Reading Journal for Station Eleven

My perfect community would be one that is honestly very similar to how our world looks today, minus some faults. It would be a world where there could still be individuality, none of that "all houses look the same" stuff. I would call it Meadowville, and there would be all sorts of landforms around. On one side of the society would be mountains, another, the desert, ocean, forest, meadow, so everybody could find a place they enjoy. There would be a democratic governing style, very similar to the U.S. but minus the electoral college (I don't understand the true point of still having the electoral college). People could have jobs that they choose, but all are required to hold some sort of employment to the community. Kids would go to school until they're 16 and then they could choose whether to continue education or not. The problems I would choose to remove would be bullying, cheating, and unfairness. I don't think that sterilizing anyone who cheats is a good idea because I think that there could be many different reasons and different levels of cheating, but if we did, I think we would reduce the possibilty of bad parents raising bad children.

"Station Eleven is all around them" (Mandel 107).

This is the beginning of Station Eleven's importance to the story. It starts to illustruate the significance of Miranda's character, as well and showing Arthur's world and how Kirsten and The Prophet will connect to the story.

"Hell is the absence of the people you long for" (Mandel 144).

I simply thought this quote was very beautiful. It shows the extreme emotion you feel when the people you love are gone or absent, and how the only thing that matters to you at that time is getting them back.

1. He grew up in a small town in Canada, and went to study aftfer highschool in Toronto. When he was in Toronto, he became interested in acting and switched his major, much to his parents dismay. He met Miranda, an artist, early in his career and became interested in her, even though she soon got into an abusive relationship with another man. 

2. Miranda uses the comics both as an escape and as a way to understand and put down her feelings into words and metaphors. She uses the Station as a way to show how different she feels from the rest of the world, and how she doesn't feel like people understand her fully. Kirsten finds comfort in the comic books, finding that she feels incredibly similar to Miranda (who she doesn't know) 20 years later. Kirsten now interperets the metaphors to relate to the pandemic and relate her life before the downfall to how she has to live now, isolated from the people she loved and the life she loves. 

3. Kirsten and the Symphony have encountered trouble in their journey to the Museum of Civilization, as, on their way, scouts are dissipearing in thin air and leaving no trace. They suspect it's bandits on the road they call "red bandanas", but they think it has something to do with the Prophet. The girl they rescued coming out of the town was to be the Prophet's next wife, so they think he might be after them.