First Day of Class 05-15-19

The three hours of class flew by today. We started with introducing ourselves and talking about our pet peeves,  favorite foods and childhood memories. Most people had similar expectations of the class being that they expect to be able to learn more about the Latin community in Greenville. A good portion of today's class was spent with Emily O'brien, a Furman alum of 2017. She and Erik facilitated a dialogue workshop.  I have been through similar workshops through Furman, but I always find myself coming out of these dialogues learning something new about other people and myself.  Emily asked us to go stand by the identity that we knew most about and this is a question that I had not heard before during one of these workshops. I was a bit confused about which identity to go to and I decided to stand by socioeconomic status. It had never occurred to me that this is a status that I know most about, until I was explaining why I had chosen to stand there to the class. I know the most about this status because I am aware of how much my parents make, especially since I am the one that files things when applying for financial aid. Another portion of the class was reflecting and discussing our thought on the 2 readings assigned for the class. "Funes the Memorious" by Borges made me think about how memories may mean something to one person but may not even have the slightest impact on someone else. In the story, Funes creates a system to represent numbers by words that makes no sense to readers, because we do not see this system through Funes' eyes. During class, I gave the example of my mother making a code for her social security numbers so that only she can decipher the numbers. When I look at her card I perceive the numbers the "wrong" way, even though I think that I am using the "right" system of numbering. We also discussed whether Funes is lucky or cursed to have the capacity to remember pretty much everything. I think it is a mix of both. How wonderful would it be to remember such joyous things in life and to be almost taken back in time, but also how horrific to remember the full extent of pain from an extreme hardship at any instant. "The Communicative and Cultural Memory" reading also had me realize that memory can be separated into two categories of cultural and communicative. Cultural memories are something shared by many like the knowledge of the 9/11 attack and feeling united with other strangers by sharing a memory. Simply put, a cultural memory is a broad memory. On the other hand, a communicative memory is more detailed and individualized. This type of memory relies on who is still alive and an example is individual stories of firefighters helping in the aftermath of 9/11.