the girl who was plugged in

I really enjoyed reading this short story. Despite the initial confusion, i really began to get into it. The idea of someone being able to control someone as if playing a video game, is something i could have never come up with. James Tipree was way ahead of her time.

I think everyone could sympathize with P.Burke. All of us, as much as we deny it, have some sort of ideal which we strive for, or wish to be. When i think of myself, I always wish to be a bit taller, thinner, and more out going. I wish i could be one of those people who can just be satisfied with the way things are, but no one is perfect. there is always room for improvement, and we always seem to find the imperfections in ourselves. Burke idolized celebrities, because they were everything that she wasnt.

In my psychology class today, we were talking about Jung's theory on personality. One of this theories were that all of us are either an introvert or extrovert. He felt that each of us, whether an extrovert or introvert, secretly wish to be the opposite. Aggression for a person who embodies our opposite, isnt because we hate them, but because deep down we truly want to be just like them. A shy person may wish that she were loud and outgoing, while an extroverted person may secretly wish to not always be the center of attention. My professor did an exercise where we wrote down all the qualities of a person that we hated. After we finished our lists, he told us to draw a box around it, and then on top, write My Shadow. The point of the exercise is that we internalize the the so called things we "hate" because deep down we wish to have all the qualities of our ideal image, or they are also just qualities of ourselves. For Burke, it was celebrities. And then Delphi, for she finally could be someone she always wished to be.