Travel book assignment: Into The Wild

1996 Book

       The book was written by Jon Krakauer and published in 1996 after a true event that happened 4 years before that regarding Chris McCandless. The book was later adapted into a film in 2007 with Emile Hirsch starring as McCandless.

2007 Film

The story goes like this: In April 1992 a young man from a well-to-do family hitchhiked to Alaska and walked alone into the wilderness north of Mt. McKinley. His name was Christopher Johnson McCandless. He had given $25,000 in savings to charity, abandoned his car and most of his possessions, burned all the cash in his wallet, and invented a new life for himself. Four months later, his decomposed body was found by a party of moose hunters. How McCandless came to die is the unforgettable story of Into the Wild.

Immediately after graduating from college in 1991, McCandless had roamed through the West and Southwest on a vision quest like those made by his heroes Jack London and John Muir. In the Mojave Desert he abandoned his car, stripped it of its license plates, and burned all of his cash. He would give himself a new name, Alexander Supertramp, and , unencumbered by money and belongings, he would be free to wallow in the raw, unfiltered experiences that nature presented. Craving a blank spot on the map, McCandless simply threw the maps away. Leaving behind his desperate parents and sister, he vanished into the wild. 

Blog Reflection

       One of my biggest challenges in my 'Journey in Literature' class was facing the fact that making a blog with many posts was part of the class requisits. It was not because I had to do it, but because I'm a more reserved person and publishing my writing was something I feared. I write 'was' in the last sentence because I learned to manage my fear and write publicly without problem. That courage was the product of my determination to succeed in the class and to learn to manage my fears on writing.

Blogger.com

       In high school I wrote many papers for english class and many other classes so Im proud to say that I learned very well to write an essay. It was much easier to write an essay that only the teacher would read, and it probably gave me less stress that no one else could see it. This time around, in university, things are different. I now write publicly for this class and everyone of my classmates and people around the world can see my writing. At first I did not like the idea of everyone viewing my blog since I'm a little of a perfectionist and it gave me more stress to think that I had to write perfect since many people were going to read my posts. But as time passed I grew to let off my fear and deal with it. For this last post I'm now confident with what I write and I learned to express myself through this social website called Blogger. I recommend it to everyone who wants to express thoughts or feelings because it is a great way to do it since you get feedback from people around the world. 

Group Experience

       Working in a group normally is very difficult since the availability of everyone is not the same always. I usually hat working in them since every time someone on the group works harder than others or does more than others. My experience with this group has changed a little my opinion about working in groups and I will share it with you guys.

       I'm much more than glad to say that finally I came across a group of work that I did not hate at the end. The name of the group is Fortunate Travelers, and it is composed of Valeria, Liane, Alexandra, Luis, Manuel, and I. This is the first group that I even get along with my peers, and have a good chemistry with them. 

      Two moments that I remember being the best of the group I think I have it perfectly thought. The first one was when we all had a tight schedule, but we made time and gathered a saturday afternoon to finish what I thought was one of our best work as a group. Everyone cooperated and we made a lot in two hours. The second moment was the presentation of that assignment we had. The project and presentation turned out to be all as we wanted and our reward was a good grade. 

       In summary I had a great experience with this group. Fantastic people to work with and great friends also that help whenever you need them. If I had another group to choose, I would definitely work with my Fortune Travelers again. Hope I see them again in other courses.

Tourist for the day

       In class I had the curious assignment of positioning myself as a tourist for one day to look at the reactions of the people around me and to view my surroundings from the point of view of a tourist. I decided that if I had to be a tourist, I had to go to an area close to a hotel or to a place that is frequently visited by them. For it I chose the area of Piñones where there are many hotels near by and is also a place where tourist would visit at least one time during their vacation in Puerto Rico. 

Piñones entrance

       Piñones is a well known area in Puerto Rico for it's beach and fried food. A couple of minutes before you see the entrance of Piñones you can see the beautiful ocean from the beach called "Balneario de Carolina". In this road you can see curious things that as a tourist can seem a little odd. For example, the driver's license is tested in this area. Normally in the US, this test is taken in a closed course, not in a public road. Second, there are many cyclists around this area which are in the middle of the road until they reach the part where they have their own road. Third, but not least odd, is that the national airport is right beside this area so you can hear every plane ascending to the skies. 

       For my activity I chose to wear an american brand swimsuit, with a tank top shirt and sun glasses as if I was vacationing with no concern of work nor related things. My plan was first to walk to the "Balneario of Carolina" and ask someone in english for directions. The first person that I approached was a person in the parking lot and I asked him where could I find the best restaurants in the area and the person looked at me as if I were from another planet and responded with a face of confusion "me no speak english." I was kind of surprised when acting like a tourist but being Puerto Rican I know how it is so that did not surprised me much. The face the man made could have been interpreted as a kind of othering since I looked like an outsider and his reaction was that he knew he could not answer me because I spoke another language that he does not know.

       After this event I decided to stop at a kiosk and see what would happened there and how would they treat me as a tourist. When I entered no one looked at me differently, but as soon as I ordered the famous "bacalaitos" (fried cod) the man looked at me in a strange way and did not answer. After a few minutes he gave me the food and I sat down at the table. Now that people knew I "only" spoke english they looked at me more. I felt a little out of group since they saw me as someone that was not from here and everyone's eyes were staring at me, don't know why. 

Beautiful Piñones beach

     I decided to act more like a normal tourist and started taking pictures of the beach. A couple of people where around me so I said "what a beautiful island!" to see their reactions. A couple of minutes passed by and I kept taking pictures, when I heard a little boy tell his friend "mira a este gringo tomando fotos" (look at this american taking pictures) and they both laughed. I laughed at this internally since I know my real identity and felt a little disgust by the stereotype some Puerto Ricans have towards americans, even this kind of young boys.

     

Selfie at Piñones

     
        After a few hours of enjoying the beach, my favorite part of the day arrived, time to eat. After I asked a few people, I finally found what is considered the best restaurant in the area, which is called Soleil Beach Club Restaurant. When I entered, I spoke english and was greeted the same way, impressively. The service was incredibly good. I was so hungry that I decided to go half Puerto Rican food, half US food to satisfy my hunger. Here I saw that both, the people and the employees in grouped me and it felt good even knowing my real identity. I order what they call Puerto Rican treats for appetizer, some "sorullitos de maíz" (corn sticks), "alcapurrias" (fritter) and mozzarella sticks were some of the included, all in small portions. For the real deal I ordered a New York Steak with a side of mofongo (fried plantain). Wow, it was all fantastic.

Soleil Beach Club

     Finally after this great meal, I decided to head home. Looking back at the experience I could sense that Puerto Ricans have two ways of reacting towards an american tourist, the first are the people that do not know english and react kind of scared to your questions, and secondly the ones that do know english and socialize with you because they are confident of their dual linguistics. This is what normally a tourist would encounter in a question scenario with a Puerto Rican. I think this is not only here in Puerto Rico but also around the world, a person that does not know the language of the asking tourist gets afraid and does not act normal as if it where a native from the land. 

Timothy Leary: "The Harvard years" reflection

Timothy Leary in his Harvard years.

       The book Timothy Lear: The Harvard years is the first collection of this psychologist's writings. It's author, James Penner, is a University of Puerto Rico professor who describes many experiments Timothy had using psychedelic drugs on people to see their reactions based on their experiences. In Leary's time, 1960's, LSD and psilocybin were legal drugs and were used actively for research at universities. 

       Here is a link to see James Penner's book.

       

       Many of Timothy's writings have been lost and others where very difficult to find, said the presenter of the conference and author of the book. During the 1960's, Leary was aware of his fame on this type of drug usage, and all of the negative comments but he did not care because he wanted that attention. For Leary, psychedelic drugs were great because they separated the social role and promoted the entire being to experience it's own identity from a deeper perspective.


       James Penner read his prologue and explained some details of it. As an audience member of this conference, I saw how the author was well prepared and very much knew all the details of Leary's life, showing his hard dedication on this book. I was fully surprised when he said that people saw Leary's work as a thread, at a level that he even was fired from Harvard's president at the time. This was a nice conference that I learned about psychedelic drugs and many other curious things about the time.  

Reflection on The Rum Diary

The film starts with the main character, Paul Kemp, in a hotel in Puerto Rico. Kemp is an author coming from New York with not much success. On his way to the interview, we can see the identity of the Puerto Ricans of that time which rebelled against most of the North Americans that resided in the island. After a quick chat with Lotterman, the newspaper’s editor, he formally gets the job where he is given the horoscope section with the promise of more.

Immediately after getting hired, the editor introduces him to Sala, which we come to now after that he’s an alcoholic as Paul. We can see an in group in this part of the film as Sala gets Paul acclimated with the surroundings while drinking in a bar. We can sense another in group when Sanderson approached Kemp at the office saying that they would talk after because he liked Paul’s writing. We come to know that Sanderson was a wealthy business man in the island who was looking for a writer that could do a job for him. Sanderson introduced Kemp to his group and made him feel part of them, offering him the job to write favorable coverage of what we can see is a property scheme.

From the start of the movie we can sense the harsh environment towards those who were not native of the island. Americans felt superior in this island, we can see out group from Sanderson when he was with Paul and realizes that young men were in his property and abruptly tells them to get out of his land. The Puerto Ricans leaving this situation with resentment, we see another out group, but this time it was towards the Americans when Sala and Kemp where at a little restaurant. The guys that Sanderson threw off his land where in the restaurant too and when they saw Paul, they gathered as a group and forced them to exit. Not only did they force them to exit the restaurant, they also chased them to throw things at their car.

For perspective we see important ideas. Kemp came to the island without knowing the reality of the poverty that faces some of the habitants and the excessive riches of others. When Paul realized this, he rapidly changed perspective of the “beautiful island”. He saw that the tourist only sees the beautiful beaches and what is in the coast, but the problems of poverty where ignored. Paul wanted to write about this but Lotterman told him not to because it was bad for tourism. At the end, everyone knew Paul could expose all of them and they closed the paper and took the machines away so Kemp could not print it. Kemp steals Sanderson’s boat and leaves towards New York where he meets with Chenault, publishes the story and gets married with her.

Jim Cooper's Teaching & Helping Chapters

                On these chapters we can certainly say that problems in the education of Puerto Rico have been since way long back in the 1950’s. In the ‘teacher’ chapter we see Jim Cooper, a continental North American, who teaches English in The Colegio at Mayagüez, PR. Jim is the only young continental teacher left and discovered that teaching English in Puerto Rico is teaching a culture that does not manage the language very well since it’s a challenge for them, so he faced his own challenge in teaching these kids. In the ‘helping’ chapter we can see how big of a problem is this teaching of English in the island.

        I refer to “a big problem “ in the ‘helping’ chapter since the teaching is not resulting the way it should be and the students, knowing nothing on the exam, decide to cheat to avoid failure. Visiting high school English classes to learn how his students adopted their attitude, he found out that since first grade the teacher are encouraging the students to look in the neighbors paper if they had doubt. The continentals who visited where infuriated with this encouragement from the teachers and said that no wonder the students did not understand them. When the students had a bad grade in an assignment it always came down to “why you gave me a bad grade, don’t you like me?” and yes he did but his job was to teach English not to give away grades without them doing anything.

        The ‘teaching’ chapter talks about how Jim was a second year professor at UPR Mayagüez where he understood how horrible the English class was for the students in the island. The chapter kind of tells Jim’s quest to change the current English program so that the students would actually learn something in classes. In recent years an innovation was released and were does from a doctor called Charles Fries. A teacher called Pauline Rojas took the ideas from the doctor and made a series of textbooks that she thought would help the Puerto Rican students learn proper English. It was to be incorporated in a series of public schools but the only problem was that the program needed at least 20 years to start doing effects in the population.

        We can clearly see the problems in the education of this time and that it has passed onto our generations some in a good way and some in bad ways. The good way has been that now most of the Puerto Rican culture has English as second language, making them bilingual. The bad things that were present in the 1950’s was that at that time the students used cheating as a resource to not fail the class, unfortunately that still happens in the present and is a big problem in this society. Certainly this is still a problem that has to be resolved for the generations to come.

       

Looking back at the notebook journal

          At first, since I had never used a journal, it was a little difficult to express myself in the notebook. In the past, I usually kept things to myself and did not talk them with anybody. By doing this journal for the class, it taught me that sometimes in life you do not have to keep things to yourself because every person has the right to liberate themselves from what is disturbing or affecting their daily life. This journal opened that path for me to know that by writing what bothered me or just talk about my day, could indeed relax me a little from the daily tension of the university or other problems that I might have.

          In this journal I talked about many things, and I actually think that I might have expressed myself more than usual. Sometimes I arrived from the university and was full of stress so I took the notebook and started writing all that was in my head and when I finished it felt good to let it out of my system. I think the primary objective of the journal exercise was for us students to write about what firsts came to our minds and when we got the hang of it, we actually write more than the first time and about deeper things to find our inner self.

          When we started doing this journal in august, I was passing through difficult times, this I rather not express publicly, and by doing this journal I did find a little about myself and confirmed others. First of all, I confirmed that I’m a very stressful person. I wrote many times about having stress and not being able to control it, something I’m working on at the present. I also found out that being a reserved person is not always good, that sometimes letting things out it’s the best way to feel better. Feeling relieved by talking about things that torment me through the day, let me know that there are other options apart from keeping all to myself.

Since this journal helped me finding out things of me, I took advantage of it and some days wrote on the notebook 2-3 entries per day at different hours and it helped me pass through a tough day. I think this journal did me well, at first what I talked before about helping me find a little about my inner self and then helping me pass through difficult days without having stress thoughts that hold me from having a normal day. Apart from class, I will keep doing this exercise for my own good since it helped, writing what first comes to my mind and letting it all out to feel more relaxed.

Internal journey through dreams

     I usually dream every night and remember most of them. I have 3 kinds of dreams: first, the wish-forefeeling one which I dream when I wish something specific happens, second is the one that you dream and a couple of days/weeks later happens, and the random dreams like a falling dream. On my exercise of writing my dream on the journal it was a very successful one. I woke up at 11:10 am that afternoon and my notebook was beside me so that I had no interruption of my dream. As soon as I became aware that I was awake I started writing what I remembered. The more clear dream that I had was one of an interview that was given to me by GE Capital, a very well known company in the US and worldwide. The interview went very well and I did it as I would like it to happen with a clear and strong conversation with the interviewer. I relate this dream with the experience I had a couple of days before at a job fair at the university. I think this dream is a wish-forefeeling one since a dreamed what I would most like to happen in the fore coming months that I will be expecting a call for an interview. Having this interview in real life would be a dream come true since it is the company that I most liked in the job fair.

Reaction on the first two sections of A Small Place

        Living for my whole 20 years in Puerto Rico makes me think similar to the author of the novel, Jamaica Kincaid. The similarities are that we both come from a small island in the Caribbean Sea, both countries where empowered at first by a European country and both rulers enslaved the citizens of the island, both where colonies at the time of enslavement, and neither, Puerto Rico and Antigua, has proper identity because of the reasons mentioned above.

        I do, in some way, feel envy towards the tourist that comes to Puerto Rico and only sees the good side of it without knowing how hard has been to be where we are now as a country. First being ruled by the Spanish, then going to the power of the United States, I do feel the same as Kincaid because my country also knows how difficult a transition has been from the days of slavery to the present where it does not exist. As Antigua, Puerto Rico also has its wealthy side and a very poor side, although much of the population is middle class. Reading Jamaica Kincaid’s words made me feel as if we Puerto Ricans are not alone in this problem of tourist satisfaction in an island where there are many problems that they do not even know they exist.

A Small Place (Sec. 1 & 2)

      

       The short novel by Jamaica Kincaid, A Small Place, first talks about the readers experience on her homeland from the moment they arrive to the airport, to what they confront in their way to the hotel. By Kincaid’s description, the tourist witnesses the beauty of the island in this path towards the hotel, but at the same time describes how this perception is very different from those who reside in the island because they have a much harsher reality to live with. The reality the author describes is that of poverty, but to the tourist the island shows wealth, or at least a stable economy, because the cab drivers have very expensive cars. Finishing the section, Kincaid says that the residents view tourists with envy because they have the ability to turn their own banality and boredom on the island, into a source of pleasure.

       

       The next section of Kincaid’s novel talks about her memories of the old Antigua, which was a colonial possession of Great Britain by the time. The author describes such in kind a rage because of the many humiliations the Antiguans had to go through. She emphasizes how Antiguans had not a proper identity because they talked the language of those who enslaved them in the past. I think Kincaid’s purpose of the first two sections is for the tourist to not be an ignorant and think that what he or she sees is all the island has, there is much more behind what the tourist sees.  

Tourism in Puerto Rico

     Well, being a resident in the island makes me have different opinions from some tourist that comment on the island after visiting. First, let me talk about the negative comments, starting with crime in the island. Crime is a huge problem here in Puerto Rico, every week hundreds of people are killed, and many by pure joke. Recently there have been many cases of domestic violence which brings more drama to the everyday news. Talking as a citizen of Puerto Rico, I admit it is frightening how horrible the crime is in here, you can't event walk alone outside the university at night without being scared of getting assaulted.

     As for the positive comments about the island, I can say with pride to a tourist that "I live where you vacation." I love saying that phrase. This island is full of beauty. We have the one and only tropical rain forest called El Yunke, one of the best hotels on the world in Dorado and in Vieques, and we have beautiful beaches like Flamenco in Culebra which is in the top 3 most beautiful beaches in the world. Those, and many other things, are to be proud of in the island. All the positive feedback on the island attracts more tourists which makes the island more presentable and also helps the economy since we are living in such hard times.

     For my personal opinion as a Puerto Rican, I will always have my pride towards the flag where I was born in. Everywhere I go I will always have in my heart all the good memories I had during my youth in the island. Personally, when I grow up and become independent I would not live here knowing how bad the criminality is here, but I would recommend the island to all the people I know from outside Puerto Rico because it's a great place to have a vacation. Many people judge Puerto Rico by what others say, and do not take the time to come here and explore all it's beauty. I exhort each and every one of you that are not from here to come and see for yourself how beautiful an island it is. Visitor's must be sure to leave costly belongings in the hotel when going somewhere but other than that there is not much to worry about because criminals do not go for the tourist in this island so visitors can be relaxed about that.

Dead Poets Society: Character internal & external journeys

The film Dead Poets Society is full of hidden messages, and each main character contributes to these messages that the movie tries to express to its viewers. For my blog on a character’s internal and external journey throughout the film I chose Neil Perry. Neil was Todd Anderson’s roommate at Welton Academy. He came from a normal family and was the only member to have the opportunities he had, attending such a prestigious school, according to his father.

Neil’s father controlled what he could and could not do. When the film started, his father went to the school to tell him to drop from a club he participated. He felt that he could not be himself because of his father’s demands but this time he obeyed his father. Constantly fearing to disappoint and not having the courage to stand up to his father is one of his internal journeys. Another internal journey of Neil can be when the boys discover the Dead Poets Society book from Mr. Keating’s days backed up with the professor’s inspiration. He saw Mr. Keating’s mentality of free thinking as a very powerful tool so he decided to take it for himself and audition for a part in the school play. When he got the part, he concluded that he wanted to be an actor, disobeying his father’s imposition to only focus on classes. This internal journey of own thoughts rather than his father’s reflects how Neil found what he most wanted and went to pursue it despite what happened in the end. The most striking internal journey of Neil has to be his decision at the end to kill himself. He surely thought he could not deal with his father’s obligations, wanting to do other things that his dad did not agree.

His external journey in the movie could have been when he did participate in the school play although his father told him not to. By his internal journey of discovering himself, he pursued his ambition and took the role of the main protagonist in the play not caring on what the people on his surroundings would think, including his father. This external journey of participating in the play was one of the biggest challenges of his life because he was disobeying his father by his action. These means that for the first time he acted as himself, not pretending to be what his father wanted him to be.

A little about myself and family

     Since the day I was born, my mom wanted me to achieve more than what she ever did. I say that because when she talks about my future she always says to pursue even more than what she had given me. I think her purpose has always been to keep my head held high and accomplish my goals as she did and to aspire to even beyond that. In my family there are two sides, in my dad’s side no everyone finished or even went to college. My mom’s side all went to college and graduated. Since my parents are divorced, what I only hear is to finish my studies and that do not make the same mistakes some of my other family members had done.


     I live with my mom and I’m the only child. I’m mom’s little baby as she refers to me, even though I’m almost 21, because I do not have any brothers so I’m her only treasure. Being the only child has its privileges and a lot of advantages. For example, my birthday is in November 23, a month from Christmas. I do receive gifts on both dates and sometimes even in Three King’s Day. I’m sure that if I had brothers I would not have gifts on all those dates, and if by chance I do, it would be far less than what I receive now. I get all the attention and all the cooking is for me, can it be any better than that? I do not think so, other only child’s should understand me perfectly.

 

     As I told before, my mom always told me to exceed her achievements, and do not know if that will happen, but I’m optimistic thinking about it. I’m studying finance in UPR Rio Piedras and my biggest goal up to the present is to be a successful broker. That could change when I enter the field in a couple of years but I’m sure that from finance I will not change. I like the idea of stocks and numbers, makes me happy. So that’s where my goal is heading, I know the path towards it will not be easy but I’m up to the challenges and even better at with the support of my family and friends.

 

 

Running Brave film

Assignment #2

     Billy Mills had one goal in mind and that was to participate in the Olympics for his country. He shared this thought with the coach, who said that if he wanted to reach it, he had to fight for it and keep running. Billy always listened to his coach as he gave him good advice on life and running.

 

     As the movie went on, he always had trouble with his background. On his first invitation to a frat party, a member told him he could not enter because he was Indian. He was disgusted and left, feeling sad because people kept rejecting him. Another race went by and the next external journey appeared. After he won the race, he met the girl who later would become his girlfriend. As he kept winning races and studying, his sponsor offered him a job after graduation, which would be the start of a very unique external journey. Ethnicity problems kept arousing when Frank and Eddie went to visit him and Pat to her parent’s house when they where away. They saw it was a middle class house and 10 minutes later left mad because they felt out of place and that Billy did not belong there. Next couple of races he lost by what happened with Frank and Eddie, reducing his efficiency in the track and leading to his exit from the team after a fight with the coach. Ethnicity followed him everywhere and at this point his external journeys where going the wrong way. He decided to connect back with his family and went to the reservation again where he was greeted with love. In this external journey he witnessed the death of Frank, which he suffered badly.  


     For the internal journeys he suffered from lost of spirit in running as he communicated it to his sister. But he promised her to find the motivation again to keep racing. When he decided to go back to the reservation with his family we could see frustration and confusion in his mind. Many bad things happened to him consecutively and by all the pressure he made the decision. Back in the reservation, one day with Frank he ran again and felt good, felt he can reach his spirit again. This internal journey reflected his future comeback. 

 

Running Brave film

Assignment #1

     Running Brave is a movie inspired by the true story of Billy Mills, a Native American with Indian heritage who was accepted with scholarship to the University of Kansas. Since the beginning of the movie he faced racism and many struggles because of his background, but that did not keep him from achieving his goals. Billy Mills is the perfect definition of courage and perseveration, one which fought for his main goal every time he went to the track.  

     His internal journeys started with his personal thoughts and went through the relationship he had with his family, specially his dad and sister. One of the first internal journeys that appears’ in the movie is the relationship with his dad. The movie starts by showing the last race in high school and after he retrospect’s back to when his dad taught him how to run. We could see the great relationship he had with his father and coach at the same time. He always said that running made him feel good and different, and all because of his father that he thanks for his talents in the present. Going a little further in the movie, he shows us the internal journey of spending time with his father in the ring, who was a fighter. This journal of when he was little reflects his emotions towards the scene because his dad died just after a fight, showing how he misses his father now that he is running in college. After days in college he wrote a letter to his sister telling her his firsts experiences on college and how different it was from home. We see here the internal journey of reading the letter to his sister so we can appreciate his firsts days in the university. This relationship with his sister goes on through the movie as he always wrote her letters as he promised when he left.

 

 

 

     The external journeys are all throughout the movie. At first he was running through the field and we saw him win the race. He was told he was accepted to the University of Kansas so we see his firsts external journeys of going to a different place from home for the first time. We see that he enters the university all excited. The first contact with the college world was when he met his roommate, who after a while we see they get along pretty good. Once he joined the running team he started feeling the pressure of having an Indian background since his teammates made strong remarks about it. We also see when he meets with who granted his scholarship and he managed the situation well. For the first race of the season he encountered and old friend from high school that also ran. The coach told him to set the pace but at the race he ran him as he knew how too.