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...experience witnessing the eclipse.

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Today I confirmed my thinking that the major shift in the essay happens at the beginning of the eclipse. I also revised my thinking about the underlying message of the essay from it being about experiencing a life changing experience into a more dynamic understanding where our lives go through cycles where specific events alter our course and human nature tries to bring us back to our normalcy but we never really go back to the same path.

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The early descriptions are meant to lull you into a false sense of security before the action and fear sets in during the eclipse.

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Today I confirmed my

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I confirmed what I thought was the main point of the story. That it is about her how her internal thought changes. I also confirmed my thoughts on anaphora. That the repitition adds to creating route which adds to the mundane theory. I didn't think about the two levels of truth, but through this discussion it made me think about how our scientific truth varies from our perceived truth. And I thought more about the role of Gary and how he added to the mundane of her life.

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Today I confirmed that my idea tha

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Today I confirmed my thinking that Annie Dillard's essay was somewhat about a dream state - at one point it was said that she repeated a theme of circles and cycles, which made me think of the sleep cycle. She also talked some about waking up in her essay at the beginning of part 4. Now, I feel like I understand a little

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Today I confirmed my thinking about the mundanity of the descriptions in the first part of the essay and their overall point in the rest of the ess

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Today, I confirmed my feeling about the meaning of the essay.  I had come to the conclusion that the essay is about the nature of human beings, and how no matter how magnificent something that they see is, they will always want to go back to normality.  The whole ending section of the essay talks about how people want to return to the comforts of home. With the discussion today, I feel like my thinking was validated by the views of others.

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Today, I revised my thinking about how Dillard affectedly uses repetition in the essay. I was intrigued about how she uses repetition to write the essay in a cycle. The idea about cycles throughout the essay was really thought-provoking for me, and in class we discussed a good amount.

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Today I revised my thinking about the experience of the eclipse as a whole. I hadn't initially picked up on the repetition of the notion of a circle throughout the essay. It's referenced when the college kid compares the eclipse to a Life Saver, and can be interpreted in multiple ways by the reader. I personally perceived the circle as also referencing the cycle of the eclipse as well as the "cycle" of Dillard's experiences, where she begins her naive journey at a central point, goes through all of the motions of seeing her

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Today, I revised my thinking about the meaning of "Total Eclipse," in the since that I have begun to wonder about the significance of individual human life in the so-called "universe," as hinted upon in the many metaphors and tangents that Annie Dillard provides. For example, she mentions that the universe is a "clock-work of loose spheres flung at stupefying, unauthorized speeds," and later goes on to mention her skepticism and worry over these large and fast celestial objects not crashing into one another and ending life as we know it.

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Today I revised my thinking about Annie Dillard's descriptions of the awe-inspiring and maddening eclipse being connected to the concept of human insignificance. Although i still believe that the insignificance of humans compared to astral events plays a large role in the main theme of the story, I now believe that the story is also about human perspective and ability to describe what we see in ways no others can gives us a form of significance.

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Today, I revised my thinking about the shift in the essay. Initially, I thought it was a shift from sane to insanity. However, when talking with everyone, I realized that rather than sanity, it was more normality. She goes from driving up a mountain and staying at a hotel to watch the eclipse, to suddenly, while watching the eclipse, listening to the screams of everyone around her and the almost creepiness of her surroundings.

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I confirmed my thoughts on the what the main point of this story was. I added the their

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Today, I revised my thinking about what the overall idea Dillard was trying to convey was. I originally believed that some parts of it were metaphors for human insignificance in a greater scheme (mostly because of the Crab Nebula passage), but after we discussed it further, I think that the overall idea was about a cycle of sanity to insanity and how you always try to return back to normalcy after a certain event happens.

Going back to the idea of human insignificance, I started to think more and more after Tom brought up the point. He talked about human minds because we are the only beings that think this way (that we are aware of), we are able to think of ourselves as significant. However, this made me think of it further and begin to wonder about how the idea of being relevant is relative and based around our own ideas.

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Today I said that the main shift in the essay was from sanity to insanity and back to sanity. Many of my classmates agreed with me, so I know I wasn't the only one who thought about this. Dillard uses seemingly boring and useless details to almost bore readers into a state of normality at the beginning of the essay.

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I was hoping to hear some ideas for how others interpreted the many metaphors of this chapter, because I wasn't sure what they all meant myself. Luckily there was some great insight about why part 1 was there, because I had no idea. Some thoughts were that it sets a baseline for normality, which provides stark contrast to the insanity of the eclipse. I still want to know what she is staying about the men in the hotel. She says we all have a lexicon and grammar, and when we lose these two things, you no longer care. But what do these men no longer care about?
So basically, I confirmed a theory but revised it to include other possibilities.

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Today, I revised my thinking about the meaning of Dillard's essay. I was just beginning to grasp at the meaning of her work, but the discussion today helped me to rethink some of my previous thoughts. I heard some new ideas from my classmates that hadn't occurred to me before today. I had thought about the cycles in the essay but couldn't really put it into words. Now, I feel like I understand the idea much more clearly.

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Some conclusive answers but also a text with no answers at all

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William Howard I confirmed my epiphany about memories.  A also tossed my idea about the crab nebula.

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William Howard I confirmed my epiphany about memories.  A also tossed my idea about the crab nebula.

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Today I revised my thinking that the entire essay was absurd for the sake of being absurdist. While the essay contains many absurdist elements, it's also about the difference between perception and reality, and how different people perceive things differently.

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Today I confirmed my thinking about what the essay meant. I had thought that it was a sort of stream-of-consciousness type of piece, and when someone brought up that they thought it was that way too, I felt more confident in my idea.

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Today I revised my thinking about Annie Dillard's point of writing this essay. I enjoyed hearing what other people thought about human experience and how we feel connections to people through the power of communal experience and how what we know isn't always what we perceive.

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Today I revised my thinking about the meaning about "Total Eclipse". It is written as a memory, and you don't remember an event in linear order. You remember weird little details, or your thoughts wander and lead to other thoughts about that memory. That's how Annie Dillard wrote the essay. Also, I learned she's talking about perception versus what we can actually comprehend. Our brains desperately want to know everything, but it simply can't.

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I confirmed my thinking about a possible message that Annie Dillard is trying to portray- how Total Eclispe is an allegory for modern society's attentiveness. How people are too rushed to sit back and take things in. It reflects our society's attention spand in how we get too uncomfortable out of our little bubble of personal knowledge, so we go back "home" to what we know.

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Today I confirmed and added to my thinking about the main point of the essay in thinking about the way people accept the unknown and the power of communal experiences. This helped explain the way Annie Dillard wrote her essay and why she wrote it.

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I confirmed my thinking about the central shift of the essay, when the eclipse begins and her writing turns dark. I revised my thinking about the meaning of the essay as a whole. Is

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Today I confirmed my thinking about the purpose of this essay. I confirmed that it is likely an essay which expresses Dillard's train of thought. It is an essay which discusses the most powerful and great experiences (like seeing an eclipse) but it is also an essay which discusses the most minuscule pieces of time which create that greater experience. It is an overwhelming text with

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Today, I comnfirmed my thinking about the last paragraph. The entire essay is about how Annie Dillard is trying to explain what the eclipse meant to her yet she, herself, couldn't stand thinking about the eclipse for very long. I think this is a representation about how humans like to contemplate their existence but don't ever want to think about their own life for very long. It's almost ironic how long the essay is but it never goes to a direct point.

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Today I tossed out my thinking of what I thought main point of the essay was. I thought that there had to be a right answer. I thought Annie Dillard would give us the answer, but there is no answer that is to the point. I really enjoyed realizing that it is okay to not know the reasons, or to think you know multiple views.

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Today I confirmed my thinking about one of the many themes of the essay being about the mind's curiosity and how we will never fully understand the world. I think that Annie Dillard shows her frustration with that concept through her writing.

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Today I revised my thinking about the meaning and purpose of the story. My thinking was confirmed as far as the meaning and purpose being generally unknown. But I was also given new ideas on the purpose. Is the story a metaphor on life? Is the meaning to discuss how everything in life is meaningless and absurd? Is she writing this to confirm her feelings on being out of place?

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today I tossed out my thinking that the meaning of the essay is simple and we're all misinterpreting it. instead I was really happy to wa

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today i revised my thinking about the use of details & anaphora.  originally i though that Dillard was using anaphora to try to describe the event to us to try to show how amazing it was. now i believe that she was using it as evidence that everyone should go in person.

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Today I confirmed my idea that Annie Dillard is tied to nature in a way that she expresses through using the idea of rings and wedding bands in describing the eclipse.

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Today I revised my thinking about similies and repititon. At first I simply thought it was just a language device, and it is, but it was also a way for her to try to rationalize what was happening by emphasizing and repeating ideas over and over. I also learned the new idea of a cycle, and how it relates to her use of repetition and language and the images of circular things in the essay.

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Today I revised my thinking about the essay itself. I thought of the essay one way and got a certain vibe from it after reading it the first time. After having the discussion I can see the deeper meaning behind the essay and what Dillard's intent was.

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Today, I revised my thinking about repetition throughout the essay. The whole idea about cycles made me think differently about repetition and the way Annie Dillard used this skill. It helped me view the essay as a whole as a cycle and get a better understanding of her journey.

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Today, I confirmed my thinking about the author's way she describes the eclipse.  She uses a lot of extreme detail to give an image in our heads, but says that you can only truly visualize it when you see it yourself.

Today also kind of scratched an idea for me. In the last paragraph she talked about the "partial" eclipse, how people would still drive 5 hours to see it, but everyone already saw the official eclipse and were ready to return to their comfort zones. I kind of thought about how in nature there are so many obscure things that no one really can make an "official" name for like an eclipse, so no one really makes a big deal of it. But because a solar eclipse is "official" everyone drives 5 hours to see it, and then goes home even when there is still a partial eclipse, something that could be just as amazing and obscure. Today helped me with grasping apparent themes in the chapter.

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Today, I revised my thinking about the clown. At first, I thought the clown was very useless and I was confused at its meaning, but now I know after David's comment that there was a reference to an artist and the clown has a deeper rooted meaning with fruit. I also learned about the cycle effect in the novel, and this was new knowledge for me and a new theme idea.

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Today I revised my thinking about several aspects of the essay. Tying the theme of essay back to life and it's cyclic nature. Tying the usage of anaphora to the repetition in the really opened my eyes.

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Today, I confirmed my thinking about the use of similes and their purpose in the essay. I revised my thinking about the actual purpose of the eclipse and the overall significance of it within the essay. I tossed out my thinking about the ending paragraph because it did not make sense with the rest of the theme.

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Today, I revised by thinking about how Annie Dillard's themes of cycles and time are recurring and emphasize her point that events need to be experience in real time.
Today, I also tossed out the idea that anaphora is used for emphasis because it is used throughout the entire piece in almost every paragraph. Instead, so I realize that Dillard uses anaphora to add the effect of stream of conciousness and events happening rapidly.

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Today I revised my thinking about the anaphoras and similes' meanings and their significant role in the essay. Also I didn't think about the cycles repeated in the essay and it made me look at the essay in a different way. I confirmed my thought about her use of the clown and food and all the little details that are part of each person's mind even when we don't think about them.

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Today, I revised my thinking about the eclipse itself and the meaning Annie Dillard was trying to express. Our class discussion helped me understand the cycles she used

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Today I confirmed my thought that part 1 was mainly for foreshadowing the eclipse using metaphors. I also revised my ideas about the central shift in the paper. I initially thought that the shift was from in the moment of the eclipse to reflection after the Life Saver moment, but I also like some of the ideas we had in discussion (especially zach's idea about sanity and insanity).