I googled the term collective unconscious and found this from Wikipedia:

"Collective unconscious is a term of analytical psychology, coined by Carl Jung. It is a part of the unconscious mind, expressed inhumanity and all life forms with nervous systems, and describes how the structure of the psyche autonomously organizes experience...the Collective Unconscious collects and organizes those personal experiences in a similar way with each member of a particular species."

Basically, the collective unconscious is a part of the brain which holds past experiences as far back as when you were in the womb. These experiences surface mainly during dreams. I find this to be so fascinating that our minds can retain information that we couldn't remember if we tried. If someone asked me what it was like in the womb, I could never be able to describe that to them, but it doesn't mean i don't have the memories stored away...fascinating!

When we discussed in class the story "A Good Man is Hard to Find" the professor asked us if we would want to hangout or be friends with someone who was always asking about the meaning of life. I thought about this question for a while and realized its actually harder to answer than it looks. I want my friends to question the meaning of life so that they will live responsibly, respectably, and most important happily. I wouldn't want a friend who didn't put any thought into the meaning of life or what their purpose is here. However, I wouldn't want to hangout with someone who was only concerned with why he was put on earth. There has to be a happy medium. If I was friends with someone who always talked about meaning of life i would probably stop spending time with them because after a while, I'm sure that gets super annoying.

dreams & memories

The oldest memory I have of my childhood is from my grandparents' house. When I was growing up, they owned a marina on the Jersey Shore. My mom used to work for them in the summers, so my brother and I would always spend the summers there. One day, I was on the ramp where people put their boats in, and I was feeding baby ducks. I don't know what got into me, but I guess I felt compelled to snatch up a baby duck. So, I did just that. I picked up the baby duck and ran to show my mom what I had found, while the momma duck chased me around. I think my mom had a bit of a panic attack, thinking the mom duck was going to attack me. So, I put the baby duck down, and I didn't get attacked by the momma duck. I also have many other memories from my grandparents marina; saining in the river, fishing off the end of the docks, and taking a row boat out to go crabbing. I had some of my best childhood memories there.

The oldest dream I can remember from my childhood was a very random, scary dream that I can remember clearly. In my dream, I was sitting in front of our family tv, and out of nowhere, a guy stuck his hand out of the tv and shot me. I woke up screaming and crying, and my mom came into my room to make sure everything was ok. I was scared to go to sleep after that, for fear that the man would shoot me again and I would die. I don't remember how I overcame my fear, but eventually I did. However, I will never forget that dream

Smooth Talk

I really dislike how movies change stories around so much! In Joyce Carol Oates' story, Arnold Friend is portrayed as super creepy and scary. When he came to Connie's house in the movie, he was sly, and somewhat attractive. He didn't walk funny like in the story, and he just didn't seem as creepy at first. Connie seemed to be flattered by him, actually. But in the story, I got the feeling that from the moment Arnold came to Connie's house, she was creeped out and frightened by him. Another thing about the movie I didn't like was how it ended. I think it would of been better if they had ended the movie like the story ended. But, in most cases the book or story is always better than the movie because you can use your own imagination.

In Just & Because I could not stop for death poems

I read these poems over the weekend and I had a lot of difficulty trying to figure out their interpretations. The first one by E.E. Cummings made absolutely no sense to me whatsoever. He makes up his own words, such as mud-luscious and puddle-wonderful. He also uses the word wee several times, mostly saying far and wee. This confused me a lot because I thought wee meant little, or harmless. But in this poem, he makes it sound like it means wide, such as far and wide. So, needless to say, I really did not enjoy this poem at all.

The other one by Emily Dickinson was a little better to read. She uses a lot of dashes at the end of her lines, which I found to be pretty cool. It chops up the poem, but I think it gives it a pretty good rhythm.

her name was connie...

I found this story to be really interesting, especially because it is based off a real event. When I was reading it, I couldn't help but think about what I would do if I were in Connie's position when Arnold Friend came to her house. I kept telling myself that I would of done things differently, but how do you really know what your going to do until you are personally thrown into that situation? There's no way to really tell...

So afterwards I read Don Moser's "The Pied Piper of Tucson" and that is when I really got creeped out. It's so eerie because this kind of person could easily be walking around among us. The way he won the hearts of younger girls makes it so easy for people to believe he was nothing but a kid who didn't want to grow up and move on, so he just hung around town. In fact, I could think of a handful of guys like this in my hometown.

It's easy to see how this is just a retelling of another story because situations like this happen a lot. Maybe not to the extent of the real Pied Piper, but more often than we like to think, young girls are attracted to a very dangerous predator and it ends badly.

"How do I know what I think before I see what I say?" When I first heard this quote, I had difficulty figuring out what it meant. I really had to think about it for a while, and I even asked a couple of my friends what they thought it meant. I finally came to the conclusion that it means you don't know what you think until you hear it come out of your mouth. Sometimes when there is a lot on your mind, you don't really know what to think. However, when you talk about it with someone else, you begin to believe what comes out of your mouth.

We were also asked to eavesdrop on people around campus. I found that most people are either talking about their classes, or what they did over the weekend. I wasn't really expecting to hear much of anything else because school is such a major part of the lives of students, it practically rules our lives. So, I wasn't really surprised when I didn't hear much talk besides school.