I had finally finished the second part of my 2 Genre Project by this point and it definitely took a lot of effort to create the artist book. I have always liked to do artistic projects a lot more compared to written projects. Poems, short stories, and lyrics were never my thing. Sometimes finding the right words can be too frustrating for me to enjoy a project. It is a shame I never got to see everyone else’s projects, I would have loved to see everyone’s expression of their creativity. I saw a few interesting concepts from other students, such as a scene from the story of “We Have Always Lived in the Castle” written in Constance’s point of view and an alternate scene exploring the manipulative relationship between Merricat and Constance except in a different setting (involving Munchausen Syndrome I believe). Although I will not be seeing their final results, I guess it is fun to imagine their concepts.

I just realized how close we are to the end of the semester and how so unlike the public education system I had to deal with for around twelve years. This class was an awesome experience and I truly felt like I was learning something of substance. Psychological phenomenon is much more common than I had initially thought, both in our personal lives and in the books we read or the shows/movies we watch. I became more open minded to the feelings and worldviews of people who are so different compared to me. Although I won’t always be able to understand what someone is going through, at least trying to understand and listening carefully is the best step forward.

I have already finished one of my genre pieces for the 2-genre project, and I had a lot of fun doing it. Putting it all together to make it look like some old town newspaper was my favorite part of it, I think the aesthetic is nice and it makes sense given that the Blackwood murders and Constance’s trial was six years before the events of “We Have Always Lived in the Castle”. Most of the town seems to believe that Constance had killed her family, despite being acquitted in the trial, so I suspected that the way it was publicized had impacted how the town felt about it. A sensationalist reporter, seeking to draw the attention of the public, would twist some things around and add some nontruths. To spice things up, I added an “interview” based off one of the characters that harassed Mary Katherine in Stella’s shop, Jim Donell.

I haven’t exactly started the artist book by this point, I am a little unsure of how to begin but I’ll figure it out eventually. I considered making the front and end covers look like the court documents or something, but maybe it would seem out of place with Merricat’s imagination and magic. I may end up doing a hybrid of collages and drawings, since it is a little difficult trying to do an artist book using a computer. We’ll see how it turns out.

Out of all the few genres I can recall from the top of my head, I think visual art is one of the most interesting ways to send a message or represent an issue. It may be difficult for some people to imagine a purpose for certain types of artwork, but to someone out there it comes off as something meaningful and something they can deeply connect to. Art benefits from the facts that there are no words and people’s interpretations can differ in many different ways. They say a picture is worth a thousand words and this rings true for artworks and paintings done by artists who are trying to express themselves to the world.

Music is another favorite genre of mine, and compared to art it has an even greater potential to bring out emotion in people. Music could contain lyrics or it could only contain a melody, and with so much variety of music it is easy for a person to find a song that best suits their taste. Music and art are a few of the earliest forms of human expression, going back to the paleolithic age where humans were still hunter-gatherers. Their cave art can still be seen today, and its amazing that these markings survived for their descendants to discover them. I guess cave art can be considered one of the most ancient genres.

I have recently finished reading Shirley Jackson’s “We Have Always Lived in the Castle” and I felt like it has the strangest ending of any book I have ever read. There are still many questions I have about the events that took place before the beginning of this novel, such why did Merricat kill the rest of their family? What was Constance’s and Merricat’s relationship with their family like before the incident?

I have a feeling that Merricat had actually decided to kill her family on behalf of Constance. When being questioned by the police, Constance had stated that “they deserved to die” and she ended up cleaning the bowl where the arsenic was placed. Uncle Julien claimed that she did all this because she was “excited” but I believe that Constance was trying to cover for Merricat. Several times throughout the story, Constance expresses moments of regret that she should have done things differently, such as putting Uncle Julien in the care of a hospital and doing something about Merricat. Although, Constance never clearly expressed what the deal with Merricat is and what exactly she should have done differently.

Merricat is very unlike how someone of her age is expected to think. She believes in magic and has fantastical daydreams about living on the moon with her sister Constance and a winged horse. Not only that, but she is quite morbid, wishing death upon the townspeople and reciting various facts about deadly mushrooms and plants to Charles whenever her patience with him runs short. It is obvious that some sort of psychological phenomenon is at play here, however I did not figure out exactly what it is yet.

It is now the moment a lot of us have been waiting for four years and it is definitely living up to my expectations. In that I expected pure chaos. In the days leading up to the election, I saw people from both sides predicting a wave, either a blue or a red wave or some landslide victory for one side. But now it seems that red and blue waves are crashing into each other judging by how close the individual races in many of the states are. This is especially surprising considering the record number voter turnout.

I guess when it comes to a person as divisive and attention grabbing like Donald Trump, people are deciding to exercise their right to vote in greater numbers either because they are his loyal followers or because they can’t stand the sight of him. Now a certain type of anxiety has settled over the people, the fear of rioting after the results of the election or the president trying to remain in power by taking action against “fraud”.

The 2020 Election is going down in the history books, along with the rest of 2020, and I can definitely say that sometimes it isn’t really fun living through history.

The story of the disembodied lady was probably one of the most intriguing and incredible stories I have ever heard. One might even say it is nightmare fuel. I even closed my eyes and tried to imagine what it must feel like to be “disembodied”, but I hardly grasp the feeling. Or rather the non-feeling. The concept itself feels like it is defying the nature of life itself, and hopefully one day someone will figure out exactly how and why this happened. If it is the result of a mental illness it is so strange that it would affect the body so severely.

It turns out there is a possible answer. I have been looking online and I found a story about a man who faced a similar problem, and he was referred to as Ian Waterman or IW. According to the article, IW lost his sense of proprioception after being sick with an undiagnosed fever. He woke up unable to control or feel his body, just as Christina had experienced. This fever was believed to have set off an auto-immune reaction and caused some type of neuronopathy, which is a disease or dysfunction of the peripheral nerves.

Like Christina, Ian Waterman learned to move his body with the help of his sight but collapses in a helpless heap once he cannot see what he is doing. Still, living and breathing while being unable to control your body, and feeling that your body is “dead”, truly sounds like a fate worse than death.

I recently finished my abnormal psych media paper and I really enjoyed looking deeply into a character’s mind to see what makes them tick and what psychological phenomenon they could be representing. To be honest, it’s only really fun when it is a character I’m fond of, such as from the books, shows, and games I’ve watched/played over the years. The character I chose to psychoanalyze for the media assignment was Aang from Avatar: The Last Airbender.

A:TLA was a show I watched back when I was a little kid and had fond memories of, although I didn’t really remember it or watch the all episodes in their correct order. I got my second chance when Netflix added the show, and it was even better than I remember it. The storytelling was masterful, and the characterization felt natural. Initially, I wanted to discuss Prince Zuko and his deeply complex mental state. In the first book, he was an interesting antagonist but from book 2 onwards he would eventually turn out to be one of the greatest redemption arcs I have ever witnessed. But that would be a lot to unpack for a short assignment of 2-3 pages.

It’s a shame animated shows are considered childish, I think they have the potential for amazing storytelling and visuals that live-action shows cannot replicate. I find a good animated show to be far more soulful and expressive than a good live show because all the visuals are placed deliberately and therefore have meaning.

In A:TLA, when characters change and develop, it is done gradually and naturally and some of it is demonstrated through psychological phenomenon such as what we are learning about.

Personally, I never really thought about psychoanalyzing a fictional character from any books, movies, shows, or video games, but now I realize how important a someone’s mental state determines their characterization and, specifically, what psychopathological phenomenon they could be experiencing. Conversely, understanding psychopathological phenomenon can help people write their characters better. By doing this, they can seem more relatable and, very importantly, more human to the audience.

For example, the main character of “The House of Asterion” uses this type of characterization as well. Asterion knows he is different from the rest, and at first it isn’t clear why everyone avoids him. With the way Asterion was characterized and his viewpoint towards his existence, I thought Asterion was a person like me, albeit a very unfortunate one. Even when he is revealed to be the Minotaur, traditionally considered a “monster”, this did not change the fact that the audience can easily sympathize with him. Asterion never bore any ill will towards those who entered the labyrinth to slay him and I am not sure if he ever knew that murder was considered an evil thing, possibly because no one ever bothered to teach him otherwise. Because they saw him as a monster and treated him so.

Like any person, Asterion yearned for freedom from his labyrinth, even if it meant dying at the hands of his prophesied redeemer, Theseus. A lonely outcast born from cruel fate fits the tale of the Minotaur seemingly far better than a monster born to kill.

After reading “The Stone Boy” by Gina Berriault, the reaction to Arnold’s actions after his brother’s accidental death reminds me of another story that I read last year back in my senior year of high school. “The Stranger” by Albert Camus told the tale of a man named Meursault, who was thought to be uncaring and “reasonable beyond emotion” by everyone else. Although compared to Arnold, Meursault is entirely an exaggeration of apathy or a disconnect from one’s emotions but society’s opinion of them are quite similar. They didn’t follow society’s expectation of a grieving or pained individual and were made to look like monsters because of it.

When Meursault went to the beach the day after his mother’s funeral, he was considered a sociopath by society and most of my English class as well. Society considers Arnold to be a sociopath because he went to pick peas despite seeing that his brother was dead, and I noticed some people in our class thought so as well.

It would be a bit of a stretch to claim to know Meursault’s feelings about his mother’s passing or the fateful day at the beach where he murdered the man. We never truly get a glimpse into his emotional state of mind, unlike with Arnold. Taken at face value, Arnold is just like Meursault. People are too quick to judge him for what he did, but do not stop to think what a tragic accident could do a person, especially to someone as young and naïve as Arnold.

I feel that writing a personal narrative is a foreign feeling to many older students, especially when it focuses on personality and emotions from an experience rather than just the experience itself, and not for the sake of looking good in front of other people like scholarship and college application essays. Writing purely about how I felt was not something I did willingly outside of assignments (in my mind, it’s a lot to unpack so I’d rather throw away the whole box) and even then I tend to write about my opinions in a bit impersonal manner because it feels like facts speak louder and truer than emotions. I say older students, because I feel that younger kids tend to be more open about how they feel or at least creatively express it more often, or at least this was true for me I think.

Writing the personal narrative allowed me to take a step back and think about myself for once, and I decided to focus on something positive, some good memories, to fondly write about. There are so many words I have not spoken, even more words I have not written, that I’m not sure I ever intend to say, but writing opened up a new conversation about me with myself in my own mind. Just as negative emotions need to be sorted through, positive emotions should be brought up and thought about as well because this is how a balance of the emotional self and identity is achieved. I spent far too much time dwelling on the negatives in the past years, so I wrote about the positives between them that I have nearly forgotten in recall memory but not in spirit. It made me happy to share them, however insignificant.