As you begin reading the book, what are your first impressions? Make as many comments on this post as you wish, but you must create at least two. ONE of those comments must be a well-organized paragraph. Use specific details from the reading in your comments: characters, events, setting, or other details from the book. If you're having trouble coming up with a way to start your comments, check out the sentence starters, which might give you direction on this generic first post. You have until Monday, November 26 to comment.
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As you begin reading the book, what are your first impressions? Make as many comments on this post as you wish, but you must create at least two. ONE of those comments must be a well-organized paragraph. Use specific details from the reading in your comments: characters, events, setting, or other details from the book. If you're having trouble coming up with a way to start your comments, check out the sentence starters, which might give you direction on this generic first post. You have until Monday, November 26 to comment.
19 Comments
Jenna A
11/21/2018 06:16:59 am
My first impression of the book so far has opened my eyes to parachuting as a sport. The main character, Eben was part of the University of North Carolina sports parachuting team. He talks about his experiences while being on this team, some being near death. While being part of this sport Eden had realized how remarkable the brain really is. For example, Eden almost collided with one of his partners during parachuting. His brain responded so incredibly quickly they ended up both landing safely. The first couple chapters have reminded me greatly of the tv show Grey's Anatomy. Eden talks about how he earned his degree in neurosurgery. Many medical terms have already been used such as intraparenchymal hemorrhage, meningitis, and the cortex. In my opinion, all of this medical terminology in the book had sparked my interest right from the beginning.
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Emily S
11/25/2018 06:03:16 pm
I agree I think it was eyeopening to see that surgeons have a life other than medicine and it helped to advance the character. The book also made me think of that tv show. However, I found that the beginning idea of parachuting was to show us that Eben had a life outside of medicine rather than to show parachuting as a sport.
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Caroline Groll
11/26/2018 08:13:49 pm
I enjoy your unique viewpoint of the beginning of the book. When I started to read Eben's work, I was more drawn to the medical aspect of everything instead of the sport involved in skydiving. I assume that most of the book will talk about Eben's coma and his life as a neurosurgeon, which means that he is probably trying to show a bit of foreshadowing by telling us about this sport and how it influenced his research.
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Emily S
11/25/2018 11:21:30 am
COMMENT ONE:
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Jenna A
11/25/2018 02:41:07 pm
I also am very interested to see how he used his personal experience to advance discoveries in medicine. I wonder if people thought he was wrong or crazy for making assumptions based on what he experienced. It will be interesting reading about Eben's "proof in heaven" experience.
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Annalee A
11/25/2018 06:45:21 pm
I am also wondering how people responded to his story. I think that some people think he is crazy. I am also wondering if he ever thought that he was going crazy. Having and experience like this must have been very hard to process. I am also unsure if he was religious before this experience. It may have been harder for him to understand or believe in the beginning if he did not practice religion.
Luke Carver
11/25/2018 04:00:45 pm
I agree with what you are thinking but I believe that his experience with heaven will have no impact of advancing medicine but spread a message of belief throughout the world. He is understanding what is happening and the world he is within throughout his coma but he is never taking into mind any idea of the advancement to get others out coma's or fatal injuries. It simply is just to express that life does not end after death simply your soul is to live forever in eternal heaven.
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Luke Carver
11/25/2018 03:56:16 pm
My first impression after reading the first half of this novel is just wow. After all the research Eden Alexander went through to then be submerged in this new state of mind that there is a God is amazing. A neurosurgeon like himself has dealt with many fatal tragedies in others but never in himself. He would have never thought this could of happened to him for he had never suffered anything other than a cold. For him to decline a fatal rate out of the blue is one thing and for him to visit another world is another. He's lifeless sitting in his hospital bed but is alive within another realm that he is unaware of. I couldn't believe how he describes his experience in this new world. He states "I didn't have a body - not one that I was aware of anyway. I was simply...there..." and him saying this really personifies his experience living while dead. He not conscious but yet conscious in his own way. The wordplay he uses mixed with his dramatic experience really brings you into his view and makes you feel like your there.
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Annalee A
11/25/2018 06:38:53 pm
After reading the prologue I am realizing how this experience is rare and truly changed Ebens life. The prologue shows how he has always been interested in how the brain works. I find it very interesting that he works with brains and then something happens with his. His experience in his coma caused him to experience something that is so rare. There are a few similar stories like this. One is "Heaven is for Real". It tells the story of a boy experiencing heaven, but his is young and does not know exactly what is going on with his body. Eben studies the brain so I am excite to hear the scientific facts behind his experience. He knows how the brain works. He is very passionate about his experience.
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Melissa O
11/25/2018 07:37:08 pm
I am also excited to hear how he thinks about his experience scientifically, mostly because most people don't relate religion and science very closely. I also realized how rare his condition is when I read that "fewer than one in 10 million adults contract [E. coli] spontaneously each year" (page 20).
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Alyssa Dorn
11/26/2018 03:50:42 pm
I am also very interested to see the relation between medicine and faith throughout the book. I think it would be a struggle to be a surgeon who knows that medicine saves people, but still believe that divine intervention is possible. I wonder how Eben will balance faith and fact along his journey.
Kendall Comer
11/26/2018 07:45:59 pm
I read "Heaven is for Real" a while ago, and it made a lasting impact on me and changed my mindset and way of thinking, and I feel this book is going to do the same. I loved how you compared the two books. Now that you mentioned it, I am also very excited to see the difference between the two perspectives beings that the boy in "Heaven is for Real" was only 4 or 5 years old, and Eben is a practicing brain surgeon.
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Melissa O
11/25/2018 07:33:18 pm
When I first heard of this book, I imagined a book sort of like a Hallmark movie, with a story hidden behind fantasized elements and tall tales. As I read the prologue, however, I realized that this book was really about Dr. Alexander's real-life experience of being in a coma with little brain activity and experiencing an entirely new world. I find it interesting that he is a doctor with no scientific explanation for his experience because it might cause an internal conflict with his religious side and his practical side later on in the novel. I am very intrigued with this book and I am excited to continue reading it.
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Morgan D
11/25/2018 09:49:37 pm
I agree with you when you said that you did not think that the book would tell the story in the way that it is. I think that it will be more interesting this way because we get to hear the story from the perspective of the surgeon who went through the entire experience himself. I also cannot wait to see how he interprets his experiences in his coma in a scientific manor. I am also intrigued to see if his ideals and beliefs as a surgeon will change now that he has been on the other side of the operation.
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Morgan D
11/25/2018 09:43:45 pm
After reading the Prologue of, Proof of Heaven, I feel like I am really going to enjoy this book. I feel like this story will open my eyes to unknown aspects regarding neurosurgeons and their life, as well the amazing experience of the doctor, Eden, told in the book. Right now, I mainly know about Eden and his life up to his career including his skydiving team and 11 years of college. I also know that we will be learning the story of his coma and the ways it has affected his perspectives as a neurosurgeon. I think that going through an experience like this is for beneficial for him for personal and scientific reasons and I cannot wait to educate myself through his story.
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Alyssa Dorn
11/26/2018 03:44:43 pm
After reading the prologue and the first chapter of this book I am amazed by Eben Alexander's life. I feel like this book will be a very interesting read, especially because of the sciences and medicine aspects of the book. It is truly inspiring to see a glimpse of Eben's extraordinary life and hear of all of his research into the brain. I am excited to read more of this book as I think that it will keep my interest, due to the science and medical aspects of it.
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Caia A.
11/26/2018 06:20:13 pm
After reading the prologue, I think that it is interesting that neurosurgeon Eben Alexander went into a coma. He had developed a world different from Earth with such little brain activity during this time. The fact that he always felt he couldn't get enough of his euphoric feeling while skydiving just makes this novel more interesting. I am looking forward to reading on about how other doctors and how scientists reacted to this as science and religion do not agree on most levels.
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Kendall Comer
11/26/2018 06:46:29 pm
After reading the prologue, I am very excited to get into the book. His opening to telling his story is very different, and shows us some background about himself while foreshadowing into what is going to happen in the future of the novel. An example of this is when he tells us his story of reacting in a split second to a opening parachute that would have killed him and the man below if he hadn't moved out of the way. He says that he "chalked it up to the fact that the brain is truly an extraordinary device", but then goes on to say that the answer to what had happened was much deeper than that, and it was not his brain that saved his life. He is explaining to us that (one of) his near death experiences has relevance to what is to come in the novel, and that there is something greater than our brain. So far, I love his approach and the way he used his previous life experiences outside of the medical field to validate his future experiences in his story.
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Caroline Groll
11/26/2018 07:49:03 pm
Before reading the prologue, I figured this book would be very similar to Heaven is For Real based on the subtitle on the cover. However, there is a lot more to Eben's life than I anticipated. To my surprise, it mainly spoke about how skydiving was such a key role in his life and educated the reader about the dangers that come with the sport. There was one time when he risked his life doing a formation that was not well planned. The author tells us directly that the reason he did not crash will be found throughout the novel, so I am excited to read and gain more information about what happened. According to Eben, it was his "life's calling" (19) to be a neurosurgeon. Furthermore, he has accomplished so many things within this field that I feel it will be easy for him to figure out why he went into a coma.
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