Song of the month - Gypsy by Lady Gaga

As a way to conclude the external journey blog, I would like to finish with the song Gypsy by Lady Gaga. This is one of my favorite songs ever, and definitely Lady Gaga's best song. It's about traveling the world, and feeling like a gypsy, which I can relate to our own internal and external journeys.

My External Journey

The English Literature course, which is titled “Journey in Literature”, was essentially divided into two categories: Internal and external journey. In the external category, students had the opportunity of discovering different types of features that distinguish countries and cultures, which was accomplished by creating a personal blog and writing about topics, films, lectures, and essays studied in class. However, the internal category was a more personal one, and made students discover their own emotions, struggles, thoughts, and generally their own personal journey throughout the semester.

Before starting this literature course, I strongly believed this class was about traveling through the world, and capturing different works of literature from diverse countries and cultures. I was definitely not expecting to discover inner journeys within myself, or even different perspectives and opinions of foreigners regarding my own country. However, now I understand the importance of discovering, recognizing, and studying cultures before actually embarking on a trip and visiting other countries. Throughout this external journey, I understood how ignorant and biased tourists can truly be when they travel, including me.

Even though the topics discussed in class were very enjoyable, I believe the external journey entries on the blog primarily confirmed and portrayed the course’s main objectives. By promoting independent thinking, researching, and reading, students had the opportunity to reflect on individual topics through a blog, and somewhat relate their inner journey as well. My favorite entry was “A Small Place: Colonialism in the 21^st Century”, which was inspired and related to Jamaica Kincaid’s “A Small Place”; mainly because I had the chance of learning about neocolonialism, and exposing the topic to my fellow classmates and friends. Another entry that I enjoyed writing was the “Day as a Tourist: Internal Tourism” post, because students had the opportunity of becoming travelers in their own country, which sounded ridiculous at first, but after writing the post, it really captured the essence of the external journey.

People should embark on similar external journeys and create these types of personal blogs. Although it sounded like an assignment at first, it truly became a tool for me to analyze and express my own quest throughout the semester. It definitely also improved my writing and communication skills, specially since I've never had the opportunity of writing a public blog. Finally, I strongly believe the main objective of the course was achieved, which was submerging and learning about our journeys, regardless if they were personal, external, or physical, and thus becoming a traveler rather than a tourist. 

My Internal Journey

Throughout the semester, the students were assigned to express their daily thoughts, struggles, and conflicts in a personal journal. However, we were not supposed to think about our writing process; instead, students had to express their first and initial thoughts. After each journal, we had to draw a symbolic compass where we expressed how we felt mentally, emotionally, physically and spiritually throughout the week. My first impression of this journal wasn't very positive, mainly because writing and expressing my thoughts is definitely not my forte. I feel this is due because I’m a very logical and perfectionist kind of person, therefore, going for the jugular, expressing my initial thoughts, and not thinking about my writing is extremely hard for me.

The rules about writing in this journal were very simple. First of all, we always had to keep our hand moving, regardless if we weren't writing consistently or coherently, and kept changing subjects. I feel like that was the most important rule because it forced us to write our precise thoughts in the moment, and to not over-think. Another rule was to forget spelling, grammar, and punctuation while we wrote the journal. This part was definitely the hardest for me because, as I said before, I’m a very logical person, and I tend to over-think and perfect everything. During the first few weeks, I used to forget about these things, however, it was inevitable for me to cross out words when I wrote them incorrectly. It really took me a while to adapt to these rules and start forgetting about spelling, grammar, and punctuation, and although I didn’t notice at first, I understood how these things distracted me from writing my thoughts and emotions.

Writing daily journals made me realize many aspects and attitudes of me that I previously did not know of. It’s very strange to go back and read my old journal posts, and see how college actually influences my emotions daily. Throughout my inside journey, I discovered a great amount of my thoughts were directly related to college work. In fact, the vast majority of my compasses also portrayed my anxiety due to tests and projects, which made me feel stressed out and exhausted all the time.

Although this activity was a burden during the first few weeks, at the end I realized how important this experience really was; I was able to identify the factors and circumstances that stressed me out and gave me anxiety. Also, by pouring my heart and soul through those journals, I had the opportunity of discovering how my mind changes constantly. It’s surprising how much I actually learned from myself while I was writing; every single time I read my old journal posts, I immediately get transported to that specific moment and I feel the emotions that were taking over me. I believe other people should have some sort of diary where they can pour their thoughts into a notebook, and self-evaluate their life throughout a matter of weeks as well.

Panel: "Mini Sagas: My Creative Process"

Last Tuesday, the English Department of the College of General Studies of the University of Puerto Rico, Río Piedras Campus presented a conference titled: “Students Interventions in General Studies: Interdisciplinary Projects and Creative Initiatives”. This conference consisted in the participation of students –currently enrolled in English courses– presenting their writing projects to an audience. One of the panels was named “Mini Sagas: My Creative Process”, which was formed by students from the PSAE program supervised by Dr. Mildred Lockwood. 

This panel exposed a very creative and stimulating concept called “mini sagas”, which was invented by Brian Aldiss, and is basically a short poem made by a maximum of 50 words. These mini sagas contain a well elaborated topic or conflict, therefore, most of the students from the panel talked about their personal experiences. The topics presented were related to bulimia, racism, religion, expectations of finding a husband, and ecology. Some poems were very tragic and touching, and others were extremely hilarious; however, they were all limited to 50 words or less. 

These mini sagas were very impressive, especially because students are limited to put across a complicated and meaningful topic in a short amount of words. Although these poems appear very vague and simple at first, everyone was surprised when each student explained the true meaning of their mini saga. I genuinely think that writing with alternative methods such as mini sagas is very clever, mainly because you take a different approach toward a specific issue, which makes it entertaining and unconventional.

Panel: “Immigration and Puerto Rico Today"

During the week of the 24th of March, the English Department of the College of General Studies of the University of Puerto Rico, Río Piedras Campus, presented a conference titled “Student Interventions in General Studies: Interdisciplinary Projects and Creative Initiatives”. This conference mainly consisted with different presentations and panels from students currently taking English courses in the university. One of the most interesting and controversial panels was titled “Immigration and Puerto Rico Today”, which exposed the point of view of immigrants that move to Puerto Rico just to study and receive an education at the University of Puerto Rico.

This panel was supervised by professor Petra Avillán and consisted of two students originally from the Dominican Republic and currently taking the intensive English course at the University of Puerto Rico. They discussed the social, political, cultural and economic issues that immigrants –especially from the Dominican Republic– have to face due to the xenophobia that many locals feel toward foreigners. The students also shared their personal experiences, and how difficult it’s for an immigrant to feel accepted and respected in Puerto Rico. It’s very unfair for Dominicans to be discriminated against, especially due to the fact that the Dominican Republic is right next to Puerto Rico, and both countries share similar traditions, cultures, beliefs, customs, and even the same language. Some immigrants just move to Puerto Rico looking for a better life, yet they face issues and obstacles that make it hard for them to become successful in the island.

The most shocking story came from one of the students, when she shared the experience of her participation in a beauty pageant. Although she was clearly representing Puerto Rico on the show, one judge told the student that she basically didn’t win because she was Dominican. I was infuriated when I heard this because sometimes people tend to be extremely ignorant, especially in Puerto Rico where xenophobia against Dominicans is widely seen, and I believe it’s completely unfair to judge others according to their nationality or ethnicity. These comments are present in our everyday lives, which we can constantly hear on derogatory jokes against Dominicans. This story was absolutely necessary, and I believe more immigrants should speak out and make their voices be heard.

Finally, I genuinely admired their courage for speaking out in the panel, and exposing such a sensitive topic in front of a huge audience in a language they’re recently starting to learn. Although they’ve been taking intensive English for a year, I was quite impressed with their ability to speak and write so coherently. At the end of the presentation, both students offered real solutions regarding this social issue in the university, and the audience completely understood the difficulties of being a foreigner in Puerto Rico.

Song of the month - Amsterdam by Imagine Dragons

Amsterdam by Imagine Dragons is one of those songs you'd have in the back of your head when travelling through Europe by train. It's really magical and inspiring, no surprise they're one of my favorite bands.

Traveler or Tourist? "The Rum Diary" Reflection

The Rum Diary is a film based on the novel by American journalist Hunter Thompson, which portrays the story of Paul Kemp, a young, American writer that finds a job writing horoscopes with The San Juan Star newspaper during the 1960’s in San Juan, Puerto Rico. Kemp moves to the island mainly because he wasn’t a successful journalist back in the United States, but later finds himself struggling and battling alcoholism, as we can perceive when Kemp says “I tend to avoid alcohol….[Drinks a bottle of alcohol] …when I can”.

As many other foreigners, Paul Kemp came to the island for the first time without any knowledge about the island’s issues, history, status, culture, and traditions; he was only interested in his job offer, and came to Puerto Rico to take upon that opportunity. However, Kemp later meets Bob Sala, another reporter from the newspaper that offers him a place to stay, and Moburg, who was always inebriated. Soon he also meets Hal Sanderson, a wealthy entrepreneur planning to build a hotel in the Caribbean island of St. Thomas, and his fiancé Chenault, who becomes romantically interested towards Kemp throughout the movie. Chenault then hires Paul as a journalist to write good reviews and articles promoting his venues, but when Kemp starts relating and bonding with Sala, he becomes aware of Puerto Rico’s reality. However, although Kemp wanted to write about the island’s problems and issues for his newspaper, it was very difficult due to his job position, mainly because these deep issues could affect the tourism industry.

In the film, Paul Kemp starts off being a tourist because he wasn’t interested in Puerto Rico’s people and culture, yet we can see him transition into a traveler throughout the movie because he submerges into the island’s issues and realizes the poverty and struggles Puerto Ricans face on a daily basis. However, Sanderson definitely stays being tourist because he felt very alienated from Puerto Rico, and we can see that when Kemp says "I will need a place to stay" and Sanderson responds: "That is easy. I will find you something with a view." Sanderson was only interested in his business and basically having a great view and a private beach, which is clearly not the island’s reality.

The Rum Diaries can be directly related to Jamaica Kincaid’s A Small Place because, as Kincaid portrays, many tourists are very disliked by locals due to their attitudes and sense of superiority, which is seen when Sala gets in trouble with the locals because he tries to get special treatments for speaking English. Another aspect is that tourists tend to disconnect emotionally from the places they travel to, and just focus on the main attractions and their own tight schedule, which can be seen when the random tourists are interviewed at the bowling alley and they say “We never leave the hotel. It is not safe. But you are having fun, right? Oh yeah, lots of fun!”. Tourists usually ignore the reality of countries, and tend to stay their entire trips in resorts and five-star hotels, instead of taking the time to truly explore, adventure, and experience the country they’re getting to visit.