"Home Sweet Home" in Jail!

So you're a newlywed couple? Or maybe you have a large and growing family? Ready to retire? Either way, the process of selling or buying a new home can be exhausting and time-consuming. Do you know which living situation is extremely cheap and efficient for paying off ALL of your bills? Nobody ever thinks of going to jail because they believe that the majority of people in prison are dangerous criminels - THIS IS ABSURD! In prison, there are people just like you! Why not join the growing number of people who have made prison their home?

Think about it! Are you worried about safety? Our prison has state-of-the-art, government approved security. You will never have to worry about the safety of your children in our facility. We provide enriching education programs to give your child their high-school equivalency! Isn't your child's graduation day important to you? Here in prison, we provide them with special materials to allow them to make it to that day. You may think that living in prison is a very limited lifestyle but again - THAT IS ABSURD! There are a many number of hobbies and activities that you can enjoy such as cleaning, decorating, food tasting, weightlifting, talking a walk, reading, painting, and many more.

Look at how happy these children are. And also seen here, a joyful mother just back from here satisfying and tasty 'breakfast'.

So what is stopping you from living your life free of debts and bills? Here at prison, we believe you will love it. After all, who could not adore a life where all stress is relieved from owning or renting a home from a cruel landlord, caring for the domestic animals, spending a fortune preparing meals that meet healthy 'standards', and that awful vehicle that keeps letting you down. Not to mention the horrors your children face every day in the public education system. Prison solves all of that.

If you've decided to live a more relaxing life while everything you could ever need is served to you simply call your local prison. They can inform you on how you can get entrance into prison.

You and your favorite celebrity will be neighboors for the rest of your life!

A Movie & Memory

The movie I watched which questions the ability to remember and distinguish reality from illusion was "Changeling" starring Angelina Jolie. Memory does play a big role in this movie. The main character played by Jolie, Christine Collin's, son goes missing. After months of not hearing any news she is told that her son was found and is on a train to see her. Upon the reunion between mother and son, Christine does not recognize the boy. She is told over and over again that the boy has changed quite a bit and that she simply isn't remembering him because she is in shock. Christine continues to insist that the police have not found her child and they have given her the wrong child. The situation causes the viewer to question whether Christine is in fact mentally ill as a result of her child's abduction or if she is correct.

In the movie, the Los Angeles Police Department describe Christine as having "paranoia, delusions or persecution, and dislocation from reality". They say she "may be a threat to herself or others". She is also "recommended to be conveyed to a psychopathic ward until her senses can be restored". Initially, these symptoms sound similar to those of schizophrenia and in fact in the movie the police are trying to make her appear psychopathic so they can lock her away in a mental hospital. Really what would be most suited to her condition would be psychogenic amnesia. Psychogenic amnesia is situation specific and occurs as a result of an extremely stressful or traumatic experience. Christine could not be able to recognize her son because she was so traumatized by his abduction in the first place. The movie isn't trying to make Christine appear schizophrenic or like she has amnesia. To fully understand one will need to watch the movie and see how the police are trying to make her look crazy in order to hide their mistake when in fact we know that Christine is right and has proof that the child isn't her son.

Overall I really enjoyed the movie. I don't think that I learned a lot about memory from it. It is hard to know if she is accurately portraying any memory illness because she is really being framed to appear that way. If anything I learned a good story from history as the movie is based on real life events from the 1930s.
However I did gain some emotional understanding from the film. I saw how traumatic it would be to lose a child and I do think that an experience like that could definitely cause psychogenic amnesia. The movie also portrays how far a mother would go to find her lost child.

Dream Analysis.

The Dream...

My dream started out with me, my dad and my friend Tara all standing in the middle of a field near the time the sun starts setting. It was one of those fields on the back road to Ladner near highway seventeen. The field had rows and rows of nectarines because the man who owned the farm was very famous for growing nectarines. Anyways, we were just walking through the field and then all of the sudden the mounds of dirt that had the nectarines growing on them grew very tall so that it was like a maze. The walls of the maze were about waist level. But the mounds of dirt were randomly placed so there were large areas that were just open field. By now the sun had set and it was pretty dark. I don't know how but some other people had joined us I just don't remember who it was. We were a group of about five or six. Suddenly very strong lights turned on. They were the kind of lights that surround the turf field at Winskill. A truck pulled up and 3 asian men got out of the truck. They were there to steal all of the nectarines. They were very evil men who were going to hurt anyone who got in their way. So really quickly we all hid behind one of the mounds of dirt that was in a shadow. The thieves were getting closer and closer to where we were hiding. Randomly the place we were hiding turned into a room that was newly renovated. There was one window and it was really high up. We knew that the men were getting closer so one by one the people I was with started jumping out the window. Suddenly there was a woman there who was threatening to tell on us if we moved. I don't know where she came from but it was only me and my dad and Tara left so we had to find some way to escape. We couldn't make any noise or we would be caught. Then the leader of the asian thieves saw us and he tried kidnapping me but in that time my dad and Tara got away and the lady dissappeared. I hit the guy really hard and then I recognized him as one of the men who helped my family move houses a few weeks ago. Turns out the asian thieves were really employees at a moving company. He let me go and I can still taste the nectarines everytime I remember this dream.


The Analysis...

My dream could reveal my deep emotional obsession and desire with fruit, particularly nectarines. I really do love nectarines and I always ask my mom to buy them for me. Maybe now since you can't buy them at Thrifty's my mind is coping with my nectarine withdrawal by imagining myself eating them. Sounds pretty accurate to me. The manifest content would be everything that I remember myself experiencing in the dream such as the way the sun looked in the sky and the flavour and juiciness of the fruit. The latent content would be the symbolism behind some of the things in my dream. Tara has pointed out that I may have some issues with asian people and may secretly have very racist views on them which led to them being the antagonists of my dream. Maybe the nectarine represents my desire for zest and adventure in life but that it may lead to dangerous situations. It is a mystery...

The Activation-Synthesis theory states that dreams are the product of random neural firing in the brain. I could have been thinking about food when I went to bed thus the stimulation in my brain resulted in a dream involving food. Another possibility was that I was thinking about moving while I was sleeping because it had only been a week or two since we moved and my room is still a mess from moving. If I had moving on my mind, I could have been thinking about the asian movers which could have led to this dream.

I do think that dreams have some significance in real life. I think that dreams take place often because our minds are preoccupied with the things that are most important to us at that point in our lives. I don't know that dreams provide us with solutions to these problems necessarily. I can't really think of any solutions that my dream may be giving me. I think it was just a really random dream.

Advantages for Blindness and Deafness

In my opinion, there are a few advantages to being blind and to being deaf. If someone is blind or deaf, all of their other senses will be heightened. They will be able to smell much better and taste more vividly than if they could see and hear. They would also be more confident in themselves because they would not have to worry about what they looked like because they would have no idea what that means. They would be able to have confidence in their abilities and not rely on their appearance to give them confidence. Also, although they would not be protected of all the negativity of the world, they would be sheltered from a large quantity of pain because of their inability to see the hurtful things of this world. Another more obvious advantages to being blind is all of the societal benefits. Blind people often have options that make life much easier for them. For example, they get better seating on public transportation.

There are also many advantages for being deaf as well. People who cannot hear can very often read lips very well which can be useful in certain situations. Deaf people have the advantage of not having to hear what they don't want to simply by turning off their hearing aid. Loud noises at night or bad music or annoying people are very easy to mute. Similarly to being blind, people who cannot hear often have more developped senses of taste and smell. I get headaches regularly from excess noise so I would think that deaf people would not suffer from that.

The Shopping Center "Scavenger Hunt"

Doing this assignment was actually very interesting and eye-opening. I never realized how little variety and diversity there is in our shopping malls. For those who do not fit into the 'norm' here in canada - in other words for those who are not thin, young, white canadians - it would be a little intimidating. There were still some options available but they were all very limited and hard to find.

In the toy section, the large majority of barbie dolls or action figures were white. In fact there were only 7 in the entire store that were not white. If someone was looking for anything featuring an native american or aboriginal person they would be completely out of luck because there was not a single team mascot or any other item featuring a native american.

In the card section of the store there were only twelve christmas cards because it is not yet christmas season. There were no cards for any other religious holiday such as Hanukkah or Kwanzaa. The romance cards section is very large, yet amongst the dozens of cards for heterosexual couples, not a single card for a homosexual or transexual couple were available.

The modeling industry is centered on featuring thin, young white people or families and that is all that is seen in stores as well. All signs in the store pictured young healthy adults. There were no signs featuring people who were over 60 yaers of age. Even in the plus size women's section (called Women's 18+), there were no pictures featuring overweight women. There is no section for plus-size men. It seems that those who fit into the stereotype are supposed to be happier and more normal and so they are portrayed more often in stores. Similarly, the majority of filler picture inside picture frames were of young white people. There were 2 featuring latinos, 2 featuring asians, and 6 featuring african americans, all of which fall short of the number featuring white people.

Other than the actual items fitting a stereotype, the physical layout of the store also is arranged in a way that is exclusive. Those who cannot walk normally without assistance would have much difficulty manoevering between the racks of clothes and down crowded aisles. Although the racks were of fairly good height for everyone, it would still recquire a stretch for those in wheelchairs. Simply spacing out the store a little bit more would make shopping more convenient and easier for all people.

The workers at the store and all of the customers were all of varied age, gender and ethnicity.

Writting Assignment 1: How do you feel about blogging.

My experience so far with this blog can be described in one word : slow. I have a little bit of previous blogging experience from a couple of months ago. It was required of me to set of a blog for a summer program I was accepted into. Coming back onto blogger.com after a few weeks of being home from camp brought back a lot of memories of people I haven`t seen since july and who I miss terribly. To be honest, I`m a bit bitter about having to write on this new blog, because it means that the summer is officially over.

I actually really enjoyed designing my blog. I love picking out templates and matching colors. I think that doing my AP Psychology work online will make it a lot more enjoyable to do. The way I see it, blogging can either really help or make handing in assignments much more difficult. Since the majority of teens check their emails and facebook account multiple times each day, doing homework will be more convenient. But on the other hand, the internet is a very distracting thing and I`m feeling like my procrastination could get a lot worse. Only time will tell.

At this point, I`m okay with having my work posted on the internet. I find it hard to believe that random strangers would come onto my profile to read my writting on psychology. As long as this blog remains solely for academic purposes I have no problem sharing my thoughts. On the other hand, I`m not the kind of person who would have a blog for personal reasons. I`m too much of a private person for that. I`m hoping that this course will challenge me in that area. That I would become less afraid voice my opinion.

Brittney