Wow guys the year is almost over, I’m kinda in disbelief, it feels like it was only last week that we were being introduced into the insane world of college academia. But I digress, we have learned so much this year from so many classes, all culminating around being something called a “global citizen.” This was no easy task but we gained many skills and lots of knowledge from our assortment of classes. Starting with political science and sociology we’ve learned about social sciences, how humans sort themselves and their resources and some reasons why. We’ve tackled massive issues such as race, gender, warfare, economic inequality and so much more. I don’t think that I’ve gained more from a class than Chris Erickson’s Political science. The raw reality that he helped show us, his rants about political correctness, and his rants about the quick jump to war. But back to English, after all this is an ASTU blog. In ASTU as we’ve learned about these complex systems and ideas we’ve been reading books and considering the nature of remembering, fiction, representation, and so much more. But as we have neared the end of our year we have approached our last book and subject, that being Hamid Mohsin’s book The Reluctant Fundamentalist a book questioning racial assumptions, political assumptions, and the struggle of a globalized world. This book, as Isabelle pointed out, seemed to both disrupt and reinforce stereotypes. While it often made the reader question their assumptions about the middle east–Isabelle shows– it also reinforced stereotypes about Muslims by depicting the main character Changez as both happy about the twin towers falling and under a belief that the America and Pakistan are always enemies. Additionally throughout the book there is this idea of boarders which separate the west and the east, and as Kihan pointed out it’s possible Changez’s perception of the East and West being at war might be because of the West’s policies towards immigrants. Kihan describes how the current political climate towards immigrants in the west has been hostile and reluctant, perhaps suggesting to those from the middle east that we are inherent enemies. Within the book and the class overall there was a strong “us vs them” theme. This theme was in every book, and often it was put on its head by having our book give us the perspective we might consider to be “them.” As Nicolo pointed out, this not only connects to our class but to the overall theme of global citizen, and we have spent hours and hours in varying classes and disciplines exploring what it means to be a global citizen. And while that question is taunting, Nicolo ends his blog with this “we all hold the keys to participate in change,” and that is critical to remember while being a global citizen. Signing off on the last blog, Tzur Shupack, it’s been a lovely year guys. Peace.