The Diving Bell and the Butter Fly #4

1. I think its necessary for humans to put people in categories because it helps us make judgements, even though those judgements may not even be correct. I think that our language is not so limiting that we must organize people into categories, but rather we do it for our own comfort. "Oh, he's a vegetable." Doing that puts us at ease, as if it helps us to know how the person really is, even though it doesn't. It only helps us understand only one characteristic of a person, if any at all.

2. I hoard almost every letter and card that is sent or given to me. I have three boxes full of all the cards and letters that I have ever gotten. I think I hoard these because it tells me that people love me, or care about me enough to send me a card or a letter, even if its just for my birthday, or Christmas. I think I feel like this particularly because both of my parents are sort of estranged from their families, specifically their siblings, so it's nice when I get a card from them wishing me good thoughts, even if I have received the same card from them before.

3. Bauby's statement, "I know who he is, but who is he really?" really relates to what I said earlier about putting people in categories. Bauby knows who this man is, but he doesn't know who he really is, what he likes, dislikes, what his thoughts are about. I don't think Bauby is really any closer to knowing what makes people tick, because I think that everyone has something different that makes them tick. It seems like Bauby is getting closer to knowing what the people who he knows, what makes them tick. Also, Bauby will never tire of the smell of french fries because the smell is so strong that he can probably come close to tasting them, especially if he adds his memories of what french fries taste like to his mental, gustatory, and olfactory  imagery.

4. A "small near miss" that I have had recently was on an English quiz. One question asked for me to name a certain question asked in the memoir "A Long Way Gone." If I had studied more properly I would understand exactly which question the teacher was asking for, and I could have answered correctly. Instead, I didn't study correctly and I paid attention to the less important question, which led to an incorrect answer, although I could have gotten the answer correct.

5.  When Bauby says he has "butterfly hearing" in Duck Hunt, he means in the silence, he thinks he can hear his heartbeat, and because of his heartbeat, he can use his butterfly to escape from his diving bell, so in the silence, he can take off into his imagination, he can hear when he is leaving his diving bell.

6. I think Bauby dreads Sundays because it is the day when he is least taken care of. Very few staff are around, and those who are don't really communicate with Bauby, and/or are hungover. The TV is left on the same station for 3-4 hours, and some of the programs hurt Bauby's delicate hearing. His bath "bears more resemblance to a drawing and quartering than to hydrotherapy. A triple dose of the finest eau de toilette fails to mask the reality: I stink." No one reads to him on Sundays, and even when a large black fly is on Bauby's nose, no one is there to get rid of it for him.