Reflective Journal 1

Talking about oral traditions made me think a lot about oral traditions that my family has. Every time we eat as a family we say the same prayer that has been said for the past 3 generations. When I was younger I did not really understand why we always said the same thing, but now I understand that It helps connect us to family members who are no longer with us. Every year when christmas rolled around I got excited. We would always celebrate at my grandparents house even though it was smaller than ours. Then one year my sister and I got them to agree to do it at our house. It just was not the same for some reason even the same people were there and we did the same things. This helped me connect with the readings about oral traditions and technologie. I know that If my family stopped saying that prayer and watched TV instead that would make me sad. Traditions like that have a sort of power just because we have been doing it for so long. As technology becomes more and more prevalent in society I think it is important to protect oral traditions and traditions in general. When I was a kid over the summer my grandparents would have us come down to their house in florida and stay for a week. We would usually drive down but one year we did not have as much time so we decide to fly down. We still had fun once we got there but we all agreed that not road tripping down took something away from the trip, because along the way we had developed our own traditions. We would stop at certain restaurants sing certain songs and we all missed it that year. I will have those memories forever and If we had just flown their every year I would not. If I ever am lucky enough to have children I will definitely keep family traditions alive and start our own. I think this was a very good reading and I am glad we read It, It gave me insight into a different culture and it gave me more respect for traditions.

I very much enjoy superhero movies and comic books so when I was the title Superman and me I was looking forward to reading it. When I realized that it was an indian boy’s story about growing up on an indian reservation I was a little disappointed because the reading is not really about superman. However after reading it I was very glad that It was not about superman. The story of a young boy reading as much as he can, learning as much as he can. This boy was determined not to fail in the real world as they put it in the reading. I think the part that stuck with me the most tho was the part about how a smart indian is a dangerous indian and that they are feared by indians and non-indians. I had a hard time wrapping my head around this phrase, mostly because I did not believe it or agree with it. How and why would Indians be scared of intelligence at this day and age. I also did not understand why non-Indians would be scared of Indians learning. Then I saw when it was written, it was written in 1998 so the boy in the story was probably growing up in the 50’s or 60’s. Almost seventy years ago, I was not alive yet. So that helped me understand why people would have been afraid of indians learning, and why indians were afraid of learning. Overall I very much enjoyed reading this article. Thinking about it now I understand the title, this young boy read superman comic books and looked up to him. Then in a way he became his own superman.

The TED talk we watched in class by Adichie really made me think. Overall in my opinion the talk was about how we all in some way stereotype. As much as anyone denies it even in the small ways we all do it. In the beginning she talks about the stereotypes that she had from reading books. She talks about the books that she wrote, that everyone was white and had blues eyes. They talked about the weather and ate apples. There she developed a stereotype because that was all she knew. That is how most stereotypes start, not hate for that group. The lack of information, that leads to people thinking everyone is one way. Reading this I learned that she lived a almost normal life. That not everyone in africa was living in a grass hut. Then in class we got to talking about stereotypes in or lives. I learned a lot from that discussion and had a lot of fun. To hear what other people may have thought of me and to learn what other think of college students was fun. I would say the biggest thing right now that I get stereotyped for are my political views. I support Donald Trump, In my high school I was one of the only ones who did. I would wear my Make America Great Again hat to school and people would immediately assume what kind of person I was. I have worn that hat on campus and gotten very many people giving me dirty look and a few have flipped me off. I find it kind of funny that people who do not know me would immediately judge me for wearing a hat. However I cannot say I do not do the same thing myself. On the first day of class when you were introducing yourself, I could tell our political views were not aligning. I then made the decision that I was not going to enjoy this class, But since then that could not be further from the truth. This class has become my favorite class and you are my favorite professor. That just goes to show that making snap judgements or making stereotypes can be fixed if you seek to learn more about the person or group.

The one on one conferences that we had about our first narrative paper was very helpful. I have never been very good at writing papers so being able to meet with you about the first one helped me feel more comfortable going forward. It also made me more comfortable around you, without the conference I doubt I would come ask for help or your opinion, but now I would feel comfortable doing that. I would love if we could do this for every paper but due to the amount of time it takes I understand why you only do it for the first one. I will definitely use other resources like the writing lab for future papers.

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