Month: September 2015

Hello once again! I have started to incorporate university into my everyday life; getting the hang of all the work load, keeping up with all my readings, taking notes, reviewing, getting enough sleep, and most importantly, finding the time for FOOD. So far it has been pretty manageable, and I would definitely say that I am not the same person I was on the first day as cliché as it sounds.

This week in ASTU I had to read and finish the comic memoir, Persepolis, by Marjane Strapi. Strapi  depicts her experience with the Islamic Revolution. Not only does she illustrate her perspective from her own childhood point of view, she notes how she views the revolution after she has grown up. I don’t have a lot of previous knowledge on the Islamic Revolution and this memoir has brought me to a curiosity.

In my opinion, this book has given me quite a bit of insight on the Islamic Revolution. As I have previously read the article, The Role of Interpretative Communities in Remembering and Learning, by Farhat Shahzad, I have  noted that this memoir is a technology of memory, which gives me a knowledge on the revolution.

On page 6, Strapi points out at how she wants to be a prophet, this made me think about what I have learned in Political Science recently about Feminism. Just because she is a female, does not mean she cannot be a prophet. Why did everyone in her class laugh at her and think she is crazy? In her dream, she draws out a few past prophets and they all ask, “a woman?”  Personally, I feel like anyone whether male or female should be able to aspire what makes them happy.

Strapi shows us that at one point there was a food shortage but the black markets have helped solved the shortage issue (page 132). This made me think about Economic class when Professor Gateman discusses about how government control can increase the amount of black markets. Black markets inflate the prices of goods which Strapi and everyone else in her community had to encountered.

Overall, in my perspective, young Marjane was a very rebellious girl and still is. She stands on her ground and is not afraid of expressing herself. I really admire Marjane and adore the writing style she uses in the memoir, it made it easier for me to understand and imagine what it was like to be in her shoes.

Taken from the book Persepolis.

http://knopfdoubleday.com/

https://ncacblog.wordpress.com/

http://cbldf.org/banned-comic/

Here is the UK Trailer of Persepolis the movie:

https://www.youtube.com/watch

Hello and welcome to my journey in ASTU at UBC! I hope you enjoy your time here on my blog. During the first few classes of my ASTU course, it was kind of like a wake up call to myself that I am no longer in High School where I had teachers baby sitting me and guiding me through life. Instead, I am a fully independent women that has been thrown out into the real world. You know what I found interesting? In High School, I was taught to write all my essays structured in the way my teachers required me to, but now in university I am told to forget all the techniques I have acquired from the past 5 years and to learn how to write a “proper university paper.” I am baffled by this and do not know where to start. But thankfully I have the Academic Writing: An Introduction textbook to guide me through this transition. Also, something interesting that I had found out on my first day, teachers no longer exist, instead,  theres a new species called “professors.”

I have recently just read my first university article The Role of Interpretative Communities in Remembering and Learning by Farhat Shahzad which is about her studies on the War of Terror. She has interviewed 99 university students to observe their view on the War of Terror and what has influenced them. She notes that there are 3 important concepts on remembering and learning this topic; the person him/herself, the internet, and memories.

I myself personally do not read all the gritty nitty details about current events or the past major catastrophes, but I gain knowledge about them from people’s experiences and memories. I listen to friends, family, and my teachers on the view and opinion on them. In my perspective, I believe that someone can truly educate themselves by going to monuments and museums to learn about the past events that has occurred in our world.

I feel as if sometimes as us humans, we are bias and do not look at both sides of a situation and we tend to only highlight the negatives and not the positives. Sometimes the news on television, such as FOX news, do not tell us the entire story of an event. I feel as if after the 9/11 incident, everyone in the middle east were seen as a terrorist, but in reality, they are not. A group of people had attacked USA and all of a sudden, everyone in the middle east is now seen as the bad guy? There are so many amazing achievements that have occurred in the middle east such as how Malala fought for education for not only herself but for all the girls against the Taliban.

In the past couple of weeks that I have been in the Global Citizenship CAP program, I have realized a bigger picture in life, the world is no where close to perfect.  As a student, I need to learn the flaws and strengths in our world to create a better future. ASTU, Sociology, and Political Science has really made me think critically and has given me a wake up call to engage in the world and to stop focusing on the irrelevant news about celebrities.

Here is a link of Malala’s biography:

http://www.biography.com/people/malala-yousafzai-21362253 

Photo retrieved from http://eyesopenreport.com/tag/911/

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