"McMurphy's Secret Stuff"

Today in our discussion we thoroughly discussed the patients' newfound confidence from McMurphy's presence in the ward. One classmate brought up the point that they believed the patients actually can have confidence without McMurphy, because this confidence is something they all possess. They just all believe McMurphy is the root of this feeling that has been held back for many years. If the patients would just realize this, they would not revert back to their old, timid selves.

For some reason, this made me think of the FANTASTIC 1996 film Space Jam, starring Bugs Bunny and Michael Jordan. Hopefully everyone has seen this movie, because it is superb. The one specific instance I thought of was when Bugs' basketball team is losing to the monsters, so he passes around a water bottle that says "Michael's Secret Stuff." All the players drank it and immediately feel stronger and more confident, because they believe this drink will make them play like Michael Jordan. But, it was only water in the bottle.

The patients at the ward all behave differently because they think they need "McMurphy's Secret Stuff," or just McMurphy's presence, in the ward. Before I read the remainder of the book and find out the fate of all the characters, I'm hoping that the character's realize that "McMurphy's Secret Stuff" is actually water. Meaning, I hope they all realize their strength and confidence can be present even when McMurphy is not. Even if they do not use it to overthrow the Big Nurse, knowing that confidence can be something found independently will help all the characters in the story drastically improve their lives.

I'm Turning Into Ms. Serensky

Whenever Ms. Serensky tells us that her life reflects events that happened in the book we're reading, I always wonder if that's something that'll happen to me one day.  And this weekend, it finally did.  Kind of.  Last week my mom and I went to Trader Joe's and stocked up on all kinds of delicious snacks.  After realizing that most of our food were things like corn dogs, gyros (jeye-ros, NOT euros. that sounds dumb), mozzarella sticks, and macaroni and cheese bites (which are DELICIOUS) I realized that our food resembled many of the deep fried goodness that is served at Blossom.  So I suggested to my mom that we should have a carnival night.  While everyone else in my house "decorated the house for Christmas" aka sat around our house, I cooked up all of the carnival food.  And my sister and her boyfriend picked up wings or something from Panini's so they could feel like they helped out too. All in all, it was a fantastic night filled with a lot of fried food. A lot.

I'm sure everyone's already realizing the connection. But why didn't I? I guess during the week I was too caught up in my excitement for the carnival that was yet to come to realize that in our reading. And last night I was too consumed with my food-baby to realize the carnival plans in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest the patients were discussing.  It wasn't until today, at about 4:15 in the afternoon, that it finally hit me. I shuddered. Creepy.  Carnival night in the book AND carnival night in real life ---> MLILMS (My Life is Like Ms. Serensky's- maybe I should start a website?). How long before every event in books we read become my real life? I'm scared. Really, really scared. I sure hope our next book has a happy ending.