Some people think that legalizing drugs is something completely absurd, but they don’t base their thoughts on hard soil because they really can’t back it up. At the end of the day all they have to say is that because drugs are bad and harmful to society. But I like to dig a little deeper and think of why people have this perception. The truth is undeniable, there is a lot of underground drug trafficking, no one can deny that this also contributes to the high levels of criminality in our country. But what if there were a way that we could control the drug movement on the island and could keep track of who uses what, what communities prefer one drug over the other, how much is sold, what is sold, where and when it’s sold, plus the government could charge taxes for all of this. Because I think that meanwhile drugs continue to be illegal, the government doesn’t really have a good idea of what is happening, but are constantly guessing and finding excuses to pull people over to find out whats going on. If drugs were to be legalized the government could have a better idea of what is happening. Another aspect of this is the intrigue of teenagers to use it since it’s illegal. I think that if it is legalized that there will be a big boom of usage, but after a few years the interest in people to use it will be less and less because they don’t see the illegal aspect of it so intriguing, since it would be legalized. Besides that, the drugs would be sold in places that are controlled and safe, no longer will people need to go to sketchy places and find themselves in difficult circumstances to buy the drugs. But the first step towards the legalization of drugs is to change people’s aspect of it, so I think that that will never happen, at least not in the next 50 years.
Over the years the history of Puerto Rico has been shaped and influenced by very different cultures including Spanish and African cultures. Over time both cultures intertwined in a very specific way to create our Puertorican culture of today’s society on the island. Though most of our cultural traditions have been replaced or forgotten, sometimes we are fortunate enough to see a glimpse of it every now and then. There is a traditional music and dance called Bomba and another called Plena. Bomba consists of 3 to 4 singers, 3 conga players each with a different type of conga, and anyone is welcome to dance. But the way that it works is that the singers have a phrase and chorus that creates the body of the song, they sing that phrase often and in between the throw in different phrases to mix it up. Its very interesting the way that all of the musicians work together and everyone mysteriously knows what part will be played next and when the change in the rhythm is supposed to happen. But my favorite part of all is the dancers, the set up is simple: the singers in the back, the conga players in front of them and the people create a circle and there is an open space in the middle. This open space is where the dancers come in, one at a time (sometimes in couples) a dancer comes in and moves in a way to cue the musicians to change rhythms, with their feet and hands they create rhythms and the musicians have to do it simultaneously. This is the beauty of it, the dancer doesn’t do a rhythm and afterwards the musicians play it, it’s not like that, its completely simultaneous in the instant. But the dancers have their tricks to give them a heads up so that it seems instantaneous.
Bomba is my favorite so far and I love watching people dance and create beautiful music together as a community.
This semester has been a really interesting journey for me in the personal sense and the educational sense as well. At the beginning I was unmotivated to continue in mechanical engineering and was uncertain about my future. But I tried to not let this keep me from giving my all in my classes and I did my best in each one. But my english class this semester has been a great way for me to maintain focus because I constantly had to do something for the class which kept my feet on the Earth and helped me to stay focused. The first paper we had to write was a memoir which to me back to when I was 4 years old at my Nanny’s house. It was an amusing and challenging paper because I felt pressured to make it interesting and at the same time I had to be cohesive and narrative. The second paper was a profile I did on a very close friend of mine that has helped me in these past two years to stay focused and stay on a good track, Chad Mayes. This paper was really personal for me because he is a great humanitarian and has helped people on the west side of the island and I have helped him and the teams that come down to work. The research paper was really interesting because I did it with Gabriela and it was a fun paper to investigate about, regarding sexism in the modern society that we live in. This subject is really touchy for me because I don’t like it when other women give a bad representation of women as a whole, so this was a good way to channel our thoughts. The last paper was an editorial were I wrote my opinion of texting while driving, something I don’t like to do but every now and then I catch myself doing it. The editorial was definitely my favorite paper and the funnest of all.
Next semester I plan on taking Temas en cine, an English class about cinematography and I hope to learn a lot and to gain culture through this class.
Thank you Ellen Pratt! 🙂
This semester I ventured on an elective course called “Apreciación de la música” because I have played many instruments since I was 6 including the piano, clarinet, saxophone, drums, and guitar. Even though I study mechanical engineering I have many other interests and I would like to explore my possibilities and expand my horizons and I knew that this class would help me refocus what my plan would be since music has been such a big part of my life.
The professor is Dr. José A. López, and he is a professional guitar player who has played worldwide. The first day of class he gives an overview on what to expect during the semester and explains the way that he gives his class and what he expects from us. The opening piece that he uses is “Ausencia” by Astor Piazzolla. I believe that this is the best piece ever to open the class with because it is truly hypnotizing and it appeals to anyone, it’s not a boring classical piece, and it intrigues the students to find out more about the composer and about everything music related. I think that the professor chooses this piece because it’s like opening the eyes of the students to something that is truly beautiful and has substance. Because most of the students that take this class, including me, go into it knowing little or nothing about classical music and about the different periods in the development of music and what not.
I can recommend this class to anyone because it helps people develop a different and higher level of education and culture. Not only that, the professor helps people develop a different point of view on the system of the government and he challenges the norm in a very liberal way. So if you can, take this class 🙂
Here is the link to a video of Ausencia… http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Em-1gopj_Pg
Among college students at RUM, like any university, there has been a constant struggle with different aspects of the learning experience here at the university. Among each other we talk about it on a daily basis and how we would change the system to better benefit ourselves as students. We love to talk about which classes to take with which professor and we help each other out as much as possible so that we can all do the least effort possible and have better grades and still have a good learning experience. We talk about the professors and the level of difficulty of the classes (especially from the mathematics department), we talk about rivalries between departments, about tricks in the university system that you can use to your advantage and get away with it, about how “prepas”, or freshman students, do stupid things in classes, about the difference between your attitude in freshmen year and fourth of fifth year, how frustrating it is to find parking, and how frustrating it is to get a good class enrollment, and how hard the process of adjustment is, we complain about the copying machines in the library, or about how horrible the rainy season is… We talk about all of these things constantly.
But along came someone the 28th of November and created a terrific page on facebook called “Welcome to Trollegio (R.U.MAD)” were all of our frustrations and celebrations are put into a beautifully made page where we can all channel our frustrations in a funny, sarcastic, cinical way that we all love. You can like this page and see all of the pictures that students have cleverly made to express what they feel towards different aspects of the university and everything that comes along with it. I think that everyone can relate to it and every student and professor should definitely check it out!
This past third of December and epic boxing battle took place in the Madison Square Garden in New York, where two boxers meet for the second time for a revenge match that took place in 2008. The first match Margarito came out victorious after a rough fight where each fighter gave their all, but still Margarito came out with the win in the 11th round. But a controversy soon came after the fight because Cotto’s management claimed that Margarito had used illegal hand wrappings. They said that he had plaster inside the hand wrappings of one of his fists. The way that its supposed to work is that one opponent has his hand wrappings put on in front of the referee and in front of one person of the opposing boxer’s management, to make sure that they are correctly made. Story says that when they arrived to supervise the hand wrapping, one fist was already done, the same fist that after the fight seemed to be cracked, evidence of the illegal hand wrapping, because the material for the legal hand wrapping doesn’t crack because its gauze material. Even so, Cotto took his defeat like a man and didn’t fuss about it much. But then the revenge came and he let Margarito know that he was looking to hit him hard. Margarito said that he hit like a girl and there was no way that Cotto would win the match. So this was quite a controversy and was really good publicity for the fight because it was a movie like “good vs evil” type of encounter. Intriguing to everyone in Puerto Rico and Mexico alike.
As typical Puertoricans, we make an excuse to make a party out of anything, we all cluster up and decide to make parties to see the fight and support Cotto in his match, because we all think that he can hear us through the tv, but we enjoy it. The match begins and all the way through Cotto had the better strategy, stamina and punch power. Margarito seemed to lag behind and couldn’t keep up with Cotto’s rythym. Not to mention that Margarito had recently had an eye surgery and Cotto used this to his advantage. The fight was stopped because Margarito’s eye was clunched closed and the doctor in the ring decided to stop the ring for his health. This automatically gave the win to Cotto because he had won every round except one. Cotto celebrated in the ring and us Puertoricans partied all night long! J
Over time Puerto Rico has gone through an evolution of cultural identity. From the beginning of the invasion of Christopher Columbus onto our island, there was a heterogeneous mix of cultures and lifestyles that emerged and slowly but surely mixed into what eventually turned into a Puertorican. People from Spain and Africa came, the Spanish to colonize and Africans to work their asses off. And the Taino Indians that were already here also had to work their asses of and submit to the new authority of the Spaniards. Even though are real and true culture lies in the Taino Indians, because they were the ones that inhabited the island and are the ones that carved in the deepest roots into our culture, we can see that in the name of all of the towns on the island and hieroglyphs in caves and different parts of rivers where they lived. The predominant culture that influenced the Puertorican was the Spanish culture, for they were the first authority so they enforced their language, for communicating purposes. On the other hand the Africans brought their music and swing, including bomba and plena. Over time salsa was developed in conjunction with the Cuban culture. All of this gave the Puertorican a good taste of music and essence.
But where do we see that nowadays? Since 1898, the USA has taken over authority of the island. We have been Americanized over time. We see fast food restaurants in every corner, we dress with American clothing lines, wearing American styles, hearing American music, celebrating American holidays, etc. From my stand point all I see is the youth that looks up to american artists and don’t even know the basics of Puertorican music, they don’t know about plena, salsa, merengue, danza, none of that. It’s so sad to see that over time we have handed in the cultural identity that was so tasteful and so rich, for something that is alien from us. It makes my heart bleed.
Our modern society is mostly based on consumerism and capitalism. Everything is about who has what, and there is no doubt in saying that the vast majority of the things we buy aren’t necessary. This can be easily observed at shopping malls, because while we supposedly are going through a recession, people walk around with a full cart just to buy things and not out of necessity. People are fooled by “Once a year specials” and the commercials of the products without ever really thinking about the use and purpose about the products. The media is a great enforcer of creating a need in the audience. Sometimes we are tricked into thinking that we need something special, a special tool or a special product, to do ordinary and daily things, this way they create a need that we hadn’t thought we had. And all of the sudden we need a new product to make our lives easier than before. For example, there is a product that is for cleaning the inside part of the windshield of the car. Really?! All you have to do is stretch your arm in a little bit and duck your head and viola, the glass is clean! Yes, you will feel slight discomfort for about 30 seconds, and that is exactly what merchants base their sale on. So the media keeps brainwashing us into thinking that we need more and more things that in the end result useless! Besides, all of us have debt and have other things to take care of. We have to think about investing in the education of our children and future generations. I see my friends that have children and all they care about is about dressing up their kids and making sure they have new shoes every month, but they forget how in the future they will have to study in a university and how are they going to fund that? I don’t know because as long as the media keeps us brainwashed and thinking that we need things that we really don’t we will stay on this bad track.
I originally wanted to write my concept/argument paper about appearances as a concept but then drifted towards sexism in modern society as an argument because I thought I could find better resources easily. But the subject of appearances has been something that has bothered me for the past years as I’ve been growing and developing as a teen. I can observe in my friends and youth of my age that they are constantly concerned about the way they look and how they portray themselves towards other people, constantly making sure that what people perceive in them coincides with what they want to portray. Once I entered university I could tell that most of the students like to feel that they are accepted by peers that they barely know. They like to receive the satisfaction of being approved by their peers. The way that they dress and style their clothes determines what social class they fall into, and they make sure that they have the items to portray that they fit into that class, even if they don’t really have the economic ability and truly belong in another social class. We are constantly pressured to act as if we are part of the elite part of society and those who don’t reach that standard are shunned out by those who do, and that is precisely what makes it appealing to younsters. But this is something that I can’t assimilate because I would never want to emulate what people want me to be, I would much rather be myself and not worry about what people perceive of me because I know that I am a person of value, and this is a conviction of mine without having anyone’s approval or acceptance. And I find if truly mind-boggling when I see people compete in society to fit in with the cool crowd. Be true to yourself and define who you want to be, and find people that accept and relate to the person you truly are. Let your colors show.
Maru In the Raw 