The story of the Lieutenant nun was about a woman named Catalina de Erauso who was training to be a nun but decided to runaway from the convent and instead disguised herself as a man then became a lieutenant. I was amazed that when she disguised herself as a man (and went by the name Francisco), the people around her were convinced that she was a man and her own father did not even recognize her.  I was also fascinated by her whole journey where she kept traveling from one place to another, met new people, and survived. Throughout the story, Catalina showed bravery and courage. I believe she is a good example of feminism. She proved it by dressing in armor and battling with a sword.

I do find it tragic that she killed her own brother, Captain Miguel de Erausso, by accident. Catalina felt horrible that she immediately went to the church, confessed her sins to the friar then brought her brother to the doctor. What makes it more tragic was that Miguel never knew that Catalina/Francisco was his sister. I was actually hoping that Catalina would tell him the truth about herself especially that they have not seen each other for a very long time and Catalina mentioned that she was “overyjoyed” to see him(Ch.6).

Overall, I found the story very intriguing. It had great flow and a lot of suspense. I can definitely see this being published into a movie. It somewhat reminded me of the story of Joan of Arc. The only question that I have to this story is why did she runaway from the convent? what were her motives behind that?

In The Voyage of Christopher Colombus, Colombus shares his story on that he was ordered by the King and Queen of Spain to travel to the lands of India where he shall convert the people within those islands to Christians, and also teach them the Spanish language.  After a long journey by boat, Colombus finally arrives in one of the islands, where he befriends several natives (whom he plans to bring to Spain after his exploration), and also search for gold.

Colombus describes his journey in great detail. Although, the part where he elaborates on the birds while sailing to his destination, I thought was a little too long which made the story slow. I do like his description of how beautiful the islands are and how gentlemen the natives were. It’s like I was reading a poem. Having said that, I found  that overall this journal is one sided. Colombus seems to be bias by mostly talking about how well he got a long with the natives and his agreement with them on exchanging for gold seemed to go successful without any conflict. I believe that whenever there is colonization, there will always be conflict.  The conflicts only stated were that some islands were attacked prior to Colombus’ arrival, or one of the islands are empty and lack religion or culture. In the end, he was able to bring home gold for the King and Queen. After reading, I am curious to know other sides to the story. For instance, one of the members in Colombus’ crew can give his side to the story, or even one of the natives. In other words, someone else’s point of view of what happened.