Wednesday, January 05, 2005
Went to one of my psychology courses yesterday, PSYC54... Cognition and Representation. Prof Kennedy is specializing in the study of the blind. He told us some very interesting things, like: the blind can draw, they can "see" and feel drawings, statues, etc. He showed us a painting done by a blind man... It was AMAZING! The blind also have knowledge about perspective, depth, and all the rest that even us the sighted have not fully grasped yet and we take it for granted. If you get a blind person to draw or to feel a drawing, the occipital lobe (vision area in the back of the brain) is active when you scan the brain. WOW! all this time everyone thought that the areas in the brain involved in vision must be dead in blind people... WRONG... 100 years of research has been WRONG!want to find out more? here are the online books and journals that I'll be using this semester.
T-space URL for "Drawing and the Blind" Kennedy, 1993--> Click here
Url for notes on T space's "Drawing and the blind"--> Click here
So this semester is going to be very interesting. I'll be learning more about art, touch, sense, perception, and vision. My textbook is "Art beyond sight" and it's full of pictures done by the blind, braille stuff... and all those interesting things.
Four years ago I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life, what courses I should take, etc... but now I never regret the decision I made when I applied for Life science: Specializing in Psychology. These 3 yrs of learning has changed my life completely.
Most people's goals are to get high marks and graduate and get a high-paying job. Not me... sure the good grades help motivate me to study harder, but I don't really care if I don't get A's or 4.0 in GPA... what I care about is what I learn, what I've added to my knowledge and how I can apply what I learned to help those around me and to be a better person. Hell, those people who get high grades don't even know or understand what they just learned anyway... this is true, because when u ask them like a week later what they've learned, all they could say was "I don't know, I forgot already" hahaha... what good will that do??? Cramming all the info before the exam and forgetting them as soon as u finish the exam... what's the point??? But of course I want a good job... but it doesnt have to be a high-paying job... as long as I love what I do, then it's all that matters... the difference that I'll make... the people I'll help, and all that...
I don't know... I'm just glad that even though I'm not the smartest person, I get to experience learning, all areas of learning, from Chemistry, Calculus, Languages, creative writing, biology, world religion, music, anthropology, to all areas of psychology (brain, drugs, emotion, social, cognition, memory, statistic, research, neuro, child development, abnormal psychology, etc)... everything! Bring them on! I'm so lucky that I have the opportunity to learn when most people on other parts of the world would kill for a chance to learn. I think we all take too many things for granted. Boy, is life full of lessons to learn or what! It's a lifetime of learning! La vie est belle, n'est ce pas? ouais!
Read the paper yesterday... over 134,000 people died in the Tsunami thing, and over 90,000 of them are Indonesians. Government Canada will match every donation made, dollar for dollar, until January 11th. Isn't it great! So if each Canadian donate like, $100, then that amount will double and it will make a huge different and be a great help.
I think it's also very important to donate another kind of help: prayers for those who died and for those affected. God have mercy on those poor souls. May God bless us all and keep us.
si Monyet @ 1/05/2005 08:49:00 AM
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