Tourist for a Day

               

The place I choose to be the tourist of the day was Hotel San Juan. I actually work in the hotel thus had an advantage to talk to people from different cultures and perspectives. On a regular basis I do not tend to ask the guest many questions besides those that are only necessary but to make a point started behaving like I was a traveler who found a job at a hotel in his new foreign home and I was subjected to how the “locals” react towards me.

                The first persons I talked to in the day turned out to be Newyoricans and they never broke their identity (speaking Spanish) until they forgot how to say a word in English. I sensed that they actually had forgotten about their native language or that they thought that in some way I did not know how to speak in Spanish, even though I never got the answer because I never asked. That lead me to continue the conversation in Spanish which I think eased some tension between us since the language had created a barriers that was quite notable.  I have spoken with many people that are Puertorican ex-pat but that conversation made an impact on me because they never broke character even though they were not supposed to but after we switched languages they started talking about their “glory” days when they were young in Puerto Rico. That got me thinking if you, as a Puertorican, love Puerto Rico so much and are in Puerto Rico at the moment why not speak the language that is usually spoken?  To me it just seemed as an identity collision gone wrong.

                Through out the say I had many different interaction most which basically involved saying the same things given that because I am at a hotel guest tend to ask many things about Puerto Rico. At one time I was giving a local beer to a North American guy who was staying at the hotel and when he received it at my face he said to his wife in a funny way “oh look honey a Mexican beer” to which I did not respond kindly given the fact that it’s not Mexican, we are not in Mexico and I am no Mexican either, not that I have a problem with Mexicans but the way that it made me feel was that to his even though I am an American citizen my identity to him lied in Mexico.

                To me this activity was very interesting because I had the opportunity to behave differently with different people that had different identities. to my surprise the most identity which I had an impact was when I was myself because when I changed my identity everything went fluently. I do not know if it was because people thought I was not from around and treated me differently. Definitely I would recommend this activity to anyone and as for myself am going to repeat it but in another scenario.

               

                

Group Reflexion

                During the whole semester this was the class in which I spent most of the time talking to my class mates and meeting people. The opportunity to achieve this was given by the groups that were formed from the whole class. Thanks to this I learned that it’s easier and less stressful to pass the class along with your group. My first experience with the group was awkward because I had never had a group to which specific tasks where given to. So for the long run I did not put any restrictions on my mind, my only thought was that I had to “survive” the class with these new found friends. As each class past the group was more communicative and open, brain storming allowed for everyone to input their thoughts. The first project was a little complicated with what everyone had to do and how, but for the next few projects, without dividing the work, everyone knew what each had to do. Aside from everybody doing their work we gave each other a hand so the project as a whole would be better since everyone’s concerns were heard.

                I enjoyed the dynamics that each group had because we were all doing the same things but just like that perspective from each group varied in the sense that basically the idea was the same but the interpretations were different. I think having a group in a class has never been more interesting and enjoyable as this one, many other classes make a group to help each other but at the end of the semester there are 2 or less persons carrying the weight of the whole group where as this class never became that stereotyped college group. In conclusion this class was a new experience, to which I already have even suggested it to friends,  that is very stimulating and serves a  template of how group projects should be held.

Travel Book: "The Motorcycle Diaries"

Che working on his motorcycle "La Poderosa II"

The Motorcycle Diaries is a memoir that traces the early travels of Marxist revolutionary Ernesto "Che" Guevara, then a 23-year-old medical student, and his friend Alberto Granado, a 29-year-old biochemist. Leaving Buenos Aires, Argentina, in January 1952 on the back of a sputtering single cylinder 1939 Norton 500cc dubbed La Poderosa , they desired to explore the South America they only knew from books. During the formative odyssey Guevara is transformed by witnessing the social injustices of exploited mine workers, persecuted communists, ostracized lepers, and the tattered descendants of a once-great Incan civilization. By journey's end they travel for a symbolic nine months by motorcycle, steamship, raft, horse, bus, and hitchhiking, covering more than 8,000 kilometres (5,000 mi) across places such as the Andes, Atacama Desert, and the Amazon River Basin. The diary ends with a declaration by Guevara, born into an upper-middle-class family, displaying his willingness to fight and die for the cause of the poor, and his dream of seeing a united Latin America.

Route Che traveled in South America

Blog Reflexion

                When I started this blog the first thing that came to mind was how will I make a blog, which I have never done before, and present it in a somewhat way of saying “hey I’m a blogger read about what I have to say”. For sure as you can read I was terrified of the blog the idea of revealing my ideas to people and a professor I did not know felt like I was put the task on of portraying myself as someone who knew what he was talking about. For the first half of the class I felt very pressured by the blog and the ideas I was going to blur out on the internet but after having my journey journal with me for a while I started opening up to my opinions because the journal had given me the right tool I needed to make the blog which was helping me think in a straight idea without starting to write about something completely different after my mind had wondered off somewhere in an theory called “first thoughts”.

                Throughout the class we were given topics that would make their way into the opinions of our blogs. The first blogs I struggle to find my way through it because I’m not a fan of writing a lot so it wasn’t as easy as I thought. Through those topics I could channel better my writing until I felt more comfortable writing about my first thoughts. I can see from my blog that from every blog entry I kept learning more and more about the way I write, the way I should write and if I was transmitting the idea I wanted to transmit through my writing. I defiantly can say I have improved on my writing as well as my confidence in expressing my opinion through it. My experience with this blog was not half as bad as I imagined it from my first post. I think that this is an experience every student has to go through in order to reassure themselves about their thought process as they have to be able to support their claiming through writing in the internet. You do not want to be the guy that is caught in a lie by himself.

Jim Cooper

   

Cover of the book "Down in the Island"

It’s very interesting how perspective shifts between people from different places, many that travel abroad to settle in another culture, after a few years, are still treated as outsiders. Why does this happen? Outsiders at the same time might not fully grasp on to what makes their new home different from their old one. As portrayed with an American Professor teaching in Puerto Rico in the book “Down on the island” by Jim Cooper. Jim cooper had to adjust to Puertorican lifestyle quickly as he started teaching in the University of Puerto Rico in Mayaguez  where he arrive with the idea that he would have the same influence of Puertorican culture  from his students as the students would have of his North American culture.

     On the teaching chapter of the book the first his first clash of “procedures” happened when he was given the syllabus of his class at the colegio because he did not make any sense of it other that it what completely improvised and not adjusted well enough for student needs. The course was made up supposing that every student at least had 3 years of some sort of English class on high school and given the fact that student numbers were growing and most were from public schools who may have given the class or not. To his surprise the English department was not taken seriously and students are forced to go through the class instead of learning actually anything from it. Given the point that some professors do not know the proper way to pronounce or teach the course, as they just “follow the book”. I think many students from the UPR system can relate to at least one class where the professor really does not care and this is one of the things that the professor and I too think, that should be done differently.

   

Jim Cooper (actually)

When Professor Cooper started his second year at the colegio he was encountered with a situation that he shared with among his fellow professors and it was the outrageous ways that the students cheated during their examinations. This was his second clash with the identity of the Puertoricans, for which he later understood when he found out that students during their elementary school where encouraged to “help” each other when somebody did not know the answer to a problem. He had to cope knowing that his students will continue to help each other because they were raised that way the same way North Americans are raised to be competitive in everything including not helping others during examinations. By helping , students even thought that being  nice to the professor would be enough to earn a good grade even when their work was poorly done, top which the professor did not tend to incline and to what he found out that many of the relationships where based of the same facts that lead him to figure out what encouraged young college students to cheat during their college days.

On his trip down to the island the professor had to deal with the burden that came with teaching his culture while learning from a new one in a simultaneous process. From what I could take out from the book the professor could not assimilate completely into the Puertorican culture even though he accepted the way things were done here because he understood that he could still make the difference teaching, his students at least, what needed to be taught.  In the book he could grasp an essence of what is like to be a student in the University of Puerto Rico, if he could not understand how the syllabus work around for the preparation of the student, imagine how would a student react when he is forced to take a course that he does not understand when the professor does not understand either.  All in all I enjoyed reading these chapters because it was something I could identify with and it was interesting see it from the other perspective as a professor.

Journey Journal Reflexion

     In conclusion to the whole experience of having a journal for the first time, although I have to admit it was a process, I have to say I liked it because for me it was really an internal journey learning experience.  All most every day I registered my thoughts and how my life was going moving on forward, that gave me insight into the direction I was headed and the way the path was being made because later on I could read what I was thinking only to laugh about how my emotions clouded my judgment and that got in the way of a solution to something that was right in my face.  The journal also helped me to be more careful in the way I do things because even me reading some of the things I had done in the day seem to have different meanings depending on the situation.

The way that the journal was written using first thoughts made me realized I had to improve in my thought process and develop faster thinking skills in order to write exactly what I want so I do not have to cross something out later. I took this as a daily exercise because it allowed me the time to reflect on my thought process. Even though I say it as it was easy it really was not, to say the least having this opportunity was harder than I expected for personally I do not tend to say everything I think out loud and this was certainly a way of doing so.

     After all it was an enjoyable learning experience to which I still have mixed feelings to whether if I would do it again but I defiantly recommend it to anyone who can and have the desire to do so because you do not know what might you encounter yourself with.

Supernovae reveal on an accelerating universe by Adam Riess

         

Adam Riess

  Adam Riess is an astrophysicist born in the U.S.A. known for his motivation driven research of supernovas. Riess won the Shaw Prize in astronomy in 2006 and by 2001 he had won also the Nobel Prize in physics along with his colleges for their reveal of an expanding accelerating universe through supernovas.

            The supernovas studied by Riess where a type 1-A white dwarf which are powered by radioactive nuclear decay, have ¼ the mass of the sun and are not stable (energy-wise). They used this type of star because a supernova produces consistent peak luminosity given by the uniform mass that explodes via the accretion mechanism. This value allows these explosions to be used as like candles,process first discovered by Edwin Hubble, to measure the distance relatively to earth but can be used for other galaxies because the visual magnitude of the supernovae depends primarily on the distance. When a white dwarf explodes it releases the brightest light it can emit and Hubble helped discover the distance it was from the earth relative with the speed of light. Later by conclusions from other scientist it was determined that if a star is twice as faint, compared to the explosion, it is 4x farther that the Hubble constant and if it is thrice as faint the supernova is actually 9x farther. Thanks to Hubble, Riess can measure distances which can help him determine whether the universe is expanding at a scaling speed.

          

Timely evolution of the universe

  Riess learned that the universe was expanding with acceleration by taking different distances from different white dwarfs around the universe and comparing them throughout different period of time and to other near galaxies, he got to the conclusion because he found out that the planets where every time getting more distance in between them, each time farther and farther thus the theory of the accelerating expanding universe was born. Using this new found knowledge the age of the universe changed, and it was not only because of the supernovas. The age of the universe first became known using the Space Telescope to be from 10-11 billion years which was not taken seriously after a few years because a scientist discovered a piece of rock that dated back to 13.5-14 billion years which threw off the equation by around 3 billion years. Using the white dwarfs, the same way Riess used it to measure an accelerating universe but in reverse, there was found a more accurate result of 13.8 billion years to which the scientific community took in as their new data. Riess almost did not get the appreciation he deserved after all those years trying to decipher how the universe was expanding because he knew he had another team of scientist, working on the same thing, on his heels so when he got his conclusion he and his colleges decided it was time to change the astrophysicist world by publishing it before the other group. The other group had to publish it a year later and it was found that they had almost the same conclusion but a small detail was that Riess and his team found it faster.

            I really enjoyed this conference because it was entertaining and because I am fascinated by space research, a little confession I envy anyone who get to travel and to study space because they get to see what people on earth never get to see or even do. There is not many thing known about the universe, the same as in  earth with our oceans, but that is was interest me the most, look a all the bizarre an amazing thing there are in space and it is hypothesized to be only less than 1 % because every other thing is either dark matter, dark energy or gas.

                

The Rum Diaries

The Rum Diaries captures Puerto Rico’s perspective of a gringo going to work in a newspaper in San Juan in the 1950's. From the beginning the identity dilemma is present all through the movie, it decision is whether to be a gringo in a foreign country or to make the Puertorican Identity part of his culture. Puerto Rico is widely known to be a drinking island and that influenced the early days of the reporter Paul Kemp when he learned that it is almost a custom to have a drink every day. Along with his new colleague, who know live together, they are assigning a report on a guy that’s looking to buy an island near the capital to build a hotel. The journey that they had while following this guy’s life was adventurous to say the least. In the movie Puerto Rico is shown a place where many expatriates go to settle when they become tired of the USA, Where everybody almost always is drinking and where the underground economics flourish in a battle of who survives the most. The Puerto Rico depicted in the film is one that basically has no rules and the only way to survive is to thrive. Paul’s internal journey depends on how well can he learn and adapt from the different environments so close to each other while at the same time maintain his reporting eye while his outside journey requires much attention because he need to find a way that does not give up his real identity. Paul’s trip to the island was no vacation given the fact that he had to assimilate the culture it can be said that he was more of a traveler than a tourist. His identity and perspective shifted at the end of the movie where it can be seen that  his journey was a pleasant one and one that definitely changed his life.

Dreams

   

 From what I can remember off my dreams gave me something to think about and I realized something; dreams show what your subconscious desires, what you wish an event in real life would have really gone and it’s controlled mostly by emotions. My dreams mostly tend to give me a perspective I did not have about an something, it may be real or not, like for example if I would had gone to sleep hungry I would definitely stuff my face food in one of my favorite restaurants but that’s just a usual dream there are some dreams with deeper meaning that reveal something either about my life personally or something which will help me to achieve a goal that I REALLY want even though it’s not shown in the most obvious way. For example if I would like to quit my job , like a dream I had, the aftermath was me buying whatever I wanted but I did not know where the money came from but I knew I had made it myself but the way I got it seems mostly fuzzy and when I woke up I knew I had made the money doing something but I just couldn't tie the loose ends. That tends to happen to me because I sort of wake-up during the night and start dreaming another thing. During the dream exercise for which I did not set an alarm clock because I was fearful it would go off in mid-dream I found out that when I woke up I had a brainstorm of sorts inside my head with all these ideas I had going in my head while I was asleep I only got a few minutes before I forgot at least half of it but I still wrote it down, the main concepts to be exact. The exercise got me thinking of the dream all day long and as I kept reading the same concepts over and over certain actions during my day made me remember more about the dream I had for example I had dreamt with someone I did not remember was in the dream, because rarely I remember the faces, but when I met this person randomly I remembered a bit of my dream where he or she was involved. It’s sort of a déjà vu but even though it was the same scenario the conversation was different. The exercise reminded me , since I had tried it before, that if I pay more attention to my dreams I can find more about myself by having scenarios which I wouldn't have in real life.

Dead Poets Society Reaction

The movie Dead Poets Society is based on a high school for the rich called Welton Academy or more commonly known to students as Hellton Academy for its notoriety of being a difficult school. The 2 characters who rapidly became roommates are Todd Anderson and Neil Perry. Neil and Todd even though were teenagers at a high school they are constantly being pressured by their parents to be on schedule with their plans to make him a lawyer just like his older brother in the case of Todd. Neil has a similar situation but being an only child whose father is new rich had even more pressure because he did not want to see his family disappointed with him over not being a successful professional like the doctor his father wants him to be. This background is not especially a good place to be when you are a teenager who does not have any worries, and is still has no idea what he is going to do in his life and at the same time has to withstand, without complaining, everything his father tells him to do. Neither Todd nor Neil have been courageous enough to tell their parents that they do not want to take any parts in the life their parents already drew for both. When they arrive to the English class they meet their new professor Mr. Keating who is an ex-student at Welton Academy that want to teach his students to be free-thinkers given the fact that he knows the type of pressure the Academy can put in. First thing he teaches the students is the Latin phrase “Carpe Diem” which means: seize the day. The second day of class Mr. Keating tells the students to rip off the introduction of their text books saying that students need to think for themselves and in literature there is no such thing as grading a poem that it is measured by how the reader reacts to it. This along with finding the yearbook in which Mr. Keating appears encourages Neil and other students from his class like Todd to reopen the Dead Poets Society, a group of students with an interest in poems and that held meetings in a cave near the Welton Academy’s campus, founded by Mr. Keating. Neil uses this opportunity to make something else from his life than just being a student with aims to be a doctor, he just wanted to fit it in. After reorganizing the Dead Poets Society Neil felt strongly to try out for a play in the academy, to his disbelief he got the leading role, he then is asked for his father’s and the headmasters approval to which he certainly knew that his was not going to be allowed to perform in the play. Neil decided to play the odds and forged hid father signature in the permission slip to be allowed in the play, this shows he was deifying his father following only his goals because he always says that he is not allowed to do anything beside med school. Todd is very shy, whose shyness maybe from always doing what he is told by his parents no matter what, is asked by Mr. Keating at a class to recite an improvised poem in front of the class this exercise gave Todd self-confidence. It can be seen as little by little how Neil and Todd embrace “Carpe Diem” and start living by rules set by them. A few days later at Neil appeared at the play after being told by his father not to appear since his father found out he had sign the permission slip, after the play Neil’s fathers stubbornness and bossiness led him to punish Neil and told him that if he could not set things straight at the Academy that he (Neil) would be forced to a military school to make sure see his son turn into the professional he should be. That night Neil could not handle the pressure and the idea that the life he was going to live was the desire of his father so he grabbed a gun and shot himself. Neil’s father blamed the death on Neil on the hands of Mr. Keating because he wanted to make them free-thinkers to which the headmaster agreed and threw Keating out of the Academy when the students from the Dead Poets Society where force to sign a document stipulating this event. Reflecting on the movie it shows a real situation that happens today in some families in which popularity becomes a life style and a contest that cannot be lost or their prestige would be diminished. That is why Mr. Keating was not well liked among the parents. Mr. Keating is a sign of life and freedom that motivates the students to strive for what they love not what they are told. In my opinion he gave them a better lesson than anyone in that academy could, he showed them what life and being happy was all about. For Neil it is clear what happened but for Todd his life became full of possibilities even though he could not do them all, inside of him he now knows that there's more to life than what he was mislead to believe.

A Small Place Identity

     During the journey that “A small place” takes the readers there are descriptions of stereotypes to which different people can identify. In the Antigua that Jamaica Kinkaid describes the foreigners they were the Syrians and the Lebanese their identity in the book is to immigrate to another place from their mainland with the money enough to make the government their ally their role in the Antiguan society was to make as much money as possible exploiting the island’s “vulnerability”. There were the white people who are Europeans and American which mostly went to the island as tourists to spend their money and experience what was like to enjoy feeling alone where ever they travel while at the same time be opportunistic because if they found something they could benefit off they would have stayed too same as the foreigners. Aside from white and foreign people in the book the British as people who thought too much of themselves and which took a position of wealth and power quickly because they wanted to implant their system with new roads, government buildings and banks this plays the role when England had power with the crown and wanted to conquer the world. Lastly there were the Antiguans which are identified with being servants and being deemed by society as a lower class race like many black people are in which case stereotypes them into being basically known like slaves from the people that intruded in their land. A small place has a lot of identity descriptions which stereotypes people from that time and the presents time also in the cases that apply like the American which can be identified the same way, not so much from England because since the lost their word conquering war the settled for their land.

A Small Place Reaction

     The book “A small place” by Jamaica Kincaid demonstrates, through perspective of the author, how the small island of Antigua is perceived through the eyes of people from outside of Antigua, through her eyes when she was a child and through the eyes of the foreigners that invaded the island. The first chapter depicts Antigua as a very poor island with torn down towns where every taxi driver has new car even though they don’t have a house and that has a library hat has not been repaired since an Earthquake took place. The Antigua shown by the author through eyes of people that go on vacation is the island that gives the impression that simulates paradise and a personal space to but in reality it’s a troubled island that is made to look great in the most traveled streets and poor in the less traveled streets, revealing the stereotype of the tourist as an inconvinience. Most, to not say all, of the mansions in Antigua are owned by foreigners and white people who came to establish themselves in a place where they could do as they pleased because they had the strong connections with the government. As can be appreciated form the book the author certainly felt disgusted by the sight of immigrants taking over her island and her culture. Even though she expresses her dislike at the end of the first chapter she says: “the natives do not like the tourists and it’s hard to explain for every native of every place is a potential tourist and every tourist is  native of somewhere”.  The Antigua that she, the author, knew no longer exists according to her “bad minded people destroyed it and time deteriorated it” the bad minded people being the British when they took Antigua as a colony. She witnessed as one street became the focus of the island where a bank, a post office and government buildings where built and among this no black person could work in any of them if they were not servants. It is notable that the author had a dislike for the government and the invaders. After all these changes she started to feel as she was losing her identity and becoming British because Antiguans did not play a role in the development of the island anymore as she says : if you wanted to know me it would be through the eyes of England. What I think is that Jamaica Kincaid felt in a way trapped inside herself and on the island. Throughout the chapters there is a notable distinction that depending on what perspective she was talking about. Many different identities could be revealed from each view but curiously her identity  was the same. As someone who lives in a small island that has been conquered twice I have seen first-hand many of the identities she depicted. After reading this book I can be see that Puerto Rico and Antigua are not all that different.

Puerto Rico Identity

A person’s identity is usually given by sex, age and religion but in most cases the first impression to judging someone is their culture and their nationality. Puertoricans as percepted by the world is a U.S. territory so to some Puertoricans it is an honor that we get to be known culturally as U.S. citizens but many other refuse the fact that we are us citizens that divides our nation into Pro-American culture and Pro-Puertorican culture.  Around the world we are seen as Hispanics and that includes Central American people and Caribbean people with that labels comes a lot of positive and negative criticism , externally for the world and internally as Puertoricans, internally as a culture we are known to excel at procrastinating, it is a thing we tend to do but most just embrace it, we leave everything until last moment and that has translated to the Government in a way that we as a country do not act to reach a commitment until the very last moment or until ultimately it becomes "inconvenient" to settle an agreement.  Another criticism is that Puertoricans tend to party a lot which is true but it’s relative because basically every Hispanics loves to party so it is cultural thing maybe for Russians it is not very common to party but that is just how life is and how people from different places of the world behaves according to what they have around them. Externally we are known to North Americans as Latin-Americans, to other nation as Puertoricans or U.S. citizens. I myself love Puertorican culture we are worldly famous for being the only ones known as Boricuas and for being a small island in the Caribbean with many natural attractions that other places in the world do not have like the bio-bays, the longest cave structure in the Caribbean, and the only Rain Forest in all of U.S. territory in the same island. I definitely would not change any of the experiences that I have had on Puerto Rico and am very proud to say it. Around the world there are different perspectives for example we are not perceived the same way in south America than in Australia it varies depending on what surround them and what they have know to experience culturally.

Identity

      My name is Jose Eduardo Cora Miranda, I am 21 years old and I was born in May 22 1993 at Santurce, Puerto Rico. Peculiarly I was born a on the first day of the Gemini zodiac sign which symbolizes twins, that may be a reason which actually I have a twin brother and his name is Eduardo, I have been mistaken by my brother and vice versa most of our lives but to the surprise of many my brother and I are fraternal twins so we don’t look that much alike. Being the only children in my family, the closest relative was 20 years older which is my uncle, our role was and still is basically pass the family name forward.  The scripts between me and my brother were that I was the good one. The one that got away with something because i was quiet and made it seem as if i never did a thing, not the same luck that my brother shared. Since I was little my parents involved me I many sports because they wanted me to be active, I played many different sports. First I joined the Guaynabo City Judo Club for which I competed for about 4 years at a young age an  later I changed to volleyball as a teenager as my main focus in sports while and the same time showing interest and excelling in science classes at my high school. That is one of the reasons I am studying science right now at college. Right now I am I a journey from being a science major to finding the path I that leads me into medical school, I have had a few experiences that makes me focus in getting excellent grades so I can graduate my bachelors and get to start the journey I set for myself. In the mean while my role is being a student, working at hotel as a Waiter/Bartender and training to get a degree in Mixology.

One of my favorite place to visit

Billy Mills' Journey part 2

     After taking the first place in the race against Nebraska Billy learned a lesson from the coach as he said that he had to humiliate his opponent so they know he can't even be touched. Given the results of the race and by the length by which he won got his invited by a member of a prestigious fraternity at the Kansas University Campus. Arriving at the meet he had mixed acceptance right away. His host at the meet was told by the Fraternity leaders that the Indian could not participate in the activities of the fraternity being a member because they did not accept Indians even though he could still assist as a guest. As for internal journey Billy felt furious at this fact maybe because he was somebody important for the university being and underdog etc. and still be treated as an inferior even as he was taking the track team on the way to win a gold medal. As an exterior journey his host felt really bad about taking the news to Billy because did not invite him there to be judged by racist on purpose. Competitions went by as Billy started to feel overworked for carrying the whole team on his shoulders he started to view himself more of a machine than a human and seeing running as a duty not a way to have fun, he was being exploited. On top of that the coach would never be pleased by his results until that resulted in a championship, it just wasn't enough for him, so much that Billy's body started to give indications that it was wearing down when he was competing at a track meet in which he received the MVP award after winning the race. To feel better an connect with his old friends Billy and his girlfriend Pat  invited over to her parents' house a few Indian friends that didn't stay at the house more than 10 minutes because they understood that Billy was "Americanized" by his girlfriend and the university life

What Billy Mills must have felt like

. They left giving Billy a taste of what was for him a feeling of being alone and empty on the inside being nothing more than a race machine for a university and a insurance salesman that resume in just the feeling in note belonging anywhere neither with the Indians for which he receives racism nor with the Americans which treats him with racism in the first place. This drove Billy to lose himself and head for his old house in the reserve after feeling that he was being used by the coach and his sponsor. A few days went by at the reserve and he started to feel the same passion he had for life and for running as before moving to Kansas University, one day when he is going to look for Frank, a brother his father adopted, Billy found he had shot himself this gave him a shock so he went and joined the US Marines in a attempt to flee his problems. Eventually he went to visit Pat at her house, after dumping her and going to the reserve, so he could ask for forgiveness and reunite with her. Billy's next event The Olympics was a very inspiring moment in which he proved to himself he had made it on his own revealing himself who he really was without any judgement. During the race in the final lap there were many lead changes between Billy and other runner and at the finish Billy came from the back which for me is a metaphor of all his life in one event, there couldn't be a more perfect representation. In the end Billy won the 10k event at The Olympics, the only american to do so yet, and soon afterwards the coach went to see him and praise him for his good effort on winning despite what had happen between them. The train station where Billy made his arrival was packed with fans, in the middle of the riot there was an Indian traveling in the opposite direction as Billy, symbolizing Billy leaving his Indian side where the Indians belong and head  on with his new found life.

Billy Mills' Journey part 1

     On the movie seen from an internal perspective, Billy Mills is simply a young native american boy dealing with problems in the search of the education and the american lifestyle. As it can be seen in beginning of the movie his desire to be the first student in his family drove him to participate in a track and field team at a university so he could pay for his education, he was that good that a few teams offered scholarships but Billy chose the University of Kansas. At the first races Billy did not have a wining attitude although he did have the skills. As it shows in his first race against the university of Nebraska where another track star Indian raced for, he was worried more by how everything he does is perceived by other people that he wanted anybody to feel bad, that may have to do with some beliefs set in his culture, but for the perception of the coach it didn't look enough he wanted Billy to show-off to crush his opponents. The coach is a major factor because in Billy's journey though his first year of college is no run through the park because in the late 50's early 60's racism was small talk between the Kansas University Track team and among many students too given that most students were white and racism was not tolerated but still practiced. As for external perceptions on Billy's life there the one about racism, he seen as an intruder, the only thing the coach was seeing  in him was as player on his team that could make him win, racism aside even though his teammates still made fun of him, and his father who died when Billy was at a very young age after leaving  a fight he hustled to raise money for themselves to survive. That is a tough lesson for Billy  which showed him that to win you have to be capable and ready for anything. As his father he only saw him like a son nothing more nothing less.

Billy Mills