History and Tourism

Blog Activity

My experience in the blog was a new one. In this class is where I made a blog for first time. I had to looking for in YouTube for the instructions to make one. I think that the way of creation of this was difficult. But after all, I can do it.  Fist seem curious to me in the first entries that we put our personal information, the objective of the blog and how we will run this. This blow activity is a creative way of teaching.  Each student has a purpose in their journeys and a different trajectory to follow. Every day we open new ways and we learn new thing. This blog journey is our book of life.

Each student’s blog is characterized by his theme. My topic is my adventure in Puerto Rico. I don’t write all my experiences, just some of them.  I wrote about the some of the best places of Puerto Rico. There is beaches, national forest, our customs and many other. Apart of this this blog is guide by our teacher class. We discuss a lot of lectures and we analyzed it. We wrote our personal thinking and our opinions about the lectures.

Finally this blog is an educational one. It talk about us, our feeling, our thinking, our cultures and opinions. We develop a way of learning by this exercise.

 

Happiness is a Number

Netherlands 

I found very interesting the chapter Netherlands about the happiness. As the chapter says, happiness cannot be measured. I really liked all research related to happiness: the stress, sex, stimulate the mind, comparisons with other countries among others. In my opinion happiness it is relative. For example: I can be on the beach and for me that makes me happy. But another person can be on the same beach than I and that does not cause happiness to her or him. For this reason I believe that happiness is built by ourselves. We built it with our attitudes, our thoughts, our desire and our behaviors.

 In chapter mentions the following: want to experience unhappiness, or at Least leave open the Possibility of unhappiness, in order to truly appreciate happiness”. I am totally agree with this statement. There is no human on earth who can be happy all days. . That's impossible. Live happy a lifetime is a utopia. When we live unhappy moments we see all those moments of happiness that we leave everywhere, for this reason, after living a moment of unhappiness, we will cling to find the path to happiness. I think that happiness and unhappiness are part of each of us. It's interesting because with unhappiness we learn to seek happiness and with happiness do not seek unhappiness but sometimes happiness is such that makes us unhappy.
As I mentioned according to chapter there are some countries more happier than other. But that's a cultural thing. In Netherlands is legal prostitution, drugs and cycling. The author of the chapter said: If I Moved to Holland, you'd probably find me a few months later, engulfed in a cloud of Moroccan hash, a hooker under each arm. That means, the country can give you happiness, but it does not suit you as a person. He prefer to be at home and be happy with the things he has. This brings me to analyze the following:We humans got used to our culture and our values. We can find happiness in different places and in different ways, but happiness that is in another place or country does not mean it will have the same meaning to a person of a different country. Happiness is not a destination, is a state of Being. 

Video:

Teaching English

 

The problem with the English language is caused by four reason: Political status, family responsibility, the educational system and the teachers. Puerto Rico is a colonized island by the government of the United States.  This colonization affected our culture and political status. The arrivals of the military government of the United State change our customs and our style of life.  This union with the states make that our government is tied to a greater control. Since 1950 we are having problems with our status languages. The PNP said that English should be our first language and the PPD said that should be our second language. This controversy with the languages has brought many problems with the puertorricans. This decision has affected the educational systems. Suddenly has affected the schools and family. Everything comes from this decisions.

The status of languages has affected the way of living in Puerto Rico. Before 1950 everything was in Spanish. After the invasion of the United States, all has changed. Now he have English TV programs, if you going to the social security office all the instructions are in English. This change of political and language status has affected and confused the people. Right now we have many people that speak Spanglish. They do not speak well the English and Spanish language. Also we have other percent that speak a good English.   And finally we have another percent that just speak Spanish and do not understand the English languages. We have a heterogeneous language society.

The educational systems also has been affected but do not means that affected all the systems. By my experience I can talk about the public and private systems. In the public system I had teacher that they talked everything in English and they do not explain nothing in Spanish. In my private school also the teacher talked and teach in English. The different is that in the public I never use a book to practice and for read short stories. In the private school I had a book that explain me everything. That book has short and long stories and questions about the stories. We read novels, poesy and many other literary genres. . The big difference is that in private school the student are in more constantly practice.

Finally the teacher also are a big and important part of this cause. In the case of public school the systems bring them a guide to follow. And that is the problems. I think that teacher have an academic preparation and they can give a class without a systems guide. I would say that system moor them and they can’t teach what they want to teach. . In conclusion we a have a heterogeneous English society and is difficult to make change that get better all the students. But right now in this era, the English language is very important to us because if we know it, we have bilingual and we will have many opportunities to get jobs. So I don’t know that is the solutions for this problems but I know that every puertorricans must be disciplined and practice the English language.

Vietnam

Is incredible how the nations of different side of the world use the war to be potent in economic, social and political status. The war took away more than two millions lives, in where many of them were civilians. Many people were wounded and a hundred of children were left orphans. Also hectares of forest was destroyed. The herbicides used, has left a serious ecological and human impact on Vietnamese people’s lives. Today there are still many children in Vietnam growing up with various diseases and disabilities affected by the harmful chemicals carried out in the war. In summary the consequences of war were: people dye, children without parents, many people affected by the chemicals and many of the veterans suffered psychological after affects. All this happens to make a nations more potent. The government do not have consideration with people who facing this situation. The government just want money and power and do not care for the life of his country. In the chapter five, searching for forgiveness in Vietnam there is a lot of phrases that describes that the people of Vietnam forget that terrible situations. I think that exist a little percent of people who suffered in that war. The war pass out like 70 years ago. Today must be alive the children and grandchildren of those people who were in the war. Its strong carry out a life without a parents and the lack of his love, compassion and guide.  In the chapter the author said :“It was an enormous relief to know that Vietnam has survived our war and is thriving. It was reassuring to learn that life move on, and even when a country is bombed, defoliated, and destroyed, it can come back with great vigor. I was humbled by a people who have suffered so much and have chosen forgiveness over fury”. I think the time is the cure for everything. It's like when two people are in love and break their relationship. At first it will be strong for both because they think they cannot live without the other person. But then over time you can recognize that it was only a life experience and and had the opportunity to experiment new things.  And when they experience new things replace the tormenting memories. Also with that terrible event, the people who live there would’nt want to experiment a similar experience again. I think they just do not want remember that situations. They just want continues his life and forget the pass. It’s hard to do this, but they do not have other options. Because if they use the revenge , another war coming.  

8th Annual Student Research and Writing Conference

I had the opportunity to be part of the 8^th Annual Student Research and Writing Conference. This took place in amphitheater 3, DMN and were two days of learning. This was organized by a professor committee member and the coordinator of this event was Dr. Cynthia Pittmann. In this two days there was, student’s research, theme panels and creative initiatives. The purpose of this event was transforming experience through research and writing share by the students.

In my case I had the opportunity to be listener and I work as a staff.  In the experience like a listener my group presented a panels. In the classroom there is like twenty five students and we take five to present. Our group presented about the essay of Karl Joung called: Memories, Dreams and Reflections. I like how they presented because they exposed a summary of the essay and they analyzed. They presented the most important quotes of the essay and develop a critical thinking of them. On the other hand my experience as a staff was different. I had the opportunity to monitor the audience, be aware that people do not speak loud and maintain control of each situation. Also I had the opportunity to listens two presentations. I don’t remember the name of the presentations, but was something about war. The student just read their essay and they do not have visual contact with the audience. They were reading the paper in the presentation. How I was staff, I was alert of the mood of people and in this presentation the people do not was pay attention. I think that was the way they reading their essays. It took a slow way of reading and that boring all the people.

In conclusion all the presentation was interesting. I don’t listen all the presentation but I saw the title of the presenter and seems curious. Also the participation of Marileyda Hernandez was incredible. She has an angel voice and this performance represented a creative idea because apart of all student research we can enjoy of her music. 

Journal Activity

This graph Represent the scores t of a long way of writing that I did in my journal. This numbers Represent an overall feeling about me. This feeling were categorized in four part: Spiritual, mental, emotional and physical. In the first eleven entries my scores were very low, but in the trajectory I can up my result. My average of feelings was seven. I think is a good result but I would like to have a better score. I think my feeling were inconsistent, but consistent in a little periods of time. In the first eleven scores, my overall feelings were four to seven and in the other entries were eight to twelve. I like this exercise because I can writing about how I felt in every day. All my thoughts were writing in that journal. Also compare how I felt week by week was very impressive. The graph show me that my life was inconsistent. Sometimes down and sometimes up. Every day we face different challenges but not every day we face them with the same attitude. In conclusion, this journal helped me to see the different standards of my feelings. It also helped to unburden myself. All my life, my thoughts, my decisions were written in that journal.