Metacognition: Jane Eyre

Jane Eyre is a book that happens to be timeless as well as fantastic. However, the font is small and the book is thick, and it takes a while for my eyes to adjust to reading it so closely. I was having difficulties in the beginning reading it, mainly because I struggle with most things I am assigned to read. But since I was aware of the reading quizzes coming up, I had to find a way to read it...and enjoy it. So I thought about how the book is a winding tale of romance. Romance is one of my favorite genres. So, thinking of it as a romantic story, I started reading it like a fairy tale. That definitely helped me figure out how to understand what was going on. I identified Jane as the Juliet and Mr. Rochester as the Romeo...with slightly different happenings. I liked this way of thinking because it helped me understand the love between Jane and Rochester much better. But I should probably work on how to read it more carefully.

360 Degrees: STRESS

I'm stressing a lot right now. As usual, I have waited until the very last moment to get all of my work done. Once again, I'm sitting at my computer breathing heavily and worrying about whether or not I'll have enough time to do this and how late I'm gonna have to stay up to do that. Stress is a sadistic torturer. It gives me that feeling at the pit of my stomach like I'm going to throw up all the suppressed thoughts of regret and disappointment I have for procrastinating yet again. As I rush through my homework, I get bouts of small panic attacks and try to calm myself down, while I know my mom is downstairs thoroughly disappointed that I have wasted this weekend just like all the others. And then I chew nervously on the end of my ponytail and wonder what possesses me to do these things over and over and over...

BUT

Stress also gives me the drive to do things ASAP and as well as I can. It may be a little rushed, but I'm only focusing on one thing and one thing only: my homework. I block away any unwanted distractions (well, as much as I can for, after all, I'm an extremely ADD-like human being) and I don't stop until I literally drop. Also, I must admit I quite enjoy the suspense and craziness of waiting until the last minute (oh shut up you know you do too!) I thrive on the feeling I get when everything is finally done and I can go to sleeeeeeep.

Of course, If you're looking through the eyes of a parent, you're not exactly happy-go-lucky. I'd probably be worried that my kid wasn't putting enough effort into school and that he/she needs some help organizing his/her priorities. Then there's also the view of a disgruntled group member or a friend who tires of hearing you freak out time after time about how much you have left to do. So how do these perspectives relate? They're all the catastrophic repercussions that happen because of a little procrastination, and they all can be avoided. But should they be? Maybe, just maybe, there's a point in between being so stressed you're sweating buckets and starting homework obscenely early. In this, we would get a completely concentrated person who still has time to do other things when they're finished with the unholy thing that is homework. I'd like to thing there is that compromise, so for once my Sunday can be nice and relaxing. But it probably won't happen. Nope.

An Inconvenient Truth: never again? not true.

After World War Two, the world was shocked at the terrible concentration camps that the Nazis had set up to exterminate all who were different, which includes Jewish people, Gypsies, the mentally handicapped, prisoners of war, and others who opposed them. Around eleven million people died from this horrifying scheme, six million of them Jewish. There was a promise made thereafter that this would happen "never again". Unfortunately, this promise wasn't followed through. Today, there are several smaller-scale holocausts going on in places like Darfur, Sudan. And, like before, we are watching from the sidelines and hardly doing anything. The fact that there is more that can be done occasionally keeps me up late at night wondering.

Now, a total genocide would be bothersome to any normal person, but there may be different ways to look at it. The fact that the "never again" thing didn't go very well means that this could be a second chance. A second chance, that is, to stop Genocide. We have Holocaust museums and movies to remind us what happened, but the survivors of the Holocaust are growing older, and most have died. Plus, there are still many people (people with whom I don't and won't associate) who deny that the Holocaust even happened. This second Genocide could help hush those who are too ignorant and idiotic to face the truth right in front of there face. But, of course, it could go the total opposite way and we would end up with a Holocaust just as big as the one 70 years ago. There is also the chance that interference could cause an enormous conflict between invaders and the invaded. But if we, as one world, step in and stop the Genocide before it is too late, it could lead to a brighter future. It is getting later and later. Innocent people are dying. That just really puts a foul feeling in my stomach.