Blindness

For me, some parts sound like kind of a poem. For example, "we ended up putting our conscience.... verbally trying to deny" pg 17. I also refer this to karma because the men were the second one who got blind and my first thought was that it happened because he stole the car.

Blindness/bird box

Blindness is similar to bird box because it is a spreading disease but the difference is that in bird box when people got blind they kill themselves or others. While in blindness does not have that effect. In bird box in order to survive people pretend to be blind by covering their eyes. This part is similar to what the doctor's wife was doing because she is pretending to be blind in order to help the one she loves. In bird box, they do not lock people in hospitals but sometimes they have to be in close doors because is dangerous outside. In both stories, there are a group of people that stay together and try to help each other.

Blindness

I notice that when someone is not able to see they focus on other important things beside appearance. The woman with the old man was an example of this statement. If she was not blind then the chances of paying attention to him would be low.

Meaningful Quote

"The difficult thing isn't living with other people, it's understanding them" Jose Saramago

I really like this quote because every time I read it the first person that comes to my mind is my father. Once he told me it is easy for you to want people to understand you but what is really courageous is to move aside from your needs and try to understand the other person.

Shock

One of the shocking parts for me was when the doctor's wife enter the church and saw the statues and paintings with their eyes covered with white. It was really dramatic especially for me that has not a great view towards the church.

Class

I liked the last day of class because it was nice to see everyone and listen to what they had been working for a whole semester. I really like the professor was very respectful with everyone's topic and gave full attention and importance to each of us.

Blindness

In the book Blindness we can see the importance of belonging and home. In order to survive in that place they had to make some rules for everyone to follow. We were able to see how frustating and unhappy a person can be in a place they don't belong and that there is nothing like home.

Reflection

Of all the readings in class on the last day. I loved the poem about growth the most. I found it be a very creative and meaningful one. Hats off to the writer. As it pertains to how much work I have produced, I would say it was a lot. I normally would write a lot but doubt it would be so much anyway and I used to love reading but not now as in my part so while it was required I must say I am proud of myself for reading 3 books in the space of a few months. There were times when I did not get to read the book up the the amount of pages required of me for the given class period but I did not take it for granted to not bother read it. Though I should have read the pages for a given class whenever I would read I would continue to catfish up on what I should have read. I didn’t take it up myself to just skip it and move on. I am happy for the experience even though at times I felt like I couldn’t go on. I can say I finished the work. I don’t feel like I did my collection perfectly which would be my fault but I still tried to do it. I can only put measures in place to continue striving to be the best version of myself.

Final thoughts

Overall I really enjoyed this class and what it had to offer to me as a growing student. It's weird to comprehend and accept that this will be my last English class but still happy that I spent it with a fun class such as this. From reading books of poetry to teacher-student scandals and into disease territory, each piece of work that was read in the class had an impact on me and showed me how the human race can act in negative ways, unfortunately. Like how the professor slept with his student and how the government herded the infected like a flock of sheep to keep themselves safe. This class has taught me a lot that I will carry onto the future. Thank you so much Professor Talbird 

What I still need work on

One thing I would still like to work on is to write long essays and stories. I want to start to write more and being more detailed. A lot of the things I have written are not as long as I would want it to be. Prior to this class the most writing I did was like 5 pages. From being in this class has made me want to write more. I would like to go as far as to writing my own book. Hopefully I start as soon as summer begins.

Final class thoughts

One of my favorite things about the class was the group critique. I normally don’t like working in groups because I never really found it helpful because I would just get distracted. However this group         Work was very helpful because people actually took the time to read your work and said what they thought about it and what could be done to make it better . I never liked other people reading my work other then the teacher but I was kinda nice sharing different kinds of information with other students and have them learn something that they may have never thought of certain topics, so it was interesting to learn about different topics.

Some of the text I liked from the readings done on the last day of class was the topic about growth, the text about dreams and paranormal stories. I also admired the text relating to science fiction( where the characters are travelling to new planet) this story was not read on the last day of class but was read during group critique. It as actually written by Andrew . I have definitely never written this much before which I believe was a challenge that drove me crazy somedays. But in the end motivated me to think and work harder Which I really appreciate.

At the beginning of this class when I got to know about the fifteen page collection I got a little scared since I don't really like to write much. However I am proud of myself for finishing and submitting on time and having all the work required. This class was a big change for me with English, I was introduced to new text that helped me look at situation on a deeper level and build my analyzation skills. I learned a lot about writing poems and analyzing paintings. At the end the collection was finished, mainly because of the feedbacks and guidance I received from Prof Talbird and my group members. My favorite text that we have read was the novel Blue Angel by  Francine Prose. And lastly my main goal was to read more which I think I haven't accomplish but going forward I will put more time into reading.

How do you feel about your final collection? Have you ever written so much before?

I felt that my final collection could've been a lot better towards the end I was just rushing to even get it finished. If I had put some more time and energy into it I think I would've been more proud of the work I produced. I also thought that I should've written in different genres that I'm more comfortable with so I could've easily conveyed my message to the reader. I have written that amount before in my free time but not all surrounded one topic like we did.

What do you still need to work on? What was your favorite text that was read on the last day of class? Give a shout out to your favorite fellow writers.

One thing I want to work on is a personal project of my own. Possibly during the summer, I would like to start writing scripts for funny stories, somewhere along those lines. My favorite text that was read on the last day of class was by Salomee, as of right now the title of her work escapes me but I clearly remember the main idea of it, it was about how immigrants are separated from their own families when trying to escape and move to a better country.

What were your least favorite? What did you learn?

Definitely, my least favorite thing about this class has to be the blog. It's not I don't like typing it out and doing that work, but it just seems very easy to forget at points. And when you do happen to remember it would Sunday morning and there isn't anything that could've been done about it. If we had to hand in physically weekly answers to questions that were posted and that would count towards blog credit it wouldn't really be as hard to forget. One of the most important things that I learned in this course is how important literature can be outside of the classroom. It tells stories in short stanzas like poems or in very interesting books, not only reading it is important but also writing it helps as well. 

Favorite Aspect of the Class

There were several aspects of the class that I liked. The class discussions allowed us to speak our opinions and let us be heard by our other classmates. Also, it lets us see if someone among us had the same interpretation of what we were discussing at the time. It broke some individuals out of their shells and allowed them to communicate with others which can be very helpful. Another aspect of the class that I enjoyed had to be the group critiques we had on Thursdays. This didn't only allow us to have our work be read by others but it let us have a steady workload for the Final Collection and we were able to hand it in easily if you did work for every Thursday.

Final Week

This week of the blog is optional. Anyone who posts will get extra credit. Some things you may want to write about:

• What were your favorite aspects of the class? What were your least favorite? What did you learn? What do you still need to work on? 
• What was your favorite text that was read on the last day of class? Give a shout out to your favorite fellow writers.
• How do you feel about your final collection? Have you ever written so much before? 

Blindness Message

Throughout the novel I always had this thought in the back of my mind as to why the author made the book, and why there was a movie adaptation of it. If we take a couple things into account, this might make more sense to whomever reads this. First, we have the government who is the leaders of this quartine. next we have the guards who seem to have not been affected by this blindness. If we take a step back and look at this whole thing as a bigger picture... it almost seems to me that we as a society are messing up our planet, and some higher power above us is making us blind, just to make us aware that we are blinded from our own mess that we have created. I'm not sure if that is the message that is intended, but it does seem to me that it could be a message.

Blindness Final

After reading the book it seem to make somewhat sense to me. Hundreds of people lose their eyesight due to a disease most of them get locked up and being boxed in a room for months at a time can drive people insane. But looking at the movie itself it just seems crazy how losing one many functions that a human body is able to do can really change people and show you their true colors. They took the infected and with no consideration threw them into a prison and not caring of the outcome of what happened, maybe the government made those wards from the beginning just to kill off who was infected just to get the problem out of the way.

Blindness the movie

The movie and the book play out the same, in the movie I felt was more visual from the book in some parts. When the movie started i didn't expect the first blind man to be Japanese but the thief who took him home fit the part because he looked sketchy to me. When the girl with dark glasses goes blind it's crazy to me because she's having a great time living her best life and BOOM right after she goes blind I would be so mad.  Another thing is when every started to go blind i noticed a bell rings and even when they're interacting with each other. The painting we viewed in class last Tuesday with the men following behind each other into a ditch was well represented in the film but the only difference was the women who could see was leading them to success not failure. What I take from the movie is that everyday we wake up taking our sight for granted. We never know one day we wake up this story could happen to us and it's kinda scary. Going on from this some people may realize that we shouldn't take things for granted because it can be swiped away from us any second.

blindness movie

The blindness movie to me was interesting and scary at the same time. I don't think I ever watched a movie like this. All of the scenes was so detailed that everything felt so real like it was happening in real life. The doctor's wife was not what  I was expecting. Honestly I was kinda picturing her to be afraid for her life. But her being the only one that can see gave her the strength to be the heroic one and lead everyone else.

Blindness Screening

In the movie, I noticed that every time the camera would switch off to the white screen you can hear like some sort of bell in the background. It would mostly happen after someone would talk in a conversation. I think the meaning on the bell was to indicate that we were going to look from the eyes  of one of the blind person and not the doctors wife.

Blindness-Movie

The movie was very disturbing but I guess that is a good thing because we really get a feel of what it must be like being in the blind people's position. the effect of the white blankness really allows you to see what the blind people "see." To me the whiteness accompanied by the background sounds in the beginning of the movie gave me peaceful vibes even though they were all disturbed. They were a lot  of scenes taken out in the movie and some were changed as well. There was extra dialogue like when the girl with the dark glasses is talking to the doctor and makes him feel better which leads to sex. I remember in the book there was only sex. The doctor's wife finds food in the basement of the supermarket and people catch her and fight her for the food. That was not in the book, she safely came out with the food. The doctor accompanied her when in the book she went alone, got lost, found a map and then got to her destination. The scene where the man with the eye patch is bathing and the girl with the glasses helps him, shows that they both know who their talking to but in the book the man with the eye-patch didn't know who came and washed his back. The cause of the blindness was not known but I think from the church scene where the doctor's wife sees paintings and statues having their eyes covered gave the story a religious view point. It didn't seem like a disease. it was more of teaching people a lesson: valuing your eyesight, showing people how selfish we are, that there are some who are selfless, how weak we are without the blessing of sight.

Blindness Film

Overall, I feel like the film was spot on to the book and most of everything was on point. I never really imagined the characters to be a specific way or imagine where they’re from and all of that, since in the novel there’s no names for them, it tends to make us focus on their significance, they’re role, and they’re purpose throughout the book. I feel like in the film putting the blank white screen really gave us a feel to that whiteness color that all the blind people see, And also I feel like the film really put emphasis on how big of a role food played throughout this novel, portraying the men getting they’re sexual needs from women, and the groups of people going to hunt and find wherever the food is. In addition, in the end only one man regains his sight, however in the book people from different housings, people from the street, and several people are screaming how they can now see.

blindness

Blindness screening 

I think from watching the move you could see the blindness the characters experienced in the film because the camera would have white screen before showing the characters and the setting their in. Also from the movie compared to the novel there were a lot more details that didn’t happen but for me it painted a really good picture from what I read in the novel 

Film-Blindness

I have grown to realize that throughout the film the atmosphere was set with whiteness and blurriness  being in effect throughout different scenes in the movie. This was done to indicate to the viewers that it was in no wise clear to see the surrounding. Most of the characters were in fact blind. As for myself I, I was watching it and I’m not blind so I could see but still not clearly. If I was to give credit to the person who did the film, except for the part where certain situations in the movies didn’t occur word for word as we’d have seen it in the book, the individual did a good job. If it’s even to demonstrate the blindness to its viewers.

Blindless Movie

The movie did a great job representing the book, the director did an amazing job of showing visual scenes of events that happened in the book. Watch this film it really showed a perspective of how difficult and crazy the situation is, one example of an event from the book that was put into the movies was when the boy urinated himself. The movie always had my attention and I personally think it was a great film.

Blindness

The film was very faithful to the original. I enjoyed the choice to make the cast as diverse as possible. I didn't imagine the characters to be any specific race but it was nice to see them portrayed in a way I didn't see before. The city they were in didn't look like any city I know. The police cars only said police and when the girl with the dark glasses goes to pay at the pharmacy, we can't see the money she's using. Those were nice touches. We discussed it in class already but the choice to make the cast very diverse added to this. No one person shared an accent. If a character had an accent, it was different from the other characters. Now that may seem like dumb, of course if lots of people are getting into one place, the chances of there being a huge variety of people from different backgrounds are high. However certain regions have a certain accent. Like the south for instance has the southern accent we mock. New Yorkers pronounce New York like "New Yuark". No one character shared an accent so it kept me constantly guessing as to where this city was.

Blindness

Compared to the novel the movie was moving at a more faster pace. For example, in the novel we met the old women with the chickens, hens and rabbits, but in the movie they never introduced us to her. Overall I really enjoyed it because they tried to put us the viewers in the characters shoes. They wanted us to see what it was really like to live in a world of the blinds. The sacrifices they had to make to escape that hellhole that they were kept as prisoners.

Interesting Aspect of Film, Blindness

Something that really peaked my interest throughout the film, was the way people slowly became. Since everyone went blind, their instincts turned them into animals or inhumane. For example, the men wanted to exchange women for food. They saw women as currency and took advantage of them. They saw it as a way to get what they want but they were stripping the women of their dignity. Another example, would be when the doctor's wife was in the supermarket. This made the people act as zombies, because they heard and smelled her with food and decided to hunt her down and take away everything. Overall, the disease made people act a whole different way than they actually were and made them become different people.

Blindness class talk

The film is really cool in my opinion. It was almost straight out of the book with only subtle differences, but nothing major. I liked the acting and the cinematography effects the film put in. Even the actors acting as blind people, movements, the blank stare, it was all close to how blind people act in real life. To an extent I think the movie serves as a metaphor and a type of lesson- we see the kinds of people in this environment, the blind who band together and form a family, and the blind people who believe its everevery man for themselves. We see that the main group grow a bond and are happier and survive longer than the others. They stick together and accomplish tasks. Humans are like this in todays society, considering the lack of compassion shown to each other in daily life. Even recently, Trump had a rally where he spoke about immigration and someone joked about shooting the immigrants, where he laughed along with the rest if the crowd. Humanity itself is blind to the fact that there are many injustices going on in our world, we just dont speak upon it.

Blindness

Throughout the movie I noticed something that never really came up in the novel. It was the fact that the movie maker's decided to add in all this white into the movie. I'm not talking about the white blindness that they are trying to show us in the movie as a constant reminder of what we are watching. I'm talking about the film edits, and the filters that make everything look more white. It also didn't show up in the movie filtering, but it was also shown throughout the movie with mupltile different entities. For example, the van that brought the 7 new blind people into the facility was white. The coffee mug in the end of the show was also white. So it was interesting to me that the movie makers decided to add in all this white.

Blindness Movie

Something that I noticed about the movie was that it was filmed and performed in a way that really made the watcher relate to the characters. When the women had to give themselves to the men for food i didn't feel like i was just watching something bad. I felt disgusted and felt my stomach turn although it was all acting. I almost didn't want to look anymore. Another thing was that when the group got to the house and the women started showering i shared feelings of happiness with them as if i was also living in a world of blindness.

Ekphrastic Cinematography

You all might not have been aware that several of the images in the film were inspired by painter Lucian Freud's work such as the painting below:

Pages 305 to 308

Pages 305 to 308 

In this part of the novel the girl with the dark glass confesses that she  loves the blind man with the eye patch. She had an argument that following and the man with the eye patch could not believe that she really love loved him because he was bind and old. When the girl with the dark glasses said she said it because of the woman she was today I am

 thinking that she is trying to say that she has changed from the person she was when was not blind like after going through such a tragic event her attitude changed because she is one that cared like a mother for the little boy with the squint eye

Scene Review- Blindness

        In this scene in Blindness the old man and young woman go back and forth about life and death and blindness in general. What they could possibly hope for to make their situation better but one is more optimistic than the other and who loves who more. They announce their love and talk about the things they’ve done.

Blindness-pages, 305-307

I noticed that the old man was basically establishing that they were practically useless and I arrived at that conclusion because he uttered that that is all they were good for. They were basically just listening to someone reading as most of them were in no position to read as a result of their blindness.  The girl in the dark glasses however, hastened to shed light that it was imperative that he demonstrate gratefulness given the fact that there was someone among them with a pair of eyes that could see.

I noticed that this section of the book emphasized the phrase “love is blind” because they are literally blind but in a way have feelings for one another. The man is insecure that if they weren’t blind she would never liked him because of his appearance or old age. She says she’s changed today and the man isn’t counting on it he’s going to see where this relationship will go in the future. This was a moment of relief and good feelings after all they have went through. The author probably included this towards the end of the book to create some closure and give them some type of happiness. It is revealed to the man who helped him to wash his back which was the girl with the dark glasses.

Blindness

Something I’ve noticed in this section of the book was the girl with dark glasses didn’t want to give up hope of finding her parents.

Blindness

I’ve noticed from the section we read that they were speaking on their feelings and it’s based off of affection not looks because they both are blind so they can’t see what the real them look like to judge . I think that’s truly beautiful in that case because now a days boys see a pretty face and a big butt and  then look for personality when it should be the opposite in my opinion. When you don’t take someone only for there looks but for their heart you get a deeper connection! I’m

Blindness class reading may/7

The part of the story that we read had to do with 2 characters and how getting to know a person is so important. It talks about the man discussing with the women about how if she wasnt blind, she wouldnt be in love with him, based on his looks. How could she love him if she barely even knows him, and how can he live with her if the feelings shared between each other are as unsure as the question of will they get their sight back?

Blindness

In this segment of blindness, they are all coming together as one. After being blind for such a period of time , they have all come to the realization they won’t make it if they don’t stick together. “Life has decided they should live together” is the quote that shows it all. Life put these people together for a reason and they will continue to live with each other till the end.

Blindness

Just finished reading the book and i’m speechless. The ending was so heart warming, yet touching.

Blindness: Novel and Film

As we finish the novel and watch the film adaptation this week (dir. Fernando Meirelles, 2008), I would like you think about both the conclusion of the novel and also the film adaptation. Some specific questions I have:

• What role does the old woman who lives by herself and feeds on raw rabbit play in the novel? As the doctor's wife says, "I can assure you that not even where we were living before were things so repugnant" (251). How can her life we worse that the hell they have escaped from? 
• Why does the blind author write if there is no one to read his work?
• What role does the dog of tears play in the novel? 
• The doctor's wife says, "In a way, everything we eat has been stolen from the mouths of others and if we rob them of too much we are responsible for their death, one way or another we are all murderers" (314). Remember what I said about sci-fi: That it's always about our life here, now? What does this statement say about our world?
• Why have the eyes of all the images and sculptures in the church been covered with white bandages or swipes of paint?
• Why do you think that people start to regain their eyesight at the end of the novel?
• When Fernando Meirelles asked Jose Saramago if he could film his novel, Saramago said that he could as long as the setting wasn't any recognizable city. Why do you think he made that condition?
• Why are there so many ethnicities represented in the film? Why do you think the first blind man and his wife speak Japanese? 
• All adaptations are just some people's interpretation of a text. That's why Shakespeare still gets performed even though his plays are over five hundred years old. What do you think of Meirelles' interpretation of the novel? In what ways did he realize your idea of the book? What things would you have done different if it were your movie?

Writer's Showcase

On Friday in S-112 from 12-2, there will be the first-annual Writer's Showcase. Three published QCC professors will read from their work followed by a Q&A. If any of you wish to attend and write a 1-p response about the event, I will give you extra credit. More details below:

Image interpretation

The second image is a woman who seems to be the leader of a set of people like a hero who has fought through the worst and earned victory and in the novel blindness the author uses the doctor's wife as leader of the set and she is the one that fought through the worst in the facility and brought everyone out still trying to keep them safe and went in the streets in search of food. In the sixth image, is Jesus having his last supper sitting with his twelve disciples. And the fifth image depicts a cottage in a farm that looks peaceful and quiet, but it seems to have a lot of emotions about the atmosphere the sky was kind clouded with grey smoke covering the beautiful scene.

In class reading

At the time when the radio announcer had gone blind it tarnished the little bit of hope the man with a patch had. At that moment i think it somehow finally sunk in that this whole predicament that is actually happening. He lost his sight but was still hopeful because of the radio he knew what was happening around them. He was blind before but now without his radio his truly blind to the events happening around him.

Describing Pictures (In-Class)

First: The people in the photo obviously look like they’re suffering. And also leading each other to their own doom. The first man wearing white and grey looks like he’s about to fall into a ditch and the man behind him. I see how they relate this piece of art to the main story of the novel. So far from what we have seen so far in the book, its gotten to a point where the infected citizens would get shot even if they get too close. The blind man in the painting can correlate to the man with the eye patch. He's giving the other infected news from the radio and as news spreads the message can get changed around a little. 

Second: In this photo there’s a person standing on top of corpses holding a French flag. The other men behind the person look like they depend on her deeply. I can correlate the woman in the picture to the eye doctor’s wife in novel. As where in the novel she’s one of the only characters in that sanctuary that can actually see. She’s leading the other blind individuals in there but to where? That question seems unanswered at this time.

Research Parties!

For those who need help on research for your annotated bibliographies, you might want to take advantage of the Library's Research Parties.

These five, drop-in Research Parties are designed to help students with end-of-semester research assignments.

 

Librarians will be on hand to help with topics, citations, article searching etc. And free snacks will be served!

 

Dates and times are as follows, and all will be held in L302:

 

5pm-7pm on Wednesday 5/8/19

11am-1pm on Thursday 5/9/19

11am-1pm on Friday 5/10/19

11am-1pm on Monday 5/13/19

5pm-7pm on Tuesday 5/14/19

As you can see, only the Wed. session is before the due date of the Collection. However, I will take Collections up until class time of 5/14. So obviously the very last session won't be useful for this class, but maybe you've got research in other classes you're doing.

Open Mic Followup: Extra Credit!

Anyone who reads at the open mic next Wed (see 5/01 for details) and then writes a 1-p response about the experience will get extra credit. Responses are due in class by the last day (5/14). Let me know if you have questions.

Blind man with the eyepatch

I feel like the blind man with the eyepatch uses the radio to get more knowledge of what’s truly going on in society during the time of this disaster. The radio puts emphasis on how much of a distraction the outside world currently is, due to the absurdity of life how people in the asylum are forcing girls for sex just to get things like medicine and food, and guards using guns to get jewelry and other personal goods and items. The blind man with the eyepatch really gets to transfer the news over that he’s heard to other people, and he’s freely allowed to speak about everything he wants and his thoughts.

Open Mic Poetry

I wanted you all to know about the Open Mic Multicultural Poetry Event. It's next Wednesday during club hours and all can participate. I know a lot of you have written some great poetry this term and you might be interested in reading your work to your peers. Even if not, it's always a good event and worth it to listen (esp. if the weather is nice!). It takes place in the Quad in front of the Humanities Bldg. See below for more info and write one of the sponsors if you'd like to get on the reading list (though you can probably just show up and read if you'd prefer).