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. 

The stereotype and the truth about Puerto Rico

      There is a lot of things that people say about Puerto Rico. Are they say the truth? Or, They are wrong? We discuss alot of point of views about what people (not puerto ricans) think about us. The discussion was very interesting because I thought that every people in the world have a bad perspective about what is Puerto Rico and puerto ricans. Most of the comments was about how wonderful and friendly we are. As a puerto rican I believe that is true. I've been in a few states in USA and the people are very introspective. I love to smile at random people and when I was with my dad at Philadelphia they look at me like I was a crazy! Maybe is because I’m use to the act that most of the people smile at me back.
     Sadly a bad comment about us was that we are lazy and I think there is a little bit of truth. Is bad to say ALL the puerto ricans are lazy, but we can’t say anything about that because our reputation around the world is that we live “great” thanks to the money of USA. Lets be realistic we like to party a lot. Our favorite parties are after the hurricanes, we even celebrate 4 of July and the Independence of Mexico. I think if the people look at us and all that they see is the parties and celebrations they make this conclusion: a person that party too much can’t work a lot. The truth is that some of us like to party and some not.
    In conclusion people have this extreme point of view about us: We are lazy, we like to party, we are almost indians (some of the people think that PR is like 1920 and we still living like Tainos). It’s frustration what I feel when I read all this stuff, but lets be honest, we all have this idea (stereotype) about that one country.

Dead Poets Society (movie)

The movie of Dead Poets Society talk about a profesor that makes the difference in a institution were control and order was the only way of teaching. Mr. Keating was that professor that change the perspective of the students and makes them to fall in love with poetry. However, he was not a traditional professor and that was a problem to the school. Mr. Keating was totally different professor from other classes; he teaches poetry using sports and walking outside the classroom. His class was relaxed and that was the defense because the students were exited about it they did not feel obligated. For my experience literature classes (not this year) was mostly the same, they try to put everything for one perspective; everything is definitions and a lot of boring books that I read years ago. Mr. Keating was more that a teacher for those students, he was a role model. This class makes a partnership “the dead poets society” that makes this group of friends more close to each other, more than they real parents. This friendship was powerful and encourages each other to be part of something else. For example Neil encourages Todd to participate in the Dead Poets Socity.

This new experience makes the boys change in some many ways like Neil was following his dream and let it go all his fears about not be the perfect student that dreams to be a doctor; Todd was shy in the beginning of the movie and then he was the first rebel student that was standing in the table of the classroom. This kind of changes was very difficult to them because Welton was a school of boys that represent the best students ever. We can compare Chris’ school that was mix (boys and girls) and Welton: Chis school was normal and Welton was very strict in every aspect.

Mr. Keating was the captain (Oh Captain, my Captain) of the internal journey of this students. For example Todd a super shy student and Keating makes him improve a poem in front of the class, Keating help him to let out his talents and makes feel Todd like a very special student when he thought that he was nothing important. In the other hand the captain choose to be silent when Neil said that his father knows about the play because he is just a guide not his father. However his mother stay in silent when her son was suffering. When something like that happens to me in life I prefer to stay in silent sometimes you don’t understand the full complication of the situation, I can understand the point of view of Keating. Also I can relate to Keating reaction because he was his teacher and teachers have this line of personal problems that they can’t pass. Maybe I’m old fashion but if a professor is to close to you he can’t teach you that well because he will be supporting you in a lot of stuff, teacher should be a little strict, it’s the only way the student can respect the class.
           Nail suicide was an exaggeration because there was other options like at the age of 18 he can do whatever he wants and start his career as an actor. I try to understand why he did that but I can’t, but if I were in a depression like he was I probably can’t think that clear as I can think right now. Something that I did not like was that the school was searching for someone to blame about this tragedy. The only person that we can blame (apart of Nail, it was a suicide not a homicide) is Mr. Perry with “You’re going to Harvard, you are going to be a doctor”. Maybe this could work on Nail before Mr. Keating class, but it’s was too late, Nail at the end of the movie was a free thinker. He prefer to suicide than be something that he is not. Mr. Keating was nothing but a good mentor and he lost his job. After all the boys sign a document incriminating Mr. Keating. From my point of view I would not sing the document because they own all the freedom that they had to Mr. Keating. The professor teaches more than poetry he was teaching about life and honor. Part of have honor is to be loyal to all those things that they learned as a student in the class of Mr. Keating. Teach poetry or any kind of literature needs passion because art needs to be like that, full of freedom. We can learn to be free, it’s no easy but music, literature and poetry can help us in the journey.

My Story

Lets start from the beginning, I was born and raised in Caguas, P.R. I’m the first girl in the family and for a long time I was the only girl. My parents get divorced when I was 6 and when I was 16 my mom had a baby. I always wanted to be like my big brother Gustavo (he is from my dad’s first marriage) because he was always playing with my dad, they was

“the cool guys” for me, so I started to play video games at very young age, my taste in music was Queen, Bon Jovi, Black Sabbath and The Beatles and I never missed one game of the Lakers (NBA); apart form that I got a lot of cousins of my age and all of them are boys and of cause we can’t ignore that my dad was in the U.S NAVY… and you can imagine that he is very strict. Everything is fun when you are a kid but in high school for me was impossible to have girl friends; I was so DIFFERENT from other girls. Obviously my mom was worry about my skateboard and me so she inscribed me on modeling classes (which I hated it), apart from that I was a very happy girl.

In my family I’m the smart one but when I was in second grade my teacher asked me “What you want to be when you grow up?” and I my answer was “I want to be a mermaid”. My mom told me that was impossible, but she also told me that I can study marine biology and since that they I feel in love with science. I figured out that I want to be a doctor on high school when one of my cousins at the age of 2 years was diagnosed with cancer. That day I realized that I want to help people, but if you don’t have a “Dr.” before your name no one in this planet will let you help them. I got a lot of plans for my future as a doctor in medicine and one of them is to donate all my money to pay the treatment of children with cancer. I never had a lot of money so I can live without the glamour. I really hate the idea of have a lot of money just because I’m a doctor. I can’t live in peace knowing that those children are dying and I’m here making me rich.  I just want to help those kids 100%.

Since I was a child nothing has change too much. I can look myself in the mirror and see the same girl that dream to be a mermaid and to be honest I don’t want to change that. I’m 21 and my hobbies are the same: play video games, watch Pokémon and sing in the shower Bohemian Rhapsody. I want to be innocence because see the world through the eyes of a child makes everything more interesting. I want to learn everything that I can, eat a lot of food, smile to strangers, laugh and talk to elderly people. In conclusion I want to stay simple.