Once I got back from winter break, me and my class started a new unit based in and around fantasy. To start the unit off we learnt a bit about wonder, ergo the post.

We started off by sorting into groups to make a list of different words to do with wonder. As a class we chose the best words from each group and created a mind map. Here’s mine:

After all the mapping of minds we read a fascinating article on Wonder and how it’s the most human of all the emotions. We where then asked a series of questions in which we had to answer.

The fist was on Prinz’s experience with the Ringling Brothers and Barnum and Bailey Circus and how it was different from his parents.
My answer was that Prinz’s parents didn’t enjoy the circus. In fact, Prinz describes their experience as enduring a flashy display. However, Prinz’s experience of the circus was one of his high points of the year. He calls it a “world of wonder”. I believe their experiences where different because his parents did not suspend belief and just enjoy the performance.

The second question asked what the three bodily symptoms Prinz postulates as components of wonder?
My answer was; the first bodily symptom of wonder that Prinz postulates is the staring and sometimes rolling of eyes. The second is the suspension of breath. The final bodily symptom is the swelling of the heart.

The third question asked how Francis Bacon considered wonder. I stated that Francis Bacon described wonder as broken knowledge. He believed that it was a mystical incomprehension that only science could cure.

Finally we wrote a paragraph about a time when we experienced wonder.

Here is what I wrote.

The warm ocean water like a warm hug embracing my body in its swirling current. There where schools of brightly coloured fish, the glint from the light reflecting off their scales creating a blinding rainbow. Beautiful corals like snow flakes, each one its own exquisite design. Then I saw a dreadful shadow swim behind a pillar of rocks as old as time it self. The shadow was far to large to be one of the brightly coloured fish. Before I had time to guess what it was, the shadow swam out from behind the rocks. It was the most beautiful reef shark I’d ever seen. The blue of its back was glossy and rich, its pupils where alert slits of black among a white milky sea, It was a ballerina of the sea that swam with such ease and grace. It was truly magnificent. And then It swam away.

We also wrote using a writing prompt. The prompt was an image our teacher showed us. It was of a rabbit in a room that looked like it was spiralling into oblivion. Here is what I wrote;

As I followed the rabbit down the hole he lead me to a place where time had no meaning. The swelling vortex of a clock with no hands circling endlessly and the black fire from a furnace like object floating in the corner of the room astounded me. I was so distracted by the wonders in the room that I didn’t notice the rabbit had turned around and started charging at me with a needle full of fluid as crimson as his eyes. I turned my head just in time to see him inject it into my arm. As the liquid flowed through my veins I felt my head swelling. I herd a pop and then there was darkness. My physics teacher was right. I was going to be killed by a rabbit.