Metacognition: Short story 2nd draft

So it ended with my character inside a log cabin. Of course, I wanted to kick him out of the log cabin, so I could apply more pressure to him by forcing him to survive in the woods (as per Mr. Allen's comments). Under what circumstances would my character need to be kicked out of the cabin? 1) Cabin explodes. 2) Cabin is attacked. 3) Owner of cabin kicks him out. 4) Conditions for staying in cabin not favorable. 5) Some combination of the above. I tried thinking of 1 and 2, and decided I couldn't really write anything with that. So I went with a combination of 3 and 4. So what now? The cabin owner needs to kick him out, and/or the conditions for staying in the cabin are not favorable, either for the cabin owner or for the main character. What reason could the cabin owner have for kicking the main character out of his cabin? 1) main character is a wanted fugitive. 2) Main character has some kind of deadly disease, 3) cabin owner goes psychotic, 4) main character does something that the cabin owner doesn't like. Ok now this is getting hard. The latter three are less likely... so i'll go with the first one. But... to make things more interesting... the reason that he's a fugitve will be that he broke out of the system of an apocalyptic situation. *disclaimer* I thought of the idea before realizing it was similiar to the matrix. But maybe I subconsciously thought of the matrix and then got the idea. Step 4: write.

Dialectics: Education and freedom

Being unsure about what to write about (and how to do this prompt in general), I choose to do one of the examples. Education and Freedom. In our current education system, we have limited freedoms. I.e. we are free to make choices of our classes from a limited selection. However there are many freedoms that we don't have access to. Schedule order, what we specifically learn in the classes, what classes we can or cannot take, our teachers, flexibility of schedule and work load, freedom (for soph&frosh) to go off campus to eat, etc. As Mr. Allen said, the way schools are set up are preparing us to be factory workers and the way the geographical location of classes in the school are set up are limiting the way we think. At the same time, if we were given some of these freedoms, it is quite possible many of us would abuse them to the point that we don't learn anything. Which freedoms can be given which will help enhance student's learning abilities, and which freedoms will impede our learning? If these freedoms must be given out on a student by student basis in order to be effective, won't it be deemed "unfair"? Cycles of problems can occur with the allowance of more freedoms in the education system, and yet problems occur because there are not enough freedoms. An optimal educational system (that satisifies the educated and the educators) will never be attainable by us because of human nature.

Blogging around

My first post was on Nick's blog about craft in Cathedral. I agreed with him that cathedral was great and its craft was great.

Albert X said...

Hey Nick,

I liked your post, and I agree that it is the greatest short story I have ever read, which is not really saying much since I don't read them often. I also thought that the use of form to convey content in Cathedral was brilliant, although I personally probably won't be able to do something like that that well with my story.

The second blog post I commented on was Mitch H's. His was about how he began to see people in a whole new light due to comparisons of Shrek with onion skins. I found the craft of his post humorous, and I enjoyed reading it, although I was somewhat skeptical of his claims.

Albert X said...

Hey Mitch,

It's great to know that you've had an epiphany about personalities. I liked your extensive analysis of Shrek and onions. Nice use of multimedia in your post too. Although I enjoyed reading your blog in general, I especially enjoyed the part where you wrote "This made me have a much deeper appreciation for people around me." Very classic, I approve. But seriously, I enjoyed reading the post, although I might be somewhat skeptical of how you had a revelation due to Shrek and onion skins :P.