Nobody ever wants to miss their flight, but for a lucky few, missing the flight from Malaysia to China are lucky to still be alive. The large The Boeing 777-200ER had 227 passengers on board and 12 crew members. On saturday March 8th, a flight, flight 370, departed from Malaysia towards China when communications became lost at 2:40am while it was traveling over the sea. Much speculation has taken place since the plane has gone missing involving possible crash, airline being stolen or hijacked, technical failure, suicide, and even physiological problems related to the pilots. With a week having past now and no new evidenced surfaced, its becomes hard to know what really happened or if this was all a planned event.

Throughout the week, military officials have been searching local waters around Malaysia where it is to be believe that the plane could have crashed. Even possible nearby islands have been searched in hopes that the aircraft made a crash landing and the passengers are safe. From all this searching, nothing has been found in regards to any possible debris from a plane crash. A recent report from Malaysian airforce chief indicates that military radar found the jet on Military radar and detected the jet off course heading towards the Malacca Strait, which is in the complete opposite direction of the aircrafts route. This brings more questions into what really happened to flight 370 from Malaysia to China?

There has been a couple outcomes of people coming forward who missed their flight and are very thankful that they did. One gentleman posted a picture of his boarding pass on the internet while another worried lady posted on Twitter wondering about the flight and her loved one that was believed to be aboard. Only later to get a response from her loved one saying that they had missed the flight and are safe. The whole Twitter conversation can be read here, where you can really feel the relief of both parties as they realize that he missed his flight and is still okay.

From another note, it is very curious as to how in our modern day and age such an event can take place where we loose total connection with an aircraft, and now a week later it seems that we know nothing new about what really did take place. When I think of this, previous planned attacks such as 9/11 come to mind and it looks to me like this whole event could of been planned and executed very well. For me, it seems like it could be the only possible answer since if they plane really did crash somewhere, it would of most likely have been found already. Even if the plane has encountered some sort of failure, why was a stress signal never sent out? It would only take 5 seconds at most to release a stress signal and all the passengers and crew members would have a very high chance of actually surviving. It just brings many questions to mind when you look at the entire thing as a whole since there are so many missing gaps of information and nobody seems to have a solid answer about anything.

Within the past week, we have read Jiwani and Young’s article, “Missing and Murdered Women: Reproducing Marginality in News Discourse” and watched the “Through a Blue Lens” documentary made my the Vancouver Police Department. A large focus in both is the conditions of Vancouver’s downtown east side. In the documentary, there is overall theme of teaching the bad that drugs can do to one’s life and body. The whole film focuses of close ups of many of the drug-dependent people that live downtown; such shots include scars, cuts and even seeing themselves injecting the drugs, followed by their actions after taking these substances and the loss of control for their actions that they experience. It is a very moving form of teaching that helps to prevent kids from getting into drugs, because of its scare factor, which essentially is the documentary’s purpose. We also see how many of these people that are now drug-dependent and living on the streets in the downtown east side had positive futures ahead of them. An example was a man named randy, who had been on the streets for around 10 years at the time of the documentary, who was a successful hockey player who had potential to one day play in the NHL, but instead he had gotten into hard drugs and his life turned around.

From this, we can better understand Jiwani and Young’s article about many of the women who lived in the downtown eastside, drug-dependent sex workers, that went missing and where killed. By watching the documentary, one can understand that these women did have more than just their lives on the streets before them. Throughout the article, many of these women are referred to as forgotten, not wanted, or abandoned and both Jiwani and Young try to tell a different story that they where more than just another woman, they are mothers, sisters, daughters, and even wives. It was until after hundreds of women went missing that they had found two men guilty of the majority of the deaths.

After spending some time learning, reflecting, and discovering the ways of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) back in  september, it was left in the back of our minds where many of us still had burning questions about it. Now after visiting the exhibit at the Museum of Anthropology on February 11th, I have seen another side of the TRC.

Because of the history around residential schools, there is a large amount of pain and suffering that many aboriginal people faced and still currently do face to this day. This includes experiences of assault, sexual assault, mental abuse, and even trauma from the events that the aboriginal people experienced. In september, we focused on the suffering that many of the aboriginal people faced. Many of us visited the “Witnessing” exhibit at the Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery back in september where there was a focus on the pain and suffering felt by the aboriginal people.

I found it to be the opposite at the “Speaking to Memory: Images and Voices from the St. Michael’s Residential School” exhibit at the Museum of Anthropology. For me personally, I found this exhibit to contain more of a positive vibe that reflected the positive experiences the students had while they spend their years at the St. Michael’s residential school. Although some of the pieces in this exhibit were not positive, others were including the series of photos in Beverly Brown’s photo collection which came from a camera that she carried around while attending the St. Michael’s residential school. She stated that her father would always ensure she had enough film to take pictures during her stay and encouraged her to take as many as she could (Brown). These photo’s found in this collection are all fellow students that Beverly Brown attended school with and in almost all the pictures, the children are happy and smiling (example). Because of the joy and happiness one can see in the children’s faces, it would be fair to say that this shows many of the children’s strength and resilience to the pain and suffering they did face. It demonstrates their strength and resilience in the way that even though the conditions are bad, the children are still able to laugh and smile around each other, while they strengthen each other. Like one can see in the example, the students are all named and identified with an area in which they came to St. Michael’s from. This naming was done to the best of Brown’s ability from what she remembers to this day, and also helps to show the bonds that the students created with each other in order to find this strength.

Another positive aspect that was in this exhibit was the letters of apology posted. The letters posted where written by many from the Catholic church, to the RCMP, and even Stephen Harper and the government of Canada. They all reflected around the same idea of the wrong doing that was done in the past but the moved on to the desire to do better and bring a brighter and better future where such events do not take place. The letters all do state that what is the past is the past and cannot be undone, but that does not change what we can do for the aboriginal people now and in the future with hope of forgiveness.

This exhibit at the Museum of Anthropology tells a different story that the one back in september at the Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery, but can really make one question all that goes on and where they stand on these horrible past events around the TRC.

With the Sochi 2014 Winter Olympic games starting February 7th (see games schedule here) many athletes, spectators, and citizens are left wondering how safe they while really be during their visit to Russia. Many civil acts of terrorism have taken place in the last couple weeks in and around Sochi. These include bombing at subway stations, attempted terrorist attacks, and civil fights with the citizens of Russia and the Russian police.

At this time, there are hunts for three possible female terrorists that are believed to be in the city of Sochi. They are known as the ‘black widows’ and are the widows of men that have died during the fight with the Islamic militants. They act as suicide bombers in order to oppose the Russian government in hopes to fight back for their suffering. This causes a great amount of stress and wonder for the people that will be visiting Sochi since an attack could happen at any time. Since the Russian police are unsure of where these women are and if they are really in Sochi, an attack could be possible at any time. Many newspapers and news reporters are stating that its not a matter of if terrorist attacks will happen , but when they will happen.

Another large problem that Russia is facing is in regards to Russia’s anti-gay law. Many protests have been taking place in order to oppose this and promote gay rights for the Sochi games and Russia in general. The United States has fought against this by sending 3 openly gay athletes to the games, while Obama is not going to be attending. It is hard to believe that in such a time where the world has come to far from anti gay rights, a country so far developed like Russia still believes that homosexuality cannot take place and is a crime.

With the Olympics only a couple days to come, many questions are left unanswered and many people are still concerned about their safety and the safety of others. With hope that the Olympics run smoothly, Sochi is in full force ahead promoting their games and trying to ensure the safety and security of all guests who will be attending.

What makes an archive matter? Or a better question, what is an archive and what does it do for us today? Archives can be any sort of collections of preserved details about a specific group, community, or even family. Such things that may be found in an archive are newspapers, articles, letters, diaries, and even photographs. These things are usually collected by a group throughout their existence and passed down through many generations. There existence helps to really build a certain group or community and without there existence, knowing history about these groups or communities would be really hard and almost impossible. Archives keep a group alive and really defines who they are and what they have been through.

On thursday January 16th, 2014, my ASTU class visited the Rare Books and Special Collections part of Irving K. Barber Library on campus to see some real archives that have been collected over the past years and really tell a story about some history we have here in British Columbia. I spent a good amount of that time reading some comics that were written by some Canadian artists. These comics where very explicit and blunt in their ways but got their message across very easily. They brought up ideas around many religious problems and other problems regarding sexuality that the metro Vancouver area faces. They include many graphic photos and a good amount of heavy language.

At first glance, I didn’t really understand what I was reading and looking at. I was questioning how these comics where relevant and how they fit in to an archive. After some analysis and critical thinking, it was clear that these comics are archival materials because they reflect a past and talk specifically about a certain group of people. Since these archives are written by someone that is not associated directly with this group he writes about, i.e. the archivist, there way be silences that have occurred or his view of the events in his comics may be marginalized to fit certain standards. Either way, these comics become important archives that can help us to understand where certain groups in society where back then compared to how they are now and what might have been some challenges that they faced in the procession from then to now.

Now that first semester is over and I am left with exams before the Christmas break, I have the chance to look back on my first semester as a student at UBC. Being done first semester gives me mixed feelings of excitement but also fear for what is going to come next. It has gone by so quickly and it feels like my 4 years of university are just going to fly by!

For me, high school was a breeze, I could go to school whenever I wanted to, attend the classes I wanted to attend when I want to attend them and I would still get really good marks. I never once studied for tests or exams and now that first semester has come to an end, I realize that I cannot do the same anymore. University is a whole new experience where I have to really organize myself and plan out my day to day life so I don’t fall behind or overwhelm myself with things to do. It has been really busy and I have learned how valuable sleep really is.

Within my classes. I have started to learn how much work I really need to do in order to be successful and it is all a new change, if something needs to be done, I have to make the time to get it done and set my priorities straight. It has made for a large learning curve where I find that I am learning who I am as a person more than anything.

Although I have some fears of what is going to come in the future, I am excited and looking forward to my future at UBC because as great as first semester was, I know better and great memories are still to be made. Friends have been made and I know plenty of friends will come and go while I am trying to find my closest friends that I want to keep with me after I finish university.

In the end, first semester has treated me well, I have learnt a lot and I am looking forward to the future where I know there is much more learning to be done. It can only get better from here!

Now that I have started my Research Paper and I am well underway to completing it, I would like to take the time to really reflect on some things that I have found interesting while writing this paper. Now, if the title doesn’t give away too much detail, I am doing my research essay on the social networking site called PostSecret. PostSecret is an online website where anonymous people send their hand crafted postcards to a given address every week and the top 10 submitted every week get uploaded every sunday to PostSecret for all to see. As mentioned before, all postcards and uploads to the website are anonymous making the people who created the postcards unsearchable.

By doing some exploring, I have found another website linked to PostSecret called PostSecret community (http://www.postsecretcommunity.com) where there is much news about different upcoming events related to PostSecret, a PostSecret chat where users can chat about different postcards they see on the website and even offer support to many of the people who send in these postcards, plus much more. This brings me to my research question of the type of community that PostSecret creates and offers for its users.

The first thing I noticed while I was searching through many of the online forums on PostSecret community was the large amount of people that are willing and want to help others out in any way they can. Many of these people are posting numbers for suicide help lines, even their own personal phone numbers and email inviting people to talk. Many people also just say they are there to listen to anyone who needs to vent or get things off their chest. Other people have posted inspirational quotes and even different strategies to help distract yourself from self harming.

In response to much of this feedback, people that have depression and other problems, such as they may self harm to make themselves feel worthy, are responding positively and thanking many of the anonymous helpers that post for support. It creates an environment where these people are not judged and not called names like “emo” or “gothic,” but rather are respected and welcomed. This becomes really contradictory to what really happens in everyday situations where these people are shamed for there actions and not accepted by society.

I find it very interesting in the way that people can come together to help others in an online community such as PostSecret, where they are so open to talk about their problems and also so willing to help others that may be facing these problems. I believe that much of this has to do with our aging population that isn’t so acceptant of these self harming ideas because it is more of a 21st century thing that has developed over the past decade. The reason I see PostSecret and many other online communities to be very much accepting of these things is because the people that are online on these websites are all people ranging from 12 to 30 years old rather than our older population.

As I have been reading the novel, What is the What by Dave Eggers, some interesting things have surfaced about the way the book is written and published. These ideas of racism the style of which the book is written really draw in the reader, being myself.

Something I noticed right away was the racism that was still present and the clear separation of racial groups in america such as the “black” or “caucasian” and the way that it is stressed even in the first couple chapters of the book. When Achak, the main character, voluntarily lets some robbers into his house because at first he doesn’t understand what is taking place and he just trying to be nice, he gets attacked by an african american man and finds himself on the ground in pain. Throughout his cries and pleas for help, he calls the man and woman in his house “african american” and in respect, the man calls him “Africa” in return. There seems to be no interest in further learning and they respectively give each other these names.

When he wakes up again later on that night or the next day, he finds himself on the floor of his living room still but this time, the two robbers are gone and now there is a young boy who seems to have some sort of connection to the robbers sitting in his kitchen watching tv. Achak proceeds to call this young man, “TV boy,” and even after finding out his name was Michael, he still proceeds to call him TV boy for a while. At this point, it is not just Achak who is acting in disrespect towards the boy, but also the young boy who seems to have no interest in Achak whatsoever. He decides to drop a phonebook on him to try and get him to be quiet and also puts chairs around him and covers him in blankets so he does not have to hear from Achak or look at him. This is all very interesting because throughout all of this, TV boy does not say a word to Achak. I see it as a sort of racism that both characters feel towards each other and have no interest in trying to fix.

Another the way in which the book was written by always targeting a certain audience. Throughout the novel, Achak tells a lot of silent stories to people that he is upset at or people that has wronged him. He did this by silently murmuring stories of his past life in Africa and the struggles that he faced, too quiet that the people they where intended for could not hear him. This gave him a sense of relief somewhat because by telling these stories, he helps himself to see that he has really had it worst before. The whole time that he is being robbed and is stuck in the house with TV boy, he is telling these stories of the encounters he faced in Africa. These silent stories acted as a sort of relief for him and I think, helped him get through all this hard times that he did have to face in America.

All of these silent stories that he told also played as a sort of flashback to his life in Africa. Everything that he talks about in these stories seems to be somehow related to what he is facing at the time of the stories and is always comparing them. Through the tone of racism set at the start at the book, and Achak’s constant flashbacks to his life in Africa, it really sets an interesting read to the audience. For me personally, the way in which the book was written really tied me in and kept me interested to keep reading because I always wanted to know more.

After watching the documentary God Grew Tired of Us, I have really realized how much of a material world we live in and how everything surrounding us goes along with this materialistic attitude. We are born to be consumers and have learned to always want and need the newest or most expensive car, house, cell phone, or even clothes. Such material objects make us who we are and also give us a feeling of self acceptance in society. All this materialism also comes in the western culture that we live in, compared to such developing countries where materialism is very small to none existent, where we always live in a constant cycle of needing new then throwing away and getting new again.

In the film, the Lost Boys came to the United States from Africa and upon arrival, they were amazed of the way everything was so developed and they amount of products readily available for purchase. Even their amazement upon seeing and using an escalator was huge. Everything was new, nothing was close to being the same, the Lost Boys had ever even seen a supermarket or grocery store before and where amazed at the quality and quantity of food and products they sold. Stuff like broccoli and cucumbers were new and they had no idea how to eat them or what they tasted like. A big thing that the Lost Boys came across was a donut and they where in shock of what it really was. I remember one of the boys who started saying that the sprinkles resembled beans and was amazed after trying them because they tasted nothing like beans, plus they had never seen such foods in Africa.

The Lost Boys had a very interesting fascination for america which was quickly changed after they learned that people are not as welcoming and open as they thought they would be. Especially that in Africa, you could walk into someones house and they were welcoming and would offer you food or ask if you were lost and offer help, were as in America, people would call the police if you walked into someones house and are not welcoming to the idea of helping strangers out. The Lost Boys found this difficult since many people gave them weird looks and often tried to avoid them because they are different, thus making it harder for the Lost Boys to adapt and become social with others.

After some time in america, the Lost Boys started to loose their desire for all the material objects that surrounded them and quickly realized what they missed the most and wanted the most; their families back home in Africa. I find it very interesting that after such desire and interest in all the new ways of western culture, they quickly resort back to what they are used to and love the most. They start to feel really lonely because they are used to living with all of their family and friends and now they live on such a fixed schedule where they don’t even see each other much and feel isolated.

Overall, this movie has really made me realize how materialist we are, even in Canada where we are dominated by this western culture also. It really plays a role into our everyday lives even if we don’t think it does. Everyone has a desire for the newest or to have the best all the time and it takes over the things we should focus on more such as our family and friends and not make our relationships with our family and friends so dependent on what material objects we have. I really say this, because I see how important such things are now and how we really push them off for our material world we live in.

Recently in class we have been talking about Facebook and doing homework on Facebook. Who knew I would ever get homework related to Facebook. Only in Dr. McNeill’s ASTU 100 class, where we focus on life narratives and their roles, has this ever happened. To say the least, I never realized how much of my life and how much information Facebook pushes to post to the web for millions to see.

The first thing that we noted as a class was that Facebook is always asking to post more information about you in order to get you in touch with other people you know, so people can find you and you can find others. In order to this, they are constantly telling you that your profile in only __% complete and more information is required to make it 100% complete. They ask for stuff like your hometown, your current town, your relationship status, to link your family members, are you in a relationship and if so with who, age, birthday and so on. Because they are always adding in new options of what you can add and say about yourself, it makes it really hard to always have your Facebook profile 100% complete.

We also looked closely at status updates and some of the things you can post in them such as location, mood, friends and even pictures making status updates more and more personal. Facebook even pushes for you to add these details to help create your personal profile of close friends and highly visited areas. With this, Facebook events from these people and places stand out first in your news feed since they are seen as more important. By doing this, Facebook also pushes away updates from people that you rarely or never interact with making them almost invisible. I see this on a day to day basis with my Facebook account where I have 1000+ friends but I only see posts from around 100 to 200 people that I interact with most.

As for advertisements on Facebook, we looked at many people profile and looked at what advertisements they saw in comparison to another person saw. On my profile, there were many advertisement for loans and banks and always about savings, saving and making money. I found this very interesting since many of my posts and all my information on my profile link me a college student and Facebook is able to recognize this and push advertisement that may attract me.

By doing this, Facebook creates a social circle for you that it sees as your closest friends and most interacted with and keeps you updated with them the most while also trying to attract you to certain advertisements such as if you where a college student or are in need of weight lose or other services you may relate to.

Further, think of everything you have posted all the way back to when you first created your Facebook profile such as all the pictures and status updates, conversations and different interactions. This is all information and content that Facebook now has in their possession forever even if you have deleted it off your profile.

This really makes me question my Facebook use and what people can see and what Facebook has on mine in their possession. But still because of all of this, I will probably still use Facebook, I will just limit what I post and the detail of the content I post.