First Blog Post: Madeleine Perko

“I write fiction and poetry to free myself from small truths in hope of achieving large ones” - from All Writing is Autobiography

• This quote hugely resonated with me because I feel that when I write about my emotions the processes helps me achieve a sense of order. It transforms small but numerous thoughts into an easy to process overall theme and take away. When I write down thoughts that consume my mind, the act of putting them on the page means I can take the load off. However, after rereading what I wrote, I always feel that what I put down is not as heavy as when I held it in my head. From this excerpt I realized that the act of writing forces one to, to some extent, make sense of something nonsensical. But, simply giving a final resting place to those ideas helps to alleviate the never ending review and complex discoveries that come from ruminating. The result is such a small fraction of the truth that it is sort of lying by omission. But in writing that small fraction of the truth, I, as the author said, become “the invention of my own words”, so in a way, it’s not even a lie anymore.

“persistent inequities of access and reward” - from Sponsors of Literacy

• This quote really resonated with me, especially as a college student aspiring to become some kind of medical professional… It seems that as more people attend college, the less valuable a college degree is. One one hand it is fantastic that more people are becoming educated. At the same time, as I look at what I am in for, I am admittedly kind of terrified. Something that has been on my radar, that is more pronounced now that ever, is the nagging feeling that I am jumping through a lot of very time consuming, expensive hoops, at the expense of learning something more broad, holistic and surprisingly more relevant to my future, just for the sake of completing more than others. This summer, I was talking to my ex-boyfriend’s father about his experience in college, medical school, and now as a surgeon. He was born in Italy and moved to the US a little before college. He said that in Italy there is so reason to go to college if you want to become a doctor because you can just go straight to medical school. I then talked to my uncle who is an infectious disease specialist, and my mother’s friend who is a pediatrician. Both of them said that that NEVER use organic chemistry, ever… which makes me wonder why next semester I will be tackling such notoriously daunting material… and WHO is sponsoring that form literacy and why do they want to hurt me… They also attested to the fact that majoring in a health related field does not give you a leg up in applying to med school, and it may actually be favorable to major in another field and fulfill pre-med requirements on the side and at other institutions over breaks or after graduation. It makes me wonder why I am being funneled through a pre-med track and sacrificing the opportunity to broaden my understanding of new scopes while I have the opportunity in college so that I may better relate to my patients and understand the world of which I am a member. I imagine that somewhere along the line to where education is now, someone said, “we need to gauge the scientific capacity of students before the enter medical school so to take only the best, the brightest and those with the best mind for this work”. Then, I imagine that they gradually developed more higher standards, more classes, and increasing requirements in order base selections. I imagine that they were so hyper focused on the scientific nature of medicine, due to the prestigious nature of science and increasing specialization, that they failed to recognize the strength that comes from varied interests, broad understanding and education. And that is, vaguely, why I think that I am here, facing a multitude of expensive, time consuming and most frightening of all, unnecessary tasks that I will undertake at the expense of learning something that will prepare me for other aspects of the well balanced life I intend to live.

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  “Literacy, like land, is a valued commodity in this economy, a key resource in gaining profit and edge. This value helps to explain, of course, the lengths people will go to secure literacy for themselves or their children. But it also explains why the powerful work so persistently to conscript and ration the powers of literacy”  - from Sponsors of Literacy
  
  
  • This makes me this of the college scandal. You do not need a college education to be successful, but due to the sponsors of our society and those that succeeded under those conditions and perpetuate the standards of literacy fostered by the original sponsors, promotes a single minded approach to success.
  
  
  
  

  Finally, in everything is a remix, I was not shocked by the concept that nothing is truly “original”, but I was shocked to see how much was closer highly regarded work was to a “copy” of another’s, and how protective people who shamelessly derived their ideas from other works were when it came to protecting the rights to their own. Talking to some people, I realized that a lot of people found this upsetting and kind of depressing. However, I think that coordinating cooperation between things that already exist so they they can be more appealing or function better would actually be something I would enjoy as a profession. I like the idea of feeling connected to the minds of others through their creations.