Let'sThink about The Journal

Picture that's on my journal

This is a topic i have been thinking of since the beginning of the journal.  I actually believe my first entry is about this that I'm about to say.  I feel like this is my video blogs (vlogs) on paper. 2 years ago I started vlogging with a group of people i met online and became friends with, and after a while i started doing daily ones for myself where i would talk about what i did in my day and about whatever was on my mind, and writing in the journal feels just like that.

Around 50 days in the videos, i stopped doing them daily, and for a few reasons, like : I was just complaining for 6 minutes, or i didn't feel like i had anything of true substance to say, and sometimes i felt like i could be using those 6 -15 minutes more productively.  That has been my problem writing in the Journal.  I didn't feel alright writing everyday because i felt a lot of times, like i was losing my time just complaining for 10 minutes, and sometimes this just made me feel worse.  Of course there were some times i actually talked about something important to me.

Here's the thing, I live a happy life with almost no problems apart from work stress (horrible i know, i am so tortured) so when i was thinking of problems to talk about or thoughts for going and tapping the jugular all that came out was work stress and the occasional "I kinda feel lonely" and that feeling goes away quickly, and i once or twice talked about the problems my family faced a few years back but apart from that I mostly just wrote about immediate thoughts that had no relation with each other  nor real context at all just a bunch of  "Im tired, i need to do work, im in x class and i want to keep reading my book" "i heard someone walk in, i hope its my friend".

I used to dream and remember a lot but now it only happens mid-day weekends, when i take naps, and writing after wake up is a disaster.  It doesn't matter if it's weekday or weekend trying to write tired ends up me writing about how tired i am or me writing with my eyes closed which can end up either ok or horribly.

Final thoughts on the Journal: After 41 journal entries i can say....It was a nice experience, i enjoyed it, but i didn't particularly enjoy HAVING to make it.  I think i'll stick to video journals because i feel more comfortable and closer to it alredy, it helps me talk in english and gives me something to watch later on, with a bit more context by looking at my room or my state.

Let's think about "On Looking"

I've been putting this writing off for way too long, I finish this now.

The reason I've been putting this off is because I'm not sure what to talk about here. Its a very interesting read, but it doesn't leave me with much to "think about", well, except for "how do i see the world?" and "How else can i look at it?". That's fine, it's what it's meant to do, everyone that reads it starts wondering this. As interesting as this might be to one self it's just weird to share this with others, without having something concrete to look at together and seeing the differences.

This being said, it did remind me of something very much alike, that portrays a similar message, this one not about looking at stuff differently depending on your past, who you are and what you are doing (which is the main topic in "On Looking: Eleven Walks with Expert Eyes by Alexandra Horowitz") and more about how we see everything but we're not observing everything.What it reminded me of was of a TEDTalk, where Apollo Robins, known as the best pitpocket in the world talks about misdirection.

The best example of how we don't see everything i can use from this show is this:

You have a phone on you, right?  Probably a smart phone (if not, keep reading, or watch the video at the end).
You probably use this every day, so without looking at it, tell me, tell yourself, think: What app/icon is at the bottom right corner of your phone?

Can you remember? Go check.

If you know 100% that that is what is there, check anyways, you might be surprised, tell me in the comments if you were right, lets do a little experiment.

The best example of how we don't see everything i can use from this show is this: Now, that you've checked, put your phone away...

"You missed that." was the first sentence in "On Looking" and it's perfect.   I can't say for certain that you did, but there's a high probability that you did.
You just looked on your phone, and every phone has the same thing, no matter which one, so now tell me...

 What time is it?

When i first saw this in the TED Talk it made me want to try to look at everything with more detail, not be misdirected, and this is the feeling that I kinda felt while reading "On looking" curiosity.

Final thoughts: "On looking" is good read, but i feel it would have impacted me more if i hadn't gone through something similar as the author. This is strange because sometimes being close to what they're trying to show is better but in this case I just felt like it didn't have much of an impact, but remembering that I looked at things different than others and sharing this with others is the best, and it's making us think about looking, so its fulfilling its purpose.

Click here to watch the TEDTalk, you won't regret it.

Click here to read the excerpt, you wont regret this one either.

Let's think about " A room with a view"

I would like to say i have my thought's all clear about this, but I don't.  I somewhat enjoyed the movie, but I'm not sure what i can say about it.

First of all, for those who never saw the movie, here's a little synopsis I found on IMDB:

It's the Edwardian era. The Honeychurches - Marian Honeychurch and her two just of age children Lucy Honeychurch and Freddy Honeychurch - are a carefree and fun-loving family that live in the country town of Summer Street, Surrey. Regardless, Lucy is a proper young woman. Some can tell by the way she plays Beethoven on the piano that there is a seething passion underneath her proper demeanor. She and her older cousin, her chaperon Charlotte Barlett, who is officious in a slyly undermining way, travel to Florence, Italy for a week-long respite. The Pensione Bertolini where they are staying is popular among British tourists. Among the disparate group of other British guests at the pensione are a Mr. Emerson, who Charlotte considers vulgar because of his forwardness, and his son, the bright but brooding George Emerson. As their stay progresses, George feels that Italian life is opening his eyes to what is important in life, and he feels the same is happening to Lucy. On a group outing, an incident occurs which both Charlotte and Lucy consider improper, which leads to the two leaving Italy early and heading back to England. Shortly thereafter, Lucy gets engaged to the upper crust and passionless Cecil Vyse. And Mr. Emerson moves to Summer Street, with George visiting on the weekends. As George befriends the Honeychurches, Lucy begins to tell a series of lies, mostly to herself, about what and who she really wants for and in her life. - Written by Huggo

 An interesting view, one you don't need a room for, is how classes are presented.  Throughout the whole movie one see's the differences of class between the characters.  Although one can infer they're mostly upper middle class and high class, there are still a lot of differences. For example, the character Cecil Vyse represents more or less what a perfect upperclassman was like, always proper, reading enjoying his perks, while George Emerson, was from a lower class and he enjoyed skinny dipping playing tennis and other activities.

While all of this is presented, there is also the fact that Lucy is a woman and how does this play with everything and everyone.  I found it interesting that she could break up her wedding arrangement with Cecil and get to choose who she loved by the end because knowing how hard women have been treated for years, that she got a choice, even if it's fiction, it is a big deal.

Final thought's: It was a good movie, it feels longer than it actually is, i think it's worth the watch, but not a "Need to watch".  Good exposure of classes and it also gives some power to the female character, so in that perspective it's great.

Let's think about "The Use of Force"

The Use of Force is a short story written by William Carlos Williams about a visit to the doctor's office.  Short story even shorter: the doctor uses force to examine a little girl against her will.

The big question here:  Was this necessary and right to do this?
The other questions: Was it violence? Does the end justify the means?

Was it necessary? Yes, in a way, the examination WAS necessary, but it didn't have to happen that way, his action was very rushed, and not that much time had happened, in no moment was it expressed that the doctor was in a rush, so he could have taken time to try to convince the girl at least.  What if she still didn't let him? Well, then i believe it would have been more appropriate to do what he did, but it still wouldn't have been the best, but it would have been necessary, this was a dangerous disease after all, the child's health is important.

Was it violence? Well this is very subjective, starting by the definition.  Violence is defined as "the use of physical force to harm someone, to damage property, etc." by the Merriam Webster online dictionary, which would mean that no, it wasn't violence.  To my understanding, the doctor never meant harm or damage the girl, that was just an accident.  Here's the problem, the same dictionary defines violence as great destructive force or energy.  With this definition, the act can be violence, but it easily can not be, since there's no way to measure if the force was "great or not".

And lastly, does the end justify the means? Well, we never knew the end, but it has two possibilities, the doctor got a result or not. If he did, well it kinda did, it wasn't the best way to do it, but it was important. If after that he still couldn't get it, well, that was just a rushed tough act that was a horrible call of his part, and he definitely shouldn't do something like that again (not that he should if he got the results).

Final thoughts: It was an interesting thought provoking read, and the ending is still very weird. I believe the doctor did the right thing, the wrong way, and everything that went wrong, or at least most, could have been done without problem another way.

Let's think about the blogger

The blogger, in other words, me.

It is difficult to describe a person... and get them right.  There is always going to be something missing, or just not correct, because even when talking about yourself, you might say things that aren't true or miss facts that are important to describe you.

This doesn't matter, at least not here, this isn't "Let's think about thinking about yourself" it's "Let's think about the blogger" which in this case, it's me (unless you're a blogger too, but that doesn't matter, I'm still going to talk about me).

My name is Dylan Cruz and I am a first year math mayor in the UPR Rio Piedras campus.  The only fact in that sentence that will stay true (possibly) until I die is that that is my name, I will get to second year next semester and I'm still not sure if math is right for me (computer sciences and physics are very convincing).

I live in Trujillo Alto with my parents and my younger brother. I enjoy reading and playing video games, i do other stuff like listen to podcasts and talk on the phone with my friends for hours, but those usually involve stuff I read or played.  I normally obsess over what I'm interested in and read a lot about it, normally it's not that important so i have a lot of useless knowledge, fun facts if you wish.

Did you know that 1994's game Earthbound had 8 Mb used in just it's music, it doesn't sound like much but games at the time where normally from  4 to 8  Mb the whole game.  Also this game took 5 years to make which is a long time, then and now.

Anyways, that's me i guess. It could be someone else entirely, maybe i made this up, or maybe it's me from my own perspective and not really me, either way, now you know what kind of person you'll be reading the thoughts of.

Final thoughts: I am confused with myself, but i liked this.

Let's think about Running Brave

      Running Brave is a movie that originally hit the big screen in 1983, and recently hit the small screen on the classroom's DVD in the English literature class in the UPRRP campus.  It is based on the true tale of the Native American Billy Mills, as he left his reservation to study in the white world and run in the white world and eventually beat everyone in the Tokyo Olympics in 1964.


The story itself is amazing.  It's the story everyone likes about the kid that is not from here and he beat all odds and all expectation to become triumphant.  By the end of the movie it showed a representation of the race he won in 1964 (original shown below).

 

Apart from all of this, the story is mostly about overcoming prejudice and stereotypes.  In many parts of the movie one can see this from the "I don't want an Indian running for me", "Indians are quitters' from the coach, to the "I'm used to getting pushed by white men" and the white hate from Eddie (an Indian), but even our main character has a casts away someone when he says there is only one other Indian in campus, but she's fat.  This last one was just said as a small joke to add in but it's just adding  this prejudice to Billy Mills.  It could be taken as a positive line by other means saying no one really escapes being prejudice and that line gave the character more credibility, but in the end its counter productive in a movie where one of the main goals is showing that one can overcome those and shouldn't be like that.

Final thoughts on the movie:  It was very enjoyable, it had good scenery, and acting, and over all it was good.