Found in the Wilderness

I first enrolled in the Journey in Literature course as "LITE" a requirement for my Bachelor's Degree. My first day in this class, however, I felt skeptical about it's style. It reminded me a lot about my high school English courses, which I disliked. But I decided to stay for a couple of reasons, one being that I needed the credits, another being a very personal cause (which shall stay between me and my group), but most importantly, it was the day our group organized for the first time. Being in a group project that would later participate in the class activities in a college level course felt a little immature at first, especially to me since I've been in Uni for three years. But I noticed a special chemistry between us members that made me ignore the fact. Our first conversation was built around deciding a name for the group, and we were stuck wondering, but someone breaks the ice by asking "So what do you study?", and based on our very broad answers,...

My experience using "new eyes" begins as soon as I step foot on the train station I get on to ride to college, this one being the Martinez Nadal station. My unlimited pass card had just expired, so I have to buy a new limited use card. Three out of four machines work, but two of those three working ones have "use exact change" signs, so me having a five dollar bill, and only in need for a 3 dollar pass, I use the one that will return those extra bucks. In this station, there used to be a working Subway (the fast food sandwich restaurant, although ironic considering we were at a subway). It is currently closed, however, with a large metal curtain, and on it there's a note that explains it's closed due to electrical issues. I begin to miss the daily specials of this Subway. It's 8am. and there's a lot of action going on with the security and employees behind the counter, there being two guards and 4 employees, three laughing at the counter and one comi...

I’m no stranger to what Alexandra Horowitz describes in her selection “Amateur Eyes” from her book “On Looking” taking into account that walking, and analyzing ordinary day to day patterns, and specific details is ingrained in my psychology. I don’t intend to auto-diagnose myself with a condition, especially because I haven’t gone to a psychiatrist who would do so, but i recognize a unique behavior that I don’t consider learned, although inherited through my mother. We have the blessing and the curse of over analyzing, having our neurons fire dozens of thoughts in mere seconds and jumping into conclusions, and we can’t help it. But i’ve learned to benefit from it. When you’re walking down the street, or taking the train, or simply moving from one faculty to the other in college, you tend to pass by hundreds of people, each with a different motive, beliefs, and reason to be there; we usually don’t think about that since we’re too focused on our individualist agenda of accompl...

For this activity, I have decided to experience my day as a tourist on April 29 in the restaurant "El Hamburger" in San Juan. I had to first get into the tourist's mindset, so I dressed in a little plain generic light clothes with short cargo pants, which is a classic choice usually worn in tourist attraction areas. I knew where to go, but I had decided to ask locals around the area which place they recommended me to go for a meal. Surprisingly, the first person I asked in English about where I could go eat, a man riding a bike along the street, answered in Spanish after clearing up if I was referring to "lugar para comer" (place to eat). Trying his hardest to explain in English, he told me that if I kept walking up the hill, I'd find myself next to "El Hamburger" and a "KFC". I had already known about this, but the local burger place seemed like a better choice to experiment. I went into the restaurant, and to my surprise, the menu was a...