writing about it.

By the time my parents had left me on my own in New York City, I was already fiend. I quickly needed to figure out how I would manage funding my addiction to cigarettes in a city where cigarettes were 12-14$ a pack.

I lived right outside Washington Sq. Park and had the pleasure of being woken up every morning by the sound of a saxophonist playing in the park. Luckily, I was a fiend with a talent. I could play the violin.

People always asked me how I managed to work up the balls to just walk out into public, throw my case on the ground, and start playing music in front of hundreds of strangers. That was actually the easiest part. The hardest part was finding a place with good acoustics, where several people would pass by within the next hour, all while not infringing on the other ten performers in the park at the time.

Some days were great and some weren't. I figured out that the money I had made in one hour was directly related to the weather, time of day, and what day it was. On a sunny Saturday morning, I would make around 45-60 dollars in an hour. On a cold, windy Wednesday afternoon, I would make around 15-20$, not counting the bills that would fly away in the middle of a song.

Winter was about to roll around and I was about to find myself without a source of income. You can't bring your violin out when it's snowing outside because the cold will throw the strings out of tune and the moisture will ruin the wood on your instrument. I didn't really want to practice in my dorm because I felt it was both rude to the people of my dorm and also attracting to the people who wanted to come in and listen.

It was a Saturday, but it was a cold and windy Saturday. I also recall being incredibly hungover from the night before. I was out of cigarettes and I felt like my friends were getting tired of bumming them to me. So I did what any fiending, broke, hungover musician might do and took my violin out to the park. I also brought along some of my artwork to sell.

It was getting cold out, so the fountain had been drained and it became a great place to just sit and enjoy the view of the park. The arch had already been taken by a cellist, so I decided to walk out in the fountain and become the center of attention, literally. I set my case out and my artwork underneath it. I set up my sheet music as best I could on the floor and began playing.

Now there's something about playing the violin in freezing cold winds that makes your fingers go stale. Maybe it was the fact that I was nervous being the only thing those poor New Yorkers could look at. Maybe my violin was exact its revenge on me for taking it out in such cold weather. Or maybe it was the fact that I stopped practicing my hardest songs because of prior commitments. But I was starting to sound horrible. And a few people were leaving.

After ten minutes of stumbling through one of my toughest pieces, a man walked up, threw in a ten dollar bill and asked me to stop and give him my violin. A moment passed and I reluctantly handed it over, scared that he was about to show me up in front of these strangers. But he just sawed childishly at the strings and screamed at everyone, "It's not as easy as you think!" and then handed it back to me. I laughed as he took a bow, gave me back the violin, and left the fountain.

I don't know what it was, but my hands felt much warmer after that.

After I had finished, I went back to my dorm with 70$ that day and all of the paintings I had left with. It was more money than I had ever made paying in one hour that year.

Alice Smith

Take a look at the people on the screen (I will post several samples). Choose one and freewrite about that person. Give that person a name and describe what he/she looks like. Where did he/she come from, describe college, job, family, likes and dislikes. What are some of his/her goals and what problem are they facing right now?


This is Alice Smith. She is 5'9'', has brown hair, and three tattoos. She was born in New York City. She is 22 and attended FIT for fashion design. She has two younger brothers and a girlfriend named Mary. She enjoys puppies, carving furniture, and contracting. Right now she is on Project Runway trying to design a dress out of papyrus. At the moment she is having issues adjusting the size of the mannequin's left breast because it is bigger than her right breast. She hopes to one day work for Tommy Hilfiger. But right now, she has to overcome this mannequin's abnormal breast sizes before any of that comes true.

6 More People

Take the list of six people you created in the previous exercise and turn them into three fictional characters. Take two people and combine them into one and give that new character the personality you described previously. Give these new characters names and describe what they look like.

Bob: At one point in his life, his character seemed to make a complete 180. He used to rebel like no other, but never got caught. He is often the voice of misguided reason. He never really knows what he wants to do with his life. He just knows he's not happy with the decent job he has now.

Heather: She's both caring and understanding. She looks past a lot of character flaws. She's republican for no reason other than pure ignorance. She's short, Vietnamese, brown eyed and black haired.

Jerry: He's an old dog that can't learn a new trick. Tricks like reasoning, logic, and trust. He as much of a hypocrite as he is big.

Ninny: For her age, she is coherent most of the time. However, her mind tends to go to a dark place sometimes. She barely speaks english, but at this point in her life, cannot survive anywhere else than the United States (where the majority of her family resides).

Jude: He and I have always seemed to be cut from a similar cloth somehow. Yet his was always the lighter colored "ying" cloth. We have a similar taste in humor, music, and movies. Except my tastes are only slightly more darker than his. He's got a girlfriend that goes to a different school than him. He met her in high school. I have a feeling they're going to get married someday. I just hope I'll be invited.

Dante: He and I learned violin from the same teacher growing up. We also got into a bunch of trouble together in high school, going to lot of music festivals that would last for hours. He's also got a girlfriend who will someday become his wife. I just hope the cigarettes don't kill them first.

6 People

List six people you know (first names only) who interest you enough to write about them. Write what you find interesting about them. List some characteristics of their personalities and describe what they look like.

Tom: He's an old dog that can't learn a new trick. Tricks like reasoning, logic, and trust. He as much of a hypocrite as he is big.

Hien: She's both caring and understanding. She looks past a lot of character flaws. She's republican for no reason other than pure ignorance. She's short, Vietnamese, brown eyed and black haired.

Jim: At one point in his life, his character seemed to make a complete 180. He used to rebel like no other, but never got caught. He is often the voice of misguided reason. He never really knows what he wants to do with his life. He just knows he's not happy with the decent job he has now.

Ngoai: For her age, she is coherent most of the time. However, her mind tends to go to a dark place sometimes. She barely speaks english, but at this point in her life, cannot survive anywhere else than the United States (where the majority of her family resides).

Jonah: He and I have always seemed to be cut from a similar cloth somehow. Yet his was always the lighter colored "ying" cloth. We have a similar taste in humor, music, and movies. Except my tastes are only slightly more darker than his. He's got a girlfriend that goes to a different school than him. He met her in high school. I have a feeling they're going to get married someday. I just hope I'll be invited.

Drake: He and I learned violin from the same teacher growing up. We also got into a bunch of trouble together in high school, going to lot of music festivals that would last for hours. He's also got a girlfriend who will someday become his wife. I just hope the cigarettes don't kill them first.

Wake Up

Write about a private moment you’ve experienced in a distant place. Perhaps a solitary walk along a beach or an elegant dinner at a restaurant far from home. Your goal, first, is to transport yourself back to this moment, then put the reader there. Tell us what you see, what you smell and hear, what you feel.

I will answer this post with a poem I wrote when I was in seventh grade. It narrates a dream I once had. Before Inception came out.

I wake up
I’m not in my bed
My room smells different
My hands look different
I’m a different person...

I wake up
My head hurts
My back aches
My clothes smell
The sidewalk is cold
A man gives me change...

I wake up
I walk outside
The air smells of fish
The sand cradles my bare feet
The sun is warm on my face
And the ocean purrs on the horizon...

I wake up again
The walls are white
There is a tube in my nose
A woman asks if I can hear her
One blink for yes
Two blinks for no
She says she's sorry...

I wake up
I cry
My bed rocks slowly
A strange woman comes and holds me
I cry louder...

I wake up
The air is cold
The walls are dirty
My cot smells of puke and sweat
The guard walks by my cell...

I wake up again
My head is on the woman next to me
I hear a man ask for more peanuts
I look out the window and see clouds
The pilot says we are almost home...

And then I wake up
I know this warmth
I know these hands
And I know this place
I feel familiar
I feel fine
I feel normal
And then I wake up…

Cell Phones

Write about your favorite invention. What has made your life easier since you’ve been using it? Who makes it and what does it do? What are the benefits of this invention? What are the negative results of using this invention? If you could improve it, what would you do?

My life has become so integrated into technology that i actually care more when my cell phone gets lost than when my wallet with my license, school ID, debit card, library card, personal items, two free movie passes and twenty bucks gets lost. btw twenty dollar reward to anyone who finds my wallet :P

on a similar note, ive realized how much my life revolves around technology to the point where i actually depend on it. it has become a necessity. an addiction. it wakes me up in the morning. it entertains me. it cleans me. it allows me to see around my house. it even tells me what to do sometimes. i found that i actually listen to what my mother says more when she says it via text message than when she says it to my face. I even remember it better. for some reason "go to bed. NOW!" is more intimidating to me when she is texting it from her bed at 12am.

Dear cell phone innovators,
We have enough cell phones to make us all unique individuals who all conform under your tyranny. Our need to be constantly be connected to our friends and family has awarded you the opportunity to rape our wallets and social life. And by installing cameras that send pictures...what the hell were you thinking? there are kids as young as 12 years old who are now locking themselves in their bathrooms to take naked pictures of themselves to send to guys who honestly only just want to send it to every other guy they know. You have cleverly managed to build your own underground child pornography service that has at the same time passed conveniently under your own noses as well as the law enforcement's watchful eyes.

just stop making us smaller, cooler, more colorful cell phones. we dont need fun little one dollar applications to occupy our attention when we have five minutes of down time on the bus or in the subway. people need to pull their souls out of their cell phones in those five minutes and observe the world. observe people. or just observe the depths of their own minds.

We have enough cell phones. You have made such an abundance of new cell phones that it seems like you are coming out with one every week. cell phones should not be like a new style of clothing that defines us as an individual. they are machines. they are gadgets that run on batteries. batteries that often pile up in landfills destroying our eco systems. stop making us new cell phones and start making us things we actually need. like jetpacks or more efficient eco friendly engines. or jetpacks :)

Love Speech on Asians

Write a defense to the bigoted diatribe that you wrote previously. Defend your heritage and talk about some of the more interesting and special cultural activities or physical differences.

Hey maybe someday when all asians have taken over the world and they elect me to be the ambassador to the Engrish, I'll reconsider putting your balls on a platter. Next time we have a math test, I'll write down all the wrong answers so you can fail. Oh and stop asking about my dick so much. If you ask about it that much, it makes everyone around you think you're scared the half asian kid's dick is gona be bigger than yours. And if I could fix your calculator, I'd take it from you and then smash it on the fuckin ground. You're not gona fight me, because you're too scared that I know kung-fu. Right?

Hate Speech on Asians

Pretend you are part of a hate group and write a bigoted diatribe against your ethnic heritage. Use all the common myths and stereotypes. Be as offensive as you can be. Think about where you’ve heard similar statements and how you felt at the time you first heard them.

You chinky eyed bitch. Why don't you go fix my calculator. You can use your tiny ass dick as a sauntering iron. Ching Chong Ching Ching Chong. Hey I how do you name an asian baby? By throwing a spoon in the sink. Fuckin Chink. I got some math homework if you wanna do that for me. Fuckin asian. Hey why are you so good at sports? No I'm pretty sure it's cuz you're asian. Hey, Chris, do all black people look the same to you? Hey, Chris, how do you see the road when your eyes are closed all the time? Wait, your eyes are open right now right? Hey, Chris, even though you're half white and there's a purebred chinese kid sitting right next to us, we're just gona call you Asian. That's just gona be your new nickname. K ASIAN?

Why do you think I wrote "I touch myself" in whiteout on Pat Cassidy's binder in 7th grade? Actually, it was because he ripped one of my playing cards. Because I was asian. And really good at magic tricks.

One Sentence, One Paragraph

In a single sentence, declare who you are – your ethnic and regional background, your social class, your religion, or whatever is appropriate to you. For example, “I am a third-generation American of Irish-German heritage, raised Catholic in the middle-class suburbs of the Midwest.” Follow this sentence with an autobiographical paragraph or two, perhaps shifting back to the time you were born, or perhaps showing how your background influences your beliefs and actions today.

I'm an Irish-Vietnamese guy born in Anchorage, Alaska; raised in the middle class of Williamsport, PA.

I was raised under the guidance of my older brother. He was always a lot cooler to me than I think he really was. Nevertheless, he was the one who taught me how to act around people, how to dress, and how to get through to the 'unreasonables'. We moved from Alaska, to Virginia, and then to PA because of my father's job. I doubt they'll be moving again soon. I'll be honest, though, I'm a little scared of that transition between kid and adult. I guess I need a job first...

The Black Cruz

Associate an object or an action with someone in real life. Does someone you know have a cherished possession or a unique ritual? Describe it. Use that object or ritual to begin a character sketch about that person.

My brother's job is to drive around to different hospitals selling medical equipment to doctors. If this sounds familiar it's because it's the same job that Will Smith had at the beginning of The Pursuit of Happyness. That being said his entire life has become confined to a singular metal death trap that he adores. Anytime I get in he's constantly reminding me not to slam the door, even when I close it gently. It's a black chevy cruz with satalite radio. He listens to NPR every day and regurgitates information to me as if he's learned something new. It would be a nice car to own if it weren't filled to the brim with hip and leg braces along with stacks of medical forms. He likes to fool himself into thinking his life is in order because he keeps his apartment immaculately clean; however, the place where he spends most of his life these days is a mess.

Sorry Jim. I love you man, but I know this isn't what you want to do your whole life. Even if it pays well.

Deathbed

9/25/2012
You’re very old. You’re on your deathbed. (Sorry.) Family and friends gather around you. What do you tell them about life? What advice about living do you offer them? Spill a few pearls of wisdom from your experience.

Don't waste your time holding your self back with beliefs and ideologies. Compared to amount of time the Earth has been here, your life is but a fraction of a second. One day you're going to be lying on your death bed wondering what your life has meant; if you've managed to make an inkling of an impact on anyone else's life or have done anything to outlive the life you've built for yourself, and you may hate yourself for coming to the wrong conclusion. There are billions of people in this world, struggling to figure out the life they've been given by their mothers and fathers. Your job is to figure out what makes your life worth living. Whether that be money, fame, love, art, work, or pleasure. Just find a way to be happy while making money. If you happen to come across someone who's different than the rest, someone who challenges you, and makes chasing them seem more worthwhile than the path you've chosen; my advice is to not let them out of your lives. However, if your path leads you astray from them, my advice is to focus on your work until you can live comfortably, your love life will follow suite. The person you think you're meant to be with may not be the one at all.
I'm not going to claim I know all the secrets to life. I will say that making mistakes is crucial to knowing how to shape your life. I will also say that, "One day, your life will flash before your eyes, just make sure it's worth watching." -Chuck Palahniuk

Nirvana Was Not Just A Band

9/20/2012
Write about your vision of the afterlife, if you believe in one. If you don’t believe in one, write about what happens after we die or, if you prefer, write about your vision of what the afterlife should be.

In a movie, the main character will always go through a transformation of some kind. Usually it will become the polar opposite of the character he was when the story began. That's why we come to care about the character. We see him go through "the hero's journey."

My belief is that life is an ongoing lesson. If we go through life unable to learn the lesson we're supposed to, we will be reborn as someone else in different circumstances to experience this lesson again. Or examine this lesson from another perspective.

Those of us who live happily, learn from their mistakes, and impact the people or the world around us won't have to be reborn again. As the Hinduists would say, they'll reach the highest caste system and be met with Nirvana.

King Sisy

9/18/2012
Retell a myth or a fairy tale, changing what happens or exploring characters more deeply than in the original. For example, GRENDEL is the story of the monster in BEOWULF and WICKED is a story about the Wicked Witch of the West. Reverse the myth or tale and try to create an anti-hero.


Sisy had always thought of himself as a clever boy. His father had given this name because he thought it would give his son character. For some reason, his father had always resented his son. He claimed tought love would make him grow to be a man.

One day, his father told him to begin carrying stones from a quarry over to their house. He never gave him the real reason as to why he wanted the stones, he only told him that it would make him become a man.

Sisy did as his father said, and began carrying the stones, one by one, over to a pile of stones by their house. He worked day and night, but the stones in the quarry never seemed to grow any less. Sisy continued to follow his father's orders to the point that he hadn't noticed that his father had passed away. One day the news came to Sisy, and he contemplated quitting his work. But he figured it was what his father would have wanted. So he continued.

He thought he might be able to build a pile of rocks so high that one day he would be able to reunite with his father in heaven. He continued his work tirelessly until he eventually died of old age.

In heaven, he found that his father was nowhere to be found. His task was set until the day he died, but even then, his work had gone unrewarded. Because Sisy had spent his entire life trying to gain the respect of his father, he missed experiencing his own life of happiness.

Moral of the story: don't waste your life away chasing the respect of another person. Even if they are the people who raised you.

Hometown

9/13/2012
Write about your hometown - where your family lives now. Write about what you like best - the landmarks, the best restaurants, the recreational activities.

My hatred for Williamsport has been brewing since the day I moved here. In all the other places I've lived in my life, I've never experienced the kind of segregation that I've seen here for the majority of my life.

Before the third grade, I was never picked on for being asian. Everyone saw everyone as being the same kind of person. If there was any hatred towards another person, it was because of something they said, did, or what someone had said about them. The onslaught of remarks never ceased, even up to my highschool graduation.

Nevertheless, Williamsport is a beautiful place. Every year we're put on the map by the Little League World Series. It's about the only thing that other people around the world can identify with. However, if you've spent enough time in this place, like I have, you will eventually find the local hotspots that are fun to hang out with your friends at.

There are places along creeks with rope swings, places you can jump off of bridges into somewhat deep water, and lookout spots on top of hills where you can take a romantic date (i.e. squirrel run in South Williamsport). We've also got a great local area in the heart of Williamsport where people can shop in small businesses or go to hole-in-the-wall coffee shops. All over the area, places continue to be added to the downtown area and the mall: Panera Bread, Starbucks, The Cinema Center, Target, and Michael's. Sometimes I'll leave for a period of one or two years and find my hometown totally unrecognizable.

It may be filled with resentful people, but Williamsport continues to grow into pleasant hometown with everything anyone would possibly need to live a happy life with the people they love.

Fuck that was a corny way to end :P

9/11/2001

In elementary school, I was one of three kids selected to be in a higher math class than everyone else. In fourth grade, eventually the other two kids had to drop back down to the fourth grade class. I was the only one left.

In fifth grade, I had to attend sixth grade classes at Lycoming Vally Middle School. A bus driver had to employed to drive me back to elementary school. It didn't really seem economical to me, but it wasn't my place to question the school's budget.

When I first realized there was something wrong, I was walking through the hallways of Hepburn Elementary with my backpack wheeling on the ground behind me. The sound of the wheels echoing through the halls seemed to be louder than usual. I passed by Mr. Guild, my old math teacher from fourth grade. There was no one in his room, so that meant he was watching the news and drinking coffee by his desk. But something was different. He was standing three feet away from the screen today. It looked like something you would only see in the movies. Only it was happening in the news.

There's not much I can remember from that day. Just the sight of two airplanes disappearing into a skyscraper, the sound of the announcer's voice, and the plume of dust that engulfed New York City. I just remember that the day a girl named Katie was struck and killed on impact by a car was more devastating to those kids than saddest day in U.S. history.

Because of this, however, I can't help but remember the most chilling quote that's always stuck with me by a man named Joseph Stalin.

"One death is a tragedy, A million deaths is a statistic."

Until that day, I didn't even know what the World Trade Center was. I didn't even know the U.S. government was in the middle of a quarrel with these people. Hell I didn't even know who these people were or why they would do such a thing. On 9/11/2001, we were just kids. We couldn't possibly comprehend the complexity of what was happening that day. But we would as time moved on. Because that was the day we were forced to accept the reality of the real world. Life wasn't always going to be worrying about next week's spelling test. Real life was the tragedy we were forced to watch on that TV screen.

The Stick Game

Recount a somewhat serious anecdote – a real or a fictional one—in the form of a joke. Use the rhythms and the voice you use when telling a joke, such as premise, setup and punch line.


Back when I used to live in Virginia, my brother and I would often invent our own games to entertain ourselves through the long summer days when playing video games was considered a shameful activity in the midst of such beautiful afternoons. I remember these games to be sporadic manifestations of our imaginations combined with our battle to overcome the monotony of childhood life. Often, they would come to fruition out of our usual competitive nature with one another; even though most of the games we invented never seemed to have any actual goals in the first place. Our parents were always against us seeing any ‘R’ rated movies growing up, however, violent action movies were never a problem. This was also before the era of violent video games, so we had to use our imaginations to fuel our need for an aggressive output. That being said, this particular game we invented seemed to be the one to end them all. The destruction of our youth.

I can’t exactly remember what this game was called, although I do recall what it consisted of. I imagine it arose from the type of dispute we always had over ‘who got who, first’ every time we shot at each other with our pointed fingers. That was how ‘The Shooting Game’ came to be called ‘The Stick Game.’ I’m sure you can figure out where this is going, and it pains me to think that we didn’t at the time. If you’ve ever heard your parents tell you not to do something because there was a chance someone could get their eye poked out, this was one of those situations. Nevertheless, the game consisted of throwing sticks at each other while hiding behind two adjacent trees. The object was to try and dodge the other player’s stick while trying to hit your opponent at the same time. Let’s just say my brother won after I dove out from behind my tree and connected my left eye to his stick.
As soon as this happened, I ran inside and cried to my mother like a little girl. I was then rushed to an eye doctor to see if there had been any real damage to my retina. I could only imagine the hell my brother was going through at home with my crazy father, despite the game being his idea in the first place. According to the doctor, my vision appeared to be fine, which made me wonder why I was forced to wear an eye patch over my face for the next two weeks. Although I knew how ridiculous it made me look, I kind of liked looking like an Asian pirate baby. I suppose it made me feel like a man who now had a cool battle scar and a good story to tell his friends at the lunch table. After I came back, however, my dad pulled my brother outside by his sleeve as I walked into the house. My brother began crying after he saw the patch on my eye.

“Look at him!” he cried, “Look at what you did to your brother!” It was then that I felt something strange come over me that I had never felt before. At the time, I couldn’t exactly describe it. It wasn’t sadness or empathy. And it wasn’t even the sight of my brother breaking down over such an unforeseeable accident. It was my father. It was the first time I had actually seen him give a shit about my general well being. I mean, I knew he was doing this to teach my brother a lesson, but it was over something that he’d done to me. Something that might’ve actually caused me permanent damage for the rest of my life. It was then that I knew why I started to cry in that moment. My father might act like he hates me sometimes, but there was something in him that caused him pain at the sight of me actually getting hurt. What was this feeling? And why had I never seen it before?

My Philosophy on Life

1. We all change. Whether you like or not, you're not going to be the same person that you were back in high school. The experiences you share with the people you surround yourself with are going to shape and alter your perceptions of yourself, your relationships with other, how you motivate yourself, how you deal with failure, recognizing reality vs. neglecting deception, recognizing incentives/manipulation, and how to be realistic about achieving your goals. Not everyone is going to have the same experiences. And not everyone is going to learn from these lessons as quickly as they should. You will make mistakes along the way, but the hope is that you will learn from them sooner than later to repeat.

2. There's no point in living the life your parents want you to live if it doesn't make you happy. If what you choose to pursue doesn't invigorate and excite you on a daily basis, then you will spend your days feeling as though you are wasting your time. This feeling often leads to depression. And if that persists for long enough, it only takes one incident to push you over the edge. If you can stand before the judgement of the pearly gates with a smile on your face, then who's to say your life had no meaning. It meant something to you and you were, hopefully, please with your journey. Live happily by working happily. All else will fall into place.

3. Essentially, my basic philosophy on how to live my life boils down to being optimistically skeptical. In other words, anyone you meet down your rocky path of life could be God. You would have no way of knowing for sure.

So act accordingly.

Prompt 1

Why did you choose Lycoming College and what were your other choices?

I choose Lyco because I was fairly certain that Penn Tech wasn't going to be able to provide me with the classes that I was interested in. I was also forced to go to a school close to home so my parents could attempt to control my rather crazy lifestyle. I believe in enjoying the short amount of time that I'll be on this Earth. If I can't see the joy in doing something, chances are I won't do them. At least not for long.


What is your major and why did you choose it?

I don't really have a major. I'm leaning towards studying filmmaking, however, the closest thing they have in that department is DCOM. And I'm more concerned about broadening my intelligence in order to create a more interesting story. That's why I'm studying philosophy, psych, spanish, astrology, dinosaurs, photography, etc. I don't really know if that's an effective way to go about the job market these days, but, for some reason, I'm not really that worried about it. Things just feel right when I'm learning what I want to learn.

What do you hope to accomplish with your degree once you graduate?

Either working in advertising, becoming a financial consultant, or becoming a filmmaker. A friend told me I should combine advertising and film to make a badass career. However, I don't really see myself as someone who can create a 30 second ad that can make you laugh. Because 70% of all effective advertising is supposed to tug at your humor strings. I love film because of its artistic aspect and its power within our culture. I firmly believe film has such a cultural weight that it can change people on a subconscious level. In other words, an hour and a half of something meaningful can change your life forever.

Happy Shorts

JP Auclair Street Segment (from All.I.Can.) from Sherpas Cinema on Vimeo.

The one short that will consistently make me happier for the next three hours ^^^. Next to this one vvv. Kudos to the amazing people I had a chance to live with this last summer for showing them to me. Jesse, I don't care about the mug. Chrispy, I heard what happened and I hope we can still be friends. I didn't understand your circumstances and I'm sorry. By the way, I appreciate you taking me to Grassroots. Even though you did abandon me there after taking all of my stuff. Altogether, though, It was an amazing experience and I'll definitely be back soon.

How to Survive a Gun to the Head (Youtube video)

Real Smart Descartes

If we are to stick to Leibniz’s Law in being the deciding factor between Cartesian Dualism and JJC Smart’s ‘identity theory’, we must first understand why this law is true or not. It says that two different things cannot have the exact same properties and still be two different things. They could be entirely identical (like two cars of the same model fresh off the assembly line), however, they would not have the same spatial location. Thus, one property remains different from the two similar objects. However, if two things have different properties but are still considered to be the same thing, only under a different condition, then we must include that condition as a different property; thus two things. I believe Leibniz’s Law to be the turning point in this argument because both philosophers are attempting to support or dispute it in a way. It is also a great place to start because its logic is easy to understand.

Descartes argues that the mind is separate from the body because the two have different properties. His thinking is simple.  Since the body is divisible, and the mind is indivisible, the mind has a property that the body does not. Therefore, according to Leibniz’s Law, the mind is separate from the body.

            Smart’s case relies on proving brain processes and mental sensations are one in the same thing. The key to understanding this is the mind/body connection. If what happens to your body is so finely connected to the feelings of your surroundings, then your mind and body cannot be separate from themselves. However, according to Leibniz’s law, if we can distinguish two different things as having different properties, then they cannot be the same thing. A brain process is the nerval connection in the body that results in the actual feeling of a sensation. A mental state would be the feeling of the sensation itself like a pain in your arm or hearing a concerto. If I am able to distinguish the two in such a way, it wouldn’t seem that they would be the same thing. In other words, if his argument is that brain processes and mental sensations are the same thing, then how can anyone use the term in its own definition? A brain process is what results in a mental sensation. It is a proven fact that it takes a certain amount of time for any brain process to actually reach the brain. Smart counters by saying a young boy and the same boy, only older (The General), have different properties but are still the same person. The only thing that changes is their temporal property. So what can we consider his identity if his mind and body undergo dramatic changes throughout his lifetime?

Descartes’ argument centers on the sensation of touch. He says that the connection from the foot to the brain, with regards to the nervous system, is deceitful. One may have a pain in one’s foot but it may not be because one’s foot is actually experiencing physical stimulation. It could be from stimulation in another place along the nerval connection (say the spine) that causes one to experience a sensation somewhere else. Another way to argue this would be to take Descartes’ separation of the body example quite literally by severing a bodily appendage. Why would we have a mental sensation of an itch on an arm that doesn’t exist? But one could argue that it only proves the mind is more connected to the body because it has a conception of itself that is no longer there. I would say that if the brain were so in tune with its body, it would understand the fact that its limb is no longer there.

Smart handles his discussion primarily from the sensation of sight. Or rather one of the anomalies that comes along with sight. He begins by using color, an adjective commonly used to describe something physical, to describe something non-physical, a yellowish-orange after image. By doing this, he attempts to say that the mental sensation of seeing the after image is the same as having the brain process of seeing an actual thing. And since we cannot describe such a mental sensation other than by means of something physical, then it must be a physical thing that has physical properties.

The power of his argument, comes from his use of color and how it’s used to describe purely physical things. My objection to this is that Smart describes it as being “yellowish-orange,” but I may come to describe it as being blue, red, yellow, and orange at the same time. How is it possible for something that is physical to have all of these properties at the same time? Also, the experience of seeing the after image is not exactly like an experience of seeing something physical. After a while of staring at the after image, it will eventually disappear. It also remains visible (even more so) when I close my eyes, which is a property that no physical thing (other than the back of my eyelids) has. So if I can say that the after image has at least one property that physical things do not, then we can conclude that the after image is not the same as seeing a physical thing, even if it is a noun.

Descartes reasons that physical things have physical properties such as having a spatial location, having size, having shape, having weight, being subject to the laws of physics, and being directly observable. Mental things primarily have unphysical characteristics such as having no location, no size, no extension, no weight, they are not subject to the laws of physics and are not directly observable (although apparently everyone has a ‘tell’). He says that the mind and body are connected as a singular unit, but since the mind has a property that the body does not, it must be distinct from the body.

            The substance of Smart’s argument is much like saying you cannot have music without a particular dynamic describing the volume at which it is played. It is easy to imagine a piece of music without any dynamics written in, however, it is impossible to actually the play music without playing it at a particular level. The dynamics construct the emotions (or the feelings) of the piece while the music provides the layout for which it is played. Descartes would say that they are two different things with different properties that coincide with one another in synchronicity. The sheet of music is a physical thing that contains dynamic markings (physical markings that are related to the abstract). However, Smart would argue that you cannot have music without the dynamics. You cannot express a dynamic without playing a note that expresses it. It would be foolish to think that one could play a concerto, silently. But having now brought up this analogy, it seems I have only proven that the body cannot exist without the mind, which we know not to be true (a dead body exists and does not have a working mind). Or maybe I should rather say that a singular body can exist but we can only consider it a person if there is a working mind behind it.

            However, it would also appear that I am excluding the idea of spatial temporal identity. Smart would argue that water and ice are composed of the same thing, but the density of ice is different from that of water. Therefore, ice has a different property from water even though it is composed of the same elements. This seems to disprove Leibniz’ Law in a kind of way. Obviously the argument still holds that the spatial identity between a glass of ice and an ice cube remain different. However, the characteristic of ice is also a property of water. It freezes when under the right conditions. It is similar to Smart’s ‘General’ argument. The boy and the General are the same person with different characteristics, but only if we examine them outside of their spatial temporal locations. The ice is different from water, but if we give the ice time to melt, it will eventually become water. But still what does that say about the identity of a person over time? Well what is it that changes the General from the young boy he once was? It’s the experiences he has and the memories he maintains of himself growing as an individual through time. Water has other properties, but they will only come into being under the right circumstances.

            The point of arguing all of this is to ultimately determine whether or not the soul continues to exist after bodily death. It is a question that reaches at the core of human existence. Is there a point of living if we are nothing but physical beings that have no way of interacting with anything outside of this physical realm? According to Occam’s Razor, we should remain loyal to the hypothesis that leaves the most variables out of the final product. In which case, it would seem that Smart’s hypothesis is the simplest because it doesn’t require further questioning outside of our realm of knowledge. However, Smart’s theory does appear to violate Leibniz’ Law.

            For the question of immortality, I would say that it depends on what degree of immortality we are addressing. Escaping bodily death would seem impossible according to the laws of thermodynamics (entropy). However, if we would like to appease to the fans of Occam’s Razor, then we cannot assume anything that we cannot possibly know to be true. That being said, there are some people who have escaped death. So long as the human race continues as it should, their stories will continue to live on through books, music, folk tales, movies, etc. Achilles may not be around anymore, but we still know the story of his battle against Troy and his quest to be remembered.

            Essentially, what I am trying to say is that I believe everyone has two identities. However, I’m not exactly siding with the Cartesian Dualist. I’m rather siding with Occam’s Razor. For now, it is no longer a question of the soul after death or whether God exists. As far as we know, living human beings are the only things that are capable of raising the questions of identity, the soul, and life after death. Even if our souls did continue to exist after death, it would only be the souls of the living that will persist to care about you and vice versa. Your living identity (bodily identity) is how you’re perceived by the world around you. Your lasting identity (post-mortem) is measured by the impact you made on the world while you were still alive. Is it possible that one could exist and not be perceived at all? Yes. Is it also possible that one could live their whole lives without having an impact? Of course. But it would also seem possible that these people wouldn’t have an identity as far as we’re concerned. If a tree falls in the woods, but nothing is around to hear it, does it still make a sound? My answer is no. Your identity is dependant on you.

Parallax Error

have you noticed that everything you see and hear is something that already happened earlier

the light you see from a star in space takes about five seconds to reach earth

the radio you hear takes at least .2 seconds to reach your area

you will see the smoke from a gun before you hear it being shot

you will see the flash of lightning long before you hear its boom

long distance interviews on the news are sometimes slower than a normal conversation  

think about this

the human reaction time is from about .1 seconds to .2 seconds

in high pressure situations sometimes adrenaline will aid in speeding this up but for the most part the average stays around .1 to .2

that means that when a deer jumps in front of your car at night, your brain processes this information in .2 seconds

nature is designed so that we see everything in a delayed manner

its almost as if its in our nature to be relaxed to the environment around us

humans are supposed to be relaxed people

so why is it that we insist on being so uptight so often

the universe doesn’t want us to walk around with sticks up our butts always being angry at our neighbors

breath out for once

live slowly in every moment

because you never know when a deer will jump in front of your car

Cafe

            I walk up the stairs and look to my right. Every morning she’s there, smoking a cigarette and looking at her phone. Occasionally, I offer to pay her for one, but she always gives them to me for free. Usually, I wouldn’t ever go out of my way to repay someone in cigarettes, but I liked seeing her there every morning. She reminded me that we are all creatures of habit, looking for a familiar tick in ourselves that we can convince ourselves of our own individualism. I could see myself approaching her awkwardly, however, the constant companion of her cell phone either meant that she’s a very popular girl, or that she has a boyfriend. Regardless, I hand her a cigarette, smile, and continue on with my own daily routine.

            I walk into the café, holding the door for an older gentleman in his forties. The air smells of hot paninis and ground coffee. One of the coffee girls yells a name on the side, holding a sandwich and an ice coffee. There’s no answer. For a minute, I’d like to tell her that my name is Michelle and she’s holding my order, but she already knows my name. It was one of the things I enjoyed about coming to the café before class. Everyone who worked there knew almost everyone by name. Sometimes, the woman at the counter would write out my entire order before I’d finish telling it to her: an iced 20 ounce caramel macchiato with soy and a tomato, mozzarella, and pesto sandwich. It was a sandwich of nostalgia that would always bring me back to a better time in my life when I lived with my best friend and worked at the Riviera Café in New York. The coffee was just to wake me up in time for my Screenwriting class.

            I sit down at the table across from the register, pretending to read the economic section of a USA Today that isn’t mine. While I skim past the headlines, I can hear the coffee ladies gossiping about which girls’ hair they wish they had. A group of sorority girls are huddled around a table behind me. Usually I would assume they were just a large group of friends, but at Lycoming College, the chances of it being a group of mindless sorority sisters was much higher. Together, they were an impenetrable team of women, bound by the illusion of ‘sisterhood’. Individually, they were just girls, looking to be a part of something. Looking to fit in with a particular crowd so that attending the right party would be a matter of obligatory importance. It made me wonder if almost all human activity could be synthesized down to a particular set of primal needs. Regardless, the economic crisis was beginning to bore me and the loud cackle of the sorority girls made it impossible to read anything anyways.

            I look at my watch. It’s almost 1 o’clock. I dig out my laptop from my bag and pull up all the normal sites. Nothing’s changed since I last checked five minutes ago, so I pretend to look at the screen while the people around me become my entertainment. Without any sort of context as to what people are talking about, I’m left playing a kind of ad-lib game with the pieces I get from their conversations. From across the room, I can spot Richard; a kid from my high school who’s perspective of reality seemed a bit askew at times. I recognized him from the hoodie he always used to wear everyday. There was something different about the group of friends at his table. None of them were talking to each other. At least not more than two words at a time. Every single one of them had their faces buried in a gameboy. And it wasn’t like all of them were on the same level as Rich either. One of them seemed like a normal jock that you’d often find everywhere on campus. And Richard was the leader of the group! I was there, sitting alone, and the kid, who used to be smelly to sit next to, had a group of his own friends that he could meet up and play gameboy with. It was weird how things had changed since high school.

            A girl shouts my name, but is already looking directly at me. I look at her for a second, wondering if she really expects me to raise my hand. For a split second, I feel like she has just introduced me to the entire café. Hi, my name’s Chris and I like coffee and sandwiches. I also enjoy sitting by myself and observing other people while they eat in front of me. She hands me my order and smiles. I get up to grab the straw that she always seems to forget. As if I’m supposed to drink an iced coffee by hand.

            

Revelations

1. i cant imagine why the caged bird sings

2. irrational censorship isnt protecting anyone, its called the game of life. no one should be losing

3. the clothes you own can write a speech about you

4. the things you say can sometimes be fixed and forgotten
the things you do are carved in stone

5. poker faces can also be misleading

6. in a week, wat hurts you will make you laugh

7. people tend to become the people they hang out with

8. you never realize how much you really use your pinky until you get a paper cut

9. all you need is love. nothing else

10. Everyone in the world has the power to change someone's life. get started.

11. Love isnt a feeling, its an ability (from dan in real life)

12. As long as you're honest from the beginning, people can't be mad at you for what they already know.

The Dilemma of Identity

Locke’s example of the prince and the cobbler raises a few important questions about the nature of our identities and the circumstances of our own consciousness in regards to our physical body. To everyone but the cobbler, he perceives himself to be the same prince but in a different body. In a way, his spirit is what carries his memories and personal identity, not the physical brain that he were to inherit from the cobbler. But that was one thing that I felt was the most overlooked by Locke and Reid. Our memories. If our memories are the things that hold our physical beings in the moment and hold us accountable for our actions, then why do we still ponder the existence of the soul? If our memories are held by a purely physical thing, the brain, then would it be safe to say our identity is located somewhere in the brain? Or without our brain, we are nobody? There’s something strange about Reid’s example of the general. He asks how a man could and could not be the same person if he has no memory (Reid uses the word consciousness) of his past. In a sense, Reid is asking if our memory is connected to our personal identity and what happens to a man if he were to suddenly lose his memories?  Does he then lose his identity? In a sense he loses everything that attaches him to his particular time of existence. However, he still maintains consciousness and his ability to communicate thoughts. A dog certainly holds the memory of its owner when he comes home, so what distinguishes a pet from human existence? Would it be wrong to assume that a person’s identity is a combination of their memory, consciousness, and their ability to communicate thoughts in an effective manner? Or does it have to be one of the three?

Get Smarter

In J.J.C Smart’s “Sensations and Brain Processes,” he explains that there’s no difference between mental states and brain processes in terms of what we experience. Neither have non-physical properties, only physical ones. However, they aren’t necessarily the same thing. A brain process might be what happens in the body that results in the actual feeling of a sensation. A mental state would be the sensation itself like a pain in your arm or hearing a concerto. The difference lies in the scientific connection within the body that might explain our anatomy like a kind of mechanical instrument. Something physical happens to the body, which causes the nervous system to bring about a mental sensation. It’s difficult to describe such a feeling, however, making them harder to classify. This is where I became lost. Smart wants to say that since we cannot exactly say what these feelings are, they can’t be non-physical properties. Since they have properties that appear to be similar to physical properties, Smart concludes that these sensations must be purely physical. I suppose that the amount of time it takes for you to have a brain process and then a mental sensation is so small that they are essentially the same things for all intents and purposes. The after image example he brings up is interesting because it is one of the very few sensations that we can actually witness for ourselves and describe it in terms of color, something we use to describe physical things all the time. However, that doesn’t necessarily mean those after images are real physical things, it only means the sensation we are having at the time is real.

Mary Had a Little Problem

If Mary is raised in a “completely black and white room,” then does she also eat black and white food? Will she live her entire life in that room without ever cutting herself accidentally, seeing the color of her eyes in a mirror, or see the color of her blood vessels? Will she never experience the mental process of smelling her own feces or seeing the color of her urine? Will she never happen upon the scientific explanations of refractive light and the color spectrum in her studies? I suppose that would be what Jackson would define as “knowledge how rather than knowledge that.” Nevertheless, it is an interesting hypothetical into the distinction between having knowledge about something and having an actual mental brain process. Of course Mary could experience the colors of her own body, but she wouldn’t know how to identify with them unless she happens to read that blood is the color of apples and fire trucks and while sunflowers are the color of urine. Mary could possess a list of things that are of a certain color, but she would only come to classify these objects under the same category. My question is, what if Mary’s definition of red is based on a black and white photo of an apple. Would she develop the wrong definition of the color red if she were to happen upon a green apple as she is released? In which case, she would finally experiences the ‘qualia’ of an object, but subsequently create the wrong definition of that color in her head. However, Jackson’s point is that she could know everything there was to know about a color, but it would be impossible to teach her the experience of seeing that color. Therefore, we can draw a distinction between understanding reality and having the experience of a mental process.