Review: A Room With A View

A Room With A View is a 1908 English novel by the author E.M Foster which was later on adapted into a1985 film produced by Merchant Ivory and won  various awards.

It tells the tale of a young girl, Lucy Honey crunch, which visits Florence (Italy) under vigilance from her cousin  and ends up finding love  with a young man named  George. Even though the story revolves around the main character's love story there is a lot of other things going on simultaneously. It is also about a girls journey and how the experiences she haves during the trip make her change herself. This change is driven by a constant struggle between old fashion Victorian values and the newer more liberal ones. While in Italy Lucy learns how distinction between classes is all an illusion, also her interaction with the Emersons teach her how there is still beauty inappropriateness.

As Lucy grows with this experience she is then confronted with one to reality and incapable of figuring out which one to follow. She is facing identity  doesn't know where she belongs since her heart tells her one thing  and her conscience another.

The title of the story is physically represented early in the story when they find that the room they had didn't have a view. The window is a symbolism since it is from that window where she spied on random people and identified them by stereotype.

The setting is also very important because there is a lot of political criticism behind the main tale. This story  takes place during a time where England was slowly leaving behind the old Victorian ways and passing to more liberal Edwardian ideals. This tension between these two is represented by the love tale between George and Lucy.

Identity on "Identity " by Peter Roberts

To set the grounds for the discussion of "The Roots of Caribbean Identity: Language, Race and Ecology" by Peter Robert we should first look into the term identity. Identity is by definition a compilation of  distinct characteristics of an individual  or a group of people which makes them unique from everybody else. Identity is often linked with nationality since people who share a certain region tend to share many characteristics. Still the concept of national identity will sometimes extend to the emotional or personal aspects to the point where it defines you as a person.

National or  identity defines a group of people which leave in a same region by the most predominant characteristics they share. By living in the same region these people have been exposed to the repetition of the same things in their environment, or society hence,  creating a concept of normality among them. This concept of normality will vary from one region to another varying drastically in some cases. This identity is imposed onto us by our political system in the same way w are identified by race, age and income.

To understand the concept of identity further Robert pinpoints three key elements of a national identity which are home, language and behavior and explain each one of them.

Home is a hard concept to define since it does not have a concrete meaning. Like political identity the concept of home indicates a link between an individual and a place. While political identity is given to us by the place where be are born or live in, the notion of home is far more personal and is characterized by a powerful sense of belonging. Home is often related to a place which give us the a feeling of security and confidence. Robert comments about the relativity of "home".

"home embodies a psychological factor of attachment"

Because home is about attachment if may related to the place of birth, residence, or any other place one shares an attachment with. He also mentions how "home" may appeal to an individual's compatibility to a place.

Language is also related most of the times to a person's national identity because languages are geographically determined. People who speak share a special connection since they ate capable of communicate between each. Language manifests as speech and speech will in times vary in accent... accents which are utilized to distinguish between ones and others.

" Language therefore establishes bonds between all communities of human beings but at the same time set up barriers between communities."

Finally as a puertorican I feel that behavior is one of the most important elements of a cultures identity as puertorican  I am related to a stereotype of loud puertoricans who love to party and are obsessed with music. I don't mind that but it pretty obvious i don't fit the criteria.

While identity is systematically efficient and practical, it often leads to the creation of stereotypes which people many times used unfairly and ignorantly on people.

Reflection on atention

Having lately read " On Looking: Eleven Walks with Experts Eyes"  I have decided to write about her insight on the concept of attention. I will start by saying that it is a wonderful reading one that I enjoyed pretty much. Alexandra Horowitz, the author of this piece, Intents to study how attention works on humans, specifically how age, profession, sex or race influences how we look at the world. After sharing a walk with her dog she realizes how little we see because of our methods for attention. After that the stories goes on to tell us about the various walks she takes with professionals in all professional branches including an expert on this very subject.

I found this approach very interesting and effective. It is pretty straight forward in an  orderly manner arranging her work as a scientific investigation rather than a recollection of her experience. I can't keep from noticing the lack of things I really do appreciate. As  a biology student I tend to pay attention to things that trigger my scientific interest, as an adventurer who loves backpacking and camping I can't help to unconsciously be in search for a nice place to camp and as a man I can't help no notice women more than men. This happens because our attention is rather selective. Actually rather is kind of and understatement it is highly selective since our interests are the criteria by which information is stored in our brains. It is also interest what sometimes even decides to remind or ignore some of the thing around you. Think of it, there are a thousand faces you probably see constantly around your university, work environment, and/or near your living area which you would never recognize if they are right in front of you.

Our attention span it monitored by something called RAS (Reticular Activating System). It is responsible to filtering, acquiring and rejecting information from external stimuli,like the way it is doing it right now by making your periferal vision blury. Our brains employ this mechanisms in order to keep the brain from "overloading" since there are infinite amounts of images, sounds, smells, people and other things out there to process. We can only accept so much information at a time, so our brain prioritizes in order to be functional. Priorities will always be different from one person to another but tend to relate to a person's background.

Going even further I believe that this leaves very much to say about the relativity of our reality and how incredibly diferent the world is for everyone of us.

If you find this subject interesting you should  probably like this video I left for you:

The beginin of my journey..

My mom and dad have allways been there for me and they are the main persons that guided me through my first stage of my journey. I was a verry happy child, was raised in a very familiar enviorment. I allways followed my brother (two years older) around and imitated him. 

I will make my best to write about my passage through life. If I am going to be talking about myself and my life you should know some things about me so it may give you some sort of perspective. I'll start by introducing myself. My name is Omar I am 20 years old, I'm the middle child in my family, I study biology, I love adventure and extremes and I am not really used to writing for an audience. 

That's a little bit about me so you can learn more about my journey.

Before writing I looked up the word journey and I found the word journey could have at least two definitions. The first one refers to "a traveling from one place to another". The other one refers to the "passage or progres from one stage to the other". After looking at theese definitions one can conclude that a journey can either refer to the change in one's physical location or to change in a more abstract way. 

Internal journey:

My internal journey begins when i was a little boy with practicaly nothing but "squishy", pinkish tissue in my brain. As a newborn one is like a blob of wet clay who will be molded by any and every stimuli that manages to make it through any of the five senses. This proces of adquiring information is what makes an infant into a person and it is ultimately led by the important people who surround  a baby. 

The second stage of my journey starts at preschool, I started since kinder garden in a Montessori school which haves a unconventional style of educating. One is taught to be very hands on and work  with one another. We were sometimes assigned as leaders and  where given special tasks, thereby empowering the importance of work. I then attended a catholic school till i was in my 10th grade and was then transferred to an evangelic school. I shared with two totally different groups over this time and I feel it was inevitable for me to grow and change as a person. 

Humans have evolved to adapt to circumstances in order to survive and because of this when in need a person may voluntarily or unconsciously alter their common ways. We can then say that people change will when presented with  a change in its environment. This is why though situations like discovering your body and world as a child, traveling and changing schools tend to define us as persons because its under these kind of situations when we change.

In my most current stage, now that i am on my own and in college, its mostly about shaping myself as a person, making my own decisions, chasing my own interests and goals.

The internal journey and the external journey are not separated, on the contrary, they are both pretty much intertwined. The external journey is the one that constantly chalenges our ways and forces us to learn new things see things from a new perspective. I have found that every place i travel either near or far has added something to who I am. When in europe I learned to apreciate a new culture one where they  conciously and and in comunity work to reduce expences an be concervative in order to minimize the impact we make on economy and nature. While working on medical aid missions in Peru I learned that we should focus our energy on what is really important. I saw many poor villagers that walked for miles in order to check for their health and had the chance to talk and learn about them. In their condition the are only able to worry about their crops their animals and their healt as well as their famillies while we underestimate the importance of such vital things in order to fixate our energies on things like brands, media, and showbiz not knowing that since we already have those vital things, we could be spending those energies on our happines real happines that lasts, the kind that is aquired by helping others, enjoying family and leting go of all worries that make a toll in your life.

English Around The World

We recently participated in a conference on the English language and how it is different all over the world. The conference focused on some key places two of them where vast Anglo-Saxon  territories separated by an ocean and the other two are small regions wich have English as a second language, one of them in Europe and the other in the Caribbean. The two large countries are England and the United States. England is located in Europe on an island north of Spain, United States, on the other hand, is located in North America. English is the official language of both of this countries. The two smaller territories are Puerto Rico and Malta. Malta is a small territory to the south of Italy, its native language is Maltese but there are plenty of people that speak Italian still since it used to be part of Italy. Puerto Rico is located in the Caribbean, its official language is Spanish but English is regularly taught in elementary. Puerto Rico used to be Spains property, hence its official language, but since it was colonized it has been greatly influenced by the United States  in every field from language to economics.

It is important to state the similarities and differences between each of these countries. For starters, Malta and England are near each other the same way US ad Puerto Rico are. The location of a country can greatly influence their language for they are exposed to many of the same factors. On the other hand,Malta and Puerto Rico are both small countries wich have a native Romance language. The romance language may be the reason these two countries have many similarities in their language, The same happens with England and US  since the English spoken in the United States origins from the one spoken in England. 

The fact that language is influenced by so many factors shines a light on why is language so diverse. Think of it, how is it possible that all these places and many more, speak the same language and still none of them do it in the same way? If we analyze the infinite possibilities of events and intertwining between different countries and cultures it becomes pretty clear that language is not something concrete. It is actually ever changing and evolving, it morphs through the years in  the way that better fits its user.

Map highlighting English speaking countries.

The Story of Billy Mills

The movie Running Brave tells the story of a Native American boy who loved running.This passion took him on an incredible journey, where he first got accepted with a scholarship to the University of Kansas with a track and field scholarship and continued all the way to a gold medal in the Olympic games of 1964.

William Mervin after being the first Native American to win a gold medal.
Tis picture was taken a few moments away after he won the 10,000m race at
the 18964 Olympic games.

"Billy Mills" real name is William Mervin. He was a Native American, Sioux to be specific, member of the Oglala Lakota Tribe from Pine Ridge, South Dakota. He started running while attending  at the Haskell Institute where he discovered his passion. Since then his life takes a big turn after he is offered a scholarship to run at the University of Kansas.  Being raised in a reservation his journey is about much more than his athletic potential, he is a experiencing a journey through cultures where he finds himself out of his comfort zone. He is faced with discrimination and margination because of his race, wich lead him to work double the hard as anybody else.

This new step in his life gives him a new whole spectrum of possibilities and responsibilities. Responsibilities such as running career, life outside of family, a complicated relationship and the responsibility of making an example for other Native Americans. This means a big change for a man who has spent most of his life living surrounded by his family and friends now that he has to defend himself against his coach, "white boys". He is also presented with big opportunities for reaching out of the reservation, starting a new life and having a chance at the Olympics. This kind of drastic changes in someones life are capable of launching them into an internal journey also. It is at times like this where everyone and everything are new and you are "alone" where one begins to question and examine oneself.There are many religions and cultures that practice this technique of emptying someone's mind through meditation or other ceremonial rituals that he can get in touch with himself.  By stepping away from the noise, from everything one considers obvious or given, ones perspective is forced to change, it becomes more receptive to our mere existence and to what surrounds us.


"Every passion has its destiny."
                                                           Billy Mills