carlosarotrod

[carlosarotrod]

Meditate for 5 minutes, then study for 40 minutes

I searched on YouTube for meditation videos because I am not the type of person that likes to meditate. After imitating the nine minute video, I did not feel much of a change, I felt the same, not relaxed nor peaceful, I felt normal.

Then, I studied and did my assignments. Those 40 minutes went by quickly, I was extremely focused that I did not see the time go by. I am not sure if it was thanks to the meditation or maybe because I felt motivated to work. Either way, I will keep trying to meditate once again to find answers to my questions. It was an interesting experience, I want to redo it again.

[carlosarotrod]

Talk with a person with a degree in English

Back when I was in Cégep, I got close with one of my English teachers, she is a chatty person, which made things easier to talk about her studies. she went to McGill University. I found it interesting to talk about her career because I want, as well, to become a teacher and be able to teach the English language to young teenagers. Her classes were good and interesting, the way she separates the class in smalls groups to talk about a homework made things easier for us, the students, because it gave use time to do other homework more important.

Overall, she enjoys being a teacher and she has an interesting way of teaching her class, I would like to be as excited as she is to teach a class.

[carlosarotrod]

Oma-ja

The visit to the Fondation PHI was somewhat interesting and unexpected. The art is impressive, you could see how free the artist is, you feel the creativity. While visiting each art, I felt calmed and kept thinking about how the artists did that or why would they, but it was not a negative thought, more like curious. While drinking the tea, it was a pleasant moment between the class, it was cozy and felt like a safe place.

Overall, the art was pretty creative and meaningful, it is enough to leave someone thinking and feeling something.

[carlosarotrod]

Careers in English

Since high school I knew I wanted to go into teaching, to be more specific, teaching the English language to non English speakers. After graduating from English studies, I will have to gain a professional teaching qualification and gain experience with children and adults. I aim to be able to teach to teenagers because they are either easy or hard to talk to, and it could be a challenge to teach them. I had some experience teaching kids younger than me, during high school and it was satisfying and somewhat amusing. To be able to have that career, I would have to contribute in research, as an assistant, and gain experience.

[carlosarotrod]

Angelique, Lorena Gale

There is one scene that I had to read out loud is scene 8, page 16, where Angélique needs to have sexual relations with César because there is this tension between having to obey everything the master says, and deciding if you should risk your morals to have a sexual encounter without pleasure. It is a scene that is easy to feel bad about it. The man tries to respect the woman as much as he can, but the woman wants to get over it to get back to work.

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Coloured Women’s Club of Montreal

This event took place at the same location as « Indigenous Voices of Today ». In this event, the theme was the history of black women creating a community where they help immigrants families. There were a lot of pictures and descriptions about the history of this club. I enjoyed learning more about history of women of coloured. There were artifacts that caught my attention, for example, the old sewing machines or the old televisions. It was an interesting experience, and I learned so much from it.

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Beans

This movie was amazing, the young actress, Kiawentiio Tarbell, at her young age, did an phenomenal work in this film. Not only by the fact that as a young Mohawk girl, she has to live, at a young age, the violence and the racism coming from Quebecers. There were several scenes that had an impact in me, like the closet scene, where Beans was with the older boy, or when the Mohawk women had to stand between the argument between the cops and the Mohawk men. Then, there was the scene where Beans, her mom and her little sister had to leave their home to go to a hotel to spend the night. That scene really shocked me because the little girls had to experience personally how they were treated by the Quebecers. The scene was when while they were driving to the hotel, people started screaming insults at them and throwing bricks at them, which may have damage them psychologically. Later, this scene where Beans, while playing pool with her friends at the hotel, she sees a white kid with her little problem, then she proceeds to unleash on her by hitting her several times. It shows the audience how all the hate she accumulated is now released on some poor victim that she does not deserve those hits. It is the same exact situation where Beans and her sister do not deserve to live those kind of situations.

The movie makes you think about how these people had to live. This movie is a must watch and since it was filmed in Quebec, there is a connection that people can feel towards the Mohawks.

[carlosarotrod]

Indigenous Voices of Today

When I visit the McCord Stewart Museum Montreal, I was not expecting anything but then I start exploring the objects, for example, the clothes, the hunting weapons or even clothing for the toddlers. Then, I saw an object that I did not know it would question my whole existence. They were gambling trays, there was not much about it in the description, but I got so many questions that popped in my head. For example, how did they use it, did they put something on it or was it something else? What were they gambling for? Objects? Currency? It inspired me to find out more about them, and it turns out one of the uses was, mostly by women, to throw dices and bet on a number on which the dice were placed.

Then we visited how the Indigenous were victim of racism and discrimination. It only shows us how the world will always be cruel, and wonder if someday cruelty will end.

The visit was rather interesting, the guides were joyful and patient, they looked like they enjoyed what they were doing. One of them even spent time trying to pronounce a word that was rather complicated to pronounce.

[carlosarotrod]

The Wolves

When I read the PDF, about the play The Wolves,written by Sarah DeLappe and directed by Krista Jackson and Jimmy Blais, in class, I thought the play was going to be more depressing. There were subjects like abortion, genocides or even the five stages of grief. I thought the characters were going to experience those subjects and evolve as characters. During the play, the alley staging, where the audience are on both sides of the room and the scene is in the middle, is a good way to experience the play. The interpretation of the characters was great, every girl was different and had different personalities. My favorite character was shirt number 46, she was someone who said everything that came into her mind and did not realized what she was saying, affected her teammates, because they were not friends at that moment. There were some topics that I did not understand well, and could not stay after the play for the explanation. For instance, the team captain had some personal issues, but I could not understand it at all about it. There were also some parts where I could not understand what the characters were saying because they were not speaking loud enough. At the end, I understood that one of the characters died in a car accident, but the others were not as touched and sad as I thought they would. Overall, it was a good play, and I would recommend it to some friends.

[carlosarotrod]

Proofread a friend's essay and/or ask a friend to proofread your essay

I had to do this play review for my Reading Drama class, it was the first time I was doing one. I spent some time trying to figure out how to properly write one, I found a lot of information, a few examples that would lead me to the right path. Then, I started writing it, it took some time, I did not finish it the first day, but rather in the second. After finishing it and correcting it, I sent it to my friend, the one with whom I spent a lot of time, he took a few hours to analyse it. Since he came with me to watch the play that I had to write a play review on, he knew what I was talking about, and he understood every detail I was writing about. I knew that I could ask him to read my essay because he is good giving feedback on something, which is why I already knew I was going for him to proofread my essay.

For his feedback, he corrected me on a few points, not grammatical, but rather how relevant the information was. I may have put some unnecessary personal information that had nothing to do with the play review nor the play. I would ask him to proofread my texts again because he always has something to say about, either it is positive or negative. It was not the first time he proofread something from me, during college, I used to ask for his help on my texts. Sometimes I even helped him on his essays too.

[carlosarotrod]

Study coursework somewhere you don’t usually work for at least 60 minutes

Usually at my house, I cannot study for a long period of time because there is always something that distracts me. It could be video games, books or even my lousy family, which is why I went to study in a library with a friend. Before going I thought it was going to be relaxing and calm, since I would not have anything to distract me, besides the books on the shelves. Since I was already stressing for my midterms, I thought that library would at least helped me a little bit, but I was completely wrong.

When we got there, we had the chance to have a small room with a table where we could do our things in peace. We could rent the room for two hours and that is how long we stayed. During those two hours, we could study for our midterms and catch up on our homework. Since we are in different schools, we could share our homework and explain to each other what we were doing and what we were studying for. For instance, I showed him the anthology I had to read and take notes from my British Literature class, and he showed me he was studying the anatomy of animals. It was a good experience going somewhere else instead of staying in my house. It is something that I will do again during the semester, it is a cozy space and also somewhat motivating to work. After those two hours, going home during the night feels different, there is a good atmosphere, a little cold, people taking a walk, somehow magical.

[carlosarotrod]

Do a physical activity for 30 minutes then study for another 30 minutes.

Around three or four nights a week, my friends and I go to a gym to workout and release our stress from school and work. My schedule was always the same, I finish school, then I do homework at home. After doing some homework and feeling exhausted, I go the gym to release all that fatigue. Recently, instead of working out during the night, I go after school, for one to two hours. After feeling satisfied and relieved from the workout, I do my homework back at home, and I am able to focus even more since my body is fully awake as well as my head. I proceed to do my homework for a while without being distracted. At the beginning, I thought it was going to be difficult since my body was going to be more tired from the day. After trying it, I realized it was the opposite, it motivates me even more to workout and then do my homework. I will keep doing this routine until my body will not be able to handle it. I tried to the 30 minutes workout at home, then do homework for another 30 minutes. It did not worked out as planned, because I was not satisfied for working out that little, which is why I could not focus at 100% on my homework. While I was trying to focus as much as I could, my body was asking for more physical exercises, and after 20 minutes of doing homework, I could not keep doing it. That is why a physical activity for 30 minutes does not work for me, and I will keep following the routine that works out fine with me.

[carlosarotrod]

Sakura-After Chekhov

The play Sakura-After Chekhov, was something unexpected. The actors were phenomenal, every single one was different from the other one and that made the play even better. The setting was pretty clear from the beginning, and during the play, the setting was also changing, and it made the play more realistic. The actors used the scene and the aisles between the sits, and we, the audience, had the chance to see them up close. At some point, one of the actress interacted with a spectator and it made the scene more pleasant, and personal for that person in question. The way the rain was used in the play was just magical, it felt like it was really raining, but nothing was wet, it had the same effect with the shattered glass at the end, the sound was loud and we could feel the end of the play, the end of the character. I was a bit confused at the end, because the play ended with a character that we did not see often, a character that always acted silly and unserious. When the play ended, he was the last character we saw. I liked the detail that placed the play in our modern era, instead of being based in the 20th century, it happened after the pandemic in 2020. It was an interesting detail. Overall, the play was very entertaining and enjoyable.

[carlosarotrod]

Why study literature?

I never was a reader, I never liked reading. Then I met this special girl, that I call now my girlfriend, she is a huge reader, and she introduced to books. That is how I started reading novels and became a reader. I chose to study literature, because I want to become a teacher later on, and I want to teach English to teenagers that have a different native language. Another reason is that I want to expand my knowledge by reading books, either fictional or real life experiences.

In Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s Ted talk, I found it interesting the fact that kids, when they imagine a story, always imagine white people as their characters. It’s something that grabbed my attention, and as a matter of fact, I used to do the same when I was younger