What it meant to keep a journal...

 

 

So for the past months I've been keeping a journal as part of my literature class...Quiet frankly its been a very interesting process. Personally I've never kept a journal be it because I never really found the time to write in one or because id rather talk to someone than actually write down what I'm thinking. However, this experience has turned out to be much more pleasant than expected.

A very unique thing about my journal is that it was personal, from the outside in. My outside cover, as well as that of my classmates, was completely covered in pictures and quotes that basically speak to the kind of person that I am or of what truly interest me and or defines me. I think it was both fun and quirky for our professor to have us do that as it also made us as classmates get to know each other better. Our professor set up some guidelines for us in the beginning that we had to follow to the best of our abilities. This I must admit was one of the harder parts of the journal as a whole. The main difficulty I had with them was the fact the we had to basically disregard grammar and spelling and just keep our hand moving and letting our ideas flow. This to me was very hard because I would always be thinking that I had to disregard spelling therefore every spelling mistake that I would make I would stop at, think about and then reluctantly move on from. It was easier as I got the hang of it but it was almost always in the back of my mind, making the process a little hard for me. However, the fact that we had a 'time limit' of ten minutes per writing session, I thought was very useful in a way. In my experience I found that the ten minutes was not only a good and or convenient allotted time for witting but also that whenever I knew I had something to write about, the fact that I just had ten minutes to write about it made me completely forget about spelling and whatnot making me concentrate only on what I was writing about and as one of our other guidelines said I would 'go for the jugular' of what I was writing.

In a nutshell I managed to complete 45 journal entries in this semester. Much more than I have managed to come up with in my whole life. Because of this experience I have learned not only the benefits of keeping one and jotting down ideas, thoughts and feelings but also expanding my writing capabilities in general. In my journal I would write to myself, another person or to an audience; I learned to clear my head and write what was really important and I learned about myself as a writer. All in all this experience as helped me gain a lot and I hope to continue it in the future.

That Room had a View

So today I watched an... interesting... movie called 'A Room with a View' by James Ivory. Quite frankly it was a pretty god movie all in all. Many of my favorite actors are the main characters in this movie including Helena Bonham Carter that plays Lucy, the leading lady, Julian Sands playing George Emerson and Maggie Smith playing Lucy's older cousin and chaperone. The movie is centered on the typical period drama of girl comes abroad along with a chaperon and meets boy, boy might have hidden agenda, situations arise and boy and girl develop feelings for each other and plot twist girl is actually engaged to another and is confused but will do her 'social duty' and will marry to whom she was promised and ends her relationship with boy and after a brief time girl ends relationship with fiancé and boy and girl finally give into their feelings and stay together.

However the interesting concept that the movie allows us to see is the differences in social classes that existed in that period and how clearly marked it was. You had a clear sense of what your place was and no one would ever let you forget it. With Lucy being a young middle upper class lady and her fiancé being a full blown snobbish upper class man, you can see how different the country folk, that even Lucy was friends with, are treated by the fiancé whom is a clear depiction of how society would have treated them.

I find this both interesting and sad to the fact that we see those same divisions in class now a days. In today's society you fall under the categories rich and powerful, middle class and hard working and poor and trying. Its sad to see how even in this day on age we all still tend to stick together and try to keep to ourselves in our little social standing group. Sure, we might see one or two exceptions and that's a very positive thing but sadly you are still marked by that social group in which you belonged previously and no one will let you forget that. It duly does make you think about how little progress we have actually made when it comes to society.,,

On Looking; What happend just now?

 

 

So, I just read a poem by Alexandra Horowitz called 'On Looking'. I must admit that although I found that her actual poem was in a way long and tedious, it had a very big message behind it. By her simply describing how most of her walks around her neighborhood, her nearby park with her dog and or her excursions to hiking trails with her dog that turned into her nature walks, she is giving us a clear representation of her now. Even as you read it one does not really see the tense 'it was' or 'it will be' only 'it is'. This piece of literature makes you ask yourself to very important things;

~How many times are we actually focused on the present? How many times do we stop and really look at our surroundings to take in every detail that it has to offer? Almost never. Like right now as your reading this blog post you are probably thinking about your past and evaluating whether or not you live in the past or in the present or even in the future, as now you probably making plans to be more attentive in the future as to what is in that now.
~How do I pay attention? Was I ever taught to pay attention? Am I doing it correctly? Many will probably answer no to these latter questions. This is because even though as children we are told pay attention, our teachers wanted us to pay attention to them and them alone. However, events where still happening all around us, be it a pencil was falling, it started to get sunny once again or many other situations that come to show that we were taught, albeit sadly, to concentrate on one single thing at a time. I love her phrase ' Attention is an intentional, unapologetic
discriminator', because that is what it actually is. A one thing at a time type of concept. At least for most.

Now I am aware that we can't all observe and pay attention to everything at the same time and sometimes things will slip. But it is the principle of not always being in that position of not paying attention to your surroundings. I think that, that is what Alexandra tries to convey to us. To start paying attention.

A little bit about me...

So my name for those of you that don't know is Paula Delgado.

I was born and raised right here in beautiful Puerto Rico. Being from here truly does instill in you a very strong cultural and traditional sense of values that even if you are currently living 30,000 miles away, you still carry them no matter what. I have to say that personally I do believe in God, having been raised a catholic, however, I have always been encouraged to learn about different cultures and their religions so I have a pretty firm belief that anyone has the right to believe in whichever deity of non that they choose. I do consider myself an open book, but its all based on the fact that I'm pretty much a very positive person and I always have a smile on my face to share with anyone that might need it.

I am currently a first-year college student on the  road to becoming a psychologist with a minor in anthropology. As cliché as it may sound I really love to learn and more so when it becomes a challenge so a double major was a no brainer for me. Ive loved reading ever since I picked up my first Harry Potter book. From then on my life has been in constant  coming and going of books, I could probably read a book in about three hours if I had a chance... I also love animals, pretty much every single one of them except for reptiles because they sometimes creep me out. Art has always been an important part of my life from a very young age, I take classes at 'La Liga de Arte" in Old San Juan every Saturday. It probably is considered one of my main hobbies but to me its a true passion.

If there's anything else you guys want to know, don't hesitate to put a question done in the comments section...