The Life Before Her Eyes (Skin, Light and Shadow, Glass, Glare, Birds, Cold, Dust, Stream, Music, Breath, Rumbling, April, Epilogue)

    The frank impressions for me of this book is that this book is poetic and beautiful, but also blur, and difficult to understand the intrinsic part of this book. I enjoy reading it, but the expression is very difficult, and there were many parts that were difficult to understand. I felt it is because this book is entrusting to the reader's imagination to complete the story. 

    When I briefly summarise this book, this is a story about a girl who chose to live, instead of her best friend been killed. The two girls were asked by the killer (their friends) which one should he kill, and Diana-the the main character- chose to let him kill her friend instead of her. The story is written in two different times, one is the time when Diana is around forty, been married with a nice man with a good career, having a cute daughter, and living happily without any anxiety in her life. The other is the time when Diana is around sixteen and seventeen, spending nice adolescent days with her best friend (Actually, in the book it does not say those girls are Diana and her best friend straightly using the word "a girl" instead of her actual name. However, the reader can predict that it is her). This two-time axis appears alternately, and the span becomes shorter little by little, getting closer to the ending. Diana (aged forty) was having a happy life, but this book is depicting how her life become collapsed. This is a story that throws the reader a question that can a person who chose to live instead of others can be happy, or not. 

    The contents of the story were very interesting, and I enjoy reading this, but the words used for the depiction were complex, and very difficult to recognize what the author wanting to express. It was difficult to imagine what is happening, for example, in the very last part, the last part of the novel, it says, "......Diana stepped down slowly from its roses, wearing her white gown, and looked." It never says what she saw, and there are not many hints in the book (maybe there are, but I could not find it and consider it), and I can never imagine what the author wanting us to imagine. 

     The novel, "The Life Before Her Eyes", was very interesting, but there are still many ambiguities, even I finished reading it. I want other people to read this book, and tell me what was actually happening in the book, and what Diana saw at the end. 

January 28th 2021

    Today, I learned that there are thousands of ideas squeezed inside one clip of the video, that expresses the essence of that clip. When we say a "video clip" in one word, there are man types of it, as we saw many kinds of them (talents, dance, adventure, comedy etc...). The video that I liked the most was the one that said "cool guys never look at explosion". It was funny, and enjoyable because of its rhythm,  and also interesting. When we are watching some movies with the scene of the explosion, we do not feel any sense of discomfort, but when we look at it like in that video clip, it was very unnatural and funny, so I thought there could be more fun stuff in this world when we "see" some thing rather than looking. 

-memo-

 telling people where it is in the first part of the video

wide-angle shot of the city

subtitles in the bottom that tells when it is 

the audience can identify the setting

cool guys never look at explosions

we don't realize this because we are looking not seeing. 

January 26th 2021

     In today’s class, we watched some videos for assembling people attending the video contest. The video I watched was very interesting, and high quality. I thought good videos have the power to attract the audience and to make them keep an eye on them. Even though they are doing only one thing, I enjoyed watching it and strongly attracted, and even be emotional. I felt that's why they can send the watcher messages. 

     To be honest, I do not have much interest in making videos, but I thought I want to have some ways for myself to convey other's messages, that I think sending others messages is a very valuable skill that people can have. 

The life before her eyes (Daisies, Footsteps, Thunder, Peonies and Lilac, Humming, Blood, Silence)

      In the last post, I wrote this story is written in a soft, and gentle depiction of the scene, and it does not change in these chapters too. However, the main character Diana's misfortune and the adversities behind her superficial happiness were emphasized throughout this chapter, with a soft, and gentle tone. 

     This story is written by two different "times", one is "NOW" when Diana is about 40 years old, become married, have a kid, having an epitomized happiness. The other is when two young girls (17 years old, readers do not know who actually is it, but I think it is Diana and the one more girl with the black hair that had been killed) are spending a day with youth with each other, and their boyfriends. 

     I predict that Diana became unhappy because of the sin that she made when she was young, that she chose her friend to be killed instead of her. Still, there are many vaguenesses in the story, so I want to read further and know about the consequence. 

January 14th 2021

      I like paper, and I prefer reading on paper. I understand how the digital book is convenient that it has many facilities for us to learn, but I still like reading books on paper. 

     I do not have a specific reason for this, but I sensually prefer paper books and have a little bit of resistance to digital books. I really like reading books (mostly Japanese though), so I often do not feel any stress on reading books, but by reading books on kindle, I feel some stress to read the book, compared to reading on paper. I do not know why this happens, and I feel there are not any clear reasons, but it is clear that the digital book is not suitable for me. 

     Actually, I think the digital book has much more merits compared to the paper book, but I feel there are many people who prefer books without any specific reason. However, I think it is also important to respect each other's preference to enjoy reading books. 

-memo-

paper textbook

the textbook is no the only thing that stimulates the brain. 

digitalization of textbooks is to regard the paper textbook. →really?

old fashion approaches to learning, 

why stupid?

old, limited perspectives, limited community, majority, never experienced digital, 

follow the money

 vertical reading, lateral reading →so much information to people

but we are able to do the lateral reading in paper too, and there are many times that I do not research for things that I did not know when I read things in kindle. 

The life before her eyes (April, Sunlight, Whispers, Heart beat)

     "The life before her eyes" is a novel written by Laura Kasischke. I chose this book by reading the summary of this book, as I thought it is very interesting. So, I did not have any information about the author and the book. 

     In the prologue (April), the two girls with gold and black hair were in the toilet,  in front of the mirror. When they were combing their hair, the boy called Michel Patrick ran into the toilet, holding the gun. He asked the girls, which one should he kill. The girl with the black hair told him to kill herself, but Diana-the girl with the gold hair-said him to kill her friend, not herself. From the prologue, the story is very interesting, and I felt I want to read forward, further and further. 

     The impression I received after reading the few chapters is that the sentences and the words used in this story are very soft and poetic. Even in the scene that two girls have pointed out the guns, the words that depicted the situation was calm, gentle, and even beautiful. 

     I really enjoy reading this book, and I want to continue reading it.