A Room with a View

"A Room with a View"  is a british drama movie by James Ivory. This movie is about a young English movie name Lucy Honeychurch that makes her first visit to Florence, Italy in the early 1900's. She meets a young man named George Emerson and must decide whether to follow through with her marriage in England or follow her heart and her attraction to George. This movie presents the differences in social classes in that period. Lucy faces the situation of having to decide if she should live a pleasant but unhappy life following society's rules or to break free from the expectations of society and norms with choosing her happiness. Everyone in their life will have similar decisions that will be between choosing what's right for society or choosing what's right for you. We are divided in the social classes and not everyone has the free will to choose their way of life.

Society expect us to be good, to follow the norms, and to live up to what they teach since we're born. We have little say in what we should have because we have to follow what everyone else won't criticize. Most of the time, we choose the easy path, we prefer to do what other people tell us is right instead of following our dreams and what we really want. This is the problem with society, if you're from a high social class you are expected to be even more, so this makes those people many times be unhappy. People want to fit in these social classes so they do everything in their power to please everyone except themselves.

The First Part of "The 60's"

"The 60's" is a miniseries that presents how national issues and events profoundly affect two families, one white and one black, in the 1960s America. The Herlihys, the white family, have a son named Brian that goes to Vietnam when he joins the Marines, Michael who gets involved in politics, and their daughter Katie that gets pregnant and leaves home. The Taylors, the African-American family, is a faher who's a minister and civil rights organizer and his son Emmet that joins the Black Panthers serving as a bodyguard for Fed Hampton. The son always thought they had to fight for their right and acts with violence multiple times. His father sees him in a riot and tries to stop him by taking his gun, this leads to his death by a police officer that shoots him.

In this first part, we see discrimination against black people and how they were badly treated all their life. They couldn't fight for their rights and every time they did they were punished. We also see discrimination against women and how men had more rights and better chances at defending themselves. There is also discrimination against the political views and against ideologies of social movements. We see how Katie, still in high school, gets pregnant and has to leave her home, she's faced with this all alone and then joins a hippie commute. Brian joins the Marines after leaving high school and goes to Vietnam to fight in the war. Michael who meets a girl and starts a relationship with her, he fought for his ideals and fought against the war. We see Emmet, who all his life his father told him he had to live peacefully because he wanted him to be safe, but Emmet always knew he wanted to fight for a better life and for all of the African-Americans who were mistreated.

This discriminations will always exist, they existed in the 1960s and they still exist now. Even though it's not the same as before and we all have more rights and a better life, there are still people who suffer from this in their daily lives.

My Journal Experience

My journal experience was a life changing experience. When the semester started I wasn't excited at all to have to write in a journal for the English class. I thought this was going to be something that I was just gonna want to get over with. When I started writing in my journal, I only wrote about silly things that didn't have anything to do with me. I only wrote about the things I saw when I was writing, or something that I was doing, but never about what I really wanted to write. I thought it was stupid to have a journal and actually write about your feelings or thoughts. As I kept writing I figured I could try to write about what was really on my mind, what was really bothering me. When I did this, I discovered what an amazing feeling it gave me. Writing what I was feeling was a great feeling, it was like finally opening up to somebody and letting go of what I had deep inside of me for so long. I've always been a private person, and now more that ever, so I don't usually talk about my feelings or things like that. This is why it felt so great, 'cause I finally could let go of so many things. After this time, writing in my journal was so much easier. I always wrote what I wanted to write, what was on my mind. I wrote mostly about how I was feeling in the moment, or of some situation I'd had that had changed me.

Writing in my journal made me a better person, I learned things about myself I didn't know and I discovered how I really felt about some situations. I honestly think I'm going to keep having a journal,  it helped me in so many ways I can't even describe. At the beginning of the semester I didn't even want a journal and now I don't want to live without one. This is something I would've never thought. This journal know me better than anyone in the world, it know secrets I haven't told anyone and it knows how I really feel. This is something I want to keep having in my life, this journal is my truest friend.

It's All About Perspective

"On Looking" by Alexandra Horowitz is about how we all see things differently, how we miss the little things that are around us because we think they're insignificant. When a teacher or our parents say "pay attention" we automatically think we have to see the person and listen closely while they talk to us, or we have to keep looking at the board while a teacher explains something. The thing is, we don't really know what "paying attention" means. We all see the world in a different way. Some people can go take a walk and just be on their cellphone, without even giving a glance to anyone or anything. Others take a walk to clear their mind and see everything around them but they don't observe, they don't look closely enough to see what is really going on. Or maybe some people, like me, just take a walk and look at the sky and think of all the good things instead of  drowning on the bad things.

It's all about perspective. Perspective is a particular attitude toward or way of regarding something; a point of view. I'm sure you've heard of the endless debate of the glass, if it's half full or half empty. They say if you think of the glass as half full you're an optimist, and if you see the glass as half empty you're a pessimist. Well, some people will see it one way and others the other way. We can't all think the same way, we're all different. This is why it's all about perspective. The way you see the world and act towards it will define your life. You will live in a positive or negative way depending on how you choose to see things. They say "pay attention" and we think it's supposed to be about school or work, but maybe it's all wrong. Maybe what we should be paying attention to is the world, the little things, what goes around us everyday. We shut out the rest of the world trying to pay attention to a specific thing when we should enjoy every little thing, every detail in our lives. When something goes wrong, look around you. Look for a child laughing for some silly little thing, look for a dog running through the grass, someone giving food to the homeless, two friends talking about their dreams, people falling in love. The thing you should be shutting out is the negative things, look for hope in all those things you ignore for focusing on the bad. Live like there's no tomorrow, and laugh when you feel like crying.

Me

We all have trouble defining ourselves, or talking about who we are. It's so easy saying good or bad qualities about another person, but when it comes to ourselves, we go blank. Well, this is my assignment for today, to talk about myself. I think this will be the hardest blog entry. Maybe some people don't have that much trouble, but for me it's the hardest thing. My name is Frances Nicole Pérez. I'm 18 years old. I study at the UPR of Río Piedras and graduated from Academia San Jorge. I love to be with my family and I'm the biggest dog lover. I love to shop and watch movies and series. I hope I get to travel to many places and see different parts of the world. I think my biggest dream is to become a professional at something I'm good at and love, surrounded by family, maybe a son and many many dogs in my house.

Like everyone, I have fears. Maybe more than some people. I fear that life will disappoint me in ways I won't be able to overcome. I fear not making my parents proud. I fear waking up in 20 years regretting the way I did things, wishing I would've done everything differently. Everyone wishes for happiness, everyone wants to feel satisfied with their lives. This is what I want, I want to be satisfied. I always feel like I want more, like this is not enough for me. Maybe I look for it in the wrong places, I do things hoping to feel something different when maybe this is all I get. It's hard for me to focus on what I have and make the best of it instead of always looking for something new. This is something I wish I could change about me, this feeling of wanting more. I'm one of those people who feel like they're meant to be someplace else. I love everything I have and everyone in my life, I just feel like there's something missing.

Do we all feel this way? Like there's something missing? Maybe what's missing is realizing what a great life we were given and doing everything with love and passion. Fighting for what you really want without caring what everyone else says or thinks. Love yourself and show people that every time you fall, you get stronger. This is what life is, falling and getting back up. There will always be doubts, disappointment, and pain. You just have to make the best of every moment, and learn of every lesson life will give you. But most importantly, be happy.

Violence

In "A Use of Force" we see the theme of violence. I think we all have violence in us, some people show it and others hide it. Since the beginning of time this has been present and probably will always be. In this short story, a little girl is sick and the parents get a doctor to diagnose her. The girl didn't want to open her mouth and the doctor needed to look at her throat to see if she had diphtheria, a disease that was running in school and she could die from it. The doctor forces to open her mouth as she fought back as hard as she could. Eventually, the doctor overpowers her and confirmed she did have a sore throat. 

In some cases, using violence to help someone is the only option and could be the best thing to do. In my opinion, in the case of this short story it would be hard to say if it was right or wrong. The doctor tried to get her to open her mouth by talking to her but she refused so he used violence. He wanted to help her but felt like he didn't have any other choice. Where violence becomes a real thing in this story is when he says he liked hurting her. The doctor says he had fallen in love with her, which was inappropriate, and still would have killed her just for pleasure if he could. So maybe he did the right thing for the wrong reasons.

Violence will always exist, maybe with time there will be less or more, but it won't disappear. Everyone has violence inside of them but we all have the choice to use it or not. Acting in a violent way can make that person feel like he has control or some kind of power, we could say this is a reason why they do it. Some people just like to see others in pain or misery. They do say misery loves company, and a person who would feel pleasure hurting someone else has to be miserable. Still there are others who are kind and even though they might have some violence in them, they don't react towards it. We can't help if we feel like turning to violence in some situations, but we can choose not to do it.

Billy Mills in Running Brave

"Running Brave" is a movie about the story of Billy Mills, an indian who was destined to become the best distance runner in the world. In the beginning of the movie we see how Billy Mills loved to run and how dedicated he was to it, as time passes we notice how his motivation starts to drop. All the prejudice he had to deal with, being an outsider, and feeling like the Indian kid always bothered him, but being in the team and everyone expecting from him was too much pressure. His coach from the beginning told him indians were quitters and Billy held on as much as he could because he felt like this was the way to prove everyone wrong. Then he realized he had to make himself proud more than anyone and this was not the way.

Billy Mills took control of his life the moment he quit the team and then realized in the reservation that he couldn't give up on his dreams. He got his life together with Pam and worked to improve his running skills. He worked harder than ever in his life to achieve his dream of winning the Olympics. Even though Billy had a hard life and dealt with pain, pressure, and prejudice everywhere he went, he never lost hope or courage. This is a great example for all of us and an inspiration to follow what we love. We should always believe in ourselves and what we are capable of. You can accomplish anything you want if you work hard and fight for it.