EXTERNAL JOURNEY

As part of the English course, Journey in Literature, I had the opportunity to create this blog.  The name of my blog is “Travel a World of Words”, which consist mostly in topics as traveling, tourism, identity, education, etc.  The posts are related to the discussions during class. The blog represents the external journey which consists on the more physical level.   As my first experience as a blogger I have to say that this is not my thing, for now.  It’s quite interesting the fact at the beginning of the semester I was hesitant to make this blog, to make public reflections and post about my personal opinions.   But through this external journey I realize that is important to state and publish an opinion and discuss upon it.  Thus we students have a responsibility to publish the correct information so that it can be interpreted just the way that we intended.   The blog help me to gain experience in my writing skills and knowledge for example: at first I did not know the difference between a tourist and a traveler.   After studying “A Small Place” by Jamaica Kincaid, “Identity” by Peter Roberts, I can say that I understand the difference between them.  Definitely I want to be more like a traveler than a tourist in my next trip.  Now I have notion of what other persons can perceived about my presence and that makes me reflect about how I act and mostly how I want to be perceived by others.  This does not mean that I’m not going to act like myself, but it means that I will be traveling with a little bit more of consciousness.    

Overall the changes in the external journey reflect my journey in one semester.  I noticed when I was starting the blog that I was writing systematically.  I was pressured to make the post look professional.  But as time passed and got the hang of blogging, I felt the urge to try to express differently my posts.  As for example my post of “Let me take you on a trip”, which narrates the day I pretended to be a tourist and my internal struggle to achieve the tourist mode in my own island.  This post is important to my external journey, because I had the opportunity to do in practice what I was writing about.  I learned that being a tourist or traveler is a matter of time, knowledge and interest.  Also the way that wrote about my day as a tourist was as If I was having a conversation to myself, and that’s what I wanted to bring through this experience.  I wanted to be able to deliver the correct information, but without losing myself in the process. 

This project overall is a great way to interact with others and compare and contrast different opinions and perspectives.  I will not continue with this blog, maybe in the future I will start a new blog, of other topics.  The overall blog experience has enriched me as a person, because it took me out of my comfort zone and made me think, analyze, summarize and most importantly it made me express myself through words.  So that’s my world in words and I hope you readers continue exploring new ideas.   

 

Internal Journey Journal.

Let me take you on a trip, a rather bit different than the others.  As part of my English class, Journey in Literature, one of the assignments was to keep a journal.  This was not an ordinary journal, this represented far beyond that just an obligatory assignment.  Here are some guidelines of the requirements of the journal, feel free to try it.  First of all the notebook could not have lines.  This provides an unlimited area of non-restricted freedom to write, draw your most recent thoughts.  The students keeping the journal had the freedom to write a sentence, a word or even make a doodle and counted as part of the entry. Also all entries must be in pen. Six rules had to be followed, first keep your hand moving, even if you misspelled or did not have something to write.  Another rule was not to cross out, even if you made a mistake or regret writing something.  This was the most difficult rule to follow, because in my case I always write in pen and constantly making lots of mistakes and I used to cross them out.  During this practice, the person writing cannot deny the line of thought, and has to learn to accept what their mind is thinking and embrace it.   The key is not to be logical, and do not over think during the process of entry.  The point is to lose control and go to the jugular.   The assignment consisted in 5 entries per week, with no page number limit or word limit.  In just 10 minutes, express your first’s thoughts, without any restraint and without any judgment.  Also another part of the journal consisted in doing three compasses per week.  A compass is a “spiral” form compass with spirituality, emotion, mental and physical labels in each pole.  The point of this to rate from 1-3 each pole based on how you were at the moment, without analyzing the answer to much, followed by a passage below explaining what was on your mind at the moment of rating.

In class two concepts were introduced: the external and internal journey.  This journal represents the internal journey.  Is based on personal criteria and is strictly confidential.  Now you know the rules, and know you can go into my trip.  My journal experience started January 24, 2014.  At first I started writing up to two pages per entry, then by the mid of the semester I noticed I wrote about three to four and had been persistent.  It reflects the changes and the evolution of my thoughts during this semester.  I noticed some consistency in the topics I wrote about in the journal, especially about my schoolwork, music and fun facts.  But yet, I noticed variety in thought.  The language used in the journal is only understood by me, because most of them are not even complete sentences.  Trying to genuinely write my first thoughts without double thinking it or to sincerely write what I was thinking was the biggest struggle, but once to get the hang of it the thoughts just flow naturally.  I plan in the future to keep journals, but with some modifications to the rules. Keeping a journal is a good way to keep in tract with you, and develop creative skills.  The internal journey is part of the identity, and the journal helps define your identity.