Blog Reflection

I can summarise this Blog activity as an learning, thinking, writing, and self knowing electronic journey. To be sincere, from my honest point of view, I never imagine that I really like to do some blogs post. I recognise that English is not my strong, but I actually enjoy this task and during the pass of the semester , I feel more comfortable and spontaneous in the task of writing and expressing ideas in english. In my personal opinion to have a blog is a nice, eficiente and entertaining tool to give the external world, in a cybernetic and electrical manner, different aspects and thought of you internal perspective toward the way you see the world. 

A blog give us a different why to better up our writing skills, but it is not the fundamental and essential purpose of having a blog, I think a blog should be a free tool of writing down your way of think in a manner that you like and feel confortable, is the way you want it. This experience during the whole semester of writing a blog was one that give me a new desire, form a different perspective, to better up my english writing and at the same time learn different things form different themes, like we do during the semester. It is a way of interdisciplinary learning that I think should be great to practice more then of finish this course. 

A different Perspective of my country (Tourist vs. traveler)

When someones tell you to take out a day like if you where a tourist in Puerto Rico, it seems that you don't put many excuses and you just do it with out any problem, with a smile in your mouth. Personally I love to do what is know as domestic tourism, or internal toursim (that is to take a trip like a tourist in the same country you live). 

I decides in this case to go to a beach in the east coast of Puerto Rico with some fiends. The idea was to have a nice day in the beach, with some friends and live the experience to feel like if I where a really tourist in Puerto Rico. Went we arrive the beach, it was a beach with a lot of people, their where so much tourist as well as people from puerto rico, you can feel how every body was in their own world, where no body talk with the others, it was a more relaxing but personal antisocial internal experience. This was until we meet a guy who si from Luquillo that live in a house very cole to that beach , Seven Seas. He told us , if we want , we can walk like for 20 minutes in a mangroves that was at the end side of the beach and we will find another beach who's name was "Playa Escondida". It was a much more lonely beach, but also more beautiful and peaceful beach. 

To comport and feel like a tourist in your own home is a complete different experience than just to visit a place to pass the day. It make a complete different perspective to what you normally are used. I make your internal journey to feel and appear like if it where your external one. the tourist experience Is like Kincaid said in "A small place", you start to care less about whats is around you and that is good in a why, but bad in another, because you can not ignore the realities that around you and behave as if they don't exist. But it is also good in the perspective that you notice to many other things as a tourist that you usually don't but much attention, like for example the beauties of you own country, the way puerto ricans others white people as tourist or "gringos" that don's speak spanish and not know nothing about Puerto Rico, this is why where you start to create awareness about how a real tourist can fell in  place they just only wants to relax and hace a nice day.  

"The Rum Diary"

The Rum Diary es an American movie based in Hunter's Thompson novel. The drama of the movie is about how a self independent journalist Paul Kemp (Jonny Depp) works i Puerto Rico, a Caribbean island which is pat of the United Sates territory, for a local news paper in the 1960's. The really reason of why he travel to puerto rico, besides the new work opportunities in the island, was because he was tired of the craziness and madness form who lived in New York, he wants something different. But like de said, "I found the weirdest earthly paradise". In summary, I like this movie, but i disagree and don't like in how in this movie is portrayed the Puertoricans culture and people.

One of the things that I love form this film was that him as a professional and a journalist publish the things the why they are, and not letting him out by the power and influential people how surround him, he write whats he thinks, not what the others wants to hear. Also I fell very identificated with this movie in the why that I know the places where the film is. It is true that for the vast majority of Americans, Puerto Rico is like a perfect paradise, it is US. territory and the beaches and hotels are fabulous, but by other hand, they ignore the really poverty and sadness the Puerto Rico lived. Also I dont like the racism that the American has over the Puerto Ricans, where in this movie they portrait the Puerto rican people as if all where of bad manners, inferiors, alcoholics and ignorants. 

"Down on the Island" by Jim Cooper

"Down on the Island" is a shot narrative true story written down by an American Professor who teach in one of the Best Universities of Puerto Rico, The UPR of Mayagüez.  In this book, we can appreciate his perspective over the problem o bad speak and bad writing in English that we can see in puerto Rico. Also Cooper speak about the cheating problem that the majority of students in Puerto Rico have. 

Jim Cooper by himself accept and confess how good and how interesting was to teach English in Puerto Rico but also it enfatice that is was very frustrating  and overwhelming. He talk abut causes of why in Puerto Rico is so difficult to teach English, he also talk about how in the public schools of Puerto Rico, form an early age, the teacher and directors ignore the English and give very little importance causing a great void in the English teaching and a big pedagogic problem that at the end, will end up in a lots of students seeking a way of "helping each others" by cheating. He also critics the low monetary award for the teaching profession in Puerto Rico. Cooper talk about two whys of learning: One was te Competitive method, which emphasises in be better than the others and push your self over you to achieve your goals. Which is good because it will end up in a better students with his own goals and desires, but it is also bad because you as a professor should teach your students to learn to love what they are doing and not jus do it for a grade, And the other method is the cooperative, which is very bad because here the students tend to cheat in order to have a greater grade. Ultimately, in my why of think Puerto Ricans students need a better education system that teach them how important is to self accomplish by their owns and how important is to learn English as well as to give them the adequate education that instruct them in this materia. 

"RUNNING BRAVE" (perspective reflection over Billy Mills)

Prejudice, internal versus internal conflicts, perseverance, athleticism, commitment, fight until the end regardless everything; All this adjetive and words describe and demonstrate perfect who was Billy Mills. During his life, he was a perfect example of, whats never given ups means. He was a Gold medalist winner of the Olympics, asome friend, and a good person that has his internal dilemas and despite themes he was able to ignore racial prejudice and give example to how a person should respond to those bad influences.

 The attitude of Billy toward live, can be summarised in a 10,000meters race; resistance. Not just to sprint like in a 100meter fast run. This was his perspective toward the world, always trying to achieve his goal, to win, no mater the obstacle in the middle. The same happen in his life, he was always stigmatised by others how feel superior to him, or think they deserve more than him and he will never made his goals. In my opinion, he has so confident to him  self, which made him so much better and stronger to what normally he could be, but, this confidence was the product of all his defeats, all the prejudice he have, all the bad and external influences over him, all that feeling of othering by the one's who surround him, that make his internal personality bigger and a stronger. 

Running Brave (First Part Blog)

First of all, in the movie, Running Brave, we will see the true story of Billy Mill, which has an American Indian runner ho had the dream to run in the Olympics as a 10,000 meter athlete runner representing the U.S. nation and showing how a person of an inferiority minority group can success by never given up.

The story begin by presenting ho is Billy Mills and its origins, How a guy ho born in the Pine Ridge at South Dakota triad to achieve his goals. During the movie we can appreciate his different friends from his childhood, to hum he consider it his family, and friends and important people he meet in the University. . Over the whole movie we can see the dualistic experience with the internal and external journey that this guy have. It was always, Billy Mills, with his internal problems, trying to succeed and be accepted in an external world that prejudice him because of his indian origins.

Tanks to his good athletic performances as a child, he was awarded with becoming the first American Indian who go to college by wining a scholarship from Kansas University. This honor open hi a lot of doors and opportunity, and at the same time, show him with the reality of the world, drawing him out of his confort zone making posible to he to be confronted with a lot of external influences and prejudice, that will slowly build up to what Billy Mills was at the end of the movie. Here we can see how your internal journey can be forge by your external experiences.

For one reasons, during the life of Billy Mills, they were fews ups an downs that at the end make him stronger and self confident. It was a not easy task to him to interact with a lot of discrimination over him, up to the point that he was rejected by his closest friend in one momento of his life, just because he was in love with a white girl. In my opinion this is an excellent movie, based in a true story, to show the world how he should confront the bad external influences and having a good attitude them can make you a better person with out steeping aside you dreams and goals.

"A SMALL PLACE: (chapter 1 and 2: review)

"A Small Place" begins with a description of Antigua by Jamaica Kincaid, which is the native place of she. Kincaid note the conflict of the tourist when they visit Antigua. Is a fact, that this book describes Antigua as a beautiful and small island in the Caribbean sea. But from other perspective, Antigua's reality is in an unlucky and poverty situation, and at the same time, she strongly criticise the expensive cars and majestic houses that the tourist only notice, which is no the reality of the island. Kincaid greatly defers and denigrates "the moral" actitud of the tourist, their irrelevance, ignorance and careless. she did not understand how someone could visit a place and ignore all the realities that happen their. 

During the book, Kincaid reminds and flash back old memories of his past experiences in Antigua and talk about the historically past of Antigua, specifically the time during the colonisation rule over the people of the island in hands of the whites Europeans people,  in particular de English people. In this part of the book we see some otherings theme, and some in groups vs. out group connotations, which separate and differenciate some characteristics of indentification. One of the biggest difference was that slavery problem and racism culture that where present in the island, and the discrimination by color. Regardless of this, today's Antiguans people still reverent to the English culture and don not give importance to this differences of denigration by stereotypes that where presente in the past, because of all this, or whatever reason, Kincaid is very strong and direct to the bad attitude of the tourist.