Hey guys! It’s time for the June Challenge! And the June challenge is RESOURCES!

When I think of resources and UBC I automatically think of Academic Advising. So, that would be Arts Advising if you were in arts (which by the way is the best faculty). Anyways, I won’t actually be talking about Arts Advising, but I will be talking about Financial Resources.

When I first got into UBC I had no idea who to talk to about anything. But, I got an email which stated about ESP (Enrolment Services Professional). Basically, an ESP can help you on a lot of things but what I used my ESP for was for financial questions. I remembered being so scared and clueless because I had so many questions about tuition and all that. I constantly asked my friends financial questions because I didn’t know who to ask so, I went to Brock Hall where the ESPs are located and they were able to help me out with my questions.

A scenario would be if a student received a student loan and need help answering certain questions about the student loans and also paying for tuition. That is when I would direct the student to Brock Hall to talk to an ESP.

That’s it for the June Challenge! Hope you guys are having a great Summer!!

Hey Guys! So, just to catch you guys up, I am currently on my summer vacation (Yay! 4 months of no school), but I will be doing special blogs because I am a Imagine Day leader and being an imagine leader requires me to do special Summer Challenges! Although this is super late (I apologize David, if you’re reading this) I will be doing the May Challenge which is My Story!

When I first got accepted into UBC, I was super anxious but at the same time super excited! As the first week started, I was overwhelmed. I felt like I didn’t belong, I felt like I was surround by geniuses and that the admissions office had made a mistake and I wasn’t supposed to be here. Well, as the first few days went on, I was still feeling the same way, so I decided to go to Collegia, which was a place where first-year commuter students could go to hang out and do homework (similar to residence).

Once I got there, I was greeted by a collegia adviser. I then sat down and began doing my homework. Shortly after, a different collegia adviser sat down at the table I was at and just started talking to me. I told her that I felt like I didn’t belong and classes were very tough and different from high school. She had told me that when it was her first year she had the same problem too. She felt like she was surrounded by people 10X smarter than her, even though she was one of the top students at her high school. We then continued chatting, then after what felt like only a few minutes, an hour had gone by. After our chat, I felt a lot better.

The following week, I was still pretty anxious, but one thing the collegia adviser had told me was that I got accepted because UBC saw something in me, and that I wouldn’t have been accepted if I wasn’t special. From that chat, I realized that even though I may be surrounded by these people who feel like geniuses, I got accept for a reason, and that I deserved to be here. So, overall one simple chat with a collegia adviser really changed the way I felt and I used what the collegia adviser had said to me and used to as motivation and it sure did motivate me throughout the year.

So, even though I do still feel like I’m surrounded by geniuses, I know that I do belong at UBC.

So, that’s my story! Hope you guys enjoyed it!

Hey guys! I haven’t posted on my blog in a while, but I’m back! But, I am sadden to say that this may be one of my last blog posts for ASTU! But that just means I’m that much closer to finishing first year!

So recently in my ASTU class, our discussion was on hurricane Katrina. Hurricane Katrina happened when I was very young and being Canadian didn’t help. I knew very little about hurricane Katrina, all I knew was that it affected many people, but I did not who, or what region it affected. Recently, we watched a documentary by Spike Lee called When the Leeves Broke, the documentary was split in four parts, but we only watched one part, which was only a small part of the documentary.

While watching this documentary, I realized how naive I was about hurricane Katrina, I had realize that I knew nothing about this incident that had happened. As the film progressed, I had seen how many people were affected and crying for help. This made me really think of another discussion my ASTU class had had, which was trauma. The film in a way showed me the trauma in the eyes of someone, although I could never really feel or see trauma in the same way that these victims had felt, the feeling inside me would not go away. I just imagined myself in their shoes, and in their situation.

When I watched the film, I felt something different. When we read the novel Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer, I felt the pain, but it wasn’t full. But by watching this film, I could really feel them, and my heart really went out to them. It makes me wonder, what events or incidents would make me really feel the trauma of the person, and which events wouldn’t make me feel that way? I just know one thing is for sure, this film really opened my eyes on my surroundings.

Hey guys, so it’s been a while since I blogged, but I’m back! Although, it doesn’t feel long, we’ve done so much already! After reading Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, my Astu class, read an article by Judith Butler called Survivability, Vulnerability, Affect. There were many interesting points she talked about in her article that really made me think deeper.

There was a specific line in her article that really made me ponder. The line in the article was “we mourn for some lives but respond with coldness to the loss of others” (Butler 26), she is basically saying that we get sad and cry about some deaths, but we are react with coldness when certain people die. This made me really wonder. Further, our class was talking about this and a fellow classmate mentioned celebrities which made me think even more.

We cry over celebrities dying, but everyday there are people dying from wars but we don’t seem to acknowledge them. It reminded me back a few years ago I saw a comment on Facebook when Amy Winehouse died. The comment read “all she did was drugs, but the whole world is mourning over her, but there are people dying around the world who are not being recognized”, which made me think about myself. There was a time when I found out that Michael Jackson died, and I actually got sad, but when I found out a kid who got raped got killed. I felt more sad about Michael Jackson dying, although I know it is wrong, but I feel like I had more of a connection with Michael, even though I didn’t know him personally.

Although, I don’t know why many people mourn over celebrities even though they do not personally know them, I am one of them. I suggest it is because we personally feel we have a connection with the celebrities. That is why we mourn about celebrities and not strangers who die tragically.

Hey guys! So, it has been a while since I’ve blogged, but I’m back. And with winter break over, its back to work! So, here I am with another blog post. To kick things off, my ASTU class and I recently read a novel called Extremely loud and incredibly close By Jonathan Safran Foer, the novel is narrated by a nine year old boy named Oskar Schell. Oskar finds a key that belonged to his father, and goes out around New York to find out more about the key.

The novel is based on the 9/11 event, where Oskar’s father dies as he is in one of the buildings. Throughout the novel, Oskar goes to every single person who has a last name of ” Black ” trying to figure out what the key was about. He does this, because he wants to know more about his father, and he is looking for answers about his father. I can connect to this novel a lot, also this novel changes my perspectives on things as well. I can connect with this novel because at a young age, I lost my father as well, although he didn’t pass away, he just left my mother and I. And similarly to Oskar, I wanted answers about my father to. I similarly asked many people if they had known my dad because I needed some answers. I needed those answers to figure myself out. I guess I can somehow relate to Oskar because being left with some many questions is one of the worst feelings a child can feel.

Although, the novel is based on the tragedy that happened on September 11th, 2001, I see the novel and connect with the novel more through Oskar, as we were both looking for answers, and we were both trying to figure things out about our father.

Overall, this novel was a very good novel. I really enjoyed it and I highly recommend it! So, if any of you guys have spare time, and need a good read, make sure to pick up this novel.

Hey guys ! I know I haven’t blogged in a while so let me catch you guys up! So, after reading Persepolis, we did our group presentations on a certain term, then we did our literature review. After, we read Joe Sacco’s Safe Area Gorazde, and now we are reading Obasan by Joy Kogawa. It has been extremely busy for everyone with midterms, papers, projects, and midterms again but, I’m happy to say I’m back to blogging!

I will be focusing on Safe Area Gorazde by Joy Sacco and Marjane Satrapi’s Perseplis. Although, these were both comic book style books, they both hit me in very drastic ways. From reading both these books, I have learned a lot from both these books and they have both widen my views on the world.

Although, Safe Area Gorazde and Persepolis are both comic book style books, I noticed that the drawings in the book were very different. The way Sacco draws compared to Satrapi draws is highly different. Sacco draws in a much more real way, while Satrapi draws in a less detailed way. I was took by surprised because after reading Persepolis, I did not think it would be a more detailed book, I just expected Safe Area Gorazde to be similar drawing style. As I noticed this, I compared them and thought which drawing style was more effective to me. For me, I feel the way Satrapi draws is more effective than the way Sacco draws. I feel I can connect to Satrapi’s drawing more because it is more simpler and it is more effective in a way. But, I found something very interesting in Safe Area Gorazde that was not in Persepolis.

In Safe Area Gorazde, there is a particular part where in the book that the people living there asks for Levi’s Jeans (Sacco 56). This made me really think about the people living there. I felt that there are many people who are so many who are wanting to become American because it is usually thought that USA is the best. I found this very interesting because I never had thought about wanting to be American, I’ve always been proud of being Canadian. I find it very weird and quite sad that some people want to be American, and not their own nationality.

There were many things that really made me think of interesting points between Perspolis and Safe Area Gorazde. And it has changed my perspectives on things.

For the last few classes, my astu class has been talking about the graphic narrative Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi. Before I read this graphic narrative, I just thought it was some comic book and did not really take it seriously. I had this image that ” comic books ” were books for kids, or that was meant to be humorous. But, as a kept reading Persepolis, my perspective on this graphic narrative changed. I found the images very powerful and an interesting way to express one’s feelings.

Recently, my astu class also read an essay by Hilary Chute, titled, The Texture of Retracing in Marjane Satrapi’s Persepolis. In her essay, she talks about some techniques Satrapi uses to emphasize her feelings in the graphic narrative. She says ” In Persepolis, while many of the backgrounds of panels are spare, a significant number of them are also entirely black” (Chute, 98). This brings me back to my thought of how powerful an image is. As I thought about it more and more, the image of trauma started to change for me. I would think that the image of trauma would be someone crying or someone who is scared, but as I thought about it even more, there is no image for trauma. Satrapi’s way of showing trauma is with a black image, because there is no way to describe trauma in a picture or words. In Chute’s essay, she talks about the ” visual emptiness of the simple, ungraded blackness in the frames” (Chute, 98), and how effective the black background is, with no image.

In the image above (Satrapi, 142), it is seen that one of the frames completely blacked out.  It is seen how Marji covers her eyes, and then on the next frame it is completely black. This is the image that truly had me thinking on how powerful images really were. I thought about how if this were to be a conventional narrative, the feelings wouldn’t have been really felt. It could only be described to a person, but in the graphic narrative it can be felt. It gives me chills how powerful a black frame is, because the thought of having no images to describe a feeling such as trauma is very haunting.

http://itinerantprofessor.blogspot.ca/2008/05/persepolis-book-review.html

For the past two classes, my ASTU class and I have been reading a graphic narrative called Persepolis, by Marjane Satrapi. The graphic narrative centralizes on a girl name Marji. Marji is between the ages of 10 and 14. Throughout the graphic narrative, the character of Marji seems to change, and while I was reading there were a few thoughts that went through my head.

While reading there were many things running through my head. The first thing that went through my head was how much I have changed because of the events that have happened in my life. As a child, growing up during war must be life changing. It probably wasn’t easy for a child who is so innocent to just all of sudden have to grow up and be strong because of war. Although, I know many events in my life have changed me, it is nowhere near the life changing events Marji has been through.

Although, I have never been at war, a certain part of this book really hit close to home. There is a part in the book where Marji has to leave her parents to go to Austria (Satrapi, 118). This part really connects to me because ever since a young age I’ve never had a dad. So, I know the feeling of not having parents around. It was really hard to read this particular part because I know growing up without a father has changed me and although I have not read the second part, I know this part would change Marji’s life as well.

Although, growing up without a parent was hard, I know it has made me a stronger person today, and I know it has changed my life. What Marji and I have in common is that the events that happened in our life have shaped us into the people we are today. I now believe that everything happens for a reason, the good and the bad, it is all meant to shape me into the person i’m meant to be and make me stronger for the events that are in store for me.

Throughout my whole life, I’ve always known I was influenced by my family, but I have never really realized how much I was influenced by them. As I was reading Farhat Shahzad’s article, ” The Role of Interpretative Communities in Remembering and Learning “, many thoughts occurred to me. One thought that occurred was the ability to really shape the thought of a person, and how powerful a family’s influence really is. I’d like to think that throughout my whole life I’ve been making decisions based on my thoughts and opinions, but is that truly the case? Have I just been making decisions based on what my family’s thoughts and feelings were towards a certain subject? Is there a difference between the two?

As I thought about the influence of my family more and more, I couldn’t help to think that I actually do not believe in some of the values my family believes in. Ever since I was young, I’ve always heard the opinion of my family on things such as; the LGBTQ community and abortion. It has always been drilled in my head that I should do this, I should do that, this is right, and that is wrong. But, i’ve never really questioned why “this” is right, and “that” was wrong, I’ve always just went with it. In her article, Shahzad states ” Family appears to be the strongest, most cohesive, and most viable social group and has a great impact on the process of remembering and learning ” (Shahzad, 313).  This goes back to my thought on how powerful families can actually be. As family is the “strongest” and ” has a great impact” there is no denying why we are influenced by our family.

As of right now, I’m still debating whether my thoughts on certain subjects and my family’s thoughts on the same subjects are the same. I’ve been influenced by them for nearly two decades, so it’s hard to say that their thoughts aren’t mine. It’s also hard to say that the decisions I’ve made are souly based on my thoughts and values, because they’re not, most of my thoughts and values are my family’s because they are who influenced me. That brings me back to my question, have I just been making decisions based on what my family’s thoughts and feelings were towards a certain subject or have a pushed passed my family’s influence and made decisions based on my thoughts?

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