Blog Reflection

My experience with the blog was a love hate relationship, at first I loathed the idea of having to constantly have to keep writing blog after blog about subjects that were not reaaly of my interest but I came around the idea and it wasn't so bad, the customization, the easy access to other blogs and the comment section really brought it all together for me. As lazy as I am (and I will admit that at times the only thing lazier than me is a sloth) I did find entertainment in these that helped keep up to a point. On the flip side, I find that the fact that we have to read these assigned papers and then write a blog about them is frustrating because I wish that we could have had a little bit more freedom to write about other subjects that we not necessarily about anything we discussed in class but maybe if we made them about important subjects or current events or debates. I find that with these we could have a made more dynamic class utilizing the blogs. Not to say that there was anything wrong about the way we did go about doing our blogs and discussing them during class, this is just my opinion. The blogs hold a special place for me because the teacher did assign us in groups and I had the chance to be paired up with very cool individuals and we bonded over the struggle have all the works done on time, these people have made me laugh at times where I needed it and i am eternally grateful for that. When all is said and done, the blogs are a part of my college life that for one reason or another I will never forget.

Being original in my writing and being precise at the same time was a challenge because I would find myself struggling because I would mostly write way too little information and at the same time I would be stuck in this state where I don't know what else to write.
Overall even with my struggles it was a very pleasant experience overall and the bonding with my group was just the icing on top.

Freelancers Hiking Journey

So last Saturday I (the communicator that my group trolls on a daily basis)woke up at around 4:30 in the morning to go meet up with my fellow group members "The Freelancers". We met at an Office Depot in las Catalinas Mall and we all got in one car (George's car) and we started our road trip to Salinas/Cayey. Once we reached our destination we left the car on the emergency ramp and started climbing to the top of the mountain. It took me about 45 excruciating minutes of slipping, getting dirt all over my pants and falling embarrassingly to reach the top of the mountain, but on the way to the top we laughed we joked around made maybe 1 or 2 stops thanks to yours truly of course, but even though thee way up was tiresome it was well worth it to see the sunrise from the top and take some really beautiful pictures. The breath taking scenery made me realize how we sometimes take for granted the things we have around us for example our amazing island!

The view from the top of the mountain (Credits to the great photographer George!)

The Tourist Experience

So one time me and my family were staying at a hotel in Rio Mar, me and my father are pretty white and it's not uncommon for people to come up to us and speak in English because they are unsure of our nationality. But on this occasion I was walking alone in the hotel bored and decided to put on as many touristic clothing I could find like the ugly tropical shirt, the khaki shorts and some crocs. I walked around the gift shop area for a while and people didn't bat an eye, it seemed normal for them as if it was just a normal customer that was just looking around. After  the gift shop I started walking towards the beach when suddenly this person started screaming "!Amigo espera!" I didn't realize that they we're screaming at me so I just kept walking when I heard someone say "lo mas probable es gringo y no te entendio" that's when I realized I had by luck or coincidence I had played the part of tourist perfectly. The person caught up to me, it was a small pre teen aged girl, and started speaking spanish telling me that she wanted some of my "quenepas" (I don't know how else to call them) I tried to stay In character but when she asked me If I understood what she was saying she also started using gestures to tell me that she wanted some fruit so I busted out laughing in a very awkward way and explained to her what was going on that I was pretending to be a tourist. We had a laugh and of course I gave her some quenepas for her troubles and then we parted ways. It was a very awkward experience because I froze and I really couldn't speak and she didn't try speaking english but oddly enough I had a similar situation in which I sort of pretended to be a hot topic employee but I think it was because I was wearing the "hot topic" look with the all black look and the band shirt. So I was looking at a few shirts when one of the shirts fell down and as i was putting the shirt back in it's place a woman came up to me asking me If we had any merchandise for a specific band shirts for her son as if I was an employee. I kind of went along with it and actually helped her out and she found what she was looking for, after that when we're leaving I tell her that I'm not an employee adn she looked shocked. After her shocked face I literally just left...

My Experience With The Journey Journal

We had to write forty entries in our journal about what was going through our heads for the most part but more than just writing random thoughts that were running through our minds we had  to “go for the jugular”  which basically means to really dive into deep though and express your true feelings in your writing. Anger, happiness, sadness, frustration, stress, these are some of the emotions that you might feel when doing this sort of exercise, that and the occasional hand cramp that you could get from writing too much or too fast. What was the solution? That’s where the “Life Compass” comes into play. 

The life compass was part of the journey journal that at least for me served as an equalizer after venting so much in my writing. The compass was drawing of a circle on your notebook with a word written in the upper, lower, left and right part of the circle. The words that were written were: physical, psychological or mental, emotional and spiritual. The point of each word is to give them a number value from 1 to 3 expressing how well you were feeling at the time for each category. The lower the value the worst you were feeling and the higher the value the better, this helped in seeing progress from week to week on just how much a person can change in many different aspects of their life. In my experience I found the compass useful and I noticed that my spiritual value never went down from 3, this was exciting for me because I tend to pride myself in being a very open person that can adapt to different points of view on numerous aspects and I felt that the spiritual value reflected that part of me. That said though, the values for the other categories did fluctuate frequently. For me the journal experience was a very interesting idea that gave me a different perspective and I could even continue doing it as a way of venting in my writing whenever I feel the need or a way to relieve stress. 

Why Did I Chose This Title?

I picked this title because I feel it resonates with my perspective on life where we walk around the world with a certain goal in our mind that we get clouded and are not aware of everything that's happening around us. In reality we never know where we're going to end up, for some people it mite be a horrible thought to think about, not really knowing what life has in store for you next but that's also the fun part! happiness can come from any door in the hallway that is life.

My Journey Journal

My journal, at the beginning of the course when we started creating this journal, I initially thought this was going to be a rather boring and bland experience until I actually started getting into the whole experience. Obviously at first I wasn't able to "go for the jugular" like it was intended but in my opinion I was able to go for it a few times. It's a'lot harder than it sounds really, usually taking a subject and going deep into thought about you think it means, deciphering it and getting to a conclusion can actually take a mental toll on you. The journal was truly an experience and the meaning behind the pictures that I selected is usually my idea of traveling and some other subjects that interest me like music and the ocean. The Life Compass is like fluctuating graphic that tells you basically how I was feeling during that specific day or maybe even that week. The graphic also represented how good or bad you were feeling by a number value that you added u at the end,the higher the value the happier you were basically, I was presently surprised when I realized that most of the time I managed to keep a consisted value that was rather high.

What this journal means to me is very difficult to describe because yes it is very personal in some cases and in other cases it's very random but all in all I would feel okay if someone were to read it, yes I'll admit I will get embarrassed which is a normal reaction. Having said that I think it's more comical and care free, yes I do believe that I touch some rather hard subjects at times and yes there is a bit of cursing due to frustration but I believe that is part of writing and expressing yourself.

What is Puerto Rican Culture?

Puerto Rico, a small but beautiful island in the Caribbean that is know for it's warm weather, beautiful beaches and great food. It sounds like paradise really and to some maybe it is but for the people that live here that are aware of some of the issues here in the island, they know that we Puerto Ricans have some work to put in especially because of the economic struggle. Puerto Rico suffers from a political perspective in which we are in a constant tug of war between 2 parties that do not have the best interest of the working class people. Every 4 years we have a different party take over this country promising change and a better future but honestly it all really stays the same, all that happens is that people wake up in fear not knowing if they'll have a stable long term job or if they're going to get screwed over by one the political powers. That being said, the rest of the worlds perspective on Puerto Rico is really is a rather gloomy one. Us Puerto Ricans are perceived to be loud people that live in a third world country when in reality it isn't that bad at all. Puerto Rico produces a great amount of talented people that are known world wide whether it's in music, dancing, sports, art, etc... We celebrate every event and we mourn every death, almost like a family, it's a united sort of feeling to be Puerto Rican, people remember events that basically paralyzed the island like every time we had a PPV boxing match with Miguel Cotto or Felix "Tito" Trinidad representing us worldwide, e every victory was a celebration and every loss left a sour taste in your mouth that felt like it lasted forever. It's this deep sense of pride while at the same time managing to stay humble that created these down to earth people that I wish would represent "boricuas" but sadly we are often over looked as a doomed country with an incredible dept  and violent worldwide news. But for me as a person that has lived all 19 years of my life on this island that has some of the good and some of the bad that occurs here, I see hope in a new generation of kids that are smarter that are  working with these awful resources that thy are given and are creating amazing things and reaching new heights that we have never seen before, I think that Puerto Rico has a bright future if we have the right leaders leading the way and if all our talents does not decide to abandon ship to leave for the U.S.A or any other parts of the world that they feel provides them with a better future.