12/6 journal entry

In my opinion, it was wrong of the Christians to impose their religion on the indigenous people, because the tribal people already had their own set of beliefs and religions and they deserve the freedom to be able to practice their own religion, just as the Christians did. I don't think there would be a problem if the Christians wanted to preach their religion, but it wasn't right of them to force it

The Hollow Men comparasis

I think the author used the Heart of Darkness reference at the beginning because HOD is heavily and in my opinion primarily highlights the struggle and oppression they had to go through when the Europeans were in their land.

In the first stanza, Eliot writes "Our dried voices, when we whisper together are quiet and meaningless as wind in dry grass or rats' feet over broken glass in our dry cellar" When I read this, it reminded me of the struggle that the Africans faced in HOD. 

11/21 journal- White Mans Struggle poem vs. Black Mans Struggle poem

11/21 journal

From the white mans struggle poem, I got the idea that author had the idea that white people had to work really hard to create and maintain the earth, in a way. How white people were above other people but they served other people by making earths better place. This came off as a little shocking because at the time when Britain was colonizing, they treated foreign people as barbarians and referred to them as savages. In the opinion of the British, though, they were working to improve the earth as well as those peoples lives. From the black mans struggle poem, I got the idea that black people were the underdogs at the time with the white people dominating them, and even though they were enslaved in a sense, they still fought for them selves, despite their disadvantages.

11/15 journal

Conrad shows the hypocrisy of colonization through the setting, because while Marlow is traveling through the Congo, he describes scenes or torture, cruelty, and near slavery. It is hypocritical because the men from the company describe what they're doing as "trade" and development. While when Conrad shows the setting, he makes us realize how cruel the company men really were, and how much pain they were causing to the people or Africa, while they where convinced colonization as a positive thing.

Africa center

I was absent when the class when to the Africa center.

Darkness

Darkness seems to be very prevalent throughout the book, aside from the fact that it's in the title. Everything in the book seems to be dark; Africa and England are both described as gloomy and dreary even when the sun is shining. In the dark, we cannot see. It is similar to the book because in imperialism, we fail to see and understand other peoples and their lives and their culture, and failing to form some kind of bond or connection with one another.

Colonialism

I learned a lot from the discussion in class about European colonialism. I knew that Europe had and currently has colonies, but I was not aware that there were so many. I also learned that not only did they expand for military reasons, but also die to economy. I'm England, they do not have many natural resources that are valuable, so colonizing territories that have natural resources vastly improved their economy and trade. Also, colonizing became a competition of military and economy within countries. One thing I found very interesting was the difference between colonization and imperialism. I always thought they were the same thing, and most people confuse them as well. Imperialism is when a country takes over another territory and rules those people, while colonialism is when a country settles their people in a territory they took over.  

Oral history project over all

I enjoyed the oral history project overall, but I did see some places for improvement. I think we should have more time and do more in depth research about our person or their circumstances because a lot of the time in the interview we did not know about certain things we had gotten some facts wrong. So fact checking and more research time is what I would use to improve it. I enjoyed the actual interview though, as I hadn't ever done one and i learned a lot

Transcription

Transcribing for me is very tedious and is sometimes boring after I've been doing it for a while. Although that is the case, it is very interesting to look back at our interview and catch little things I had forgotten about or hadn't picked up on during the interview. One thing during transcribing though is that you realize places where you could've asked a better question or asked a follow up question. This realization is very helpful, because in the future if I ever interview someone, I could learn from my mistakes and improve the interview based on the previous one. Overall though, transcribing in my opinion tends to be tedious and tiring And not very enjoyable.

Interview

My interview was a positive one overall, but we did have a few bumps in the road. We interviews Lana Rigsby who owned Rigsby Hull, which is a communications design firm in West University. The most interesting part for me is when she told us about how she worked with the Evans Life foundation, which helped low income immigrants get on their feet. I think that the interview went really smoothly and our interviewer was very comfortable asking questions and our interviewee was also very helpful and open with her story, which made it easier for us to work with her. A problem we faced was that we thought we had enough questions, but we didn't end up having enough. Therefore, our interview needs up being very short and only fifteen minutes long. Overall, the interview process was very fun and I learned a lot.

Scariest Thing That's Ever Happened to Me

During the fall of 2012, right around the start of eight grade, my friend Nolan and I were in cross country practice, running around through River Oaks for an hour and a half. I slowed down as I reached the corner of West Alabama due to oncoming traffic, while Nolan thought he could dodge the cars and ran right into the street, cars seeming to be going every which way. I yelled for Nolan to slow down and be careful, obviously it was a stupid move, and he could get seriously injured.

That is when I saw what I had feared would happen, but didn't think it would in reality. Nolan got hit by a SUV. I could feel myself getting dizzier and dizzier as I saw my now unconscious friend lying in the road. I snapped back into reality as I pulled out my phone, calling my coach to tell her what had happened. While I was calling her, the driver of the SUV called 911, and the ambulance was their to carry Nolan to safety in no time.

Although the incident was extremely traumatic, the scariest part was when I found out the next day that Nolan was still unconscious, and suffering from a major concussion. That night, I went to him at the hospital. He had woken up about three hours before I had arrived, so all of the tests had already been run. After, the nurse delivered the scariest news to me out of this whole situation: Nolan was suffering from memory loss. The doctors were not sure how long it would last, but they new he would not be able to attend school for two months, at the least.

The next few days were filled with guilt and an overwhelming amount of questions on what exactly had happened in the incident, since I was the only other person there other than Nolan.

Two months later, Nolan did return to school, with basically his full memory back. Except for a few scars and popped blood vessels, it was very hard to tell he had gone through something so traumatic only a few months before.

What I learned from Debbie Harwell

Three things I learned from Debbie Harwell's Lecture