I knew from small tidbits of Tyler’s comments in class that his work dealt with a GoogleForm. I didn’t know what exactly that would entail, so I am happy I let myself wait until this week to actually see what he meant. Man, I had no idea what to pick for every single question.
At first, I didn’t really know what I was doing, or what I was picking for. I understood that I was in some city that had been ruined, but I didn’t know why or what ruined it, why I was there and what I was meant to do. But, I think that it really worked well, as when we hear stories of heroes trying to mitigate damage and attempt to pick up a community from its scraps, they don’t really know what they’re doing either, really. When faced with a situation like this, we can only hope we are doing the right thing. We never know if the choices we made were the “correct” or “incorrect” choices, but rather that they were the choices we felt compelled to choose in that moment. That’s how I felt moving through this piece.
I actually took my time with it, too. In the description, it states this only takes about 2-5 minutes to move through. Though, I took about 15 minutes to go through it. I wouldn’t say I was overthinking my answers, but rather thinking through them clearly and predicting what would come next. A lot of the choices I picked because they related to me and my current interests. For example, the “question” of, “so gather up your things as the city crumbles around you. what did you bring?” I chose the first answer simply because it mentioned a bird. Recently, I have felt very connected to birds, so I picked that one because it talked of an “amber bird” that the reader needs to hear it sing one more time. Another time this occurred was for the question, “did you notice yet? this life isn’t done with you,” to which I chose, “and we talk again like old friends,”. I picked this one because I’ve recently been thinking about a close friend growing up that I drifted apart from.
So for me, this was really cool to just insert myself into a narrative that I didn’t recognize at all. It was cool to just step back from my real life and twist it a bit to fit into this ruined city. It was great to just not be me for a few minutes.
Before I began to work the website, I was immediately nervous. When I feel nervous, or any kind of emotion, I feel it right in my heart rather than my head or anywhere else. So, when I read that this story can end in three ways, I immediately worried about the way I would point Hana to. The first point I brought her to was hanging up. This <click> came after I asked for her name. How interesting that this one thing we’re assigned right away and that stays with us for a long time (whether one chooses to keep that name or not) can create a space for such discomfort. It’s interesting how much weight we put on a name.
I then picked all the options which all ended this way. I was really disheartened by this because sometimes, not matter what you say, the other person may not be ready to receive it. It’s one thing to pick up the phone and dial, but it’s another to actually begin talking. It’s all really difficult. But then, I found the hidden hyperlinks, which took me to Will, who keeps saying he would be there for as long as it takes. I found that quite beautiful and sincere. I went through some more conversation with Hana, which ended a bit after her description of the woman in the casino. I sincerely hate saying the wrong thing all of the time, so it’s really interesting to have this heightened sense of that when put in a situation where you are talking to someone who is feeling vulnerable and a bother.
Moving through the story, my version of Hana was able to open up about her troubles to Will, Jen, Christine, and Ernie. My ending was a bit of a cliffhanger with her mother, and how they would soon meet to talk. We cannot be sure if it’s to talk about her behavior or something else, but it seems that Hana will confront things that have been bothering her. This work took me about 45 minutes to work through because of the deep reasoning I made myself go through each time I chose a response. I don’t think I will work through this one again, at least anytime soon, because of personal effects. But, it’s a really interesting simulation that anyone can learn from. It forces you to either choose or abandon empathy. I hope everyone chose and continues to choose empathy.
