Final Blog- External Journey

At the beginning of the semester this blog seemed to me like another assignment that would consume my free time.  Even naming my blog was a decision that I never thought would be so accurate until now.  Writing this blog has really been exactly as its name says, part of The Journey of Life.Of all the features that stand out, I have to say that variety is definitely what I like the most of my blog.  It covers such diverse topics that anyone could find something of their interest to read.  From an About me, to movie reflections, to comments on different readings, this blog has managed to exploit every corner of my mind helping to develop my creativity and critical thinking abilities.  I really liked the fact that it wasn’t stuck or centered in a specific topic because that would have make a repetitive and probably boring blog.  I believe that not only mine, but all of the blogs created during this class portray the true diversity that makes up the student pool of our university.

I don’t think that there are many changes between my first blogs and the final ones, because I have always followed the rules that the teacher assign. Although is true that at the first blogs I was very nervous to make my thoughts, ideas and points of view public in the internet. After two or three blogs I overcome that fear and understand that the whole idea of the “public” blogs was to have the experience of learning from each other and understand that there can be a lot of different points of view about the same topic. One difference that I found from the first blogs to the finals was that each blog was longer than the previous one. That was a problem because the maximum for each blog was five hundred words and I always write more than. So, in the finals blogs I had to make them shorter.   

Of all the blogs I have to say that my favorite one is the Tourist for a Day.  To me it is the post that truly shows how much fun I had, not only writing this blog, but during the whole class in general.  In this blog I have the opportunity not only to have a good day, but to combine the knowledge from the class about tourists, travelers, identity and language with an external activity.  This blog help my with my external journey because it makes me aware that in my previous trips I was only an “ugly” tourist, because I only went to the places that the tourist guide tell me. Also, I didn’t make a research before going to the places to know them better, so I was an ignorant tourist.  But, after taking the class Journey in Literature I learn that the best way of enjoying a place is to be a traveler in it, no matter if it’s just for a couple of days.

Even though I really want this semester to be over, it is really bitter to state that this is the end of our external journey as a group.  The class is almost coming to an end, but I am really looking forward to keep on writing in this blog so that new experiences could be kept in this special place on the web.  I want to finalize this post saying thank you to my professor Cynthia Pitmann, to my fellow classmates, and a special one to my readers.  Thank you for taking the time of my making my blog a true MOVING JOURNEY. Hope to write for all of you soon!

Inner Journey

As part of my Journey in Literature class I was assigned to keep a journal where I had to practice an activity named First Thoughts.  Since the beginning of the semester I’ve been writing in it and by this time I have over 40 entries, each of which shows a certain aspect of myself.  A first characteristic that we can evaluate its change during the course of these past months is the structure of my writing.  At the beginning of the semester my entrees were perfectly aligned paragraphs.  My writing was very structured and as time went passing by, my writing got freer, being a little more unorganized and the general appearance of my entrees was more careless.  Another change that I observed when analyzing my journal entrees was that I progressively crossed out lesser words.  By the end of my journal I can say that there was no crossing out at all.  Amongst other changes there is the growth of my handwriting which to me reflects too the letting go of my consciousness.

First thoughts activity is characterized by certain rules and/or limits.  Evaluating my journal in the context of those guidelines I can state that it was hard following them at the beginning, but it got better with time.  Trying not to stop my hand was the most difficult of all; after 5 or 7 minutes I became to conscious of it and the temptation to stop invaded me.  Crossing out and not worrying about spelling and grammar were rules that I wasn’t able to follow them during my first tries of journal entries, but I can really say that from the very half of my journal I just let go and stuck to those rules.  In general I can say that not being logical of what I was writing and going for the jugular did went really easy and most of the time it helped me discover things of myself I didn’t know.

Another exercise that we had to do was a life compass, I did 24, where we examined ourselves in a mental, spiritual, emotional and physical way.  The pattern showed through all of my compasses was that I started the semester with lots of energy and connection to my spirituality and emotions, but as the semester developed, the stress and overwhelmingness took control of myself and my balance was lost.

The most important insight, as I already stated, in the writing of this journal was discovering things about myself that I didn’t know.  The writing process made me realize how fortunate I am for having such a supportive and loving family.  Whenever I went for the jugular I was able to appreciate that not everyone is as fortunate as we may be and that we have to let those around us know how grateful we are of them.  Writing this journal also helped me see how much of a stressful person I can be.   During my journey writing this journal I figured out that I am constantly overthinking my performance in college assignments and tests and always expecting the worse results.  The inner journey shows me that my journey in life is only starting, that I have to take every chance that life gives me to improve.

Reflection about the panel: “Immigration and Puerto Rico Today”

                                

This week at the University of Puerto Rico, Río Piedras Campus, was held the Student Interventions in General Studies: Interdisciplinary Project and Creative Initiatives on March 25 and 26, 2014. In this conference undergraduate students participate submitting papers about their research of different topics. The second day of the conference I attended to the panel “Immigration and Puerto Rico Today” supervised by the professor Petra Avillán. This panel was presented by two Dominicans girls enroll in the course of intensive English. The topic or theme of the panel, like its title says, is the immigration in Puerto Rico today from the point of view of two immigrants.  

In the panel the students presented their perspective of the topic and their personals stories. The students where both Dominicans and came to Puerto Rico with their families to look for a better future and opportunities. For them, being immigrants represents being dedicated and responsible; to have the strength to leave thing behind for a better future. They speak about xenophobia, the aversion towards people who are not of your own race. They said that the discrimination is a historical thing, that there are a lot of historical events that prove it and that immigration is in every part of the world; for example, the discrimination between United State citizens and the Mexicans. One of the students told us her experience in a beauty pageant where she participate representing Puerto Rico and one of the judges told her that she never could win because she was Dominican. She was judged for being Dominican and not for her talents; this was an example of discrimination. But the girl doesn’t let that experience change or hurt her, because she believes that she is who she is because of the formation she received in Puerto Rico.

For the panelists, studying English in Dominican Republic was not important, but when they arrived to Puerto Rico they understand that they had to learn English. They had to learn English quickly. That’s the reason why their teacher was so proud. They where there in the conference speaking English in front of a bunch of students and professors proving that they did it right, that they learn and overcome every obstacle of discrimination for being immigrants. They concluded the panel saying that Puerto Rico and Dominican Republic needed each other. This was my favorite panel because it was not only a simple research, it show their experiences and feelings in life. They had to be braver than any other panel because the topic was a personal one. I admire both of them for being so brave. In conclusion the activity was very educational and it allows the student to share knowledge to learn new things.

Reflection about the panel: “Society Through the Lens”

This week at the university was held the Student Interventions in General Studies: Interdisciplinary Project and Creative Initiatives on March 25 and 26, 2014. This conference was divided in different panels or sessions, each one with a different topic like: “Interrogating the Journey: Literature and Personal Experience”, “Society Through the Lens”, “Using Technology to Enhance Learning” or “Immigration and Puerto Rico Today”. In each panel undergraduate students in courses in the College of General Studies could participate summiting a paper with no restriction on the topic; it could be of different disciplines other than English. My class Journey in Literature, English 3135-001, from the professor Cynthia Pittmann selected the topic “Interrogating the Journey: Literature and Personal Experience” for the conference. As part of the class my group and I had to attend to different panel through the days and make blog reflections about the panels and our experiences. I could not attempt to this panel because I had class at that hour but I did go to other panels.

The fist panel that I attempt was “Society Through the Lens”, the supervisor professor was George Noble. The panel content or topic was how the society is perceived or seeing through the lens of the camera or movies. In the panel the students presenting selected to discuss how society is presented in the movies: Fight Club, American Hustle and Flight. Through the discussions of the movies the student exposed important topics. The movie Flight, starring Denzel Washington, presents a pilot that suffers the problem of alcoholism. The student that presented this movie relates the situation of alcoholism with a family member of him who suffers the same problem. The girl that presented the movie Fight Club was extremely clever and very fluent as an English speaker. I admire her for her bravery to stand up and explain her perspective and point of view. She believed that in this movie you could see why society is so blend, she said that the movie present why we buy things that we don’t need, that we buy things to achieve happiness. I found the topic of the panel very interesting because the way that the movies represent the world or a specific place or type of person, makes a profound impact in the viewer. For example, if the movie presents a country that I had never visited, I would assume that the place is exactly like the movie show me.  If a movie present the Puerto Ricans like drug user some people would assume that all Puerto Ricans use drugs. So, the way that the society is presented in the movies is very important because the movie is going to be seeing by a lot of people. 

The Rum Diary- Reflection

I watched the movie The Rum Diary based on the Hunter Thompson's.  The movie stars Johnny Deep as an american journalist, named Paul Kemp, whom takes an independent job in Puerto Rico for a newspaper.  The movie takes place during the 1960s and it shows the endeavor that locals went through to preserve island culture against the american migrants that were living in there.

Watching the movie in the context of the literature class I am taking, made me reflect about how Puerto Rico was portrayed in the movie.  The cover picture for the movie (shown in the image in the right), as the first thing we know and see about the movie, represents the whole idea that the movie tries to project of Puerto Rico.  It is observable that the image depicts an atmosphere of chaos, alcoholism and insecureness.  The alcoholism issue is presented throughout the whole movie, trying to characterize the island as a place where it was hard to stay out of trouble and temptations that could interfere with the goals or dreams someone was trying to pursue were always present. 

There was a certain quote that relates to the reflexive line of thought with which I saw the movie.  Lotterman says, referring to Puerto Rico: “It is a reluctant part of America. Like England with tropical fruit”.  This statement could serve as an introduction of how far the immigrants in the island thought of Puerto Rico.  To them the island was a distant rare belonging of the United States, that could stand out only for their own benefit and which served for the glory of others, the same idea of Jamaica Kincaid about the “ugly tourist”.  This idea was reinforced when the movie presents the interests of the real estate men in developing tourism infrastructure. These men refer to the beautiful beaches and scenery as a "sea of gold", they see things in the island only from the perspective of a tourist.  The overall profit that their development plans could deliver was literally translated into gold.  Their perspective on the island was based on how much money they could win or lose and how could every little squared inch of the territory could become pure richness.

The movie also presents the island as an unsafe place to be.  A tourist came to visit and said: “We don’t leave the hotel. It is not safe”.  For as much risky as leaving the hotel could turn out to be, to me this gives the idea of a place where a constant war was held. It presents a violent place, and even if violence was held, the way tourists in the movie thought of it was over reactive.

I classified the character of Kemp as tourist at the beginning of the film, however when he went to live to the little apartment he became in a traveler. Through the movie Kempt had a “journey” from being a person that only thinks about himself and do not want to be related to the people in Puerto Rico to be a traveler that cares about the problems in Puerto Rico and understand them. Another important character that represented a tourist was Lotterman, he was very prejudiced and he discriminated his Puerto Ricans employees. I think that we should keep on instructing ourselves and others so that Puerto Rico, and any other place, could be portrayed as the important piece of the world each of them is.

Trailer of the movie The Rum Diary (2011)

A Tourist in Old San Juan

           

         My name is Gabriela and I´m a tourist in San Juan, Puerto Rico for the first time.  Sitting at the hotel lobby, waiting for my car to drive back to the airport, made me want to take out my journal and begin to write about my experiences here. I have to start by saying how hard it is to drive here in Puerto Rico.  There weren’t specific traffic signs that marked the different routes and exits.  We got lost like four times trying to get to the Convention District that has like three different entrances and none of them is properly identified.  But I don’t want to ruin my vacation with that little mishap, so we laughed all the way until we got to our destiny.  People here at hotel have been so friendly and sympathetic.  They were so happy that we were visiting the island for the first time and they have been very interested in making our stay as pleasurable as it could be.  

            During the afternoon we went to the Old San Juan, specifically to the streets, different square and El Morro.  I was fascinated with the whole spirit of joy and celebration that I experimented there.  They were holding an activity where people got the opportunity to taste different foods and beverages.  They had music, children activities, etc.  To me it was a place so full of life and unity.  It made me see how little Puerto Ricans need to have fun and enjoy as a whole community. After that we went to have dinner to a place called Downtown.  What an amazing place! The treatment there was taken very good care of.  The family that was seating right beside us they started a conversation with us about the music that they were playing there as if they knew us from a whole lifetime.  I found very lovely how everybody went crazy about singing happy birthday to a little guy that celebrating his birthday.  I don’t think I am as enthusiast as they were, not even for my own birthday. I also noticed that every single table had at least one beer on it.  Everybody likes to drink pretty much in this island.  Maybe that is what keeps them so happy all the time.  But I have to make a pause because the valet just brought my car and I have a plane to catch. Nice visiting Puerto Rico! 

Reflection

            As part of my English class I was assigned to make a journal entry as a tourist for a day.  Trying to portrait the common things as a tourist would see them was a little hard for me.  At the end of the day I found out things that I don't usually notice about our own island and culture.  First of all I became really aware of the bad traffic signs system we have.  Maybe the whole population assumes that people who transit the streets of a specific area they know it all and that we don't mind getting to know new places.  The street and exit identification is really poor and it makes it really hard, not only for tourists, but for anyone who is from another area of the island to familiarize with any route. Most of the time us Puerto Ricans go through life creating such a bad image of ourselves based solely on our imagination.  Sometimes it takes a little time for fellowship with those around us and notice that there are still good and nice people that put the name of our island very high.  Putting myself in the body of a tourist made me feel really comfortable with the atmosphere of joy I was feeling.  I am actually really proud of the fact that there are still family Sundays and that good values are cultured.  The main teaching that I want to spread through this experience is that there are Puerto Ricans who still make the effort to make others feel good and like home even when we may be far from it.

  

 

Interesting video about El Morro, Old San Juan

A Room with a View Film Reflection

 As part of my English Literature class we were assigned to watch the movie A Room with a View.  The main idea was to watch the movie in the resemblance of the difference between a traveler and a tourist presented in the book A Small Place by Jamaica Kincaid. A Room with a View is a film based on E. M. Forster's novel of the same name.  The movie takes place during the early 1900's.  It shows the story of Lucy Honeychurch, a young woman from England, whom visits Florence for the first time.  She meets there a young man named George Emerson; a quiet unconventional guy for whom she begins to feel a growing attraction.  When Lucy returns to England she has to make a choice between continuing with her marriage plans with her fiancé or following her heart and her developing feelings for George. 

  A tourist is someone who visits a place largely driven by the promotion and publicity that a certain place gets throughout the world. I believe that a key aspect that makes a tourist is the fact that they go through a certain place without really taking the time of analyzing the culture, the problems, the costumes and the reality of the people that live there, like Jamaica Kincaid explained in her book A Small Place. Kincaid explain this idea when she said: “Tourist gaze here and there and eat this and that” she describes the tourists as “ugly human beings”. To me Lucy and her cousin Charlotte represents the tourist character.  At the beginning of the movie Lucy Honeychurch clearly states that “she was a tourist in Italy” so that confirms the evaluation we may do to her character. Lucy said: “Italians are so kind, so lovable, but at the same time so violent.” With this quote Lucy demonstrate that she was not aware about the violence and situation in Italy.  The tourists in Italy were ignorant about the culture like in Antigua. Charlotte acts like a tourist when says that: “she wants a view of the river and of the bridge”. That to me reflects the typical tourist way of thinking. She wanted a scenery, like a painting, something magical and like a paradise. But, when confronted with the reality of a street, where Italians pass by, running errands, etc. she didn't like it. And, therefore, starts making assumptions and judging the Italians and says that they don't follow instructions.

On the other hand, a traveler distinguishes himself because he travels for the pleasure of knowledge and understanding. A traveler merges in between the people of the places he travels and becomes one of them. To me a traveler is someone who goes all around different places developing his/her own culture as a mixture of everything that he has gathered along his journey.  In the movie I would consider George and Mr. Emerson are the travelers.  George is the one in the movie who shows a great amount of concern for what happens around him to the people of Italy. He is the one who evaluates different points of view, enriching himself with all the experiences he lives. Another traveler is Miss Eleanor Lavish, a novelist that insists on visiting Italy not as a tourist. There Miss Lavish is fascinated by the architecture. She decides that this trip is an adventure and thinks one should be open when visiting a new place. But, Charlotte is visibly uncomfortable with how dirty and smelly the place is. But, Miss Lavish says that exactly there is where the “true beauty of a city is”. I think that if Jamaica Kincaid had to talk to Charlotte and Lucy, she would criticize them for being ugly tourist, she would almost insult them. 

The trailer of the movie A Room with a View

Helping Behavior in Puerto Rico

                                                 

            In the book Down on the Island, Jim Cooper talks about Puerto Rican culture through the eyes of professor teaching students in the Colegio de Mayagüez.   In his chapter Helping he references a specific phenomenon the culture in Puerto Rico that continues to be a debated topic everywhere.  Cooper brings up his concern that cheating was done in Puerto Rico in an open and public way, more than he had ever seen. He states the difference of how cheating is seen in the States and how it is thought of here on the island.  He brings up the whole situation that since early stages of the development, teachers are encouraging their students to help each other, making it seem like a good and valid action.  He also points that the whole system “approves” of the cheating behavior since the behavioral model that is seen between students is a cooperative one rather than a competitive one.  The whole helping others idea is spread through the Puerto Rican culture impacting the preparation with which students got to college and it reflected in the teaching and learning of the English language on the island. 

            Reading this essay by Jim Cooper made me want to situate myself and my opinion in this debate.  It is true that Puerto Ricans exhibit a cooperative behavior most of the time, but it doesn’t mean that it shows up only on the academic aspect.  I don’t believe that we Puerto Ricans cooperate academically more than other cultures for no reason.  For example, most of the teaching done in our schools just focuses on specific tests that are coming up and not really on the learning experience.  I personally do not believe that tests (including standardized ones) reflect the true enrichment that a student is having academically, because it forces the learning process.  Students are pushed to memorize large quantities of material and the true learning process is lost; that is when cheating comes up. Even though I do not sponsor cheating on tests, I do believe that cooperative teaching and learning is the correct path to go through.  This means that the learning process should be based on students helping other students for ideas to be transmitted in clearer and more familiar ways.  In contrast to the cooperative model, there’s the competitive model of behavior.  Sadly, the organization of the educational process of our nation forces each one of us to become part of the competition in order to achieve what we want. 

            While it is true that the cooperative model is not correct in all aspects of our life, it is also true that the competitive model can also represent a threat to our integrity. Being in a competition towards a specific goal can make us blind and lead ourselves to step on others no matter how bad it could hurt them.  It is at this time that, no matter how good we could become due to competition, our basic human values become destroyed and therefore competition has destroyed ourselves. 

Teaching English in Puerto Rico

            One of the biggest problems in the Education System of Puerto Rico is the problem of English learning. It is supposed that at this time in Puerto Rico the majority of the young people were bilingual because they had study English for twelve years in school and a few years more in the university, but this is not the case. In Puerto Rico few people are completely bilingual, meaning that they can write, speak, read and understand English perfectly.

            The problem of English teaching in Puerto Rico is discussed in the seventh chapter “Teaching English” of the autobiographical book Down on the Island by Jim Cooper. At this chapter Cooper discusses his experiences in his second year as an English teacher in the Colegio de Mayagüez in Puerto Rico.  Cooper had the assignment to make changes to the syllabus of the English program at the University. While he was making changes to the syllabus he confronts the reality that not all the students understand English. He also confront the belief that other teachers had, that a university student in Puerto Rico know more than one language and had in their homes a lot of books, that’s not the reality even now. Sadly, one of his colleges believed that the Puerto Ricans could not learn English, but happily for him the students wanted to learn it. He changes the syllabus from one that was exactly like the one a freshman student of the States would have, to a new one specific for language. Later, Cooper became interested in the English educational system in the public schools where he found out that the schools were replicating a model made by the University of Michigan. That model was “oral/aural” method of language teaching were the students imitate the teacher.

            Cooper, in the chapter, criticized the model of Michigan, he said he would have stopped the class he visited because the only thing that the teacher did was repeating sentences that were on a book and making the students also repeat them. For him that’s not the best way to teach because the students are only imitating the teacher one hour per day. Cooper also criticized that the majority of the books are in English and the students don’t understand them. I see a great relation between the books Down on the Island and Identity by Peter Roberts because they show the importance of the language for a society. A similarity that I found was that Cooper mentions that in 1949 the commissioner of education “stood for the teaching for Spanish as the vernacular and English as a second language”. Cooper said that when this happened it was “an important gain of self-government” involving cultural values and feelings, this means that the language is part of the identity of the society.  Roberts explains that language is a universal human factor and a factor of place, geographically determined. Roberts teach that language is part of the identity of a society, like Cooper.  From the two readings I can infer that the politic of the society also affect the identity and the language, like we see in Puerto Rico.

Journey to New York (2012)

Central Park

Times Square 

Central Park

“A Small Place”- A Reflection

Before traveling to a new place, I think that a tourist must learn a little about the culture, the tradition, the food, the political status, the language and history of the country where he is going to, in order to enjoy and appreciate everything that the country had to offer. This topic about the tourism and the lack of knowledge of the tourist is presented in the novel A Small Place by Jamaica Kincaid. In this short novel, Jamaica expresses her opinion about the Caribbean island of Antigua, how this little island passed from being a colony of the Great Britain and in the eighties got its independence and all the changes that comes with time.

The novel begins explaining step by step the experience of a tourist that is arriving at the airport of Antigua, a tropical island, to spend her holidays there. But the novel is not only a narration, is a critic, an analysis and the opinion of the author about different topics from different points of view related to tourism, politics, economy, colonialism, criminality and corruption. Also the author describes the beauty of the island, all the green, the sun and the ocean. When I read it, it was like she was describing Puerto Rico, but the physical similarities are not the only similarities between Puerto Rico and Antigua; Puerto Rico like Antigua was (or is) a colony, but Puerto Rico  doesn’t have yet its independency.

Jamaica Kincaid present two different characters in her novel: the tourist and the native Antiguan. The two characters perceive life from very different points of view. She describes herself has a native Antiguan, for that reason between the description of the journey she tells important facts of the history of Antigua. The white tourist (You) are described as North American o European that are passing there holydays in Antigua “to escape from the reality of their lives”, “where the sun always shine”. They only want to enjoy the paradise, feeling free and blessed, ignoring the problems and corruption in the island.  The other character is the native from Antigua, (I or They) who is described as a black worker who is very poor. This separation of characters shows us the notion of identity described by Peter Roberts. Roberts explain that the notion of identity is based on the perception of sameness/difference. The differences between the tourists and the natives make them treat each other differently creating barriers between them.

Jamaica shows us (like I said at the beginning) how the tourists are not prepare or don’t know the place where they are going to, for example, when she talks about the water, the library, the hospitals, the political status and the poor sewage-disposal system. The tourist are not prepare if something bad happened because they are ignorant about a lot of things in Antigua.  So, I think that in Antigua, like in Puerto Rico and in every county of the world we should encourage the tourist agencies and the education system to promote education of residents and tourists about the culture of the country. 

Some photos of my journeys

Rome

Paris

Florence, Italy

Venice

Venice

Barcelona, Spain

MACKLEMORE & RYAN LEWIS - SAME LOVE feat. MARY LAMBERT (OFFICIAL VIDEO)

About me

       
 Hi! My name is Gabriela Molina Martínez and I´m a 21-year-old female. I’m studying Cellular and Molecular Biology in the University of Puerto Rico, the best university in the island. In my future I see myself studying something related with sciences, for example, medicine or pharmacy. I live in Corozal, a little town in the center of Puerto Rico where the only thing that you hear are the birds singing and the sounds of nature. All that peace that I feel in my house helps me enjoys my favorite hobby, reading. However, the best thing that I prefer about reading is not all the adventures, romances, tragedy, drama or comedy; is the capacity that the books and the literature give me to travel. Travelling is my main goal in life and inspiration; the opportunity to see the world, different cultures and traditions.

My ten favorite places:

•           Madrid
•      Barcelona
•           Toledo
•           Paris
•      Florencia 
•      Venice 
•      Roma
•      Pompeii
•      New York
•       Florida

            From all the places I’ve had the opportunity to travel; Spain, Italy, France and the United States, my favorite place has been Madrid.  I went with my family to Madrid in the summers of 2005 and 2007. I really love that city for many reasons. First, I like that Madrid is a historical city and a modern city at the same time; you can be waking and enter in a palace that has hundreds of years and near that palace you can see a modern building. The second thing that I enjoy must of Madrid was all the parks where you can spend hours walking, reading and relaxing; my favorite park was “El Parque del Retiro”. Third, I enjoyed and learned a lot in all the museums and historical sites in Madrid.  Finally, Madrid would give me two benefits if I decide to live there: the language and the excellent transportation system. For this and a lot more reason I can see myself living in Madrid, Spain.