Mi nombre es Manuel Blanco

Dream Pursuers Blog Reflection

INGL3135 truly deserves its name; it certainly is a journey through literature. Thus journey in literature instilled a different perspective in me. My mind perceives situations differently, each experience brings about a modification in our identity, and it has the power to develop our outer and inner journey. Each location irreplaceable, it holds its own place in time where its uniqueness brings about knowledge, beauty and growth.

Creating and writing a blog certainly and profoundly instilled betterment in my flow of ideas, in the way I present my thoughts and feelings; in the words and vocabulary I use to communicate with the world. It certainly helped me expand my versatility, to modify my style and to improve my English writing.

After assimilating all the knowledge I learned throughout these past few months, I’m eager to travel the world and write a blog post about each and every new destination I navigate. There are a variety of different cultures waiting to teach me new lessons and ways of life.

I truly believe that participating in new experiences enriches our lives and makes us smarter in every aspect. This blog experience has truly deepened my hunger for knowledge and has stimulated my spirit of adventure.

I’m dearly and extremely grateful for the unmatched spiritual growth this whole experience has offered me. I’ve definitely seized such great opportunity to recognize there’s a whole world to see, and a lot to learn. It has expanded and extended my thirst for awareness, and reinforced in me the wonderful infatuation that education can bring to us rational beings.

I’m sincerely grateful for such an honoring experience, and I can’t help but to hope that this new and fervent sentiment keeps divulgating itself towards myself and towards those that surround me.

Reflection On Working With The Fortunate Travelers

Working with Valeria, Alessandra, Liane, Hector and Antonio has truly been a marvelous experience. I remember the day our professor assigned us into groups, the Doctor already had us sorted out so we didn’t have a say in which group and with whom would we be sharing our time and experience with. Nonetheless, I’m truly honored and thrilled to live the privilege of working with such considerate and responsible students.

Since the beginning I was eager to get to know new people, making new friends is always an excellent habit to make new bonds and develop our social skills. Since the first day we got along pretty well, we had some minor differences deciding how were we going to communicate outside the classroom and what name we were going to select, but it all worked out fluidly and dynamically.

Throughout the journey every single member collaborated in it’s own special way, and everyone had a unique gift to offer. Ideas were constantly flowing through our minds, and creativity was always a part of our equation.

My favorite Project from this class was the one were we worked on Carl Jung’s trip to Africa. We even gathered together a Saturday because we really wanted to get a good grade. We laughed, we had fun, and we did a magnificent work were everyone collaborated and played an important rule in the final product.

As the communicator I definitely grew spiritually, emotionally, personally, intellectually and academically working with our exquisite team. We seized each opportunity; we developed respect and consideration among ourselves. And I can even say without a hair of doubt that se transmuted ourselves from strangers to friends. Thank you guys, hope we all live a prosper and healthy life.

One Day As a Tourist In Old San Juan

There’s a beautiful place in the Caribbean that I have the blessing to call home. An insurmountable beautifulness characterizes my homeland, and it’s heavenly shores are inevitably an addictive trait. However, most citizens seem to appreciate the tourist that come and visit our treasure, at least they do if thus tourist demonstrates a charismatic personality and a friendly vibe.

As an assignment I played the role of being a tourist for a day. What better place to visit and pretend to be a tourist than our very own Old San Juan? It was an exquisite Sunday noon, the sun was candent, and my family and me were up to accomplish the being an American tourist for a day mission.

We started strolling along the streets in a cheerful manner, and since it was my assignment I decided to step up and start acting out my false tourist identity. I was as happy as can be, I smiled at everyone, and from time to time I waved at people while exclaiming an enthusiastic: Hello! It really felt homely and cozy. Life gives you what you give to it; if you feel cheery and friendly it will respond you in the same manner; it’s like an echo.

Eventually we kept walking until we reached “La Mala Vida” en exquisite place to eat and have a good time. Our plan was to start speaking in English, impose our false tourist identity and culminate in the same manner. Nonetheless, we get in, we speak to the hostess, we settle at our table for five and when the waiter arrives she was the daughter of my mother’s cousin.

Needless to say she frantically started to speak in Spanish saying how such a long time we haven’t seen each other, asking how were we doing this past couple of weeks, exclaiming that she was very happy to see us, that her sister Works at “La Mala Vida” from “La Placita” in Santurce, that her mother was going to the gym. Suddenly we completely forgot about the assignment and responded in the same language she was speaking to us.

We wanted to go to the movies, but before leaving Old San Juan we visited a few chapels and again, polite small talk erupted from our conversations with the people in the area.

Being a tourist in my homeland was a great experience; people tend to believe that when you’re a foreigner visiting another land the citizens will treat you differently. And maybe they do, but at the end of the day it’s all about the attitude you assume, the personality you emanate, the kind gestures and words that you speak what will determinate the treatment you’ll receive from others.

Reflection on The Rum Diary

Paul Kemp is a supposedly failed writer who ends up traveling to Puerto Rico. Here he finds and gets a job in a local newspaper in Puerto Rico’s capital, San Juan. We can appreciate how Paul and Sala are othered by the newspaper’s editor who presumptuously thinks he is better than those two alcoholics, thus since the beginning we can appreciate how othering takes place in this Young man’s life.

Everyone has an identity, but not everyone gets to perceive the real identity of a person. However, his new coworkers quickly sentenced Paul identity. Then there’s Chenault, a fascinating woman who he met while she was skinny dipping, avoiding a Union Carbide Party. This same woman out groups Paul, she already met him and she indiscreetly pretends to meet him for the first time. It’s evident and clear that there’s a shift in perspective from both sides, especially from Chenault who now has a fiancée named Sanderson, a freelance realtor who offers Paul a job in which consists on writing ads for his latest venture.

The story develops and Kemp’s perspective changes, he starts to understand the local’s point of view. There’s a lot of poverty and misery in this new lands in which he resides. He starts assimilating how the tourism is a mask of the reality, he starts to comprehend the location and perspective of the locals, and that the newspaper does not want him to write about the reality because it may compromise the island’s tourism. We see how he is practically forced to out group the locals and in group himself with his superiors at work. He must exclude the poor, somewhat ignoring the real life situation, and write to promote the tourism.

Kemp eventually prefers to participate in a real estate scam with Sanderson and Sala. As it goes wrong he ends up in jail, further realizing that there is much poverty not only on Puerto Rico, but on St. Thomas as well.

As the story develops, both Sala and Kemp are excluded from the real estate deal. Searching for a job they head to the newspaper they worked before, to their surprise the newspaper is closing.

He then takes matter into his own hands when he decides to write an article about poverty and murky deals. They need money and can’t seem to find any, so they commit illegal actions participating in a cockfight and winning it, but the police is searching for them.

Finally Kemp abandons his new life on the island escaping with a boat. He gets to New York, he publishes his articles, he marries Chenault, find his voice as a writer and becomes a successful journalist.

A little on “Teaching” and “Helping”

The book Down on The Island is a great book written by Jim Cooper, an exquisite memoir about an American English Literature Professor who worked in Puerto Rico at the Colegio of Mayagüez during the 1950’s. In his book he depicts his opinion of The Colegio, of the country, about his coworkers, students and the role politics played in those days. Cooper taught a second hand language to a culture that was foreign to him, not an easy task, but he took on the Challenge. He was considerate while understanding the differences and working in their favor, as a result he overcame various obstacles.

In the chapter of Teaching, Cooper explains how he was the only continental professor that enjoyed from previous teaching experience. He was in charge of putting order in the system, while writing a new syllabus for the course, a task he must fulfill on his own since his boss didn’t believe in the Puerto Rican’s capacity to learn.

He states how Spanish was Puerto Rico’s indigenous language, and how English became a second hand language. The situation signified that students who were educated in the public system wouldn’t dominate the English language. Even the pronunciation seemed compromised to these student, most couldn’t understand the difference between high or hi, reach or Rich. The few students who were able to do well in class were the students whose family had sufficient Money to give them an education abroad or in a private school.

As a result of eagerly wanting to receive a good grade and not having dominion of the language, students started to cheat in the exams. However, this situation was not exclusive to the English department, during a meeting a Spanish Literature professor how students cheated in their Spanish tests as well. The problem strived from the erratic student perception of the students, who thought their actions as helping instead of cheating. He states how clearly didn’t understand a difference between getting a grade and earning it.

Evidently some of the situations postulated in this book are still valid nowadays, and it’s clearly affecting the student ability to receive a good education. Many students cheat, some don’t understand the material, and even professors seem to have given up on their pupils. We’re submerged in a dangerous cycle passed on from generation to generation. It’s time for actions, it’s time to recognize that cheating is not helping, and that helping is not cheating. There’s a difference. We must learn to work together as a team, the system, the students and the professor, our education and future lies solely in our hands and decisions.

Journal's Final Reflection

“I want to look into the parts of my personality that I hide from myself.” - Cynthia Pittmann

I am profoundly grateful for participating from the opportunity of fulfilling the journal task, this inspired me to write and exteriorize in a sincere way the plethora of thoughts that rush towards my conscious and subconscious mind on a daily basis. It has definitely been a compelling journey; I found what I needed all along, a genuine, authentic and truthful conversation with my own self to organize my thoughts, and ultimately the outcome of my life.

I’ve realized that we become what we think, because what we most profoundly think of we are bound to act upon; what we act upon is driven by the choices we make, the choices we make governs our outcome, our outcomes provide a feedback loop in which we can either positively influence our thoughts or negatively influence them. This influence manages to work itself upon our mind; ultimately emanating it’s frequency and energy to the universe, which in turn answers us with exactly what we gave. 

This assignment has somewhat incited betterment in my life, after its completion I decided to live every moment of my whole life in a 12/12 basis. I am aware of a useful compass that can guide me in times of turmoil; I just need to emanate an optimal spiritual and natural north; have a cascade of coherent, promising, fulfilling ideas in my east; embrace the beauty of emotions, bringing homeostasis to my south; and enjoy a healthy, energized, well able physic that’s capable of working hard and conquering dreams in my west.

Mysteriously this task has come to bring about a lesson I won’t soon forget. We need to shift our entire attention to the magic of the moment. We sometimes say that something’s missing in our life, and the only thing missing is presence. We need to train our mind to see the beautifulness and the good every single situation offers. This is your life, your decisions, your hopes, your happiness, and your dreams. It was Franklin D. Roosevelt who once said: “The only thing we should fear is fear itself.” So live a life you’re proud of and pursue every single one of your hopes, goals and dreams. Fear, remorse and regret are not an option. Let’s upgrade our mentality, let’s bring about a shift in our own awareness and subsequently we’ll light up the life of those that surround us.