Abigail Raymond

2/14/17

Reading Response #3: The Last Lecture

In the novel The Last Lecture by Randy Pausch, there are separate sections
that focus on different main ideas. The third section Adventures and Lessons Learned
focuses on how Pausch and his family learned new valuable lessons and perspectives
on life. Within section three, Pausch goes into mini stories describing these life lesson
and new perspectives. He makes them sound valuable to him and his family. He writes
about how him and Jai decided to live their lives day by day and in the moment. He
puts full emphasis on the importance of learning from all of life experiences. Pausch
was making his lessons and perspectives the main topic of this section because it was
important to himself.
I think the main idea of this section is based on such lessons he has learned and
his new perspectives. In the chapter The Park is Open Until 8PM Pausch tells me he
has learned the value of semantics, introduced to him by his doctor. He decided in this
chapter, after he found his cancer, the he would be living his life left day by day. This
was a new perspective that made him happier and enjoy what time he had left. He
goes on to tell me in the chapter The Dutch Uncle that you cant continue to be an ass
without being put into your place. From that childhood lesson, he was taught the power
of honest feedback. Lastly, Pausch includes a chapter about Jai and titles it Jai. In
this chapter, he tells me how Jai also reached the perspective of living in the moment.
she was shown this through an article of a wife whose husband had died from
pancreatic cancer. After the article, she changed her sulking attitude into making the
most of everyday. I strongly believe this section mainly focused on those important
lessons they learned and how they decided to view the world.