Small Place: book

I'm reading this book "A Small Place" by Jamaica and I was shock. The way she express herself about the tourist. I never read something like this (is not a bad thing). I can feel her anger in the pages of the book. Is not hate is more like despicable. She wrote this book with a strong tone. She is blaming "you" for the bad thing that you don't understand how is the real Antigua. Your point of view of this place is not the real one and you will never know how hard is to live in here like me. You will never be under my black skin, because you are white and a tourist. Woah! strong feeling right. Is incredible how she can exprese this feeling so well. 

I did a research about Jamaica and now I can understand little bit more why she is so angry. She was so young when she had to leave the school and dedicate to the work because her family was so poor that need help from a child. Obviously she did not have the perfect childhood and I cant imagine how hard it was. However is nice to have this new point of view about her because I can understand more the book. If you read A Small Place you can tell that she suffer too much and that is the reason why she so angry, or maybe she saw her people suffer even more, or maybe she is just a good author. 

My dreams: reflexion

I love talk about my dreams. Since I was 15 years old I have this notebook that is only for my favorites dreams or my worst nightmares. I write my dreams in there because is the way I can remember them and I write my nightmares because for some reason if I do not write them it scares me even more. For your benefit I re-read my notebook so I can see a pattern more clearly. First when I was younger I use to dream about famous people like Christina Aguilera and Taylor Lautner, now my dreams are more "normal" with people that I know like friends and family but... here is an exception Jared Leto. He is always in my dreams (my favorites dreams) . The other thing I can see is that i ALWAYS, but i mean ALWAYS I become a vampire (cool huh?). My nightmares are another story. In my worst nightmares  there is always demons. 

Dreams are a mystery. I can remember one day I had a dream about dogs, big dogs that was chasing me but the dogs were more like demons. I woke up crying (I was like 6 years old) and I told to my mom the nightmare and she finish my sentence. She was dreaming with the same dogs. The thing is more creepy because my mom was in my dream and I was in hers and the way she told me the dream was exactly my dream. She told me that I was running and I felt and she pick me up because the dogs was too close and in my dream I remember that I felt and she pick me up because the dogs were too close. Any explication? No I never had one. I keep writing about  my dreams because for me is relaxing and I can see that part of me that I'm always ignoring. 

Small Place: Identity

The identity in Puerto Rico is a mistery for me. Born in a place makes you part of it forever? Well, that was I tought. The other day I met this old man, he was very tall and his skin was black. He told me that I'm not a good interpretacion of "una puertoriqueña". I asked him why? He told me that my skin is more white that a latina, my freakles and my green eyes don't help me that much.  He think that a puertorican that likes the rock (like me) is unacceptable. For most of the people the identity of Puerto rico is a big issue, because there is a direct link in between identity of a place and the goverment. For this man the things that i like are more "americans" and that makes me part of them, but the americans don't look at me like "us". So what is my identity? 

When I was reading "A Small Place" by Jamaica I feel the same way "out". In this book (that if you are interest to know a little bit more about   what I think about the book click here) Jamaica is very clear with the "you" and "me". I think that she was trying to draw lines of identity in between antiguans and the rest of the world. In A Small Place the identity of "you" is bad and tourist, the identity of "me" the poor and the slave. However, for me your identity could be different what you think what is your identity. For that man I'm not a puertorican for me I'm a puertorican. For me Antigua is a place for vacation for antiguans is home.

  

FINAL JOURNAL REFLECTION

        I had this work in my class about a journal. There are some rules : Keep your hand moving, do not cross out (not even thinking about it ) , do not worry about spelling or grammar , lose control, I do not think (do not logical) , go for the jugular. At first it was very difficult for because I had never done anything like this before ... you know, be as honest with yourself. It was weird at first, I 'm not going to lie. Write what is on your mind in a pice of paper? Not me! All my fears were " if someone reads what is in these pages ." Let's be honest our mind is a very dark place , it is very easy to go crazy if you read someone's mind . In this journal you are totally free and no one can judge you.

After a few days my fears about " if someone reads what 's on my mind ? If anyone see how cruel and dark I am? " disappeared and began to feel more relaxing. For now I 'm writing my " big issues " of the day , I found it very relaxing. Sometimes it is very difficult to walk through the world with all your feelings inside. If you are a person like me, you 'll love it. I can also say that I discovered a part of me that was ignoring all this time. I would love to explain what part of me was discovered , but you probably hate it. I'm just going to say there 's more darkness in me than I thought. I also realize that is more easily to think how to resolve a problem if you just write it. 

There is a second part in this project "the compass". What it is? Well, a compass but your north is you spiritual, south emotions, east ideas and west physical. You have to rate yourself how do you feel in those point in a scale of 1-3. It was more easy for me that the first part, but the real part of this is that you have to explain why you rate 1 or 2 or 3 in each point. That was my favorite part because sometimes you know how you feel but you don't know why. It's just me? I don't think so. This help me a lot with my internal journal. I really appreciate this opportunity.