Travel Literature

   Travel Literature is the 103 English I am doing in Vanier College. When I first made my fall 2009 schedule I had no clue what to expect from this course. Even though it had the word “Travel” in the course name, I wasn’t sure what we would do in in class, because I have taken courses in the past that have nothing to do with their course name and later on you regret taking them, but now I must say I made a good choice by taking ” Travel Literature” with Dana Bath because she’s an amazing teacher, she makes the course knowledgeable and very interesting.

   Yesterday in class was our second day with the oral presentations; I got the opportunity to learn a lot about different countries and their values by watching my classmates talk about Greece, Jamaica, Spain etc. I enjoyed all the presentations, they were all very well presented and interesting.

   I had to present yesterday also, Me and my partner did it on Taj Mahal. In order to understand the city of Agra( which is the city Taj Mahal is located in) you need to understand everything about the Taj Mahal. I am not sure if people enjoyed it or not, but I had a lot of fun researching on that topic, because I got learn a lot about the Taj Mahal, facts I didn’t know about before.

   Its not just the presentations I enjoy in this class, its also the material we are covering, the texts we have to read, are always very interesting and so is the novel “ Honeymoon in Purdah .“ This has been the first English class I don’t mind going too because it never gets boring.

4 comments October 30, 2009

Circle

October 22 2009, we watched a movie in English class, it was called “The Circle”  by Jafar Panahi. This movie was about how women are treated in Iran; it’s just as if they were living in a prison, they didn’t have the right to do anything.

   Being born as a girl in that country is the same thing as being born in a jail. That is why the movie is called “The Circle” because, the movie starts off in the hospital; it begins with how a baby girl is given birth too but her family is unhappy because it’s not a baby boy and they know a life of girl in Iran can be very bad. Over here it doesn’t matter if you give birth to a girl or a boy because it’s the same thing we just want our child to be healthy. There’s no difference between a girl and a boy in our country and that’s how it should be everywhere.

   It’s very sad how women get treated in Iran and I don’t think that’s right. Everyone should have the same rights, and maybe these women need to speak up and fight for their rights. I did enjoy the movie, even though I don’t usually  like watching movies if I have to read the subtitles to understand.

3 comments October 23, 2009

Languages

    How many languages can you speak? I can speak in four different languages, I know how to speak in; English, French, Hindi and Punjabi. The reason I know how to speak these languages is because my father’s first language is Punjabi and my mother’s first language is Hindi, English and French was learnt because of the society and country I live in.

     I believe the more languages you can communicate in the better it is for our self, it does make your lives easier and more interesting. It makes your life easier if you enjoy traveling, because all around the world people communicate with each other using different languages. Every country has its own main language, for example in the United States its English, in Paris it’s French and in India its Hindi, thus if you were to travel to those places its important to know how to speak those languages.

    I am comfortable with four different languages but I still don’t think it’s enough; I would like to learn a few more but I have to admit it can be very hard to learn. I am learning Spanish in school, but its only 3 hours of learning every week which is never enough to learn a new language and I don’t have any friends who I can practice with out of class, but still i wont give up beacuse your never to old to learn anything.

6 comments October 16, 2009

Cannibalism

    On Tuesday October 6^th 2009 some of my class mates were doing presentations, one of the groups had four girls in it and they were talking about how Cannibalism still exits and how some types of cultures still practise it. I found that topic interesting so in this blog ill be talking about Cannibalism.

    I wasn’t aware of the fact that it still exists I thought it was something that people use to do back in the old days maybe like in the 1555, but after paying attention to their presentation I acknowledged it still happens in some countries. I find that extremely disturbing, I just don’t understand how  or why people  would eat human flesh. When I spoke to my friend about this he told me how in some parts of asia they actually sell human flesh, but it’s very expensive and only rich people can afford it.

    I have seen Cannibals only in movies such as; Hostel 2, The Silence Of The Lambs and Hannibal Rising. I don’t enjoy watching these movies but I don’t recall the reason why I watched them because these types of movie make me sick, I literally feel like barfing after watching a human being cut up another human and eat it.

2 comments October 9, 2009

Iranian

      I read a text called “Iranian hospitality attack”(72-73) by Hamid Taghavi and I found it extremely interesting. I think everyone should read it because it’s very well written and it’s hilarious, you can find this text in your travel literature readings & study guide.

    I believe the target audience for this text would be non Iranian travelers because its about how you should expect Iranians to treat you once you visit Iran and beside the title in brackets it says “ A survival guide for the non-Iranian traveler” I enjoyed this text because I found it funny but I don’t think I believe what the author is saying because if it is true then that’s just too much hospitality. “ You could walk into any house in Iran, as a complete stranger,”(72) over here in Canada its very different because we can’t just walk into any house especially if you’re a complete stranger. I wouldn’t know if their way of living is better or ours, but I do know that we don’t treat a non-Canadian traveler the way they would treat a non-Iranian traveler, maybe because Canada is a much larger country then Iran or maybe because our society doesn’t allow us to trust complete strangers.

     This text only has two pages, but in these two pages I believe it explained a lot about Iranians and their hospitality. I do not know about everyone but I did start reading “Honeymoon in Purdah (An Iranian Journey)” written by Alison Wearing and that novel is connected to this text in some way because they both talk about Iranians.

2 comments October 2, 2009