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.