Reflections About my Blog

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As part of our english literature course: Journey in Literature, we had to create a blog. The posts on our blogs count as reflections, sometimes about various books related to our course, or previous essays we wrote, which we also used to reflect upon our own lives and events. This was no easy task for me since I've never had a blog before, I had to learn everything from scratch and develop mastery of what and how to accordingly write for a crowd, using a simplistic language that my reader might understand, not only for my understanding. During the start of the blog project at first it was hard, what to write, afterwards I became more fluent in my writing by knowing first hand what I was going to write about that would appall my readers and I just only had to develop it further. This exercise served many purposes for me personally. It was a time and place where I could study myself by myself, what I know, what I think, what I want, and also all the while reading different books which helped me through this exercise and helped me experience new thoughts and feelings. During some blog post writing sessions I reached my most personal and hidden thoughts and sometimes arrived to the realization of my own self.  
In conclusion it was a very good experience which helped with my writing skills, discussion skills, analysis, communication, etc. All the while learning new interactive techniques to express myself. It was also a new and very unique exercise through which a course can evaluate students, not just the common essay assignments.  

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A Different Tourism Perspective

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Jamaica Kincaid in her book A Small Place she talks about the whole experience of traveling. She goes a little more in depth in this story not only focusing on the tourist but the habitants of the place visited, in this case the natives. Kincaid describes some of these feelings in the following quote: “That the native does not like the tourist isnot hard to explain. For every native of every place is a potential tourist,and every tourist is a native of somewhere. Every native everywhere lives alife of overwhelming and crushing banality and boredom and desperation anddepression, and every deed, good and bad, is an attempt to forget this. Everynative would like to find a way out, every native would like a rest, everynative would like a tour. But some natives—most natives in the world—cannot go anywhere.They are too poor. They are too poor to go anywhere. They are too poor to escape the reality of their lives; and they are too poor to live properly inthe place they live, which is the very place you, the tourist, want to go—so when the natives see you, the tourist, they envy you, they envy your ability toleave your own banality and boredom, they envy your ability to turn their ownbanality and boredom into a source of pleasure for yourself.” One can understand from this excerpt of the book that natives, especially those that come from a poor background aren’t exactly fond of their lands wonders for the attractions of others. They in contrast to the tourist can escape them and experience something new for once. This feeling may result in envy and resentfulness towards the tourists. They can’t get to fully understand how their usual scenario others can find the pleasure and excitement. This is the thought Kincaid wants the reader to grasp. How one place can have distinct meanings for its inhabitants, a source of pleasure or a place of pity and sameness.

Tourists for a Day

Sometimes when we go to various places maybe the mall, a car shop, a boutique, etc sadly we tend to feel some employees tend to judge based on our appearance, language, clothing, accessories, it all depends on whom. It may be a cultural practice, maybe just made up. I’ve heard all sorts of stories of these sorts, so as a cultural and social experiment, I decided to pretend to be a tourist to perceive the reactions and the different treatment people experience when “they don’t belong”.

Before I narrate my experience I feel the need to explain that for several years I worked at boutiques and never felt the urge to judge or see people as a dollar sign, nor differentiate. For me everyone was equal and I only did my job and wanted to help him or her find what they were looking for. So I understand how being a seller works and how the job goes.

My best friend decided to visit for the weekend with one of her roommates and so we decided to be tourists and speak English. We had backup and validity since my best friend’s roommate is American. We decided to take her to the Bacardi Distillery and take one of the tours. The reception was so nice, the guides explained everything to us, they were so attentive, and they even gave us free drinks and tastings. It wasn’t hard to pull it off, we were a little loud, took photos of everything even with the selfie stick. We even befriended one of the bartenders from the mixology course. But we always felt and knew they were trying hard. After it all we had a good laugh and I started reflecting upon the events.

I concluded that its ironic people from my own homeland tend to treat better tourist than people from their same island. But it’s also great to see people trying to promote our tourism and our island. Overall it was a great experience and we learned a lot while having fun.

Quest for Happiness

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Bhutan was believed to be a utopic place to live in. There people were happy, this might be for many reasons, but generally because there priorities were oriented into the collective living and happiness of others. The people there believed in reincarnation, they were devoted to their king; their military was rather small compared to the monks to habit the country. The military there instead of taking on they’re supposed task of defending they manufactured liquor. The author devises a quote that although far from reality, if true, would definitely depict a whole new world. He says, “Imagine if all the world’s armies got into alcohol business. Make booze not war could become the rallying cry for a whole generation of peaceniks”. The author, Eric Weiner also develops other ideas, that one might think are the reason for this people’s undoubted happiness in Bhutan. In his book The Geography of Bliss, the author recounts memoirs of his travel, which one can definitely assume has changed him. That’s exactly the point, when we travel, the place, shape us and define. Change your place and you can change your life.  This book also defies categorization. He explains that in Bhutan their king has made Gross National Happiness a national priority. He goes in a quest to for the ingredients for the good life, the places most happily habited. 

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By reading it we experience inspiration and wisdom, which may be found in odd places. I want to finish with two quotes of the book that touched me and can be applied to our current generation so we can also go in the quest of true happiness: “I've alwaysbelieved that happiness is just around the corner. The trick is fining theright corner.” And “So the greatest source of happiness is other people--andwhat does money do? It isolates us from other people. It enables us to buildwalls, literal and figurative, around ourselves. We move from a teeming collegedorm to an apartment to a house, and if we're really wealthy, to an estate. Wethink we're moving up, but really we're walling off ourselves". We need to define what is it really that we want, that which will give us our individual happiness before we quest for the collective one. 

V.S. Naipaul Writing Techniques

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In the book Reading & Writing by V.S. Naipaul he develops a personal account, a short and precise autobiography. Pun intended, he only expresses over certain aspects of his career as a writer, and just that, he does not go into detail of his personal life. He begins his narration early in his life when he first decided he wanted to be a writer. Instantly, he shams this early decision since it was only a thought, he didn’t actually practice it. It was a mere desire back then for him. But he was determined to be a writer; this was for him he’s destiny. At the early age of eleven his desire was ignited but he then confesses it was a cover for him to own materials related to the profession. Afterwards he develops his passion fully by reading and writing during his early school years, and also with the help of some family and known ones.  He was sure of what he wanted to be but yet felt he needed to know more about it. The author also recounts his feelings when he moved from rural India to the city and how this had a negative feedback on his desire to be a writer. He felt like an outsider, which seems to be sometimes a normal behavior when we are taken out of our comfort zone. During this move he experiences a writers block with affected gravely his motivation. He later felt in home when he visited the theater and watched Ramlila, a play based on Indian customs. The author marvelously depicts relatable characters with which each writer and reader can associate, can relate to and understand him or her.