Hey Bloggers! Oh how I’ve missed you. I know you’ve been wondering, and yes, my break was awesome, and yes, I could’ve stayed home for about three weeks longer; but honestly, coming back here isn’t as bad as people make it out to be. Don’t look now, but I think I may enjoy being here. Haha. It’s nice to be back in the swing of things, and I was riding my high horse and happy on life, then I started reading Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close, by Jonathan Foer. That happiness quickly turned into sadness. Deep. Deeeep sadness. None the less it was easily one of the best books I’ve ever read. I felt connected to the story in ways that I didn’t think I could. Not having experienced the loss that Oskar has I didn’t think I’d be able to relate, but I consistently found myself tearing up. All in all this is an amazing book and an amazing story.

Our class spent some time reading Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close and it’s a bit of a complicated read if you don’t know what going on. There’s a lot think about when reading this book and when I looked over some of our class’ bloggers a lot of the different themes in the book are illuminated. We talked a bit in class about how this book may be an example of American exceptionalism. I have to say, when reading Erin’s blog, I found myself agreeing. She writes, “Regardless of whether this American exceptionalism is accurate or verifiable, I don’t believe that this novel deals with this topic.” I also found that 9/11, while a big part of the story, isn’t there to show how because a tragedy happened in America is it different, but is instead used because there aren’t many tragedies as highly publicized and understood as 9/11 and Foer uses that tragedy to help the reader better understand Oskar and his family’s plight.

Erin’s blog made me think to myself that really any tragedy could’ve been used in place of 9/11, as long as the reader understood it. Then Ryan’s blog challenged that notion bringing up how Foer uses Dresden as a tragedy that the Grandfather had to live through. Ryan’s blog made me consider the parallels between the trauma’s experienced by Thomas Sr. and Oskar. Both lost loved ones, and really, both tried to cope with those lost ones in very desperate, but different ways. Oskar with his adventure the NYC and Thomas with trying to recreate Anna, his lost lover, with Oskar’s grandmother. We see how different people process these horrific events, and how they try to cope with the loss of loved ones.

In Isaiah’s blog we get to hear about the different methods that people use to cope, “Whether it be coping through silence or by desperately trying to search for closure on a journey that has no finish line”. The line, “no finish line” really rang true to me. Coping after all is dealing with whatever tragedy you have before you. It’s about understanding that there is a new reality and that’s difficult to do. I think that’s why the book was so tragic for me to read, because I, so much like Oskar, wanted there to be a finish line, and wanted to know that tomorrow everything would be back to normal. I think though that the book ends perfectly. It ends perfectly in the sense that coping isn’t necessarily happy or a big weight off your shoulders, it just is. I think the consensus when finishing this book was that of un-satisfaction, not that the book wasn’t a great read or fantastically written, but that there wasn’t this fairy tale ending that I’ve grown so accustomed to.  

Well that’ll about do it for me, honestly this was a bit more difficult to write than I thought it’d be but boy is it good to be back. There’s so many layers to this book and so many different themes that we can dissect and will dissect. It’s good to talk to you all again, and it’s been nice to read everybody’s blogs. Until I write to you again.

Kennedy

Hey readers, we finally made it to university, who would’ve thought. Hopefully we’ve all settled in nicely over the past few weeks. During these weeks our class has been a melting pot of ideas, cultures, and personalities. Hundreds of different backgrounds being funneled into this tube of learning we call CAP.

For me, CAP, and the Global Citizen stream has been fascinating. Learning about what a Global Citizen “could” be and trying to figure out what it “should” mean are not only great questions for this year, but a question that everyone should ask themselves. To me being a Global Citizen means that you understand that the world is much more complicated than the life we live. Personally I’ve been raised in a bubble, sheltered from racism, poverty and most of the ugly realities of the world. I come from an Asian American family in Hawaii, and my unique Interpretive Community has given me a unique outlook on the world. It isn’t inherently better or worse, and nobody’s background is, but it is something that makes me me, and being able to accept what makes other people themselves is an integral part of being a Global Citizen.

The CAP stream is an amazing opportunity, it gives us students at UBC the opportunity to really mix and get to know people on a better level. Through this Global Citizen stream I’ve already been able to meet people who’ve helped better my view of the world. One of the first friends I’ve made, Baris, is from turkey, and in his blog he writes what it’s like to come from Turkey to Canada. Talking to Baris outside of class I’ve learned a lot about the “Refugee Crisis” and got a whole new perspective that is really going to make my opinion on the subject much more well rounded. Talking to Baris you’ll learn about the homelessness that emerged in his city, the jobs being taken, and all of these aspects that hit a lot closer to home coming from a real, palpable source.

Learning about new cultures, and trying to understand them is something that CAP is going to give us the opportunity to do each and everyday. However, when we go back to it all we find ourselves asking, why do I want to learn, what’s the point? Joseph’s blog really brought it home on that topic. Joseph talks about how most of the information in the world is already known, and it is a little disheartening at some points, but that’s how life is, however he wraps it up nicely saying, “Many if not all mountains have been climbed. But there is value and joy in getting there, regardless of who has reached it before we have, and in getting there we’re able to give it a new voice.” Its so exciting to see the mindset that people have going into the school year, and it’s even more exciting to think about how they’ll change by the end.

We’ve got a lot going on in these first couple of weeks, during the reading of the academic article, “The Role of Interpretive Communities in Remembering and Learning” by Farhat Shazad we came across a lot of interesting topics and ideas, but we are also learning how to write a paper in that same style. An interesting perspective on the book was Magda’s; In Magda’s blog she writes about the reading and what her take wahttp://blogs.ubc.ca/astu100barisuzel/s on it. Her and I are similar in the way that we find it “hard to gain insight on such an event such as the War on Terror because I myself have not experienced that kind of emotional trauma.” Coming to university we are exposed to all of this knowledge that we haven’t yet seen and it’s sometimes difficult to be as empathetic as I’d like to be. Magda also talks about memories, and it was really interesting. She talked about challenging ideas. She even linked an article about women wrongfully accused of having terrorist affiliation because of how people perceived Muslims after September 11^th.

We all come from different places, and we all want to learn about new things. Our cultures, passions, fears, strength and everything else make us the individuals that we are. We’ve gotten to that point because of the people and experiences that we’ve encountered in our lives, all of which are unique. We’ve migrated to the beautiful campus of UBC and are now part of each other’s “Interpretive Community”. We have people from all over the globe who will undoubtedly bring a new lens for use to view the world from. Whether it’s learning about the media in Mexico through Gabriel, or hearing a first person account of the Syrian refugee crisis from Baris, I’m so excited to further my learning with all of you, and can’t wait to see where this school year takes us. Thanks for reading, talk to you soon!

• Kennedy