I enjoyed reading Perception Of Self　by Fisher more than the Six Stumbling Blocks. This is because it gave me a good idea of what is the characteristic of perception and what constitute perception. Although I have read and heard somewhere that people cannot see the world as it is but see the world in a biased way, Fisher tells me the structure of our perception more clearly.

I have found inferential perception the most instructive and interesting. As we watched the video in the class, even if a few letters are removed from the sentence, we still can understand what the sentence mean.  In other words, lack of information often lead us to inferential perception.

However, I think there is something else which make us infer the meaning of some object. I mean not only lack of detailed information cause inferential perception. we learned from last NP that we mistakenly read a sentence as it said that　長いものには巻かれろ, even though it actually said that 長いものにはは巻かれろ. In this case, there is no lack of letters but we still use inferential reasoning. that's probably because most Japanese people  have already known well the structure of the proverb. therefore, in my opinion, too much information or a kind of framework also force us to use inferential perception.

Reaction to Baner

   What kind of image do you have when you are asked what is the characteristic of Ibaraki? Mito-Koumon? Kashima-Antlers? From my experience after I graduated from high school and left Ibaraki, most people says "Ibaraki is famous for natoo. All the people from Ibaraki is a natoo-lover!" Whenever hearing of such a reply, I feel it is a kind of prejudiced images on Ibaraki.

 The stumbling block our group discussed was stereotype and preconception. Every member agrees that stereotype has always been with us anywhere, anytime even if we do not pay attention to it.  Moreover, in my opinion, even within the same country, people often have a biased image on other group of people. These kind of misunderstanding is mostly due to lack of knowledge, so the key to avoiding stereotyped thinking, which is also true of stereotype about foreign people, is to get enough knowledge about other group like history or language.


There is one more thing that I noticed about Baner. Although ,at first, it is convenient to study the six stumbling blocks separately, because one stumbling block can influence the other blocks, we also have to study how each stumbling block may be related with  each other. This would help us to protect our way of thinking from the six stumbling blocks.

Summer book report and reaction

I read “the Giver” by Lois Lowry because when I took a look at this book at the bookstore, I found it easy to read and got interested in the ending.

Jonas lives in the community where there are strict rules. Those rules prevent all the citizens from facing something dangerous. And if someone breaks them, he or she will be released to Elsewhere. Although Jonas enjoy life in such a community with his friend and family, suddenly, things change a lot after the Ceremony of December in which every twelve-year-old citizen is assigned their own job. While his friends get a normal job, he gets a special one, the next Receiver of Memory. The receiver has to inherit the memories of the whole world from the older previous Receiver in order to get wisdom and give advice to the committee of the community. He starts to receive memories, not only joyful ones but painful ones. As he receives the memories, he also gains a different perspective from other citizens’; he can tell what color is all about and access to true feelings that are strange to all the other members. At the same time, since he can not share his feelings with his friends or family, he begins to feel lonely and even become skeptical to both other people and the community itself. Besides, he gets frustrated because he cannot change the community for himself. At last he learns the secret of the release. Without being released from the community, those who have to be released are killed by lethal injection. Jonas is shocked at how the release is done and decides to leave the community with his family’s new child called Gabriel so that he can save him from the release.

What the most impressive theme is the balance between the freedom of choice and the security of the community. The community restricts so many choices people today would have. The citizens are not allowed to choose their own jobs and even to select their own mate. Instead of lack of choice, they live a secure life and do not have to experience pain as long as they follow the rules. On the other hand, Jonas acquires much wisdom and so gets many choices through the training of the Receiver of the Memories. However, just because he has the freedom of choice, it does not necessarily mean that he can make right judgment every time. This book makes me realize how difficult it is to choose only one from the freedom of choice and safety of the community.

Moreover, it seems to me that the theme I chose is like the battle between libertarianism and New liberalism. The community is the opposite of libertarianism and, in my opinion, is also a little bit different from New liberalism. It is based on a new concept about liberty in which much more emphases are placed on the group than on the individual. After reading the book, I found that it is true that it is not so good to put the individual first but thinking of the community as the most important is also dangerous. We should not choose either the individual or the community and think about how to connect two extreme sides.

   

1st assignment

 My summer was mostly good. I finished summer reading as soon as possible because I did not want assignment to disturb my precious summer vacation. After finishing it, I went back to my hometown and spend time with friends of mine. Plus, I went on a trip to U.K. via Thailand with my friends. Even though I was a ICU student, this is my first time that I have been abroad, so everything I heard and saw was new and interesting to me. Among them, Premier league was excellent!

 what was not good about my summer was that I was not able to travel to somewhere by bicycle because of bad weather. I felt all the unhappier  because I was really looking forward to it.

What I want to learn from this ARW is essay writing skill. Though I've found writing in English really interesting since i was at junior high school, writing in high school is quite different from that in university in terms of the length. Also, materials used in university deal with more academic topics. By making use of ARW, I want to be more persuasive writer.