Journal Project

For my English Course I had to carry with me a journal notebook that didn’t have lines and the goal was to write as much as possible. Writing didn’t have to be perfect, it just had to happen in a certain amount of time, without worrying of space between words, grammatical correctness, among other things. At first, I didn’t like the idea of the journal project, but now I admit it’s helped me on the long road. The journal project helped me improve my writing speed and organize my ideas while I was writing.

The journal helped me be a faster writer. For every journal entry I had to write nonstop for ten minutes on the things that came to mind and how I felt while I was writing them. Even if I ran out of ideas or things to say, I would still have to continue writing, whether it was gibberish or just saying ‘I can’t think of anything to write right now’. One of the reasons for this, I feel, was to help the speed of writing, since we also weren’t supposed to correct grammatical mistakes and just write the way through. I admit that I couldn’t carry the non-correction rules all the way due to the normal habit of correcting, as well as my perfectionist attitude to things. I was always taught that you do things correctly or you don’t do them at all, and that an average work was what an average person would do. All of this helped slow my pace of writing to avoid mistakes, and as I started doing less mistakes, I started writing faster. This achievement is what in the military’s called ‘slow is smooth and smooth is fast’. This statement says that to be fast at something, we need to start slowly to get a hang of it first, so that later we can work efficiently. The journal helped me speed up my writing by forcing me to avoid mistakes by writing slower at first.

The journal also helped me organize my ideas when it came to write. Since I personally don’t like to just write gibberish, I had the necessity to write things that had sense for ten minutes nonstop, which it’s harder than it sounds. Since you can’t stop and try to brainstorm the idea that you want to bring, and how you want to write, the journal project forced me to think what to write next as I was jotting down a sentence. At the same time while I was writing I was coming up with the point of the writing, so I had to think what I was going to say next. I feel that this helped me a lot since I had to multitask in a way I’ve never done before. The journal helped me multitask to get an entry done while I was writing it.

The journal helped me in way I didn’t about until just recently. Since I had to write nonstop for ten minutes on every journal entry, I improved my writing speed by avoiding as many mistakes as possible. The journal also helped me to multitask and think about what I was writing next constantly. In my opinion, the journal project helps people in ways that are not seen until one sees improvement in other writing projects.

Journey Through Reflection

A journey is defined as traveling from one place to another. This idea of journey is the one that I’ve believed most of my life, and I thank this class for helping expand my idea of the word. Or English class, named Journey in Literature, led me to believe at first that the course would focus on physical journeys and literature that focused on it. However, as the college trimester started, and I took the English course for the first time, I realized that my idea of a journey would widen and expand to the mental and spiritual realm. Not only did I realize this fact from the literature that we read but from the professor herself, who seemed to see the mental journey as important, not only for the class, but for the development of her students. As this trimester is ending, I have learned that there is more than one kind of journey in this world, and that mental and spiritual journeys are of greater importance than physical journeys.

A mental journey is more important than a physical journey. I define a mental journey as the development of our individual way of thinking that occurs due to our experiences and accumulation of knowledge. This form of mental journey was the focus of the many readings of Jamaica Kincaid in the class. Kincaid, in my opinion, showed the class how her inner journeys throughout her life made her the person that she was by the time she wrote her books. During her early years, Kincaid seemed like a rebellious adolescent who wanted to leave her home and nation of Antigua, which isn’t all different from what many people want to do as they grow up and want to know the world. As time went by, however, you could see that the experiences that shaped Kincaid also shaped the way she viewed the world and her former home. Kincaid ended up feeling nostalgia for her country and she started to understand why things were and are the way they are in Antigua, and why her parents where the way they were. Kincaid’s mental journey is one of knowing oneself and understanding her upbringing as a result.

 Jamaica Kincaid’s mental journey wasn’t much different from my personal growth, in my opinion. By the time I graduated high school, I wanted to leave home and Puerto Rico since I didn’t have a positive attitude to both due to both innocence and ignorance. As I left to the army and time went by, I started to meditate on the reasoning of leaving and I understood that it was due to my lack of knowledge and normal teenage rebellion. After expanding my view of what can be classified as a journey, I have concluded that my experiences were a journey that helped develop my mind, very similar to Kincaid’s mental journey.

The idea of journeys can be both physical and mental, and I feel that mental journeys are more beneficial for people. Jamaica Kincaid’s experiences have proven this, whose journey reflects the journey of many people. I believe that I’m an example of this, since my experiences led me to a mental journey which has made me the person I am today. Thanks to the English course this trimester, I have come to understand the true meaning of a journey.

Crossroads

Crossroads is the group that I worked with and it was composed with four other people: Alexandra Knight, Francellys Maysonet, Janeliz Roman and Ashley Diaz. I enjoyed working with my group very much and we were all able to function as a team while we were together and independently. At first, I was hesitant working with a group since, by my experience, working groups in college never work efficiently. However, I was wrong, and I can happily say that I’m glad about it since it showed me that working with other people in college can be beneficial and fun at the same time. At the end of this trimester, I’m glad and proud to have been a part of Crossroads.

The people that composed Crossroads, other than myself, all worked very well. Alexandra Knight was our de facto leader and I believe she showed very good leadership skills. Alexandra was always in time with her work and always reminded us indirectly to do our classwork. I believe that her strong and independent personality contributed greatly in her role as team leader and I hope that she continues reinforcing said skills. I hope that Alexandra can reach her fullest potential in her future education and career with her leadership skills.

Ashley Diaz also contributed greatly to the team. Whenever we were stuck in our group works, Ashley would be the first one to look for a way to solve the problem and ask the professor for further instruction if the instructions weren’t clear. You might say that Ashley Diaz was the person that worked behind the curtains to ensure that our classwork was completed. Ashley Diaz’ contributions were very helpful to Crossroads.

Janeliz Roman and Francellys Maysonet were the researchers for the team (myself included) and they were great team members. Although they were quiet at first, as time went on, both contributed more and more information and their ideas for our group’s classwork. By the end of the trimester, both Janeliz and Francellys contributed most of the information and ideas, while Alexandra was a scribe to their instruction. I feel that both Janeliz and Francellys were great contributors to Crossroads and I wish them success in their respective fields of study.

Crossroads has been one of the greatest groups that I worked with my school years. Crossroads has also been the best work group I’ve been with in my college years. I had a great time working with the group members and I hope to have an amicable relation with them in the future. The worked accomplished with in Crossroads would’ve been different, in my opinion, if it consisted of different team members.

Backyard Beauty

This morning I decided to walk around the area where I lived and see it with my complete perception. On a previous blog, I wrote about the excerpt of “Amateur Eyes” by Alexandra Horowitz and how she points at many things she didn’t notice where she lived at until she decided to perceive everything around her. I’m quite a perceptive person myself, I believe, due to my innate curiosity of everything around me, whether it be natural or superficial, although I know that I have a bias against manmade objects. I’ve always been greatly intrigued by nature, so I always focus my perception on trees, plants, critters and fishes whenever I see them. One thing I confess that I didn’t notice was occurring right in my backyard, which I haven’t been able to see clearly due to my busy schedule. On my backyard I found plants growing on my old vegetable garden, which have given that patch of lawn a life of itself.

Before Hurricane Maria hit Puerto Rico on September 2017, I was working on a vegetable garden on my backyard. The reason for this was that I enjoy cooking with fresh produce, so I liked the idea of having fresh and organic peppers and spices. I had oregano, thyme, peppers, chamomile, lavender, and other aromatic herbs. When the hurricane hit, however, most of my plants died and later as time passed by the rest died due to lack of care since I was too busy working and studying in college. At first, I wanted to redo my garden, but since I knew I wasn’t going to be able to take care of the plants like I wanted to, I just decided to let nature take its course and allowed the soil to be free. I wanted to allow the patch of land to get native plants on her to see, like an experiment, how would the land and plants change. Sadly, due to school and work I forgot about my plan for observation and I forgot altogether what I wanted to do and why.

When I received the tasking from our English Professor to walk around and see everything with perspective, I honestly didn’t think I would see anything new since I always like to see what’s around me and how everything changes over time. It was while I was finishing my walk through the block where my house is that I remembered about the piece of land that I wanted to observe over time. When I got back home I was happy to say that Mother Nature was kind and showed me green beauty around. Although many people would consider the plants that the land had as ‘worthless grass and weeds’, I personally loved how it looked. The oregano plant that I had, for example, had its stems surrounded by tropical flowers, which were being pollinated by bees by the time I saw them. Other than plants, I’m extremely fascinated by bees due to their beauty and great importance for the pollination of not only flowers and wild plants, but they’re also very important for the pollination of many plants important for human use and consumption. I can honestly say that perception isn’t required outside your house or in the county that you live, but in your backyard where nature can show you many beautiful things.

Tourist for a Day Presentation

     On the 17th of May I spoke to our English Literature Class about my Tourist for a Day activity. The main goal of the day was to try and act like a tourist in our own land so we could get a sense on how locals treat international tourists. I tried to "blend in with the crowd", but it didn't happen since I don't look like a tourist, so I decided to change my goal for the day. Instead of trying to blend in like a tourist, I decided that I was going to observe how workers from the tourist sector treated both local and international tourists according to how they acted. By the end of the day I learned how employees in both Isla Verde in Carolina and Old San Juan treated international tourist with more priority and respect than local tourist. To make matters worse, local tourist are treated negatively and biased against by workers, which upset me since I used to work in the tourist sector. For me, the Tourist for a Day activity unraveled the negative treatment of local tourist in sectors were most of the tourist were international.

     For our presentation we also had to draw a comic which showed our experiences in the day we acted as tourists. For my comic, I decided to do it very minimal and instead of drawing actual people I did shadows that seemed like people. My reason of doing the comic this way was to symbolize that my experience wasn't unique and that other people could've had the same incidents. The conversation isn't factual, but it shows what I observed when I went to a cocktail bar in the evening at Old San Juan. While I was enjoying my Aromatized Vesper Martini (quite delicious but strong drink), I saw how the bartender was willfully ignoring a local that was trying to be attended by him. When the bartender finally paid heed to the customer, you could see on his face that he felt the local was a nuisance. By the end of their conversation, you could see that the local wasn't going to return to the cocktail bar anytime soon.

     On class I told people my experience and it was compared to my other classmates. Some students had the experience where they were able to blend in as an international tourist and they were treated in a bad manner. One of the students, Alex, shared her experience on how she was ill-seen when people thought she wasn't a local, but an american tourist. She felt that she was being stared down in a negative light and the same time, Alex felt that the workers didn't truly want to help her. She told us that in her opinion, the reason that some locals don't feel comfortable helping american tourists is due to the political issues of Puerto Rico, mainly due to the colonial status that the island currently has. I feel that this is true since our political issues have been around since we were invaded and taken over by the United States since 1898, and our limited rights as US citizens affect all of us in the island. I hope that in the future our political status is resolved and that whatever the outcome, Puerto Ricans will maintain their pride will want to move forward in their land. 

On Looking

The excerpt of “Amateur Eyes” by Alexandra Horowitz is about our lack of perception from our surroundings and the reasons for it. The author believes that we seem to ignore our environment due to our evolution, which willfully ignores what’s going on around us to concentrate better on the things we wish to do. Horowitz goes on explaining in an evolutionary way how and why we ignore what’s going on around us. I feel that the author’s ideals deserve merit, but I believe that Horowitz ignores how society and our own egos also contribute to our “ignorance” of what’s going on around us. Alexandra Horowitz points to two main issues that affect our perception of our environment, which I agree with but at the same time I believe otherwise.

Horowitz argues that part of our lack of perception is due to evolutionary traits. The author points at two main problems, one of them being from nature. According to Horowitz, “The world is wildly distracting.”, which is due to the many things the planet has: things with different colors, sizes, and so forth. I feel that Horowitz is correct, but at the same time I believe that our perception is being affected due to modern civilization. In our contemporary day and age, perception is seen as a drawback from being able to accomplish what is deemed important: work and profit. Perception is treated as daydreaming, as something that only children should do since by adulthood a person’s focus should be in labor or in a way they can improve their work. I feel that nature isn’t a distraction, but our society deems it as such.

The second problem that affects our perception, according to Horowitz, is a human’s limited capacity of perceiving his or her surroundings. Horowitz says that “our sensory system has a limited capacity, both in in range and in speed of processing”. This statement is true, and I agree with the author. Even though mankind has developed his brain after millions of years of evolution, we are still limited to our own bodies. For example, being colorblind myself, I’m not able to experience the full range of colors that other people can. At the same time, some people theorize that there may be some colors that normal humans can’t see due to our limitations. The idea that humans are limited in their capacity to perceive their surroundings is true in my opinion.

In my opinion, I believe that we should all perceive more the world that we live in. Many of the issues that affect us in modern times, like our loss of empathy towards nature and our fellow man, have occurred since we have built a barrier between our individual selves and everything that surrounds us, including other people.  We have decided unanimously that if we ignore what is happening around us, then we have no responsibility of the effects. This way of thinking reminds me of Edmund Burke’s quote: “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing”. We try to take the blame off ourselves, but by ignoring what’s going on around us and not acting accordingly, we are allowing misdeeds to occur, and we are facilitating wicked acts to occur. In the end, I believe that lack of perception is due mostly to our society and our willful rejection of what’s going on around us.

The Running Chronicles

     Running has been an important factor in my life. Although I admit I was lazy all the way through high school, the first time I ran in the 11th grade was like love at first sight. I wasn’t too good at first and my body hurt due to my sedentary lifestyle, but as time went by I got better. Unlike Tabatha Rowley in the “Hairline Chronicles” I never felt like I associated my hair or clothing style as part of my identity. However, I can relate with Rowley in that running did help me shape the history of my identity.

     Running helped me shape my identity since it helped me battle my inner and outer issues. Running helped me work with the extreme insecurities and timidity that I had before. I used to keep to myself and be scared whenever I had to try new things, talk to people, and so forth. When I started running I started to feel livelier and less slothful, and I would talk to strangers almost automatically. I remember that my high school friends would ask me what happened to me, since I was acting in an unusual way. Running helped me improve my self esteem and started to shape the person I am today.

     By the time I graduated high school, I decided to join the military since it was something I always wanted to do and running helped me give me the confidence to choose that route. I wanted to join the army since I was a kid, but I always told myself to not even try it because I was weak. As I started running however, I was able to stop with my self-bullying and made the most important decision as an individual in my teenage years. Running helped me be the person I wanted to be by strengthening my mental fortitude, something I was looking for in a long time. Many people tend to run mostly to lose weight, ‘get in shape’, and feel sexier, but for me running was more a tool to condition my mind and spirit.

     Whenever I run today, the way I’m running usually reflects my state of being. On calm days, I tend to do long runs in a steady pace, usually in a place where there’s many trees and not much buildings and civilization around. On my stressful days, however, I tend to do sprints for a short period of time, most of the time until my legs feel like Jell-O. On the in-between days, I do in-between runs. I never allow external influences to affect my run, which is something I see all the time. A man or woman can sprint faster than anyone, some random person tries to compete with him or her, sometimes with painful results. Whenever I want to get faster or better, I tend to do it methodically so that I don’t injure myself. Running is an intermediate, in my opinion, to find an internal power that most people don’t believe they have.