Framing the Moment

Lucy in front of Uris Hall

Today at class, I had to sit in the back. When Lucy, Reese, and I arrived ten minutes early, we saw our seats taken by other students. It was a new experience for me to sit in the back for this class, because I enjoy being up front where I can gain the most of the lecture. Our lecture today was about the construal level theory which states that future events are abstract and present events are concrete. For example, if Stephen agreed to go running with Helen this morning yesterday, he will realize how tired he is to go running at 6:30 AM. The idea of going on a trip sounds fun and adventurous, but it is actually just hiking or walking in the city. Determinants of construal are recency, frequency, context, motivation, and temporal perspective. We also learned about framing. There are four types of framing that I learned today: spin framing, positive and negative framing, temporal framing, and gain or loss framing. We had a group activity today which involved spin framing. Spin framing is highlighting some aspects and not others to achieve a certain goal, such as saying the War Department as the Department of Defense. Both titles define the same department, but there's a different connotation. For our group activity during our section, we are split up into four groups of four. We are then given a topic to advertise for or against it. I advertised against alcohol with Sayan, Michael, and Megan. We had a slogan, and statistics to prove our point. In our section, we worked on review problems, and then it was time to eat lunch.

Beautiful Design

I had a seminar today at 3:15 PM, so Lucy, Reese, and I decided to tour the campus a bit. We decided to go to the famous Uris Library to see what the interior design. It was unique to be inside the building. After exploring Uris Library, we went back to North campus to go back "home."  At 3:10 PM, I left to go the room where I seminar was held at. At the split moment when I walked in, the alarm rang. I was scared, nervous, and confused to how the situation unfolded. Luckily, it was not me, and I took my seat at the edge of the table. Casey Carr introduced us to mental illness today. We discussed about schizophrenia, down syndrome, and many more. We talked about what they do, such as hallucinations and/or depression, and different treatment. At the end of the discussion, Casey Carr acted out a situation in which we were doctors who had to diagnose the patient. We had a chance to ask questions and then got into groups to discuss about what we thought. In the end, the patient had bipolar disorder. With the hallucinations, and the high creativity, she had the symptoms of the mental illness. At the end of it all, I found it interesting and eyeopening to be learning more in depth of what psych doctors go through when diagnosing a patient.

The most exciting part of the day was the dinner. It has been forever since I have seen Julie, the birthday girl. When Helen and I finally saw her, we greeted her with a hug and a happy birthday. It has been forever since our cohort has came together to eat dinner, along with some additions to our amazing group, Reese,Joseph, and Nick. We had a blast laughing, eating, and telling jokes at the dinner table. Towards the end of dinner, our cohort went outside of the RPCC to meet up with Mr. Chan-Law. At our meeting, we took a group picture with the birthday girl, and discussed about our plans and the next meet up. It was a surprisingly fun day, and I can't wait until tomorrow.

After saying good-bye to Mr. Chan-Law, we all played some frisbee and volleyball. It was fun being active, especially when I did not have so much homework. Due to the construction outside of Goldwin Smith Hall, Professor Gilovich decided to move the class to Ives . I hear that it is quite difficult to find a clear path to the class because there are multiple entrances and exits throughout the building. I would like to wish Julie Lum a happy seventeenth birthday again. Julie has been an amazing friend and I can't wait to see her grow by the end of the course. I end this blog by mentioning how a group of girls sang happy birthday to a happy Julie Lum.

Happy Birthday Julie!