TV Shows

I finished Lost for the second time about a week ago and I think I'm finally starting to recover. That show, to me, is the greatest show ever made. Once it's over, it always feels like your life is over too. Then you have no idea where to take your life after. Do you watch it again? Start a new show? (Even tho no show can compare) I decided to start watching the office again. The first time I watched it, the finale was intense. Maybe even more intense than Lost. I'm already in season 5 and I started one week ago. Why do people like to re watch shows if they already know what happens? I suppose if they really enjoyed the show then they might want to watch it. That's my reason for doing it. After the office I'm going to re watch Breaking Bad and then start Grey's Anatomy. TV shows were made to be watched so why do people question when we want to watch them more than once? In my opinion, the office is the funniest show ever made and Breaking Bad would be the best drama series ever made. However, Lost in general has every element and is the best show of all. But, you can watch what you want to, that's why so many shows were made.

Customers at Market Basket

As the title explains, I would like to discuss customers at Market Basket. I work at Market Basket 5 days a week, all closing shifts. I see the people who get of from their work shifts and are seemingly done with their days already. Most of the people that I encounter are very nice and I help them out as best as I can. I work in the grocery department so I am in the aisles for the entire night. People ask me where things are and I help them out. However, not every customer is as nice as these ones.

There are some customers who could not possibly care any less about me or what I do and they think that they completely own the entire store. They will leave their cart sideways in the middle of the aisle and make it very difficult for anybody to get past them. Then when I ask them to politely move their cart out of the way so that another person can get through, they get pissed at me and give me a death stare. That's the oblivious customer.

Another type is the type that thinks they know how food stores work and that they know what we have in the backroom. If there is something that is empty on the shelf, then we most likely 98% of the time do not have any more out in the back. But of course, this customer knows better than I do and they insist that we must have more in the back. So of course, I try to convince them that three people have already asked me if we have any out back and that I have already checked and seen that there are none there. But this customer does not care. They practically force me to go out back. So, I walk through the back doors then turn right back around and tell them that I looked and couldn't find any. I tell them that we will be getting more tomorrow and they say that it was specifically or their dinner tonight and that they cannot have it any other night. I'm sorry that we are out but that's just how it is. You're here one one of the busiest days of the week and you expect that we just have unlimited amounts of everything; because that makes sense. That's the "know it all" customer.

One final customer I would like to discuss is the "can I see your manager" customer. This person has no respect for anybody besides the manager and even in some cases not for the manager either. We ran out of a vendor product one day; meaning that the vendor that comes to the store did not fill enough and we sold out. This customer walked up to me with the assumption that I would not be able to help her. She waited about 10 seconds of me explaining to her to interrupt and demand to see a manager. As I offer to take her to my manager she says "no thanks I'll find her myself." I take her to my manager and the customer rants to her that I know nothing about this store and that I should be fired or re-trained. This lady was certifiably insane and should not be allowed in the store without some sort of supervision in my opinion.

I hope that this post has given you some insight into some of the types of customers that I have to encounter everyday I work. Granted, most customers are really cool but some just need to leave.

Don't do it

There once was a young boy. This boy goes to school. He woke up one day from his very boring life and he wondered to himself, "What can I do today to shake things up a little?" He thought about this for many hours and drew pie charts, made power points and finally came up with a few ideas. He could show up late for school. "No, that's been done before", he said. He could skip school entirely. "Nope, that's been done too", he said. He had to come up with something never before seen. Something innovative. An idea that would make people think "Wow, I wish I had thought of doing that." Then it donned on the young boy. He woke up in the morning like a normal person, and went into the bathroom. Now the next set of events went as scheduled except for one difference: the final event was contained, not eliminated. This substance was contained in a plastic containment unit used for easy transport. Since the boy was going to school he decided to bring this bag with him to fulfill his plan. He was thinking of where to execute his master idea, then it hit him; the place where tons of people walk every single day, the stairs. He went to the staircase and tossed his "care package", surprising many of those around him. 

(If you are lost, a kid threw poop in the staircase in the school)

What would cause a kid to throw poop in the school? To be honest, I have absolutely no idea. I don't think I would ever throw poop; in a bag or not. My two sense is that the kid was trying to be funny or to make good on a bet or a dare from someone who challenged him. To do this, however, you can't be all there in the head. There has to be a part of you that thinks on some level that this is an okay thing to do. Although, considering everything, and to my knowledge, this kid was a frosh. And like frosh they may not quite understand quite how schools work. They may not know that this is not middle school anymore and that you can't throw poop around. We are not apes anymore, we evolved for a reason. I hope that this kid is stopped quickly and swiftly before he strikes again and before he "drops bombs" on our school.

Lost

I just watched this episode of lost in season 2. Claire is trying to remember what happened to her during this two week period on the island when she was taken by this man pretending to be one of them. He took her and this other character, Charlie, into the woods and left him to die. Claire showed up about two weeks after the kidnapping, but she could not remember anything. She believes that she has amnesia, however, the shrink on the island explained something we learned about this year. She said "I don't think you have amnesia. Sometimes when something terrible happens to us there's a little switch in the head that flicks on to protect us from having to deal with it. Maybe your memories aren't gone, maybe you're just blocking them." This is legit a prime example of repression. Claire's mind is sub-consciously blocking this period from herself so that she doesn't have to deal with the pain. She doesn't even know that she is doing this to herself, as she is trying to remember it vs. burying it away on purpose. I just thought it was interesting how something we learned about in class showed up in a tv show I was watching outside of school.

Dream

I had a dream the other night. The main idea that I can remember was that I was going to work, at least I think. I assume because it happens multiple times suggesting that it's something that I do everyday. When I walk into the building, it's all white. It's just an empty white building; like when you buy a new house. I'm wondering what this symbolizes because that's not really a normal dream that too many people have, at least I don't think. My idea is that it symbolizes my future in the sense that it can be anything I want it to be. I'm at the point in my life where most decisions will guide me in what I will be doing in the future. Also, just as a preface to all of this, I already know what I'm going to be doing after high school which is why I think this is more odd. Maybe it suggests that something happens or changes in the time between now and graduation? Or maybe, to keep it more broad, that I can't ever expect to know what will be happening in my own life or in general. Also, the fact that it is all white must be important too. I think it means that I haven't made any major mistakes in my life yet because if I did then maybe there would be like black splotches on the walls or something. The all white to me shows that I'm like a painter with a black board in that I can create whatever I want to.

Multiple Personalities

I think that some of Freud's ideas are kind of crazy but one of the defense mechanisms was really crazy. The one about multiple personalities was insane. I saw this episode of Law and Order SVU the other day where a woman had this condition. One of her other personalities had killed and raped someone else. The real person had no idea of any of this even happening. This woman turned out to have like 7 different personalities and didn't even know about the others. The detectives had her look in a mirror when she was using another personality. I can't remember the name so I'll say Betsy is the other identity and Nicole is the real person. When they had Betsy look in the mirror they asked her who was in the mirror. Of course, the identity said Betsy. But then they pulled out the license for the real person, Nicole. They said don't you realize that you two look exactly alike? and Betsy just said that it was a coincidence and that "I suppose we look alike." This idea is crazy that the other identities don't even know about each other and can't put any pieces together. To burst all of your bubbles however, it turned out that this woman was actually faking the entire thing. None of her identities were real and she was putting on an act the whole time to try and get a way with murder. This makes you think that anyone with this condition could really be faking it so well that you can't even notice it.

Inception

This movie is like an onion. Once you think you've cut through and understood the whole thing, a new layer forms and you have to learn even more information about something that you may have never even understood in the first place. That's why this movie is great. In other movies, it may be fun to watch, but you don't learn anything from it or are forced to pay attention to understand the plot. With this movie, if you miss 5 minutes, you are completely lost. This keeps people engaged in what they're watching. Also the fact that this movie deals with the mind and everything within the mind, people can relate since each of us has a mind.

And I think that this movie is perfect for English class, especially ours this year. Inception deals with learning from different perspectives and the ideas of other people. In the movie we go through multiple dreams of different people. Also, since this movie is like a puzzle, its a really great example of impressionism. You may not know what he meant by "I hate trains" in the first scene, but by the end of the movie, you understand what he meant by that.

Thinking about the ending, I think that the totem fell. Even though we do not see it fall, it looked like it was wiggling a little bit versus just staying in one position not moving side to side at all. But also, if it were to keep spinning, that would mean you were in someone else's dream or reality. So if that was the case, then Cobb would not be in the real world which means that those wouldn't be his real kids. But, then what would his real world be? However, there is a scene towards the beginning of the movie where they are showing the girl how to share dreams and he spins his totem. The totem falls. That's in the same "reality" as they're in at the end. Since it fell then, it would fall at he end of the movie.

Fiction Is Not Real

I think that some of the things that we've learned so far this year have been interesting; especially some of Nabokov's ideas. One that stuck out to me is the idea of fiction not being real in the slightest bit. Most, when reading a book, start to imagine that what they are reading is a true story, or that it really happened at some point. That is why people think that non-fiction books are boring; because some people then realize that the world is a boring place sometimes. We don't see knights fighting dragons or people being saved by superheroes or aliens visiting us from other planets. Life is just not that extraordinary. However, we can still enjoy fiction books. We just can't make the mistake of identifying with characters or believing that you're a part of the story.

One thing that I enjoy about what we are reading is that most of these stories have ambiguous endings. Most people hate that because they crave closure and resolution so that they can feel like they're lives are "complete". However, if the story just gives you the ending, then that's that. In other words, there is no freedom of thought when the book is over. You know what happens, and there's nothing else to be had. But, when there is no clear ending, then we can all create our own endings and reasoning for those endings which can lead to a discussion that can be much more interesting than simply knowing exactly what happened to each character. Some people hate this however, because they feel like they went on this journey for nothing when they don't get an ending. (A peak to the mountain). But, these types of books represent the real world in the way that in your life, you may not have a definite ending all the time where you are left wondering if you did something right or not. If someone told you everything, then there would be no point in trying to learn.