What do we actually remember?

Theory of Knowledge Journal Six

During my dance lesson last week one of my classmates turned to me and said, "Do you remember at last years recital when we had like six dances?! It was crazy!" I looked at her and replied with, "Casey, don't you remember? I wasn't here last year for the recital, I was in Austria" This has happened to me so much since coming home. My friends and family will talk about an event that happened while I was away as if I was there. When I remind them that I was out of the country they get surprised, think for a moment and then say, "Oh I guess you weren't there...thats so weird! I totally remember you being there!" It got me thinking about memory and how it can deceive us. I have danced in every spring recital with Casey since we were four. So when I missed one, her brain just filled me in. Even though I wasn't there, she remembers me being there. I believe our memories become distorted from the actual events based on if the event was repeated in the past and how we were feeling. But is it in fact a distortion or simply and illustration of emotion? What can we rely on from our memory? Do we remember a sequence of events or do we only remember them by how we connect them to a feeling and what logically makes sense? For example when Casey thought I was at the dance recital she remembers how it felt to have me there from the past ten or so recitals so her brain just filled me in, because logically that would make sense. Our memory can also block out things that we don't want to remember or and even change events so that they appeared better in our favor so that we can remember ourselves in a better light. In a book I read this year called "An Abundance of Katherines" a boy is dumped by nineteen Katherines. In the book he runs into one of the first Katherines. A girl he dated for couple days at a summer camp in fifth grade. They got to talking and she tells the story of when he dumped her. He says, "No you dumped me" and tells the story how he remembers it. Which was entirely different. But as she told her story again he began to remember it. His memory changed how the event happened based on what he WANTED to remember. So how accurate is our memory really? Is it possible that we remember things that never even happened? Its a scary thought but in the end does it really matter? Because in the end that is what we remember, whether it happened or not its going to seem like it did.

Can we really know another person?

Theory of Knowledge Journal 4

I opened up the document to work on my TOK essay this morning and I stared at the quote, and I had a ton of ideas but I didn't know where to start. So I closed the document and just thought for a bit. And this is what came to mind.
The quote that I am supposed to discuss in my paper is "We see and understand things not as they are but as we are” I agree with this, but the fact that I agree with this suddenly scared me because, I suddenly felt as if it is impossible for me to know anyone. If I understand the world not as it is, but as I am then I am not understanding other people as they are, but as how they are in relation to me. So how can I really know them? I can't. But at the same time, I would not be the same person if I wasn't friends with the people in my life. They have an influence on how I see the world. They change me, yet they don't change by changing me. Therefore I still see the world as I am. That means knowing a person is making their knowledge also your own, but their opinions you will never fully understand. Say a I meet someone for the first time. I find out that they are avid lovers of a book series I have never heard of. They suggest the books to me and so I read them. I don't like the books. I know they like the books, they told me they did. I now know what the books are about, but I don't like them. I see the books the way I am. They gave me the knowledge about the books, they gave me their opinion of the books, but yet I still see them differently. I guess the best we can do to really know someone is try to understand their opinion through our own lens. Thats the best we can do I think.

Double Standard

Theory of Knowledge: Journal 3

Today in class we were discussing the double standard. Many of the examples given were regarding the double standards between the genders. At one point Mr. O'Leary shared a story about how a friend of his was followed home one night from where she had parked her car. When she called Mr. O'Leary to tell him this she said something like, "It bothers me because you will never have to worry about that happening to you." And suddenly I realized that certain things that I thought were common knowledge to everyone were purely common knowledge to females. Things like watching your drink at a party. Things like putting your keys between your knuckles. Even just the feeling of being on the look out, always on your toes, when walking home alone at night. I have been told countless times when going out at night, traveling somewhere new, or attending a party to "be careful, be careful, be careful!" And it never once occurred to me that my brothers wouldn't be told the same thing. When I realized this I had two things suddenly come to mind. The first was frustration. Why in our society does that double standard have to exist? Why do I have to be more careful as a woman? It angers me that even as I write this my brain is saying, "well because as a woman you are easier to take advantage of" But why should I have to have the fear that I will be taken advantage of? Does society encourage the weakening of women? I don't think so, but it certainly doesn't encourage them to become stronger either.
The second thing was: How many other parts of my perspective, my world, do I think apply to everyone but only apply to either myself or a small group I am a part of? It makes me feel so uninformed. There are so many other perspectives I might not even be aware I am oblivious to.  It comes back to the question "How do we know what we know" and I almost think we can't. But I can't go into that question because that would ruin my presentation... coming soon to TOK Block D!

How do we know who we are? Tanning, pot, and other things.

Theory of Knowledge Journal 2

This thought started as I was walking downtown to Tropitana to go tanning. As I was walking I began to have this giant ongoing TOK moment. Here goes. Tanning is bad for you, marijuana is supposedly not. Yet one is illegal and one is perfectly acceptable. Personally, I never thought I would try either. I knew the cancer risks involving tanning and didn't think it was worth the darker skin. As for pot, I find the attitude towards it disgusting. Its not the illegality that bugs me. Its the mentality that surrounds it and the worth people give it. I just don't get it. I've never done it and don't plan on it. But I never planned on tanning either, yet here I was walking downtown to go do exactly that. I knew the risks, but I was willing to take those risks to look tan for prom. Although it didn't start out for prom. It started out as an experiment to see if I would help me feel better. My parents believe I have S.A.D. Seasonal Affective Disorder. As sort of seasonal moodiness and depression caused by the lack of light in winter. So my mom bought me a tanning package as a sort of light therapy. This was a huge surprise. My mom had breast cancer two years ago. Anything that was a potential carcinogen became a big big BIG no no in my house. I never in ONE MILLION years thought my mom would let me tan. I never even bothered to ask. Here is the funny thing, Marijuana helps relieve the side effects of chemo therapy. It in a way helps cure cancer. Yet my mom would never go out and buy me some weed and say here try this! So why do we as a society allow certain thing that we know are life threatening to be acceptable, legal, yet things that we can use to help us and benefit us become hidden and against the law? It seems illogical, backwards, and yet I still find myself not being able to fully support the legalization of marijuana. I believe it goes back to the idea of the default position. Drugs are bad. This has been ingrained into the human race for a long time. When research and evidence begins to surface contradict this we as a society refuse to accept it. As far as I know, tanning beds had no known risks when they were first invented. Yet even though it has now been proven to greatly increase the risk of skin cancer, we still tan! We as knowers rely on previous knowledge, experience, stories, and our own beliefs to tell us what we know and don't often accept new information. So this got me to thinking why is it that humans fall back on the default position? On my way walking back from tanning I found myself an answer. As I was walking home I kept thinking to myself "This isn't me, I don't go tanning" In my mind I associate tanning with those orange tinted girls I see at school. They talk about boys, the next biggest party and if they should go on another diet. In my mind these girls had no interest in the world beyond beauty and men. This is not the stereotype I saw myself fitting into. This is not a stereotype I would ever want to have or give to myself. Walking home I didn't feel like myself and suddenly I realized BOOM that is why we as humans return our default position. Because opening up, changing our opinion, believing in something different is change. We are scared to change because as we leave our default position we feel as though we are losing who we are. The opinions and beliefs that I have held my whole life helped to shape and make me who I am today, without them where does that leave me? That is a terrifying thought. Yet if I don't change, how do I grow? But if I do change, and not even a portion of my beliefs stays static how am I the same person? How do I not lose myself. It takes a brave person to have an open mind. For now I have come to the conclusion that one can have an open mind and still let a set of beliefs and moral standards act as guide lines. But these guide lines must have windows. That way you can see to the other side, even somewhat understand the other side, but stay inside yourself. As a learner and knower this is what I hope to do. Grow and change, but grow and change within myself. This may mean redrawing some lines or erasing a few but a general outline is kept. Who knows, maybe someday I'll be brave enough to leave behind the outline all together. But is that a good idea? I really don't know.

Technology, will it go too far?

Theory of Knowledge - Journal 1

A few weeks ago I heard something on the radio that I found disturbing. I got in my car and just caught the end of a program on NPR that was talking about new developments in technology. Devices and microchips that would have the ability to function when embedded under the skin. On NPR they talked about how a chip could be inserted into the tongue that would allow us to change the way our food tastes, or how LED lights could be embedded in the scalp and along with computer like chips would allow for live status updates and other forms of social media to be broadcasted in a bubble like image above the head. This sounded like they were analyzing a sci-fi novel, not talking about new breakthroughs in modern day technology. But the next thing that was announced on the radio was that scientists have now made an LED light no more than 3 atoms wide. Sitting in the car I suddenly had a flash forward. I was a mom, I was driving and my teenage child was sitting in the front seat. I had no way of communicating with her directly, everything was through technology. I didn't know my own child. I pictured a futuristic post apocalyptic world where humans paid no attention to the destruction around them because they were so engrossed in themselves. They saw the world through eyes programmed to see what only they wanted to see and hear. My next thought was, I need to start a revolution. Humans have created so many ways of communicating that it is starting to work backwards. How many people take the time to sit down, turn off their phones, and just have a conversation with a person face to face? Not many, and the number just seems to be getting smaller. I am choreographing Seussical at Silver Lake and today at rehearsal I turned around to call a few cast members up on stage. Every single cast member who wasn't actively participating onstage was engaged in some electronic device. Phones, ipads, tablets, laptops and kindles. No one was communicating with a person sitting right next to them. Now I am guilty of using my phone in class, and have texted friends while I was spending time with another friend, but I try to be aware of when I am on my phone and give my attention to the person across from me. This is what separates me from the younger generation. The middle schoolers live in a world where it is completely acceptable to be engaged in a device and not in a person. I am still aware that this is rude. This goes over their heads. This scares me. The next generation will have a stronger relationship with their phone, then with their friends. The effect this would have on the world and society is huge. Say embeddables become real. Humans would lose the most important quality that makes us human. Our ability to connect to another being through emotion. We would become selfish machines, and this would ultimately lead to destruction. Without a care for others or the world around us, people would do anything to get what they want. I believe a sense of morals would be lost. So I end with a new question, as things in TOK usually do, and the question is this. Does technology have the ability to eliminate the humanity within us?

The Rest of Spain

Lets be honest I'm probably not going to have time to get through the rest of all the days in Spain. Let me just say it was an amazing time and I had a wonderful guest family who has already invited me to stay with them this summer if I want! Here are some of my favorite pics of me and my guest sister Paula <3

Opening an umbrella INSIDE, yolo

Can you guess which one is from Spain?

There is really this much food in Spain.

I can't wait to see her again. Everyone was so sad on the last day when everyone left! Every single one of the Catalonian students were bawling, even the guys! That was actually really nice.  I get tired of the "tough" guy image guys in America always seem to put on. 

Anyway, I'm hoping next year I'll be able to come back to Austria for the week where the Catalonian students are visiting Wien! That would be wonderful (hint hint Mom and Dad)

Spain!

Spanien!

So I know some of you have been waiting for a post about Spain...and your in luck. I have nothing to do in English class today so I've got some time! At the moment I don't have many pictures, but I should be getting a flashdrive with photos from the whole trip from a friend soon.

Day 1.
My alarm goes off at the ungodly hour of 4am. I roll over, shut it off and resist the urge to hit the snooze button. I have to be on my way to the airport in half an hour. I'm going to Barcelona for 10 days with my class and I'm waiting for the excitement to do its job and wake me up. So far its not working. Like usual I end up running out the door at the last minute, purse slung over my shoulder, suitcase in one hand and in the other a roll hastily spread with nutella. Breakfast on the go. I get in the car and am soon speeding towards the airport. I was so tired at one point I thought I was dreaming. It isn't until takeoff that the excitement finally sets in. When we land we take a bus to the main portion of the airport where our host families are waiting to pic us up. Suddenly I'm nervous. It feels like the first day in Austria except worse because my Spanish is way worse than my German. Luckily this was an English project so the Catalan students were supposed to speak English with us anyway. I was to share a host family with Lara from my class. Our host sister's name was Paula. She was an average height with shoulder length brown hair that was held in a high ponytail. She greeted Lara and I with a friendly smile and showed us the way to her car. Her English was pretty good but her accent was so thick sometimes Lara had to translate what she said into German! Lara is much better at understanding accents than I am.
We were both exhausted but when we got home they were planning a big family lunch. We just had time to unpack our things, and walk with Paula to the grocery store before people started arriving. The first thing I noticed was how incredibly friendly and open everyone was. It was like were already a part of the family after only an hour! The second thing I noticed is that I was not in Spain. Let me explain. The region of Spain I was staying in is called Catalonia. This area has been trying to win their independence for awhile now and I was told four times in about 10 minutes that Catalonia is NOT Spain. The culture from what I know isn't hugely different but the language is definitely not the same. Catalan is a mixture of French, Italian, and Spanish. My hopes of evening understanding a few words were crushed. The third thing I noticed is how much people in Catalonia eat. I have never ever eaten so much food in my life as I did in those ten days,  and I'm an Engstrand so thats saying something! At the family lunch what I thought was the main dish was actually just the appetizer! And then right after I finished dessert I was asked if I would like to go out for ice cream! I opted out, and instead had a "siesta" which is the opposite of a "fiesta" basically a fancy word for a nap.
That night we had a welcome party at the kids school. They did the whole speech thing, then of course we ate. It was traditional Tappas. I had a close call with calamari. Being American I thought the calamari was onion rings. For those of you who don't know I'm allergic to squid. After taking a bite I realized what I rather than barfing my guts out later I quickly spit it out. My teacher was a little shocked, thought I was being rude, I explained I was allergic and she proceeded to tell my guest family. The next day when we went out for Tappas (again) for dinner they came over a limited the menu for me. Unfortunately they thought I was allergic to anything that came out of the ocean and although I tried to explain that I could eat fish they didn't get the message. After the dinner at the welcome party they did a typical Catalan dance. Its hard to explain, i'll post pictures as soon as I get them from a friend of mine.

Day 2.
Breakfast was cereal, chocolate granola, cocoa crispies, and chocolate croissants (see a pattern here?). They had warm milk and cold milk on the table. I had never eaten cereal with warm milk before, it was interesting. After I had poured myself a bowl of cereal I was asked if I wanted cocoa, I assumed to put in a glass of milk. I was wrong. I was offered cocoa to put on my already chocolate cereal. That was a lot of chocolate. After breakfast I was asked what I wanted for my SECOND breakfast. My first thought was "Hobbits" (for those of you who are not LOTR fans, hobbits eat a ton and always have second breakfasts). My second thought was, I think i'm going to like it here. And my third thought was, I might gain some weight.
We met up with the other kids at school and got on a bus to Barcelona. In Barcelona we walked along "la Rambla" a large shopping street near the coast. It was a beautiful day and Lili and I rented bikes. I have always wanted to bike around a European city, its just so picturesque! True to the stereotype I was at one point chased by some bike racers all yelling "rubia rubia!" (blondie, blondie). At first I was freaked out and started biking super fast....being racer bikers they caught up pretty easily but all they did was smile and wave as they road past. I really was pretty much the only blond in Barcelona.

Day 3
We went walked around the town of Manresa where my host family lives. All the girls got lunch at a restaurant where again I had a close call with squid. I didn't know they died noodles with squid ink....
It was St. Jordi's day which is similar to Valentines day. All the girls get roses and all the guys get a book...not sure why. It comes from the legend of St. George and the dragon. The whole street was lined with rose boothes and book sellers. It was like people had taken the town library, emptied it on the street and then some!

I got a rose from one of the boys in the Catalonian class. He didn't say two words to me the whole trip haha, but he gave me a rose! To bad he was so short ;)
After we got back from Manresa us girls did a bit of a photo shoot with our roses. 

Day...?
One day we went to the beach. In the sun it was probably about 75 but the wind was SO COLD. We went swimming anyway. I actually stayed in the water for about half an hour, but I couldn't feel my entire body when I got out and I was completely red. And my towel and bag and ears and eyes and food and hair and everything was FULL of sand. To escape the wind I walked around with a good friend of mine Caro as well as two other girls Gloria and Kathi. It was an old seaside town, we got ice cream and wandered around laughing through the city streets. 

(All of us crazy kids! Guess which ones are Austrian and which ones are Catalan...and then there is that one American)
We also visited a famous house that looks old but was actually built in the 1900s. It just has old style architecture.

These are my friends Lara and Lili (from left to right)

I'll write more later! I have to study for Physics