Jeanette Bates's blog

            People strive for many things, whether it is finding a great job or creating a good family. At the center of things, however, the greatest life goal becomes one thing: happiness. The one thing that people want more than anything else in this world, the thing that they strive for, is happiness. But why is happiness so elusive? How is it that people are able to feel happiness? What makes people happy? How people find happiness, or a lack of it, and why are the questions that I will examine and attempt to answer in this essay.

            As someone who is studying in Japanese at Haverford College, I have always found language and its relationship with the brain interesting. I have always wondered what gives humans the ability to comprehend language and I have always wondered how this ability is different from any other animal’s ability to interpret sound. I have additionally wondered how the ability to hear could affect language comprehension. In other words, is having that “input mechanism” really necessary for understanding and creating spoken language?