Reflection about the Blog

Having a blog this past months has been a new and adventurous feeling. I sometimes struggle talking in front of people and sometimes I can’t comment in class the things I believe in since I like to take my time thinking what I’m going to say. I admit it; I’m slow in that aspect but is something I wish to little by little get better at.  But having a blog where I can read something, organize my thoughts and then write about it makes me actually write my opinion without any hurry and learn a bit about my ideas and me. It’s quite nice to stay some time for yourself where writing in a paper with a pen could be eternal for one but in the computer is more confortable and fluent. Not only that, having my group members comment about what I think about my different ideas and them sharing their own ideas or agreeing to mine is a good way to see different points of view. It’s not something I’m use to because this is not my first blog but I’m not use to those kinds of feedback. I really enjoyed the most with that aspect. With that said, I accomplish my goal. I made this blog for my English class with the purpose to escape from reality and clear my mind in some sort of way where I felt free writing different topics and opinions that I believe in and that’s what I did.

“Teaching” by Jim Cooper

“Teaching” really shows the struggle of a professor trying to make students learn. It’s not easy learning a new language, better yet; it’s not easy to teach a new language to students within a year. It takes a lot of patience and much work to finally dominate the language. Cooper shows his struggle towards the students and others professors; he shows how unsure he is since he needs to follow the syllabus they give him to teach a new language, in this case English. Not only that, in college students are expected to already know at least something of the English language, but sadly the reality in Puerto Rico is that many public schools don’t fully teach this strategies. This is overwhelming for Cooper because he needs to follow what he is commanded to do but at the same time he needs to teach students from scratch. That is where the conflict enters and he does not know what to do.

Everybody is different and I believe that everybody also has different ways to teach things. With that said, I see Cooper’s struggle with his students and his way of teaching them. His struggle can be seen when he says, “But I had no materials for language teaching, no idea where they could be obtained, and anyway the situations were in no way comparable. I was so overwhelmed by everything that all I could think of to do was try to cope with things as they were, no matter how frustrating”. This part of Cooper struggling made me think in how sometimes I take for granted professors. In where I expect from them a lot and I forget their just people too. They take their time to actually make you learn new things and have new perspectives Cooper just wants his students to dominate at least a second language by actually teaching it and not just give his students what he is ordered to do (Which makes them learn nothing). Instead he is willing to take his time for the students for them to have better education. It’s good to see those kinds of professors where one can truly count and give hope to the future generations to complete their college experience with new knowledge and perspective.

Geography of Bliss by Eric Weiner (Chapter 2: Switzerland)

Eric Weiner continues his journey to find different points of view concerning cultures and their different meanings about happiness, which makes him end up in Switzerland. His first encounter with the Swiss people was not really a positive one, which was weird since they are considered to be nice and neutral. It was in Africa where he met a couple and he didn’t like them because he saw them as people not very helpful instead just people that have everything perfectly placed and with no problems. This gave him a little perspective about them before actually visiting their hometown and getting to know them a bit better.

He continues his journey to actually go to Switzerland and find out if they are really happy within themselves instead of just with their lifestyle. Little did he know that the Swiss people just live a “happiness life of boredom” as Weiner said, where they have money, good jobs, clean streets, etc. but still are not emotionally happy. Yes, they are happy with the confortable life they live and don’t have any reasons to be sad. But the “happiness” that Weiner emphasizes, the sentimental one where you get even chills by thinking about it or even cry as in “tears of joy” does not exist in Switzerland. This can be seen when Weiner says, “Okay, so the stereotype is true. Switzerland is efficient and punctual. Also wealthy and with hardly any unemployment. And, oh, the air is clean. The streets are nearly spotless. And don’t forget the chocolate, which is delicious and plentiful. But happy? I saw no joy on the faces of the well-tented Swiss couple in Africa. Only quiet satisfaction, tinged with just a trace of smugness.”

This kind of observations makes me think of the people that view the term happiness with someone who needs to pursue a “perfect life” in order to be happy. When I say perfect life I mean as in having everything stable (jobs, family, surroundings…) and within that, you are happy instantly. Everybody has different meanings of happiness, but I think the most important thing about it is that it comes within oneself.  Where one can have everything or nothing and can still see pass that and feel joy and bliss. It comes from one and its different aspects of achieving it; it’s a satisfaction, a feeling where your personality depends in how to achieve it. It’s not something you buy in a store.

Life is a Trip by Judith Fein

In Life is a Trip; I really enjoyed Chapter 5 (Searching for Forgiveness in Vietnam) since I’m familiar with the history of the Vietnam War and I could get a good look in its different opinion. I believe that the author speaks from his heart in relation that he believes there are people that still haven’t got over by the war. The only thing I could think of this is, how not? I’ve never been through war or any life style related to it, and I wish it continued that way. What I have read and heard is that war is one of the most traumatizing things in the world. You are assign a target to kill for your country thinking it is correct even though you were taught to never kill because it’s wrong since little. I believe in that process of changing your ideas of right and wrong, a switch in the human must trigger or something. In some way it confuses the human being, and torments it. Besides, it must also torment the idea of actually seeing people suffer or even killed in front of your eyes. I guess my opinion is, that even so people have forgiven the war, I respect those who haven’t forgive it. I believe is a very internal process in which one may or may not recover from it. I respect any person willing to enter in this zone, especially coming out of it.

Nevertheless after reading this chapter, I couldn’t get out of my head the last paragraph where it states, “I got up and walked away from my computer. I understood that I could spend a lifetime harboring anger and resentment, or I could accept what happened to me and move on. It felt good to be in the present. It felt good not to focus on the past. It felt right to unplug from past hurts and bitterness. My trip to Vietnam inspired me and reminded me of that”. This made my eyes grow cause it’s not something the people of the Vietnam War can live by if not anybody can. One must open their eyes in a set of their internal battles and decide which path to go. You can decide whether to stay with your feelings for the rest of your life because of something or just decide to let them go. We will always acquaintance this kind of internal battles; it is us who decide what to do about them.