Best of Week: Cathedrals

I really do like this short story unit. We've talked a lot about "Cathedrals" and i think one of the most interesting things are the Bub-Robert dualities:
Robert is blind -- Bub can see.
Robert is open-minded -- Bub is biased and ignorant.
Mrs. Bub admires Robert -- Bub isn't as lucky.
Robert causes Bub to change -- Bub is changed by Robert.

as well as the dualities within themselves:
Robert is blind BUT he still realizes more than...
Bub has working eyes BUT he shields himself from seeing ouside his own narrow views
Bub sees nothing special in a Cathedral's significance BUT he changes his mind when he draws one with Robert

These are only a few of the many, many changes or dualities that make Cathedrals so interesting or ironic, and finding them was kinda fun =]

What If?: I Was a Short Story

Short stories are mainly a few pages written about a moment in one's life. In Cathedral, The entire story really only takes place in a few hours. Even though we learn about past events in the lives of the wife, husband, or Robert, they are not actually happening during the course of the story. Short stories are big in acad right now. Our Spanish Photostory project is essentially a short story--15 sentences about something important in our lives. I'm wrote about the first time I saw my baby sister, but in English I'm gonna have to write ANOTHER story... and I'm pretty sure I've exhausted the baby sister storyline. Even if our stories are fictional, I feel like I'd need SOMETHING true to use. Then it boils down to... What one moment would I use if I had to write a short story? Would I pick the most important one? The most vividly remembered one? Happiest? Saddest? Scariest? What if I don't even knoowww which moment can get categorized as "most important" or whatever...?
Clearly I used this as my What If? because it really 100% is a question... So far blogging hasn't really cleared up anything or pointed at any answers...

Connection: The Matrix and Horton Hears a Who

Well I've been doing a lot of babysitting this weekend... and I watched Horton Hears a Who with my baby sister at one point.
I read the book as a child, but seeing the Dr. Seuss movie so shortly after watching the Matrix made me realize the parallels. Like Neo, The Mayor of Who-ville had a suspicion that his perception of existence was not necessarily the truth. And, both Neo and Mr. Mayor were right... there was a larger world--an outside force--that was controlling them. While The Whos in Who-ville were in control of their personal actions, any natural occurrence was brought about by Horton's world on the speck of dust. The Matrix, though, was entirely simulated, with no actual free choice. However, once Neo and Mayor discovered the bigger, realer world other than their own, they were never able to return to what they had once believed or lived like, and they were alone in their knowledge of such outward existence.