Smells and Bells

This semester was one unimaginable, unprecedented, and unconventional. The transition to online learning was something that I thought I'd never have to do in any of my classes, especially one that had a focus on the senses. I appreciated our weekly zoom calls and efforts made by groups to implement each of the senses through the computer screen. If anything, I thought that this experience brought us closer together as a class. Hearing everyone's sound, seeing their image, a story of a sixth sense experience, and even observing a slideshow of foods put something of importance to each individual student on display. As I said during our banquet last week, I thought that I knew all there was to know about sensation and perception being a psychology major. When presented with readings and being tested to dive deeper into thinking about what each sense means, I have grown in perspective. Although I had read the Song of Songs many times before, I had discovered a new point of view w...

Screenshot from Smells & Bells S'20 virtual banquet FYS F '17 Cooking Together As I was reading Rosie's reflection, especially after reading almost all of the class's reflections, I saw that nearly all  of you noted  the one thing the would change would be to have the banquet in person,. But then  a strange thought occurred to me.  Of all the times I've had classes do this "ritual scorecard" after a banquet, including our FYS, your reflections on this virtual banquet  seemed to come closest to expressing the "educational goals" I had in mind by having us make a ritual banquet together.  For one thing, more people agreed that we achieved the right balance between scriptedness and improvisation, more people felt it was inclusive, and people seemed to have a clearer sense of the closure it provided.  Which suggests that just as there were costs of not being able to cook and eat together, so there may also have been costs fr...

When we're in preschool or kindergarten we all learn what colors are and what their names are. We might have been shown flashcards with the colors on them or learned to associate colors with specific objects like how an apple is red and how grass is green. Growing up we are meant to assume that the color we see is the color that everyone sees, but how can we know? How can we know that my green isn't your blue and someone else's red? We agree on what colors are based on what we're taught not knowing if this is anything close to what others are seeing. Supposedly we don't all see colors exactly the same (Ackerman, 252), but it's not as if what we see is wildly different from what others see. We see colors in different shades and at different levels of vibrancy. What I found really interesting from what Ackerman said about color is that "emotions and memories we associate with certain colors also stain the world we see" (253). After she makes this s...