Sexual education

The world is full of discrimination, people will judge you because of the way you dress, the way you walk, the way you talk, the way you think in fact the presence if difference and absence of tolerance are the main triggers of this social problem that affect an elevated number of persons in different magnitude. Sex is considered a taboo in most cultures now in the 21^st century is when we are first experiencing the first symptoms of social evolution and acceptance. Most people consider sex as something intimate, something special, sacred pure that you should not be willing to talk with nobody. There is something that most people forgot. What about the biological need for sex? What about the part that humans are animals and animals are guided by natural selection? What about the principal dogma of all animals that live to reproduce? These are the three basic questions that most people forgot to ask themselves when they started pointing fingers at the act of sex. The act of sex has two sides, the biological and the cultural one that will vary depending on where you are and how you were raised and it is very important no to aisle them and instead treat them as a whole.

Sex should not be left as something obscure, as something mysterious, as something that you should not talk about, maybe and just maybe that is one of the main reasons because we have so many STD’s (Sexually Transmitted Diseases). The starting point would the fact of poor education, if something is culturally prohibited there would be lack of education, and that would lead to a larger spread of them. This year we have seen an increment of over a 30% of STD’s including HIV, Chlamydia, Gonorrhea and Syphilis and we should ask ourselves: Why is this happening?. The theory of many is precisely the fact that most people do not want to talk about sex, which leads to parents ignoring the fact that most of the kids now a day’s start they sexually active life’s at about 16 years old and who’s going to teach those kids about STD’s and protection?

A testimony of someone who has been living with one of this condition is essential when analyzing the possible social and cultural triggers of the continuous increment of these diseases. “My name is Sandra (fictitious name) I got HIV when I was 16 from who was my current boyfriend”. She told us her story and of lack of sexual education was definitely a factor that could have diminished her probability of getting infected. She started having sex when she was really young and ignorant, neither his mom nor her school teachers ever explained to her what the consequences of having sex were and the prevention that she could have had. There are many cases like Sandra’s that could have been avoided if sexual education were provided during early stages of sexual maturation so it is important that people start being more open minded and the statistics of STD’s incidence could be lowered.

Oral Presentation

Not always is easy talking about your self or trying to see the way other people looks at you. Sometimes the way other people sees you, your people or your country could be very shocking and sometimes it could be pretty pleasant. Talking about the perception of other about you can be challenging if that opinion is not the one you were hoping for. On the presentation about the perception of outsiders over Puerto Rico and Puerto Ricans was really easy because the opinion about us on the rest of the world is close to how I see myself, but people don't know even half of what really goes inside the island and there is where perception comes in play.

Being Puerto Rican is about being happy, being loud, hard working, and proud. The perception of outsiders over us can be sometimes a little far from reality, generally Puerto Ricans are associated with music, party, rum, and dancing. It is true we have one of the best rums in the world, is true that we are the party people dancing and playing music, but there is more to that. Our culture is a rich mixture of every men that passed through here, spanish, african, and Taino. As a country we are seen as a privileged place with beautiful beaches, beautiful mountains, great weather all year round and a very versatile landscape. The perception only goes over what tourist sees and television present, but inside the island there is more beauty to see than a magnificent beach. Inside our beautiful island there is rich beautiful culture, people sticking together on the country to make a better living out of it but we also have violent people killing each other in the streets. This last one is the one that worries me the most, the perception of our island is changing because of a minority that decided to solve problems with violence instead of using words. These people are the one making the news on a daily basis and those news are reaching outside of our coast. Perception can be changed easily all you need is one wrongful act to change a million good acts.

When you present somebody else perception about things you need to be careful and have an iron skin because not always we are aware of our reality and how the world sees us. In Puerto Rico we are lucky that the perception the world has on us is almost intact. It might be because we are a tiny island or it might be because we are doing more right than wrong. No matter which one it is we still need to work hard to keep a good perception under the world after all is what identify us. 

Jim Cooper "Helping"

The Puertorrican people are persons who live to help out whoever they can, it doesn't matter what it is if you need help you will always find someone to help you. Since little kinds we are told to share with our friends and help them out. The educational system does the same for kids when they are starting to get used to learning and testing. In the school I studied students from the first grade through the third grade will be sitting on a collective table. Every activity you do in the classroom is with that group including the test for the material that way instead of having failures you have kids that share knowledge and help each other to succeed.

The term helping a friend out is just an excuse on collage and university levels for cheating. By that time the students should be mature enough to know that it is your effort what is going to give you a grade and not the effort of the “friend” on your side. Is normal that some students learn slower than others or the levels of education during high school were no the ones to set him for success. This is the reason why I think that we should have teachers that dominate both, English and Spanish, so the when a student finds himself stuck on some learning the teacher can be able to help in a more precise way because if trouble is with language there is never going to be good communication between teacher and student, and learning will never be achieved. One important point discussed by Copper is the relations between students and teachers, teachers are meant to be educators and not friends I think the the relation between the students and teachers should be limited to the classroom only and not to bars. By becoming friend with a student the credibility of the teacher can be jeopardized.

I think is a good idea to encourage kids to help out each other but in order to be prepared for the world they need to learn about competition. Cooperative programs should be limited to the first grade of school that way the student looses fear to the teachers and test. Competition should be encouraged from there on for students to challenge themselves to achieve their goals. Competition is also the only way to prepare people for the real world after school, in the university you will be competing with hundreds of students that will take your place on graduated school or on the job that you wanted simply because you did not compete hard enough. Competition is a fine line we should do it to the point the it is morally correct for our benefit but without hurting your opponents. Competition is the key to success combined with a good education mainly in the private school system will guarantee a successful experience during collage or university.

Journal experience

As part of the course  INGLS 3135 -that requires this blog- we were assigned an activity that consist on making a journal in which you would write five days a week until you complete forty entries. There was five essential rules to follow while you were writing on the journal which included: don’t crossover, don’t worry about spelling or grammatical errors, go for the jugular, keep your hand moving at all times for ten minutes and the most important don’t think or get logical. After the first 30 entries another task were added to the writing process on the journal, we were asked to draw a spiral inside a circle and on the outsides using a rank from one to three we were supposed to measure our physical, mental, spiritual and emotional feelings. After that we would write a small paragraph in which we would analyze those numbers, why we were feeling that way and how we could improve those numbers.

This activity was really difficult for me because I am not really used to write since my major doesn’t really require much of it. Of all the five rules the most difficult one for me to follow was the don’t think or get logical one because I don’t really understand how could you possibly write without thinking. I think that as the time passed my writing skills were getting worst. The first week I worried about punctuations and grammar in general and my handwriting was pretty and neat but as the weeks passed by I can barely understand what I wrote, and I worried less about grammar –which was in accordance with the rules-. Sometimes I started writing nonsense stuff that I don’t even understand and that’s because it was kind of a torture for me to sit down and start writing. I tried writing during the mornings, daytime and late night before going to bed but I had the same feeling of obligation and lack of motivation no matter what time I try to write. The last two weeks I try using the journal to organize my thoughts but I always ended up planning my day or writing stuff to study for my other classes. I can say that I never got to achieve the goal of writing without thinking that just doesn’t fit into my mind.

I don’t consider myself very creative in the sense of imagining myself doing or living different stuff that I am actually doing so the phrase “internal journey” is very alien for me. I did understand the concept and purpose of it but I couldn’t apply it to myself but I do admire the people that have that ability. I really think that it’s wonderful being able to see yourself in a introspective way and travel inside you, but I do realize that as everything in life it’s not for everyone.  One of the most pleasant journal writing for me was the last one, I set my phone chronometer at 10 minutes and start writing as usual in my notebook. I felt so excited that it was the last entry, it was the first time that I wrote without pushing myself to do it, when I re-read what I wrote it was really coherent and the central theme was about physiology I wrote some thoughts that pop into my mind combining them with theories and it was a really interesting entry.

Jim Cooper "Teaching English"

The key to be successful in life academically is set on the basis of education. If a children don’t learn the basic stuff in a successful way they would have trouble later on their life. For a good education we need trained teachers capable of delivering the tools necessary for learning during the elementary years of school which are the ones that shape the educational base of every human being. In Puerto Rico for example, the only way to successfully educate a child on public schools is with external aid paid by the parents or with the help of parents themselves. The education program for public schools is sadly poor for the needs of our country.

In order for freshmen students from public schools to be successful in collage the government has to start training public school teachers in english as a first language and not as a second one, this way the teacher will have complete knowledge  about what he is teaching to the student and at the same time will be able to dominate the student’s first language to clear any doubts in the process of learning. In my case I was educated in a private school where I had the opportunity to get comfortable with the English language. The majority of my text books throughout middle and high school where in English and that gives the student the opportunity to work with the language on a daily basis and prepare you for college where you really see a text book in Spanish. On the other hand in public schools the educational programs are so behind our times that it is almost impossible to keep up with the needs of a student to be prepared for the future. University’s curriculum shouldn't be the ones adapting to the lack of knowledge of the students, the school programs should be the ones changing to send totally prepared and successful young adults to the world.

At the end of the chain it all falls on the government hands. Corruption, is one of the main causes of the failing educational program on the the island. The lack of founds for teachers drains out any motivation for the teacher to go to school, instead we have teachers wasting days by no going to work. The physical installations are in so bad conditions that is nearly even possible to give a class without any interruption from failing equipment. Parents on the other hand just don’t care anymore in the majority of public schools in Puerto Rico, just a handful of them are responsible enough to take action and help out the children with school issues. If teaching is a passion for someone it should be a pleasant experience to do it. The only way to make it that way is to prepare better our students and sustain our educational system the way it is suppose to be. I’m sure that with better physical installations and prepared teachers, students will be successful in any matter and language they get teach. 

"Daisy Miller"

Daisy Miller is a young lady who enjoys living on the outside, who enjoys adventure and traveling. Daisy Miller is a traveler by nature she spends all of her time in the search of a new place, like she said to Mr. Winterbourne, “we are in the cars about half the time.” That part right there lets us know that the family spent their days traveling across Europe. When you are a tourist you just go to a place or series of places for a short amount of time and then after that go back home where you belong. When you are a traveler you make your home in a new place every other night or week living in hotels and spending your days in a car. Randolph was clearly tired of that lifestyle, he just wanted to go back to New York for candy, friends or go back with his dad who he seems to admire very much. Daisy was a very decided person "See here, Eugenio!"  "I'm going to that old castle, anyway.” when she wanted to visit any place she would go no matter what because her life was a vacation, because she is a traveler.

People some times feel the need to act like others or show another personality that isn’t theirs. Daisy Miller for example was back in the United States Annie Miller. Maybe she didn’t feel comfortable with who she was before becoming a traveler so when she arrived to Europe she adopted a new personality to reach out for who she really wanted to be, an adventurous young and beautiful woman. Winterbourne on the other hand had been so much time in Europe that he got confused by a German. This is not his fault but it is just how the society and the years living in another culture shape you. He admitted to have seen Germans acting and talking like Americans but never an American talking like a German. Mr Giovanelli an Italian young man was centered on the american culture, he learned the language to the point he master it. His goal was to meet more Americans to get to know better the people and their way of acting. This qualities of being so close to be an american give him the opportunity to spend some time with a young and beautiful American woman.

The society, the generations and the time where you live in is what in the most part shapes who you are. The society plays the biggest role on shaping people, the richer you are the more cultivated person you become and start to reject the actions of the lower class society. Mrs. Costello was a person of high distinction in her circles and was a very strong critique on other peoples actions. For her the fact that her nephew was going out with Daisy was almost a sin, Daisy on her eyes was the perfect example of what lust looked like. For her she was a woman having wrongful relationships with the man that they were suppose to treat like a complete stranger, but was treated like one of the family. The way of acting between the generations is always different, this generation right now is more liberal than our grandparents generation and the trend of this tells us that the newer the generation the more liberty they demand.

A small Place-Chapter 2

A colonized territory has no word on what they want and what they don’t want for themselves. This is the story of many of the islands of the caribbean. Pretty much every single island on the caribbean was colonized by one of the major Countries like Spain, England, France or Portugal. The majority of them are by this day free but still have colonies. Puerto Rico was first colonized by the spaniards in the 16 century and then by the United States in 1898. The Spanish bring a huge change to the island, they bring with them slaves, new agricultural products and introduce new methods of transportation like the horse. These changes might seem like progression for some people but what they really were doing was killing the native Taino culture.

The mix of new cultures set a new future through the years and a new culture arose. From a native Taino culture we went to a African oriented culture. Many of today’s typical dressing, food and music came from the African. The industrialization of the island on sugar cane and human labor resource made people in the United States set eyes on our island. These changes brought by Spain made us attractive to an even bigger colonizer. In 1898 Puerto Rico fought a war on the United States to keep them from invading us but at the end they win and made us their colony. During the beginning of this time  changes were radical, schools had english as a first language, a language that the majority of people didn’t know. We didn’t had the right to vote for our own governor. We were living a dictatorship by the country that fight for democracy and freedom. Today more than a hundred years after our island still is under the same oppression as a hundred years ago, yes we have the right to elect our own governance, and legislation but honestly we have been so brain-washed that it is worthless because politics are just hungry for power and money and they do anything to shadow the great nation.

Democracy made us slaves, we have a flag but no space in the world’s affairs, we have a flag but no nationality, we have a flag and we don’t belong here o there. This democracy have kept us slave giving away money to keep our mouths shut but at the end we still have no vote in their politics, the politics that at the end have the higher power on us. Progression might have come with the colonization but at the same time we lost our identity when we sold our souls to the devil, our vocabulary became a non-sense mixture of spanish and english with words that are not present either on the spanish or the english dictionary, the modernization of the island came with big food chains that make us fat and unhealthy just like them, all the good they think they gave us is just some more of their poison in the world.

A Small Place-Chapter 1

As a local we see things in a different way. The beauty of our own place might seem kind of irrelevant to us. I think that the only way to really appreciate things is to need them. For example a person from the mid United States might think of the beach as a wonder of the world, but for a local it might only be another normal day in what others think is paradise.Puerto Rico is not that far away from from Antigua, we have almost the same geography, we have a big tourist market as well and people sometime feel the same way about tourist and sometimes worst.

Like Antigua the first thing you see when you come to the island is the Airport but slightly different for people from the United States. Unlike Antigua, Puerto Rico, for being a territory of the United States has an easier way to come in. US citizens have no need to go through customs or anything like that, they just unload the airplane and keep walking to the outside without doing any lines at all. Once you come out of the Airport facility is pretty much the same deal as Antigua, you have crazy hungry taxi drivers waiting for some “gringo” as we call them to jump inside and try to charge them an excessive amount for a short ride. When you jump into that taxi you will probably ride for about five to ten miles to the hotel strip and you don’t get to see that much of the real face of the island. Tourist just go through the nice and clean streets with beautiful gardens on the side of the road and where the government have removed any sing of economic struggle like for example beggars, they used to be all around the area but in recent years the government of the capital decided to “relocate” them.

It is really frustrating to see people being cheated from the reality of the place they are visiting, many times it seems like it is all perfect but that is only because they don't have to read the news paper everyday or watch the late night news. By the same time Tourists enjoy themselves we have people in the streets killing each other, we have some others begging for some food or money. Way inside where that tourist will never get into we have families living in a single bedroom house that can nearly fit the four of them. Families that have to rationed food so that they have something on their table every day. That is the real face of my island, that is the real face of any other place in the world where you are a tourist. As a tourist you will only see what the government had money to embellish for you to see but the reality is that what you see is about a ten percent of the country the other ninety percent remains abandoned and unseen. 

Identity

One country can have many identities hidden inside itself and only local might be able to recognize the difference between vocabulary, accent and daily activity. In Puerto Rico for example we all speak Spanish as a main language but as you go deeper into the rural side of the island you will begin to notice a difference in accent between the people from inside the island to the people from the city. Maybe as a tourist, an outsider, you wouldn’t notice this because is a language you are not use to hear but for local inhabitants is pretty obvious. A person from Jayuya for example will have a more native accent than the one living in San Juan. This difference could be marked by several variations as the working place and how packed the population is. People from the city usually have to adapt to a more industrialized atmosphere being forced to change the way they talk and to be fluent in other languages like english with is the world’s main trade and business language. The fact that people live so packed in the city makes it easier for the accent and new culture and way of live to spread than if we were more deeper inside the island where sometimes your closest neighbor can be two minutes down the road and you see him every two or three days.

In the United States there is a much bigger difference in accent and language than we have in Puerto Rico. The United States has a much bigger contribution of nations on it soil than any other country in the world. Almost every country if not all are present in the States today. These people walk between American people and maybe we don’t notice them but native people do, the way they act, the way they speak, the way they dress is different but we don’t notice because is not our culture and they all look the same to us. For example the most common would be the Jewish people, I couldn’t tell the difference between them and an American person because I’m not entirely aware of how both cultures are because throughout the years the have blend into the society and make it their own. Difference between accents is very difficult to get, but it is said that a person from Boston has a much stronger accent than a person from lets say Arizona.

The same way we have cultures that blend in very good we have others that doesn’t even bother to blend in. Latin communities usually stick together and is easier to tell the difference. Mexicans and Puerto Ricans in the United States for example have a more distinguished and marked accent than those other communities that have been longer in the States. Normally theses groups try to stay together in the same area for example Mexicans concentrate in areas like California, Texas and Chicago while Puerto Ricans Concentrate more in Florida and New York. These settlements are this way so that the people can feel that they still have their identity as a group being a minority. They take their culture, their language and their style and make that place their own. Like Cubans in Miami they have their own town and is called little Cuba and is place where you can go and live the Cuban culture because they took all what identifies them and moved it with them. the identity of a group is not made only for their own country but it is something that you carry with you anywhere you go.

Tourist for a day

Many people have been talking about the Forest Park La Marquesa located in Guaynabo, Puerto Rico. Most comments that I got to hear about different people were based on the extensive area with exotic birds in which you can enter and interact with them. I wasn’t really interested about visiting the park but because I was supposed to act as a tourist for a day for my English class, I thought that visiting this park was a good idea since I really was going to be a tourist because I’ve never been there. Because of the literature on the internet that I previously read, the park was mostly design to entertain children, so I decided to take my little cousins with me. They are 5 and 8 years old and this definitely was a great opportunity to spend some time with them. 

I planned on getting there at about 10:00am but because I was with two little kids being punctual is almost impossible so we got there at about 11:30am. I found it was not so far from home, about 15 minutes and the road were asphalted and covered on the sides with a lot of gigantic and beautiful trees. What really surprised me was that since you got out of the main road to go to the Park you can see big signs announcing the park on every light and that’s pretty uncommon in Puerto Rico.  Here for what I have seen the government doesn’t really worried about identifying streets or main attractions, but I guess that La Marquesa Forest park had it signs because it was inaugurated just a few months ago.

When I finally got there you have to identify first in what seems like a main gate, then you straight for about two minutes when you finally got to see the parking lot for the visitors. The parking was really packed and I think it was really small for the capacity of the park so I had to park in the very last spot and for me it was not a problem but I was with two small kids that started complaining because they were tires of walking and we haven’t arrived yet. 

Like a few steps ahead from the parking lot you get to see what seems like a small office in which you get information about the park and other main attractions of Guaynabo. Then is a window in which a very nice girl to which I got to pay for the entrance. The prices were really affordable I only spend about $16 including taxes for me and my two cousins. They day wasn’t the greatest one because it was really rainy so the girl on the entrance recommended us to take the cable railway in the first place because if it starts raining the closed it, so we decided to take the tour the way she recommended it. The view was really impressive you can see the mountains of Guaynabo and even the beach on the coast of the island.  At first I was really amazed with the beautiful view but then I got to see how high we were and I started panicking for a second but then I realized that they cables were really strong and it seems pretty secure.  My cousins were really enjoying the ride on the cable railway and I felt really happy and excited for them, and I transported myself instantly to when I was about their age that I had no obligations or preoccupations.  The ride to get to the other side of the park took about 8 minutes and then you arrived to a wood platform that leads you to the aviary and other side were they kept the monarch butterflies.

They have only one species of butterflies and it was the monarch and I get to see the lab where they had different specimens showing the different stages of them and it really surprises me, because I haven’t seen it that close.  The most impressive part was too see all the exotic birds flying on top of you, it was scary at first because I am not used to be in contact with a lot of animals but I must admit that it was one of the greatest experience I’ve ever had.  The bird that most capture my attention was the African gray, he was so intelligent that can speak just like humans and his grey and orange tones in the feathers were beautiful. After the aviary we took a trolly to get to small mountain that has on the top a wood deck in which you can see the same view that you get to see in the cable railway but the difference was that you had to take about 500 stair steps. When you finish looking on top of the wood deck you get to go to about 3 different playgrounds for kids, so there was not much left for me but cousins had a really good time and I actually enjoyed watching at them having fun.

There’s not really much that I really have an opportunity to see my surroundings but in there I really got to see everything that was around me, including people, animals, and things that most of the time I never notice like the different shapes of the clouds. I am glad that I decided to gave me an opportunity to visit the park because it was definitely not what I expected but in a good way.  If you ask me I would recommend it for people with small kids, because I think that the most attractive thing of the park its watching the kids playing in their playgrounds.

                                                      View from the cable rail way

                                                                           Butterfly House

                                                                          Parrot

                                                                African Gray Parrot

                                                                             cockatoo

                                                               Jorge a visitor to the park

A room with a view

Lucy Honeychurch is a middle class woman at the 20th century surrounded by a culture in change, specially for the women.Lucy comes out to Florence, Italy for the first time at the beginning of a revolutionizing era where women were beginning to demand more independency and leadership. Lucy’s older cousin Charlotte, who travels with her to Florence is more of an old-fashioned lady. In this movie we can see clearly how the culture was screaming for a change from one generation to another.Lucy falls in love with this man during the trip to Italy but is something that would not look good under the eyes of the people who surrounded her. The culture by that time was very strict when it came to women and and who they were going to be with. Usually the woman didn’t have much of a choice for the man they married because the family will search the most appropriate in accordance with their needs. The movie clearly shows us the two points of view of the cultural and political changes of the time, the radical part demonstrated by Lucy and the conservative side demonstrated by Cecil.

The movie opens up in Florence at the hotel Lucy and her cousin were staying, in this opening scene is where Lucy first met George Emerson over a discussion of the room view. Mr Emerson and his son offered their room to the ladies because he said that man didn’t need a view but women did. Charlotte who plays a conservative character in this movie declines to the offer saying that it was rude from him to insist on giving the the room but Lucy who should be the radical part of this scene disagrees with charlotte saying that the offer didn’t intent any harm at all and that they should take the Emersons room with the view to the river. Late in the movie a group made by the Emersons, Lucy, Charlotte and a couple other persons made their way to the country side of Italy. Here Lucy has an encounter with George that leads for them to kiss. George saw the opportunity thinking they were alone and went for it but Charlotte was right on the back of them and saw it all. Lucy and Charlotte discuss about the events and came to the agreement of keeping it a secret for everyone specially for Lucy’s mother because for Charlotte this would mean a shame for Lucy and also she would be the one to blame because she was the one in charge of Lucy at the moment and couldn’t let anything like this to happen.

Later in the movie we can see the empowerment of woman taking character into Lucy as she starts to takes decisions into her own hands. After the Emersons move to town by recommendation of Cecil George and Freddy become great friends. The two of them were doing all kind of activities together like swimming on the lake, playing tennis and so on. One day after a tennis game George finds himself in the opportunity to kiss Lucy again this event led her to a lot of confusion about if she should marry Cecil or not. That same night she took the matter into her own hands and decided that she wasn’t going to marry Cecil and she wanted to go to Greece instead. For all of this to happen she had to lie to everyone so that she wouldn’t be punished by society. But at the end she got what she wanted and she was happy with it. 

Introspection

My name is Lianed Pérez Mercado, I was born on December 17, 1993 in San Juan Puerto Rico. My parents named my after themselves combining both of their names, Lillian and Edwin. I am the youngest of two children, my older brother Edwin was born exactly one year before me on December 17, 1992. From an early age I have been fascinated by the human body and how it works. The human body is an exceptional machine with diverse systems producing a whole that could never be artificially reproduced. I remember playing operation but not on the game board like any other kid, I used to play it on my self lay down on my bed and pretended I was practicing an operation on myself. this dream, this goal have made me who I am today. I consider myself a focused person up to now i have been able to accomplish my goals through life. At this moment I’m currently finishing my fourth year on the University of Puerto Rico Rio Piedras campus ready for graduation and start med school next August. 

From kinder trough eighth grade I studied in a small school named Cristo Rey. In this school I made my first group of friends a lot of which I’m still in contact with and some still being good friends. Since I was little I was a very social person, was close to my friends, and tried to be friendly with everyone so that I could make more friends. After my graduation from Cristo Rey on the eighth grade I started to study in San Antonio which was a much bigger school than the one I was coming from but still a place to make new friends and even maybe some love, yes that’s the place where I met who today is my boyfriend, but that’s another story that might even fit inside a whole book. my next step after school was the University of Puerto Rico where I’m currently finishing my bachelor degree on Biology. The years here have been a lot more difficult than school but I managed to keep my head up and finish my goal. I consider myself a persevering person and capable of doing everything I propose to myself, I have demonstrate it during my life and right now I’m only a few steps to reach my biggest goal in life. 

One of my favorite hobbies that I started practicing when I was little was the art of mosaic which is now a way to relax myself and use it a therapy when I’m feeling stressed out. Traveling is a passion for me I love to learn about new cultures and see new places. One of my favorite countries is Canada the first time I went there I fell in love with the whole country. The people treat you so nice is almost incredible, people seem happy with their country and you can feel how proud they are of their culture. In the same way I enjoy seeing other people proud of their culture I love to see people enjoy my country. The love for my tiny island is even bigger than itself every time I have the opportunity with my friends and my boyfriend I just jump into car and go discover new places around the island. Is amazing how every time I go out I’m able to discover a new place, a new beach, a new restaurant or a new spot to hang out with my friends. At the end of the day I’m just the same as any other person trying to do the best for me and the people around me, the only difference is that I’m the best on everything I really want to do.

English: The high speed traveler

There are about 7,000 to 8,000 different languages on the planet earth, some countries are owners of up to 700 different human languages and dialects. The origin of language dates as far as 0.2 million years ago. The skill of social learning gave the human race advantages over other species of animals to acquire a method of communication. Social learning is the idea of being able to learn from your own mistakes and from other individuals and applicate the learning to yourself. For examples primates use the same system for they’re survival skills every single time. Human race on the other hand decided to take another path on the evolutionary line, human race decided to live in a cooperative society where we share our ideas to seek advantages and better ourself in our life styles. The result of this social skill of learning is language itself, being able to communicate is the result of what society is now. Language can travel all around the world same as it con stick only to one region or in other cases it could get to the point of extinction. The spread of language depends of the importance of the language at the moment and the needs of people. For the last couple generations capitalism has rule the world with the United Sates being the face of it so guess which is the official language of trade world wide…? English that’s right the world market moves only around one language and that is english, but is not the only dominant language in the world, actually Spanish is the most spoken language in the world followed by English and Mandarin. The spread of a language depends on the needs of the people.

On 1814 Malta officially bacame part of the British Empire as part of the of the Treaty of Paris. Because of it’s location Malta became the headquarters of the British fleet and was used as a shipping way station. For around 150 years the island of Malta was under the domain of Great Britain. Malta contracted the status of commonwealth being an “independent country” but still under the governance of Queen Elizabeth II. 88% of the population of Malta speaks English today. The fact that the island was under the control and influence of the British developed the perfect scenario to lear the language because as stated before the needs of the people will dictate the language spoken. In this case the island of Malta was under the control of the British Empire for over 150 years and that made it necessary to learn the language and use it as their own. The island stalls maintain their original language but the need for commerce and trade made it necessary to learn the English from the British. 

Similar to the island of Malta we have the situation of our beloved Puerto Rico. Since July 25 1898 under the Treaty of Paris, just like Malta, our beautiful island was ceded to the United States. As a result of being a territory of the United State our culture curved out to be more closer to the U.S. culture. Schools started to teach english as the official language at first but after July 25, 1952 Puerto Rico adopted the position of a commonwealth and began to take it’s own decisions as a free state. Although spanish is the official language of the island the influence of the United States made of Puerto Rico a territory with similar cultural and economic activities to them. As the years pass the younger generations become more closer to the states culture and language adopting english as their own on daily used vocabulary with words such as “parking”, “popcorn”, and other derived terms.

Running Brave

The great white nation is composed by a 66% white people, 13% African American, 4% Asian, 2% of other races, and only 1% is compromised by the original inhabitants of the land. First of all I don’t know what could possibly be the great deal about being so proud of nation that they think is the white paradise when almost half the people living on the territory are not consider pure american for them.The labor force in the United States is looking better for the hispanic group with a 69% of participation versus white with only a 66% of participation. These numbers could be a little “tricky” because yes there’s a bigger white community in the United States but yet the number of people willing to do something better for themselves is higher by the percent in the hispanic group meaning that people not consider “american”, even though we live in the same continent, America, and some of us are even born citizens of the United States, are actually working harder in the country than those who call themselves the people who founded the country. About 12,000 years ago, maybe before, the land of what is now United States was populated by its original inhabitants and it wasn’t until the European explorations after 1492 that they were disturbed by the white people. The native american were settled for thousands of years in the land in peace but they were forced to move and settled reservations to the west side of the land as the europeans were conquering from the east founding a new country and trying to get over the Mississippi river. In American history books, the Indian Wars have often been treated as a relatively minor part of the military history of the United States and were long treated from the point of view of Americans.

In the movie Running Brave, Billy Mills, who I would call a dreamer is the author of one of the greatest upsets ever seen in sports history. As a distance runner, Billy Mills sprinted from third place to the front taking the gold medal in the 10,000 meter race at the 1964 Tokyo Olympics. Mills still holds the record for being the only american able to recover like that on an olympic race. Billy Mills went out of the reservation to Kansas University on the early stages of a rising capitalist white culture. Throughout history the people from the United States have demonstrate a lack of tolerance for what they consider foreigners. In this case the indian boy, Billy Mills, represents a threat for the whole team and teammates feel that he is trying to take over the school. Same stupid mentality happens with black people by that time who were not even able to attend school because they used to think they were not good enough for school. Another example is the latino community in the movie the roommate ask him if if he was a puertorrican or “something like that” hoping that he wasn’t. Clearly there is a racist tendency with non white people all over history and the native american group has been a target for hundreds of years  now. Billy Mills and his family felt like they couldn't fit in the world because they were not good enough for it or at least thats how they made him feel. On the olympic games he wasn’t on of the favorites even with the history he had running for collage, only one person was able to recognize his talent and that was the coach who went all the way to Japan to see him race.

After all these years people in the United states keep being racist and scare of other people to reach high into the states. One of the latest examples of it is the winning ticket of the Powerball Lottery in Puerto Rico. All over the social media people were writing racist comments about our island and our people because they don't see us as part of the states but sadly for all of them in the case of puertorrican we were born US citizens and in the case of natives americans that was their land for thousands of years. People in the United States need to learn that they are the foreigners on their own country and that they don’t need to share space with anyone is actually the native group who is being force to share their land.

The world through my eyes

I define myself as a scientific person and I see the world through the eyes of a scientist. As a biology student I’ve learn to see the world from a different perspective than yours probably. When I take a walk into the grocery store I’m looking for food that hasn’t been under certain procedures approved by regulating agencies but that I’m aware that could dangerous if I consume them. For example something so simple as turkey ham for your morning sandwich is a big deal for me. In my house I brought to the attention of my family the risk of consuming some kind of foods such as ham because of the preservatives they need for keeping the product fresh, instead of buying that ham I go with an alternate source such as fresh cut leg ham . I know it might be more expensive but at the end is better than getting sick. Also as a scientific person maybe where you see a handshake between friends all my mind is telling me is how many bacterias I can be exchanging with the other person. As a scientific I see the world more smaller and more complex than the rest of us does.