The Combine

    Chief often refers to "the Combine" in his thoughts about the patients in comparison to the ward. The combine is simply the social status quo that the patients are eventually conformed into. In the Chief's mind, most patients , with the exception of McMurphy, have been cut down to their modest personalities that the staff sees as favorable. Although McMurphy is still himself and continues to protest against ward policy, he is about just as vulnerable as the other patients were when they were introduced into the psych ward. This is because McMurphy stands alone in his rebellion and has been put into an environment full of people that have already been cut down and have little hope of becoming independently rebellious. Furthermore, the ward staff works so well in keeping its policies intact that even McMurphy can't avoid succumbing to the ward's policies, thus making him a target for the combine. The combine hasn't gotten to him quite yet because he continues to be loud and rebellious and expresses his own ideas to live by in the ward.

    It can be argued that most, if not all, institutions are some sort of combine. The school is a simple example of a combine-like institution. These institutions contain some sort of policy that is meant to cut down people's personalities. I agree that most institutions act as combines towards the people inside as long as the people remain inside. In school, we are meant to remain somewhat disciplined and perform our daily tasks. However, these institutions, fortunately, do not limit its people while the people are not within the institution's boundaries. As long as one remains inside one such institution, the institution will act as a combine to cut down one's complete individuality to create some sort of conformist personality. In our case, our state of conformity is known as being every-day students.

Psych Ward? Prison?...School?

   In One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, it is easily seen that Big Nurse's psych ward is run with the complete precision of a well-engineered machine. If one looks into the modern world and our current setting in school, it is possible to find similar characteristics of such a precise facilitation within the school administration itself. The first obvious characteristics are the structures of the settings' hierarchies. Big Nurse demonstrates the head authority figure within her psych ward just as Principal Welch is known as the head authority figure of the school. The psych ward's hierarchy is followed by the Three Black Boys and the nurses. This can be compared the school's hierarchy of vice principals and teachers, one role to provide discipline and the Head's will and another role to help facilitate the daily processes of such large institutions. In terms of both of these settings, the students of the school can be seen as the patients of Big Nurse's psych ward: under the authority of all the characters within the facilities administration systems.

    Big Nurse's main role in her psych ward is her responsibility to enforce her policies upon the patients. In the school setting, the entire administrative staff and teachers also enforce the school's policies and rules. Big Nurse often reminds patients of her policies, especially when a patient strays from policy parameters. Similar to the psych ward, the school staff frequently reminds students of the school's rules when it seems fit or when a rule is broken or in jeopardy of being broken. Through this simple comparison, it can be easily seen how a school can come to represent a psych ward, or a similarly operated institution *cough* prison *cough*

   Finally, one more characteristic shared among school and Big Nurse's psych ward: no one can leave unless specified and everyone has certain tasks they are meant to perform. Although the conditions of students' imprisonment in school vary from a patient's 24 hour stay in the ward, both students and patients are not allowed to leave their institutions without permission. Patients in Big Nurse's ward are allowed to leave when they are released into the outer world while students are only allowed to leave when they are dismissed. Furthermore, the patients in the psych ward must perform certain tasks just as students are also required to work. Patients are expected to take their medication, attend meetings, and follow the order of activities of the day. Similarly, students are expected to attend class and follow the periods of the day without causing a ruckus. This proves to be the third, but probably not the last similarity between the school and Big Nurse's psych ward.

Justification for Medicine?

   Although the field of medicine in meant to develop and utilize cure for illness, it also has its own downfall. The development of the lobotomy is probably one of the most prominent examples of a negative development of medicine. Especially today, such a crude process of surgery is seen as a purely evil method in an attempt for a cure of widely unknown diseases. However, during the development of this surgery, justification was often fabricated for such an invasive and brutal surgery with a wide array of side effects.
  
   The lack of knowledge often leads people into searching for a way to gain such lost knowledge. However, these searches are sometimes conducted with unbroken determination for the goal, with little consideration of the consequences of the actions that may be taken. Walter Freeman pursued his goal for a cure for mental illnesses with great determination, while also managing to ignore the nature of his methods and the consequences of his treatments. Justification for such actions lie only on the argument that in order to achieve knowledge in the field of medicine for undocumented illnesses, any measures should be allowed, including the experimentation of methods on humans. However, such a justification is blatantly fabricated in order to supply a hasty method of pioneering new methods of medicine.

    Justification for the use of humans in order to gain knowledge for the treatment of uncured, undocumented or unknown diseases is one of the most ridiculous arguments one may hear in the field of medicine. Although modern medicine has established processes to prevent, immediate, crude and often - for the lack of a better word - stupid experiments on humans, such regulations can be considered rather recent and modern. The process of the lobotomy was tested and performed on humans for the simple sake of seeing what it could do. Such arrogant, foolish and childish actions can never be justified by any arguments, no matter the goal. The immediate experimentation of human beings is inhumane, no matter the nature of the experiment. Until safety of the patients can be truthfully declared, new experiments should not be implemented on human patients.

Movies and movies!

   There are definitely a ton of great movies that everyone should see at least once in their life. We all know classics like "Back to the Future", "Star Wars" and "Forrest Gump". But there also great movies that might not be up to the "classics" status, but they could easily get there. My list of top ten movies actually mostly consists of series of movies including the Star Wars series, The Lord of the Rings series, the Rush Hour trilogy, the Bourne trilogy, the Harry Potter series, and the Ocean's trilogy. These are all great series and some I like a little better than the other, but I'm not about to delve into each series to pick out which individual movie in each series are better than the others. My reason for so many series? The Star Wars series is pretty addicting to watch, the Lord of the Rings series is suspenseful, The Rush Hour trilogy is comedic while also filled with action, the Bourne trilogy is just great action with a kick--- main character, the Harry Potter series...well...that's self explanatory, and the Ocean's Trilogy has some of the greatest heist story lines.
   I definitely also have favorite movies that aren't part of a series. My favorite individually planned movie is "Book of Eli". Although this movie has some religious background and elements, it also contains intense action and Denzel Washington! Although "Book of Eli" isn't Denzel's greatest known movies, partly because of its recent release in 2010, it definitely has the potential. I just think this movie is a must see and the ending will definitely blow your mind. Other individual movies include Fight Club, Forrest Gump and Up. Up was mostly thought up to represent most Disney movies as a whole. You can't deny that there are great Disney movies out there and Up was one of them...although I think the part that definitely made it great was the ending and the credits.
   Fight Club and Forrest Gump can mostly be categorized as a modern "classic/must-see". Fight Club might not be as prestigious as Forrest Gump, but it's definitely a great movie. Fight Club contains two equally interesting characters along with an insane idea and storyline. Then the last 20 minutes or so just completely makes you rethink how you have been seeing things. Then the last 5 minutes of the movie are kind of like "whattt? oh hot damn". Forrest Gump, as hopefully everyone knows, is an honored classic featuring a uniquely brilliant main character and a touching storyline. The time setting of the movie as it progresses is pretty creative and there are plenty of emotionally touching moments.

Themes of a Salesman

    The play, The Death of a Salesman contains several significant themes. One such obvious theme is the theme of the American Dream, which we have all mentioned countless times. The theme of the American Dream involves the idea that hard work will produce wealth and great advantages in life. However, the positivity of this theme is not displayed in the play, rather the failure of the American Dream is displayed through Willy's life. Willy's life is shown to have a miserable quality along with large amounts of failure, including in his sons. The failure of Willy's pursuit for the American Dream wonderfully segways into another theme.

   A great, but unfortunate theme, in The Death of a Salesman is that parts of life don't always turn out to be the way they present themselves. Willy's entire life show this theme through his constant troubles at home and at work. Although Willy constantly pursues his American Dream through great work and ownership of a house and even a car, Willy's life still contains cracks here and there. Willy's house and his possessions are in states of needed repair such as his car, his ceiling and his car. Furthermore, his career life is failing him and ultimately making him miserable. The unfortunate course of Willy's life shows how his initial thoughts of hark work to gain great advantages are not only different from what he imagined, but almost completely opposite.

    One more theme of the Death of a Salesman is the fact that everybody has only a limited amount of time in life and that it is important to keep track of your time. Willy, as usual, is the character in the book that goes against this theme. Willy keeps no way to manage or track his time, therefore he has little bearing on where he is in life. Although Willy is getting old, especially in his career, he fails to recognize this fact and insists on continuing his work despite the loss of his good reputation and credibility. Therefore, due to Willy's loss of time, his life is slowly deteriorating without his realization.

So I wrote a letter today...or maybe a couple...

    I honestly don't mind writing letters and I sometimes actually write and send legitimate letters to friends if I need to. However, I'm pretty sure anyone would agree that pen-and-paper letters are pretty much outdated. Since this classic mode of communication is so outdated, the cost of letters and postal services in general are increasing. Sure, people still mail packages, order packages and mail out immensely large stacks of wedding invitations. However, not as many normal letters are sent nowadays as they used to be say...in our parents' time, especially since the wonderful convenience of emails and AIM.
  
    There are plenty of other things that people might consider "outdated". Apparently physical CDs are getting outdated since the dawn of MP3s, itunes and other digital music sources. Furthermore, apparently I'm one of the few who still goes out to buy CDs...but that's just one of my weird  habits. Out of the past five or ten CDs I have recently bought, I have mostly only used the physical CDs once simply to rip it onto iTunes before uploading it onto my iPod. However, part of my weird habit is the fact that I like to be able to physically hold the music that I bought. Also, if my computer somehow crashes and wipes out all my music I still have the physical CD as a backup. Honestly, who can deny a snazzy album cover sitting on their bookshelf?

    Newspapers and magazines are soon becoming outdated, possibly followed by physical books since the set up of news sites on the internet and the invention of digital book readers. I'm, again, one of those weirder people who likes to physically hold certain objects, and books and magazines fit under that category. I honestly enjoy going out to buy books and being able to actually hold a book while I read it. I don't like the idea of reading a full book on a screen. With a book on-screen you have less of an indication of how far into the book you've read. What about the glare of lights? With a physical book, extra light helps you read...with a screen, extra light often makes it insanely hard to read.

So let's talk about feelings...

    There's this little feeling called guilt. Although it's only one out of many emotions, most people can agree that guilt is a miserable feeling to have. Knowing that you are a witness to, or the contributor to a wrongful event that compromises the ideals or morality of any individual is often a dooming ticket to acquiring guilt. Everyone has had their guilt trips, whether large or small. Either way, people deal with guilt in their own ways. Some simply distract themselves from their guilt, some wallow in self-pity because of their guilt, some people go out an apologize and some people go the extra mile to make up for their wrongful actions. I can't prescribe any solutions of getting rid of guilt, but a great way to help is to somehow let out some of that guilt. Keeping all your guilt pent up inside is not a healthy habit and could possibly drive one insane. Therefore, letting some of it out by talking to someone or apologizing will help relinquish some of that guilt.
  
     As bad as guilt gets, a worse feeling can be disappointment. In my opinion, depending on who you receive disappointment from, it can feel even worse than guilt itself. The feelings of disappointment against you especially hit home when someone close to you, say a relative or wicked close friend, reveals their disappointment in you. I'm sure many people have also had this experience before. The disappointment of a close friend or relative often inflicts guilt and leaves you thinking and most often regretting about the situation that has caused such disappointment. Disappointment is harder to relieve as it is a feeling felt by someone else towards you. Therefore trying to get rid of someone's disappointment in you requires wonderful social skills to apologize to that person and somehow make it up to them.

    This blog entry has actually kind of depressed me. However, as I sit in my room avoiding the rest of my statistics homework while listening to the Killers, I'm coming up with blanks for my third paragraph. I remember when I was young, around 4 or 5 years old, I thought that being a 10 year old was amazing and that you were taller and cooler. When I was 10, I thought being a 15 or 16 year old would be amazing and I would be one of the giants carrying around large books and doing whatever else we do. Now at this age, when I look at the younger kids I think: "I used to be one of those kids looking up at an older kid like me". A point I'm trying to express is that we don't notice how much older we are than we were before and how we are now the generation that the younger school children look up to.