This is Water

In his essay, "This is Water", David Foster Wallace discusses the human outlook towards everyday life and how this impacts overall happiness. He begins by discussing the routine of everyday life and the tedious tasks that come with work and responsibility in adult life. He argues that our perception of this routine is something that has a direct connection to our freedom. He suggests that by becoming more conscious of these surrondings we are able to become more free and to open up our perception of the world. This concept is grounded in his discussion of the everyday chores that an adult must take responsibility for. This includes waking up to go to work, commuting and working, as well as other necessities such as grocery shopping which Wallace focused on greatly. The many minor details that are such an integral part of grocery shopping, such as the damaged carts and the long check out lines, become part of that irritating reality. However Wallace argues that our outlook towards and understanding of these details and parts of everyday routine is what frees us as humans. By looking at these with a different, more open-minded perception, we can free ourselves from the typical reality that has become almost subconscious. 

Literature plays its own role in relation to this concept, where it can add greatly to our social lives. Through the understandings that we gain from literature, we will be able to shape a more well-rounded view of the world. We are exposed to characters, settings, experiences and events which develops our views. This forms a sense of empathy for the reader. Emotional intelligence is defined by one’s ability to recognize emotions and differentiate between them. This is fostered by our ability to retain information on different human interactions and relationships. While we can attain this from real life situations, literature can give us exposure to a wider range of these instances, and explain them in great detail. Through the development of characters, as well as the changes that they go through, we can learn about the essential parts of human thought. These details will allow us to have a greater understand of emotions within a larger context, in turn expanding our emotional intelligence. 

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Family Furnishings IOC

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B1RzIF3v6xYHYnpZcmtUdkYwMDA/view?usp=sharing

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Boys and Girls IOC

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B1RzIF3v6xYHUzNqX0dEaHJtM3c/view?usp=sharing

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Woman's Literature Reflection

The study of literature allows us to broaden our perspective of the world and to be more open-minded. Through our exposure to literature, we will be able to gain a wider understanding of people and different cultures. We can understand the ideas of people around the world and those from different times. Further, it can improve our social skills and help us to interact with different people from different backgrounds. Literature can provide a good image of different cultures, and to expand out ideas of the world. Woman's literature in particular has a unique viewpoint which is important for us to examine. It is expressive of oppression and major changes within a social group. Whether it is directly advocating for feminism or not, there is a sense of honesty that brings interesting ideas into literature. Further, it can show the true experiences of the female and their outlook on different concepts.

Munro is able to incorporate her own personal life into her stories and create complex characters through doing so. This is significant because it calls for change within personal stories that allow us to understand the viewpoint of those experiencing the issues. The stories were very realistic and had everyday events, therefore they addressed true aspects of life. As a result, the reader during those times, as well as modern readers, were able to relate to the stories and the messages she was expressing. Despite that Munro does not write with the aim of advocating for feminism, she addresses feminism in subtle ways. She does this by honestly portraying the role of the female within her realistic stories and showing the true emotions involved. This raw honesty means that she is not directly trying to portray her issue with gender inequality, however it conveys an extremely strong message. 

The part I enjoyed most of Munro's work was her ability to create complex characters and describe their experiences. They all had very realistic personalities and her ability to convey their emotions so clearly strengthened her stories. The interesting development of her characters was something that I greatly enjoyed. They were also highly relatable in some aspects, which is a result of the realistic nature of the stories. The complexity and honesty of the characters allow Munro's work to be influential, and to convince us of her message. 

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The Names They Gave Me

A few days ago I came across an article by Arab-American writer, Tasbeeh Herwees called The Names They Gave Me. I found it particularly interesting since it was related to the Language and Identity part of our course. Further, it was something that I was very familiar with and I found the article to be very well written.

In her article, the author talks about how she grew up in the United States with an Arabic name. Her mother felt very strongly about her keeping her real name instead of adopting an American nickname. This is followed by many awkward encounters with teachers who are incapable of pronouncing her Arabic name, leading her to feel as though she was a burden. She compares this to a tribe who did not have a name for the color blue, leading her to the conclusion that "It does not exist because it has no name". This story is one that is probably shared by most children with names that are native to their home country living in the United States.

However, I realized that this is a story that is not only related to children growing up in western countries. Since third grade, I have attended international schools here in the U.A.E, and I have noticed that this is also a common theme for us. Children coming from countries all around their names quickly accustom themselves to a twisted form of their names. Even as an Arab living in Arab country, I have realized that Arab names are rarely pronounced in the correct way at school. After a few years, we begin to introduce ourselves in the same way our western teachers and friends said our names. To me, that seems like a destruction of our identity. And in a way, that sounds hypocritical to me, because we do have the power to correct those who mispronounce our names. However it was exhausting to correct them time and time again, to watch them struggle with the letters and sounds. In order for us to embrace our differences and collectively strengthen our languages, we should make the effort to pronounce names correctly. Herwees describes the time her math teacher works to correctly pronounce her name as a moment which made her feel as though her "name was a crown". And that should be the case with all names, in order to strengthen them as individuals and keep their identity. 

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Summer Blog Post

A few days ago I returned from my trip to Italy with my family, we went to a city that I had wanted to visit for a long time, Milan. In the few days building up to my trip, I spent my time frantically planning and researching. I wanted to fit as many things into our trip as possible, a typical habit of mine. But for some reason, I forgot a major detail: language. I am fluent in English and Arabic, and I can speak a little bit of French; but I knew nothing of Italian. I remembered this while I was at the airport, with a few minutes to board and barely had time to try and look up a few common phrases which I could use. Italian was not a language I was familiar with at all, and when I arrived at Milan Malpensa, I knew two words, "grazie" and "ciao". 

The city was beautiful, it really was. On the first day we visited the nearby Lake Como, which was a beautiful lake surrounded by several small towns. Communication in those towns proved impossible very quickly, they were very small towns with not many residents and English was not commonly spoken. Still, since it was a tourist area, I didn't understand the full extent of this language barrier until I got to Milan. Although it was the financial capital of Italy, many people in the city did not speak English, especially in the smaller stores. However, we did get by, and we were able to have full meals in restaurants who had no English speakers. 

This brought my attention to two things. The first was our ability to communicate, two groups speaking completely different languages were able to somehow understand each other. And in a world where "broken English" is deemed unprofessional or unacademic, that seemed like an amazing thing. That leads me to the second thing, that despite that they were not able to speak English, they were all working and doing perfectly fine. Speaking English wasn't a requirement for them, and not having this ability certainly didn't make them any less successful. This meant that anyone who wanted to work or live in Italy, would have to learn Italian. And this creates a sense of identity for the country which I believe is a huge advantage for them. It allows them to hold on to their culture, history and traditions, which strengthens them as a nation. Furthermore, it encourages more people to learn their language in order to benefit from what Italy has to offer, and this makes the language stronger and more popular. I felt this within my first few minutes in the airport, where most signs had large Italian labels followed by smaller, less obvious English translations. I quickly learned that "uscita" was exit, and although that wasn't very helpful in my upcoming interactions with natives that didn't speak English, it just showed how important the Italian language was for its people. 

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How to Write About Jordanians

As any good piece of writing should, begin with a description of the landscape. You know, the sunset that stretches over the desert and sand dunes, that kind of thing. Never mind that Jordan actually has a diverse terrain that is usually only found in countries that are more than twice its size; but obviously no one knows that. Now, remember all those cool pictures you saw of camel rides in the desert? Right, time to recall all of those “Arabian Nights” type scenes, because its obviously an essential part of Jordanian life. Next, focus on the most important part of the Jordanian’s life, meal times. Because of course, all they do is prepare feasts for their huge families with countless children. Its a good idea to elaborate on how large these feasts are, just describe them as their obsession, that’ll do the trick. Don’t forget to describe your typical Jordanian character in detail, with their tan skin and dark hair. Sure, let us completely ignore the large number of ethnicities living within Jordan and the physical differences that come with them. I mean lets be real, they don’t even speak English, so they will never know. Now, more on the typical Jordanian character, since they have no exposure to the superior western culture, they are always dressed in national clothes. Don’t waste too much time researching specific national dress, just pick a few that come up from the google images search ‘Arab clothes’; its all the same thing. If its a male character, make sure to highlight his rough nature, and his obsession with power. For a female character, keep in mind that she’s not allowed to work, and she’s definitely not involved in countless projects in a variety of fields. You might want to use some reference to Islam and how “extreme” it is, because thats always something your audience can understand and relate to, maybe nod their head as they solemnly recall 9/11. And while you’re there, you may want to mention how their religion asks them to starve themselves for a whole month!! Wow. Also, lets forget the fact that Islam is not the only religion in Jordan and that a large percentage of its population is actually Christian. Lets look at society, actually, you don’t even need to focus on this aspect since you can just describe it as chaotic and based on all the money they have. Jordan does have oil, right? Or was that the other country next to it? Who knows these things. Anyway, just mention that they have a lot of money and that they do absolutely no work, because obviously they don’t have the skills to develop themselves as a nation. Note: if they get defensive and start to mention the numerous projects that many Jordanians are working on, just remind them of what really matters, their simple, traditional lifestyles. After all, they have no sense of organization within their society. By the way, is Jordan the one that has all the cool ancient Roman sites? If it is, then maybe its worth a visit, and while you’re there you can take some photos for your cover page. Just make sure to drive out to the most remote spot with some good models so you can properly capture all the things you talked about in your highly authentic book. Well done. 

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